Don't Miss it for anything. (YouthAlive, Night Vigil)

Birthdays & Wedding Anniversary for November.

Bro. Tijani Opeyemi Kayode.                                         4^th

Bro. Oyebode Olusegun Kehinde.                                  7^th

Bro. Akinfolarin Tosin Akiniyi.                                        9^th

Sis. Akpan Joyful Godwin.                                                 11^th

Bro. Aladegbaiye Adefemi Oluwarotimi.                      14^th

Dnc. Babalola Oluwagbemiga Omokayode.                  21^st

Wedding

Deacon & Deaconess Babalola.                                         24^th

OPEN HEAVENS- BEWARE OF SATAN’S WILES!

According to John 10:10, Satan does not waste his time with those who have nothing in stock for him. If he is bringing lots of difficulties to you, it is because he has seen something good coming your way. Whether he likes it or not, that great destiny he has seen in you shall be accomplished in Jesus name. Usually, the devil prefers to use his perverted wisdom while fighting. He implements a hide-and-seek strategy in getting his victim. His target are usually pointed and focused. All he may target in a person’s life might be just to have at least one stronghold in that life. if he can succeed in having that, he knows he can go and sleep. He doesn’t mind your going to church, dancing, and singing as long as you idolise your children above God. If he can get you to love one of your children above God, he could destroy your destiny. This was how he ruined Eli and got God to reverse His great plan concerning that family (1 Samuel 2:30). Satan does not mind your worshipping God and being in His service as long as you idolise money. This was how he ruined the life of Gehazi who had the potential of becoming the most powerful prophet ever in his time. Satan can allow you pull down the gates of your enemies and to do exploits for your God as long as you lack self-control. He will tell you to be free and to do as you like, after all, we are in the dispensation of grace and not the law. This was how he got Samson.

Paul saw the devil trying to use his flesh against him so he kept his body under control (1 Corinthians 9:27). For failing to crucify their flesh, many evangelists are winning people to heaven while they are heading for hell. Beloved, your life being right with God is more important than your service for God. Is the devil still having a foothold in your life? Are you flowing with his evil philosophies? Reject them today. Take a good look at your life, thoughts, deeds, plans, words, and relationships and ensure that they are in conformity with the Word. Do everything possible to make it to Heaven.

5 FRIENDSHIP TRUTHS YOUR CHILD MUST KNOW

Children are born, great friends are made! Friendship is at the core of every meaningful relationship- work, marriage, social relationships, etc. so it’s best we groom our children to be the best friend they can be. The following five values of friendship would be a good place to start:

·         Friendship is a gift: Help your kids understand that by being friends with others, we are offering them the privilege to share our lives. We are giving a gift of ourselves, which is an honourable thing to do. We give of ourselves, our time, our resources, etc. and we share the joy and pains of our friends. Friendship teaches us to share. And it gives us the honour to share in people’s lives too.

·         Friendship is an act: The acts of friendship define the quality and impact of friendship. Friendship is not merely about saying, “this person is my friend”, but in being friendly. Let your kids know that friendship is actually about being kind, thoughtful, sensitive, loving, affectionate, etc. it is basically about acting rightly towards others. The basic rule of friendship is this- do to others what you want them to do to you. Teach your children to act towards their friends the way they want to be treated.

·         Friends accept: Friends accept one another for who they are. Friends should complement and not condemn. Encourage your kids to love their friends for whom they are. We are not saying teach them to celebrate their friend’s weaknesses, rather help them understand that no one is perfect. Teach them to correct their friends in love. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Help them not to become judgmental.

·         Friends nurture: Friends build each other up. We should teach our children to be a part of their friends’ support network, to encourage their friends and cheer them on. Let’s teach them to compliment others, not to be afraid of complimenting others, but to be the first to compliment their friends.

·         We can choose our friends: Let them know that friendship is a choice. They can choose who to be friends with, whoever makes them feel bad or inferior about themselves should be a friend. Friends should stir good feelings. Teach them not be friends with people because of what they have but because of who they are. They should watch out for character and values before becoming friends with people. This is because association has the power to influence. Let your children know that they will become more like the people they associate with. Proverbs 13:20 says, “He who walks with the wise grow wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm.”

