OA Fakinlede
September 16, 2012
Dr Alphonse Agbanikaka needed accommodation on Campus. After many years on the queue, he finally got himself a place in the high-density apartments of MauMau University. Apart from the usual neglect over the years, these apartments are really spacious and meet the family’s needs. His wife works in Apapa and the kids are a good Secondary School – a walking distance away from home. He was surprised that for over two months, the parking space for the family’s second car was occupied by a broken down vehicle of a former occupant with no forwarding address and no one seems to know where to find its owner! As he was grappling with that problem, the neighbor just bought a large commercial truck. He finds it difficult to squeeze his Tokunbo Camry into the space left. This “brand new” Tokunbo truck has been parked for three weeks now and he has been having to park his own two vehicles on the street! Dr Agbanikaka is looking for a house afresh! This time, he will accept nothing short of a free standing house with a fence!
Mrs Yatunde Adu has a completely different problem. In the “face me, I face you” block, no one owns a car. Her neighbour’s wife, Mrs Adiele has been unemployed. She has therefore resorted to petty trading and the free space belonging to the six occupants in this block is her shop! On one side is her pepper grinder that uses diesel because there is often electricity shortage. Next you can see Madam Adiele’s pyramid of coal sacks that has completely changed the compound. Everything now wears a tan of coal particles. You bear the noise of generation engine; Pollution from peper grinder noise; smelly, dirty environment – but your neighbor must survive! No one talks about these openly: “What do you want her to do?” Everyone knows how much a market stall or a shop costs in Lagos!
These are just two examples of the usurpation culture we have accepted here in Nigeria. One of the symptoms of a low-trust society like our own is the utter disregard for the rights of others and the constant desecration of unused space. Shot puts made up of human waste wrapped in black polythene bags are just a few of the t=regular items to be found in such spaces. On the stairway to apartment blocks, there will usually be abandoned crates of soda, huge cooking pots, etc. Out of about six tenants, these would usually belong to the most aggressive one or two people in the block. Shared parking lots are often usurped by aggressive co-tenants for keeping their broken down vehicles. Rarely will you find a good neighbor who will take it upon herself to clean jointly-owned space. However, what it comes to claiming such, there are many takers!
The consequence of this attitude is that most of us will prefer to live in self-contained compounds with high fences. The concept of shared facilities is usually too difficult for us to manage. We mostly suffer in silence.
I once lived on the first floor in a block of flats where water supply was a huge challenge. In vain did I try a solution that will earn the cooperation of all three co-tenants. Each preferred a personal solution – using your car to fetch water with jerry cans. As we were all middle-aging, each family had a difficult problem coping. There was a nice houseboy who came one day to tell me he had an urgent call from the village and had to leave. It became obvious later that the water-carrying duties he endured in our house was killing him. That phantom call from home was his last defense. What to do?
After buying sufficient storage to fully take the load of a standard water tanker, I was able to store the monthly consumption of my family which I pumped upstairs as needed. I finally solved my problem! No more depending on the manual lifting of water upstairs!
I discovered that a neighbor considered the top of my tank the ideal space to dry her cassava! Ok we can call that fair. Next, she could forget to remove the cassava until the rain fell upon it! Now I have my water volume in the tank increased by the cassava water! In vain you look for the owner of the cassava!
Eventually, I solved the problem by carrying the cassava into my apartment until the owner came to look for it! That way, we eventually found the owner and after a less-than an acrimonious conversation, we settled for a truce! My neighbor was a nice person! She eventually saw why she should not dry her cassava on my tank and we lived happily thereafter!
The examples I have given here are well known to virtually every adult Nigerian who has lived in shared accommodation. Many people will vow never to share a compound or live in a flat. However, as cities grow large and populations increase, sharing is not an option; it is often the inevitable way to survive in large cities. Nigerians who usurp common spaces at home often find no problems when they travel abroad. They share happily! Why is it possible to share abroad and impossible to do the same at home?
Some of my acquaintances blame this problem on human selfishness! I disagree. The examples of Nigerians who readily share abroad but usurp other people’s spaces at home seem to prove there is some other cause of this cultural paradigm. We must ask ourselves why it is so difficult to respect the rights of others in shared accommodation. This question is not trivial because the solution of it may help us live better lives in affordable shared accommodation when we are not able to pay for free standing buildings.
In my opinion, our problem stems from insufficient delineation of boundaries and enforcement of rights. What are my rights? What are the rights of my neighbor? Who owns the space under the common stair case? Whose duty is it to keep it clean? Who enforces the rights?
Whenever these questions are not unequivocally answered, any perceived breach becomes a quarrel between two people. In higher-trust societies, a breach of a common property will usually become the subject of discussion between a law enforcement officer and the offending party! All that one whose rights have been trampled on needs to do is to report the case to that adjudicating third party. It is the absence of such clear cut processes that allow the most aggressive among us to continue to cheat the rest of us. And our culture of live-and-let-live kills in us the urgency to enforce rights. While this is good for the brotherliness and happy society, it does not create clean, well maintained and efficient environment that can support our comfort and well-being.

