Foodlum

A spirit having a human experience, I am not sure if I am enjoying it, but taking each day at a time.

[Shawn Ryan @ShawnRyan762]

The Pentagon summoned the Pope's ambassador, told him the United States has the military power to do "whatever it wants," and warned that the Church better take its side.
They even invoked the Avignon Papacy, a dark chapter in history when a government used military force to bend the Church to its will.
So where exactly does this end? If the Pope refuses to fall in line, what's the next move, bomb the Vatican?

https://t.co/Se8uANhf0E

[The Halfway Post @HalfwayPost]

BREAKING: The new Iranian Ayatollah just announced he’ll agree to open the Strait of Hormuz and let all the oil tankers leave the Red Sea in exchange for the US releasing all the Epstein Files with no redactions.

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@Nigerialawyers @asemota hmmm

[dele osunmakinde @deleosunmakinde]

Genuine spiritual experiences are gifts, but they are not governors.
They are given to serve formation, not to replace foundation.

First, receive the experience with gratitude, not entitlement.
An encounter is not proof of maturity, authority, or calling.

It is grace, not graduation.
Second, submit every experience to Scripture.
The Bible does not bow to encounters; encounters bow to the Word.

If an experience cannot sit quietly under Scripture, it must not speak loudly in doctrine.
Third, allow time to test and mature the experience.

Apostle Paul carried a revelation for fourteen years before mentioning it, and even then he restrained its details.
Time exposes whether an experience produces humility, obedience, and Christlikeness, or pride, urgency, and self-importance.
Fourth, do not rush to teach what you have not yet been formed by.

Many errors are born not from false experiences, but from premature interpretation.
What God gives in a moment often requires years to understand rightly.
Fifth, keep experiences in their proper place: secondary, not central.
Experiences may confirm truth, but they must never create truth.

They may encourage faith, but they must never define doctrine.
Sixth, judge the experience by its fruit, not its intensity.
Does it produce deeper love for Christ?
Does it increase reverence for Scripture?
Does it lead to humility, endurance, and service?
Finally, never build identity, authority, or ministry on experiences.

Paul built his ministry on the gospel of Christ crucified and risen, not on what he saw in heaven.
Experiences may visit, but truth must dwell.
Handled rightly, experiences enrich faith.
Handled wrongly, they distort doctrine.
Wisdom is not denying encounters, but governing them under the supremacy of the Word.

[dele osunmakinde @deleosunmakinde]

Groaning is not new.
What is new is what we have done to it.
Scripture treats groaning as sacred weight, not spiritual noise.
Depth, not display.
Meaning, not performance.

Let us restore it.
1.The first dimension of groaning in Scripture is the groaning of oppression .
Israel groaned in Egypt.
Not as a ritual.
Not as a technique.
But as the spontaneous response of crushed humanity under slavery.
Their groaning did not impress God theatrically.
It reached Him judicially.
Exodus says their groaning came up before God and God remembered His covenant.
This groaning is never celebrated.
It is answered.

2. The groaning of the Lord at Lazarus’ tomb
Not hysteria but holy indignation

John records something astonishing.

The Lord groaned in the spirit.
Then He groaned within Himself.

Two movements.
One reality.This was not sorrow alone.
The Lord had already declared Lazarus would rise.

This groaning was not grief.
It was righteous disturbance at death’s tyranny and unbelief’s arrogance.
Notice the restraint.
No shouting.
No shaking.
No dramatic scene.

Groaning stayed internal.
Spirit first.
Then inwardly.The miracle followed authority, not noise.

3. The groaning of creation
The cosmic longing for redemption

Paul widens the lens.The whole creation groans.Not because it lacks faith.
But because it is subjected to futility and awaits liberation.
Creation groans silently.
Yet powerfully.
No spectacle.
No drama.
Just sustained longing for manifestation.

4. The groaning of believers
The intelligent ache of hope
Paul then narrows it.
We who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan within ourselves.
Why.

