Dear Pastor's Wife, It takes both parties to make marriage work

Last week, I saw a flyer on Instagram, where a pastor's wife was calling for women to pray and fast for their husbands for 31 days (all through the month of March). I did not like the feeling the flyer generated in me.

I wanted to like the idea and the thought for calling for a prayer watch, but I did not, and I didn't like that I didn't like the idea... at all. Imagine if everyone is good, and you want to be good also, but you keep being bad, and you don't like the fact that you are bad. You know you should be good, but there's something about this 'good' that doesn't sit well with you... that's exactly how I felt.

I feel every woman should pray for her husband, because under normal circumstances, if it is well for your husband, it would be well for you too. They should also pray for their children. It is normal for most religious women to pray for their entire households, because there's something about a woman's heart that is always drawn towards her home, and its well-being. And for Christian women who are not very prayerful, but desire to be, or ones just struggling with their prayer lives, which is quite common, this special call for 'prayers for husbands' would most likely encourage them to catch the prayer train.

However, the question is... where are the men? Are they praying for their wives?

How powerful is African Jazz, really?

Hi everyone? How's life going with all of us? Before we go into today's post, I would like to know what you think about the new look of my blog. Yay or nay? I wanted a whole new look. I felt I had outgrown the straight-faced, very serious Atilola. I wanted to change my brand and aura to something my soothing, welcoming, and flowery hence the smiling pic on the side (I have always preferred my straight-face picture to smiling ones). Anyway, do you think the blog picture does justice to the intent?

So what is your opinion about Jazz? For those of us who might be new to this, I am not talking of Jazz music but Black African Power that is attributed to smaller deities and African gods. I'm sure every African knows these powers exist and are real. So the question here is do you believe in their efficacy?

During our honeymoon in Gambia, we visited to Kachikali Museum, and saw several charms, to be used for different purposes. Although I feel Gambian jazz is a learner where ancient Nigerian Babalowos are (which is understandable, because it is a very small country, it just an experience standing face to face with charms and amulets. See for yourself below.

The church and its lack of appreciation for Talents

When it comes to talent and its expressions, we all know that there’s a thin line between work and ministry. There has also always been the age old argument of whether people should charge for ministry work, or even be paid for it. One now begins to wonder why this argument comes up when it has to do with the church parting with money, cos it never comes up in the cooperate organisations.

Something happened to me, which made me think long and hard about this topic.

When it comes to my spoken word career, it is both ministry and work for me. Spoken word is the work I do, by which I use to minister directly to people. Unlike people like Janette…ikz and Ezekiel, I am not a Christian spoken word artist. I am a Christian who is a spoken word artist, and they are entirely different.

Just like a Christian who is an accountant, he is first a Christian before he is an accountant. Even when he stops being an accountant, he will keep being a Christian. He is expected to shine the light of Christ in his accountancy profession.

So even though I am not a Christian spoken word artist, it is always evident in my message that I am a Christian, because naturally, my values will be reflected in my message. Also, I organise spoken word and rap concerts that are Christian and kingdom driven, because that is my mandate for now. I also teach spoken word in church. I don’t train my students to become Christian spoken word artists, I simply train them to be spoken word artists. Whether they want to use their skill for evangelism, entertainment or social transformation, it is for them to determine. My own job ends at skills transference.

Because of my kind of message, I get invited to perform at all kinds of event… all kinds. The only kind I haven’t performed at yet is a funeral, and I am up for the challenge whenever it comes.
When I get invited, I state my fees, they pay, I rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. I perform and it ends… mostly in that cycle. If I don’t like the fees, I negotiate upwards or recommend someone else. On very few occasions, I perform for free.

So last week, based on the recommendation of a pastor, a lady invited me to perform at a church departmental end of the year party. I stated my fees, and we reached an agreement.

In the course of the next week, she ran into some personal issues, and some other woman took over. This person didn’t reach out to me on time, so I cancelled out the program from my schedule. Two days to the event, she called, and I made an allusion to the fact that I had almost changed my mind since I didn’t hear from her. We talked a bit more, and I agreed to come even though I’ll be under too much rehearsal pressure. I asked how far with the agreement for my fees, and she was like "what fees?"

She asked for the amount, and then I shouldn’t worry because she was under the impression that I was just coming to ‘bless them’. To say I was shocked was an understatement?

What if I had started working on their piece, which ideally, I should have cos she called 2 days to the event?

She didn’t even try to negotiate me down, or use the usual ‘please come down for us, it is the work of God, church has too many expenses’ line. She just expected me to come and do it for free.

She expected me to invest my time, my sweat, my brain, my saliva, and energy, fuel… for free.

Can you see something wrong with this thinking? And here is my reply for her and other church people who think this way. If you are one of them, please make sure you read well and well enough.

“First of all, I am not coming to bless you. I am coming to work, to do a job. In the process of my work, you will become blessed. If I am coming to sow, I know that's what I'm doing. If I'm coming to work, I know that's what I'm doing. You are not the one that will tell me to sow. I choose to sow when I want.”

When church ministries act this way, and don't want to pay, I don't take them seriously, and I don't go. It is not because I'm mean, greedy or I can't afford to do it for free. It is because in most cases, those people don’t really appreciate you, your art, the work you do, and the time you invest into churning out excellence. The value they place on you can be equated to how hairdressers treat hair lice.

I mean, they paid the caterer, decorator and other service providers, so why shouldn't I get paid? Is my work less important than theirs? Do you know how much intellectual work goes into creating an average piece, talk less of a good one?

Did they ask the caterer to bless them with their food? Of course not. They paid her because they understood the value of good food. No wonder the church loses its talent every day because the secular world never treats talents like this.

When the woman dropped, I didn’t feel bad. I was only sad because she was referred by someone I respect, and if that pastor should ever ask me, I will just show him this blog post.

When God cursed me

There's a church opposite my house that conduct services every day. Yes, you read right, every single day. The worst part is that the service holds in the evenings at the same time I'm doing bible study. The church is very small, really small but their loudspeaker is indirectly proportional to the size of the church. And guess the direction of the sound… straight through my window.

As outrageous as the above is, that is not the point of today's post.

Seeing the sound architecture of this church described above, it is therefore expected that I hear every single word uttered in their service, every praise and worship song, every off beat music, every prayer point and the whole sermon. Seeing as this is my current reality, I've learnt to block out the whole thing and just treat it like the noise pollution it really is. But sometimes I can't help but hear some things being said

And so it was that last Wednesday evening, doing my bible study as usual, this prayer point straight from this church loudspeaker, bypassed the word I was studying and hit my brain straight.

"Everybody say father, if I've done anything to deserve your curse, please forgive me in the name of Jesus." 

I immediately looked up, arched my back straight and stretched my ear lobes. I listened intently as the person giving the prayer point repeated it like 3 more times after which the whole congregation started praying.

I instantly became very worried. I kept screaming in my spirit “God doesn't curse people.” In my mind, I was crying for the people.

