Tag: believe

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.

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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. 

THE MEEM BELIEVE

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THE MEEM BELIEVE

I believe we are meant to be.
And I trust in my believe.
Trust in war’s not we need.
For our survival to be.

We conceive to be deceased.
We can give and still receive.
We don’t really have to grieve.
If life’s well spent with relief.

Give me that time oh, time oh.
Show me the care eh, care eh.
Treat me with love oh, love oh.
Afford me some trust eh, trust eh.

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Picture source: GTBank

From the pictures that we see.
From the face of families.
We can find an inner peace.
Become whole from being pieces.

In the glowing of your skin.
From the scenery on your screen.
In the swaying of the tree.
We see the need to be free.

Give me that time oh, time oh.
Show me the care eh, care eh.
Treat me with love oh, love oh.
Afford me some trust eh, trust eh.

By Aremu Ibraheem Adebayo
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My Trevo™ Experience

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My Trevo™ Experience

“There is greatness in your inside.”

If you have attended any of the Trevo “Business meeting” you would understand the concept of my opening sentence. I share this belief because I strongly believe that everyone is special in his/her own way, of course our being special also means that we are not only unique but we have specialties. A bird can’t do well in the sea neither can a fish flourish on a tree, that’s the concept of uniqueness and speciality.

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Like everyone, I was curious to see what the “Business meeting” was all about plus I was on leave in Akure City, so I guess going out wouldn’t hurt. Got an invitation on request from an amiable lady Bamidele Olubunmi . Considering my usual reservations when it comes to online marketing, networking and referral schemes, as they call it “open mind business”, (Chisom Henry Skillz can attest to this), when I found out this was another of such, I was basically disappointed. However, seeing the excitement in the atmosphere, the enthusiasm exhibited by the teenagers and youth in the hall, I begin to see that after all said and done,  there is a future for my country. Hope that lies in the eyes of these teens that still believe that with hard work, determination and diligence, they can reach the skies held me spell bound.

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I understand how get rich-quick campaign can generate so many disciples but this that I saw was genuine believe. Some of the future leaders actually believe in hard work and results. The trainers (either a pastor this or apostle that and my most admired ‘Adetula the great’) came one after the other talking about the product and the “wonders” it does, the pioneer and his successes (businesses and family) and also about the business side of joining the Trevo wagon,  with testimonies of how millionaires have been made.

I think it is not a bad idea considering good Jobs can’t really make millionaires only entrepreneurial skills can ensure that and that’s what the campaign really stressed.  Even if these youths don’t eventually sign up, they have been taught one thing that will help them throughout life and that is, there is greatness in their inside and they just have to find a way to let it out.

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William Shakespeare said “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” but the bottom line is “there is greatness in everyone . (But you have to) look within yourself and discover your greatness.” Lailah Gifty concluded. Don’t underestimate yourself or the potential you carry, don’t be someone with great ideas only, be someone who is willing and able to take bold steps to backup those lofty ideas. We are children of destiny, a fate that is in our own hands.

Self Esteem

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SELF- ESTEEM

It was a dark and lonely night and the room was so empty, all she could see was her shadows, like a fragile bird looking for safety, she crawled around her bed and all she could do was cry all alone, she felt lost and empty with her eyes flowing with uncontrollable tears. Right there in that room she wished the morning would never come she just hated life. Her mind and her cerebrum were not helping matters as they took her through the journey of what a mess her life has been and all she could do was cry harder. She just wanted to be happy, she wanted to be seen and she wanted to be loved.

Many people like this young lady have felt dejected, rejected and unloved. They keep asking themselves every day what exactly is the problem? Self Esteem or put differently Self-belief !

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What is self-esteem?
Self-esteem is simply how we value ourselves, how we make the world value us. It is the way we think and feel about ourselves and finally it is a state of the mind. There are two major types of self-esteems
a. High self-esteem
b. Low self-esteem

High self –esteem
A person with a high esteem feels so secured, strong and positive; always confident.

Low self-esteem
A person with a low self-esteem feels so unworthy, incapable, unloved and this feeling stops individuals from reaching their full potential.
Low self-esteem is a dream eater; it stops individuals from reaching their full potential, individuals with low self-esteem often get scared of confronting people, they get so scared of sharing their ideas and thoughts because they feel they cannot be accepted. Individuals with low self-esteem are always dying to get attention and so do some crazy things to get attention. Some of them go to the extent of lying to loved ones claiming to be who and what they are not.