OA Fakinlede
at the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Abuja. Friday, July 15, 2005

“Ever since I heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for Christians everywhere, I have never stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so you can understand the wonderful future he has promised those He called. I want you to realise what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people.

“I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him …

“When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray that from His glorious unlimited resources he will give you the mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep in the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ, though its so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fulness of life that comes from God …

“Now glory be to God! By His mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May He be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages” Eph 1:5-18, 3:14-19

What kind of praying is this? I urge us to look inward and ask ourselves if we were in the position of Apostle Paul, how we would pray for the Ephesians. Our prayers would definitely depend on our conditions as well as the conditions of the people we are praying for. The prayers we offer would also depend on our perception of these conditions. What shall we ask God to do for them? What will be our desires for them? What do we really think they lack? What do they stand in need of? What desires do love compel us to have for them? When we pray for people, we are basically indirectly answering these questions.

I will return to the Ephesians and attempt to answer some of these questions later. In the interim, let us consider a matter closer at hand:

A long standing Christian and a friend, Mrs Irina S. Audu is nearly 50 years old. She lives in relative comfort – does not need a car, a house, etc. She has children and just like many of us, she is struggling with several of the typical problems of having children grow up in the chaos we live through in Nigeria. She just got to know she has cancer and she’s been going to hospital for treatment in the past one year. Husband’s promotion is going on steadily but there are certain difficult people who are probably jealous of his progress at work. As a friend, I have been praying for Mrs Audu. I am in the process of sending a lengthy e-mail to her. I want to try to be as familiar as possible:

“Dear Irina,

“Its been quite a while. How is Tonyen? (Toyen is 23 years old, about to complete NYSC) Thank God he finally graduated from university. It’s also nice to know he got the long awaited admission in the US. I pray that God will make a way and let these Yankees give him the visa. You never know what they will do next. God is able. I have been praying for you. I want God to continue to bless you. Concerning your health, I know the devil is a liar’ He will never be able to thwart God’s purpose in your life. We have His promises. Long life is our portion – no devil can change that! We will be praying for you.

“What about Anne? I pray that God will open the door for university entrance this year! (Anne has tried JAMB thrice). Or are you considering the UK option? All these bombing palaver scares me o! What shall we do? I am sure God will make a way for all our children. We thank God for Daddy’s recent promotion. All the bad belles in that place will have been put to shame and will remain so in Jesus name. Victory is ours forever. Please let me know how the treatment is going. When is your next appointment? What about …”

It is possible that you would have prayed in a different way than I have – given the same circumstances. It’s a good exercise to write down your own response to the circumstances of our dear sister. We shall consider this and compare it to the attitude in Paul’s prayer and see if God will teach us something deep about our souls and our neighbors’ needs.