What kind of church is this? What kind of word is this? Don't people read their bibles? Doesn't the pastor/prayer warrior read his bible? Who will tell these people? Who will show this people the truth?

We are Christians. We are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. We have the same authority that Christ has. All principalities and powers are under our feet where it has been since the work was finished 2000 years ago. God can't curse you because you sinned. That was the whole essence of the cross. If you have sinned, you can come to the cross, obtain the forgiveness which has already been a done deal since ages past, and go and sin no more.

God cannot curse you! In fact, the devil cannot curse you. Yes you read that right.

Can we live under curses as Christians? Yes we can.

We can live under curses due to ignorance of what has been done for us. But once you know your right and the authority that was given to you when Christ resurrected, you place yourself in the position you truly are and begin to command things the way you want them with the mind-set that you already have the victory. You are just going to enforce your right.

Let me stop here on the issue of the believer’s authority because it is deeper than this.

The main things you should know are that…

God cannot curse you. He doesn't curse his children. Don't let someone put something on you that God didn't put there.

Read your bibles abeg. Or how else would you know that someone is spewing nonsense on the altar if you are not educated in the word?

Watch the church you go to. Honestly some pastors are not educated. I have a friend who was made pastor of a parish after spending few months as a worker in that church. He's a fellow blogger so he knows what I'm talking about.

I really don't want to do this but I'm sorry I have to so that the word will get to the ears of the right people. The church I'm talking about is one of the franchised redeemed churches. Maybe someone will tell Pastor Adeboye that regular inspections need to be conducted on their franchise so their members would not leave worse than they came in the first place

Source

WHY 2016 WOULD BE LIKE OTHER 2015 FOR MOST PEOPLE – A different perspective

(Balancing religious intoxication with the dawning of reality)

While I don't believe in the mob mentality of New Year resolutions, new year- new me crap because I believe you don't have to wait for a new year to get your life back on track, by December 31 and January 1 of every year, I become a total snob. I basically shut myself from the world, do some serious goal scoring, pray for direction, re-evaluate things and do another set of goal-setting that would be scored at the end of the year.

This has worked for me for years. And to the people who ask how come I've been able to achieve a lot in such a little time on earth. That’s it. It's my personal brand to keep my promises to people, so I apply it to my life. I keep my promises to myself.

After returning from crossover service on Jan 1, I saw all the BBM updates on my year of divine manifestation, taking territories, etc., just like it is every year. The social media frenzy was so much that I did a double take, just like I do every year.

Yet, just like every year, with the millions of declarations generated from billions of Nigerian churches, nothing really ever changes for most people. The spiritual high eventually faded away sometime between 2nd of January and 14th of February. So how do we balance New Year religious intoxication with reality?

1. Be specific and practical. In all our religious brouhaha, we like to throw around big vague terms that make us feel spiritual and holy, but we know they are just words. We say this is my year of divine manifestation, I’m soaring on eagle’s wings, this is my year of taking territories.
What is divine manifestation, soaring higher, next level, taking territories? These are powerful words that can change people's lives, and at the same time, be a gold vessel of emptiness in the lives of others. When you hear such words, don't just 'key into it'. Personalise it. Ask yourself 'what does it mean to me?' How does it apply to my life?

Divine promotion to a vulcanizer means that your brand new tire should tear on the way. The more torn tires, the more promotion for him. While divine promotion to you means on your way to that life-changing meeting, nothing must happen to your tire.

If promotion is every year at your place of work, and you get promoted once this year, just like everyone else, is that really divine? What exactly do you need to happen for you to ascertain that indeed, you have been divinely promoted? Be specific and write it down .

Before you start screaming “I’m taking territories,” What does taking territories mean to you? I'm sure you are not thinking of using a time machine to travel back in time to join the Israelites and fight alongside Joshua. So you need to be specific to your own situation. What does a territory mean to you? How are you going to take territories?

Does it mean you are going to buy more physical territories (land) this year? Or does it mean you are taking market place industries?

Who are you taking in the territory from? The devil or another human being

If it is the devil, have you been practicing using the armour of God? How many scriptures can you fight with if the devil hits you unawares this very second?

If it is another man's territory, how are you going to take it? Will you steal it from him? Or worse, will you kill him like they did in the Old Testament?

Or will you follow the rules of wealth-transference by providing services to him, which you have now become an expert at and they have no choice but to come to you?

What exactly does taking territories mean to you? Be specific and write it down. Don't just be using vague religious clichés, because it was declared in church.

2. Watch your tongue
Nigerians take first position when it comes to idle and careless talk. I heard we are the most prayerful nation, so it's such an irony that we have the most caustic tongue on social media and in real life
"The economy is bad, Nigeria is doomed, Buhari is a terrible leader, there's no hope, pastors are just fetish and corrupt...

KEEP QUIET! Seriously, if there’s ever any year to shut up, this is the year

I shake my head at the intensity of some people's words. After you have used all your might to receive prophesy, you use your tongue to destroy what God wants to do.  Your mouth would follow the direction of your tongue. Run away from idle babbles, and steer-off social media beer parlour discussions.

It's not compulsory to talk on social media. I had 14 posts (not links) on Facebook last year, but it looked to the whole world like I had about 200 posts because the very few posts gathered steam. It is intentional. The posts (whether video or text) were carved intentionally to be positive and project something. For this reason, I’m impressed when people say “we always see you on Facebook” considering that I was hardly on Facebook.

If you don't have any good thing to say about your situation or that of the country, don’t say anything. The wise people are the ones who have been able to create success by their choice of words. BE WISE so that you won't sing the same song by the end of the year

Lastly
3. Irrespective of prophesies and annual church declarations, your year would not be different if you don't start taking actions.

After prophesying and declaring, if you resume Monday morning, doing the same thing you did last year, I can assure you that you would be singing the same song you sang at the end of 2015 when 2016 comes to an end. And then you'd be anxiously waiting for 2017 to come, so you can make the same old mistakes

I won't talk of goal setting, goal scoring, SMART rules, vision boards (these are the tools I use, anchored on scriptures and revelations), etc. because the purpose of this post isn't really to tell you how to achieve your goals in 2016.

It is to let you know that in all your New Year intoxication, due to the fact that a new year has magically turned you a walking-on-water superman, just because your pastor prophesied and the annual church declaration has been released, it is really you and your actions that would make the change in the end.

Did I go overboard with my comment?

So someone anonymous dropped that comment on my blog post, and that was my response to the person.

When I got the comment in my phone, I was first taken aback. I found it had to believe that someone who decide to spam a blog on behalf of RCCG? I doubt their pastor or planning committee asked them to do this? 

My initial reaction was to delete the comment, as I do to any spam comment that has the luxury of bypassing blogger filter. But I decided to leave it for the world to see, so we can all learn that this is not cool.

I understand it when Ikemba is spamming my blog for how to get a bigger manhood, and that babalawo guy that keeps disturbing us to come and prepare love potions for our runaway lover. But when Christians begin to do this under the ANONYMOUS identity, it says a lot about us. Or is the end game not to get poeple to give their lives to Christ again?

