WHY CHURCHES DO ALMS IN THE OPEN

IS THE CHURCH REPROBATE?

In my last blog, I did promise that we were going to study bunny issues about the Church of God; I told you that the Church is blatantly violating the word of Christ without giving a damn. In that blog, I posted a LORD’S CHOSEN CHARISMATIC REVIVAL MINISTRY member who physically rejoiced that President Muhammadu Buhari was ill. Besides, I related how a WINNER chapel member claimed that Nigeria is in economic hardship today because Christians voted against Former president, Goodluck Jonathan; and how a pastor friend told me that some church congregations are praying for the President to die. It is unbelievable! But how did the Church get here?

      Before we try to answer that question, I would still want to dwell on other issue in which several congregations in Nigeria and elsewhere are living in blatant violation of Jesus’ teachings. Today we shall look at ALMS GIVING. In Matthew chapter 6:3-4, Jesus clearly aught ‘’therefore when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.’’ (NKJV)The import of this scripture is that Christians must make effort to ensure that their good works are kept secret as much as possible. Christ even used the hand analogy to show that our charitable deeds must be kept deliberately secret, hence He said ‘’your left hand must not know what your right hand does’’.

    Faith in one, I think, presupposes obedience, total obedience to one’s principles. But unfortunately the Church claims to believe in Christ, but doesn’t believe in Christ’s principles. So nowadays, you discover many churches want to show through every available social media how great their church is at helping the less privileged. Everybody is hailing Synagogue Church of all Nations for advertising their ‘great’ alms deeds, so every other church wants to do the same. Christ Embassy, Day Star Christian Assembly, etc have joined in the madness. But anybody who understands the Sermon on the Mount knows that when you do anything in other to be praised for the good you did, you have gotten your reward already. No more God’s reward for such deed.

     But painfully, how many people want the heavenly reward? Even teachers prefer their reward now and here. That is the madness our churches are into. They want to be called ‘the good church’. They want to be in the good book of the government, or they want to be in the good book of sponsors. Shame! Like Christ, I say shame unto any congregation that publicizes whatever good it thinks it has done.

   We need repentance because several churches are in for show and competition. May the good Lord recover the Church, Amen.

  This is the much we can look at today. I plead with you to COMMENT on this issue so we can have a robust discussion. Look forward for more. God bless the Church

Ohimai daniel, ohimaidaniel@yahoo.com, ₊₂₃₄7032452945

A CHOSEN MOPOL CELEBRATES BUHARI ILLNESS

IS THE CHURCH REPROBATE?


I would continue to ask this question over and over again as we watch the Church, and the so called men and children of God continue to descend into the unimaginable and the un-Biblical. Yesterday, i was shocked to hear from a Winner Chapel member, a neighbor that the suffering in Nigeria was a payment for Christians to have voted against a non-christian in the 2015 elections.
   Dissatisfied with that, i went to a pastor friend and rold him what my neighbor said. He confirmed that some churches he knows are even praying for the president to die.

 A CHOOSEN MEMBER CELEBRATING THE SICKNESS OF THE PRESIDENT

I was shocked. Could that actually happen in the Church? It was difficult to believe.
  To crown this abnormality was a Lord's Chosen member who openly clapped and rejoiced when she was told that President Buhari was sick.
    For a Chritian to rejoice that her president is sick is very abnormal to me. It can never be said that a Christian would want the death of a fellow human being to the extent that some even pray to God for another person to die. it is quite disheartning and unbelievable. where did we get it wrong? How did e get here? Didn't  the Bible ask us to pray for our leaders, even our enemies? How did tribalism and politics of biterness sneaked into the Church?
  In my next blogs, i would outline more of the abnormalities in today's Churches. We would see the origin of the Church's woes; and also consider the way out of these aberations
Please follow me so we can consider this together.

An illucidating narrative that would remind you of the exciting village experience( a fiction). Get the book on createspace.com

THE VILLAGE SCHOOL BOY        by Ohimai Daniel

 Holidays period was a period of rest and enjoyment for our counterparts in the city, ours was full of hard labour in the farm and at home. I truly had not noticed how hard my father worked until now. Papa, everyday, woke up before all of us. He did not have any alarm to wake him up, yet he woke up almost at the same time every morning. He woke up before 5am every day. 

      When he woke up, he checked around the house, possibly to see that everything and everybody was intact. When he came to our rooms, he pointed his touch light on our faces. He moved the brimming ray of the touch light from one face to the other like a doctor examining his patients. After Papa had examined his ‘patients’, and was sure they were in good condition, went back to his room. He would later go to the kitchen chimney to get his bitter leave dried root which he used as chewing stick. Papa would bring out this cane-like chewing stick, dip one end into his mouth, chewed this end for about five minutes like young grass cutters battling with cashew stem with their tiny incisors. Once Papa had successfully ground one end of his chewing stick into usable sponge-like form, he started to brush them rigorously against his cola-nut-stained teeth. At various intervals, Papa hit the chewing stick against his seat and blew out particles of the stick. He first stuck out his tongue like when my primary school teacher wanted to pronounce theater sound.

    Papa always did his teeth brushing outside with his big wrapper over his neck down like the Muslim woman I saw the day I followed Mama to Sabo. Once Papa finished brushing, he gulped in a hand-full of water, rinse his mouth, and pour it out; took in another, poured it out; hit the chewing stick against anything available- stool, wall ,etc. papa went in after to put on his farm wears which included a shirt, pair of jean trousers, and a pair of boot. Papa said he preferred jean trousers because it lasted longer than the material trouser. Boot allowed Papa for easy movement in the thorny and stumpy farm. Papa went with a hoe hung on his shoulder, a cutlass on his left hand, and a keg of water balanced on his head; and a burning coal in his armpit, while a bag dangled on his right shoulder.

