The biggest hindrance to experiencing and seeing God is self. Folks have argued and would even quote parts of the scriptures out of context. Eg ‘without holiness, no man can see God’. But do you even understand the concept of holiness?

If you do not accept that holiness is strictly a gift from God to you through Christ Jesus, then you’re clueless about holiness. If you do not accept that you have no part to play and nothing you do can make you more or less Holy unto God, then you’re equally clueless.

If you do not accept that holiness was inferred upon you the moment you believed in Christ and are forever holy on that basis, you are clueless about holiness.

When you think on these things, you’ll see at the core of the misconception about holiness is self. Self righteousness, self condemnation, self guilt etc.

Once you get rid of self and focus wholly on what God has done in /through you, then you have begun to accept the holiness inferred on you.

I shared 2 scriptures yesterday. The central theme is simple

1. As believers, we dwell on Mount Zion and are co-citizens with a host of other beings with the Trinity fully present

2. Though these beings might be invisible to the physical eyes, they are even more real than whatever is seen with the physical eye as all things visible are temporary and insignificant

Until you come to terms with these, you’ll struggle with the reality of it. The one that believes God is, is the one is open to experience God.

In the same vein, it’s the one that believes what God has said, that is open to experience what God has said - about himself, about you, about where you dwell. No one and nothing would do that for you.

If scripture says that you dwell on mount Zion and are surrounded by an innumerable company of angels, do you accept and focus on that or you tell yourself demons are the real deal and fixate on those instead? Are you angels conscious or demon conscious?

If scripture says you’re the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, do you accept this and focus on your status as righteous or you fixate on your failings? Are you righteousness conscious or sin conscious?

If scripture says that the things that are unseen are eternal but the things that are seen are temporary, do you accept this and set your eyes on eternity or are you fixated on what your physical senses take hold of /experience?

Think on these things for therein lies your answer

So, yes, without holiness, no man can see God - but Christ has made us the righteousness of God this imbuing us with the very nature of holiness. We have become sinless in Christ and our nature is the same as His (holy)

If you do not see yourself as such, you have become your very own bespoke stumbling block to seeing and / experiencing God - for as a man thinks in his heart, so is he
Ciao

Understanding Holiness: A Gift from God

The management team of an organization had a thing for random critical thinking sessions. Not only were the timings quite random, the topics were equally as random and it was considered a thing of pride.

In a bid to impress them and consistently be in the good books, outside of work, staff would delve into opinion pieces and the latest fads, especially when the CEO was around or famed to be in town.

As long as you had an opinion and could defend it, you were deemed a brilliant mind and celebrated.

On one such days, I was heading to the cafeteria when I was stopped and asked my opinion on the most random topic possible. A topic so random and so irrelevant, I forgot what was asked almost as soon as it was spoken.

I retorted that I had no opinion on the topic as I considered neither relevant nor worthwhile. Plus I had more pressing issues - relating to work - to deal with and it was a distraction from my train of thought as I had almost solved the issue.

The response was a mixed reaction but it led to me speaking about the real issue and getting perspective from someone who had been in the business for over 15 years.

That was the last time I was randomly stopped and, whenever I look back to that moment, I find it interesting how quickly folks pandered to a system that was more amusing than productive without cognizance to the nuances at play.

For an organisation that prided itself in perfecting the 5-whys, it is amazing how much this was discouraged when the looking glass was turned towards internal systems and culture.

Today I think about it and realize how not very different the setup of religious institutions (and almost all human institutions) are. The clergy have been deified and exalted above the laity.

Christians having no sense of their godhood, leave every sense of connection to divinity with their pastors, priests, and prophets serving as intermediaries.

But then you realize, a large contributor to this is the astute denial of critical thinking when it comes to looking into these spaces.

For many years I questioned what I was taught in church. I gave my life to Christ at an early age and got my first Bible between the ages of 6 and 7. As one who liked to read, I started off from the creation story and read through till Revelations.

Little did I know that a foundation was being laid.

All I observed was that I increasingly questioned and internally challenged many things coming from the altar and in Sunday school. ‘This is defiantly not what the Bible said about this’ - became a recurrent thought with many preachers

and I would usually check my Bible or concordance when I got home to confirm.
Turned out I was usually right and I quickly learned to sieve what I heard versus the baseline in my heart. I gradually lost interest in mainstream church attendance.

