Iyete Apeji

Christ Follower

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

Every idol is shaped by the desires of the worshipper. Man creates a god who will approve his choices, protect his comforts, excuse his sin, and never command him to die to himself. What appears to be devotion to another is often only devotion to self wearing a religious mask.

“They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” (Romans 1:23).

Idolatry is not limited to statues, temples, or false religions. We commit it whenever we reduce God to a version of ourselves. We keep the attributes that comfort us, reject the truths that confront us, and then worship the god our own preferences have created.

“These men have set up their idols in their hearts” (Ezekiel 14:3).

This is why self love stands beneath so many forms of rebellion. We may worship success, pleasure, approval, family, politics, ministry, or even our own theology. The object changes, but the throne remains occupied by the same ruler: self.

“For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant” (2 Timothy 3:2).

The gospel does not come to help self become more successful. It comes to remove self from the throne. Christ calls us to deny ourselves, take up the cross, and follow Him.

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

Every idol eventually reveals the face of the person who made it. True worship begins only when we stop remaking God in our image and bow before Him as He has revealed Himself.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

The sooner we accept that death will separate us from everything we possess in this life, the sooner we will stop living as though this world were permanent. Our money, home, reputation, achievements, and possessions will all remain behind. Even the spouse we deeply love and the children we have carried in our hearts cannot travel with us beyond the grave.

“For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either” (1 Timothy 6:7).

This truth is not meant to make us careless about earthly relationships. It should make us cherish them rightly. Love your spouse faithfully. Raise your children with tenderness and truth. Provide for your family and enjoy the gifts God has given. But do not turn temporary gifts into eternal gods.

Death exposes how foolishly we cling to things we were only permitted to hold for a little while. The grave does not recognise bank balances, titles, property deeds, influence, or applause. It strips every person down to the condition of his soul before God.

“So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Contentment does not come merely from knowing that we will lose everything. It comes from knowing that Christ cannot be lost. The believer may leave possessions, family, health, and the body itself behind, but he does not leave the Lord who redeemed him.

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth” (Psalm 73:25).

Hold earthly blessings with gratitude, but hold them with open hands. Your spouse is a gift. Your children are entrusted to you. Your possessions are tools. Your life itself is temporary stewardship.

Only Christ is the lasting portion of the soul. The sooner we understand that everything else must eventually be released, the freer we become to enjoy God’s gifts without worshipping them and to live prepared for the day when He calls us home.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

Fallen man does not naturally desire God for who He is. He may desire relief from pain, protection from danger, success, healing, peace, or heaven, yet still have no love for the holiness, authority, and glory of the God who gives those things.

“There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God” (Romans 3:11).

The crowds followed Jesus because He had filled their stomachs, but He exposed the true object of their pursuit.

“You seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled” (John 6:26).

Many want God as a provider while rejecting Him as Lord. They want His gifts without His commands, His mercy without repentance, His heaven without holiness, and His salvation without surrender. Such people are not seeking God. They are using religious language to pursue themselves.

True conversion changes the object of our desire. Grace teaches us that God Himself is the treasure. The believer still brings needs to Him, but he no longer values God merely for what He may place in his hands. He desires the Giver above the gifts.

“Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth” (Psalm 73:25).

This is why salvation must begin with God. Sinners do not find Christ because they searched faithfully enough. Christ seeks the lost, opens blind eyes, changes hostile hearts, and brings them to Himself.

“For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10).

The clearest evidence of grace is not merely that we want something from God. It is that, even when He withholds what we asked for, we still know that having Christ is better than possessing everything else.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

True worship is not an emotion we manufacture through music, atmosphere, repetition, or excitement. It begins with God revealing who He is. We see His holiness, mercy, justice, sovereignty, and saving grace, and the redeemed heart responds with reverence, gratitude, love, and obedience.

“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24).

Worship therefore does not begin with what we feel about God, but with what God has made known about Himself. Truth gives worship its substance, and the Holy Spirit gives the heart life to respond. Emotion may follow, but emotion cannot create true worship.

“For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen” (Romans 11:36).

The Church does not need to work people into a spiritual mood. It must open the Scriptures, proclaim Christ, and display the glory of God faithfully. When God is seen as He has revealed Himself, worship rises naturally from hearts conquered by grace.

