Bunmi O

Chosen. Loved. Purposed

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Only Christians without any depth in their walk with the Holy Spirit argue about "Once saved, always saved vs Severally saved, never saved"
Salvation is a personal matter
Faith is a personal matter
You can receive your own salvation and lose it according to your faith
I have received my own salvation, and I cannot lose it according to my faith
The just shall live by faith
Live by yours, and I will live by mine
If you lose your salvation and you begin to search for it, you can be sure that it is not with me because I have mine.
Search for it among your friends who also have losable salvations
If they lose theirs, they may steal yours and repent later or even take it by force if they are violent enough
If when you read John 3:16, you see there that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and whosoever believes in him shall have "temporary" life, so be it.
We all read the same things, but our interpretations are subject to our biases
What you cannot do is ask me not to see that the scripture said "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes ih him shall have eternal life"
It is temporary to you
It is eternal to me
Just like love
Some can only love you for now
Some can love you for now and always
I understand those who cannot believe in the eternal nature of the finished works of Christ
I wonder why they don't understand those who believe in eternal salvation
Maybe eternal salvation offers a wisdom and a depth of love and understanding that temporary salvation does not offer.
Temporary salvation means you can never enter into the realm of the saved and just with confidence
Your visa might be revoked at any time and for any reason if you ever do anything wrong
For those of us with eternal salvation, we are citizens of Zion, ambassadors of Christ, and we walk boldly into the throne of Grace and obtain mercy whenever we need it.
This has granted us the confidence that a tourist cannot have
We call heaven home; we are not seeking asylum or vying for a visiting visa
We are citizens of Heaven.

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Fight For Your Destiny

You must not let your current situation determine the whole course of your life.
You must follow the preordained path God has laid down for you in life
While you are still rising on your path to fulfilling your destiny, a lot of people will come in contact with you, and they will make you different kinds of offers.
Some of these offers will look juicy and irresistible
Like a UK citizen offering you a fully paid for house, a home, herself or himself, a soft life and marriage, plus relocation in exchange for you abandoning God's plan for you in order to become his wife or her husband.

You will get juicy offers of employment from oil companies, banks, shipping companies, hotels, and shipping magnates
The offer will be so good that you will be tempted to abandon your carefully chosen paths in God for it

A lady or a man will come from America and offer you marriage on a platter.
Another person will come with money seeking to buy you out of your destiny

Some people will buy into your vision and then work very hard to manipulate you into incorporating them into your plans and visions

Stay true to the plan of God for your life
Stay the course
Don't waver
Don't fall for the senses like Esau or for appearances like Cain
Keep a straight line for your feet
Be determined to gain destiny rather than please anyone.

People will leave you
Those who left you will say nasty things about you
Keep your eyes on destiny
Keep your eyes on the work God has committed to your hands
This is very important

Some friends will reach out to you out of the goodness of their hearts
They will offer a soft landing
Some will say, "Let us start a venture together."
Your wife or husband might mount pressure on you
"Abandon this project, leave this pipe dream, go and hustle with real men."

Money is a short-term satisfier
Sometimes choosing it literally means condemning yourself to a lifetime of sorrow and regret
It is not every time that you pursue money that you will find it, but if you pursue your destiny, you will surely be rich.
Stay the course.
,
There are people who are just lazy and unwilling to do anything with their lives
They claim to be busy, but they are doing nothing
Their lives are littered with excuses and all they do is wait for something good to happen to them or break their way
Children of chance and blind hope
Laggards, gamblers and panhandlers
This message is not for them

This message is for my kind
Those who stay awake all night because purpose would not let them sleep
Those who work without any expectation of getting paid because their dreams are too big to leave to chance
Those who would compose songs, write, prepare pitches, see clear visions of the possible and the impossible in their minds, and are doing everything to birth it

If you are on track, you will know it
Moneybags will court you
The rich will flock to you
They will offer to you while you are yet small and growing
Don't sell
Don't relocate
Don't get married to any of them

Live your life on your terms
When the vision you see materializes and it will
You will have your choice of all things and live your life to the fullest
Dont settle for less when you can have all
Please, fight for your destiny.

-GSW-

[Bunmi O @bunmilicious1]

The Church needs to wake up. Who benefits from the division in the Body of Christ? The enemy. What happens? Rather than healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers and casting out demons, souls lie in oppression under the shackles of wickedness. Bride of Christ, wake up!

[Bunmi O @bunmilicious1]

“And we no longer see each other in our former state—Jew or non-Jew, rich or poor, male or female—because we’re all one through our union with Jesus Christ.”
Galatians 3:28 TPT

There is no Black Christian or White Christian. We are Christians. Put race away. Be a Christian.

[Bunmi O @bunmilicious1]

“Don't be like the people of this world, but let God change the way you think. Then you will know how to do everything that is good and pleasing to him.”
Romans 12:2 CEV

The way God changes the way you think is through the Holy Spirit and the Bible. Read it. Meditate. Speak it

[Bishop Mike Okonkwo @drmikeokonkwo]

That’s the Gospel… the over-the-top, almost too-good-to-be true message of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice for man, as a demonstration of God’s love.

The Gospel is entirely premised on the unconditional, irrevocable, irrepressible, immeasurable, irrefutable, irresistible, unquantifiable, blood-bought and iron-clad love of God for man. He loved us when we were unlovable – sworn enemies (Rom. 5:8).

It is about what God has already done for man – you and I, in Christ Jesus through His death, burial and resurrection, and not what we can do for Him.

As mortals, we could never measure up to God’s standard of righteousness, but when we believe and receive Christ’s life in salvation, He becomes our qualification, and we become the righteousness of God IN HIM (2 Cor. 5:21). We have put on Christ (Gal. 3:26-27).

Beloved, Jesus is your qualification; Jesus is your reputation as a believer.

Therefore, whenever we approach God, we approach Him as Christ, because we are in Him, and as He is, so are we in this world (2 Cor. 5:17-21; 1 John 4:17-18).

Having this understanding gives the believer confidence, boldness before God, and an assurance that you can never be denied (Heb. 4:14-16). It frees you from the never-ending human cycle of “performance”, that typifies the life of many believers, who are sadly struggling with their Christianity, and can’t discern THE Way out.

In God’s Kingdom, we don’t “see to believe”; we “believe to see”, because the “just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17), meaning that as a believer, your reality is not your physical experience, but rather what God has declared concerning you in Christ, which is perfected in eternity.

Therefore, against contradictory physical evidence, boldly declare that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, even when your behaviour is yet to align to that spiritual reality. Right believing births right behaviour.

This is the Gospel; Jesus is not waiting for you to clean yourself up first, before you can come to Him. We can never clean ourselves up by ourselves; if we could, then Jesus would never have come (Luke 5:27-32).

Sad to say, this is what religion has always taught, reason why many continue to strive zealously, yet never attain.

As a believer, you must first accept who He has called you – His Righteousness, before it will manifest. You must learn to “Accept your acceptance”, and stop believing the enemy’s lies. God has accepted you in Christ. That’s where it begins.

It doesn’t matter how “bad” you are, the transformative power in Christ’s redemptive sacrifice is far greater! Sadly, we are yet to come into appreciable understanding of what Jesus accomplished for us at Calvary, reason why we think that we can sustain what we never initiated.

Salvation was, is and will always be God’s idea, and not yours. How then can you as a mortal, establish the “terms and conditions” that guide its operation? As far as God is concerned, all He requires you to do is to BELIEVE — believe what He has done for you in Christ, and receive it to become it (John 1:12-13; John 6:28).

Beloved, all God requires of you, is that you look to His Son, Jesus, and see (understand, take cognisance of, appreciate) all that He has done for you — it’s already done! (John 19:30).

As you behold Him, stand indefatigably in the truth of what He accomplished for you, claiming it as your reality, and the Holy Spirit will do the work of transformation in you (2 Cor. 3:18).

The Gospel is ALL about Him and not us, lest any man should boast.

Eph. 2:7-10 MSG
“Now God has us where he wants us, with all the time in this world and the next to shower grace and kindness upon us in Christ Jesus. Saving is all his idea, and all his work. All we do is trust him enough to let him do it. It’s God’s gift from start to finish! We don’t play the major role. If we did, we’d probably go around bragging that we’d done the whole thing! No, we neither make nor save ourselves. God does both the making and saving...”

BMO

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

I believe, I become and I do

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

The Banquet

(This is a supernatural memo, coded for the called, a mystery to the crowd)