If we don't present ourselves as the light of the world, in this barrage of darkness, then what exactly are we doing as Christians?

Please weigh in. Did I go overboard? What are you thoughts on Christian spamming blogs for their events?

Modern Day Religious Manipulations

So sometime recently my mum came to meet me, and said one pastor said everyone in my family should come together and pray for three hours every night for one month or so. She said something like the theme is ‘moving forward.’

So we looked at each other, and burst into laughter. I said three hours?

How are supposed to gather EVERYONE for THREE HOURS, EVERY NIGHT?

She said she told the person it won’t be possible, that she will pray what she can pray, and tell me, so I can do the remaining, since I pray for long hours every evening, anyway.

I asked my mum. “So, if we don’t do up to three hours, God will not answer our prayers?”

Needless to say, this was where the conversation died.

I have come to the level where all these ‘spiritual manipulations’ disguised with good intentions on the road to breakthrough don’t move me one bit anymore. I have too much experience for all that crap to work on me. If you find yourself been bounced around by all these hullabaloo, even as a Christian, it is not because you are bad or weak. It is just a sign of a troubled and restless spirit.

Trust me, I have been there.

Gone are the days when religious manipulators came in celestial white garments, and ask you to drink and bathe in holy water. That is just old school. No one would ask you to go to bar beach again. Fashola and Tinubu have reduced their market with the whole Eko Atlantic Beach thing. The 7 Broomsticks-beating times are over, as it doesn’t appeal to the elite. It is a whole new game now.
The spiritual manipulators of these times are very cunning. They are in every church, and they prey on the weak and troubled. And they can catch anybody, no matter how strong.

Here goes my own personal experience.

There was a time in my life when everything around me was crumbling. I lost things most important to me, and I basically thought I could not move on without recovering them. I was weak, tired, and just wanted my life to be over. This is that period in your life when your friends and family just keep looking at you and praying for you to recover because they know there’s basically nothing within their power they can do to help you get back up again. Even my pastor kept praying for me and encouraging me. Still, it wasn’t enough. I wanted a quick-fix solution.

That’s how I went to look for trouble when I agreed to see one of my aunt’s pastor in a redeemed church. She said he’s a prayer warrior, and very effective. I went to see him. In fact, the drama in the church that day made me laugh so much that I immediately wrote this post, The God of Visas, and blogged about it. Read it here. Anyway, I finally got to meet this pastor. I should have suspected him because it looked he was just a worker in the church. He immediately scolded me for questioning God, and asked me to start fasting again for 21 days (I had just concluded a personal fast). He said he will be sending daily prayer points, bla bla.

After about 10 days, I sent him credit because my aunt said I should send him credit since he is sending me prayer points. I sent him 1500 twice in the period of 21 day. Even though a text message costs N4.00, it was nothing to me. I mean he was specially interested in me, right? Never mind that I already had hundreds of prayer points and declarations I had prepared for myself. After all, I was the one looking for fast solution.

Anyway, after the 21 days was over, this pastor will call and pray for me well, and ask me to send him credit. The first time, I did it, but with raised eyebrows.

One morning of a week day, he called me and asked him to send him credit. Unfortunately, I was in Nnewi, in a remote area. The company my firm had sent our team to go and clean up their accounts temporarily lodged us in one of the CEO’s guest houses, and we were surrounded by bushes. So I told the pastor I couldn’t get credit, explaining the situation of things to him.

He kept insisting I go out and buy the credit, or find someone to send to get the credit, because he doesn’t understand how someone like me won’t have access to credit. I was irritated, and immediately decided to cut him out of my life.

Source

I stopped picking his calls, apart from one time I picked by mistake because he called my second line.

I told my aunt what happened, and she apologised saying she didn’t know he was like that, and would report him in the church.

So these are the signs of such people

They are very manipulative, starting and ending calls with prayers God did not send them to pray for you. They never run out of prophesies.

They will usually send you prayer points, and tell you they are praying for you too.

They will make you dependent on them totally. This is a strategy, because if things begin to turn around for you, you will always attribute it to the fact that “That pastor can pray o. Ha, he is a powerful man of God.” And then you will eventually turn the pastor to your God, and start giving him whatever he asks for.

If you meet any pastor who doesn’t encourage you to study the word yourself, and find God yourself, RUN!

They usually don't have any full time job or full time ministry, and prey on mostly the working class society.

Most times, they are formulaic/numerical in their approach. Fast for 21 days. Pray by 6pm and 11pm everyday. Pray for 2 hours. Shout Hallellujah 7 times for 7 days at the 7th hour. They lack creativity, and their approach doesn't give room for the Holy Spirit to do His thing, seeing He cannot be confined to formulas and numbers.

They are in every church, EVERY CHURCH - Catholic, Pentecostal, Celestial, Redeemed, Winners, Baptist, CAC, Methodist – you name it, you will find them there.

Beware of them. I believe I was able to see him for who he was because I was already strong spiritually before I got into trouble, but only got caught in my weak moment. Some people are not so lucky, and end up being lifetime victims of the greedy posers in the kingdom of God.

On the flipside, don’t stop going to church because of these wolves in sheep's clothing. See my reason below

The Devil's Agenda for the Church

So I wrote this Spoken Word piece almost two years ago, and I felt it was really strong and powerful, but I didn't get the inner peace in my mind to go on performing this piece. I know that if one is going to assume the mouth piece of the devil, and go ahead to expose his plans on stage to the whole world, then one should be ready for some serious warfare. Because of some thing that happened to me in the period of two years before I wrote this, I wasn't sure I was ready to take on another vicious warfare. I also felt God asking me to "chill on this one." So I dumped the piece aside, and never rehearsed it. I saw it few days ago, and I felt at least if I can't present it on stage yet, I can publish it for the whole world to see. So here it is... in the devil's own words, not mine.

Source

I am gonna silence the church
Making the bible-thumping Christians go hush hush
Hush- there’s a hatred grenade flying over there
Hush- you risk losing your charisma if you spread the gospel over there

I am gonna empty
The church till it loses its majority
Due to the sins of minority
Till the once fatted calf becomes so emaciated and hungry that it begins to lose its voice
And if it dares utter a sound, it will be taken as nothing but loud noise
Then the unbelievers will go “hush hush…
You talk too much”
Yes, I am gonna silence the church

I am going to divide them, using trivial issues and frivolous arguments
Such as that of prosperity and private jets
Such that they will be too blind to notice
When I enter boldly into their presence with dexterity

I’ll forcefully twist their heads
Shift their focus
Make them forget about his miracles, yet concentrate on hocus pocus
Abracadabra- it is raining money in this church
Abracadabra- there’s a children’s factory on that pilgrim hill
Abracadabra – cars are being shared in that temple
Abracadabra- healing is the order of the day in that cathedra
Cos it’s not only in harry potter books I use my avada kedavra

No. my avada kedavra will shift their orientation
Change their disposition
Make them the focus of their own attention
And distract them so much that the dizziness
from the speed of which I’ll do it will be mistaken for busyness
and the fruit of it will be greeted with righteous jubilation
such that they would begin to neglect the soul’s salvation
the very essence
of the Christian’s existence
in this present dispensation
yes, I am going to silence the church

