Category: Good people

How to overcome Enemies’ Plots (Abide)

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Abide

When you prosper; some will tend to change and be against you. Yet the scriptures say, ‘when the way of a man is pleasing unto God, God makes his enemies to be at peace with him. Is the Bible divided? No!

Jesus said, ‘offences must surely come’. He also said, ‘the prince of this world, devil, came to Him and found nothing in Him. Of Isaac, it was written, that the philistines envied him. Same goes for the 3 Hebrew children, who were envied and thrown to the fire. Mordecai, was also despised and was to be slaughtered by the enemy. As great as Elijah was, at a time he fled for his life on account of Jezebel the Prostitute’s threat.

The threat is real..when the threat becomes reality..we either sink like the disciples were sinking or we survive and overcome by despising the circumstances and look unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our Faith. Heb 12:2. The devil is in the circumstance but God sits exalted over the flood as the book of Psalms 29:10 says..But in the Bible God seems to raise His standard against the enemy when it comes like a flood as Isaiah 59 noted only on one condition.. ’when we abide in Him and He in us’.

True we belong to Christ, so normally Abraham’s blessing should be ours. In John 15 the full meaning thereof of verse 5 is not ‘you can do nothing’ but rather without Christ we are nothing. Let me expatiate a bit. John the Baptist was a great soul, I am not sure there was any prophecy he was going to be beheaded by the enemy but when he was in prison in that exponential situation, he doubted Jesus. Someone who had said behold the Lamb became someone asking, should we expect another Messiah?

Remember ‘looking unto Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith’ not the circumstances Though he was martyred am sure John the Baptist is in heaven. But at his point of doubting Christ,he still belonged to Christ but he was not abiding in Christ just as Elijah did when he ran to save himself. Recall, they also killed James during the time the Apostles were fleeing for their lives.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit asks folks to run for their lives though, so it is permitted when led by the Spirit of Faith. Nonetheless, when Peter was put into the prison and was to be slaughtered, the Bible recorded that prayers was made strongly for Peter and an angel delivered him from their wicked hands.

God can still do wonders if we can summon courage by His grace beyond our circumstances and abide in Him.
Paul and Silas were to be killed. They despised that circumstance and had the gut to praise the Lord in that terrible situation. What happened next!?! The prison doors were flung open.

Indeed God abides in the praises of His people as psalms 22:3 says. Perhaps if the children of Israel had despised their circumstances and praised the Living God during their ordeal rather than complained, maybe their deliverance would have been quicker.

By praise i mean real praise and worship and real dedication to abiding in the word of God. Why did I say this? It is unnatural for fire to burn a plant or bush without such plant not being consumed. Yet God spoke in the fire. The fire was burning the plant or tree or forest yet it was not consumed. Trees are living just as humans. In Isaiah, God reckoned believers abiding in His love as trees of righteousness.
Isaiah 61;3 that is why when we pass through fire as Isaiah 43:2 says, we are not to be consumed by the heat or fire thereof.

There should be a shout of the King in the situation for they should acknowledge that the Lord is with them and abides with them. If we purposefully believe this and despise the situations (not easy though) just as Jesus did as reported in Hebrew 12:2 -who for the joy that was set before Him despised the shame of the cross, then and only then we are really abiding in Him.

The joy set before is the Joy of our salvation. It is more precious than any inheritance. By knowing Jesus or by belonging to Christ you can have many inheritances. Jesus fed lots of people but told the disciples, these people are with me because of what they stood to gain from Him, yet he fed them and so the devil has tricked some of us to believe that by we obtaining riches or prosperity we abide in Christ as it’s evident, we are receiving blessings from or building great houses for Him. Jesus had been quoted that without Him we can do nothing

So by all these outward manifestations only, the devil makes us to believe we are abiding in Christ because we could only do anything by Jesus as believers. However, the devil’s mission is to kill us, to suffocate us through bad experience or circumstances when they arrive, so he is satisfied with folks not understanding that the expression means without Christ, we are dead.

When prosperity comes and keeps multiplying and then we begin to skip morning devotions, we die little by little

We can’t hear that Living Voice from the mountain top again. How then can we cope when the fire of trials show themselves in sickness and tribulations? Remember the bush didn’t get consumed in Exodus because God was with the bush. God told Moses it was a holy ground. Remember when the 3 Hebrew children were thrown in to the fire…they despised the situation and worshipped God saying, if God would not help them they were ready to die in the fire, but what happened? There was hot fire but they were not consumed just as the bush in Exodus was not consumed for the Bible says, “and a fourth person was present in the fire and He was like the Son of God”. Meanwhile those who threw them to the fire were consumed by the heat thereof.