I share a banquet table with friends all the time
We are having that kind of a year
A year of feasting
We will usually have a fellowship meeting and as the meeting is ending we will most likely be heading for a feast
We dine at the best restaurants and company is always splendid
We were fulfilling prophecy and bringing hope to a nation that somehow found itself trudging through a season of famine
It is logical for the church to declare a fast in the time of famine
The Lord told us in January 2023 that we are coming into an eight-year period of abundance
Nothing we see in the physical and our environment suggests it
But we have seen a prophet fed by ravens in the season of famine
We have seen a widow and her son sustained by the word of a prophet
We have seen another widow producing several drums of oil out of a little bottle
We have seen thousands fed by a few loaves of bread and some fishes
We have seen words spoken in the middle of the night producing a city in two years
We cannot look at the prevailing wind on the outside
We have to observe the wind of the Spirit dominating through us on the inside
As I sat across the table at the latest feast we had, the Lord began to speak to me
He said "Don't eat and drink in this feast, don't also engage your friends in a conversation. Just sit still and observe the radiance in the faces of my children.
And then the table we were sitting on, which was not so big began to expand in my sight and it became a whole banquet hall
(Now we were at a party and we had our own table, so this was not a restaurant or an eatery)
Obviously, now I was seeing a vision
So I sat there
The Lord said look at the tables I have prepared before you, be sure I have forgotten no one
(Now I don't know every member of the ministry personally, I am however familiar with many and I began to look around the table for them. I was sure if I could find them, they, in turn, would be able to account for others who are in their teams or their immediate sphere of influence. That way, everybody will be accounted for)
On that first table, I saw names carefully written on golden place cards, placed on the table in front of each seat, so that everyone knew where to seat
Surprisingly everyone was present at this feast, including old friends and even some whom I had lost contact with or fallen out with due to one reason or the other
The room was filled up to the last name, for everyone invited to this feast was present
It was a feast with the King, none dare turn it down
Then the Lord said "Walk with me as I walk in the midst of my people"
Then we began this walk through the hall
For every table, as we walked through, the guests would stand and the Lord would greet them one by one by name. In some cases, he would mention things about them that made their faces brighten up especially because it showed them that he was mindful of them and he remembered intimate details about them
We got to a table and the Lord turned to me and said "Now, cheer up, why were you looking gloomy?"
I said "Oh, it is because of my friends, the ones that saw you and brightened up but when they saw me they looked disappointed"
The Lord said "They loved you much more than most. What you saw in their faces was not a look of disappointment, it was a look of concern and hurt that came from a place of love"
"How can I make it right?" I asked
The Lord didn't say a word, he just walked on, smiling. shaking the hands of some and tapping the shoulders of others before engulfing them in his warm embrace
Then he looked at me and said "Cheer up then, this look does not befit a feast, why are you sulking?"
I was not sulking, I was about to do that justifying thing that we do when we need help after trying to solve difficult puzzles by ourselves and discovering that the puzzles were more difficult than we envisaged.
I was about to vent my frustrations
The Lord said, "Alright then, out with it..."
I said "I miss my friends, I have managed to keep many but I have lost some along the way. Some had kept me at arm's length and I have kept others at arm's length deliberately. Some wanted more attention than I could spare them and others whom I gave my attention abused it and used that privilege to hurt me while pretending they cared.
It was the most challenging bit of my journey and It hurts
The Lord said "You lot and your sentiments, it is what makes you so unique among all of creation. The fact that your weakness is also your strength.
He was like God and yet wanted to be like God, a paradox, don't you think?
She was loved and yet she was craving for love. He tells her he loves her, and she knows this to be true but the kind of love she craves is not the kind of love he is offering
He was offering the stable, responsible and encompassing love of a husband, she was craving the hot, passionate, quickened and reckless love of a lover
She knows the second love is not sustainable or reasonable and without the first love, she wouldn't even dare to crave the second because it was the first love that brought her to the place of fulfilment that led her to even crave the second.
She takes the second and then it dawns on her, like a child who wishes his mother dead only to discover after her mother had died that she could not wish her back to life, that she was satisfied with the first and was only consumed by lust for the second
Lust ruins love and so she lost out on the real because she was chasing an illusion
This has always been the undoing of your kind
You want the past to be present and you want the future to be present while also desiring the present to be present
You forget time is a continuum and until you have come to a place of timelessness, it is the coming and the going of people into and out of your life that marks the beginning of eras and their ending
You must learn to deal with this and to master it
Now cheer up, we have much ground to cover before the feast begins"
Sometimes being with the Lord, even in a vision is a mind-boggling experience, you expect your spirit to have instant comprehension of all things but you find yourself reeling at the depth of His unfathomable wisdom for months after your encounter with Him
We got to a table, there were eight seats and all of them were empty
Curiously enough all the place cards were present and the table was of another colour and shade of gold than the rest
The Lord said "Here, in this banquet, I have invited some witnesses, they know this terrain and their insight can be of great help to you in those areas where you struggle, especially in dealing with issues of your fellow saints and those who yet to be saints but have been drawn into the same space with you"
Just then the witnesses arrived and the Lord hugged them as they sat one after the other
There were seven of them, even though there were eight chairs
The Lord said "Always keep a seat unoccupied at their table, they do not stand to talk to the saints and when any saint approaches their table, he must be seated in silence in order to learn of their wisdom and glean of their experiences.
They know the question but you must learn how to get the answers in silence.
By this time we were back at our table and the feast began in earnest
I heard a voice saying "They are calling us to a dance" and I came out of the open vision
There was music and conversation all around me
We stood up to dance
Before I arrived at the event I had been driving all about the venue thinking about a particular puzzle I sincerely wanted to solve
It had been on my mind for over a year and I was determined to resolve it once and for all
As soon as we stood up to dance, I realised the puzzle was gone from my heart
It didn't have the kind of weight it had before that moment
It just lost its power to matter
Awesome.
The dance was good
I felt like I was in a crowd for hours after
I mean hours after I had left the event and gotten back to my house
The presence of the feast and the feasters, the banquet and the witnesses were still as real and as heavy as it felt when I was at the party.
11/04/2024

PS: We will be having our Banquet of Praise tonight
All those He had joined unto me in fellowship were fully accounted for
Praise be to the One who is walking in between the Menorah (The seven golden lampstands while appraising His church)
It is the Month of April and today we have our global communion service
It is not religion, it is a lifestyle
So we do tonight's communion service in style
We will pray in the Spirit, we will read the scriptures, we will share testimonies to His praise and then we will break bread
There is a secret to how soft the earth has been under our feet as we followed the leading of the Holy Spirit in all that we do
There is a secret to our prosperity as a fellowship of His Kind
We do the things of the Spirit as it is done in the Spirit and as taught by the Holy Spirit
Make sure you have your communion emblems or even a hearty meal close by
Psalm 50 will be the light as we ascend to the place of His feet
Read it and meditate on it throughout today
The deep has called, let the deep answer

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Until Death Do Us Part?
To Vow or Not to Vow

The standard line is included in many traditional Christian marriage ceremonies, but what does it really mean?
In this article, I will try to trace its origin and put many things in context.
I believe a Christian has a right to investigate what he or she believes and make informed decisions based on the truth rather than coercion or deception
Blind faith is only applicable to the dealings between a believer and God, when it comes to the doctrines of men, a believer must investigate and stand firm on what is true.

Romans 7
Released From the Law, Bound to Christ
7 Do you not know, brothers and sisters—for I am speaking to those who know the law—that the law has authority over someone only as long as that person lives? 2 For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. 3 So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man.
4 So, my brothers and sisters, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God. 5 For when we were in the realm of the flesh,[a] the sinful passions aroused by the law were at work in us, so that we bore fruit for death. 6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code.

Pay attention to verse 2 above, it starts with BY LAW (referring to the law of Moses), then it says a MARRIED WOMAN is bound to her husband as long as he is alive but if her husband dies she is RELEASED from the law that binds her to him.

Did you notice that nothing was mentioned about the MARRIED MAN being bound to his wife in like manner?

I am not being disingenuous, or deliberately trying to twist what was clearly written in the Bible so that it will look to mean something else, I am deliberately drawing our attention to the culture and tradition of the JEWS under the LAW which typically binds the woman to her husband or her father in all circumstances.

Numbers 30:10-16 The Message (MSG)
“When a woman who is living with her husband makes a vow or takes a pledge under oath and her husband hears about it but says nothing and doesn’t say she can’t do it, then all her vows and pledges are valid. But if her husband cancels them when he hears about them, then none of the vows and pledges that she made are binding. Her husband has canceled them and GOD will release her. Any vow and pledge that she makes that may be to her detriment can be either affirmed or annulled by her husband. But if her husband is silent and doesn’t speak up day after day, he confirms her vows and pledges—she has to make good on them. By saying nothing to her when he hears of them, he binds her to them. If, however, he cancels them sometime after he hears of them, he takes her guilt on himself.” These are the rules that GOD gave Moses regarding conduct between a man and his wife and between a father and his young daughter who is still living at home.

The husband was not considered bound to his wife till death because according to Jewish laws and traditions, the husband can marry more than one wife if he chooses
In this polygamous setting and agreements, only the husband can initiate a divorce and when he does this he will give the woman a bill of divorcement

Deuteronomy 24:1-2 King James Version (KJV)

When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.

This bill of divorcement can only be issued by the husband as we can see in the passage above, the wife was clearly the only one bound to the husband in this vow and her fate is determined by only her husband.

She had no say in the matter
She cannot initiate a divorce and while she is alive, she is bound to him till death but he is not bound to only her
He can be bound to another woman in marriage too

Exodus 21: 7 “If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as male servants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself,[b] he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

Deuteronomy 21: 15 If a man has two wives, and he loves one but not the other, and both bear him sons but the firstborn is the son of the wife he does not love, 16 when he wills his property to his sons, he must not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the wife he loves in preference to his actual firstborn, the son of the wife he does not love. 17 He must acknowledge the son of his unloved wife as the firstborn by giving him a double share of all he has. That son is the first sign of his father’s strength. The right of the firstborn belongs to him.

The scriptures above both made it clear that in Jewish societies as at the time of the law, the husband can be bound to more than one woman while the woman is only bound by marriage to her husband until death do them part or until he gives her a bill of divorcement and puts her away.

The wedding vows as practised in most English-speaking countries derive ultimately from the Sarum rite of mediaeval England. The first part of the vows of the Sarum rite is given in Latin, but is instructed to be said by the priest "in linguam materna", i.e. in the "mother tongue" of those present.

(Sarum Rite or Sarum Use is the manner of regulating the details of the Roman Liturgy that obtained in pre-Reformation times in the south of England and was thence propagated over the greater part of Scotland and of Ireland. Other, though not very dissimilar Uses, those of York, Lincoln, Bangor, and Hereford, prevailed in the north of England and in Wales. The Christian Anglo-Saxons knew no other Liturgy than that of the Mother Church of Rome.)

