El Daniels GFS, MGA

Homo Christus. Addicted Husband. Present Father. Teens Coach. Lord and King. Hamashiach betochi.

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Not being able to remember an exact date or moment of salvation equals no salvation.
I don’t know about you, but this is something I have struggled with multiple times during my walk with Christ. As someone who was saved at a young age, I don’t remember the exact date. My memories of that time in my life are generally hazy, and that used to bother me, especially when I’d hear stories from others who could remember the exact spot they were standing in when Jesus saved them.

I remember expressing my belief in Jesus to my parents, the meeting with our pastor, and being baptized, but if you asked me to recount the exact moment the Lord called me, I simply couldn’t do it. However, I know that I belong to Jesus and the Holy Spirit is present and active in my life.

The enemy has used this more than once to make me question my salvation, and each time has been during a season when I felt distant from God. I realize now that, by questioning my salvation, I was actually questioning whether Jesus’ sacrifice was enough.

I was questioning if God’s word is true when He says, “My grace is sufficient for you.” I was basically believing there was something I could do to maintain that salvation, rather than what God’s Word says in Romans 8, Hebrews 10, 1 John, and all the other passages that talk about our security as believers.

By questioning what God said, I was questioning his character and authority. Isn’t that just a repackaging of the age-old lie, “Did God really say?” If your salvation story is anything like mine, 1 John is a book to read on repeat, to remind you of God’s truth when the lies start to creep in.

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

The Spacious God
Eventually, if we stay in the wilderness long enough, we may discover something surprising.

God is still there.

But the God we find is much bigger than the one we lost.

For much of our lives, we build an understanding of God that helps the world make sense. We learn what God is like, what God wants, how God speaks, how prayer works, what the Bible means, and what happens when we die. There is comfort in having a framework for all of this.

Then life comes along and pokes holes in it.

The Spacious God emerges when we stop trying to patch every hole.

Instead, we begin to make room for mystery. We accept that there are things about God we don’t understand and probably never will. We become less troubled by unanswered questions and less desperate to explain every tragedy, coincidence, prayer or silence.

For years, I thought faith meant having confidence in what I believed about God. Now I wonder if real faith begins when that confidence runs out.

Because it doesn’t take much faith to believe in a God you have figured out. If you know how God works, what God thinks and what God will do next, there isn’t much left to trust. You have a system, and systems are reassuring because they give us the feeling that we know where we stand.

But eventually, faith asks something harder of us.

Can I trust a God I don’t fully understand?

Can I live with questions that may never be answered?

Can I believe God is good when I cannot explain what God is doing?

Can I allow God to be God without needing to make sense of everything?

This is the Spacious God.

This is not to be mistaken for a vague God who can mean whatever we want God to mean, but a God who exceeds our ability to contain him. There is room for what we know about God, but also for what we don’t. Room for wonder and doubt. Room for the possibility that some of our most cherished ideas about God may be incomplete.

So, the question becomes: Can I remain open even when I don’t understand?

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@AHisoka95 @Kagan_M_Dunlap Get over your fears already. How many folks have died sleeping in their own bed or driving. So, you'd never sleep in a bed or drive? They'll still get on many a flight and see the world!! Fly your fear

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@jidesanwoolu Your Excellency, it is in order to cordon off roads to allow the President a free ride to Ikoyi. But to block the roads way ahead of his arrival, at peak traffic hour, making Lagosians trek for miles is inhuman. Is it that his arrival time was a secret? #GoodGovernance

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@basedinmalibu Strategic planning back up by a matching culture.

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@myhiddenvalue Lies. Damn lies. Statistics.

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

https://t.co/tskjyOisFj

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@UBAGroup CASHLESS: You pay for a purchase from your UBA app and the display says "FAILED". You check your balance, OK. You repeat transaction, "SUCCESS". A few minutes later, you get an SMS showing a debit for the first attempt. You've been debited TWICE. https://t.co/eX35DYjhid

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@GbengaWemimo Convoluted... Values aid clarity, and clarity gives direction; direction = speed. 8 months of idling could have been avoided.

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

https://t.co/1LB2lHLQpU

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@GbengaWemimo Drinkable, audible, visible, tangible, relatable, portable, understandable, malleable, flameable, credible, thinkable, plausible, reliable, delectable

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@erniesail @VeryDarkJoe You should care, because if he's just a living prophet, you'd be eternally lost - a prophet couldn't save your soul - only Jesus (God in the flesh) can.