This started with staying back home a little late (after making a case that the church was close enough for children not to wake up early enough for parents to attend workers meeting) and watching a bit of cartoon over attending empty Sunday school sessions, to carrying writing

pads to church - not to take notes but to draft articles for my personal page and eventual blog, in my early adulthood.I was looking for something and I knew what I was getting mainstream wasn’t it. One tipping point for me was when I got baptized with the Holy Spirit.

I had been taught that there was a process to it. You wait till a certain age and you first do water baptism after a series of baptismal classes (comes with a certificate). Next you go through another set of teachings in preparation for the Holy Ghost baptism and, if God so wills

What a load of bollocks (pardon my French). I recall going through the process of baptismal classes (for water baptism) at the start of year 2. We were told to fast throughout the final week to sanctity ourselves ahead of the grand event.

I would typically head to the sports field and spend some time in quiet contemplation of the scriptures and in prayers before going to the hostel and breaking my fast. A few days to the grand finale, I was at the sports complex when I heard myself praying in unknown tongues.

I knew what it was and was pleasantly surprised. This went on for a quite some time before I settled and went to the hostel.

But guess what? On my way to the hostel, I began to question my experience. Was it genuine? How come it happened before water baptism? While these thoughts raged on, the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart, haven’t you heard of Cornelius?

I checked my scriptures as soon as I got to the hostel and confirmed that Cornelius was listening to Peter teach when the Holy Spirit ‘came upon all listening’. Only then did Peter prescribe that they all be baptized in water.

Looking back through the scriptures, there’s a bit of consistency theme to this. From Pentecost to Cornelius to several others, they got baptized in the Holy Spirit while water baptism was flung squarely to the background.

So where did the idea of the process-flow come from and how did it become so deeply embedded in our belief systems.

I am reminded of one of my recent classes addressing righteousness and sin consciousness. After laying the biblical foundation and framework that attests to ‘once saved, forever saved’, we began to throw scenarios at the students.

It was surprising to see that not only did many believe sin had categories but they ranked sexual sins as the worst of all. They found it easier to accept that God can forgive (has forgiven) murder versus forgiving fornication /adultery.

I had to ask how anyone would imagine it’s better to kill someone than to sex outside marriage. Some folks claimed it was a sin against God but when asked to look into the scriptures, turned out it was called a sin ‘against your own self /body’. Has nothing to do with God.

In retrospect, it really isn’t surprising. Folks have followed cultures and systems unquestioningly, and many who deem to question the system do so from a place of spite and rebellion - not really to test the validity and accept what stands.

Detractors aside, it really is important to test and validate for yourself. You aren’t called to be a follower of norms, cultures, and religions but a follower of Christ. Know Him for yourself. Know the scriptures for yourself.

When you have questions, first ask the Holy Spirit for clarity and seek to gain more knowledge. You’ll find that every knowledge you encounter would be tested against the baseline of the foundation you have garnered serving as the perfect filter.

‘Come unto me…’, Jesus said. Not unto your Pastor, or Priest, or Prophet.

God bless you.

To thine own self be true…

I am reminded of the day Romans 8 came alive with particular emphasis on verse 38. In outlining the possible distractions and discounting them as nothing, the concept of the past was totally ignored. As I pondered on this, the Holy Spirit said to me ‘in Christ, there is no past’.

This isn’t farfetched when we consider 2 Corinthians 5:17, which clearly states that for us in Christ Jesus ‘old things have passed away’ or as some translations put it ‘the old is gone, the new is here’

Now, we know it’s human nature to look to the past. The most vocal proponents of history argue that to map the future, you have to look to the past. Same play with diviners and those who dabble in the metaphysical, they plot a map of the past as proof of their authenticity.

But in Christ, there is no past! So the one who looks to the past or insists on the past is yet to fully comprehend what it means to be in Christ. This goes beyond the concept of sin consciousness and it’s inherent issues. It extends to all aspects of the reality of the believer.