John White, author of the book “Daring to Draw Near” remarked that we are often like Lot living near Sodom. “Our perspective of life is distorted. We are bombarded by false values, living perpetually among people whose goals are material prosperity, security, pleasure, prestige, etc. It is inevitable that we absorb the atmosphere around us until heaven seems remote while the here and now loom larger in our thinking”. It is the truth that we are unable to pray beyond our ability to think! We are never able to prayer beyond what we perceive to be most important. Our prayers reflect our understanding of the hierarchy of the things that matter. Our prayers say as much about us as they do about our perception of others. Look at what Paul thought to be important in the lengthy prayer concern here. Are these things that important or are they merely a way to write a religious letter? Were there no political appointments and carriages, houses or lands in Ephesus? Paul, why did you overlook them all? It is important that we pause a little and ask why our prayer concern for others are often so vastly different from the Apostle’s. Can we find the reasons? I will start by advancing some:

Perhaps we are under more pressure than those early Christians! Can that be the case? The Acts record for us the great opposition leading to a riot that took place when Paul was ministering in Ephesus. Paul’s preaching was affecting the local business of silver smiting and the “president” of the local chamber of commerce (Demertius) stirred up a riot and Paul had to be protected by the brethren. He eventually had to leave. (Acts 19:21…). Writing to the Phillipians in 4:10-13, he said “I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need.” Furthermore, we know that several of the epistles we now read were composed, not from the comfort of a study room in an air-conditioned duplex as I am presently doing, rather, it was from the discomfort of a dark, dank and smelly prison cell of one condemned to die! No wonder he referred to himself in the epistle we are presently considering as ” … a prisoner of Christ Jesus” 3:1, ” … a prisoner for serving the Lord” 4:1

They were more comfortable. How else can we explain the great materialism in our prayers unless we believe we are poorer than the saints of old! In fact the matter was quite the opposite. Paul described the Christians of his time in these words: ” … dear brothers and sisters .. few of you were wise in the world’s eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God deliberately chose the things the world considers foolish to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world; those things counted as nothing at all, and use them to bring to nothing what the world considers important, so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God”. I Cor 1 :26-29. If we were to cast it in terms of our day, we could say: Not many of you were Senators, doctors or lawyers etc. There were several slaves and people who are downtrodden. Believe me, they could use some money, promotions, etc. They would like carriages (since there were no cars), etc.

We return to our question, why is it that we are often so materialistic and the biblical prayers like this one so spiritual? The same Apostle, speaking to the a group of Christians debating whether to eat food sacrificed to idols, reminded them that the purpose of God is specific and must not be obscured by the claims of the necessary bodily needs: “… the kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God …” Rom 14: 17. We could add, its not about tide deeds to lands, cars and jeeps, houses, appointments, etc.

Hymn 571:

Thy way not mine 0 Lord
However dark it be:
Lead me by thine own hand,
Choose out my path for me.

The kingdom that I seek
Is Thine so let the way
That leads to it be Thine
Else I must surely stray!

The kingdom we seek is His! We cannot find the way there by going our own way! We are sometimes like people looking at the world with a distorted mirror that shows people grotesquely deformed. We are now being coaxed and coerced to accept this distorted presentation as the reality! When we do this, we begin to aim too low!

While praying for our friend, (as I was doing above for Irina) did we realize that she was made by God? And that to God she will return? And that what matters eventually is how she manages her relationship with God? How did these thoughts weigh in our minds compared with the claims of here and now? In Acts 17:28, Paul told the Ephesians: “In Him we live and move and exist”.  The Ephesians were given the kernel of eternal truth in 2:8-10 “ we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared for us in advance to do“. Therefore, contrary to our frenetic praying, it is God – not us, who takes the initiative in Mrs Audu’s life! Even in matters of the kingdom, our salvation, the initiative is God’s! “… don’t be afraid, little flock; For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom!” Lk 12:32. Mrs Audu, yourself and myself are God’s work-in-progress! I find it difficult to imagine any thought more exhilarating than this! Let’s think about it this way: Consider a piece of plastic that will eventually be part of a stereo set that will have the stamp of the Japanese company SONY pasted on it! The result of the quality of work in shaping that piece to its final product will be SONY’s responsibility! The management of SONY does not need any persuasion to do that job well. In fact, what comes out in the end is their pride! We are God’s work in progress! This fact transcends any small or big difficulties, failures or circumstances we may face. We need enablement to see through the mist and view the “great future” God has in plan for us! Is not this in the mind of HF Lyte in (44) when he sang “Hold Thou the cross before my closing eyes/Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;/ Heaven ‘s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;/ In life in death 0 Lord, abide with me!” Is it not this consideration that made Richard Baxter (611) to start in the vastly unfamiliar tone: “Lord, it belongs NOT to my care, /Whether I die or live/To love and serve Thee is my share/And this Thy grace must give”. Certainly, Baxter knew something about living and dying that is completely hidden from the eyes of much of Nigerian Christianity! “My main concern is NOT whether I lived or died!” Baxter, are you serious? Have you ever been to Lagos or passed the expressway? Why do you think we are gathering every week, day or night? What a release from the great burdens that oppress the modern Christian we will obtain if we only realize that in our lives, God takes the initiative! It is his good pleasure that we possess the kingdom, we are His workmanship and In him we live, we move and we have our being! What can separate us from the love of God? Again, Paul answers in Rom 8:31-39.