I am going to dispense…
offence
In the hearts of many, and the tool I will use is the pretence
Of the ones who were supposed to present
A shield of defence
And build a wall of fence
Around the vulnerable ones who came into the presence
Of God to bask in its holy ambience

Like osmosis, I won’t be loud or obvious
As I let the juiccccccceeeeeee
Of gossip and backbiting
Find its way into the nooks and crannies of the body

For the singular body
As the rejection of her church brethren
Messes up with her mind
Toils with the sermons and messages that had been planted in her heart
Becomes bitterness and hatred within her
And all these become a heavy load too weighty for her
To carry
till her…
Spine begins to curve as a result of the burden
She is carrying
And poof!
She is back to the very point
Where she came from
Another victory for me
If only they could see
How I used them to play the Pharisee

For the corporate body
As I begin to cause a crack here
A break there
As the osmotic juice
Of my offence does its work till it finds itself at the deepest root
Causing it to suddenly pop! And explode like a grenade
So loud that unbelievers outside begin to wonder the cause of this charade
Making the believers look like clowns similar to the ones at a carnival’s parade
Thereby rendering them powerless
Clueless
And useless
Till they become like salt so tasteless

Then when my osmosis has taken its full effect
I’m going to make use of diffusion
To disseminate the poisonous gas of lies and deceit
using the ones who became disjointed from the body
Due to the offence
They experienced
From the hands of the ones who were supposed to be their father’s physical evidence

Then I’m going to take their case
To the presence of their father
And ask ‘are these
The people for whom you died on the cross
See how they make a mockery of your blood
Cos they’ll rather feed themselves than care about souls lost

And then I’ll pray
Pray in my own name
That unlike the case of job,
This time, their father would just give up on them
So I can have the liberty to crush them

I’m going to Cause Chaos to Cruise the Coast of the Christians’ Cathedral
Such that they begin to incur the Curse that the Cross of Christ Crossed off over 2000 years ago

I’m going to make them concentrate on charisma rather than character
Such that the concentration of their anointing reminds me of excessively diluted tasty time juice in the hand of a broke boarding house student

By this time, I’d have bound their wrists
Clip their fingers
Shackled their feet
Sealed their lips
Gorged their eyes
Plugged their ears
That they’ll look so beautiful
Yet remain like powerless statues
Till they become mere tourist attractions like Egyptian mummies

They’ll be so lukewarm
And would have become as bland as an over-chewed gum
That even their father would have to spew them
Cos after all, even he if denies me, he can’t deny the words in his literary emblem
Since he had already warned them

So I am going to silence the church
And of my many plans, I have told you a bit much
The question is…
will you be defiant and continue trying to spread the gospel of your father’s salvation
Or assist me in my unrelenting mission

By Atilola Moronfolu

Parental Consent turns Deadly

First of all, let me say Happy New Month to you all. I pray June will be a far better month for you than May was. Can I hear an Amen?

Source

I once knew someone who like many people, was not allowed to get married to who he wanted to marry. Now, if you are a Nigerian, you basically know that this is not a new thing, as parental approval is a big deal here.

I asked him why, he said his mum said this girl is not God’s will for him, bla bla bla. His mum goes to CAC (Christ Apostolic Church), and according to him, after some of them prayed, their spirit just didn’t agree with the girl. That was the only reason he gave me.

About three years later, this guy’s sister in law told me that the full reason was that after ‘praying and checking’, it was revealed to them that this girl didn’t have long life in her destiny.

Now here is the thing, by the time the SIL gave me this aspect of the story, the girlfriend in question was already dead! 

She had died about two years earlier after falling ill for some time, and I remember that my friend was devastated, although he did not tell me his family has ‘seen’ that this girl didn’t have long life. I honestly don’t think they told my friend about the long life part until the girl died much later.

So my friend goes ahead with his life, started dating someone he had met a long time ago, proposed to her. The girl later broke the engagement and returned to her ex, in turn breaking my friend’s heart. He picks himself back up after some period of serious bitterness, and was ready to move on again.

And then, one day, my friend was on the road taking something from the back of his car, when an absent-minded driver who was looking at his phone while driving on high speed hits my friend against the boot of the car, killing my friend instantly. My friend was 30 when he died, and his dead girlfriend must have been about 26 when she died.

Now this is what gets me anytime I remember the whole story.

When they were ‘checking the destiny’ of another man’s daughter to see if she was suitable enough for their son, did they ‘check the destiny’ of their own son to see if he was good enough? How come they were spiritual enough to sense that the girl was going to die soon, yet not sensitive enough to know anything about the guy’s short life? If their son had gone ahead to marry his second girlfriend, assuming she had not called off the engagement, and he had died, how would his parents have felt, knowing that the grief they didn’t want their son to go through because of another girl’s impending death is the same grief another woman is now going through because of their son’s death?

This is one thing that has baffled me for long, and honestly, I have no answers, or don’t know why, so I won’t pretend to be wise, and start sharing insights.

But really, my main question is this? How come they saw the girl didn’t have long life, but they never saw it in their own son?

Please, I really want to know what you guys think. Even though you might not have a definite answer, just share your opinion. Gracias.

Drawing the line between Faith and Reality

I went to a gift and interior décor shop to get a table last week. The owner and I eventually got talking about business challenges and cash flow issues, especially for capital intensive businesses like interior décor stores.

Without any exaggeration, the worth of the items in her store couldn’t be less than 5 million naira because we all know how expensive a single glass decoration or table can be.

In the course of discussion, I realised how hardworking and dedicated this woman was, and I knew she was into a very risky venture. I asked myself “what if she loses all these?”

So I said to her “I hope this place is insured sha,” expecting to hear the usual “yes of course. Why won’t it be?”

The way she hesitated and looked at me confirmed my worst fear when she said “Not really. You know, there is SPIRITUAL INSURANCE!”

Someone please slap me now.

Here is this gigantic interior décor store that takes the expanse of a whole flat with massive investment, plus another warehouse of another flat where we went to carry the items I bought, completely uninsured. And she says spiritual insurance.

I didn’t enter the warehouse to carry my items because someone did that for me, but I knew for a fact that it was even worth more than the store I was standing in. So this is a minimum of 10 million we are talking about. I am absolutely sure it is more than that because she has so many items, much more than you can imagine.

I asked her how much insurance would cost her annually, and she said N200,000 (two hundred thousand naira). I spent a quarter of that in her shop, and I know that she makes far more than that in a day. I said “excuse me ma, go and do insurance please.” I said I don’t want an incident that would be causing her to say “had I known.” I said “I think you should transfer that risk now, as soon as possible. This is to big for it not to be insured. Just too big. I am not an insurance agent, and I am not gaining anything from this so just take it as an important piece of advice which you must implement on immediately.”

After mentioning some cash flow issues, she said she would do the insurance. To be honest, I don’t know if she would do it. Even if she does it, she didn’t sound like someone who would do it soon, as she doesn’t see the urgency in it.