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Signs of low self-esteem
👉👈 Blaming Others
💀    Negative view about life
👽    Fear of taking risks and fear of being ridiculed
💔 Feelings of being unloved
👹 Lack of trust in people
😹 Self-pity

Low self-esteem can be caused by so many factors but what matters is how you deal with it, low self-esteem can kill dreams because it makes people become pessimistic, viewing everything as impossible. It results in lack of self belief  and it gives room for self-pity.
Helen Keller said “Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in the world”.

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How can low self-esteem be dealt with?
To deal with low self-esteem you need to believe in yourself, pay more attention to your thoughts; think positively, have a self-talk all the time. When you look at the mirror every morning tell yourself words like:
I am beautiful,
I am handsome,
I am smart,
I am talented,
I have what it takes,
I can do this,
I am intelligent,
I am not a loser,
I am in it to win it,
In my life nothing is impossible,
Nothing can stop from making it…

As you begin to appreciate yourself the real you comes out for the world to see. You don’t need to beg for attention because you will attract the right people. If you want others to love you then you need to love yourself. Oscar Wilde said “To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance” if you don’t love You, nobody can love You.

You are the best of your kind when God created you, He created you unique. Don’t allow people or circumstances make you feel less important, you are the best of your kind!

Raise your head high and walk with confidence because you are special and the best you can be is number one.

“Friendship with oneself is all important, because without it one cannot be friends with anyone else” – Eleanor Roosevelt.

Self-esteem comes from being able to define the world in your own terms and refusing to abide on the judgments of others”- Oprah Winfrey.

Make yourself valuable and be proud of who you are, nobody can make you feel less, believe in yourself and keep shinning! You are the best!

God bless you.

By Omodara Oluwabunmi Onome
Image source: Google images

Broke Can’t Be Happy

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Broke Can’t Be Happy

The ultimate goal of every individual is happiness, though definition of happiness may differ from one person to another. However, as far as I know, one of the factors that can hinder happiness is being broke. I have heard few people say their happiness is not dependent on availability of money and I agree with them. Availability of money doesn’t necessarily mean happiness but when you are Broke (absolute lack of money to meet immediate needs), no matter how religious, contented or hopeful you are, it is hard to be Happy.

I am not about to tell you how you are going to get rich overnight, neither is this a get rich quick scheme nor means of evoking the spirit of money. However, I believe that if you can work based on the factors I am about to point out in your life, things will turn around for the best.

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Here are 7 reasons why you are broke almost all the time.

1. You have too much idle time
You have too much idle time on your hands. Your time is not well invested in productive activities. You sleep all day, hang out with friends, hang around cybercafes, stay online without real business there, you are the official mascot of the newspaper stand etc…these are time killers. You should realize that every second is valuable, some people get value for them and you should do same too.

2. You are scared of trying something new
Fear is the culprit of many troubles we go through, little wonder the book of life kept saying “fear not”. If you do not act, you can not actualize, no shortcuts. Waiting for a perfect time is just a perfect excuse to be a perfect nothing. I have read through people’s success stories and I have not found anyone successful with a perfect start. You want to stay in your comfort zone, where you and I know nothing works because you are scared of failing. If you see where you are as your ground zero, you will realize you can’t fall further than that.

3. You think everyone else is responsible for your predicament but you.
Everyone is responsible but you; your father, your mother,  your friends, siblings, employer…everybody but you. I use to blame too, until I realized it was robbing me off improvement; places I ought to improve, I kept thinking someone else should be responsible. Even when it is obvious that others contributed to the failure, your focus should be YOU; “what could you have done differently?”. Responsibility is credibility, without assuming responsibility, it is hard to be in credit.

4. You are busy waiting for opportunity
Opportunity they say comes but ones… though this axiom has been faulted on several occasions but the reality remains opportunities are scarce resources with numerous suitors. If you keep waiting for it, you might grow old without a knock on your door. Our life is an open door and when you’re not alert opportunity will “coming and go out” without you knowing but when you are all out for possible opportunities, you can’t miss it. “You don’t wait till the iron gets hot before you strike it, you keep striking till the iron gets hot.”

5. You haven’t learned to separate need from want.
When you are not financially disciplined, it is hard not to be broke. We have needs and we have wants…you need water but you want alcohol, one is readily available and affordable while the other is a distance away and yet expensive… Your decision is the difference between being broke and being bloom. Apply this concept to all other choices you make on daily basis, ask questions like; do I really need this? does my survival depend on this?  No doubt want to someone might be a need to another. To a student having a car is a want but to a commercial driver it is a need. So you need to know where each item fits in your own life.