We are now in a position to consider the Apostolic prayer in its material particulars.

1. The Apostle’s tone is spiritual rather than materialistic. This, as we have pointed out, was not an escape from reality. It stems from the hierarchy of important matters the Apostle wants the Ephesians to apprehend. It also shows how what he perceived about their condition as well as his own mindset.

2. Gives thanks and prays for spiritual understanding so they may grow in the knowledge of God. That their hearts will be flooded with light so they can understand the wonderful future he has promised those He called. To realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people. Once we lose here, we have failed. No other success can save us!

3. To begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. The Jewish sect called Saducceess once posed to our Lord what they considered a difficult problem – Mark 12: 18-27. For all their posturing, they were suffering from a very simple disease. “And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?” Mk 12:24. One major problem we face in our day is that we commit serious errors because we do not give the due attention to knowing God deeply thru the scriptures. It was Canon Njoku who interviewed a child in this church for confirmation once. The child knew the movement of players from one club to the other in England – even movements that happened within twenty four hours. The biblical illiteracy in both young and old is there to guarantee that we will continue posing seemingly difficult questions like the Saducees. Questions that show we are just poor in our understanding of God and His power. We need to pray for ourselves and one another that God may help us to use all the means of grace that we have at our disposal rather than majoring in all the gossips the city of Abuja offers.

4. Strength in the inner man. We all know that we are physically surrounded by bacteria, viruses, etc. Each of these is capable of ending our physical existence. Now how does the body cope and thrive in the circumstance bearing in mind that these malfeasants are present on our tongues, hands, everywhere? How do we gain “inner strength” to cope?

We have four different ways of coping – each with a spiritual parallel: Healthy living and exercise, Eating good food, Using prescribed drugs to attack certain diseases and Surgical operations. It seems obvious that a normal person may take all four measures in the course of life. It’s also clear that the first two are taken more frequently than the latter two. Those among us in the medical world know very well that we can get our vitamins from fruits and vegetables. We can also get them from drugs. Now which is the preferred method? Of course we would choose the former and get to the latter on special occasions. The daily dose of strengthening the inner man comes most often in healthy spiritual living and eating the spiritual food of getting soaked with the vitamins of God’s word as a matter of habit just like we eat food. The extraordinary measure of spiritual deliverance and demon casting must necessarily be done occasionally. There is something seriously wrong with someone who is permanently on drugs. Alas, many Christians are permanently on spiritual drugs! Luke 18 and Eph 6: 10-20 teach us about the regular way to keep ourselves in spiritual health – strengthened with might in the inner man!

5. Christ at home in the heart. The Eucharistic prayer talked about our “following His example and Obeying His commands”. We can invent no other way to make Christ “at home” in our hearts!

6. Rooted and grounded in love, to know the love of God. This is the end of faith! Eph 5: 1-2 tells us to be “Imitators of God”. It talks about the love of Christ we are to emulate that will be like a sweet-smelling savor and a sacrifice to God.

