Miscellanies 55 - Love is wickedly cruel when not returned

Love is wickedly cruel when not returned was once what some old hardened man once said. But love I say perhaps is not so cruel in loving those who will never return that love with which you have loved them. Nor is it the aim of love to be loved back. If you are to love do it freely without expecting love in return. For the firmness of your love is displayed when the object of your love doesn't love you back or think very little of it.

K.Oni

Same cycle

There’s a stream where I long to live

My heart is thirsty made dry by the sins in my mind

Lost in its ways, I try to change

To change my life but nothing changed

So I keep living the same lie

I need truth better yet I gotta live it

Dear Lord let me see it

The paths of the righteous are ordained by God

Can I believe this cuz I seem to be walking the wrong way

Tell me pastor will I change

Every Sunday you preach it

And every week I seem to miss it

Can’t seem to get out of this endless cycle

Like riding my bicycle on the block for the same tour

Same ways, same chicks, same me and same things

Still hanging round selling the same things

Playing games, this is life can’t get away

Time to change pace but how will it all be strange.

K.Oni

I am coming to you

I am coming to you like a child

For you have said ‘let the children come, the humble ones for such is the kingdom’

I am coming my Father, I come with faith

With a joyful tone with a great bundle of humility.

I come to play in your park, I come without worry

I come with my big dreams and ambitions

I come knowing I will be Loved and treasured

I come singing hosanna in the highest.

I know there will be food on the table

I will eat with gladness knowing tomorrow there will be much more for me.

I come knowing that I am not an orphan but a child.

I know I am coming to my Father’s house

I know there is a room prepared for me by my brother

I know that I am not the only Child

K.Oni

Miscellanies 54: Receiving prayer

There are days when I awake feeling the comprehensiveness of my sins or swimming in my sea of unrighteousness that I cannot look beyond the horizon to gaze at the unending righteousness that is so large and not my own. All I see is the multitude, the greatness and vastness of my iniquities unsuitable as an offering to the Lord. I look inside to see if there is an inch of cause to rejoice, but there is none. I am swallowed deep in my wallow, I am like one in a deep mire. I have no means of escape unless it comes from outside of me. I know much of the theological doctrines of justification but this morning I have only applied the theory of it and not the application. I must feel it in order to be restored and my soul fears that awful principles which only devils would nourish namely, 'shall we sin so that grace may abound.' The source of my release or that which was to put a stop to my rotten thinking which would have gradually rose till the end of my day, or until God saw it fit to sovereignly uplift me from my prison was this, the dear prayers and words of friends. They prayed over me, which did make me smile bringing that inner tranquility which I at times ruin like Samson or Peter because we did not heed the voice of faithfulness. But in their prayers, in the simplicity of the placing on of hands, in the giving of encouragement I was restored. In one of the words spoken, I felt it to be entirely true, I am a key that opens doors and will not go in myself until all the weary and lost have found a seat for their poor souls. I do love my Jesus, O I love him and I pray that I be not a Judas but a Paul, a John or a Mary who daily considers him, longing for his return and reign as it is done in heaven. 

K.Oni

Women of the Bible: The first women missionary society for the support of the gospel

In the New Testament times the position of women was not equal to that of men. Women were regarded as inferior to men. In marriages, only men were allowed to dissolve a marriage and in the temple area, women were permitted to go only as far as the court of women and can only share in the synagogue worship only by listening.

The mixture of the sexes in public was an uncommon thing, opposed to the custom of Palestine. The rabbis were not in favour of associating with a woman in public but we read of Jesus that as he went about through the cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good-news of the kingdom that some women provided for him and his disciples out of their means (Luke 8:2-3).

Some of the women mentioned were Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna. These women all had personal grounds of gratitude to Jesus for some of them were healed of evil spirits and infirmities.

In Jesus’ social context, there was a lot of disdain towards women. Women lack influence and power, they were shunned in public and treated as second class citizens. A rabbi in the second century AD said that the Jews should daily utter three Thanksgivings with one of the Thanksgivings being: ‘Blessed be God who did not make me a woman, for a woman is not obligated to keep the commandments’. Such was the hostility towards women in public life that Jesus countered the social hatred by accumulating women to travel with him on his journeys.

These women displayed their gratitude to Jesus by providing for his missionary work out of their own personal resources; we could say that this is the first woman missionary society for the support of the gospel. Another Rabbi may have shunned these women’s support and bid them go back to their own homes, but Jesus, the ever compassionate Saviour allowed these women to be the backbone of his ministry.

We read that in Jesus’s suffering hours that these women were with him. He had them for company from Galilee all the way to Jerusalem. The gospel writers were not misogynist for they included the presence of these woman in the dying hours of Jesus’s life whereas they were completely silent about the whereabouts of the chosen twelve save a few.

These women were loved and cherished by Christ. Jesus also came for them. He came for their reconciliation to God’s society and to God himself.

We see two valuable traits in these woman of which we can all learn. The two traits are service and loyalty.