The oldest standard wedding vows can be traced back to the Book of Common Prayer, by Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury: "I, _____, take thee, _____, to be my wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God's holy ordinance." The vows included in that book are derived from the Sarum rite of medieval England, which was originally translated in the earliest versions of the Book of Common Prayer as "to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death us depart." The earlier 1549 version of the Book of Common Prayer retained the "till death us depart" ("depart" here meaning "separate"), changing over as of the 1662 version to read "till death us do part." Eventually, the "us" and "do" were swapped, giving us the modern version: "till death do us part." Remarkably, they've remained much the same ever since.
The Quakers were once even more explicit, with their earliest standard vows directly addressing God's hand in ending a marriage: "Friends, in the fear of the Lord, and before this assembly, I take my friend AB to be my wife, promising, through divine assistance, to be unto her a loving and faithful husband, until it shall please the Lord by death to separate us."
Despite the minor changes in wording, the meaning in the vow is clear — only death (in other words, the interference of God himself) can end a marriage (a Catholic marriage, anyway). It's considered a lifelong commitment, with the marriage pact only able to be broken in death. That's made blatantly clear in Romans 7, which states "[B]y law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law that binds her to him. So then, if she has sexual relations with another man while her husband is still alive, she is called an adulteress. But if her husband dies, she is released from that law and is not an adulteress if she marries another man."
To this day, the Catholic Church doesn't recognize divorce, citing Jesus in Matthew 19 saying that having other relationships after a divorce (except in the case of "sexual immorality") is always adultery: "'Haven't you read,' [Jesus] replied, 'that at the beginning the Creator "made them male and female," and said, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh"? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.'" In this sense, God is basically the third "person" in the marriage, and the only person authorized to undo it.
Unless you're Henry VIII, in which case you refuse the right of the religious leaders to control your life by making you marry someone you dont want to be married to or stay married to someone you don't want to be married to and then choose to walk in the reality of your own destiny di

There's no denying that the "till death do us part" aspect of the traditional wedding vow is restrictive (to put it mildly), at least when it's taken as literally as the religious text on which it's based.
Ironically, matrimony, at first, wasn't religious or legal — the earliest marriages were essentially casual agreements between families or clans, to establish "peaceful relationships, trading relationships, [and] mutual obligations." Marriage wasn't even officially one of the seven sacraments until 1563.

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Genesis 2:24, NKJV)
Keeping It in the Family
The bond between man and wife is considered by many to be the closest tie possible for two human beings, closer even than that between blood relatives. But in many societies through history, two people might share both the marriage bond and blood kinship. Generally, modern people find the idea of marrying a blood relative to be disgusting. Such was not the case, however, among some ancient peoples. In some periods, for example, it was accepted practice for an Egyptian pharaoh to marry his sister. The reason had to do with keeping the royal line pure by not allowing other families to marry in.
Other ancient societies did much the same thing, although the blood connection might not always be so close. The patriarch Abraham’s wife Sarah, for example, was his half-sister. Whether this was common among the early Hebrews is unclear, but both Isaac and Jacob got wives (Rebekah, Rachel, and Leah) from their cousins.
The ancient Greeks also preferred their young people to marry family members. Their reasons, however, seem to have been primarily economic. By marrying cousins or other relatives, farmland was kept in the family, and the clan never saw its ancestral lands end up in the hands of outsiders.
Americans and Europeans up through the early nineteenth century were not always opposed to marrying within the family. European royal families, in particular, tried to find marriage matches from a very restricted group of prospective mates.
At some point, however, the desirability of keeping a line pure or holding onto family property runs head-on into the need for a bigger gene pool. Genetic health problems caused by breeding among relatives can be devastating. A clear example of this was the hemophilia carried in several of the related royal houses of Europe, such as the Russian Romanov family.
He Who Finds a Wife
Not only who a person marries, but how he or she finds that mate has varied greatly in different times and places. Among tribal people, ancient and modern, capturing women from enemies has been a time-honored way of procuring wives. In Roman mythology at one point in their early history, Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, and his followers wanted to marry the daughters of a neighboring tribe, the Sabines. When their request was rejected, the Romans decided on a stratagem. They held a great religious festival and invited the Sabines and other neighbors. At a prearranged signal during the festival, the Romans grabbed the Sabine maidens they wanted and hurried away with them, fighting off any Sabine men who tried to interfere. Eventually, Romulus convinced the women to accept legal marriage, and the two groups peacefully integrated.
A similar situation occurred in the Book of Judges, when the other tribes of Israel decimated the rebellious tribe of Benjamin in war. Their brother Israelites felt sorry for the few surviving Benjamite men and helped them capture girls from another tribe at a religious festival, in order for the Benjamites to produce children and continue to exist as a tribe.
In more modern times, the Comanches and other Plains Indian tribes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries regularly captured women from other tribes and from American and Mexican settlements and made them their wives. Similar examples of gaining wives by capture are fairly common in parts of central and southern Asia. Credible reports of forced marriages of Christian women to Muslim men in Egypt and elsewhere show that the practice is still very much alive.
A different method of obtaining a wife throughout much of history has been by an arranged marriage, with money passing between the parties. The marriage is arranged between the groom or his family and the bride’s family. The two types of money exchange, dowry and bride price, work in different ways. Some societies follow one of the two practices while other societies may use both.
The dowry is money or property that the bride brings from her family into the marriage. It often gives the young couple a start, something to build their household upon, but in other situations, it is simply kept in reserve. Muslim women in some societies wear their dowries around their necks in the form of coin necklaces. In cases where a dowried marriage ends in divorce, the bride takes her dowry and goes home to her family.
The bride price is just what it sounds like. The groom must pay an agreed sum to the bride’s family for the privilege of marrying her. An example of this from the Book of Genesis is Jacob’s years of unpaid work in order to marry Leah and Rachel.
Marriage based simply on the desires of the bride and groom has become almost universal in the Western world only in modern times, but such marriages for love seem to have always existed in individual circumstances. Folklore and traditions in many countries tell of love as the main driving force of marriages
The Many Faces of Marriage
One thing we can all probably agree on is that there’s a lot of disagreement about what properly constitutes a marriage. Although it’s clear that God instituted marriage, in the beginning, there have been differing views about whether weddings are primarily religious or secular events. For much of the early Christian Era, the Church stayed out of weddings and let the state handle the union of man and woman. Finally, sometime after 800 AD, the Church began to perform weddings, and a few centuries later the Catholic Church made marriage one of the sacraments.
Catholic and Protestant differences in their view of marriage became clear from the beginning of the Reformation. Catholics had long seen marriage as somewhat less godly than singleness, and during the Middle Ages it is estimated that 40% or more of men and women remained single, either for spiritual reasons or economic necessity. Martin Luther, however, held the view that marriage was the normal, proper condition of men and women, and it became almost universal among his followers and other groups of Protestants.
Polygamy has been widely accepted in many societies since ancient times. But what exactly is polygamy? Most people have the idea that it means one man has multiple wives at the same time, but polygamy is more generic than that. It means one person (man or woman) having multiple spouses of the opposite sex simultaneously. The term polygyny (literally, “many women”) refers to a man with multiple wives, but in a very few societies, a woman can have multiple husbands at the same time. This latter practice is called polyandry (literally “many men).
One type of marriage that is less prominent now than in the last century is common-law marriage. Basically, a man and woman living together and wanting to consider themselves married, even though they had never gone through a marriage ceremony, would be legally married under common law. Few couples today seem to want the status of marriage unless they have actually gone to the trouble of having a legal ceremony.
The Question of Children
A final aspect of marriage that applies to only a very limited group of people is the responsibility for a marriage to produce an heir. We’re not talking about a family’s heir, but rather an heir to a country’s throne. In other words, this situation involves royal families only. Possibly the most famous such situation occurred in the early 1500s with England’s King Henry VIII.
Henry’s father (Henry VII) had been the final winner in a bloody series of civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses, in which two branches of the English royal family fought it out over which of its members would finally be the unanimously approved monarch. The problem all along had been that no one person had the clear-cut best claim to be the rightful king. To avoid another potential civil war over the throne when he died, Henry VIII wanted to make sure that he had a son. That way, there would be no doubt about who was the rightful heir to the throne. When his first wife, Catherine, couldn’t seem to have a son, Henry started down the road that would eventually bring him to six wives and the country to a new brand of Christianity.
Three centuries later, young Queen Victoria of England faced her own situation of having to produce an heir. Although she didn’t really want to marry, the law actually required her to do so to produce an heir, or she would have lost the throne.

A Final Thought
Marriage has had a multitude of faces during the time that mankind has been on earth. One thing seems certain, however—there is no marriage in heaven and marriage does not determine who gets eternal life or who does not.
It is not a deciding factor as regarding salvation and walking in the supernatural life of God
It is a union between humans, by humans and for humans and there is nothing supernatural about it.

PS: Till death do us part was never in the vows taken by the Jews in the Bible, it was never written in any of the prayers and instructions we saw in the New Testament
It was a vow written by men who took the words of Roman 7 out of context and then applied it broadly to bind a husband and wife together in Holy Matrimony
It is neither evil nor good as the intention of the institution of marriage itself was noble and necessary to build strong and healthy societies
Breaking this vow however, is not cause enough to feel one has become eternally damned and undeserving of salvation
It is a vow nobody should be forced to take, as vows must be a matter of choice and personal determination rather than a religious rite.

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Europe, we are coming!!!!

[Babafemi Oluyemi @YoungFemo_]

MAJORING ON THE MINOR

It was an impromptu visit to a former church where he had friends.

At the end of the service, a friend of His was “conducting a deliverance session” on a lady and He decided not to disturb until they were done.

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Good morning, we will be taking prayer requests today as instructed by the Holy Spirit.
He said to me last year December 19, that we should wait 90 days into the New Year before opening the prayer lines to the public
The first 90 days he said is meant to build ourselves up as ministers and deepen our intimacy with him through our fellowship and by ministering unto The Lord
As many who had followed @GbengaWemimo @officialGSWMI @GswmiFirebrand @gswmicsr65760 @WidowsM36520 @GswmiPC @GSWMI_RNation @GSWMICoZ_ @GSWMI_HealingSc @EuANGELion__ over the years will testify, every Thursday we take prayer requests and we attend to these requests by calling and praying with the individual senders via phone calls from our team of ministers. We also have a 12-6pm prayer line on zoom which you can log in to and participate in the six hour intercessory prayer meeting we hold every Thursday.
We have held these prayers among ourselves as ministers since the beginning of the year without fail, just so that we can grow and be properly prepared to dispense the verities of grace effortlessly.
The first 90 days of the year was very tough for many in Nigeria
In that 90 days we increased our welfare, scholarship, CSR activities, financial support towards widows and missionaries on every side
We didn't want to be the Kind of ministry that would demand for prayer requests when we could help to alleviate the pain and suffering of people by getting directly involved
We paid the school fees of over 200 students and supported over 50 from UNILAG during their examination period with welfare packages
The widows fund was also beefed up and our allowances to them increased by 50%
It was a trying time for the world but in Zion there was more than enough and we made these provisions available to all who cared to seek us out for help.
The good news is, things will get better in the economies of world governments going forward
As usual it will be erratic and all but the people will be able to breathe better
We are hereby moving from meeting basic needs to meeting more important needs relating to our spiritual well being, health, hopes and aspirations of all kinds and the meeting of our expectations as believers. Non Christians are also encouraged to participate, it does not hurt in anyway for us to pray
If you have any prayer request, kindly send it to my DM or the DM of @GswmiFirebrand, you can also send it via Whatsapp/Text messages to me on 08072744871 or to the Firebrand prayer line on 08147862078
You can also send your requests via text messages and emails on [email protected] or [email protected]
Kindly include your name and phone number in the request, if you have a preferred time we should call to pray with you.
When we pray, the supernatural happens.
Let us put this assurance to test today and trust the Holy Spirit to sort out difficult issues within His body effortlessly.
To Join the prayer line on Zoom (This is optional) kindly log in by 12 noon to the link below

Hi there,

GSWMI is inviting you to its weekly 6-hour prayers.