7. To be filled with the fulness of God. Can we pray for too much? Can we actually be too spiritual? “Paul, you are insane!” cried King Agrippa in Acts 26:24, “your too much learning has made you crazy!” No! No!! No!!! we cannot be too spiritual. Yet, we can be annoyingly superficial and mistake that for spirituality. At the risk of offending some, may I give an example of this? People often pray in Nigeria by shouting and disturbing others. Is it that they are very spiritual? Look at it this way: What prayers can we afford to shout publicly to the highest heavens? If I have stolen government money and have been convicted in heart to repent. If I have meddled with my neighbour’s wife and there is a scandal that I am praying God to forgive. If I have been wicked and I am now repenting. Can you hear me shout these prayers into a microphone so that the whole world will know how bad I have been? Are we not shouting standard “spiritual platitudes” that everybody knows they will be considered spiritual in saying? A gracious person is always in demand. The world needs people who are filled with the fullness of God. It has enough hypocrites and spiritual parrots.

8. The great beyond. Is it not marvelous that Paul did not think he had asked for too much after asking for the Ephesians to be filled with all the fullness of God? No! He says that God is able to do more than we can dare to ask or think!

OA Fakinlede 
at the Cathedral Church of the Advent, Abuja. Friday, July 15, 2005

“Ever since I heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for Christians everywhere, I have never stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, asking God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you may grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so you can understand the wonderful future he has promised those He called. I want you to realise what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people.

“I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him …

“When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. I pray thatfrom His glorious unlimited resources he will give you the mighty inlier strength through his Holy Spirit. And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep in the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ, though its so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fulness of life that comes from God .

“Now glory be to God! By His mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. May He be given glory in the church and in Christ Jesus forever and ever through endless ages” Eph 1:5-18, 3:14-19

What kind of praying is this? I urge us to look inward and ask ourselves if we were in the position of Apostle Paul, how we would pray for the Ephesians. Our prayers would definitely depend on our conditions as well as the conditions of the people we are praying for. What shall we ask God to do for them? ‘What will be our desires for them? What do we really think they lack? What do they stand in need of? What desires do love compel us to have for them?

I will return to the Ephesians and attempt to answer some of these questions later. In the interim, let us consider a matter closer at hand:

A long standing Christian and a friend, Mrs Irina S. Audu is nearly 50 years old. She is relatively comfortable – does not need a car, a house, etc. She has children and just like many of us, she is struggling with several of the typical problems of having children grow up in the chaos we live through in Nigeria. She just got to know she has cancer and she’s been going to hospital for treatment in the past one year. Husband’s promotion is going on steadily but there are certain difficult people who are probably jealous of his progress at work. As a friend, I have been praying for Mrs Audu. I am in the process of sending a lengthy e-mail to her. I want to try to be as familiar as possible.

“Dear Irina,

“Its been quite a while. How is Tonyen? (Toyen is 23 years old. about to complete NYSC) Thank God he finally graduated from university. It’s also nice to know he got the long awaited admission in the US. I pray that God will make a way and let these Yankees give him the visa. You never know what they will do next. God is able. I have been praying for you. I want God to continue to bless you. Concerning your health, J know the devil is a liar’ He will never be able to thwart God’s purpose in your life. We have His promises. Long life is our portion – no devil can change that! We will be praying for you.

“What about Anne? I pray that God will open the door for university entrance this year! (Anne has tried JAMB thrice). Or are you considering the UK option? All these bombing palaver scares me o! What shall we do? f am sure God will make a way for all our children. We thank God for Daddy’s recent promotion. All the bad belles in that place will have been put to shame and will remain so in Jesus name’ Victory is ours forever. Please let me know how the treatment is going. When is your next appointment? What about …”

It is possible that you would have prayed in a different way than I have – given the same circumstances. It’s a good exercise to write down your own response to the circumstances of our dear sister. We shall consider this and compare it to the attitude in Paul’s prayer and see if God will teach us something deep about our souls and our neighbors’ needs .

