I read this report and feel pain in my heart that many people will just gloss over the story without taking note of Leah Sherubu.
Dapchi kidnap saga was a national disaster as the President put it sometime ago when it happened. Today, the news is everywhere of the release of the girls. We thank God for this. However, we have to start praying for Leah. She is separated and held only because of her faith. Muslims see non Muslims as infidels who deserve no respect and mercy. Look at the report from Vanguard:
“One of the insurgents said they thought majority of the girls are infidels, hence the attack, but regretted their actions, and have no option than to return them back to their destinations without collecting a dime from any government. “Only one of the girls who refused to be converted to Islam, will not be freed as they will go back with her,” Ali quoted one of the insurgents who addressed some of the residents.
Also from The Nation:
"Khadija went on: “Five girls died while we were on the way to the bush; most of them died because they were trampled upon inside the vehicles. They freed all of us, except one girl who they said was a Christian and they held onto her.”
Khadija’s story on the Christian girl, Leah Sherubu, was collaborated by some residents who said she was brought to Dapchi along with the girls but was taken back because she refused to renounce Christianity as instructed by her abductors.
That story was, however, disputed by some of the girls who claimed that Leah was left behind for the journey because of her strong stand not to renounce her faith."
It is obvious that the behaviour of the abductors would have been different if a greater number of the students were Christians.
The father of the girl is happy that his daughter did not recant her faith, but that does not reduce the heartbreak and pain of a father.
Please let us spread this information about Leah Sherubu and keep it on the front burner until she is released.
Pray for strength for the parents. Pray that she will not be molested and will be returned to her family soon. Finally pray that the Lord Jesus Christ may encounter her abductors.
This blog is an attempt to gather people of like minds to study the Word of God - The Bible. We will dedicate ourselves to Research, Bible Study, Reports, Sharing Prayer Issues and Answering Questions from people from around the world. Troubled souls can equally receive counsel.
Thursday, 22 March 2018
Thursday, 4 January 2018
Prepare the way for the Lord
Prepare the way for the Lord
"A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God's salvation.'" Luke 3:4-6 NIV.
As the year 2018 starts this January, everybody is full of expectations. We all wish that good things happen in and around our lives and circumstances. This heart of expectation makes our eyes not to focus on what happened in the previous year, but to look ahead concentrating our attention on what lies ahead in the new year. Nobody wants bad things to happen. Everybody wants something good to happen. But also, this atmosphere of expectations equally makes us vulnerable to deceptions and lies. The temptations of many of God's servants increase as they are tempted to follow the trend in declaring "thus says the Lord" for the year. In the course, many will say both what God has told them and what He has not told them. It takes a lot of courage as a servant of God to stay faithful to Scriptures in the month of January of every year. Most people in our congregations have itching ears. They just want you to declare and prophesy good things to them, whether it is the mind of God for the hour or not is not their concern. They will not want you to pay any attention to their sins, instead they want to get what they want to get out of God because they worship Him on their own terms. Indeed, the temptation can be very huge but every man has his choice to make.
"A voice of one calling in the desert, 'Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill made low. The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth. And all mankind will see God's salvation.'" Luke 3:4-6 NIV.
As the year 2018 starts this January, everybody is full of expectations. We all wish that good things happen in and around our lives and circumstances. This heart of expectation makes our eyes not to focus on what happened in the previous year, but to look ahead concentrating our attention on what lies ahead in the new year. Nobody wants bad things to happen. Everybody wants something good to happen. But also, this atmosphere of expectations equally makes us vulnerable to deceptions and lies. The temptations of many of God's servants increase as they are tempted to follow the trend in declaring "thus says the Lord" for the year. In the course, many will say both what God has told them and what He has not told them. It takes a lot of courage as a servant of God to stay faithful to Scriptures in the month of January of every year. Most people in our congregations have itching ears. They just want you to declare and prophesy good things to them, whether it is the mind of God for the hour or not is not their concern. They will not want you to pay any attention to their sins, instead they want to get what they want to get out of God because they worship Him on their own terms. Indeed, the temptation can be very huge but every man has his choice to make.
What should be our attitude? Our attitude should be to look up to God to know what He wants to do in our lives, seeking Him and making efforts to live in ways that please Him. As we expect God to move in our lives, our responsibility should be like that of John the Baptist when he was sent as the forerunner of the Lord Jesus Christ. He prepared the way for the Lord. Through his preaching and activities, the hearts of the people were prepared to receive the Messiah. Expectations were very high. Many "were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem". As it were, John "watered the ground" for the introduction of Jesus. The manifestation of the Son of God has a direct link to the ministry of John the Baptist.