I didn’t want to outrightly tell her that “what if your store burns down” so that she wouldn’t say I wish her evil. I could see that her pastor and church sticker was on her entrance door so I was sceptical to talk anyhow to people who use spiritual insurance.

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Now, don’t get me wrong. I am a Christian. Anyone who reads this blog knows that. I pray every day, read my bible every day, etc. Many times, I am engaged in church activities from Friday night to Sunday afternoon. So I don’t think I am really qualified to be called a sceptic or an atheist, though some people would rather label me that because I dare to speak against how some churches are bad neighbours by disturbing people with their loudspeakers at night, in the name of night vigil and stopping people from entering their houses by blocking their gates in residential areas - as if that is what Jesus died for. Anyway, that is another topic on its own because I am sure you can tell how pained I am by this menace.

So my question is this. Do people shun insurance cover because they are Christians? In simple words, should we or should we not insure heavily invested businesses because we have prayed, and covered our businesses with the ‘blood of Jesus’?  When fire outbreaks, flood, natural disasters or robberies occur, is it that the blood of Jesus or spiritual insurance is not at work in that business? Does using insurance cover for your business display a lack of faith?

I know comments here can get controversial because we live in a highly religious society, but let us carefully examine this matter, respecting those who have chosen to solely stick with spiritual insurance and those who have decided to walk by sight by paying the insurance companies.

"I have decided to stop attending church!"

“All these pastors of nowadays sef, all of they are hypocrites, liars. They only want to collect our money. Last week my pastor bought another car, after he just completed his third house, yet many of the church members are homeless. His children are schooling abroad, yet many of the church members cannot afford school fees. The assistant pastor was just uninstalled after he impregnated the worship leader. I wanted to port to my brother’s church, but a soft-sell magazine published a picture of him in Okija shrine last week. I am fed up. All these pastors are just there to make their own lives better by deceiving members of the church. Even the church members nko? That’s a story for another day. These are the end times, and they are all false prophets. In fact, I am no more attending church. After all, I don’t have to attend church to make heaven… bla bla bla, and some more boring blaaa.”

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*Yawns*

Firstly, you agree that you are a Christian, which is why you made these statements above. Who is your God, the pastor or God? Your being a Christian means you are a part of the Kingdom of Christ, right? No matter how you put it, you have a stake in the kingdom.

Imagine you are a part of a company, and some of the managers and even low-level staff have been misbehaving recently, they have been going against company policies. Some have been caught and disgraced, while some have been hiding their acts, but there are snide comments going on about them. On Monday morning, you are still on your bed by 9.00am, then your colleague calls you to ask where you are ‘cause the boss has been fuming about your lateness. Then you tell your colleague you don’t think you will be working anymore because some people have been going against company policies. You are not quitting because of the work, salary or boss’s attitude, but because of your colleagues who are going against the company policies.

Well, that look on your face as you consider the foolish reasons of the worker in question is the same way you should look at yourself if you decide to stop going to church because some pastors and church members are hypocrites, and don’t truly represent the Christ they preach.

YOU are the light of the world. YOU are the salt of the earth. If some people have decided to become rotten eggs, and pollute the work of God, why don’t you be the light you have been called to be, and stand out of the pack. In the body of Christ, everyone should serve in expanding the kingdom one way or the other (not necessarily by being a church worker). If you decide to switch your own light off because someone else is displaying faulty light, you have also contributed to the darkness all around. Why should another person’s light affect your own light?

This indicates the fact that you are going to church to be served, and the moment you found out the people serving you are not really what they portrayed themselves to be, you decide it is time to shift base. If one goes to church to actually serve, then you know that the thought of severing yourself from the body because of the stupidity of other servers will not occur to you, because your own serving has nothing to do with their own serving.

If these are the end times as you say, trust me, a reputable church is where you want to be taking refuge at the moment. As the day goes by, it is getting harder by the day, for Christians to take a stand, so you need to take cover.

The agenda of the devil is to destroy the church (the body, not the building). One of the ways he is trying to do that is to make the church turn against itself. The question is, are you going to help the devil meet this agenda by deserting the church because of what a pastor you trusted did? We all know that when the devil wants to destroy someone, he doesn’t make it very obvious, the first thing he does is to play the isolation card. He isolates you from church, friends, family, etc. and makes you think you can be fine by yourself. By the time problem shows up, you see that you have no covering at all.

If you tell me that you are no more going to church because you are now a Muslim, a Buddhist, atheist, etc. that is a reason that actually makes sense. But to say you will be a Christian, but will dissociate yourself from the church (the body of the one who you claim you serve), because of what some pastors did actually makes no sense at all.

Contrary to what you might think, this is not a post about religion or Christianity. It is more about reasons that make sense or not. And also, I know the truth is that many pastors actually do all sorts, and let power get into their heads. I experienced one of such, and I wrote about it here.

"The reason you have not found any fake thirteen naira note is because there are no originals. No one counterfeits what does not exist. You will find fake hundred naira notes, fake one thousand naira notes, but never a fake three hundred naira note. Any counterfeit you see is evidence that the original exists, even in larger quantities than the fake." (Original quote by Atilola Moronfolu).

The reason there are fake men of God is because there are real men of God. The same way the fake men of God are making you consider leaving the church, let that be the same way the real men of God pull you back to being a strong part of the church.

Instead of us to focus on the fake minority, we can choose to be encouraged by the real men of God out there, and there are still a lot of them.

Drop that attitude about going to church to be served. Go to church, and BE THE LIGHT!

Let's give way for the Man of God

I was rushing to Aloted's super working mum program last Saturday. I was already running late, and I was one of the people selling there, only for me to get to one part of Harvey road, and realise the road could only take one car at at time, because people had double parked on the street.

The first time I got myself into the jam, I and the guy driving in front of me were asked to reverse, so the cars in front of us could pass. We did. After then, we kept driving forward only for us to reach a standstill,

I really did not know what was happening in front, but I suspected it was man-made, and I was so late. I decided to come down from the car, and check what was happening, and I realised it was another dead lock. This time, it was just one car in front of us. The annoying thing was that even if it was just one car, the man refused to reverse. He was expecting us to all reverse for just him. How wise? I looked at him, he was an elderly man, like in his sixties. His face was resolute, and it communicated the statement "I will rather die here than reverse for you guys." So I knew there was no use begging the man.

After thinking of a solution and not being able to come up with one, I talked to the guy in front of me, and asked that if we at the back reverse, would he reverse, and just let the man go? The guy reminded me that we had reversed for some set of people before, and we had to go all the way down. He said what is the probability that if we reverse again, we won't have to reverse a third time. I felt the guy made sense, and for heaven's sake, there was no car at this man's back.

Before I knew it, one lady came from one of the houses on the street, and was like we must reverse. At this point, about two or three people were walking by. I asked her why all of us must be the one to reverse for a single car. She said we must reverse because he is a pastor. Therefore all of us must reverse for him.