True worship comes from above before it rises from below. It begins with God, is made possible through Christ, is awakened by the Holy Spirit, and returns entirely to His glory.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

The lost man usually does not see himself as lost. He compares himself with others, measures his life by human standards, and concludes that God must accept him because he is not as bad as someone else. But the person awakened by grace stops defending himself. He sees that even his best works cannot remove his guilt before a holy God.

“There is none righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10).

The kingdom of God is not a reward for those who consider themselves worthy. It is received by those whom God has brought to spiritual poverty, who come with nothing to offer and no righteousness of their own to present.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).

The Pharisee stood before God listing his virtues. The tax collector could only plead for mercy. Jesus said it was the guilty man who confessed his need, not the religious man who praised himself, who went home justified.

“God, be merciful to me, the sinner!” (Luke 18:13).

Eternal life is not wages paid to those who performed well enough. The only wages sinners have earned are death. Salvation comes as a free gift because Christ alone obeyed perfectly, bore the judgment of His people, and rose again.

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).

The self righteous man seeks God’s approval while refusing God’s verdict concerning his sin. The saved person has accepted that verdict and fled to Christ for pardon. He does not stand before God announcing what he deserves. He stands clothed in a righteousness that belongs to Another.

The dividing line is not between good people and bad people. It is between condemned sinners who still trust themselves and forgiven sinners who have abandoned every hope except Jesus Christ.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

Open persecution can wound the church, but comfortable secularism can slowly put it to sleep.

Persecution often forces the issue into the light. It tells the Christian plainly that following Christ will cost him something. It exposes false converts, strengthens true faith, and reminds the church that this world is not our home.

“Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

But pluralistic secularism works in a quieter way. It does not always command us to deny Christ openly. It simply asks us to make Him one voice among many, one truth among other truths, one private preference that must never rule public life. It does not always burn Bibles. It trains people to treat the Bible as irrelevant.

“See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception” (Colossians 2:8).

That kind of poison is dangerous because it flatters the flesh. It lets a man keep religious language while slowly removing the offence of Christ. It teaches the church to value acceptance more than faithfulness, niceness more than truth, and cultural approval more than obedience to God.

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2).

The world does not need to make Christians atheists in order to weaken the church. It only needs to make us embarrassed of holiness, silent about judgment, vague about Christ, and soft toward sin.

“You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God?” (James 4:4).

So yes, persecution is painful. But a comfortable age that teaches the church to compromise without feeling guilty may be even more dangerous. The sword kills the body. A Christless culture can numb the soul.

The church must fear both courage without love and peace without truth.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

The believer’s salvation rests fully on Christ, not only in what He has done at the cross, but also in what He continues to do now as the risen Lord.

We are reconciled to God through His death. Our guilt was placed on Him, wrath was satisfied, sin was judged, and the debt we could never pay was paid in full by His blood.

“For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son” (Romans 5:10).

But Scripture does not stop there. The same verse says we are also saved by His life. Christ did not die and then leave His people to keep themselves. He rose from the dead, lives forever, intercedes for us, preserves us, and brings us all the way home.

“Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life” (Romans 5:10).

This is the comfort of the Christian. Our salvation is not hanging on our weak grip. It rests in the hands of the living Christ. The One who died for us is now alive for us, praying for us, keeping us, ruling over us, and ensuring that not one of His sheep will be lost.

“Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25).

So we are not saved by a dead memory, but by a living Saviour. His death secured our pardon. His life secures our perseverance. The cross removed our condemnation. His resurrection life guarantees our final glory.

“Because I live, you will live also” (John 14:19).

[Iyete Apeji @iamiyete]

@iamrjknight I completely agree. It is so much harder sharing the true gospel with those who think they are in Christ. It’s a big battle.

[Iyete Apeji @iamiyete]

@MikeWingerii

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

The first lesson in following Christ is not comfort, success, influence, or personal fulfilment. The first lesson is death to self.

Jesus never called men to add Him to an already crowded life. He called them to lose their lives for His sake, to deny themselves, to take up the cross, and to follow Him wherever He leads.

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).

Modern religion often tries to make discipleship sound easy. It speaks of Jesus as though He came to improve our dreams, protect our idols, and make life smoother. But Christ was brutally clear. No one can follow Him while still clinging to his own throne.

“So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions” (Luke 14:33).

This does not mean every believer loses the same earthly things in the same way. It means Christ must own the heart completely. Family, comfort, reputation, ambition, security, money, and even life itself must bow beneath His Lordship.

“More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:8).