When: Every Thursday
Time: 12:00 PM - 6:00PM West Central Africa
Topic: Firebrand 6-Hour Weekly Prayers

Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://t.co/OY2FdQwSkI

Or join on Telegram via

https://t.co/LQCJwJFuVT

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Meet the Parents

There are tribes in Nigeria that are mean to women marrying into their families by nature
Their daughters are quite loud on X and they always throw words like patriarchy, misogyny etc about even though the wickedness in their heart is second to none
They are the loudest voices when it comes to feminism
The reason they are feminists is not because they like the idea of it but because of the situation they found themselves in as a result of their tribes approach to marriage and relationship issues
It is the only way they can fight the tradition that surrounds their origin
Other tribes have their issues too but with some tribes these issues are so prevalent and predominant, it has rendered many of their ladies husbandless (Not loverless)
I know a very world-renowned Nigerian woman from that part of Nigeria whose younger brother or nephew brought in a fellow graduate of law from the University of Abuja home for marriage
While this woman was working at a very highly rated global establishment, her nephew and family members were still struggling to make ends meet in Nigeria
The Nephew had a girlfriend who had supported him throughout his university days
She paid for their accommodation, feeding, handouts, everything
They lived together in her apartment because he couldn't afford to rent a place of his own
When his aunt was made a minister in the Obasanjo cabinet at the time, the whole family rejoiced
Finally, they had a beacon that is shinning in the high places of power and influence in Nigeria
They graduated form school, went for NYSC and eventually he decided he would bring this young lady home and introduce her to the family
Family here means especially this aunt of his and hen his parents and other relatives
This aunt of his had become the head of the family automatically due to her influence and financial strength
He targeted when this aunt of his would be home so that she can give her blessings to the union
The aunt saw this young woman, her name is Sarah
Sarah is from Niger, I believe (Nupe) Tapa tribe
This aunty who was Harvard-educated and had lived abroad for several years put this lady through the ringer
The lady washed clothes, grinded pepper and beans on the traditional stone grinder, cooked and cleaned and laboured hard for a week
After the week the aunty gave her nephew 20,000 Naira as he was leaving with Sarah
She told her nephew that if he married Sarah she will never be of any help to him all his life
He should just forget he has a family
She is the star of the family
The one the whole family hung their hope on
The guy broke up with Sarah after explaining that he dared not act against the interest and the wishes of his aunt
His aunt had decided that he must pick a wife from their tribe and not a lady from another tribe who does not speak their language or understand their culture
Her crime was neither being uneducated or being rude or not knowing how to handle herself when it comes to keeping a home
Sarah is still alive and well.
She lives in Abuja and she told me this story herself
She is happily married now to a Christian brother with three sons
There is another tradition from these tribes that is very pronounced in the way they treat women
Their husband's properties and all his belongings cannot be inherited by the wife
They keep all documents away from her and would rather marry her traditionally than in court so that she will not have access to the belongings of her husband
The woman is always the outsider and they believe if she inherits their son's wealth after all the investment they had put in their son, she will just carry everything and use it to help her own people
One of them once argued with me on X, that his brother is a businessman and very rich but if he dies, the property by right should come to him and not to his wife because he will then be able to take care of the wife and the late brother's children but if it goes to the wife, it means he will never be able to access his late brother's wealth and she can do anything she desires with it
There is a third one, the way some of these tribes receive their wives to be
When a man brings home a wife to introduce to the family, she immediately becomes everybody's errand girl
They will pile clothes for her to wash (By they, I mean the brother's sisters and mother)
Sisters who are educated, of averagely the same age with her and with almost a similar level of exposure
On X they will be crying about Patriarchy and Misogyny and woman-abuse
In reality, they are the chief abusers of their fellow women
A lady once told me that she and her brother are sharing a room in Lagos
Her brother pays the rent and she sleeps on the small bed on the floor
Then her brother got a girlfriend and whenever he brought the lady home to have sex with, she will have to sleep in the passage
When the brother then took the same lady to the village to introduce to the family, she and her sisters plotted to punish the lady very well for how her brother treated her whenever she came to his apartment in Lagos
The room they gave the lady to sleep in became their play pen
They broke the door knob and could go into the room anytime to do anything they wanted to just make the lady's life difficult
They gave her chores to do until one day she started crying in pain and they all started laughing for joy because they broke her spirit
This same lady was always complaining when she met her boyfriend
She didn't want to be treated the same way she had treated others and was quick to say she cannot take rubbish from his younger ones and mother
Her relationship failed several times and she is now one of the radical feminists online always preaching about men being mean to women
There are so many things that just claiming patriarchy, misogyny and other labels can't really cover
I know a case where the wife-to-be that has been brought home to be introduced to the family cooked, served the dishes, packed plates, washed plates, cleaned the whole house and washed clothes for everybody just because she wanted to marry a wife
And this is not them being mean, this is their tradition especially because her family will demand a humongous bride price and their brother will have to cough out the money
The tribes in Nigeria are many and our cultures are diverse
Going to meet your husband's parents and claiming you cannot dress up for the occasion is foolish
We all watched the Royal Wedding in England recently and we saw how all the celebrities that usually would expose their bodies and wear tattoos and go about naked dressed very elegantly and conducted themselves like nobility for the occasion
If you have nose rings and tongue rings and piercings and tattoos everywhere and your man or woman has chosen to marry you, please for the sake of his or your parent's sanity, sacrifice that one day to cover them up and not wear the rings
If his or her family is highly religious, illiterate, conservative or closed minded, you should not spit in their faces and insist they must bend to your whims and caprices
Being respectful of other people's cultures and belief systems is important
Partners should prepare their partners for the kind of parents they have and the kind of home they came from
If you know your partner and his or her parents are not in good terms, you must try specially not to allow either side to use to score cheap points
Ask a lot of questions before you follow him or her home and make sure the information you get will help you to put the right feet forward
If you are marrying across tribes and languages, make sure you are open-minded and respectful
How they do things somewhere may be an abomination elsewhere
Make sure you avoid folks whose relatives are still very backward and have no enlightenment of modern life, especially if you are not village mentality inclined
Our people from the village have a very different way of thinking and they may end up asking you to do things that you will find very ridiculous
Modern parents are not so hard up
A man in the city will wake up to his son saying "Hi Dad or Good morning Dad"
A man in the village will wake up to his son prostrating and squatting to talk to him
If you know you can't cope with "villageness", don't marry Brother Ike who happens to be the first university graduate and the first member of his family to come to Lagos
You may love him but his family may never catch up to modern reality in your lifetime
Love covers a multitude of faults
If you love a man or a woman, no price is too hard or too much to pay for them
If you don't love such a person you will find yourself gritting your teeth and forcing yourself to carry out the obligations even if it only requires you to drink water

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

The Seven to One Prophecy

The Bible is perfect
The Words in the Bible give us foresight, insight and hindsight so that we have a complete understanding of reality at every point in time
Even though the words of the Bible were written clearly and boldly, many of us subject the words to our personal interpretation or sometimes we act in total disregard to the word and begin an effortless swim against the tide
Reminds me of the days of Jeremiah, he was sent ahead of the time of the exile with only one mission.
The mission was to preserve the legacy of Israel and prepare the Jews for the coming war and their defeat so that they would suffer minimal loss in terms of people and property
He told them not to resist the Babylonians, he told them resisting the Babylonians will only result in pain and catastrophe
He told them to pack their bags and surrender because God had already decreed that for seventy years they will be in exile
He wrote letters to the King through Baruch, his servant
The letter was torn to pieces
When he was told, he wrote another one
He went to the King with a yoke around his neck and told the King he will be carried away to exile with a yoke on his neck just as he was demonstrating but a fasle prophet named Hananiah broke the yoke and prophesied the opposite of Jeremiah's words
Jeremiah said the false prophet will die and the false prophet did
Eventually, Jeremiah was severely punished for telling the truth which came to him by the Word of God
He was labelled a traitor, accused of demoralizing the troop by telling them the truth, accused of trying to cross over to the Babylonian side when war eventually arrived and he was thrown into the well and left to die there just because he was the voice of God in his generation.
It is one thing to know prophecy, it is another to recognize the time of it's fulfilment and to work with it instead of resisting it
The same applies to John the Baptist
His sole mission was to unveil Christ to the world
It was written and prophesied long before he came that he will be the fore-runner of the messiah
Everybody in Israel knew this
When John arrived the same people began to doubt if he was the one
They came to him for the drama of his mode of dressing, the boom of his voice and the sharpness of his message
The were willing to be dipped into the water by him so that they can claim holiness among themselves because he offered a form of purification that was done publicly and could be used as a bragging tool among religious people
When the main purpose of His coming was unveiled, many of them refused to believe him
They refused to embrace the messiah even though they believed in John for the public appearance, they didn't accept the one he endorsed, baptised and upon whom the Holy Spirit came
They heard the voice from heaven saying This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased" but they turned a deaf ear to its significance
Isaiah mentioned a period of time that will come in which female believers in Zion will face a particular dilemma
He didn't say this will happen to unbelievers or jews
He knew unbelievers have no need of his prophecy, they would find a way to manage the situation according to their senses, even though the season will affect them too
He knew the Jews will find a way to manage that season too
However, the female citizens of Zion will find that time confusing because of their doctrines and practices
For this reason he offered divine guidance ahead of that season
This prophecy was directed at WOMEN, from the first verse to the last
offering them guidance and assurance that as they deal with this season to the best of their ability and understanding, they will be called Holy, their filth will be washed away by a spirit of judgment and fire
They will be covered by a divine canopy made by the Spirit of God made of a cloud of smoke and a flame of fire