Because we understand something.

We know this body is a tent.
We know there is a building not made with hands.
We know mortality will be swallowed up by life.

Second Corinthians five explains it with precision.

“For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven.”
2 Corinthians 5:2

This groaning is not desperation.
It is informed hope.

It is not a cry for victory.
It is a longing for consummation.
Again notice the location.
Within ourselves.

Not staged.
Not externalised.
Not weaponised.

5. The groaning of the Holy Spirit
Beyond utterance and performance

Paul reaches the deepest point.

The Holy Spirit helps our infirmities.
He intercedes with groanings that cannot be uttered.

If it cannot be uttered, it cannot be dramatized.
If it cannot be articulated, it cannot be mimicked.

The Spirit’s groaning bypasses language and bypasses flesh.

No volume.
No choreography.
No coaching.

It is divine intelligence praying through human limitation.

The consistent pattern of Scripture
For the Holy Spirit, it cannot be uttered.
For the Lord, it remained in the spirit and within Himself.
For believers, it is within this tent.
For creation, it is silent longing.

Scripture is consistent.
Practice today is not.
Groaning is not noise.
It is weight.

Groaning is not performance.
It is pressure.Groaning is intimacy.

The Greek word Paul uses is stenazō.
It means to sigh inwardly, to be compressed, to experience internal pressure seeking release.

Not screaming.
Not convulsion.
Not spectacle.

Pressure, not performance.
Depth, not drama.

When Scripture wants to describe outward crying, it uses different language.
When it speaks of groaning, it deliberately locates the action inside.

The crisis today
From spirit to flesh.
What began in the spirit has been perfected in the flesh.

What Scripture kept sacred, we have turned into spectacle.
What God kept internal, we have externalised.

Groaning is now taught.
Coached.
Demonstrated.
Rehearsed.

What was never meant to create a scene now depends on one.

When groaning needs a microphone, it has already lost its mystery.
When it needs validation from observers, it has already left the Spirit.

The conclusion
Yes, groaning continues.
But it continues according to pattern.
Not according to culture.
We do not stop groaning.
We restore its location.

[dele osunmakinde @deleosunmakinde]

First, the nature of the warfare

Paul uses the word wrestle not to describe a battle to gain victory, but a contest of resistance within a settled outcome. Wrestling in the Greco-Roman world was not about killing an opponent; it was about forcing a submission. That already tells you something crucial. The enemy Paul describes is not advancing. He is attempting to regain leverage he no longer possesses.

This is why Paul begins with a negation before he lists the realities.

“We do not wrestle against flesh and blood.”

That sentence removes humans, ancestry, bloodlines, cultures, and genealogy from the battlefield. What remains is not people but authority claims. The “but” does not escalate danger; it specifies the category. Paul is saying, if you are going to speak about warfare at all, speak about it accurately.

The rulers, authorities, and powers are not beings ruling believers. They are displaced hierarchies attempting relevance in a world where Christ now reigns. Their influence is not positional; it is persuasive. They operate by suggestion, deception, and accusation, not dominion.

Second, the present status of these powers

Paul is not introducing a new threat in Ephesians 6. He is applying an earlier revelation.

Colossians 2:15 states it plainly:
Christ “disarmed principalities and powers, made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in the cross.”

Disarmed means stripped of weapons. Public spectacle means exposed, not hidden. Triumph means concluded victory, not ongoing contest.

So when Paul names rulers and powers in Ephesians, he is not reversing Colossians. He is assuming it. The enemy still exists, but without legal authority, without weapons, and without position.

That is why Ephesians 1:20–22 matters.
Christ is seated far above all principality, power, might, and dominion.
And Ephesians 2:6 completes the thought.
Believers are seated with Him.

You cannot be wrestling from below what you are seated above.

Third, the nature of the armour

The whole armour of God is not equipment for invasion. It is protection for position.

