IT’S OURTHING

I remember my first birthday on WhatsApp… My picture was every group’s icon, people were wishing me in group chats ‘dentins’, I mean everywhere😅. A few days after my birthday however, my chats where almost empty. It made me wonder if the people who were all over me some few days back really cared about me because ‘hi mpo b) me’😏😣. (as time has gone by now it’s even worse🤦‍♀️.)

Christmas is here, its Jesus’ birthday and everyone is all over Him. Some of us don’t even know the who Jesus is and we are not even bothered to know: ‘Christmas is a free party, I don’t need to know the celebrant before I join the parte’💃💃. Others do know about Jesus and that’s enough for them.

My question is, are you sure you will not be bounced when the bigger party is held? (I am talking about the marriage supper with the Lord and His Bride: the church). Does Jesus know You (me) too😕🙁.

Knowing is based on relationship. Relationships are built through communication, spending time in His word and constant fellowship.

Christmas is the best time to mend our relationship with the Lord (very needful… I am speaking to myself right now😖) and for us who don’t have some at all, this is the perfect time to start a ‘Thing’ with Him.

The truth is, Jesus, the savior of the world, (the greatest and real super hero… not shazam and spider man) doesn’t only want you to come for His Birthday party. He wants to sit and have drinks with You too because you are the reason He was born in the first place (that You will have life) and His birthday party is your birthday party.

In this season, let us not only jam at Jesus’ party, but make it a point to get closer to the Celeb. Jesus has a seat for you anyway, you just have to make an appearance.

That’s Ourthing, We dey Vibe

Ps: Y’all should check out this new song by Chordrick… You will be’ barbless’: I No Dey Barb

CEYC- htttps://ceycairportcity.org/music/i-no-dey-barb/

YouTube- https://youtu.be/DXXcpc8X2JI

Audiomack- https://audiomack.com/song/chordrick/i-no-dey-barb

SoundCloud- https://soundcloud.com/vesselchordrick/i-no-dey-barb

We are human. And as human as we are we are very relational. I mean when we are born the first people we may meet are our families and as time goes on, we meet other people, make friends and all that. Most often we take up our identities from what these people tell us even without noticing it and because we want to be accepted by our world, we try so hard to meet the ideal picture they (the world) have painted for us😓😖.

Well we are human (not Born Again), and so very effort we make, every success, every win every action, is made to please our world and the people who matter to us. We take up the identity they have in mind for us just to please them… we take up courses in school and professions because our world sees it as prestigious… we form behaviors and attitudes because well our world think that that is how we are supposed to be. The interesting thing is that our world (the people who matter to us) have no idea who they are most of the time🤨😒. They also may have gotten their identity from their world and maybe because they could not live up to the expectation of their world well then You will have to meet them!

Well let me tell You some awesome news😃… We are not only Human. We are children of God. This means our identities are not found in what or who the world thinks we are but we are who God says we are in Christ Jesus. It is High time we (myself very much included😅) start to look for our identity in God. And well it’s not an ambiguous thing to say, we find out who we are when we spend time with the Lord in His Word. (2^nd Corinthians 3:18) And the amazing part is that, we don’t only learn who we are but The Word of God changes us and makes us into who We were meant to be in Him😚😍.

So, we don’t live to please our world anymore. We live because Christ Lives and because of this, we live for Him and Him alone (Galatians 2:20). We please Him and Him alone. We live because we are created to please Him (Colossians 1:16&17).

We are His…-Pleasers… and that’s OurThing

When I was little, I loved to play pretend with my little sister. We had to share toys and dolls and so we had to play together. There were some days I would like to have one doll (Melody, that’s the name of the doll😅) to myself and most often, my little sister will want that too so then we would fight over the doll (she normally won the fight… well because I was the older one😒😏).

I know that if Melody could speak, it would choose who it would like to play with. Unlike the doll, we have the ability to choose whose side we are on. As Christians, who have this Ourthing going on, we have already chosen our side of the equation. However, mostly we move towards the party that seem to fit our wants. (mostly our wants draw us closer to the enemy☠💀😑)

The war between God and the devil over us never ends. God loves us so much that he is not willing to give us up or let us Go. We’ve been bought with a price: the blood of His Son Jesus Christ. We are priceless. And most importantly, He has won us for Himself… for His Glory. The most logical thing for a slave who has been bought to do, is to totally submit to the one who has freed him. Ourthing is how captivated we are by His Love and how His love keeps chasing after us. We actually can’t help but be His. Nothing can separate us from His Love for us. (Romans 8:35-39).

Our body is His Temple (1^st Corinthians 6: 19). He lives in us. We are not just dolls, His blood flows through our veins. We are His sons and Daughters. His love holds on to us. We are His.