People, any time people succeed in shocking me like that, I end up bursting into laughter. The people walking by heard the woman's statement, and one of them looked at me, and we just laughed. I looked at the man again, and behold he has a Bishop's collar on. He was really a pastor. The lady that was talking was one of the church members, and she was just coming out of the church.

I said "So pastors don't reverse." At this point, I was so irritated by her statement, that I determined that we will all sleep here. I went to give my assistant the update. She was like the fact that he is a pastor should be the main reason why he should reverse. This my assistant is one of my teenage students in teens church in my church o. Even she knew that the mentality was not right at all.

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Please, am I missing something here. You blocked all oncoming vehicles with your car, and you refused to reverse despite the fact that there is no car at your back. You kept quiet all through, and couldn't be bothered. And your congregation came and said we must all reverse for you because you are a pastor.

If there is something I am missing, please, feel free to set me right. Abeg.

10 signs that your church is actually a cult

Well, I am back for real. The Guess the Blogger series was a way for me to take a break from blogging, without actually leaving the blog. Genius of me, right? I am sure when you read the title, you were like "Yes, that is the Atilola we know." Abi? Lol. Anyway, if that was not the case for you, I hope by the time you are done with today's post, you will agree that I am back.

So I am starting with my manual-format posts.

Many people are actually attending cults, but think they are going to church. Please, note that cult is not the same as occult, but some cults can be occultic sha. I am not talking of occult in this post, I am talking of cult in general.

So how do you know if your church is actually a cult?

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1. You are not allowed to attend or visit other churches. This is the most obvious sign that your so-called church is a cult. Any church that has it as rule that its members must not set foot in another church is hiding the truth from its members, and is afraid that if they go elsewhere, their eyes might be open, and they would leave the church.

2. Attending other churches or fraternising with other Christian brings consequences like curse from God, poverty, etc. Since they cannot police their congregation, they often put a leash on them by threatening strange curses from God on them, should they leave the church, and go as far as invoking it.

3. The pastor does strange things like making church members bear his surname, sleep with several female church members without hiding it, and having several members as wives. This is self-explanatory enough. Many of these leaders are extremely charismatic. Many times, the leader sees the congregation as his followers or children. In many cases, the leader likes to sleep around, and even justifies his actions using anything he can lay his hands on.

4. There are rules in the church that are not in the Bible. Many of their doctrines are nowhere in the Bible.

5. Apart from the general bible, they have another bible, and another set of commandments that guard the doctrine of the church. Most times, in other to support the strange doctrines in number 4, they just have another book guiding them, along with the Bible.

6. Disobeying those rules leads to physical punishments like getting whipped, up to extreme ones like breaking a finger, etc. It doesn't matter your age, the existence of consequences should drive fear into you, and keep you grounded.

7. Sometime, you all live in the same compound or very close proximity to each other. This is done in order to keep tabs on you, and every aspect of your life. It might even be as extreme as you all calling yourselves one big family, you eat together, and put all your money together in order to have one big treasury you all draw money from.

8. You perform strange rituals. This can be one such as you all coming together to eat chicken without cracking the bone, and after, you all bury the bone at a location where you all must walk over. Once you guys jointly do something you feel odd, and don't have the confidence to tell people, it is most likely a strange ritual.

9. You fear the leader more than you fear God. The leader himself feels like God to you, most likely cos he has portrayed himself as the sole voice of God, and he is so domineering that you eventually begin to see him as God.

10. The thought of leaving this church drives deadly fear into you. This is because either you feel you will be dead cos they will send someone to kill you, kidnap you, force you back into the church, or even feel God himself will punish you with severe consequences because you left the church. So even though you want to leave, your mind is actually what keeps you there.

Of course, not all cults disguised as churches will have every single quality mentioned above. If your church has even just one of the qualities mentioned above, my dear, pick race. And don't worry, nothing will happen to you.

P.S: If you know Cherrywine, please, give her a hug and slimy wet kiss for me. She hosted me again last week, and I finished her sugar, grapes and moin moin. Isn't she the bomb?

Six ways to become a modern day Marriage Counsellor/Relationship Expert by Atilola Moronfolu

Source

The days of having to spend money going to expensive counselling school in the US is over. Who says you have to waste precious time reading all those books and engaging in those time wasting psycho analysis, just because you want to be a respected marriage counsellor?

There are sure better and faster ways to becoming a marriage or relationship expert, especially in this age when the pressure to get married is so high, and the one to get divorced is even higher, your skills as a relationship expert is definitely going to be worth a lot, especially if you use avenues where people can assess this expertise of your, like the internet.

So here are six sure fast ways to become a marriage or relationship expert

1. Get married

What better way to become a marriage expert than living the experience yourself. Get married, and use your experience as a blanket method to advise everyone. It doesn’t matter if your relationship with your spouse is unique. It doesn’t matter if the person whose relationship problem you are trying to solve is in a courtship with someone who likes beans, while your spouse likes rice. Don’t care about differences in personalities. As long as you are married, whether the marriage is 1 minute old, 1 day old, or 100 years old, you are automatically a relationship expert.

Also, no one cares if you are happy in your marriage, sad, battered, have been keeping malice with your spouse for the past six months or six years. As long you got a ring on your finger, you are automatically are a relationship expert.

2. Get divorced

This is another fast way to be a relationship expert. You are more equipped in recognising the signs of a bad marriage, who not to marry, and who not to date. The more divorces you have on your hands, the more certificates of marriage counselling you are equipped with, the more people respect this expertise of yours. You sure will be getting a lot of sad married women as customers.

So yes go ahead and get divorced. Who says your pain has to be wasted? You can cash out it by becoming a relationship expert.

3. Be a prophet or seer

It doesn’t matter what your state is… rich, poor, tall, short, thin, fat, whatever. As long as you are a prophet, you will be seeing visions that God will reveal to only you. He won’t reveal to either of the parties in the relationship or marriage. After all, they are not blessed with the prophetic gift you have. As long as you are a prophet, God will tell you who kola should or shouldn’t marry, without informing kola. He will tell you how many kids Angela should have, and what she should be cooking for her husband every morning and night.

In fact when you are a prophet, you will become a relationship expert with the highest form of control, as we give great respect to our prophets on this side of the world. So yes, become a prophet/seer to be a counsellor, and if you can’t become one, lie that you are one. it’s really difficult to know the difference. Trust me.

4. Be a modern day pastor

This is another relationship expert that has almost as much control as the prophet. It doesn’t matter when you were ordained pastor, or what ministry you were called to. Whether your calling is warfare, deliverance, holiness preaching, prosperity preaching, motivational preaching, or any other specific one God calls pastors to concentrate on. As long as you are a pastor, you are a qualified marriage counsellor. Your congregation will not even be bothered about how you treat your wife, whether you love her like Christ loves the church, whether you beat her, or belt her, whether you give attention to your kids, or put the church before your family. No one cares.