The cost of discipleship is everything. But what we lose for Christ is nothing compared to the glory of gaining Christ.

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it” (Matthew 16:25).

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

Lord, whether prosperity smiles or adversity frowns, let Your praise be ever in my mouth. Do not let comfort make me forget You, and do not let suffering make me question Your goodness.

Teach my heart to bless You in abundance and in loss, in peace and in pain, in open doors and closed ones. “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Psalm 34:1).

Let my worship not depend on changing seasons. If You give, keep me humble. If You take away, keep me faithful. Job said, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).

Whether my hands are full or empty, let my soul remain fixed on You. Prosperity is not my saviour, and adversity is not my master. You alone are my portion, my strength, and my song. “Whom have I in heaven but You? And besides You, I desire nothing on earth” (Psalm 73:25).

In Jesus name, Amen.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

The mother is, whether she realises it or not, one of the greatest, strongest, and most lasting teachers her children will ever have. Her words teach, but so does her tone. Her habits teach. Her prayers teach. Her fears, priorities, patience, anger, tenderness, and faith all preach to the little souls watching her every day.

A child may forget many lessons heard in a classroom, but he will carry the atmosphere of his mother’s life for years. That is why motherhood must never be treated as small work. It is not merely feeding, cleaning, correcting, and managing a home. It is daily formation before God.

Scripture shows the power of this quiet influence. Paul reminded Timothy of “the sincere faith” that first lived in his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice (2 Timothy 1:5). Their faith did not stay private. It marked him. It shaped him. It prepared him to receive the Word of God.

This does not mean a mother saves her children. Only God gives life. But a faithful mother places truth before them, prays over them, disciplines them, teaches them, and shows them what it means to fear the Lord in ordinary life. “Train up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6).

A mother may feel unseen, tired, and ordinary, but the home is one of the deepest mission fields God has given her. The lessons she lives before her children may echo long after her voice is gone.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

We bring so little glory to Christ because we are still so hungry for our own. We want His name honoured, but we also want ours noticed. We speak of His greatness, yet secretly desire applause, recognition, influence, and approval for ourselves.

That is not a small weakness. It is the old pride still fighting to sit where only Christ belongs. John the Baptist understood the proper place of every servant of God when he said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Christ is most honoured in us when self is brought low. The servant must not steal attention from the Master. The messenger must not make himself the message. The preacher, writer, teacher, worker, and witness must all learn to say from the heart, “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory” (Psalm 115:1).

Paul saw this clearly. “We do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond servants for Jesus’ sake” (2 Corinthians 4:5). That is the mark of true ministry and true Christian living. Christ is Lord. We are servants.

So if we want to bring more glory to Christ, we must stop feeding the hunger for our own glory. Let our pride be crucified, our boasting silenced, and our usefulness hidden if God so wills. It is enough if Christ is seen, Christ is trusted, Christ is worshipped, and Christ is glorified.

[Iyete Apeji @iamiyete]

@iamrjknight A good post to read on my wedding anniversary.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

No faith is more precious than the faith that endures when everything around it is being shaken. Untested faith may speak loudly, but tested faith learns to cling. Trials expose what we are, strip away our false confidence, and teach us that our strength was never enough.

This is one mercy of affliction. We would never truly know the depth of our weakness if God did not bring us into places where our strength fails. And we would never know the sufficiency of His grace if we were never made to depend on it. “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

James does not tell us to rejoice because trials are pleasant. He tells us to rejoice because God is doing something holy through them. “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance” (James 1:2-3). The trial is not wasted. It is in the hand of a Father who knows exactly what must be refined, corrected, strengthened, and purified.

Peter says the same thing. Our faith is tested so that it may be “found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:7). That means suffering is not the enemy of faith. Under God’s hand, it becomes the furnace where faith is proven real.

So do not despise the trial that has brought us to the end of ourselves. That may be the very place where God teaches us to stop trusting our own strength and to rest in His. Tested faith does not come out proud. It comes out humbled, dependent, steadier, and more certain that God is enough.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

A humble and prayerful man will see riches in Scripture that a proud mind will walk past without trembling. The Bible does not open its depths to cleverness alone. It is not mastered by intellect, degrees, debate skill, or theological confidence. It is received by those who come low before God.

“The secret of the Lord is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His covenant” (Psalm 25:14).