John White, author of the book “Daring to Draw Near” remarked that we are often like Lot living near Sodom. “Our perspective of life is distorted. We are bombarded by false values, living perpetually among people whose goals are material prosperity, security, pleasure, prestige, etc. It is inevitable that we absorb the atmosphere around us until heaven seems remote while the here and now loom larger in our thinking.” It is the truth that we are unable to pray beyond our ability to think! It is important that we pause a little and ask why our prayer concern for others are often so vastly different from the Apostle’s. Can we find the reasons? I will start by advancing some:

Perhaps we are under more pressure than those early Christians! Can that be the case? The Acts record for us the great opposition leading.to a riot that took place when Paul was ministering in Ephesus. Paul’s preaching was affecting the local business of silver smiting and the president of the local chamber of commerce (Demertius) stirred up a riot and Paul had to be protected by the brethren. He eventually had to leave. (Acts 19:21…). Writing to the Phillipians in 4:10-13, he said “I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything.I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. I can do everything with the help of Christ who gives me the strength I need” Furthermore, we know that several of the epistles we now read were composed, not from the comfort of a study room in an air-conditioned duplex as I am presently doing, rather it was from the discomfort of a dark, dank and smelly prison cell of one condemned to die! No wonder he referred to himself in the epistle we are presently considering as ” … a prisoner of Christ Jesus” 3:1, ” … a prisoner for serving the Lord” 4:1

They were more comfortable. How else can we explain the great materialism in our prayers unless we believe we are poorer than the saints of old! In fact the matter was quite the opposite. Paul described the Christians of his time in these words: ” … dear brothers and sisters .. few of you were wise in the world’s eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God deliberately chose the things the world considers foolish to shame those who think they are wise. And He chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world; those things counted as nothing at all, and use them to bring to nothing what the world considers important, so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God”. I Cor 1 :26-29. If we were to cast it in terms of our day, we could say: Not many of you were Senators, doctors or lawyers etc. There were several slaves and people who are downtrodden. Believe me, they could use some money, promotions, etc. They would like carriages (since there were no cars), etc.

We return to our question, why is it that we are often so materialistic and the biblical prayers like this one so spiritual? The same Apostle, speaking to the a group of Christians debating whether to eat food sacrificed to idols, reminded them that the purpose of God is specific and must not be obscured by the claims of the necessary bodily needs: “… the kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you serve Christ with this attitude, you will please God … “ Rom 14: 17. We could add, its not about tide deeds to lands, cars and jeeps, houses, appointments, etc.

Hymn 571:

Thy way not mine 0 lord 
However dark it be: 
Lead me by thine own hand, 
Choose out my path for me.

The kingdom that I seek 
Is Thine so let the way 
That leads to it be Thine 
Else I must surely stray!

The kingdom we seek is His! We cannot find the way there by going our own way! We are

like people looking at the world with a distorted mirror that shows people grotesquely deformed. We are now being goaded and coerced to accept this distorted presentation as the reality! When we do this, we begin to aim too low!

While praying for our friend, did we realize that she was made by God? And that to God she will return? And that what matters eventually is how she manages her relationship with God? In Acts 17:28, Paul told the Ephesians: “In Him we live and move and exist.”. The Ephesians were given the kernel of eternal truth in 2:8-10 “ we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared for us in advance to do“. Therefore, contrary to our frenetic praying, it is God – not us, who takes the initiative in Mrs Audu’s life! Even in matters of the kingdom, our salvation, the initiative is God’s! ” … don’t be afraid, little flock. For it gives your Father great happiness to give you the kingdom!” Lk 12:32. Mrs Audu, yourself and myself are God’s work-in-progress! I find it difficult to imagine any thought more exhilarating than this! Let’s think about it this way: Consider a piece of plastic that will eventually be part of a stereo set that will have the stamp of the Japanese company SONY pasted on it! The result of the quality of work in shaping that piece to its final product will be SONY’s responsibility! The management of SONY does not need any persuasion to do that job well. In fact, what comes out in the end is their pride! We are God’s work in progress! This fact transcends any small difficulties, failures or circumstances we may face. We need enablement to see through the mist and view the “great future” God has in plan for us! Is not this in the mind of HF Lyte in (44) when he sang “Hold Thou the cross before my closing eyes/Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies;/ Heaven ‘s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;/ In life in death 0 lord, abide with me!” Is it not this consideration that made Richard Baxter (611) to start in the vastly unfamiliar tone: “Lord, it belongs NOT to my care, /Whether I die or live/To love and serve Thee is my share/And this Thy grace must give”. What a great release from the great burdens that oppress the modern Christian we will obtain if we only realize that in our lives, God takes the initiative! It is his good pleasure that we possess the kingdom, we are His workmanship and In him we live, we move and we have our being! What can separate us from the love of God? Again, Paul answers in Rom 8:31-39.