Isaiah 4
In that day seven women
will take hold of one man
and say, “We will eat our own food
and provide our own clothes;
only let us be called by your name.
Take away our disgrace!”
In that day the Branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the land will be the pride and glory of the survivors in Israel. Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will be called holy, all who are recorded among the living in Jerusalem.
The Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion; he will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit[a] of judgment and a spirit[b] of fire. Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over everything the glory[c] will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain

This scripture has been quoted and preached from by rabbis, pastors, prophets, ministers of the gospel and several Bible commentators
Many called it a proverb, some said it was allegorical, some said it was satirical, others said it was a figure of speech
It is the typical way we all interpret prophecy because of its divine ability but it is also the way in which we miss out on taking the prophetic literally as it is written
When the prophecy was given about the coming of Jesus, many believed it to be a parable because it is impossible for a virgin to be pregnant and give birth to a baby
Most scholars didn't take it seriously or believe it would happen exactly as written
It did and many of them who were regarded as scholars refuted the claim and fought tooth and nail against the fulfilment of that prophecy.
Today, another season of prophecy fulfilment is upon us
We are all starring at it in the face and trying our best to wish it away but it is not going anywhere
It is a natural consequence of population growth all over the world, the dynamics of economic empowerment changing, living longer while sharing scarce resources and the consequence of religious dogma and tradition.
If we look at it on paper, the population of men is more than that of women globally according to the United Nations
This has been so since the 1960s
There is estimated to be 44 million more men than women in the world today and it is expected that by 2050, there will be parity in the figures
The dynamics of marriage among the men and women however tells a different story
The fact that the average age at marriage (in heterosexual couples) has never been later –According to the United States Census Bureau, in 2022, the median age for marriage was approximately 30.5 years old for men and 28.6 years old for women, 31.5 for women in the UK, 33.4 for men – the singles market is at its most crowded between the ages of 35 and 47, and in that market women outnumber men.

Times have changed
The patriarchal society that programmed men to be the earners and providers for women is long gone
The modern society has been engineered to balance the scale economically so that both women and men have the economic power to determine their lot in life without being dependent on each other in that regard
While it is true that about 50 years ago, most women primarily wake up with the desire to marry the right man or Mr. Right as they put it in those days so as to live a fulfilled life
The case is no longer so today
Both sexes have been proven to be capable of living and existing independently of each other romantically
Marriage has now become a desire and not a necessity
Men do not have to provide for women and women don't have to submit to their providers
It is the reality of the world we live in today
Men chase fulfilment in other ways other than settling down into a marriage and so do women
The term "what do you bring to the table" which was started by men of African origin to assess if the woman they want to get married to is worth their time economically proves that men now expect the woman to have some economic contribution to the home other than sex and home making
This then means the woman can use the same economic means to fend for herself and remain single if she chooses to or if she gets married she knows she does not have to be submissive to the man because he is not the one providing for her or solely meeting her needs
It is easier to be submissive to a sole provider whom you depend on for everything than to a man you earn more than or even contribute more than in terms of keeping a home
Biologically, men can choose from women from younger age brackets when they believe they have what it takes to give her a good life (this often takes a bit of time in Africa and among Africans) while most women of the same age bracket as these same men cannot dip into the pool of significantly younger men to pick a husband
The Biological clock ticks for the woman who desires to have children, the same clock does not tick for men
Women know they can have children while doing away with all the drama of marriage
Men know they can do the same
These options were not available 50 years ago
Surrogacy
Artificial insemination
Donor sperm and donor eggs
Fertility clinics and wonders of the modern world
The rate of divorce and the staggering amount paid to lawyers and psychiatrists for therapy before, during and after marriage are not encouraging economically
The toll marriage takes on people, especially terrible marriages and the damage it does to their health physically, financially and psychologically is not negligible
If marriage is for procreation, it has been scientifically proven that children do not need marriage in order to be born
If marriage is for companionship, people are finding other ways of meeting this need outside of being tied down to a partner who may not even meet this need at the end of the day
Marriage which was once the main menu in living a fulfilled life has now become one of the several side dishes a man or woman can do without in the course of living a fulfilled life
This is the fact of today's world and reality.

Isaiah saw this and he gave express instructions to the women of Zion for this season
He told them they can ask a man for the use of his name if they desire to experience what it means to have a change of name and claim the status "married" in their documents for any reason
This means this woman is economically empowered to have a good life and provide for her children
For reasons best known to her, she didn't want her child or society to label her or her children so she asked a man to provide the protection of only his name
Isaiah said then that the season is coming and I say that the season is already upon us

PS: A young woman once told me she went for an interview for a management role in a company and she knew she performed excellently well
After weeks of not getting a feedback, she reached out to her contact within the organization
She said the contact told her that the board liked her but they are weary of giving the position to an unmarried woman who has no roots and is a potential flight risk to the company
She said she decided she was going to get married for that reason, not for love or any other consideration but for the sake of her career
After a year of making no headway, she reached out to a gay friend and they had an arrangement
They got married in a civil court but were living apart
He did whatever he wanted and she did whatever she wanted
An opportunity then came for her to apply for the management role again with another company
She took it and the job was given to her
Another woman said as she approached the age of forty, she went to get her eggs stored for the future
Then she approached a friend and explained her situation to him
I want my child to grow up knowing he has a father
i don't want to tell my child he or she is a "test tube" baby
So will you allow me to give this child your name? I will pay you for the use of your name and we will sign a legal contract for the use of your name
All you have to do is pop in once a year during his or her birthday and spend some time with the child
These are the emerging trends we are seeing on the landscape of life at the moment
The words of Isaiah is coming to pass
It is best we open our eyes and expand our hearts to embrace the word of God and the reality of our times by adjusting our hearts to embrace all the inhabitants of Zion and protect them with all our love
The church will be making a mistake if we begin to judge, cast aspersions, segregate, label or treat some of our people dealing with these issues as pariahs or as unaccepted
Ignorance is not an excuse
It is plainly written in the Bible
Isaiah prophesied that the Branch of the Lord (the church) would be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the land (The children) would be pride and glory.
There are no second-class citizens in Christ
Peter was told three times not to call unclean what God has called clean
Salvation has nothing to do with the flesh or morality or laws, mores, traditions, customs or any societal expectation or standard
If we will not end up on the side of the Pharisees and start hurling stones or crying "Crucify Him", we must embrace the times and bring all who are fit and willing into Christ as equals.

The Grey Area Debate is tonight, kindly join and make your observations known on the issues being discussed
You are invited to the GSWMI Grey Area Debate Series

It's time to set the ball rolling as we discuss real and practical issues in contemporary Christian life.

When: Friday 22nd March 2024

Topic: As a believer, can I have children without being married?

Time: 10:00 pm

Join on Zoom via this link - https://t.co/Txohyx7lSH

TELEGRAM:
It will be live-streamed on our Telegram channels.
Pneuma Cathedral: https://t.co/LQCJwJFuVT
Pneuma Assembly: https://t.co/jOwittROo5
MIXLR
https://t.co/JGb9oCXoAt
#GSWMIDebateSeries

#GreyAreas
#TrueGospel
#GodsThink
#WhiteGreyBlack
#ThinkLikeAGod
#TruthWithoutColour
#criricalthinkingseries
#theBelieverAndSunesis
#UnbundlingknottyIssues
#ThinkingOutOfTheBox
#UnwrittenTruths
-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Christ in Me

Somebody tagged me to a thread in which a young man wrote that juju worked instantly in his life but the power of God does not work or takes time to work
A lot of other “Christians” or “children born into religion and Christian homes” got on the thread and are writing all sorts
It is not the young man’s fault
It is what religion has turned Christianity to
Lions became pussy cats and lion cubs became kittens under the watch of many Christian religious leaders
One of them said if Baal and Elijah had their contest today, Baal will win
He or she is speaking of nothing as if it is something
One even said Magun works instantly but he will have to starve himself and pray for hours without any assurance that God will hear or respond to his prayer
Wow!
These are the ones for whom Jesus died
These are the ones he gave all power and authority in heaven and the earth
These are supposed to be the live embers brought out of the coals of fire
These are the ones who were supposed to be full of the Holy Spirit and with power
The anointed ones
Psalm 82 is so apt!
Gods crying like slaves
Ignorance has given them a new reality
They had become mere men and they are lamenting the way mere men laments
Wow
So mighty is the fall from grace to pain
Ironically, none of those under his thread dared to correct him
The one that argued with him, he answered mockingly
Trying to assert that he is right
Saying to the world that the devil is more powerful in his life than God
Who am I to argue with him?
It is always to everyone according to their faith
The consequence of ignorance is much more expensive than the price we pay for knowledge
Peter instructed believer to grow in grace and in the Knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ
Those who did became effortless overcomers that witches and wizards bow to
Those who didn’t became prey to the powers that bow to my kind
The difference is knowledge
The juju people this young man is praising also have knowledge
The knowledge of darkness
I have the knowledge of light
By default, my knowledge is superior and therefore when I show up they now and surrender
But the ignorant has no impact when he or she shows up
He or she is full of fear, anger, jealousy, strife, malice and lamentations
The Bible said “They that know their God shall be strong and do exploits”
You don’t know God through fasting and prayer!
Jesus told the Samaritan woman that she worships a God she does not know!
Many Christian’s are worshipping a God that don’t know
This is why they do fasting and prayer
They even read some psalms like one that read incantations
They have no relationship with the Holy Spirit
They do not know what it means to have living waters flowing out of them
And if you ask them to come and learn Christ, they revert to religion
They are suffering from ignorance but they despise knowledge
They claim they are Christians but they don’t know Christ
No wonder they sing songs of great pain everyday
No wonder they are bowled over and unable to make anything of note with their lives
No wonder the magic of Egypt is fascinating to them while the power of God holds no value
He said God is slow and many of those reacting to his messages agree with him and also tried to give philosophical reasons for their agreement
God is not slow
You are the one who is slow on the uptake
You have difficulty in assimilating who you are and in conforming to the image of the one who love you and died for you
Therefore you claim to be a believer but you are not one
You call Him Lord but he does not know you
Your life testifies of this truth
It is not too late however if your desire is to live the overcomer’s life that you have been given in Christ
The same way you have written about one power being great over your life, is the same way you will scream that you have taken over the territory of the enemy completely in your life and family
If you will come to the knowledge of Christ today

Christ in me, the Manifestation of Glory!