It will also do you good not to address the issues when your sheep come running to you when there is a problem in their relationship or marriage. Just tell them that what God wants is for them to go back home, and close your eyes to the real issues. Once you are pastor-something, you are an automatic marriage counsellor and relationship expert. And the good thing is that the ladies will love you, especially the ones who have a problem in their marriage. The thing is, you must be careful lest you are tempted to fill the vacuum their husbands have refused to fill, so you won’t be relieved from your pastoral responsibilities, and lose that precious relationship expert certificate, and you will have to stop practising.

5. Be a musician or any other kind of celebrity

Once you are a musician, and have the ability to spew words, add beats to them, and get a dead club jamming, you are automatically a relationship expert. Go on twitter, Facebook, etc., and let the whole world know your opinion about relationships and marriages. Your ever-loyal twitter followers and Facebook fans will be sure to spread your sagacious words to the public. It doesn’t matter whether you are married, single, or divorced, holy or a saint, frat member or cultist, whether you lick tom-tom, or smoke weed publicly, sing meaningful songs or thrashy meaningless songs, or whatever. As long as you are a celebrity, the world will respect the fact that you could rise above many and become famous, however you were able to achieve that. You will automatically be respected as a relationship expert and marriage counsellor.

6. Be a blogger/commenter

If you can’t do any of the above for now, start a blog… any kind of blog, but romance blog or occasional romance articles will work best in your interest. You can either be a known face or anonymous. We don’t care. As long as you can drive traffic to your blog, we will see you as a relationship expert. Start a 'ask the blogger' series, advise us, tell us what you feel is right about sex and courtship, it would even do you good to be forceful about it. We really don’t care about your credentials or history. The fact that you are only accessible online will prevent people who don’t agree with your views from stoning you.

If you are too lazy to start a romance blog, just become a regular commenter on such blogs. As long as you are consistent in commenting on such blogs, you will be noticed, and recognised as a marriage counsellor and relationship expert.

So yes, these are six ways to drive the marriage counselling experts out of business. Pick the one most convenient for you and you are sure to be cashing in some bucks very soon.

Atilola’s words.

This article wasn’t written to diss any particular person, so if anyone feels am talking to them or anyone, you are wrongly mistaken, and I am sorry for the misunderstanding.

I wrote this post because I noticed that in recent times, everyone has become a relationship expert, which is ironic because, the more these so-called expert advices are flying around, the more relationships and marriage are failing.

My own opinion is that marriage is a good thing, and God is the author of marriage. If you have problem with your Honda car, you would most likely take it to 'The Honda Place' for repairs if you can afford it. So why is it that now that we are having problems with courtship and marriage, we are not turning to God, the manufacturer, for help? We would rather listen to the six personalities mentioned above, people who might even be in the same problem or worse than us.

Counselling is good and necessary at times, but choose your counsellors wisely. 

The Atheist! by Atilola Moronfolu

I am happy to announce that I have started submitting some of the writing assignments you guys gave me in this post. If I haven't submitted your assignment, just know that I am either working on it, or would get to it sooner or later. But one thing is for sure, I would do it and get to you sooner than you expect. If you did not give me any assignment, and would want to add yours, please, feel free. I would really love to write for you.

When I wrote The Atheist, I had more of spoken word, rather than poetry, in mind. Reason for the long sentences and the nature. I might still change the title. If you have a title in mind, you can suggest. Thanks.

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You called me an atheist and said I deserve a punch

Just because I highlighted the hypocrisy in the new generation church

I choose to speak against this myopic label

Cos as we know, atheism is synonymous to being a rebel

You said I look at the church with a funny philosophical light

Because I complained about the five loudspeakers blazing through my window every Friday night.

My ear drums have bursted, I can no longer hear my pastor’s sermon on Sunday morning right

Nor sing praise and worship, without my head feeling light

Should I tell you the stories of how God miraculously saved me from the throes of death

Or how he lifted me on high and made my enemies fret

Are you with me when I cry out in worship and praise every morning and night

Do you ever wonder how come I spit Isaiah 60 like fire and rhyme it tight

Oooh oohh, I guess you thought my sudden upliftment was by the works of my hands?

It was nothing but a quantum leap effected by the Grace of God pulling the right strands

Of course you don’t know this, cos to me you choose to act like a Pharisee

And take what you don't know less important than what you see

You just call me an atheist because I speak the language of God instead of religion

And refuse to join the people who claim to be many, for their name is legion

Don’t get it twisted, God called me the Light of the World

That’s why I get restless when everything goes wrong with the world

I am not bitter, I am not sad, and very far from evil

After all, when Jesus spoke against the Pharisees, he was called a devil

If you know what God has done for me, you would never call me an atheist

Instead, you would face the pastor who chose to be a rapist

The masochist

And the one who chose to speak to his wife with his fist

So pardon me for the choice of where I flash my torch

Even if for now, its beam seems to rest on the church

On fire + Akanni Street - Spoken Word by Atilola Moronfolu

I thank you guys that rose to the occasion of helping me in the previous post. I have complied the suggestion and came up with just thirteen topics. This means I still have a long way to go so please and please, I still need your ideas oo. Click here to read and help if you don't know what I am talking about.

Yesterday was not a good day for me at all but I thank God that I am alive and kicking sha. Part of my car caught fire and burnt. I was so weak. Good Samaritans came to help me put the fire out. For the first time ever, I realised I did not have a fire extinguisher. A trailer on the other side of the express parked and passed his extinguisher to my side. I was too shocked to do anything reasonable. People helped me put the fire out and pushed my car to one side of the express. There are still good people in Lagos o, don't listen to everything you hear.

This incident has affected my schedule a great deal. I am supposed to have a reading at the US Embassy this afternoon, but I will be absent. Yes, I know its somehow , but if it were worse nko? From there, I am supposed to be at another reading event at Maryland in the evening. I can't even imagine going to the island in a cab at this period when third mainland bridge is being renovated. I can't be doing my normal up and down in this Lagos without a car as I spend 90% of my working hours on the road.

I decided to just sit at home and sulk a bit, then take time to thank God that my life was spared cos I believe my brain actually disconnected for some seconds as I did not seem to know how to unlock my door and get out. I was just praying for God not to allow the car explode. I am taking today to replace the burnt parts cos it must be ready today. Yes it will cost me some money, but meehhhnnn, I just have to close my eyes and do it, even if I might have to drink garri for a while. Another good news is that the car engine was spared.

Away from the bad news, lemme cheer myself up a bit. The video below was supposed to be a normal poetry reading, but it turned out to be something else, Maybe it was because of the topic or because of the way I read it. I think I read it as if the issue pains me, because sometimes it does. In fact, this particular poetry and video is what some people saw before I was invited to the US consulate to read some of my works, and they asked me to do this again there.

Some of you might remember when I posted the poetry version on this blog last year, as it attracted loads of comments.

Watch what happens in the middle of the reading. Even though the stuff wasn’t funny to me, I ended up being infected as I had to start all over again.