(Culled from GEM Woman Magazine)

WISDOM PAYS ITS OWNER (with Sis. Tomilola Kemi-Olaitan)

According to John 3:14-18, there is Godly wisdom and ungodly wisdom. Ungodly wisdom is the wisdom of the serpent. Being cunning, the devil knows how to get what he wants. Out there, there are many serpents ready to deceive unsuspecting people. However the wisdom from above is what God expects His children to operate on. Some leaders who claim to be led of God, still operate under serpentine wisdom. Proverbs 4:7 says God’s wisdom is the principal thing. Ecclesiastes 7:12 calls it a means of defence. Great nations of the world are what they are today based on wisdom. Israel though small in size is a regional power. Ecclesiastes 9:6 says wisdom is better than strength while Ecclesiastes 9:8 says wisdom is far better than weapons of wars. There are some battles that can only be won through the application of wisdom not by might. Also deploying wisdom in a time of war or in an event can lead to saving resources and time. Many battles are avoidable. If you apply wisdom you will prevent so many avoidable battles. If you employ wisdom in your speech it will be difficult for you to say what can trigger strife. Many fire that are kindled by the tongue according to James 3:5,6, can be avoided if wisdom is employed. If there is one thing you should ask God it is wisdom. Ecclesiastes 10:10 says wisdom is profitable to direct if you cannot give your children anything, give them education. The only one who controls wisdom is the owner of wisdom. Daniel 2:20 says wisdom belongs to God. If you think you’re wise, be extremely careful because 1 Corinthians 1:19, 20 says God can turn wisdom into foolishness. Ahithophel the great counsellor was a victim of this. 1 Corinthians 1:27, says, God can use foolish things to confound the wise. John 12:17, says, God leads counsellors and turn judges into fools. If you’re an earthly judge you must fear the Almighty God because He can make you to take some very foolish decision or err in your judgements to such an extent that it will be glaring to all that you are foolish. To maintain your wisdom you have to constantly feed on God’s word and submit to the counsel of the greatest counsellor. Ask for more of His wisdom in your life on a daily basis and avoid everything the Bible classifies as foolishness.

EFFECTS OF SECRETS IN FAMILIES (with Tobi Delly)

Secret is a pre-causal agent to the causes of trouble in Christian families. What is called irrelevancy often end up to affect someone in a family that looks healthy already. When a woman gives birth to a female child at her teen age and by the time the kid grew up, she also had a child of her that exact age, it is a function of secret. What you mostly keep away from children or tell them to abstain from is what they mostly do. That’s because parents don’t take the time to explain the reasons for their acts for the kids to understand and make a decision in line to that. A man of God narrated a story where he told her daughter about the importance of staying up as a virgin till marriage. The young girl later asked him, “Dad, was mom a virgin when you met her?” the man was taken aback, he then answered and said, “No, she wasn’t, I wasn’t too. But we didn’t have anybody to teach us the importance or virtues of it. Now, you have the opportunity to do the right thing because we your parents now know the right thing. That’s why we holding you to a standard.” The young girl was quite happy with the answer, and thanked her dad for telling her the truth, promising she’d keep it safe because of that. Look at it the other way round, if the man had presented the mom as a saint, the daughter won’t want to be a saint. And before you know it, she might be thinking, just because mom did, doesn’t mean I should.

Psychologists specialising in family secrets like Evan Imber-Black, a Psychotherapist, has discovered that secrets in family life can lead to murder, abuse, suicide, and other damages. It is so common with Nigerian families, the parents hide somewhere in the house discussing family matters while the kids are somewhere wondering what exactly are they talking about. Some families make sure when you’re at the dining you eat, not talk. No explanation, nothing. You talk, you get beaten. In another family, it might be when the Dad calls you once and you didn’t answer, you’re doomed for the day. The present family troubles can all be traced back to a family secret in the line of generation. It might be the mother was abused as a kid, might be the Dad was a cultist in his university days. A perfect family knows when to discuss these things with each other, with the kids and everyone. It helps push off mistakes that would’ve been made. And it’ll also help communication between the families. A family with no secrets or less secrets has a better communication than a family with more secrets.

I once heard a speaker saying at a conference, ‘my parents sent me to school, just saying, remember whose son thou art. That was all, no sex education, no peer pressure education, just remember whose son thou art. And with that I found myself in a very confusing world.’ According to his explanation, he came from a family where the father calls the mother by name, ‘Tade, Deji, Tunde, etc.’ and vice-versa for the mom too. The parents show no affection for each other, they don’t even touch themselves, all of a sudden the mother will just pregnant, and he will be wondering, what’s happening? How did it happen? Where did it happen? So that before starting his family, he made sure he recounts his life from A-Z. His own family background and the effects it had on him, in that way he and his wife were able to plan on how to educate the kids in a better way.