I am coming to terms with the truth that whatever we experience as believers, it’s because we allowed it. Can be quite the difficult pill to swallow but you have to understand that as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. (Proverbs 23:7)

I’ll simplify this with yet another statement the Holy Spirit said to me some weeks back which was, interestingly, reiterated by one of my teachers in a recent class: ‘You have to picture the ideal, then begin to act like it’

What picture rests in your heart about yourself, your finances, your present, your future? A picture of the past self? A picture of past struggles? A picture of issues from the past? Or the reality of who God has made you and called you?

As long as you have a faulty or defunct picture, you’ll struggle to break past that image no matter how hopeful you are or how much you pray. These are the things that creep out in your quiet /alone moments. The seeds of your imaginations whether awake or asleep.

How then do you change the image?
By words. Pictures are painted in the mind by words heard and spoken, and things seen. If you take in and declare the right image, you’ll gradually but surely replace the image in your heart with the right thing.

Where do you get the right image?
In God’s words. Go into the scriptures for starters. Get a proper sense of how God sees you and who He has called you. Take in that image. Paint it on the walls of your heart. Speak it into your environment. Let all elements of your reality hear!

Keep painting until you get to a point where every time you look inward, the only picture you see is exactly the same as that God has shown you and spoken about you.

The real stronghold humans have to deal with is the art gallery full of pictures of inadequacies, fear, poverty, decadence, death, decay, and unworthiness, guilt, sin, etc in the heart. (2 Corinthians 10:1-6)

It takes intentionality to replace the entire gallery because it includes both the inheritance of the flesh and a life’s worth accumulation
You cannot stop at some point and give up. You keep looking into Jesus
You keep learning of Him. You keep looking at the image of Him in you

I hope you take your this up as a challenge. A determination to rid yourself of the false images and fixate wholly on the image of Christ in you. Christ in you, the manifestation of glory. Christ in you, the author and finisher (script writer and story completer) of your reality.

Everything else is a lie. Start by acknowledging that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. This is the foundation of your new identity. And there’s a whole lot more you find in the scriptures, know it for yourself and become one with it.

God bless you

PS: Every weekday, we read the scriptures for ourselves as we come to full terms with our reality and we have prayers as well

Join us if you’re led to

https://t.me/Let_Us_Read_the_Word/1245

We meet by 11:00PM (WAT) tonight

You’re blessed always

No Past in Christ

The Believer’s Mandate - The 72 Who Said Yes

We pick this up from Luke 9.

By this time, Jesus had 12 disciples who had learnt at his feet, seen him perform certain kinds of miracles, and had a basic understanding of what Jesus was about.

He sent them out in twos to: drive out all demons and to cure diseases, to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick (v1-2).

Given this mandate, they head out going from village to village: proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere (v6).

We skip along the chapter where we are presented with the outcome of their first outing. Jesus’ followers had grown in number (v10-14) and now there are at least 5,000 souls linked to Jesus’ ministry.

The numbers were way higher than reported because, while 5,000 was the number of men, if they each had a wife and a child, we already have 15,000 people - asides the singles and unmarried adults.

Quite simply, the 12 had come back with between 400-2000 people each from their active demonstration of what Jesus represented.

By Luke 10, we find something interesting. Jesus commissions another batch with the same mandate: heal the sick and proclaim the kingdom of God (v9).

These time around he sends out an additional 72 (v1), and they went out in twos coming back with testimonies. ‘…even the demons submit to us in your name.’ (v17). By this time, we can imagine that Jesus had a mini nation linked to his ministry, his followers.

No wonder the Sanhedrin considered him a major political threat.

Not to be distracted, the 72 new add-ons are particularly noteworthy. Out of at least 5,000 people, they were the ones that were willing and daring. I imagine that among their lot, they had began to put to practice the things they saw Jesus do and say.

In their doing, they expressed their belief and Jesus entrusted them with propagating the gospel.

You’ll note that after commissioning these additional 72 (now 84), Jesus said they should pray for more laborers to be sent into the vineyard for ‘the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few’ (v2).

This was an unfortunate reality against a backdrop of 5000-20000 people.

The Gospel of John sheds light on what played out. As Jesus began to teach the reality of the gospel, many began to draw back.

They still identified with the miracles of Jesus but decided his teaching was not for them. ‘Don’t try to change our mindsets, just give us miracles and we are good’. When they realized that Jesus’ goal was an overall transformation via a consciousness shift, they lost interest.