He Loves Us – David Crowder Band

He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

And we are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If His grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
And heaven meets earth like an unforeseen kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way

That He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.

One day, a boy in my little sister’s class got chicken pox. When my sister came home, she kept talking to me about chicken pox and how the boy has transferred the pox to another person in her class and also how she wished she will also get the pox because she wouldn’t have to go to school. My sister kept talking about getting chicken pox and not so long  after, she got chicken pox. She was very happy because she was missing school and I was still going to school (I also wanted to get some of the pox😖😤).

In SHS, the slogan for my school’s debate club was “I speak therefore I am”. Recently my mind was drawn to this fact: that we actually become what we say. Just like my sister who got the chicken pox because she kept saying she wanted to get it, we actually create our world and who we become by what we say. The kind of words we speak to ourselves and also allow in our lives can cause or bring a lot of things in to our lives. There is a lot of darkness and bad vibes we create for ourselves because of the things we say and the kind of words we allow people to speak into our lives.

You can never give what you don’t have… this is to say, you cannot say positive words into your life and into the lives of the people around you if you don’t have them to give. The Lord Jesus is the Word from the beginning. Knowing Him and His Word is knowing life and “positivity”. When you know life and you have life, you will surely give life.

This world is very dark and void…. Give light. Speak Life. That’s OURTHING.

TobyMac-  Speak life

Since I was little, I always felt different. I never liked chocolates and toffees and stuff like that. I didn’t like eating a lot of things and i  didn’t like wearing some clothes and accessories.(I still don’t like chocolates…please don’t buy me some for my birthday😏🙄 😅 ). I also realized I was very different even among my friends and my family. When I was child, (until some few years ago), I thought it was a bad thing. I tried so hard to be “normal” like everyone else just to fit in and the more I tried, the more different I felt.

Recently, I have come to realize that I am not suppose to be normal anyway. As I am a child of God, I cannot be like everybody else. The Bible calls us (Christians) a chosen generation, a royal priesthood and a holy nation( 1st Peter 2:9). There is nothing “normal” with all these titles we’ve been given.

We want to be like everyone else because we do not know who we truly are. The queen of England and other royals of this world do not go just anywhere, or do just anything or even eat just any food. How much more we who are God’s own Royals. Ourthing with God sets us apart from everything else and we just cannot be like everyone else. We cannot do whatever we like or be where ever we want to be because everyone is doing it. We are more than ordinary.

We are just how we were meant to be from the beginning…anomalies

By the way, normal is really boring.

Anomaly- Lecrea

Anomaly
Deviation from the common rule
Something or
Somebody that’s abnormal
That doesn’t fit in
I say that’s exactly what we are
We are the odd
The outcasts
The peculiar
The strangers
And they say
We don’t fit in
But I say we are exactly
Who God created us to be
Anomalies
The system didn’t plan for this

When I was going to shs, I had an agenda…I wanted to try everything some…I had been a ‘good girl’ saaa 😏and even though I was born again, I felt that I needed some kind of ‘excitement’😅😁 and the boarding house was a perfect ground for that👹.

Well on the day that I stepped foot in the school all my plans shattered because my elder sister somehow knew the prep prefect, who turned out to be the Scripture Union president and was told by my sister to take care of me🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️. Although I was very very mad at my sister for spoiling all my plans🙄, I am grateful to God that she did looking back. Along the way, because of this, I met some great women that I believe God strategically brought into my life. If this didn’t happen, I would have found myself in bad company and I’d probably be some slay queen somewhere.

My point is that, the people you find yourself associating with determines who you are. No matter how good and independent you think you are, you are greatly influenced by the people you take council from and associate with. The bible tells us not to be deceived at all because Evil communications-bad company- corrupts good manners (1 Corinthians 15:33). Evil is anything that moves us from the path Christ is leading us on.

A blessed person (someone determined to do this Ourthing with the Lord), does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. But rather delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night (psalm 1:1&2). The only way to tell a bad company from a good one is when you closely walk with the Lord and delight in His word. The friends you choose show how much of God You want in your life.

Who is your friend?

I had two best friends in my primary school. When I got to JHS 1, my class was reshuffled. It was a very sad day for all of us…(I remember it was a like a funeral and some teacher came to scold us.😂😓😅).The reshuffle meant we were going to lose our classmates and friends from nursery school and unfortunately for me, I was the one moving to the other class. Changing my class shouldn’t have changed or influence my relationship with my friends but it did because I chose to let it.

One thing we don’t recognize is that, in OurThing, our choices really matter. Our actions and inaction are all ways of choosing to walk with the Lord or not and this decision to walk with God is not a one-day thing.