Memoirs of a Lagos Bus Beggar

Hi people, how’s the week going? As for the final entry game, from the way things were going at first, Fire and Brimstone Preacher took the lead. Then all of a sudden, Memoirs of a Lagos Bus Beggar came forth, like an underdog. This shows that anything can happen in this world and that we should never say never, until we get to the finish point. The score at the end was 8 – 7, apparently in favour of t Memoirs of a Lagos Bus Beggar. Enjoy

SORRY! THE POST HAD TO BE TAKEN DOWN AFTER 28 DAYS IN ORDER TO SERVE ITS INTENDED PUBLISHING PURPOSE.

THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING.

Who's Standards?

I have noticed a recent trend, people are getting so impatient with few people that call themselves Christians and their attitude does not show it in any way. Because of this, they have chosen to label all young Christians as hypocrites. Such that if one comes out to say one is a virgin, people not say anything to the person but in their minds, they will say ‘hypocrite’, ‘who cares?’, ‘after all you have done all sorts with your fiancée’, it does not matter whether they know the person or not, they just generalise. It is not impressive that nowadays, a young Christian trying to do right and live holy is not being encouraged but gets cold responses just because of a few bad eggs have given young Christians a bad name.

What about pastors? Many pastors are not true to themselves and have the ‘face of Janus’ as Ibhade will put it. Does that mean all pastors have suddenly become bad? Does that mean all pastors that dress well and drive good cars are now prosperity preachers that have discounted the message of salvation? It is so bad now that no matter the conversation being held, some people have a way of shifting the blame to pastors, even if it has nothing to do with them. When politics is being discussed, they will blame pastors, if it is marriage problems, they will blame pastors, what of poverty, they will blame pastors. I am not saying one should not blame pastor, but please be specific about the pastor you are blaming during discussions. For example, don’t just say ‘pastors are responsible for the bad government in Nigeria because they are keeping quiet and sending their children to good schools with the congregations offering’, let us be specific while accusing. Some people that used to go to church even decided to stop because some pastor disappointed them by falling. I ask, was your faith in the pastor or in God? If the situation was really bad, why don’t you pack your load to another church? Why discount all pastors and stop going to church because of one or two pastors. I can understand if you say you don’t think going to church is important, but most of them say going to church is no more important just because pastors are disappointing and fake. So logically, when pastors were sincere, going to church was important but now that pastors are ‘fake’, going to church is no more important. Is the church the bride of the pastor or the bride of Jesus?

Another thing I like to talk about is the people that talk by faith. If one wants to talk by faith and say ‘I am well’ when one is sick or ‘I am rich’ when one is broke, I don’t think it should be a problem. If one’s faith can carry it, then one should go ahead. The bible says ‘You shall have what you say’ and those people want to have good health and prosperity so they have chosen to speak it. I see no reason why people, especially some Christians should find it annoying. It is okay if one doesn’t believe in it, but one being ‘annoyed’ by it is too extreme. Proverbs 18:21 says death and life lie in the power of the tongue and those that love it shall eat the fruit thereof. Do those people get results? Yes, they do. The truth is that those words energize their faith which makes them believe more and work towards what they desire. To them, it is very simple while to some people, it is some complex shizzle that I don’t even want to begin to explain. I, personally, don’t go on saying I am rich when I am broke, that is because I am not the kind of person that talks about my circumstances to anyone at all. What I do is that I try not to speak negative words when I find myself in unfavourable circumstances. I just try to stay calm and speak positive decrees into the spiritual realm when I am praying, although it might not be easy at times, especially when the situation is so overwhelming.

As I always say, humans are so fickle and we should never live by what pleases people or their standards, because that means we will keep changing to please them. I realized this a long time ago and I have always been a highly misunderstood person, so I am not exactly the kind of person to ‘send’ people’s opinions. I owe no one explanation about the way I live my Christian life because no one set a standard for me, God did.

It is a pity that we live in a world where the Normal become Abnormal and Abnormal has become Normal. So to live upright in this world, whose standard are we to live by? Is it the standard of the people that think all virgins are hypocrites or all pastors are bad? Or is it the standard of the religious fanatics that think my skinny jeans or drooping ear rings is the highway to hell? The truth is that if we depend on people’s opinions, confusion is bound to set in. my advice: search the scriptures and read the word in order to clear the confusion. So I ask again, who’s Standards? God’s standard.

I will appreciate as many comments as I can get on this post and please you do not have to agree with me in anything. After all it is not my standard. Thanks

The Voter and the Missionary

On the day I was trying to do my voters’ registration, one man was having problem scanning his fingerprints. He kept trying and trying but it kept failing, then people started getting restless and later asked him to leave. I really felt bad for the man because he was quiet all through and looked embarrassed. So, one woman said he should check what he is doing wrong, that maybe he did not pray that day or maybe he did not go to church (it was a Sunday). Just as I was wondering what the woman’s issue was, someone gave her a quizzical look. And she looked back and said ‘It is true’. She said she realized that the day people don’t go to church, something bad happen. She gave an example of one time when she rushed out of church so she could get home early, she ended up staying at the bus stop so long that it was until when the service was over that she got a bus. In my mind, I was like 'what'? She had the ‘No trouser, No earring’ look but I couldn’t ascertain which church she attended.

(Picture from evolvefish)

The Bible says that our father in heaven makes rain fall on both the just and the unjust (Matt 5: 45). The fact that someone did not go to church or is not a Christian does not mean his fingerprint should not scan, otherwise only Christians will have the right to vote. Let us face the truth, some of the INEC scanners were not sharp and they had problem scanning fingerprints of old people, including that of Olusegun Obasanjo. Why would someone want to relate everything that happens to religion or righteousness? Some people have just determined to preach heresies whenever they have the opportunity, while some other so-called Christians are just too judgemental, thereby becoming a stumbling block to some people that would want to come to repentance.

When it got to the woman’s turn to register, they asked for her occupation and she said she is a missionary. I thought to myself, 'Figures, some new converts are in trouble'!

So, what is the point?

Ok, so I decided to go to church on this particular Monday evening’s Singles Fellowship (the one where I met The Yuppy Sugar Daddy near), if you want to find out more about The Yuppy Sugar Daddy, click here. I sometimes find Singles Fellowship amusing because different people come for different reasons. Some people come to hear how to improve their relationships, some just came to learn. Some came to look for wives while many more came to look for husbands.


When I got there, they happened to be having prayer meeting because they had been fasting (I use ‘they’ because it is not the church I work with and attend on Sundays but I am a regular member). We were told to pray for the fear of God because one of the major problems Christians were having is that we don't fear God anymore and I was really convicted of this. Niways, a little while later, I was in the ladies washing my hands. Some lady comes in talking on the phone. She was telling the person on the other end that she was in church. She then said she will see the person soon since the service will end by 8.00pm.

I assumed she didn’t know that we were closing 8.30, I wanted to correct her so that she will not unknowingly stand someone up but decided to keep my mouth shut. She ended her call and as she was walking out, she turned up her nose at the phone (you know, the sign that says 'ode, I just deceived you’), I just stood there dumbfounded. I was just wondering, ‘Eeeh eehh, even right in church, she was lying’. She had just prayed about the fear of God. I just wondered... So, what is the point of the whole ‘church thing’?