If there is a lifelong message I would like to pass to my friends and loved ones. It is this note i have painstakingly written; as you struggle and succeed in life, many will not wish that you overtake them or achieve rapid progress; they would wish for your downfall or even death in that case if such happens, one experiences the true meaning of becoming nothing. Thus, in order to be living and overcome these agents of the evil one, you must abide in God forever.

Jesus talked about different seeds that fell on different grounds. All those grounds are people, we are all sands, we had same seed, so the seed is the word of God. All Christians belong to God but only those whose hearts made the word flourish truly abide, they are the one who are more than conquerors.

That is who we are and should be.
The Bible says in 1John 5:18: the wicked one touches them not if they do not keep sinning. This tallies with old testament prophecy…touch not my anointed and do my prophets no harm. In 1 John 2, the Bible addressed young folks as being strong because the word of God abides in them and because of this Word abiding (not just memorising) in them they have finally overcome the wicked one.

Many Christians will still die untimely death even though they make heaven because they don’t really understand John 15 :5 my prayer for us all is that we shall not die untimely death and we shall still make heaven in Jesus name. (Amen!)

The only untimely death that might be permitted of a christian is such as that of Paul who had the opportunity to have his life saved but yet, willingly of his own volition, desired the death of the righteous. Balaam in Numbers 23:10 wished a fake death of the righteous but Apostle Paul died a death of the righteous, dying for the sake of Christ intentionally despite numerous saving grace by the Holy Spirit.

May we abide in His love now and forever in Jesus name and may God increase our greatness and comfort us on every side in Jesus name

Written By

Eniola Salako

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I Just Realized I am god

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I Just Realized I am god

I said, “You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High. – King David

A man’s strength is in his understanding of his potential. When you know the kind of power you possess you can know what battles you are equipped to fight. I made a shocking discovery today, I just realized I am a god!

I am god, this is not blasphemy this is reality, a reality that works base on my faith and not yours (so you don’t have to believe me for it to become my reality). By the way, I am still trying to wrap my head around what this means though but with all the movies I have seen about gods; god of Egypt, Odyssey, Zeus, Thor, clash of the Titians etc., I guess this must mean something great. To put the icing on the cake, I was also called the son of the Most High, wow! I own this world, man! I am really excited!

So here are few facts I have been able to gather about my new status:

A god never fears what is to come, as a god I create my future. This means I can’t be afraid to take on my dreams. I have got what it takes to make them come true. My future is mine to create, I write my own story, so no ill-fated experience can stop me. I am god, my worries should be kneeling before me, my uncertainties should tremble at the hearing of my voice. I should be ruling over my thoughts and controlling my words while guarding jealously what I allow into my life.

A god has no room for negative thoughts, complaints and regrets. So friends with negative words and feedbacks better watch out, you all may have to go. I shouldn’t be complaining about anything, I should be decreeing and watch them come to pass. And regrets? Na not me, I should give my best at all times, really it is beneath a god to be ordinary, so as a god, if I am going to do anything, it would sure be my best efforts.

I have the power to heal, to love and to empower others. What good is power if others can’t feel it? Being god means I have to impact on others, show love like never before, heal the brokenhearted and empower the powerless. Touch lives through my words, change lives through my actions, be a blessing to others as I become blessed beyond words after all I am a god, I am blessed already.

I have powers to set goals, to take on new challenges and to fulfill purpose. Like seriously, I should have purpose right? Not just waking, eating and sleeping like some animal, I should have something more to me than just existing. Being god won’t be interesting without having challenges to use my superpowers on, so yes I know there will be challenges, bring them on life, I have what it takes to win every battle and even when I fall short of winning it is not that I failed, It is just a setback and comeback is inevitable.

Being a god is not going to be easy I know, but I think it is something I will have to get used to, keep learning more about and never giving up on my superpowers. I know I have so many superpowers that I need to get a hang of but I can assure you, I will, I am already on the right path. My Father is the Most High, He is got me covered and you know what, I am going to build a better relationship with Him.

You are a god too but are you ready to start acting like one?

Does God Prefer Polyester or Denim?

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Does God Prefer Polyester or Denim?

I used to be so judgmental about the way some people dressed. Not long ago, I thought that I couldn’t wear jeans while I was teaching at a conference, but my son said to me, “Do you really think that God anoints polyester more than denim?”