We are now in a position to consider the Apostolic prayer in its particulars.

1. The Apostle’s tone is spiritual rather than materialistic. This, as we have pointed out, was not an escape from reality.

2. Gives thanks and prays for spiritual understanding so they may grow in the knowledge of God. That their hearts will be flooded with light so they can understand the wonderful future he has promised those He called. To realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people

3. To begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. The Jewish sect called Saducceess once posed to our Lord what they considered a difficult problem – Mark 12: 18-27. For all their posturing, they were suffering from a very simple disease. “And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?” Mk 12:24. One major problem we face in our day is that we commit serious errors because we do not give the due attention to knowing God deeply thru the scriptures. It was Canon Njoku who interviewed a child in this church for confirmation once. The child knew the movement of players from one club to the other in England – even movements that happened within twenty four hours. The biblical illiteracy in both young and old is there to guarantee that we will continue posing seemingly difficult questions like the Saducees. Questions that show we are just poor in our understanding of God and His power. We need to pray for ourselves and one another that God may help us to use all the means of grace that we have at our disposal rather than majoring in all the gossips the city of Abuja offers.

4. Strength in the inner man. We all know that we are physically surrounded by bacteria, viruses, etc. Each of these is capable of ending our physical existence. Now how does the body cope and thrive in the circumstance bearing in mind that these malfeasants are present on our tongues, hands, everywhere?

We have four different ways of coping – each with a spiritual parallel: Healthy living and spiritual exercise, Eating good food, Using prescribed drugs to attack certain diseases and Surgical operations. It seems obvious that a normal person may take all four measures in the course of life. It’s also clear that the first two are taken more frequently than the latter two. Those of us in the medical world know very well that we can get our vitamins from fruits and vegetables. We can also get them from drugs. Now which is the preferred method? Of course we would choose the former and get to the latter on special occasions. The daily dose of strengthening the inner man comes most often in healthy spiritual living and eating the spiritual food of getting soaked with the vitamins of God’s word as a matter of habit just like we eat food. The extraordinary measure of spiritual deliverance and demon casting must necessarily be done occasionally. There is something seriously wrong with someone who is permanently on drugs. Alas, many Christians are on spiritual drugs! Luke 18 and Eph 6: 10 … teach us about the regular way to keep ourselves in spiritual health – strengthened with might in the inner man!

5. Christ at home in the heart.

6. Rooted and grounded in love, to know the love of God. This is the end of faith. Eph 5: 1-2 tells us to be “Imitators of God”. It talks about the love of Christ we are to emulate that will be like a sweet-smelling savor and a sacrifice to God.

7. To be filled with the fulness of God. Can we pray for too much? Can we actually be too spiritual? “Paul, you are insane!” cried King Agrippa in Acts 26:24, “your too much learning has made you crazy!“. No we cannot be too spiritual. Yet, we can be annoyingly superficial and mistake that for spirituality. At the risk of offending some, may I give an example of this? People pray in Nigeria by shouting and disturbing others. Is it that they are too spiritual? Look at it this way: What prayers can we afford to shout to the highest heavens? If I have stolen government money and have been convicted in heart to repent. If I have meddled with my neighbour’s wife and there is a scandal that I am praying God to forgive. If I have been wicked and I am now repenting. Can you hear me shout these prayers into a microphone so that the whole world will know how bad I have been? Are we not shouting standard “spiritual platitudes” that everybody knows they will be considered spiritual in saying? A gracious person is always in demand. The world needs people who are filled with the fullness of God. It has enough hypocrites and spiritual parrots.

8. The great beyond. Is it not marvelous that Paul did not think he had asked for too much after asking for the Ephesians to be filled with all the fullness of God? No! He says that God is able to do more than we can dare to ask or think!