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

I joined a church in July 2008.
I rose through the ranks quickly because I was a campus fellowship leader who had just graduated, and I was really burning with zeal for the Lord
Three weeks after joining the church, I became their youth church pastor, and I led the youth church into its golden season with several breakthroughs and supernatural encounters.
However, I had a lot of questions which the church and its leadership could not answer to my satisfaction.

I wanted to know why certain conduct of the church was limited to the instructions left for the leaders by the founder, even though the founder was non-literate and those conduct rules were clearly written in the Bible.

They said it was church doctrine, but I didn't like things that do not make sense.
The founder of a church said you must not build a story building, but always a bungalow.
The founder said you must not pray for people in a certain pose or using a certain material element when such a prayer is contrary to the scriptures, and nobody could question it.
Since the founder said it, even though it is not biblical, we must obey it.

I didn't like it.

So I began to question these things. I just wanted to be sure we were following the Scriptures and not some human bias, but my questions got me into a lot of trouble

The more I pushed for clarity, the more I was branded an heretic and a hot-headed person who would not conform or fall in line.

I didn't see it that way. I felt it was important to ask questions and also question the status quo of reality if indeed we want to have a better relationship with God and the Holy Spirit.

Eventually, the church leadership had a meeting and decided that I should not be given the room to hold the microphone or teach again in church so that I wouldn't cause dissension among the members with my refusal to embrace the doctrine of the church and my charismatic nature, which makes people want to listen to me.

I got frozen out of the ministration roster.

A few weeks after they benched me, the assistant pastor's daughter suddenly developed a mental illness while she was on campus studying law. She didn't do drugs or any such thing. It was a sudden affliction.

Even though she was a youth who attended the youth church, which i was asked to lead, her parents kept this development from me.

Fortunately, I was invited to minister in Ghana at the time. I invited the church leadership to my invitation, but they were of the opinion that I had not conformed to the doctrine of the church, and therefore I was not qualified to teach anybody anything.

The assistant pastor told me to my face that those who listen to,e and follow me are being led by me to hellfire.

Oh, I didn't mention that I am an ardent advocate of "Once Saved, Always Saved", and they were absolutely opposed to the idea of eternal salvation or security of the believer.

They couldn't give me scriptures to support their position, and I had several scriptures to support mine, which I bandied about like a weapon of mass destruction anytime we had an argument about the doctrine.

I went to Ghana to minister, only to come back to being accused of going to Ghana to collect power.

The daughter of the assistant pastor was still sick, and it had gotten so bad that her admission was deferred pending when she would get better.

They saw the miracles; they saw many church members getting healed, becoming mothers and getting prosperous when I attended to their cases, but rather than reach out to me to deal with the issue of the mental illness, they refused to do so because it would mean a compromise of their doctrinal position.

Pride is not a good thing.

Eventually, one of the deacons informed me about it.
I drove to the hospital where the young lady was admitted, and I prayed.
I understood that doctrines can take some time to sort out, but love is not conditional in Christ.

I asked the Lord to please heal the young lady, and I asked that the young lady be discharged from the hospital so that I could see her in church the following Sunday.

On Sunday, I went to the church expecting to see her, and she showed up with her parents.
My heart leapt for joy.

After service, she came to me herself and said: "I was in the hospital on Monday, and I saw that you came to me and laid your hands on my head, and I was healed".
That was the day the voices I was hearing stopped. Can you please lay your hands on my head and pray for me just as you did in the vision?

I didn't hesitate.

I laid hands on her head and began to pray.

The mistake I made was that I closed my eyes.

I didn't see her parents walk back into church or the shock in their faces as they saw me praying for their daughter.

What I noticed was that one minute my hands were on her head and the next minute, my hands were hanging in the air.

I opened my eyes and saw her parents dragging her away.

Her father said, "Don't you dare pray for my daughter, you.....(unprintable name)"

I know that the Lord has healed the young lady, and the issue of mental illness has been resolved permanently by the power of the Holy Spirit.

While I was in Lagos last weekend, I got a message from this young lady. She said she wanted to see me, and I joyfully sent her my location on WhatsApp.

She brought her husband to be and introduced him to me. She told him that since I prayed with her in 2020, the strange voice she had heard on and off since she was fifteen was silenced forever.

She was able to complete her studies and recently graduated from the USA with her master's degree. She said she was sorry for her parents' conduct and knew that they must never know she came to see me because they see me as an enemy of the gospel.