As the beginning of the year comes with great expectations, I will urge you to make a personal commitment to prepare the way for the Lord as concerns what He wants to do in your life, family, ministry, career etc. What God wants to do in your life is more important than what any man or woman may "prophesy" into your life. Do not be deceived by those who will want you to give money in the name of entering into any covenant with God. We dealt with this issue some years ago here. If you have committed your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, you have been brought into covenant with God through His blood and that covenant speaks for you every day of your life till your work is done. That is why you can pray and relate to God. Kindly note that the God that led you from January to December 2017 is still the same God that will lead you in this new year 2018. If you have been walking with Him all this while, the plans He has for you in this new year is a continuation of what He has been working in your life all these years. A life of disobedience and sin can hinder what God may want to do in your life this year. If you are doing fasting and prayer, let it be part of your preparation for what He may want to do in your life and ministry and not as a bargaining chip.
Do not just flow with the "prophecies" and declarations. Seek God and ask Him, "Lord what do you want to do in my life this 2018? What do you want me to do concerning what you want to do in my life?" He will lead and help you. What God wants to do is what really matters. In conclusion, I charge you with the same words from the Prophet Isaiah to prepare the way for the Lord to move in your life. Make straight paths for Him. Free yourself from every sin that entangles you. Set your mind on Him as every valley shall be filled; every mountain and hill shall be made low; crooked roads shall be made straight and rough ways shall be made smooth and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all mankind together will see it. Hallelujah! God bless you.
Thursday, 12 October 2017
Nabeel Qureshi (1983-2017)
Earth’s joys
grow dim, its glories pass away;
Change and
decay in all around I see—
O Thou who
changest not, abide with me.
I fear no
foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no
weight, and tears no bitterness;
Where is
death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph
still, if Thou abide with me.”
The lines above are part of the verses of the famous hymn “Abide
with me…” written by Henry F. Lyte, in 1847. As I think about the life of Nabeel
Qureshi who went to be with the Lord on the 16th of September 2017
after fighting stomach cancer for a year plus, I cannot help but remember the
words of that hymn writer “Change and decay in all around I see”.
He served the Lord only for eleven years and died at the age
of thirty four. But those years were full of dedication and commitment to the
Lord Jesus. As Dr. Ravi Zacharias wrote in Christianity Today, a day after his death, “Nabeel came
like a streak of lightning, brightened the night sky, and has returned to the
One who gave the power to do what he did.” He commented during his funeral service
that Nabeel "… was like a racehorse. You couldn't stop him. Even in the
thickness of his illness,".
As a lover of the works of Dr. Ravi, I got to know about
Nabeel Qureshi through RZIM, since he worked with RZIM. I began to watch his
programs and debates including his famous
debate with the Islamic Scholar Dr. Shabir Ally on "Who Is The Real
God? Allah or the Trinity?". I could not help but thanked God who I felt had
given us one of the people to help in the work Dr. Ravi Zacharias is doing. How
wrong I was. Apologetics is a side of the ministry that needs men in our time.
We cannot query God on why He has to take His child home but
we indeed mourn.
We thank God for Nabeel’s testimony and believe that God
will use it to touch more people, especially Muslims, to commit their lives to
the Lord Jesus Christ. May the scales that fell off Nabeel’s eyes continue to
fall off the eyes of the spiritually blind in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Please pray
for the family he left behind, Michelle and their daughter.
You can watch the whole eulogy here.
God bless you all.
Monday, 28 August 2017
Following Hard After God - Book Review by George A. Lane
Many thanks to Andy Lane for this review of my book - Following Hard After God - Discover how to make the pursuit of God your life time affair. Have a nice read.
Having
a close personal and ever increasing relationship with God is the most
essential need for believers. All other
aspects of our faith walk as Christians depend on the spiritual growth and
grooming that results from this relationship with our Heavenly Father. In Following
Hard After God,
Chris Ekwedam provides a view of how we must adjust our desires and actions in
order to become Seekers of God. This is
a view that will not be found in the rituals and dogmas of religion. While it is ever so important to repent
“from” sin, an even more important aspect of repentance that is often not
adequately emphasized is “Turning Toward” God to truly seek His will for our
lives. Here in this book, Ekwedam takes
the other approach to illustrate the importance of turning toward and following
after God, and so the necessity of turning away from our selves, worldly
influences, and sin becomes obvious in comparison.
