I went to visit a family several years ago, it was a modest family that was going through some life challenges
The father was late, the mother and her three children were very close-knit
I was asked to come by the mother, to pray for her children because they were not making
headway in life
I got to the house and the first child spoke, he was a single guy in his thirties
He said "Sir, look at my younger sister
She is well educated, she has fine hips, a well-rounded backside, perfectly shaped books and she is pretty to look at. Why is she not married?
I was shocked
I didn't know guys can talk like that about their sisters, I mean describe them in such a manner
Then he pointed to the second sister, a young lady in her twenties
He said "Pastor, look at my other sister, she is the most brilliant of us all. She passed her WAEC and
cleared her JAMB all at once
Look at her boobs sir, firm and lush
Look at her well-shaped rear, she doesn't even have a boyfriend and she is twenty-six
Now sir, this is my point
When they are dressing all decently, how do they want to attract a husband?
I have girlfriends and I
what attracted me to them
Instead of praying sir, I will like you to talk to my sisters and encourage them to do away with the baggy gowns and sacky clothes
You must use what you have to get what you want
I have discussed it with mummy and with them several times, maybe they will
listen to you"
I was twenty-nine at the time, and even though the power of the Holy Spirit was evident in my life, I was brought up in a very religious home
I found the words of this man offensive or provocative in a certain way and decided I was not going to pray with the family
I was offended by the way he talked about his sisters and his suggestion that they had to dress in a certain way to attract a husband.
Their mother turned to me right at the moment I was looking for an excuse to leave and she said "Even my son too, he has many girlfriends and I
welcome all of them into this house with an open arm but none of them has ever come back here to report being pregnant or carrying his child
I am getting worried, Pastor, is this not a curse of the enemy at work over this family?
Wow.
You need to imagine how her words hit me
What
kind of people speak like this? I picked my Bible, I had heard enough. I strongly felt it was time to leave but I needed to extricate myself in a political manner. So I said "I will give you some passages of the scripture and ask the Holy Spirit what to do, and then i'd get back
to you on the things I have heard"
The sisters looked at me
The mother looked at me
The brother looked at me
They didn't know why I was suddenly curt and impatient
The mother said "Pray with us Pastor, this is why I invited you to our house this morning"
I said "I am sorry but
you are not believers and I feel I had been somehow misjudged as a prayer contractor
I don't go around praying for unbelievers so that they can get married and get good jobs
It is not what I do, I am sorry"
I walked out
Every step I took away from their house was heavier than the
last
I knew I had done something wrong but I didn't know what or how to fix it
In my heart I felt what I did was right and rationalized my heavy spirit as a result of my bluntness and lack of political correctness. I was too obtuse and I ought to have left graciously instead of
saying all the things I said...
A few steps further, I heard a patter of footsteps behind me
It was one of the sisters
She said "Pastor, please be patient. It is only I and my sister that is born-again Christians in that house. Our father died as an unbeliever and I and my sister
are determined to bring my brother and mother into the knowledge of Christ
I am in a relationship, and so is my sister but we have kept it a secret from them because we know our mother would be forced to seek the Lord if she felt we are not making a headway in life
She would have
gone anywhere out of desperation but she heard a testimony about you from a family friend and told us she would find a way to invite you to pray with the family
I and my sister have been praying and fasting that salvation will come into our home today and we are shocked that you
didnt even tell my brother and mother about Jesus or pray with us
If what they said offended you sir, it is because they don't know any better and how can they know if they are not taught?
Wow!
I stood still
I felt Yiesh
I knew I didn't act the way Jesus would have acted
I turned
around and apologized to the sister
I followed her back home and apologized to the family
I told them I had culture shock and had to process the things I heard
Apparently, irreligious unbelievers talk loosely about body parts and stuff like that, even though I was just two years
old in faith at the time, my religious background wouldn't let me speak the way the mother and brother spoke but I wasn't better than them in any way
A religious unbeliever may have certain moral standards but this does not make him or her better than a murderer
A sinner is one
who has not accepted Jesus Christ as His or her personal Lord and saviour
I sat with this family and shared my salvation story, they had questions that the Holy Spirit enabled me to answer
I spent almost five hours with them that day
By the time i was leaving, the mother and
brother had given their lives to Christ and gotten filled with the Holy Spirit
I also became good friends with the sister that came to speak with me
This morning, as I woke up in my hotel room in Cotonou, Benin Republic
I remembered that this sister had relocated to this city
with her husband in 2016
Her younger sister had also gotten married in 2018 and relocated to Germany
So I picked up my phone and placed a call to her on Whatsapp
She was shocked to hear my voice!