It’s interesting how we see this repeating itself even today. Many who identify with Jesus are not followers of Jesus. Oh, they love the idea of the miracles. They see God as the ultimate lottery set to give them all good things and satisfy their desires.

Anything else is optional and no one can insist otherwise. Now when they see believers who manifest Christ, like the 5000+ they are eager to follow them to the source but once they realize that this requires them to learn and become, they chicken out.

They’ll rather have someone handing them the loaves and fish, than learn how to bring it forth from within and become a dispenser to others in the process.

A few in that number desire to be dispensers (for whatever reason) while insisting that it should find a way to fit into their own realities instead of them adjusting /being transformed to Christ’s reality. Where do you fall?

Are you among those who, like the 72, have decided that God’s mandate supersedes all else or you’ve firmly planted yourself in the sidelines satisfied with whatever comes to you while you go about your business?

Have you chosen to represent Christ and be one that draws (points) others to Him irrespective of where you find yourself or have you chosen to just seat on the field waiting for the ones out there to be done and then we can enjoy fellowship together?

Seek first God’s kingdom and His righteousness, and then all other things shall be added to you

#shalom

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/OyekDan/rB0uq4T

The Believer's Mandate (1)

Recall the age-long tale of 'The Elephant and the Blind Men'? There have been many alliterations to this story but, at its core, it demonstrates the limitations of human perception.

The six blind men in the story attempted to describe an elephant by touching it, but each of them had vastly different descriptions based on their limited perceptions. At the end, none of them got a clear understanding of what an Elephant is

Generally, humans are limited in their ability to perceive reality in its completeness. We only have our subjective experiences and perspectives to provide us with an incomplete understanding of the world around us.

Somehow this engenders an unending quest for truth. Essential because it is testament to our recognition that there is a universal, objective reality that exists outside of ourselves and our limited perspectives.

In a bid to get answers, humans have looked to science and religion as pathways to understanding this reality. These come with inherent limitations as they involve groping in the dark while attempting to define or understand reality.

We cannot rely on ourselves but must look beyond the framework of our realty to get answers. There is only one that exists beyond the framework of human perception, and that is God. Seeking to know truth means seeking to know God.

Jesus further emphasizes this when in Matthew 11:27 and John 6:46, he speaks to the limitations of human understanding when it comes to knowing God. It is only through him, as one who is from God, that we can know God. Humans are limited in their ability to know God on our own.

Like the blind men, even collaborative attempts and reported incidents can only give us a vague sense of God’s attributes without any clarity on God himself. We need divine revelation in order to gain a deeper understanding of God's nature and character.

We can only rely on God to reveal himself to us, rather than relying solely on our own understanding or efforts to know God - the ultimate source of truth and reality with the answers to all the inherent complexities.

When humans turn to God on God’s own terms, God actively reveals himself to us and allows us to gain a deeper appreciation of the complexity and beauty of reality.

Through divine revelation and seeking a relationship with God, we can access a deeper understanding of the complexities of the universe. It is only through this perspective that we can truly appreciate the mysteries of the world around us, and discover our place in it.

Ultimately, it is Jesus who provides the way to the ultimate truth of God, through his Holy Spirit, and so we find the most complete understanding we can as we turn and look to him for clearer vision, and a truly accurate picture of who God is.

https://meinnachdenken.wordpress.com/2023/08/24/reality-the-elephant-in-the-dark/

The Limitations of Perception: The Elephant and the Blind Men

There’s the story of a lady from a wealthy Pakistani family in love with a man of mixed heritage (Pakistani-Indian). Her family are vehemently against the union but young love refuses to be shackled despite the heavy measures put in place.

Eventually, her father - with the full knowledge of her mother - has the young lad abducted and beaten within an inch of his life with threats to end his life if he doesn’t let the lady go.

Her father then offers the young lad an option : Leave and live with support for relocation or stay and forfeit his life. The lad reasonably choses the former option. Choosing to live and move away to start life afresh.

Tall tales are told to the lady about the young man’s disappearance and every communication she receives is closely scrutinized to filter out any attempts he might make to contact her. All of these events makes her resent her family and she eventually runs off.

After a period of being a vagrant, she eventually meets another young man who is a missionary. She gets to know the gospel and embraces the healing of God’s love and forgiveness. Years later, a budding seed blooms and they get married. Eventually starting a family.