6. You do not re-invest
You are expected to re-investing at least 10% of your income … Salary, profit, gift, allowances etc, but you do not re-invest. Life is in seasons…planting and harvesting seasons, for instance. If you do not plant, I need not tell you there won’t be anything to harvest. Planting includes saving for rainy day, investing to have other streams of income, giving to people and giving to satisfy your religious convictions. When you fail in the act of planting, the act of harvesting will fail you and being broke becomes inevitable.

7. You don’t believe in yourself.
You are not convinced you can do anything good. All the first six reasons boil down to this, if you do not believe in yourself, you can’t even make efforts to make things right. If you are a pessimist, if you don’t have hope, if you don’t believe you can be productive, if you don’t believe you can make it, If you can’t have faith in yourself then hardly can anything work. You have to overcome this before you can embark on making things right with your finances and your life.

I know you are probably thinking of a shortcut or something that won’t work you that much; like winning a jackpot, lottery or getting free huge sum but here is the bitter truth, even if you hit the jackpot without fixing yourself and aligning with these 7 reasons, you will eventually break the pot and go back to being broke.

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I believe in you and I am sure many others do too, don’t let us down!

Scary, Cruel But True

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Scary, Cruel But True

People say life is unfair, some say life is cruel, few say life is good but to me, I feel life is life and if you play by the rules, your chances of getting hurt will be slim. I guess maybe my view is due to few facts I have grown to know over the years,  so I will share them with you and let you be the judge of what life really is.

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1. Life is give and take. People most often will only give to you because they expect something in return. What they expect in return may be physical such as money, gratification, sex, labour, etc or non-physical things, like loyalty, publicity, fame, being worshipped etc. Also these applies to the law of sow and reap, when you give you shall receive.

2. The higher you go the less real friends you will have. Friends are rare when you are at the top, what you have mostly are colleagues, parasites and sycophants. Here’s the downside, most friends wants you to be on the same level with them, so when you become successful most of them are intimidated and they disappear, while the rest will go because of distance and time.

3. You will be used. People with ulterior motives will come to you in the name of religion, passion, tribe, language, freedom etc and you will trust them but then they only use you. If you are wise you won’t be fooled the second time but if not you will die for someone else’s greed in the name of “fighting true cause”.

4. Life is like a showbiz. You remain relevant to people so long as they gain something from you. Bad news and immoral things will always get more attention. When you become too demanding people will see you as a pin in the butt. If you want to always stay ahead, you have to keep reinventing yourself or else you become a stale news. If you stop giving the show, you stop commanding the attention.

5. Life will test you. You will be tested by events, people and situations. You will fail some but eventually learn, you will pass but eventually regret however in all it will make you better if you are focused. Disappointments will come from family and close allies, if you do not learn to take it in your stride, it may destroy who you are. You will see brilliant people beg, dumb people will excel, good trees will be fell while bad ones seems to live forever. You will want to conclude life is not worth it but if you understand these are all part of the tests, it would not destroy you.

6. You will find out you can’t please everyone. Hatred too often is not about attitude, no matter how good, polite or helpful you are people who wouldn’t like you will still not like you. Envy, backbiting, jealousy, contempt, transference are all part of life and there is hardly anything you can do to change them. Some bosses will see you as a threat, few family members will see you as competition, while close friends will see you as opposition. You can’t change their mind or actions but you can always survive it if you understand it is just life.

7. Life makes finances scarce for good cause. When you have life changing events to fund, money will be scarce, people will tell you, your timing is bad but when it is for fun and less important things, hidden treasures would miraculously find ways to the surface. That’s life telling you even the forces of availability would not want you to be successful but if you do not give up and you keep pressing forward you will find out that even a stone gate can melt.

8. Life will often favor the strong. The Strong will be stronger at the expense of the weak. Oppression, suppression, victimization and villlans will rule. The rich will get richer and poor if not careful will get poorer, the wise will make fool of the greedy and the upright would envy the corrupt. It is the way of the world but nothing last forever, not even the reign of terror, eventually good will find its voice.

9. Right is subjective and not absolute. The right or wrong argument will amaze you. Many will choose not see the truth, some will argue against it because of gains and passion, while others would just not see it no matter how blinding it shines then you will understand the eyes only see what the eyes want to see. You can’t convince a made up mind, put your argument in actions and not words… A deaf man cannot hear no matter how loud you scream.

10. Humans are designed to believe. People will always believe in something. Some will deny it while others will brandish it. God, money, passion, people, system, living and non-living things are few of what people believe in. Man can’t but believe, just that we choose what to believe. It is wise not to judge anyone based on this because if you truly understand life, you will know it is nature’s call, we are all bound to answer though in different pitch sounds.