‘Ejere, Ejere!’, Mama called my elder brother who was still asleep at this time.

‘I don’t know why my husband would always leave to farm without this boy.’, Mama quarreled.

      Papa did not bother us when he went to farm. He allowed us to sleep until we were tired. Was it not Mama, we would not know, possibly, the road to the farm. Although, Papa pointed out that his first son, Ejere must learn the act of farming, ‘but it must be at his pace’, Papa explained. Mama never liked seeing us sleeping while Papa was in the farm. Even if we did not followed Papa to the farm, we should be awake doing house chores. Mama was sweeping the house surroundings with a long broom made from several canes. She usually did this every morning, and I have had to wonder if Mama would sweep all her life.

‘Is your brother awake?’, Mama asked.

‘No ma’, I replied.

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what kind of politics do we play in Nigeria?

THE USE OF THREAT IN NIGERIAN POLITICS

YOU KNOW ME? (photo from web)

Though the 2015 elections has come and gone, yet some of the issues, particularly moral issues, raised by the election have not been critically examined by political commentators and analysts. Before the2015 elections, in a brief with some defunct CPC members who paid him a courtesy call in Kaduna, General Buhari was reported to have said that if what happened in 2011 happened again in 2015 that the Baboons and dogs would be soaked in blood. After that inglorious statement ( yes it was inglorious because the people he actually referred to as baboons and dogs were not the politicians but rather the poor and hapless people in the streets) several other threats were issued by both the PDPs and non-PDPs, warning the presidents not to contest else violence was going to be on the sprawl. The effect of those threats was underestimated until the ex- militants from the Niger Delta began to issue like threats that the nation would know no peace if their kinsman was chicken out of Aso Rock. Throughout the presidential campaign period, political opponents where in flagrant and indiscriminate use of threats and counter threats. The reports of threat SMS messages in some part of the North either threatening voters to stay away from the election or to vote for a particular candidate or party at which violation such people would be severely dealt with, are still fresh in our memories. Being abreast of the post election violence of 2011, several eligible voters moved away in droves from their places of residents to their villages and cities. Those who managed to stay behind completely stayed away from the polling boots. It worked. Mallam el-Rufai corroborated this when he alleged after casting his vote during the April 11^th governorship election that the threat of the PDP was responsible for the voter’s apathy experienced in Kaduna that day. If threat was working during the governorship election as El-Rufai alleged, then it worked during the presidency.

This could be what the Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu wanted to leverage on when he reportedly told Ibo elders to risk being drown in the Lagoon by voting against his anointed candidate, Mr. Ambode of the APC. And on 13^th April 2015, Mr. Ambode was declared winner of the April 11^th governorship election in Lagos state. The rest is history.  

Also, before the rescheduled governorship election in Abia State, the national dailies inundated us with the shameful display of coffin in the streets of Abia where voters were told to vote against Okezie Ikpeazu of the PDP and die. And I don’t know how many people actually risked the death threat.

Based on the Nigerian political topography, ideological and superstitious believes we cannot wish away the effects these crude actions would have on the outcome of elections in Nigeria. For instance, the average Nigerian sees the politicians as demonic blood suckers who would ride on their blood at any giving time for political gains; the average Nigerian believe in the divinity of the Obas in spites of how much the royal thrones have been desecrated by the politicians; the average Nigerian is politically apartheid, and more so when their lives is said to be at risk while performing this ritual that have not in any way better their lives. It is needful to make appropriate legislations banning the use of threat or hate-speech for political gains.

OHIMAI DANIEL, LAGOS

should women hold Church leadership? Learn what a christian author says

          WOMAN AND CHURCH LEADERSHIP.

According to 1CORRITHIANS 14:34, the Bible says, ‘’let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them for to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law. And if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is shame for women to speak in the church. What came the world of God only from you? Or came it unto you only.

    There is an underlying truth behind this biblical injunction from Paul. The church of Corinth was heavily blessed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Like the bible tells us in JAMES 1:17, God does not have preference in His dispatch of good gift. So the Corinth women folk were heavily blessed with diverse gift. This excessive gifting lead to insubordination from them. In most of the church’s services, they indulged in unnecessary arguments, and claims of spiritual information. In spite of the pastor’s effort to put them right, they refused and always claimed that they heard the information from God. But from Paul’s spiritual judgment (1 CORRINTHIANS 2:15), their claims were simply heretic. Now, let’s examine the above claim from our text. THE SIGN OF INSUBORDINATION: ‘’but they are commanded to be under obedience’’ verse 34c; PRETENCE TO LEARN: ‘and if they will learn anything, let them ask their husbands at home’’ verse 35a; CLAIMS THAT GOD SPOKE TO THEM: ‘’what? Came the word of God out from you? Or came it unto you only?’’

      From the above, it could be said that Paul was not against the Women hearing from God, but they should not claim sole possession of this gift. Consequently, Paul was clearly admonishing women to learn. They must not feel that possession of the Holy Ghost or some Spiritual gift is an alternative to knowledge. It is an admonition to all Christians that knowledge supersedes even spiritual gifts. It is the ultimate.
     But if a woman had taken time to learn under an experience tutor, then what stops her from teaching. Note that Paul was not trying to introduce man’s supremacy into Christian worship. He was only admonishing all to learn. In 1 TIMOTHY 2:11, he shows how they must learn. It reads, ‘’let the women LEARN in silence with all subjection.’’ The learning period must be a time of obedience and silence. And why should she learn if she is forbidden or not allowed to teach what she had been taught. Every woman who has taken time to learn can become a teacher herself. 
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