She said, however, that she was a secret disciple and had never missed any of my teachings, which are in the public domain.

I blessed her and her intended and assured her that I have never had anything but deep respect and profound love towards her and her parents.

Doctrinal differences can be very contentious and emotional, but any believer who has read the book of 1st and 2nd Corinthians would know that knowledge puffs up, but love binds us together.

Regardless of differences in our doctrinal beliefs as Christians, I strongly recommend that we do everything within the body of Christ and even to those not within the body of Christ, with love.

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

Time Lag and the Prophetic

I remember getting her message in my Twitter DM
She asked if I could come to Abuja and have a prayer session with her and her extended family
She was a single mother, who had given birth to four children from four different men
None of them proposed marriage to her
They took care of her while the going was good and she had always wanted to have many children
So she got pregnant and kept the children
The fathers knew they had children with her
She does not disturb them for a dime in terms of supporting the children
She was working with an international NGO
Money was neither hard nor easy to come by
She had enough to meet her needs and that of her children
She was also a believer, a recent convert
She however discovered after joining a church that even though Jesus loved her unconditionally
The church and her fellow saints didn't like women like her
Beautiful, self-determined, successful, Alpha female, a natural leader, one who makes decisions that do not necessarily conform to the norms, mores, rules, conventions, or expectations of others, heady and spontaneous
She noticed that Christian men within the church avoided her and that their wives talked a lot about her behind her back
It was better when she was not in the church
She lived her life free of judgment and condemnation
She had imagined the church would be a haven
She discovered the hard way it was not
She had done everything she could to fit in
changed her wardrobe, started dressing like the sisters she found to be classy and shiny in church, and so on
It made no difference
And yet it was the senior pastor's sermon that provoked her spirit sorely and prompted her to reach out to me
He taught about evil patterns and symptoms of Demonic affliction
He said if you have a pattern in your family in which nobody got married but most family members are contended to have children outside wedlock or just settle down as baby mamas, second wives or mistresses, it is a symptom of demons at work in the family
He said if the family is experiencing delay in having children which affected almost every member of the family or if there was a common disease or affliction in the family like leprosy, mental illness, goitre and so on
After listening to hours of the sermon, she became convinced she needed deliverance and so did members of her family
Her older sisters were all single parents just like she chose to be
Although in her case, marriage was proposed several times by different men but she chose to live free of the hassle by choice
Her younger brothers, two of them were cannabis addicts while her younger sisters, two of them had serious mental health issues
Their mother died after giving birth to the seventh child
Their father was from a fetish family somewhere in the middle belt of Nigeria
She approached the prayer department of the church to book a prayer session for her family
She was tacitly ignored
This was why she reached out to me
I told her i would be coming to Abuja in a few days
We met
She said i will tell my family members to come together so that you can pray for all of us
I said "Amen"
I met with her and 35 other people in her sitting room the next day
i taught them the gospel of their salvation
Funny enough, they were not strangers to the name of Jesus or certain practices of the church
They however didn't know there was a big difference between being a Christian and being religious
The former is living out the life of Christ
The latter is living out the doctrines of men moulded within their own personal experiences and belief systems
The former keeps the believer free to rule and reign
The latter keeps the believer in bondage, fear of men assumed to be better than one within the church and the fear of hell
After the short teaching session, we prayed
The room was charged and the power of the Holy Spirit began to move
Did I mention that I met this family at about midnight?
Due to my busy schedule that was the only time I was free
As I joined my hands with them one by one the Holy Spirit
revealed a secret
A pot, dedicated to an idol, in their family house in the village
This pot is a huge water pot, kept in one room in their family house
The room was opened only once a year or whenever any of them had a baby
The unbilicord of the baby is prepared, burnt to ashes and then poured in this pot through a ritual
The pot was supposed to keep them all bound together in love and protect them from every form of harm