It took some things like that to shock me into the realization that I was just holding on to a religious attitude when God wanted me to freshen up my look in order to reach more people.

Sure, it’s good to dress nicely when we go to church. But the bottom line is, we shouldn’t be so focused on our outward appearance that we lose sight of our main goal: developing a close, personal relationship with God.

To sum up the complex matter of God’s desires, as we can understand them, we can look to one word: relationship. – Wesley Baines

God simply wants us to fellowship with Him, which means communicating with Him throughout our day just like we do with someone who’s our close friend or family member. He doesn’t care about the outward appearance, only real relationship.

Spend time with Him, being grateful for what He’s done and is doing in your life. Have a real relationship with Him.

Prayer Starter: God, help me to have Your attitude about outward appearance. Help me not to judge others who don’t dress the way I think they should, and help me to develop a strong inner relationship with You.

Not That I Don’t Have Faith

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Not That I Don’t Have Faith

Faith is a very common word use in different sects of spiritual believes to inspire one thing, and that is HOPE. The root word from which we get ‘faith, the noun is PISTIS, the verb is PISTUEO. FAITH – PISTIS means belief, firm persuasion, assurance, firm conviction, faithfulness to which an end is assured. Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see (NLT). Faith has an aura of light at the end of the tunnel written all over it but with many questions about what happens before the light comes.

Does faith fail? Yes it does! But why?

Faith is one word we misuse obviously because most of us don’t really understand how it works. Note this, you can have faith and still fail, do you know why? Faith has some terms and conditions attached to it. Faith can’t work in a vacuum, it needs some condiments to make it deliver.

Elisha and the Widow’s Oil
A certain woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets cried out to Elisha, saying, “Your servant my husband is dead, and you know that your servant feared the LORD. And the creditor is coming to take my two sons to be his slaves.”
So Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me, what do you have in the house?” And she said, “Your maidservant has nothing in the house but a jar of oil.”
Then he said, “Go, borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors—empty vessels; do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons; then pour it into all those vessels, and set aside the full ones.”
So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons, who brought the vessels to her; and she poured it out. Now it came to pass, when the vessels were full, that she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.”
And he said to her, “ There is not another vessel.” So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God. And he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debt; and you and your sons live on the rest.”

Reference 2 Kings 4: 1-7 (NKJV)

Faith would only work well, when you fulfill your own part of the bargain, when you make available certain atmospheres for it to flourish. There 3 basic things you need to make your faith work for you;

1. Believe: You have to believe in something of higher significance; believe in God, His Son, His prophets, in possibilities and importantly in yourself. The widow took the words of Elisha and acted on them because she believed. She most likely had many questions but she was able to shut those questions and scepticism up because she believed not only in the God of Elisha but also in Elisha and the possibilities of miracles. Science has revealed that there is a part of the brain known as the “God Spot”, and its main function is to aide our believe system, and that is why everyone believes in something; that part of the brain must be filled. So it now depends on you as a person to determine what would fill that space in your brain. But if faith is what you throw around and rely on, then you will have to fill the God Spot with God.

2. Be ready to follow instructions: For faith to work, instructions have to be followed. There would be certain things that would be required of you depending on what you are exercising faith on, and you will have to do them for your faith to work. For instance, if you are trusting God for a new job you will have to apply or make your availability known to people, if you are trusting God for a child you will have to have a man to copulate with, if you are trusting God for financial empowerment you will have to meet people and so on that’s how it works. Elisha gave the widow instructions and she followed them to the letter, faith would require you to follow instructions, to be obedient and be detailed. Remember, the story of the Fishermen and Jesus, they had tried all night long but they caught nothing. When Jesus came into the picture he asked them to throw in their net one more time; that was an explicit instruction. Yes! It was the same water, in fact the same spot they had tried all night long but then they had to obey that instruction and the result was abundance of fishes. One could have expected Jesus to command fishes to start raining from the sky but No! there are processes to life, you have to do certain things before certain things can happen.

3. You would have to Work your Faith: Faith without Work is dead (FwWD). There are no shortcuts, if you don’t work for anything you can’t earn something and it is the same with God. With faith comes work, they go together. The widow had to do the pouring of the oil, that’s work you know? Have you tried filling a bottle with oil before? Trust me, just one bottle can be exhausting not to talk of filling many pots. Many people will tell you they have faith yet they are not ready to put their best efforts forward; my brothers and my sisters, it doesn’t work that way. Even the woman with the issue of blood had to work her way through the crowd to get to Jesus, before she could exercise her faith. In scheme of things, it is usually Faith Work Faith then Result. Let me point this out, most people’s faith gets disappointed because they hoped faith would work without them working. Remember, there are processes in life; even luck requires some real work of positioning.