PS: Out 6pm today

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Grey Areas

A mother had three daughters
The first had an abortion at 19 and lost her womb
Of course, she engaged the services of a quack doctor because she dare not let her parents know she got pregnant
It was a shameful thing that would bring her parents shame in the church and society
It would also definitely disrupt her education and advancement in life
The man responsible for the pregnancy was actually still a teenager like her, it was a teen love thing and the two of them were so lost in their puppy love world of wonders that they didn't consider the consequence of all the "touch me here and touch me there" they were doing when they got to the "explore my body that I may understand myself better" stage of the relationship
When it suddenly struck them that his fishing expeditions into her body had gotten her pregnant, all he did was cry like a baby
He didn't know what to do
All his manliness and macho dissolved into nothing
She realised she had to take responsibility for her own life at that point and began to make enquiries about getting the buns out of her oven
Eventually, she learnt about a doctor who would do it for cheap
She raised the money and did it
It ruined her chances of having a child for life
The second daughter was born with a hormonal condition that has prevented her from menstruating since she hit puberty
A lot of money has been spent on hormonal therapy without much gains
This leaves her
The last girl
She was brilliant, as healthy as a fiddle and beautiful
She started her career at the age of twenty and by the age of thirty she was sitting shoulder to shoulder with the heavy lifters of her industry in various conference rooms
Her career was very important to her
She had little or no time for relationships
She considered emotional entanglements a distraction
She did this until she was in her mid-thirties
Then their father died and all the children and their mother had to go through the burial process
After the burial, the will was read and in it, their father stated clearly that the only regret he had was not attending the wedding of any of his children or having a grandchild through them even though he died at the age of seventy
He asked his daughters to please ensure that their mother didn't die with the same regrets
He left a befitting inheritance for them and words of encouragement
Their father's will hit her like a mission statement
She told herself she will support her sisters to do all they can to get married and have children
She sponsored the sister with hormonal issues to New York to meet with specialists so that whatever ought to be rectified could be done to cure her of her health issue
The other sister who lost her womb was encouraged to adopt a baby
Both sisters didn't argue with her
The one who ought to adopt a baby went through the process and four years later her hope was crushed by the agency because she was not married and had not been able to hold down a job or a business all her life
She was born rich and practically lived her life pursuing pleasure and a soft life
The other sister with the hormonal issues didn't make any headway too
despite the humongous amount of money spent to correct her hormonal issues
She had never experienced such failures before in her life
Four years of heavy investments on two fronts and both ends came up with nothing
It affected her badly
She sank into depression
Their mother was four years older than when she started out trying to fulfil her father's will
Their mother had since developed some health complications like hypertension, arthritis, some memory issues and so on
Which they are managing as she grows closer to seventy
It was too overwhelming for her
She took two weeks break for work to pray and make a form decision regarding the future
She turned to God and said "If you don't intervene in issues like this, then what good are you? If you don't consider my father's wish important enough for you to wade in, then why did he serve you so earnestly all his life?
I will choose another religion or become an atheist if you don't do something
My mother is sick at the age of 69 and all she wanted was to see her daughters get married and for her to carry her child children
You are doing this for unbelievers, why are you denying us these basic things that you give everybody?
Why would my oldest sister be denied the right to adopt a baby and you give children to child molesters?
Why would my other sister be sick with this strange disease and you refused to heal her despite all the funds we sunk into her therapy?
What kind of a God keeps mute at the suffering of his children?
She kept these dark thoughts going in her head until she came to the conclusion that it was best for her to commit suicide
She didn't know how she got there but she did
She began to think of the most effective and painless way to do it
She picked up her phone and ordered some things she believed she would need
They arrived at her doorstep a few hours later
She decided it was the best decision for her and the family at large
She had failed to fulfil her father's wish and God had failed to show up for her family
She couldn't bear to see her mother suffering and her sisters unfulfilled
The best decision was to end it all!
Just as she started working on executing this decision, her phone rang
She picked it
It was from her mother
Her mother sent him a phone number and asked her to call the number urgently
She decided to call the number as a matter of granting her mother's last wish to her before she would end it all
She called
The person picked
she introduced herself
The person introduced himself
She said "My mummy sent me your number and asked me to call you"
The person said "Your mummy said she had a terrible dream that you died, she said it was so real that she was not sure if she was dreaming or experiencing it in reality until she woke up in a panic"
She said "Ha, mummy was right"
The person said "You were planning to end it all"
She said "Yes" and then she began to tell her story and all the frustrations she had been enduring all her life
She spoke for three hours
The person then asked her why in all her talk she didn't mention getting married or trying to have children
She kept quiet
The person asked her again "You said you daddy has three daughters, two of them have issues having children but you don't.
You are a beautiful young woman who made the choice to face her career and never get married or have children. Your father didn't put you under pressure and neither did your mother or siblings. You listened to your father's will and decided to do something about it but that thing you decided to do was not to put yourself out there, get married and have children to solve the problem.
It was to push others towards it while you remained immovable on your principles
You are unwilling to produce life with your body but you are willing to take your own life to spite God for not answering your prayers.
Did I summarise what is going on correctly?
She kept quiet at first, then she said "I never saw it that way"
He said "That is the problem of being short-sighted. Short sighted people lack both foresight and hindsight. They neither learn from their past nor see into their future. They take a principle and stick to it like stones, forgetting that human beings are more like water. We must adapt or we will die!"
She said "I get your point now sir. I admit that I have been short-sighted, I have outsourced solutions that i have the power and ability to procure and i am complaining of not meeting my target. I will adjust"
Then she said "I have spoken with many pastors in my life and they all usually will say "let me pray for you or sow a seed into my life or my ministry for your breakthrough. It got so bad that I stopped going to church when my pastor said he knows how much i earn in pounds and since I don't have a husband or a child he does not understand why I am not giving fifty percent of my income to church to encourage the work of God since i will die and strangers will end up inheriting everything I have. This was why I stopped going to church
It was not the first time a pastor will say that to me or insinuate it but you spoke to me like a brother r even a father
All frank and dispassionate and I appreciate that
God bless you sir.
They rang off
A month later, she called him with the good news that she was pregnant
He rejoiced with her
Nine months later, she delivered a set of triplets
He shouted Glory"
He named the baby in a very close family affair on zoom
The lady, her two sisters and their mother were the only attendees
Her mother and two sisters moved to Manchester to help her nurse the babies as soon as she got close to her due date
Three months after the babies were born, her sister that was plagued with hormonal issues began to see her period naturally and without any medical intervention at the age of 39 after attending the GSWMI prophetic service held on the first Wednesday of February 2023
She also got pregnant a few weeks later and delivered a set of twins on December 17, 2023 in Manchester
They moved into a bigger apartment as a family
Their mother, now 71 years old
Her three daughters aged 42, 40 and 38 and the five grandchildren (Three boys and two girls)
Her mother is happy and healthier, her sisters are fulfilled (The oldest has taken to caring for the children as her own and is absolutely enjoying the role without any reservation
Their mother is a bit frail so she can't do much running around but she instructs
She goes to work and so does her sister with their minds at rest that their children are in safe hands
Her father's will was fulfilled and they have another generation in the family to nurture and raise with the right values.

PS: If you are wondering if a process was skipped deliberately in the testimony shared above, you will be right
It was not a traditional story that many of us are used to
It is however a true story
I was the "Person" she spoke with on the day she wanted to commit suicide
When it comes to preserving a family's legacy and the generations to come, the Bible showed us the lengths God is willing to go
Take for example Lot and his daughters, the short-sighted folks will see everything wrong with it
The girls got their father drunk so he didn't sleep with them knowingly and they got pregnant as a result
Lot didn't make a habit of sleeping with his daughters for fun or leisure
His daughters did what was done to preserve his bloodline
It happened to Judah too
He slept with his daughter-in-law just once (She pretended to be a prostitute, so he didn't do it knowingly) and it was to preserve the coming generation
Naomi's two sons and husband died, she was too old to have a husband or a baby but she had a daughter-in-law who could help her redeem her lineage and she took that opportunity to do so through Boaz
She knew Boaz's first son through Ruth belonged to her husband and would bear her husband's name and carry on his legacy
Yet you see believers in 2024 frowning on ladies who chose to do IVF in order to secure the coming generations
I heard of a pastor who told a 45-year-old single lady that doing IVF would be like "helping God"
When Abraham helped himself by having Ishmael instead of waiting for the promised child, God didn't take any offence
It was Sarah who took offence and sent the woman and her child away
The first time this was done, an angel appeared to Hagar and told her to go back home because she ran away by herself due to the wicked way she was treated by Sarah but the second time Sarah made Abraham send her away and this time, since it was Abraham that sent away, it remained so.
We will be having a debate to discuss issues I have tagged the Grey Area Debates every third Friday of the month going forward
The first of these debates will be taking place this Friday, kindly join us when the links are out
You are also free to share your comments and opinions in the comment session, just be polite and state your point clearly
Someone someday will come across this and it will be a huge blessing to the person as he or she makes a decision on preserving the future

