Lovers of pleasure week 4, 2013

Ik: Nna I didn’t see you at the fellowship yesterday. Where were you? Ib: Fellowship? Oh dear, I must have forgotten. I got carried away with the football match. Ik: Which football match? Did you exchange fellowship for mere entertainment? Ib: Take it easy bros. I didn’t say I won’t come to fellowship again. Ik: What do you gain from the matches that you could afford to leave God aside? Ib: Football is not godless now. There is some profit in exercise: bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things1Tm 4:8(KJV). Ik: Of course I know, I work out regularly, but that doesn’t make me abandon fellowship. You weren’t playing, anyway, just watching. Ib: Oh so this is about you, to show how much more spiritual than I you are. Ik: Please pardon my choice of words. I do not mean to exalt myself. Ib: But you just did. Ik: See: Everything has its own time, and there is a specific time for every activity under heaven Eccl 3:1(GW), the point I am making is that there is a time for everything. Soccer has its relaxing properties alright but when it is time to worship God we leave things like that aside. Ib: Nna I can’t concentrate in church during such matches. My coming would not have been much use. Ik: You are talking like a man addicted. "All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything. 1Cor 6:12(ESV). Please you need to watch it. Ib: I am not enslaved. Didn’t Jesus say: You will always have poor people with you, but you will not always have me. Mat 26:11(GNB)? The fellowship is there always, but this match is special. It doesn’t come all the time. Ik: How dare you compare Jesus with soccer! That woman poured out precious ointment on Jesus, while you take Jesus’ time and give it to temporal things of no eternal value. Then you use Jesus’ very words to justify your behaviour. How dare you! Ib: Take it easy bros, take it easy. I didn’t sin now. It’s not like I stole or something. Ik: What is your idea of sin? What makes it wrong to collect another man’s property, another man’s money, but makes it alright to take God’s time? What do you think the scripture means by: You must realize, however, that in the last days difficult times will come. People will be,,,traitors, reckless, conceited, and lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God 2Ti 3:1,2,4(ISV)? Ib: You are taking things too far bros, take it easy. Ik: I don’t think so. I think you should repent.

Are you a righteous man week 3, 2013

Ib: How can you ask me that? I am here protesting the homosexuals’ plans of marriage and child adoption. Not content with evil among themselves they also want to corrupt young minds from the womb to accept perversion as normal. Av: Why are you particularly offended with the issue? Ib: How can you a clergyman ask such a question? I know it is it is completely against our culture. Indeed it both despicable and unnatural. Does not even your Bible say homosexual offenders will go to hellfire? Av: It is good you have raised the issue of the Bible. My number one reason for opposing anything is that the Bible condemns it, and not merely culture. Have you read that passage? Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God 1Cor 6:9, 10(ESV). Ib: I don’t read the Bible much but that place clearly condemns the act. Av: That it does. But I would have you note it also condemns greed and drunkenness. Since you hate homosexuality, hate greed theft and excess of wine. I asked if you are a righteous man. Ib: Come on! Some things are worse than others. You cannot put simple liars on the same scale as these perverts. Av: It is you who is categorising the sins. Where we read lumps all of them as unrighteousness and warns no such will get into the kingdom. And as for so called simple liars: But outside the city are the perverts and those who practice magic, the immoral and the murderers, those who worship idols and those who are liars both in words and deeds. Rev 22:15(GNB). Are you a righteous man sir? Ib: Have I done wrong in speaking against evil, should I have kept quiet? Av: You should first repent of sin in your life then you can help the homosexual. Ib: I am strong in some points and weak in others, I can’t say I’m perfect... and I am sure neither can you. I magnify my strengths and diminish my weak points. Av: Do you know if you keep all God’s law and offend in one it’s as good as breaking them all? If you obey every law except one, you are still guilty of breaking them all. The same God who told us to be faithful in marriage also told us not to murder Jas 2:10, 11(CEV). Realise that God hates all sin. For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Rom 1:18(ESV). He who condemns homosexuality likewise condemns lust and will judge both. Call on Jesus now to free you from sin.