Pride can study the Bible and still miss God. It can define doctrine, win arguments, quote verses, and remain untouched in the heart. The Pharisees searched the Scriptures, yet Christ said, “It is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).

That is the danger. A man can handle holy things with an unbroken spirit. He can learn truth without being humbled by it. But Scripture is clear: “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

So we must not come to the Bible merely to collect information. We must come asking God to search us, correct us, wound our pride, and lead us to Christ. “Open my eyes, that I may behold wonderful things from Your law” (Psalm 119:18).

The proud student may know the words on the page. The humble soul learns to bow before the God who speaks through them.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

This is the fundamental problem of dispensationalism. They read current geopolitics backward into the text and then claim Scripture as their authority. That is not exegesis. It is newspaper theology dressed in biblical language

The Islamic Mahdi interpretation of the white horse rider in Revelation 6:2 has no textual foundation and is an entirely modern dispensational interpretation and has no grounding in the text itself.. It reads a figure from Islamic eschatology back into a Christian text, which is eisegesis, meaning we are putting into the text what is not there rather than drawing out what is. Scripture interprets Scripture, not Islamic tradition.

The white horse rider in Revelation 6 is better understood within its own context. The four horsemen move together as instruments of judgment operating throughout this age, conquest, war, famine, and death. Some Christian scholars and theologians see the white horse rider as representing conquest generally, others as the advance of the gospel since Christ Himself rides a white horse in Revelation 19:11. Either way, the text gives us no warrant to import a figure from a completely different religious tradition into the passage.

Ezekiel 38 and 39 describe an invasion against restored Israel by Gog of the land of Magog, with a coalition of ancient peoples. Dispensationalists map these ancient names onto modern nations with great confidence, but the names Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, and Beth-togarmah in Ezekiel 38:2 to 6 are ancient geographical locations, not modern nation-states. Forcing them onto a current geopolitical map involves a large amount of speculation dressed up as prophecy.

What is significant is that Ezekiel 38:23 gives us the point of the whole passage. God says He will magnify Himself, sanctify Himself, and make Himself known in the sight of many nations. That is the purpose. Not a prophecy chart. Not a current events commentary. The glory of God in the defeat of every enemy who rises against His people.

Revelation 20:8 uses Gog and Magog again, clearly symbolically, referring to nations from the four corners of the earth gathered against God's people at the final judgment. John's use of the language confirms it carries a theological meaning broader than any single ethnic or national identification.

The honest answer is that both the Islamic Mahdi reading and the detailed dispensational nation-mapping go well beyond what the text actually says. We hold what Scripture gives us clearly and hold our speculation loosely.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

If conversion produces no change, we have reason to question whether it was real.

The gospel does not leave a man as he is. It forgives, but it also transforms. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). That change is not merely inward in claim, but outward in life.

This does not mean perfection, but direction. A new pattern begins. “We are His workmanship… created in Christ Jesus for good works” (Ephesians 2:10).

Scripture is clear that faith is not empty. “Faith, if it has no works, is dead” (James 2:17). Where there is no evidence of change, no struggle against sin, no movement toward obedience, the profession stands on weak ground.

So the issue is not whether we stumble, but whether we remain the same.

Because true conversion may be gradual, but it is never imaginary.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

Prayer is not a small addition to our lives. It is the admission that we cannot live, think, or act rightly without God. Not partial dependence, but total. “Apart from Me we can do nothing” (John 15:5).

When we truly understand this, prayer stops being occasional and becomes essential. It is not about asking for extra help, but recognizing that without Him, there is no help at all. “Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I shall rescue you” (Psalm 50:15).

So prayer is not weakness. It is clarity. It is seeing ourselves as we are and God as He is.

And from that place, we live dependent, not on ourselves, but on Him.

[Jeremiah Knight @iamrjknight]

We say we want God to speak, but we ignore what He has already spoken. We look for something new, something personal, something immediate, while the Word of God sits unopened. That is not a lack of revelation. That is a lack of submission.

“God, after He spoke long ago… in these last days has spoken to us in His Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2). And that revelation has been given to us in Scripture. We are not waiting for a voice. We have His Word.

The danger is this. When we chase “special revelation,” we slowly drift away from what is sufficient. And when Scripture is neglected, anything can begin to sound like God.

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable… so that the man of God may be complete” (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Complete. Not lacking.

So the issue is not that God is silent. It is that we are not listening where He has already spoken.

If we want to hear from God, we do not need something new. We need to open what we already have.