Adventures of Faith

The phrase ‘self-made’ has become a rather popular one in the world that we live in today. It refers to people who grew perhaps from nothing to become wealthy and famous. It could in a sense mean that such people don’t necessarily owe their wealth and greatness to anyone, they are self-made. However, in the kingdom of God, there are no self-made men. While we recognize the effort and hard work people put in, to become great, we also acknowledge that no man could have ever amounted to anything except the grace of God found him, and except such person opened up his heart and life to that grace. The beautiful thing is that God isn’t partial and we could all be grace made, but unfortunately, not everyone fully understands this grace and not everyone is willing to open up to it. This grace has nothing to do with what you can do for yourself, it has only to do with what God through Jesus has done for you. You say but is it that simple? Yes, it is. Men who have risen to great heights t...

We know from ancient times that man has always sought to communicate with some greater being other than himself and this he has found room to demonstrate in prayer. For the believer, prayer is communion with the Almighty God, it isn’t a duty, but a privilege. Prayer can be really fascinating when you pray and get answers to your prayers. Prayer can also become really boring when you pray but don’t get any answers, as a matter of fact it can become frustrating. Interestingly, many people who pray and don’t get results never expected to get answers in the first place. Not getting answers to their prayers only justified their position that God wasn’t going to answer anyway; they only prayed just to satisfy their conscience. Well, the reason why they got nothing is quite obvious; they expected nothing. Finney in his classic on prayer noted that God may not answer every prayer according to its letter but He surely will according to its spirit. The real spirit of prayer is evermore ...

The Lord prompted me to write this piece in response to the economic situation that our nation has been thrown into recently. Whether you call it an economic downturn or a recession, it isn’t new to God and so God isn’t anxious, neither is He confused about the situation. Needless for me to say is that we are in a time of greatest opportunity for the body of Christ, all that is happening is simply an orchestration of God for massive wealth transfer, so we must be rightly positioned and ready to work to be beneficiaries. In a few years from now, we will look back and thank God for this unusual arrangement that has come to serve heavens purpose and better our lives. God created man with natural survival instincts, which makes that a man will attempt to do anything just to survive. In times of economic hardship, a man will look for alternatives and seek options by which he can better his lot and chances of survival so that he is not sucked in. For the believer, it isn’t all that ...

If you have attended church or read your bible some, you may be familiar with our topic in this write-up. It is not the exact way that the scripture puts it, but I have taken the liberty to rephrase it for the purpose of this discussion. Our text (Mk. 2: 1-11) reflects an encounter Jesus had with a man who was paralyzed. This man was carried by four men, who were probably his friends or relatives. He was brought to a house where a crowd had gathered to hear Jesus in Capernaum (some scholars believe that this was Jesus’ private home). By the time these men arrived, they couldn’t gain access because the house was full and the crowd that gathered had taken up every space including the walkways such that they could even get past the door. Interestingly, the scribes were also among the crowd that had gathered to hear Jesus on that day, and if you are familiar with the scribes and Pharisees, you will know that they were always looking for ways to fault Jesus and to discredit His minis...

It was a kind of epic, life-or-death girl scout route. Jesus sent seventy-two of his disciples door-to-door in every Jewish town to declare that the King had brought good news of great joy. He sent them with a warning, “Behold, I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves” ( Luke 10:3 ). And with a promise, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” ( Matthew 10:7–8 ). That’s a remarkable list. Imagine if you did even one of those things for someone today. Imagine if God healed someone’s cancer through you as you laid your hands on and prayed over them. Imagine if, when you found the last loved one you lost, God brought them back to life through you. They weren’t dead anymore, but breathing, talking, and smiling, again. Imagine if, when you touched someone with skin disease, God washed away the sores and rashes, the irritation and the pain. Imagine if God used your voice to dispatch the demons harassing and tormenting someone. Can you i...

In the bible book of Joshua, there is an interesting story of a man called Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah. Contrary to the instruction of the Lord to the children of Israel not to take any spoil of Jericho because the city and everything in it was accursed, this man Achan couldn’t get his eyes off some of the spoils, so he took some good stuff and hid them under the ground in his tent. It appeared that no one noticed him, perhaps they could have raised an alarm to the leaders of the people knowing the consequence of such action, not just upon Achan, but upon the entire nation. Although, it is possible that his family knew about it, but they refused to expose him, seeing that they would also be beneficiaries of his “Blessing”. Well, he kept his “blessing” which he got by his own scheming, hoping to enjoy them someday, perhaps when they were fully settled into the Promised Land. It wasn’t long after that they fought another b...

There is so much to what every believer has got to learn and there is really never an end to how much you can learn if you open your heart to keep learning. Now, of all the things you can learn, there are certain things that are extremely vital to know at certain times, because the knowledge of those things or the lack of it, will be a great determinant to how your life will turn out. I believe that learning to use the vocabulary of silence and the confession of faith in the times that we are now falls within this purview. As you may very well know, the world is in a crisis, and not even our nation is exempted from the challenges that has come upon our world. It is like the scripture described in Isaiah 60, that darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the people, but God’s people have been exempted. The interesting thing however is that, although God has exempted His people from the darkness that has come upon this world, many of God’s people are forcefully partaki...

There are probably millions of believers who are praying for more faith with all sincerity of heart and purpose as you may also have found yourself praying at one time or another. Somehow, you recognize that if you had more faith you could probably do more or better than you are doing now, and this is true. However, we must deeply examine if this prayer is right in itself and if truly God answers our prayer for more faith. Nowhere in the scriptures are we instructed as believers to pray for more faith, the scripture says faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17). The truth is that there are many believers who are not hearing at all, while some others who are hearing haven’t set out time to personally study the scriptures to see if what they are hearing is true or not, they just simply absorb everything. What you are hearing can either build or destroy your faith. Where the word of God conflicts directly with the word of a man, we simply uphold the word of God without any prejudice to th...

Perhaps one of the most controversial issues across all church ages is speaking in other tongues. Many from the Pentecostal circle elevate it so high even though some of them understand it very little and cannot personally attest to its value in their life and walk with God. On another hand, you have people from the conservative circle who don’t believe any much in speaking in tongues even though they aren’t against it. Then finally you have those who are completely opposed to it. But why should speaking in other tongues generate this much controversy over the years? Shouldn’t there have been some sort of intervention to lay the controversies to rest? While there are many questions that we can ask, the truth really is that like many other subjects that have generated some controversy in the church, people have stuck to their guns and taken fixed positions on the subjects before ever hearing an argument for or against the subject matter. I therefore appeal to you before I proceed, ...