By this time, she is actively into teaching children the gospel while during her spare time or holidays she joins her husband on the mission field. A day would come when her husband gets a call to a mission field in the outskirts of India and the entire family travels together.

Alongside other missionaries, they share the gospel, conduct outreaches, and carry out CSR in the nearby communities. On one of such days, a man walks up to greet them and thanks them for the work they’ve been doing for the communities.

He shares his testimony of how he has been praying for help ever since he came to the community. As he speaks, the light of recognition shines in the woman’s eyes. This is the man she once loved from eons back. The one she had all but concluded dead.

As realization dawns on both sides, they trade stories of their past ordeals and how they came to the light of the gospel. Tears of forgiveness and healing flow, as all burdens of the past are erased. The man then introduces them to his daughter who had tagged along for the day.

There is koinonia and fellowship as the dew of Hermon falls around them. In the light, they have become light and had individually experienced the newness that only Christ brings - for in Him there is no past. Glory!

Forbidden Love in Pakistan

Stories

There’s an unfolding story about a family in one of the muslim communities among the Copts. The little boy has been having visions of Jesus which he has blurted out a number of times to family and neighbors alike out of the innocence of a child.

This has tainted the parents in the eyes of the community leaders as their child has been termed ‘infected by the disease of those weaklings’. As a result, the father can no longer hold his head high and has lost many business contacts /customers.

The shame and guilt has also drained the mother. She suffers anxiety and panic attacks from the emotional trauma of the dishonor they’ve had to face as a family. Both parents have cajoled, threatened, warned, and beat the boy to no avail.

The father accepts that the boy is still young and is hopeful that intensified religious classes would put an end to all this. Interestingly, the visions seem to intensify in response to the frequency of the threats and classes. Quite the conundrum for the family.

A day would come when the child would follow his father to nearby city and while wandering the streets, he would come across a live broadcast about healing and the power present in every believer to lay hands on others for their healing.

Excitedly, he rushes home to his mother to lay hands on her. There’s a surge of power immediately his hands touch her and she gets up fully strengthened- physically and emotionally. She comes to terms with the possibility that her son’s visions are the real deal.

This triggers a whole string of events leading to the entire family being excommunicated from their resident community but finding their way to a nearby Christian community in a bid to find answers and eventually salvation.

As the boy gets older, he looks back at the events of his life and marvels at how God goes all out to save the lost. His life’s mission is to take the gospel to the lost especially among the Copts while bringing enlightenment to those trapped in religion. Glory!

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/OyekDan/kJzAtLX

Visions of Jesus in a Muslim Community

The practice of Meno is a lost art especially in this generation with its microwave culture. Everyone is so used to having quick fixes that patience is easily disregarded as a virtue.

Why open the pages of an encyclopedia when you can run a Google search? Why solve mathematical problems mentally or on paper when you can type into a computer and get the answer?

Everything happens so quickly and efficiently that the entire structure of our communication style, and channels, have also been altered to accommodate this.

Shorthand abbreviations, emojis and emoticons etc convey a lot of ideas that would otherwise have been typed. Even the notion of putting thoughts to text is lost on many who rather opt for voice notes as they consider it either unnecessary or, in some instances, complicated.

Even our arts have evolved. Photography is now considered the ultimate form of visual art, effectively relegating realistic style of painting to the background.

There is also the advent of Artificial Intelligence with the text-to-image functionality where you can simply describe what you want to see or need and the image is rendered for your consumption.

While these serve their purpose especially with regard to the advancement of the human race, there is the consequence of the blitz in how time is viewed and its increasing downside.

The typical human today is largely incapable of abiding in a state - physical or otherwise - for an extended period of time. They find the relativity of time slowed down rather irksome and could easily act out in response.

The very notion that many things have to undergo a process, through time, for optimal outcomes /perfection is increasingly becoming alien.

We see this happening across all spheres of humanity as people try to force outcomes by whatever means possible versus the patience of undergoing a process.

With this in mind, it is not unexpected that the same mentality has seeped into the supernatural as well. People get overly fixated on outcomes so much so that baseline processes lose any real meaning for them.

I am reminded of an instance the disciples faced while Jesus was still on earth. At this point, they had become quite conversant with the miraculous - going out in twos healing the sick, casting out demons etc.