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

A Duty of Truth

I discovered that a lot of folks in unpleasant marriages who are afraid of going through the process of separation and divorce have taken to travelling abroad as a third option
Overnight, I was taking stock of couples I know whose marriage is no longer really a marriage as a result of either the husband or the wife taking this option and i was a bit alarmed
The number was staggering and more are joining the ranks daily
The problem then is staying true to this decision once the disgruntled partner travels
Typically, the partner that travelled should then call the one he or she left behind and say "Sir or ma, I was unhappy and unsettled in the marriage and I have tried as much as possible to adjust but i have come to hard realisation that i couldn't. This journey is a sort of separation that i engineered to spare myself the embarrassment of explaining to you and family and church members that i can no longer cope with the marriage or endure the marriage.
I am not filing for you or sending for you or hoping you will come around with the children, i know you will take this badly at first but please, realise that i am doing this for the good of both of us and in order to give the best I can to the children.
Children are the worst victim of a bitter marriage and i don't want us to raise children in the toxic atmosphere that has engulfed our marriage. So I have stepped aside for you.
I hope you will let me talk to the children as often as I desire to and that you will understand that this is the best solution i see for us not to turn to permanent enemies simply because we are married. I am sorry if I have hurt you in any way, I have forgiven you and I am trying to heal everyday.
Yours,
So and So"
This would be the honourable and realistic thing to do
But no, most people wont do that
After they had travelled, they begin this delusion or grand scheme of deceit which i find to be very damning
They tell their spouse they are working on bringing them over to the country they have travelled to, but in reality, they just want the children
They don't want that spouse anymore or they assume that if they bring that spouse abroad, they will be able to clip the wings of that spouse and make him (This mostly happens to the husbands) more compliant and malleable.
It then becomes a game of trying to outwit each other just to get the children or bring the husband into an environment where he can be controlled or threatened into submission
This ends in a calamity for everybody
I have read and had to seal many cases in which the partner abroad simply laid plans to deal with the one in Nigeria due to their history and that one ended up in a trap in the name of travelling abroad
The children saw these things and the parent that did it wouldn't understand the damage such behaviour does to children as they grow up
It is better to sit down as adults and sort the unpleasant situation out as amicably as possible rather than go to that extent in the name of engineering a divorce or separation outside the reach of friends and family members
Just sit down and tell each other the truth
Fight and cry over it
Try your best as a couple to make amends and tell each other the truth if the amendment is not working out for you
Be truthful to the children without laying blame on each other and being all unpleasant about it
Part ways with a solid arrangement between the both of you of giving the children the best and then travel out if that is what you want to do
Learn to do things without plotting and scheming like the devil
A man married a woman in Lagos, Nigeria
He was a banker and she was a marketer for one of the Korean companies
The lady began to do exceptionally well at her job that other Korean companies began to offer her twice her income just to market their products
Soon, she became the head of the West African Region in her company
All the while the husband had found the banking job tedious and unproductive, so he resigned and started a small business using some of his savings for FOREX trading
Things were good between them until his family members came visiting and discovered the wife was the one making the megabucks
Suddenly, prophesies started coming from his family's end that the wife was using his glory
(This use of glory line is a religious lie that many pastors, prophets and so called spiritual leaders in Nigeria tell their members as a substitute for the truth. Since glory is an abstract concept, it really cannot be stolen but deliverance ministers come up with stories that prove if someone took your shirt or undies or something from your body, the person can then take your destiny and change it with their own.
There is nothing true about this when both parties are born again Christians. The glory of the believer was given to his or her by Jesus in John 17: 22 I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one— 23 I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity. Then the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.)
How can anybody steal the glory of Jesus?
Ignorance and desperation however make us believe all sorts of lies
When this man was told these lies by pastors and prophets, he didn't call his wife to tell her the truth
The truth being that he was unhappy with her success and envious of her role as the bread winner of the family
The truth about his ego or pride being bruised and his desire to be separated from his wife or even get a divorce so that he will not be a clog in her wheel of progress
Spouses don't often do this
They never do the practical thing because it will make them look bad
So they find a solution to direct problem by becoming cunning and disingenuous
The husband told the wife he will like the family to travel abroad for vacation
Wife gave him the money to sort out passport and visa issues
He did but only for him and the children
He went as far as to publish an obituary of the wife to present at the embassy in order to back up the claim that the wife had died
He got the visa for himself and the children and one day when the wife was at work he took the children and moved everything in the house
The wife came back from the office to meet an empty house and the children were gone too
She lost her mind
He didn't even leave a note, so she had no clue what happened to the family
She tried reaching members of his family but they had all blocked her on social media and they refused to pick her calls
She was sick for weeks until one of the man's cousins sent her a picture of her husband and children arriving in Canada
At this point you will expect her to report at the police station, petition the embassy and go all out for war until this man and the children are deported back to Nigeria
She also fell for the religious thing
"They are in a better place, maybe I can talk to him and reason with him so that he can make room for me over there to go and be with him and my children"
Wow!
He eventually spoke to her after three years
He told her she must go for deliverance so that he will be sure she is free of witchcraft before he will allow her talk to her children on the phone
Meanwhile, he had moved on with another woman he met in Canada
When i was told the story, we turned it around in the place of prayer and by taking practical steps through three NGOs
Her children were returned to her and the husband was deported
Many Christians still saw the move as her being wicked and unforgiving till today
The sister that brought the case to my attention a few years later did the same thing to escape from her unpleasant marriage
She didn't accuse her deadbeat husband of anything, she told him an opportunity opened for her to study in Germany and she left
Then she arranged for her son to join her
It's been five years, the husband is in Nigeria fruitlessly applying for Visa without any means to bankroll his journey while the wife kept telling him she had sent the necessary documents to the embassy and that he should be patient etc
Why not just tell him the truth and let him go?
She says she was trying to teach him a lesson on how to be responsible
Has he not been paying rent since i left, has he not been feeding himself? but he refused to do these things when we were living under the same roof, he was chasing skirts while i was labouring hard to put food on the table, he caused all these and I am just teaching him how to be a responsible adult"
It is not right
Don't drag each other off the course of destiny based on emotion or vendetta
He wont change abroad and neither will she
If you must travel abroad as a couple be sure it is what the two of you want and that God is in it
If either of you want to travel as an escape, just be truthful about it
I am writing this also directly to a sister whose husband has been shooting blanks on the marital bed
This sister wants to have a baby
She and her husband had tried IVF several times to no avail
It has been established that her husband is the one with the issues with his sperm
She didn't want to file for divorce because it will make her look somehow
So now she has decided to escape from the marriage by travelling abroad to study and allowing the marriage to die a natural death.
Just tell him the truth
You owe each other a duty of truth as a couple.

PS: By 2pm on the 17th of May, we will be in RCCG Jesus Embassy in VGC Lagos for The River
A LIVE recording session with Ihuoma Isong
The GSWMI family in Lagos and its environs plus some from abroad will be there
We will create an atmosphere for the Supernatural
It shall be like the welling of a River
We shall swim in it and in it we shall be changed!
Come and experience the fullness of the Spirit like never before
Come and experience the power of the Holy Spirit
Come and partake of the River which can never dry
I am especially inviting those with deep marital issues, this is a river of clarity and wisdom
Let us all drink of it together and receive His counsel
-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

No comment pls

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Changing The Course of Tomorrow

There is a new concept in the church that some call family deliverance, they pray and fast and go for the laying on of hand hoping to change the destiny of their family for the better
It doesn't work
Most of the time it is simply an exercise in futility
Abraham departed in order to set his new family on the right course
If you will change a man, change how he thinks
If you will change a family's destiny, change how they think as individuals
If you will observe how things are and will lay it bare to one another truthfully
You can set a new course of action that will change the destiny of your family forever
You must let bygones be gone and change the course of tomorrow

Observe
[əbˈzəːv]
VERB
notice or perceive (something) and register it as being significant
watch (someone or something) carefully and attentively:
take note of or detect (something) in the course of a scientific study
fulfill or comply with (a social, legal, ethical, or religious obligation)