As soon as I mentioned it, their eldest child, a female said "The pot is a no go area"
She said many pastors had seen the same thing and that she was sure I must have been informed by someone about the pot before claiming it is a revelation
She said the pot had always finished all those who mention it or tried to do anything about it
She warned me to pray my prayer and leave instead of poking my nose where it doesn't belong in the name of chasing spiritual clout
I smiled and told her that the room where the pot was, it's priestess and the pot is currently on fire
I told her it was burnt to ashes and will never be built again
I told her the priestess of the idol has also been decommissioned and unless she gives her life to Christ will never be able to see with her eyes or live a normal life again
She laughed and huffed off to sit down at the dinning section of the sitting room
By this time it was almost 4am
I blessed the family and took my leave
The next morning came, the lady that invited me called to say Thank you
She said "Brother Gbenga, that thing you said about the pot and the priestess being on fire should have been kept to yourself sir. There was no fire and my older sister is already telling everybody that i invited a fake pastor to pray for the family"
I told her not to worry about my reputation, but to prepare herself mentally for what is to come
I reminded her of the treatment she had gotten in church and how she felt it was unfair
I told her Jesus is expecting her to do much better than that
She didn't get my point at the time but she said okay
A week later, i was back in Lagos, preparing for a trip to the UK
My phone began to ring
The shrine, the pot and the priestess had all caught fire overnight
Shrine and pot and house were burnt down completely
The Priestess, whom nobody knew her identity because she only appeared once a year or whenever any of them had a baby to open the shrine and perform the ritual was badly burnt and had to be rushed to the hospital
The priestess was the same sister that i had an argument with in her house
The Angel of the Lord watched over the prophecy for 33 days
Then this woman got up from Nassarawa all by herself
There was no new baby and it was not the time of the year when they open this room
She couldn't tell how or why
She went to the shrine, opened it and set it on fire by herself
Then she sat in the burning room to prevent the villagers from lynching her
That was weird...
When she was rushed to the hospital, she began to confess to so many attrocities she had committed using the destinies or essence of the family members and some other things
All of them panicked
I got on the plane to Abuja that same day
We met in her sitting room again
This time there were well over 80 people including children
(Fear is a terrible thing)
I explained to them that they were supposed to be rejoicing
I said "The angel of the Lord that took your oldest sister from Nassarawa to Benue and made her do everything she did will just be wondering why you were wearing long faces instead of shouting glory!"
I told them it is important that they do not run to other places with the story unless they are telling it as a victorious tale
Africans have a habit of seeing evil or thinking evil perpetually
The shrine was burnt down, decommissioned totally
The priestess was also decommissioned totally
Why worry about possible repercussions from demons?
Why so fearful of attacks from other idol worshippers and so on
Rejoice!
Again I say Rejoice!!!
My charge worked, by the time i was leaving we had fellowshipped and ministered unto the Lord
Prophesies came forth assurring all and announcing the glory days ahead
As for the priestess, I didnt see her until September this year
She had spent four months in the hospital and survived the fire incidence
She had given her life to Christ
Her sister, (The one that invited me) had taken my counsel to heart and shown her and her children great love and care)
When I saw her, she said "I didn't know why I did what I did.
It started as a whisper in my heart and then it grew into a noise.
Burn down the shrine, burn down the pot, do it now.
It was as if the voice got louder every day i delayed
I finally just had to do it so that i can have peace of mind
I didnt remember sitting in the fire or being rescued from it
What i remember was waking up at the hospital and being prompted to confess to my siblings everything I had done to each and everyone of them
I expected to be treated like a pariah, to be stripped naked and stoned to death in the market square
Instead, i was shown love and care
My children were neither labelled nor hated
Nobody acted as if they were afraid or suspicious of me
i began to feel normal and free around them when i realised all the tension was unnecessary
I was the one that asked for a Bible myself and I begn to read
I was the one that asked my sister to being me a Pastor to pray for me and fill me with the Holy Spirit
Thank you sir."
I embraced her and prayed with her
She is my sister, my joy and my delight
We are all members of the body, flesh and bones of Jesus
Ephesians 5:30-33
There is no condemnation in me or mine
Love is our nature