Until one day, a demon defied their instructions. In their perplexity, the crowd booed and jeered until Jesus came around. With just one command, the demon left the child and everyone was in awe.

When things had quietened down, the disciples had to ask Jesus. ‘Why couldn’t we cast this out? Why couldn’t we sort out this situation?’ and this engendered one of the more famous statements in the NT. ‘This kind does not come out except by prayer (and fasting)’.

I’ll quickly stop you here to reiterate that the disciples in question were already casting out devils and healing the sick at this time, so perish that excuse for your refusal to step out and do any of those.

On the other hand, there was something unique about the incident that wasn’t recorded. When Jesus said ‘This kind…’, what kind was he referring to? We can allude all we want but the crux was what followed - For the one that prays, every situation can be sorted no matter the kind

Looking at the life of Jesus and how he prayed, we see that he would regularly take out time away from everyone and everything to a quiet place.

He would then meno for hours. To meno means ‘to dwell, to abide, to remain, to tarry’. It is on record that he would daily spend between 4-12 hours in the place of quite solitude.

Jesus spent hours on end in daily fellowship with His father in the place of prayer. In this time, several things were bound to happen:

• He grew in knowledge and grace
• He ascended and explored realms
• He gained awareness
• He mastered time and space
• He generated power

He came out of such moments so full of the Holy Spirit and power that nothing could stand before him. You definitely cannot compare him to the disciples who at this time could not even tarry for up to an hour.

Of course, a time would come when they began to do things differently. It is interesting that this was under forced circumstances. Jesus had just left and he instructed them to meno until they experienced a breaking forth.

A little while back, He had breathed on them to fill them with the Holy Spirit. Still, it wasn’t until they tarried that we see the manifestation of power and the expressions of the Holy Spirit come to bear. To ascend, they had to meno, and it became their way of life after that.

Today as believers, we have the advantage of the Holy Spirit and all we have to do is ask. However, to grow in the expressions and manifestations of the Holy Spirit, we have to meno. There is no short-circuiting the process.

We can take different approaches and adopt techniques unique to us, but until we relearn and practice the art of meno, there are certain kinds we cannot be rid of.

The Art of Meno: A Lost Practice in Christendom

Every time a supernatural experience is recorded or reported, the very air pulses with charges as hearers /readers are stirred.

Some desire to experience it and verbally take hold of it, some seek to replicate, and many excitedly shout the latest fad which used to be ‘what God cannot do does not exist’ before the trendier ‘miracle no dey tire Jesus’.

Just last weekend, I was going through the gospels and found myself pondering on how, every time a miracle is recorded even in the scriptures, people (believers) easily see themselves in the shoes of the miracle recipient and not as represented by the enactor of the miracle.

I came to realize that it is because believers were mostly identifying with the struggles fraught in the natural life without cognizance to the supernatural life now present and at work in them.

Apparently, many believers are on the spectrum of identification where the Zoe is concerned. This is not so far fetched considering we were born in the bios and learned the bios.

Everything and everyone around us was subjected to the bios nature of death and decay, ups and downs, with the fight , flight or freeze instinct for survival.

However, the day we came into Christ, we were translated from the bios into the zoe, out of darkness into light, from death to life. ‘If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature…’. A new creature because the one that is born again is a kind that never before existed.

The old is gone - the old nature, old life, old being - poof, dead and gone. The new nature, new life, new being, the zoe - has emerged.

The very instant you came into Christ, you came into abundance of life. A life that overruns death, decay, loss, and destruction. Everything about you is alive, your very essence is life, your breath is life, and the spirit within you is life giving.

This isn’t new(s) to some believers. They have been taught over and again, some have even begun to operationalize it - extending the life from within to their reality, environment, and the lives of those around them.

Many others have either not heard or are yet to accept the truth of who they are in Christ.

For the first category, there is the need to fully come to terms with accepting who you are as Christ. Too often, there is a tendency to forget this while some outright struggle with just how all encompassing the life within us is.

So here’s a reminder: our touch, our breath, our presence, engenders life. It is paramount that we operate in this consciousness and intentionally superimpose life on all aspects of our reality - internally and externally.

We heal the sick. We raise the dead. We are the ones God has commissioned as Christ in this age. We are the continuation of the days of Christ. The saviors out of Zion. As He is, so are we in this time.