Whether you like it or not, Christian or no Christian, secret will shape the life of your family, even when you’re dead, it might even destroy the lot. Secrets are dynamic, and they move from person to person. The mother can tell the daughter closest to her. While she keeps it away from the others. This will later produce a rigid boundary in the family. It can isolate someone in a family, who thinks he or she is carrying a burden. It then kills either the person or eats away the relationship. A husband who discovers he is HIV positive and the wife is negative, or a wife who is in debt with her business and couldn’t tell the rest of the family. There are lots of concealing in families today but the knots are unknots, the better any relationship and families will be. If you’re one of those held in the captivity of secrets, apply wisdom, start by discussing it with someone, preferably your Pastor, if you believe in him. And then you can start including some people, one by one in the family and before you know it, you’re in the clear, happy and having fun with your life not looking back if someone has discovered what you’ve done in the past or else, the past will continue to haunt your present and can alter the future.

Shalom!

UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE (with Tobi Delly)

In a picture in one of my Chemistry textbooks, show Albert Einstein, seating with Rutherford, Neils Bohr, de Broglie, and other notable scientist discussing new research. Have you ever thought who Aliko Dangote’s friends are? A friend either pulls you up or drags you down with him. It is life’s natural law that you’re either moving forward in life or you’re going backward, there’s no standing still. So also your friends won’t hold you down. (i.e. pause) they either drag you to bankruptcy or lever you up to greatness. If you have a friend that is a joker, who doesn’t understand that life is a business and not a play fair you might end up where you don’t like with him if you can’t put a stop to that friendship. In my Primary school, throughout my school days, I was friends with only the set of people who have vision and constancy of purpose for their lives. When I started business, I had new set of friends with the same entrepreneurship mindset. We all attended Business School together, hopped from one business conference to another. When I started to write my first book, I made friends with others who already are Authors. I attended Association of Nigerian Authors meeting to get to the right set of people. The people you surround yourself with matters in your personal development growth, in your being successful or becoming a failure. There’s a law called ‘The law of five’. The law of five states that ‘You are the average of the five people you spend most of your time with.’ This means if you spend time mostly with five people who are on level 3 and 4, you’ll be the average of this level. That is, you don’t even get to be on level 4. You’ll be dragged down to 3 point something. I explained this to a friend in this way, if you’re on level 5 and you have a level-3 friend. Your level-3 friend will drag you down from your level-5. So that before you know what’s happening, you’re coming down to his level. But if you’re on level-5 with a friend on level-8, definitely, he’ll pull you up. You’ll start going up from your level-5. A most shocking aspect of Social Intelligence in Daniel Goleman’s research is that our brain communicates. When you have a friend, and your communicating becomes intense, brains begin to wire and thoughts begin to transfer from one brain to another. Now, you want to check who your brain is communicating with, ain’t that right? I’d want to if you ask me.

It took me a while to realise my mentor doesn’t have friends coming and going out of his house. I have discovered the damage just one friend can do. One bad apple can destroy the whole pack. So watch out, know your friends. If he is a fan (like the over 80, 000 fans watching a football match), then fan him out. Stick only with the players, (like the 22 players active on the field). When you’re socially intelligent, you communicate better with others and make them feel better off. You create a network of friends who have a purpose for living. I get my kicks from writing books. My five close friends get their kicks from Computer education, Writing, Consulting and Public speaking, Deals, Internet innovation respectively. And they’re doing so well with their various fields. When you’re visionless you become friends with those who likewise don’t have vision. If you don’t have direction, you become friends with those who don’t have direction for their lives. A farmer knows exactly when to plant, when to cultivate and when to harvest. A good farmer utilises this seasons. A lazy farmer ignores it. But it is he who soweth who is justified to harvest. If am not with the right set of people, I read books, listen to audio programs instead. When I feel I’m not working at the pace I should, I call friends to ask them the projects they’re  working on, I know I’ll get inspired to put more effort in mine. But how do you move forward if the person you’re friends with doesn’t care about moving forward or not. Understand social intelligence today, and know the right set of people to be friends with.

Shalom!