Notice the absence of offensive weapons aimed at enemies. The armour does not advance territory. It preserves standing.

Truth stabilises the mind.
Righteousness guards the heart, and it is Christ’s righteousness, not yours.
The gospel of peace anchors the feet, not with aggression but with assurance.
Faith extinguishes fiery darts, which are ideas, lies, accusations, and narratives.
Salvation guards consciousness.
The Word is spoken, not to attack demons, but to affirm reality.

This armour is worn by someone who is already in the throne room, not by someone trying to break into it.

Finally, the logic of standing

Paul repeats one command: stand.

Stand against.
Withstand.
Stand.
Stand therefore.

Standing is not passive. It is the posture of someone who refuses displacement. The warfare is not about overthrowing powers; it is about refusing to be talked out of what Christ has already accomplished.

That is why bloodline theology fails.
It pulls believers out of their seat and puts them back on the ground.
It turns disarmed powers into active rulers.
It replaces standing with searching.

A believer does not fight for victory.
A believer stands in victory.

And principalities have nothing left to do but attempt persuasion.
That is the warfare.

[dele osunmakinde @deleosunmakinde]

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood.”

That single line, rightly read, lays to rest the entire architecture of transgenerational curses and bloodline theology. As long as your ancestors were flesh and blood, they are automatically excluded from the theatre of New Testament warfare.

Paul does not say we wrestle also against flesh and blood.
He does not say we wrestle partly against flesh and blood.
He says we do not.

Notice the absoluteness of the language. Warfare for the saints is categorically removed from ancestry, lineage, ethnicity, genetics, family trees, surnames, villages, or bloodlines. Flesh and blood are disqualified as sources, channels, or explanations of spiritual conflict.

This means ancestral narratives cannot be the organising principle of Christian warfare. If your theology still locates warfare in ancestors,read Ephesians 6 again!

And when the epistles teach warfare, they do not teach chasing, binding, travelling, or interrogating bloodlines. They teach one dominant verb, repeated with prophetic insistence.

Stand.

This is where apostolic warfare lives.

First, “that you may be able to withstand”
Ephesians 6:13
“Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.”

Withstand is the Greek word anthistēmi. It means to resist, to oppose, to hold one’s ground. It is not aggressive pursuit. It is refusal to yield territory that has already been secured. You do not withstand an enemy you are trying to defeat. You withstand an enemy who has already been defeated but still attempts pressure.

This is not warfare to win victory.
Second, “and having done all, to stand”
Ephesians 6:13

After everything is done, after prayer, after proclamation, after understanding, the final posture is not movement but immovability

Stand.

This tells you something profound. Nothing else is required to be added. No extra rituals. No supplementary deliverance. No ancestral investigations. When everything is done, what remains is standing in what Christ has already finished.

Third, “stand therefore”
Ephesians 6:14
“Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness.”

Stand therefore means your standing is not casual. It is logical. It is the consequence of something already established. Therefore connects your posture to Christ’s achievement.

Truth is not information here. It is reality as defined by the gospel. Righteousness is not performance. It is position. You do not stand in ancestry. You stand in righteousness. And righteousness is in Christ, not in genealogy.

Fourth, “stand against the wiles of the devil”
Ephesians 6:11
“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

The word wiles is methodeia, strategies, schemes, carefully crafted deceptions. Notice again, the battlefield is not blood. It is belief. The devil’s primary weapon is not ancestral curses. It is doctrinal distortion.

This is why Paul fought doctrinal error more fiercely than demonic manifestations. Because if doctrine is corrupted, believers will surrender ground that was never lost.

And this is why faith is called the shield.
Ephesians 6:16
“Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.”

Fiery darts are not attacks on your village. They are ideas, narratives, teachings, interpretations that attempt to reframe your reality outside Christ. Faith quenches them because faith insists on what Christ has already accomplished.