Don’t throw the word “faith” around in ignorance and oblivion of what is required of you. Fulfill your own part, be diligent about it, follow instructions and be steadfast in believe. It might take a while before you see the results but trust me it will be worth every second you spent waiting. God can do beyond your expectations, keep trusting, keep hoping, something beautiful is coming your way.

THE BREADWINNER

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THE BREADWINNER

One of the major reasons for crisis at homes and/or in marriages is assigning roles and responsibilities. Society has taught us what a man should do at home and what he should not do (same goes for women).

Who should ‘win the bread’ for the family?

Our society has taught us that it is the responsibility of the man to provide all that the family needs to survive, but like I always say the best person to tell you how a product will work best is the manufacturer (every other person will only give you their best guess).

Marriage was ordained by God making Him(God) the only one who can give us the most practicable instruction/ guide on how it works.

In the book of Genesis 1 vs 27, Bible says ” So God created man in His own image and He created them male and Female ” at this point man was perfect and has all it takes to provide for the house without failing in anyway.

But in Genesis 2 vs 21, God caused Adam to sleep and Eve was removed, so Adam can be helped.

Adam became “imperfect” and can no longer provide all that is required to run a home. Some of the things needed were deposited with the woman, while others remained with the man.

We carry different grace to function in the marriage!

God himself decided to make some women more comfortable financially than their husbands ( not because the man is Lazy). Will it not be unfair on God’s part, if He is asking a man to provide what was not given to him?

Little wonder He(God) said both the man and the woman shall become one and must operate as one in all their dealings.

Man can cook, if he is better than his wife in that aspect, woman can provide the bread( if financially better than the man). Let me also point out this fact that irrespective of who is doing what, it is wisdom for the couple to know they are actually an instrument in God’s hand to build a happy home. The provider of the bread is God and may choose whosoever He pleases to provide through.

Come to think of it, all that Adam and Eve needed to survive was provided by God( the breadwinner), He only ask Adam to take charge on what to be touched and what not to be touched (Leadership).

Most will quote 1 Timothy 5 vs 8 here saying ‘Any man who cannot provide for his House is worst than an unbeliever’. What Bible expects a man to provide here is Leadership (1 Corinthians 11 vs 3-5) God expects you to Lead the family not only by word of mouth or backing orders but by examples in action and devotion to making your home a happy one.

Live as one and never allow the society to rule your home. Embrace the role you find yourself within the capacity God has given you. Don’t exploit your partner’s weakness, rather compensate, complete and complement your partner by all means possible. You are one, live as such and build a home that everyone in the family wants to come back to.

Why The Devil Is Winning

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Why The Devil Is Winning


This is not another preaching or a talk about God, I understand you know a whole lot about that, even more than I do. This is not about the devil, because a prominent Pastor once said, ‘we talk too much about the devil, we give him too much credit while we take less responsibilities for our wrongs‘. However, this is a talk about you and I, the way we reason and the thoughts we nurture. It was said that the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince people he doesn’t exist, yet I feel there is more to why the devil is winning than this trick.

Recently, I was offered a tract by a customer to show his gratitude for the service I just rendered. When he handed me the tract and said ‘thank you’, it felt somehow to me, money I understand, souvenir I understand but tract!?! Anyway, I collected it, it was looking so unattractive and I was really not interested in going through it, I was so sure it’s the same old story, so I decided to pass it on (I had to respect the hard earned money it took to print the tract). I tried giving it to different people that I came across that day but none of them took it home, some said, it is the same story, others said, they don’t need it while few just collected it and left there on my table. At last, I took it home and decided to go through it. It was the same story as I guessed and ended with give your life to Christ but something was different about this tract, it didn’t focus on heaven or hell, rather it was more about earth and why the devil is winning. I thought about it for a while, I soon slept off and forgot about it all.

Then this morning I was chatting with a friend and while we were at it, series of discussions we had led me back to the tract and these words kept echoing in my head “why the devil is winning”. As much as I wanted to demonstrate my faith and say, ‘yes to God’s victory’, realities of time suggest that gradually, the devil is claiming more souls. So I want to share with you just five (5) of reasons why the devil is winning and I hope after reading this you would be part of the comeback team for God.