I woke up this morning with the word observe in my Spirit, just that one word
Observe
To watch someone or something carefully and attentively
When we observe we can also be fulfilling or complying with an obligation
The two meanings were quite contradictory
The first indicates that you do not have to participate or be a part of something, you are just looking at it from afar and taking notes
The second means actually participating in it in order to do it as it was laid down by those who had done it before you
Jesus was born into a well-set religious society with religious laws that must be observed by those who consider themselves to be bonafide members of that society
He observed (watched and studied) how they did their things for thirty years
His parents observed (Participated and fulfilled) the rules and regulations regarding the Jewish culture as expected of them
There is a difference between observing to comply and conform and observing in order to come up with a better way of doing things and insisting the old ways of doing things were obsolete and there must be a new way of doing things if things are to get better
Of course. people will prefer the first. to just go with the flow and not ruffle feathers
It takes only the brave to champion a new course in life
Africans didn't think the Western way of doing things was better than the way of their ancestors
Till tomorrow, some Africans are still resisting change because they are determined to keep the old ways, even though the old ways have been proven to be largely a result of narrow-mindedness, superstitions, and lies
Of course, not everything about the old ways of doing things is evil but if the source of a thing is evil, it is inherently evil
When you are determined to embrace change, you must do so or perish with your old ways of thinking
Jesus championed a new way of doing things simply because the old ways were deficient
Moses gave the children of Israel the law
The law made nothing perfect according to Hebrews 7:19 (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God.
This means none of those who followed the law were able to become perfect through it
The law also did not offer anyone eternal life
Jesus proclaimed this boldly
John 5: 39 39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
Everyone who came and died before Jesus came died and went down to Sheol, in the bosom of Abraham because observing the law only served the purpose of keeping them in the place of waiting for the days of the Messiah
This was why Jesus said Abraham rejoiced to see His day
In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, which was narrated by Jesus we saw how close Hell was to Heaven and how the rich man was able to talk from hell and get a reply from Abraham because only a gulf separated the two places
They were in the same location
Those in Sheol were waiting for the one who will come with eternal redemption to arrive so that they may journey to their final place of rest in eternity
The Bible made it clear that the very day Jesus was crucified, many of them were set free from Sheol and that many of them were seen in Jerulasem as a testament of this to show us that their years of waiting and groaning were over
Matthew 27: 52 And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
Jesus was the one who perfected all things
He was the one who came with grace and truth
He was the Messiah who came with the solution to the dilemma of creation by proferring a once and for all sacrifice that abolished the old ways of doing things
Under the law sacrifices of goats and bulls had to be made daily
Under grace, sacrifice was no longer required because Jesus was our once and for all time sacrifice that was required to satisfy the wrath of God
Romans 5:9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
This is the life that we have been given in Jesus, the benefit of our salvation in Christ
This was what the new way of thinking championed by Jesus Christ brought to the whole world
In it we found enlightenment, we were translated out of darkness and every knowledge and way of darkness into the light, we became sons and we were given eternal life
The new ways of doing things were far better than the old ways of doing things
Why then do people hold on to the old ways of doing things?
When there is clearly a new and better way of doing things?
You come into a family, you observe how they have been doing things
Are they united?
Do they have sincere love for each other?
Are they determined to help each other grow?
Are they happy and do they celebrate each other's growth and successes?
Even though you were born into this family and they have a culture of doing things, you observe
You dont have to do things the way they have always done things because this is their culture
Jesus was counter-cultural all the way
The impact of the domineering mindset of Jesus is still being felt all over the world today and yet he lived only for thirty-three years
Methuselah had zero impact on the world and he lived the longest in history
It is better to live a short and impactful life than to live long and have an evil legacy
Imagine a family where all the children were set against each other
When the first child talks about his siblings, he will lament for hours, recounting tales of the evil done to him by his own mother and the other children with whom he grew up
What do these stories do to his own children?
It colours their opinion of their siblings, they were raised to be suspicious of their father's younger ones and to treat their cousins and other relatives with caution
When the second child talks about his own siblings from the same mother it is the same
None of the children had anything good to say about each other
And yet when they meet they will sit down and pretend to tolerate each other whole you the child and all the other children would observe their behaviour
Soon you notice the same character trait in your own generation
Your own siblings from the father and mother had observed and were actively participating in the culture of suspicion you met on the ground
They were doing this instinctively because they did not know any other way of behaving
You observed and you realise the cancer is spreading and corrupting the coming generations
There are families that grow together and thrive
The Adefarasins, The Adeyemis, The Oyemades, the Awolowos, The Kutis
You see these families all around
Well banded together and pushing one another to the top
You notice Seun Kuti (Not a born-again Christian yet) talking about Made Kuti as the best of them while tracing their musical heritage from their great-grandfather to his cousin
You see how the Cokers would defend each other and stand by each other through thick and thin
The enemy for them was never within and when the enemy is from outside they come together and fight it to the last in unity
In your own family, however, you notice the enemy was always within
They must pick one of their own kind and tear him or her to pieces with their words
The people that were supposed to be pulling one another up were the same people tearing each other down
The first had to go make his money in secret for fear of sharing his joy with the second
The second had to keep his family in isolation, for fear of exposing his children to the evil influence of another
The third had to fight hard in order to make headway in life
The fourth had to keep her children far away from the rest because of strife
You were observing and you were praying to be like Jesus
You were saying it is either we reset this process or find ourselves swallowed whole by the miry clay of backbiting, gossip, suspicion, and hatred
When the opportunity came were determined not to follow the same pattern and culture that they had followed and had embraced as the norm
Of course, you know there will be resistance but you were built for it
A generational departure is imminent
You must be determined to champion it
This was what Christ did for the believer on the cross
He was willing to put that which he had observed as a failed way of life to the sword and he established a new way of doing things which brought eternal life to everyone who believed in him
As a believer this is how to be a practical Christian, allow yourself to observe how things are done in your family, among your children
Observe their prayer patterns, who do they say? What does it reinforce? How does it affect how they think?
Teaching your children to pray enemy prayers makes them conscious of enemies all the time
They talk of enemies, think of enemies, and pray about enemies
Teaching your children to be suspicious of relatives and family members makes them grow up cautious and full of distrust
It is an African thing to tell your children not to allow this person to touch them or that person to touch them or anoint them with oil and cover them with the blood of Jesus before every family event
You are sowing seeds into those lives that will ruin your family in the future
Raise your children to be conscious of the power of the Holy Spirit and the spirit of love that is in Christ Jesus
There is nothing to gain by tearing down your own siblings and living in unforgiveness
It is true that some of them have grown into the old ways that they have become like cancer and you feel you need to cut them off
Know this day that they cannot hurt or touch you and your family
The power of Jesus in you is a power of love and love conquers all things
PS: If you have a strong man or strong woman in your family who you believe is the evil one disrupting the peace of the family
Instead of praying that he or she should die or quench
Serve him or her a notice of a takeover
Say it this way
"I (insert your name) of Zion, declare today that my generation belongs to me and is spared from the evil influence of the tradition, culture, customs, norms, and values that had existed in (the (Insert your family name) before my time
I bring order instead of chaos
I have come to put things as they ought to be and to kill the evil influence of darkness and dark thoughts that had dominated my family before I arrived on the scene
i have observed and found this culture to be inadequate and unacceptable
Mene
Mene
Tekel
Parsin
I have judged it
I have found it wanting
And today, i have taken the kingdom from it
I declare that in me the days of Christ have come
I have taken my place"

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Mere men or Deities?

No wonder many believers pray without getting any result
A sinner cannot pray and get anything from God apart from the prayer of salvation which leads him or her to accept Jesus as Lord and saviour
A sinner cannot pray right
A sinner does not even know how to pray or what to pray for because he does not have the Holy Spirit who gives us utterance so that we can pray as the Spirit leads
Anyone who does not have ETERNAL LIFE is a sinner
You receive eternal life by BELIEVING in the Lord Jesus and accepting the gift of eternal life which he gives to you
When you say you believe in Jesus but you are arguing that you don't have eternal life
You are only saying "You don't believe and unbelievers cannot walk in the reality of eternal life"
No wonder you guys struggle to get things done
You can't raise the dead
You can't heal the sick
You cant see visions
You cant prophesy
Demons are chasing you in your dreams and real life
You are praying fear-filled prayers and saying a lot of nonsense like "Enemy of your father's house", "Somebody is selling your glory" and other strange things that have no standing over the believer
Because you don't believe you have eternal life, you suffer under the weight of your own inadequacies
If you could save yourself by any work, either good or hard work, Jesus wouldn't have to die
By rejecting eternal life, you are saying Jesus's death for you was in vain
You render the power of your salvation useless and you are now depending on self-righteousness to save yourself or to claim a spot in heaven
Even the Jews who got a spot claimed it by their own blood
You cannot claim eternal life by performance or by self-righteousness outside of the finished work of Christ
You cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit by living a moral life
When you deny eternal life, you deny the life the Holy Spirit gave every child of God called the Zoe life
You are living the Bios life and sprinkling it with the name of Jesus
No wonder you cannot see the manifestation of the sons of God
You are yet just a son of man
It is eternal life that we receive after we have translated out of darkness into the kingdom of His own dear son
I have seen videos of hook-up ladies holding hands and praying in the name of Jesus that they will sell and not become victims of their customers on this app before
That is what happens when you pray without a consciousness and the reality of the eternal life
You just speak words with your eyes closed and you claim you are talking to God
You cannot talk to God except by the Spirit of God that is in you
If you don't have the Spirit of God, you cannot pray right
Every religion in this world offers prayers to whatever god they believe in
Some of them pray more diligently and are even more disciplined in their commitment to their prayers than most believers are
You can check out monks of the Eastern religions and idol worshippers from Asia
Without the Spirit of God, prayer is just wishful thinking, an expression of fear and luck
You cannot have the Holy Spirit and still be arguing that you are not eternally saved
He who the Son sets free is free indeed!
You struggle because you are rejecting the life and reality you have been bestowed in Christ
You are a Son of God but you are claiming you are a son of man
This is a dangerous mindset to have according to the Bible

Psalm 82
A psalm of Asaph.
1 God presides in the great assembly;
he renders judgment among the “gods”:
2 “How long will you[a] defend the unjust
and show partiality to the wicked?[b]
3 Defend the weak and the fatherless;
uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.
4 Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

5 “The ‘gods’ know nothing, they understand nothing.
They walk about in darkness;
all the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6 “I said, ‘You are “gods”;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
7 But you will die like mere mortals;
you will fall like every other ruler.”

The only way you can be "god" is by embracing your eternal life in Christ
It is eternal life that gives us the foundation to do the works of eternal value and worth by the Holy Spirit
If you don't embrace your eternal life in Christ, you have chosen to be a mere mortal and this is why you will know nothing and be walking about in darkness as you have been doing
Full of empty theories and quoting the scripture out of context to support your powerless life and religious mindset.
How can a believer be arguing about losing their salvation?
And the argument will be losing salvation by works?
Salvation that you didn't earn by works
Salvation that was given to you by the death and resurrection of the son of God
Who has bewitched you?
Did you fry your brains?
If the life Jesus gave you is not eternal, then what use is it?
Were you not living already before you received this life?
If you already had life why accept another life if it is not better than the one you had before?
The ridiculous argument of If you have eternal life you will be sleeping with someone or stealing or lying or cheating reveals who you are in your heart and how dark your imagination is
You need to repent and wash your heart with hyssop
You didn't think of raising the dead, healing the sick, destroying the works of darkness and spreading the gospel with eternal life
Your first instinct was to express the evil you have been imagining in your heart and project it on others in the name of license to sin.
Wow.
Repent please and live the life expected of you in Christ
Matthew 22
1 Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

4 “Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’

5 “But they paid no attention and went off—one to his field, another to his business. 6 The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.

8 “Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9 So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10 So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12 He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

13 “Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

14 “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

Eternal life is your wedding clothes, it was given to you by God, if you refuse to wear it with joy and confidence, you will be tied hand and foot and thrown outside into darkness because you have refused to accept God's terms and conditions of being a part of the wedding banquet.

PS: For those of you quoting scriptures out of context to support your fear of the liberty we have in Jesus, read the whole chapters, you will see the context and rest.
I write to you with love

-GSW-