She said she just had her second baby two days ago and had imagined that I would be
around to bless the baby
I said "Wow"
She told me her brother now works with a bank and is married with a daughter
She said her mother is in Germany, helping her younger sister nurse her second baby
I reminded her of the day I met the family and thanked her for ensuring that her
family got saved before they "scattered"
It really paid off
She told me I have matured a little since then because she saw some of my recent ministrations in which I was a little too blunt with some religious people
We laughed over it
PS: I usually don't do threads on Sunday but
I did this to celebrate a sister and a friend who contended for the faith of her household intentionally and ensured she delivered the unsaved to Christ.
God bless you sister Adebole and the entire Sampson family
Many a believer would suddenly remember the offense of a fellow believer while they were sleeping or working or just going about their daily business
The perceived offense might be real or imagined
Maybe the fellow said something unkind about them to others or they felt the
person disrespected them or their doctrine in one way or the other
This thought would get a hold of them until they start feeling angry, upset and/or sad
Sometimes they pick up their phone and call another believer, any believer regardless of the level of maturity of such to
discuss the issue, at other times they stew in the matter for hours, brooding over it until they were given more reasons to support the original thought which amounts to building up a case against this fellow or calling more people to talk about this fellow in order to let the
Some people simply dont know how to love, of course, they think they do and they act as if they do but deep down, they really don't
They love themselves too much to really love or give themselves to another
Whoever they are with is only good enough as long as they can still get
something out of such a person
Be it friend, relative, lover or wife
What they can get determine the depth of the friendship and as soon as they cannot get anything out of the person again, the relationship is dead
They are more of users and abusers
His father was one of such
people
His grandmother too (His Father's mother)
The pattern had been on over and over again since he was a child
He saw the way his father treated his mother (A loving, gentle and caring) woman
He walked all over her and eventually walked out of the marriage when he met a rich
He Met a stranger on her way to his heart
She didn’t know at the time the address she typed into google was his own
She just knew she was heading somewhere and she hoped she would recognise the place when she got there
He saw her looking at the buildings on the street, look
puzzled
“Which of these houses is Mine?” She mused
She had tried Dunsin, Selman, Orenze
Several that came close but well
He walked up to her, he said “Hi Stranger”
She sat up and said “Hi you”
She smiled
He smiled
She extended her hand
He took it, raised it to his lips and
kissed it
She blushed
“What are you doing, stranger?” She asked him
“ I am introducing myself” He replied
She said, wow, this your introduction ehn, too skilful”
He said “You were searching for Me”
“How did you know that?” She asked
He smiled and said “Because I was searching
Dont get dragged into a fight you know nothing about out of sentiment and a subtle blackmail
It is better to be in control of a situation than to be the one being controlled by the situation
If you have gotten yourself into such a situation, it is always wise to walk away on time
A lady came to me in tears
She said her younger sister was killed by her husband and as a result of that she planned to deny him the right to raise the children lady left behind because she was sure he was not fit to be a parent
I asked her how her sister died and she told me the
story
The man really didn't kill the lady
Some couples quarrel all the time, this man and his late wife fall into that category
The lady was not very healthy from birth and the man took a gamble getting married to her
Of course he could have been kinder and more humane in the way
I remember the first time my Daddy saw me ministering at a crusade
I was holding a Bible in one hand and a microphone in the other
The location was at Ojota motor park
Someone took pictures and posted them on Facebook
My daddy almost had an heart attack
He knew some of his folks
and friends in Nigeria are on Facebook
He had told all of them I was a successful journalist (I was and that I sometimes write movie scripts and also direct movies)
The last time he was in Nigeria before this time, he saw one of the movies I produced and even took some copies of
the DVD to the USA to show off to his friends
He felt something had gone terribly wrong with me
He wrote me a message on Facebook and on Whatsapp
He said "What is this that I am seeing? Is this what you are now doing with your life? After millions worth of investment including a
Pilot fishes are always swimming around a shark, feeding off the crumbs of the shark's meal
Some pilot fishes eat so much that they grow large enough in size for the shark to notice them, once this happens, that pilot feet becomes the next meal of the shark
That is nature for you
In ministry, there are many people who will be drawn to you as co-labourers
Some of them are attracted to your anointing
Some are drawn to your result
Some are drawn to the money they can get off you
You would invite some yourself, at the beginning when you're still trying to get
on your feet
Some of these people will be pilot fishes, they may wear suits and ties and carry the Bible in their hands or on their head
They are not really looking unto Jesus
You are their focus
No matter how much they pray or preach, you are the one they try to impress and they