1. We believe in self righteousness: Most of us believe we don’t need to be a believer to be a good person. We believe with good deeds we can win the heart of God. Here is the twist, devil is not afraid of our good deeds, in fact the devil is unmoved by our good deeds, because the devil knows that without Christ, even the best of deeds are like filthy rags before God. Come to think of it, even when we claim to be all about good deeds and behaviors, we can only be good to those who are good to us and that doesn’t make us good enough for God.

2. Godly things don’t seem interesting to us: We are young and vibrant, we want to have fun, dance, sing, flirt, take pictures, feel sexy and be famous. All these seem right, since we are not harming any body but unfortunately we are harming ourselves. Some say do it in moderation but who determines what is moderate? The devil knows that our body would always win in our battles with our head when there is no Holy Spirit in our lives. I am not saying fun is wrong, I love fun too but without the Holy Spirit in us, fun will always lead us to a funny position with the devil.

3. Freedom and rights: This is one good thing with a bad after taste. Currently some schools have forbidden prayers or the use  the name of God in their schools, some TV stations consider the use of God as derogatory, people want to be free to choose; association, sex, partner, worship etc. People reserves the right to dress the we they please, but then when you are your brother’s keeper, you would spare a thought for what your sexy dress might be doing to him and his thoughts.  When we remove God from our daily routines, something else will definitely fill the void, that’s as sure as the sun rising from the East.


4. When it comses to God, we think we have time: How many times have we said, “oh I can’t make it to church today, I will go next week or I have not gotten a fine church yet, I will get before the end of the month or Sunday is the only time I do my laundry so I can’t make church etc.” We believe with God, we can do it when it pleases us and some of us will round it off by saying “God understands”. Yes God understands our weaknesses but unfortunately, the devil does too and the devil takes advantage. Yes, there is time with God but then the devil also knows corruption is an infestation that eats deep with time and gives little room for retrace.

5. We believe we know: When it comes to God vs devil, everyone is an expert. We believe we need no tutoring, it is the same preaching since we were young, nothing new, a twist of prosperity has been used by some church to lure some of us back but majority would still argue that  you don’t need God to be rich. Here is the truth, you might not need God for anything in this life but He is the only thing you need for afterlife. Yes, it is the same preaching but the truth is, no matter how many times it has been told, it won’t stop being the truth. The devil knows the constant battle in our heart before we make a choice and each time he counts on our ego to keep leading us back to him. 

Devil is winning because of the little things we take for granted. What we wear, the kind of friends we keep, our shyness when it comes to talking about God, not talking to our kids about God, putting morals above godliness, wanting to belong etc. We are the end days’ army, the team ‘comeback’ of God, we have to do our bit to right some of these wrongs, not just because it is a safer earth when God is winning but because we owe ourselves the peace that comes with godliness. 

Do Not Be Ungrateful

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A friend shared this on Facebook and I could not resist sharing it. There are days we feel like things are not working right and after much prayers and fasting nothing drastic really happens, we are tempted to question God’s faithfulness, perhaps His powers but when you read this you will understand why you have to think twice…

“Some days ago I was about to go to bed and I was unhappy because I have been praying for some things that I haven’t received yet. I became grumpy and wondering if God could even hear me or is He busy attending to other people and has forgotten me . I slept with that feeling. I woke up in the morning and prayed, after praying a word dropped in my spirit! “DO NOT BE UNGRATEFUL”! I jumped up and said CHAI (In Patience Jonathan’s voice) and immediately I asked God to forgive me for my ingratitude! 

Some of us sometimes behave this way, when we ask God for things and the answers seem not to be forth coming, we become grumpy and start behaving like disgruntled elements! Throwing tantrums all over the place like little children! What about the times that God provided for you? Put food on your table, healed you from one illness or affliction, gave you a job, admission into school, protected you from known and unknown enemies? Etcetera etcetera. What about the gift of life? Do you think you are alive by your power? 

The world is deeper than the ordinary eyes can see or the ordinary mind can fathom! We are all still here not because of our works or because we are too good. Isaiah 64:6 says that our righteous acts are like filthy rags! We are still here by His Mercy. So drop that attitude of ingratitude and put on the attitude of thanksgiving! Bearing in mind that only the THANKFUL gets MORE.”

Iyobosa Enomah

Most times what we so desperately want is not what we should have at the moment, while other times the process is already in motion but then what we are hoping for is more of magic than miracle and God won’t do that. 

Patiently Waiting with a Heart of Thanksgiving is all we need, without giving up, without relenting, backing down or hating others.

For the vision is yet for the appointed time; it hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; for it will certainly come, it will not delay. Habakkuk 2:3