In
each chapter, the reader is challenged to consider the many distractions, both
from worldly influences as well as our own human natures, which draw our
attention away from this relationship that we most desire and need. Perhaps the most important challenge is to
put away the many various inadequate images of who God is that we are trained
to imagine by religion and social conventions: images that limit our faith and
access to God as the source and supply for all our needs. Realizing that this is a process, a lifelong
journey, to learn who God truly is and who we truly are to God, Ekwedam admits,
“My aim is not to give you the A, B, C, on how to quench the thirst of your
soul and satisfy this great desire that you have; my intention is to help you kick
start the journey.”
Following
Hard After God is certainly
among the most clear-cut and direct discussions of this topic that I have ever
read. It makes an excellent text for the
introduction to any curriculum of Biblical / ministry studies. I refer to this as an introductory text
because it is much better to begin the Journey with this understanding in hand
than to correct bad study, worship, and Seeking habits once they have been
formed. And likewise, it is a great book
to give as a gift or to recommend to those we are inevitably in a position to
assist and encourage on their journey with God.
George
A. Lane
Chairman,
Advisory Board - Vision Bible College Support Society
Project
Manager, Vision Bible College Campus Development Project
Saturday, 26 August 2017
Going beyond the Orphanages and Motherless Babies Homes as a Panacea for abandoned Children
There are Orphanages that are doing a great job in giving care to abandoned
children especially children born under uncertain circumstances. There are
other 'orphanages' run as an enterprise where the owners are there, not because
they have any burden for abandoned children, but just to enrich themselves.
Most of them are not registered and operate without authorized license. They
are the ones that engage in the so-called baby industry racket. Individuals and
groups visit them and donate money, food and sanitary items only for the items
to be diverted for their personal use.
Now, is anybody asking where the children that grow up in some Orphanages
and Motherless Babies Homes around us end up? Where do they end up when they turn ten-eleven years old?
Most of them end up in the streets while the Orphanages and Motherless Babies Homes continue to bring in
more babies and continue their activities. I read a piece by Sarah Zylstra
on Why
Christians Are Abandoning the Orphanage, and I found it interesting how a
ministry was able to evaluate their activities and change their approach. The
purpose of this discourse is to make a case for Adoption; it should be the end
goal for Orphanages and Motherless Babies Homes especially as it concerns the little children below the
teenage age who do not have any real families to call their own.
The best environment for a child to grow and develop is in a family home.
One of the greatest gifts the family gives to a child is IDENTITY. The
Orphanage and Motherless Babies Homes cannot give this gift to a child. A child that has no identity enters
into crisis early in his/her teens. Only very few come out of this crisis
without developing hatred, anger, and resentment against the society and
established authorities.
Another gift the family gives to the child is the opportunity to receive
TRAINING both as per education, values and morals. Most of the parents seeking to adopt
babies belong to the middle class. They can give the child minimum education. Cultural
ethics and morals are taught the child in the family which prepares him for the life ahead.
The next gift the family gives is that of LOVE AND SUPPORT. The chances of a
child who did not receive parental love to become aggressive and violent later in life
are very high. These are the fabrics that hold the society together to ensure
the continued survival and existence of our specie.
We live in a country where scarce data is kept. Most research works are
bogus and not addressing real problems. We are not able to plan and forecast.
We are just reacting to life’s immediate situations; hence we are not able to
appreciate these societal problems and their consequences both mid-term and
long-term.
The point is that as the light of the world, Christians have to do things
that work; things that bring real transformation to both lives and the
society. It is good to run Orphanages and Motherless Babies Homes, but it has to be only a holding
point. Efforts should be made to put every child from an Orphanage or
Motherless Babies Home into a family home. We may not be able to put every
child into a family home, especially grown up ones, but we can reduce this
number and pray that those that remain in Orphanage Homes receive God's touch.
Why should many Orphanages and Motherless Babies Homes be filled with little children when many couples are looking for children to adopt? Why should a couple seeking to adopt a child pay through their nose when actually they are not just adopting to meet a need in their lives but also helping to build the society by giving the child a future? Many questions, right? But it is only in answering them sincerely can we have a paradigm shift that we need. God bless you.
Abandoned Street Children - The Church’s Response
Our cities are littered with children who are abandoned by their parents and
care-givers. Most of them live in Motor Parks, uncompleted buildings and under
the Bridges. Others street-hawk or are used by their supposed-to-be guardians
to service their own families and are abandoned later when their services are
no longer required. But how did they come to that point?