What are you expecting Week 2, 2013

Why are you weeping and crying? What’s the matter? It’s my husband. He suddenly has been having attacks of strange illness. He has always been the strong and healthy one. And my son has lost his job for over a year now. It seems my whole family keeps having one problem or the other. Someone has said life is all about solving problems. The Lord is your strength... why are you shaking your head? Did I say something wrong? Look I have served the Lord faithfully. I fast and pray. I spend time immersing myself in messages and keep confessing the word. Why all this manifesting? Please, sir, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us..? Jdg 6:13(ESV). What has really been your expectation in serving God faithfully and believing in Him? I should live a trouble –free life.... at least His protection from all harassment and danger. I was a father to the needy, and I searched out the cause of him whom I did not know. Then I thought, 'I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand, Job 29:16, 18(ESV). Ah! Are you more dedicated, committed and obedient than Joseph Mary’s husband? Joseph was a man who always did what was right Mat 1:19(GNB) Why are you drawing attention to him? Consider a man found worthy to be the foster-father of the Lord. Was he not compelled to flee from Israel? A man who had to relocate to Bethlehem under difficult conditions by reason of Mary’s pregnancy now had to relocate to a different country entirely, traveling at night. God did not prevent Herod from seeking to kill the child. In fact I would have thought the Divine would have just said to Herod, “Dare it and I will deal with you!” but no: Herod does seek to kill the Christ-child and all God says is “Run away and hide”, until Herod dies. Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and left during the night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod died Mat 2:1415(GNB) But did it not happen simply to fulfil scripture? This was done to make come true what the Lord had said through the prophet, "I called my Son out of Egypt. Mat 2:15(GNB) Is that the normal thing in Christian living? Ah, how apt the comparison. It is for your training that you undergo these things; God is acting to you as a father does to his sons Heb 12:7(BBE) Our love and dedication will not on this side of eternity prevent challenges and difficulties from coming our way. But in all of them we can be sure of His presence and grace. No height of spirituality makes a believer face no challenge on earth.

Wasted on Jesus Week 1, 2013

About 7pm, there was shouts and banging at the gate of the base. People were shouting and forcing their way into the compound. He knew they were fundamentalists threatening Christians. Mark just has a brief prayer with the Cameroonian with him in the house and they tried escaping for their life by climbing the roof. Mark- Obisike Ojunta was a reserved brother yet full of life; a graduate of Project Management from the Federal University of Technology Owerri. He worked with Nal Merchant bank and resigned because he was restless with the burden in his heart for the unreached. Being an only son from a family of four had its own struggle but he had braced all odds to be where he is just to fulfil the calling of the master. A friend and brother whom I met first at the school of missions in 2003; one day he came up to me and asked how I was finding training with all the challenges of adjusting to many things like eating of the tuwo and miyakuka. I could see his struggle yet he wanted any tips to go through the training since reaching the unreached tribes required us to have a near life exposure such that contextualization could be easy. We prayed for grace and shared a few tips on being open to God and the trainers as keys to go through. Shortly after the training, Mark spent some few years learning Hausa language as a means of communication in Katsina from where he went to Zamfara to tell the lost about a saviour who died for them. A year later, when there was a call to reach the Kotoko people group who had no believer amongst them on the Nigeria side, he took up this challenge and went. He endured their rejection and all until the environment became tense due to the insurgency of the fundamentalist group in Maiduguri. People were being killed almost on a daily basis so the place he was living became unsafe and the leadership of the ministry asked that they pull out for safety but Mark felt the Lord would have him change location to a less tense area. On Saturday the 27th of August 2011, he moved his wife and two daughters out to Gombe and stayed back. Later that day, he had a speaking engagement with some believers (non indigenes) in the town after which he got home to rest and eat. Then came the attackers! On sighting them, their attackers open fire. Mark jumped in to the next building while the other brother ran into an open field to the Cameroun borders for safety. The next morning, somebody rushed to the house and met him almost dead and took him to a nearby hospital but reported to the police where he later died. I remember his four years among that tribe, I say he lavished or wasted his life on Jesus for the lost. He has left me and others an example to do same. Stop being afraid of those who kill the body but can't kill the soul. Instead, be afraid of the one who can destroy both body and soul in hell. Mat 10:28(ISV) Would you join those who will waste their lives on Jesus for these tribes? Jude is a missionary with CAPRO