PS: Sister Olivia and her older sister Patricia are doing wonders in Abuja and Nassarawa everyday
They are preaching the gospel twice a month in both cities and
the testimonies they are recording are mind boggling
Just yesterday, sister Patricia opened the eyes of a two year old baby that was born blind
I was not shocked when i heard the testimony, i was screaming!
Once upon a time she would have been stoned to death under the suffer not a witch to live doctrine
The gospel of Jesus has brought light into her darkness
She has become a burning and a shinning light to the world
Glory be to God.

Now to address the issue of the delay in the fulfilment of the prophecy
It is what we call a time lag
The period of time it takes to manifest what had happened in the Spirit realm in the physical realm
Jesus was foreordained before the foundation of the earth but was made manifest 2000 years ago
1 Peter 1: 19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you
The same thing happens sometimes in the place of prophecy
Sometimes, you see a thing, you are sure of it, you say it out loud with confidence and it happens instantly as it did on Mount carmel when Elijah called down fire 1 Kings 18:38
At another time, you see a thing, you are sure of it, you say it out loud and then you have to wait and sometimes even pray like Elijah did on mount Carmel for a while before the rain falls
1 Kings 18:41-45
Be assured of this, that the angel of the Lord is watching over the Word you have spoken by the Spirit to perform it and at the right time, it shall be done as ordained by the Spirit
It has nothing to do with your ego or your reputation
You have an audience of one.

-GSW-

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

“Let the dead bury their own dead.”
Another would-be disciple approaches Jesus and asks for permission to bury his father before following him.

The request sounds entirely reasonable, but Jesus’ response does not.

“Let the dead bury their own dead.”

At first glance, it sounds cruel and insensitive. Was Jesus really refusing to allow someone to attend a funeral?

Probably not.

Most scholars believe the man’s father had not yet died. In first-century Jewish culture, burial was usually performed on the day of death. If his father had already died, he would likely have been occupied with funeral arrangements rather than standing in conversation with Jesus.

Instead, the phrase “let me first bury my father” probably meant something more like, “Let me fulfil my family responsibilities, and then I will follow you.” That delay might have lasted months or even years.

Jesus responds by exposing the deeper issue. The man wants to follow Jesus eventually, but Jesus is talking about now.

The disturbing element is not that Jesus opposes family responsibilities. It is that he refuses to allow even the most sacred obligations to become an excuse for postponing discipleship.

We often assume there will be a better time later.

Jesus challenges that assumption.

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@GbengaWemimo There is no war in the future of Nigeria!

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

When I was a teenager, a mate of mine started speaking Italian.

That was surprising because Stephen wasn’t Italian.

He wasn’t studying Italian. He hadn’t spent a year as an exchange student in Rome. As far as I knew, he’d never learned a single word of the language.

He was just an ordinary Australian kid.

The sort of kid who played sport, listened to music, got into trouble occasionally, and spoke exactly one language like the rest of us.

English.

But one night at a Christian youth camp, during a prayer meeting that had become particularly intense, Stephen suddenly started speaking in what sounded like fluent Italian.

A handful of us had gathered in one of the cabins after lights out. We were serious about our faith. Maybe a little too serious. While most teenagers were worrying about sport, girlfriends, and getting their licence, we were praying for revival and wondering what it might feel like to experience the Holy Spirit the way the disciples did in the Book of Acts.

As we sat there praying, Stephen began speaking in a language none of us recognised. It certainly wasn’t English.

At first everyone just stared.

Then another teenager in the room, whose family background was European, started listening carefully. After a few moments he looked up and announced that Stephen was speaking Italian. Not only that, he claimed he could understand what Stephen was saying, and started translating it for us.

The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. People started crying. People started praying harder. People started talking about miracles.

And honestly, so did I.

Until that night, speaking in tongues belonged in the same category as burning bushes, parted seas, and donkeys that talked. Those were Bible stories. Things that happened to other people in another time.

Not to teenagers at youth camp.

Not in a cabin that smelled faintly of dirty socks and Lynx deodorant.

And yet there I was, watching something I couldn’t explain.

Thirty years later, I still can’t fully explain it.

Which is awkward.

- Dan Forster

[Gbenga Samuel-Wemimo @GbengaWemimo]

The year follows a pattern. Most people ignore It. Calendar years are not flat. They have lows and highs. Energy rises and falls in predictable cycles. Most planning ignores this completely. A quick thought experiment. When did you do your best thinking in the last year? When did your energy collapse? When did external pressures (family, financial, seasonal) make goals nearly impossible? There are almost certainly patterns there.

Marcus Aurelius didn’t write his Meditations during battle. He understood wisdom and execution require different conditions.

Commit certain months to action.

Some months are for building. Others are for accumulating. A year designed around reality outperforms “ambitious” goals you never do anything about every time. If you pay attention, you can work with the pattern, where others fight it. Do heavy thinking and big moves when energy is naturally high. Use slow periods to rest, reflect, and reset. The pattern is always there. You just have to notice it and use it.

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@GbengaWemimo Glory to the Glorious God!!

[El Daniels GFS, MGA @elokadaniels]

@Wakaholic_nurse There's absolutely nothing wrong here that warrants all the noise. If I addressed my boss as Mr. XY, he'd say, "Just call me X". She wasn't wrong and Tony wasn't either. He just stated his preference (though with an unnecessary expletive) and the lady deferred to him. Simple