Causes of abandonment of children include:
1. Unwanted pregnancies by young adults who cannot carter for their
children when they are born. Our African societies do not have much sympathy for
any girl that makes the mistake of getting pregnant before marriage. They do
not put any serious responsibility on the shoulders of the man who impregnated
the girl. As a result, some of the girls, especially those living alone in
cities, will hide the pregnancy from their parents and relatives but throw away
the baby once they are born. Others will live with the baby for some time but
when they grow up, they are abandoned by their mother who is not able to care
for them properly by sending them to school. Some of the women who have the
fear of God or are advised properly consult with some Christian Hospitals or
Social Welfare, early enough, to take the babies for adoption after birth.
Absence of social security systems in the country only worsens the situation.
2. Poverty of parents who give birth to high number of children which
they do not have enough resources to take care of. This makes them to either
send the children out as early as at seven years old to learn a trade or to be
a house-maid to some families or give them out in early marriage. More often
than not, these children end up in the streets, as these actions of their
parents are not to their best interests.
3. Pregnancies by lunatics, female beggars and disabled people who
give birth to children around our society. Most of them will not allow anybody
to take their babies from them, thus the children grow only to walk away to
fetch for themselves once they are above seven years old. Social work by
churches and religious bodies is not robust in our societies.
4. Religio-culturally motivated abandonment is a problem that is
widely spread in the Northern Nigeria. These abandoned children are popularly
called 'Almajiris'. It is true that the religio-cultural system has a
way of attempting to care for these children; however, statistics have shown
that most of the children end up in the streets because they are not equipped
with the education that can carry them on through life. In fact, the reason Boko Haram is having enough available recruits
every now and then even after each time they are decimated may not be far from
this fact that there are a lot of abandoned grown up children who are within
reach.
5. Exploitative and ignorant "Motherless babies homes". These also help to throw children into our
streets. How? When the children grow up to eight – ten years old, they tend to
become uncontrollable. The only thing the Orphanage will do is to push them
out; hence they go out with that frustration and become dangerous in the
society.
The church can take up the issue of abandoned street children as an opportunity for evangelism. We can build Orphanages to take these grown up children out of the streets. We can develop social support projects in our churches. What are the practical ways your church is impacting their communities? Does your church have schools for their communities? Are they mission schools or just business establishments? Does your church have skill acquisition projects? Do you have any program for the street children?
If you
have met any of them during evangelism, you will agree that the Gospel they
understand must deal with both their spiritual and immediate physical situations.
Let us do our part because these souls matter too.
Saturday, 29 July 2017
Please pray for these kidnapped Missionaries
Gloria
Argoti, a Columbian Nun who
is in her 60s, was kidnapped on February 7th when assailants broke into her
convent in Karangasso, southern Mali.
Ken
Elliott, was
kidnapped in January 2016, along with his wife Jocelyn, from the town of Djibo
in northern Burkina Faso, near the border with Mali. Jocelyn
was released a month later but her husband is still in captivity.
Beatrice
Stockl, a Swiss, was kidnapped on
January 15th by al-Qaeda's Ansar al-Dine terrorist group from her home in Timbuktu, Mali. This
is the second time in four years that Beatrice has been kidnapped by militants.
After the group seized control of Timbuktu, she was accused of proselytizing
Christianity, held for ten days, and warned that she would be executed if she
tried to return to Timbuktu. Despite the threat, Beatrice returned to Timbuktu
in 2013 after French troops liberated the city. In January 2016.
Jeff
Woodke, an American Missionary working with Youth
With A Mission (YWAM). He was
abducted by unknown assailants late in the evening of October 14th from the
town of Abalak in northern Niger. So far, little is known about Jeff's
condition or whereabouts, other than news that his captors were tracked to
neighbouring Mali by Nigerien authorities. On July 11th, a video was released
by Els Woodke, expressing her despair, as well as her desire to be in touch
with her husband's kidnappers.
Pray for the comfort of the Holy Spirit on these brethren no matter what they go through. May God help them to remain faithful. Pray that God may touch the hearts of their captors so that they will release them unconditionally to their families. May the ministry of the Holy Spirit also console the
families and friends of the missionaries, reminding them of God's promise to be
a "very present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1). In addition, please
pray for the protection of the country's other foreign mission workers so that
needed humanitarian aid can continue assisting the suffering people of Mali.
More information on these and the persecuted Christians around the world can be obtained here. Make sure you say some words of prayer no matter how busy you may be. Encourage your church to pray for the persecuted.
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