We are the way makers, the miracle workers, promise keepers, the light in the darkness. Miracle no dey tire us. What we cannot do by the power of the Holy Spirit does not exist. That is who we are.

However, as a man thinks in his heart - the way he perceives himself - that defines his experiences / that is who he is. We place restrictions on our god nature by how we view ourselves.

This doesn’t make us any less that we are as sons of God. It simply limits our expressions and operations as God-kind in this realm.

For the ones who aren’t remotely conversant with these concepts or are just starting to explore this reality, please reach out. Send a DM. Ask your questions. There is a whole lot you are limited from doing by what you have been taught and come to accept /believe about yourself.

Remember the disciples? They went out in twos and were actively healing the sick, casting out devils, and sorting out difficult situations while Jesus was still very much Emmanuel. Now we have God-in-us and can do so much more.

You need to see yourself the way God sees you and come to terms with the possibilities inherent within.

Lots of Love

NY

The Human Fascination with Miracles

Growing up, I was taught that a child should not speak in tongues. You only receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit after you’ve been water baptized; and you only get water baptized when you have sense and can be held accountable.

Later I got to learn about the Holy Spirit and the importance of praying to Him. As children, we were encouraged to try. King Josiah, King David, etc were used as reference points. And like a few children then, I had some experiences.

Suffice it to say, I put aside any notion of speaking in tongues till whenever I would have checked off water baptism. A few times, I would speak in tongues in my ‘dreams’ or in my spirit, but I never vocalized it.

Finally, the time came when I signed up for water baptism classes. I can’t recall how long the classes were but the final week of the class, we were advised to fast and live dedicated lives.

Everyday I would head to the nearby sports complex and just soak myself in scriptures, worship, as well as converse with the Holy Spirit. Basically rededicating my life and reviewing my BTD (B=Birth) actions with Him.

On one of such days during our chat, from speaking in human words I burst out in tongues. I instantly recognized what I was speaking, I had heard it a few times but had never vocalized it. This went on for over an hour. Just me speaking and singing in tongues non-stop.

I was initially resistant. It felt right but the indoctrination of a process flow was making me question what was going on. I have not yet been water baptized, why are the tongues coming out?

The Holy Spirit instantly took me to the story of Cornelius and asked me to draw references. From there, more scriptures were brought to mind and the diverse ways people got filled in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. I was exhilarated.

Got to church that weekend for the water baptism ceremony and I was literally in a cloud. When the ceremony was done and the candidates returned to the chapel to be prayed for, I couldn’t pray in human language. I was just praying in the spirit.

When the chaplain came up to me and heard me speaking in tongues, he seemed more surprised than excited.
I got to later understand why but that’s conversation for another day.

I have found it quite interesting how over the years people have argued on if the infilling of the believer with the Holy Spirit needs to happen and his it should happen. This is despite having biblical backing to how diverse it is.

We have the disciples of Jesus at the upper room, we have the congregation Peter spoke to and the disciples ministered to (3000 and 5000), we have Paul, we have Cornelius. Over and again, the Holy Spirit made one thing clear.

We shouldn’t even argue speaking in tongues. From Pentecost till date, we see the Father’s desire manifesting when people are yielded to Him without preconceived notions as they typically erupt in tongues.

Speaking in tongues is consistent. The ‘how’ is what is quite diverse.

He does not operate from the point of human logic or systems. There was never going to be a single pattern to His operation. The objectives are consistent but the execution is as diverse as diversity can get.

Everytime we fix to box the Holy Spirit or insist that He only does things one particular way, we are literally working contrary to how He operates.

Any believer who says things of the spirit can only happen in a particular flow or format is yet to understand or walk closely with the Holy Spirit.

The wind blows where it wills is not rote saying. You cannot decide how it blows, but you can be sure of the destination /end game.

Dear Believer, stop fighting or speaking against the move of the Holy Spirit in this day and age. He wants to work in and through all of us in diverse ways to bring everyone and everything into the light and into life. Give room and be a part of this movement.

Separately, are you a Christian and desire an infilling with the evidence of speaking in tongues? You can actually sit in your room with Him tonight and have it sorted. Otherwise, you can reach out to me.

With love

~ Nesher Yeshua