It is not backward-looking. It is seated-looking.
It is not about breaking curses. It is about refusing lies.
It is not about tracing origins. It is about holding position.

This is why Paul never taught believers to wrestle ancestors. He taught them to stand in Christ.

We wrestle not against flesh and blood.
We stand in the victory of the One who already crushed everything else.

[dele osunmakinde @deleosunmakinde]

Just as in the sciences there are givens, standards that are not debated every time a problem is solved, so it must be in the reading of the epistles. In physics, no one redefines the value of pi for each calculation. No one argues afresh about acceleration due to gravity or the meaning of SI units. Those are settled constants. They form the baseline. Every application, model, or interpretation must align with them. To ignore them is not creativity. It is error.

The epistles operate the same way. They establish givens in the gospel. They define standards in warfare. They lay down a baseline that is minimal, universal, and non negotiable across the entire body of Christ. Any teaching on spiritual warfare that violates these givens is not a deeper insight. It is a departure.

The first given is the finished work of Christ. The epistles do not present the cross as partial, provisional, or symbolic. They present it as decisive. Christ disarmed principalities and powers and made a public spectacle of them. That is not a hope. It is a declaration. Any warfare model that assumes these powers still possess governing authority has already broken the first constant.

The second given is the position of the believer. The epistles repeatedly affirm that believers are seated with Christ in heavenly places, far above all principality, power, might, and dominion. This is not aspirational language. It is positional language. Warfare, therefore, cannot be framed as believers fighting from below. That would contradict the baseline.

The third given is the nature of warfare itself. Paul defines it as standing, resisting, withstanding, and holding fast. He never defines it as chasing, breaking, tracing, or negotiating. The verbs of apostolic warfare are defensive and positional, not investigative and ancestral. This is a constant across the epistles, not a denominational preference.

The fourth given is the enemy’s weapon. Paul is explicit that the fiery darts are quenched by faith and that deception is the primary method of the enemy. The battlefield is the mind. The threat is doctrinal distortion. That is why Paul warns more against false teaching than against demons. Any warfare framework that ignores this and relocates the battle to bloodlines has abandoned the standard.

The fifth given is the armour of God. It is not mystical equipment for cosmic combat. It is the revelation of Christ applied to the believer. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and the Word are not tools to defeat demons. They are means of maintaining posture in a finished victory. Armour protects position. It does not create it.

These are the givens. They are the constants. They are the SI units of New Testament warfare.

Within those constants, pastoral care happens. Growth happens. Minds are renewed. People are helped. But the baseline does not shift to accommodate experience. Experience is interpreted by the givens, not the other way around.

When warfare teaching begins anywhere other than these standards, it becomes speculative. It may sound spiritual. It may even appear effective. But it is no longer apostolic.

In science, ignoring constants leads to wrong conclusions. In theology, ignoring apostolic givens leads to distorted gospels.

The epistles have given us the baseline. Our task is not to improve it, balance it, or update it. Our task is to remain faithful to what has already been given.

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@asemota @Ssaasquatch NPS Score -100

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@StefanGeorgi @godsonmadu

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@tegasupreme Controversy is part of the game-Blatter

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@AffiSupaStar @asemota The Journey of Desire by John Eldredge

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@AbdulMahmud01 Yes sir

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@AbdulMahmud01 The World is Flat hmmmm

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@asemota @Minimaldex Used an adapter

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@tokunbo_wahab @Deshysmalls Good morning sir and well done for doing a great job on keeping Lagos clean.
This should not be happening if we have well trained LASEPA officers within these markets, their job will be daily and not only during mandatory Thursday sanitation days. Thank you sir

[The Independent @Independent]

Flint has finally replaced all of its lead pipes https://t.co/BnoYe67WUv

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@Osi_Suave Uniform not school uniform

[Foodlum @LOlugbenga]

@ChatGPTapp link to Wetransfer,google drive,Dropbox is not working,it has been over 30 minutes trying to download files. Can someone look into this please