Accepting the Lord Jesus as your Lord and savior is just the first big step and there are many more steps to take and those steps are made through our choice to trust the Lord and obeying Him every day, heeding to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and choosing Him every moment of our lives just as He has chosen us.

That’s what OURTHING is all about. Trust and obey.

Trust And Obey- John Henry Sammis (1846-1919)

When we walk with the Lord in the light of His Word,

What a glory He sheds on our way!

While we do His good will, He abides with us still,

And with all who will trust and obey.

Trust and obey, for there’s no other way

To be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

https://lyricstranslate.com

When I was in JHS 3, I wrote a plan for my life. It included the SHS I wanted to go to, the time I would go to the university, the kind of job I wanted, the guy I wanted to marry (very important😅), the number of kids I wanted, all of that. Well most of the stuff that I wrote down didn’t turn out like I planned.

When I started this OURTHING, I was expecting some nice beautiful, flowery, every-way-opening kind of life because charle God is my father, what at all can go wrong. Then the storms started and life became real. I was very mad at God and all that, asking the ‘why mes’ and all, but one thing I lost sight of was the fact that I am not doing life alone. And that I have a great companion to do life with.

When life begins to happen we always focus on the problems and issues and messes going on around and we tend to forget that Jesus Christ is there with us. Its easy to look at ourselves and focus and magnify ourselves and the issues that, we forget about how real the Lord is and How ready He is if we would just invite Him into the situation.

Jesus is Truth and He means what He says. He says He will never leave us or forsake us and so even when we don’t seem to see Him or we take our mind off Him and things don’t go the way we plan, He is still there with us. He calls us to walk on the water with Him. (Matthew 14:26-32) This is what makes OURTHING special. He never leaves us. He is there with Us…even in our darkest moments…

…HE’S GOT US.

Pompi- Peace Be Still

They say I am crazy cos I smile out the window when a storms outside
what’s on my mind is a promise
saying ‘PEACE BE STILL
YOUR WAR IS MINE
I DIED SO YOU CAN LIVE

I like to day dream😅. I remember when I was in JHS, I imagined how I will meet my husband or my boyfriend. I imagined myself in a bus travelling, and he will be my seat partner and it will be love at first sight😍😂. I have had many day dreams and imaginations and (I still day dream actually😐).

Many times, this imagination “powers” got me into trouble especially with boys and having weird beliefs and thought patterns☠😑. Most of these were from what I read and the movies I watched. The human mind is full of smut and selfishness and the things we watch and read and listen to add on to this dirt already piled up in our hearts and minds.

Its quite normal because the human mind was corrupted right after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. God just saw that the intent of man is full of wickedness and evil and when you have not accepted Christ as Your Lord this is the state of affairs of your heart and mind. (Gen 6:5).

When I started this OurThing, I knew I was a child of God, but then I was still having bad thoughts and silly imaginations. I came across this scripture in Romans 12:1&2 and I realized that my mind needs to be renewed and the only way to do it is by the Word of God.

In Ephesians 5:26, the Word of God is described as water, and as you meditate and read the word of God, your mind is washed and made clean. You realize as time goes on, the way you think and act is different from your age mates and even most older people or even how the whole world thinks. Our minds need washing every single day…Jesus must be on our minds.

The Word of God is Water…let’s get washing

Philippians 4:8

Whatsoever things are True

Honest, Just, lovely, Pure

Things that are of Good report

THINK ON THESE THINGS

There are days I feel when I pray God wont mind me because I have done something wrong or I just don’t feel like it. This feeling can last for a long time because I can mess up saa continuously and for a long while I would not have prayed or read my Bible.

At a point in , this “away moment” lasted so long that I even didn’t know where I kept my bible after Sunday service and I wouldn’t want to have things to do with God as much as I used to.

Well one day I just decided to start writing about how I feel about God in my book. I remember I cried very much that night because I realized how much I needed God even when I felt I can manage my life alone.

Like me, sometimes we really think we should run from God instead of coming to God just as we are. Its quite funny we think we can actually run away from God who is all knowing and knows even our deepest thoughts and intentions.

When we run, we are running away from the presence of God and right into the arms of danger…the devil. The truth is, the devil is extremely jealous of us and so he finds ways to separate us from God and we mostly fall for the lies he tells us that we don’t deserve forgiveness and love from God. The more we believe these lies the more we move further away from God and the path He is leading us on.

God loves us so much that He will never ever let us go. He said it Himself that He will never leave us or forsake us. We actually cannot survive without Him. Instead of running away from mercy we are to run towards mercy. Its okay to be vulnerable with God. He is faithful and just to forgive us. Nothing can separate us from the love of God…NOTHING (Romans 8:38).

Please COME BACK…