Service

These women offered their service voluntarily. I am sure that Jesus did not oblige them to provide for his needs just because he had set them free; their debts were for him to pay, but in the view of the mercy and love which Christ had showered upon them, these women responded by giving him their hearts. They offered him that which they could give in whatever heights or depths. One thing can be said, namely, that they gave their service willingly. God loves a cheerful giver and Christ and his disciples must have loved these women for they supported the ministry out of their own means. And when Christ had ascended into heaven the disciples were found devoting themselves to prayer with the Women and Mary the Mother of Jesus.

Daughters of God and sisters of Christ, is your heart melted by Christ as these women’s once unclean souls were? Are you quick to offer your service, money and time to Christ, supporting the work of his ministry or are you still lingering in your struggle to conquer Adam and fight your rights of equality? Will you not be like Christ who considered equality with God, not as a thing to be grasped but emptied himself and was found as a servant? Will you not be a servant? Will you not go quickly because of your gratitude and in your great joy sell all of your ambitions to gain Christ? O will you not be one of the Mary’s?

I pray that you render your service to Christ and to his Church for the joy and salvation of the world.

Loyalty

The beloved Apostle tells us that standing by the cross of Jesus was his Mother and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdelene. The loyalty of the other women were recorded for us by Matthew when he writes, There were also many women there, looking on from a distance, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him, among whom were Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James and Joseph and the mother of the sons of Zebedee.

These women were faithful to their Christ, there was not a Judas among them – they did not pick up the cause of Christ, putting their hands to the plough and then turn back like some of the disciples at Capernaum who turned back and no longer followed Jesus. These women endured the hard teachings, they suffered the fear of being thrown out of the synagogues because of their association with Jesus. These women were seeds planted on good soils, they yielded the fruits of faithfulness.

These women’s loyalty was like Uriah’s loyalty for his fellow soldiers when David had taken him away from them. Uriah refused to go back to his own home to sleep in comfort but he slept at the door of the king’s house with all the servants of his lord’s and did not go down to his own house. Although David may write that the faithful have vanquished from among the children of men, we can say of these women that the faithful have not perished from among the daughters of Eve. These women stood and watched the crucified Christ from a distance although powerless to do anything yet they showed their support for the suffering Messiah by being there and standing near the foot of his cross.

In all truths of heaven, women are not second-class citizens of the Kingdom of God, they are first class, highly honoured and crowned with beautiful gems decorated with a special name which God their Father has given to each that belongs to him. They enter the kingdom of heaven like all men namely through the effectual calling of God, who justifies them and then glorifies them conforming each to the character of his glorious Son who carried their sins on the cross.

My dear Ladies, be Women who are full of gratitude because of what Christ has done for you. Hold nothing back, live for Christ, serve his church, love your family, use whatever gifts Christ has given you, be a good daughter, seek his kingdom, be loyal, be faithful, provide for the ministry like the Women mentioned in the gospels who provided for Jesus out of their means.

K.Oni

Students, Welcome to Bristol

Coming to Bristol as a student is more than just studying, partying, eating and sleeping. There is so much more this ancient city of commerce offers to her new in-dwellers  From the time of the earliest organized human societies, men and women have enjoyed telling stories, listening to music, painting and dancing. Bristol is the city for all of the above as Bristol is the largest centre of culture, employment and education in the south-west region. 

Bristol is a city full of fun decorated by its vibrant multi-cultural artistic hub in stokes croft. Bansky, the controversial local graffiti artist famed throughout the world for his street art is a cherished son of Bristol as well as the beloved wizard Harry Potter who was supposedly inspired after J.K Rowling met a young boy in Bristol (so it is claimed). 

Bristol boasts two major institutions of higher education, the University of Bristol and the University of the West of England. The city has two Football league clubs. Bristol City and Bristol Rovers as well as a number of non-league clubs. The city is also home to Bristol Rugby Union club and an excellent first class cricket side. 

Bristol has a rich spiritual heritage. During the 19th century many churches and chapels were built in Bristol. Isaac Newton, the famous and renowned scientist, famously noted on his discoveries in philosophy that 'If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants'. As a Christian student coming to live in Bristol, you are standing on the shoulders of Giants such as John and Charles Wesley, William Tyndale, George Muller, and William Wilberforce. These men were remarkable in their time and displayed such great faith that history cannot but notice them and celebrate their works. As a follower of Christ, their victory is your victory; but we live in the present and just as they were entrusted to shine the light of Christ to their generation, you have been entrusted to do the same. 

It is with this view of standing on the shoulders of giants and willing to go further do I welcome you to Bristol. I welcome you with all the applause of heaven and the pleasure, which is all mine in meeting some of you. “Whatever your hands find to do (in Bristol), do it with all your might and to the glory of God.” 

K.Oni

I love to hear, watch her smile

Striving to buy her the finer things in life

Dreaming about her awake

Love to leave my house to go and see her live.

K.Oni