LAME EXCUSE FOR GENERATIONAL FAILURE DISALLOWED!

LAME EXCUSE FOR  GENERATIONAL FAILURE DISALLOWED! By FELIX N.JARIKRE

 SCRIPTURAL ANCHOR: GEN.21: 10-21.

Welcome to today’s letter in which we encounter one disturbing and challenging episode in Abraham’s life. Without mincing words, Sarah had said that  Ishmael should be exiled, a persona non grata, and disinherited because he mocked her. To ignore her injunction was detrimental to the husband. The Bible is very clear the very idea coming from Sarah’s mouth, talk less of carrying it out grieved Abraham. Yielding to God’s intervention, Abraham ‘took bread and a bottle of water, gave it unto Hagar’ and sent mother and son into a strange wilderness.

Now here’s a part of scripture that distressed me the first time I came across it.   For real? Bread and bottled water? Only? From a man as wealthy as Abraham?  How mean, cruel, stingy and callous could he be?  Sending your son  defenceless – due to grossly inadequate provision - to a ‘ certain death’ in a

hostile wilderness? Oh God, spare me! Abraham did not give Ishmael anything that remotely suggested financial security or independence. A safety net that would prevent the son from slipping through the cracks into destitution was definitely not in sight. Ishmael’s future looked bleak, precarious and forbidding. Having rescued him miraculously from death, God said of Ishmael: ‘ I will make him a great nation.’  Recently, a debate was sparked in the mainstream media, internet and the blogosphere when Sting, (of Police fame) 62, with a $300 million fortune, who had taught his children how to have a strong work ethic, said: ‘ I am determined that my children should have no financial security. It ruins people not having to earn money. I certainly don’t want to leave them trust funds that are albatrosses round their necks.’  You might agree with Sting (the Stingy?) or not, but what is undeniable is that many accomplished people started with nothing, like Ishmael, and went through  adversity  to achieve considerable success. Bill Gates said: ‘ If you are born poor, it’s not your mistake. But if you die poor, it’s your mistake.’ Many have attempted to explain away their laziness and idleness using the lame excuse of lack of capital. Some say they were born poor, had little formal education. They say lack of access to connections and opportunities has held them back from achieving. They move from there to conclude that the stagnant economy has no job waiting for them. They fail to realize they can move away from zero experience to acquire practical skills, and become indispensable solution-providers. No matter your background, God can still make you a ‘great nation.’ If you have discipline and perseverance,  success is within your reach. Truly, entrepreneurial success has less to do with money, but more with how creative and resilient you are. So don’t settle for less! Lame excuse for generational failure is disallowed!

 

      

ALTERED MIND: THE CHAMPION'S PLAYGROUND!

ALTERED MIND: THE CHAMPION’S PLAYGROUND. By FELIX N.JARIKRE

 SCRIPTURAL ANCHOR: ROM.12:2

Dr. Paul Wood, a 37 years old New Zealand personal performance coach, was 18 ,and heavily addicted to drugs, when his mother died from cancer. Two days later, his drug dealer, a 42 years old man, made an unmistakable attempt to sexually molest him. In a defensive reaction, Paul killed the older man with a softball bat. He was arrested and jailed with a 10-year sentence. He remained  violent and abusive until he met a man in prison who got him into reading books. Staking his claim for a stronger ambition, free from drug addiction, he went on to earn two degrees in psychology from Massey University. He left jail with his PhD almost completed.

This man’s story tells us there’s no limit to what we can achieve if we accept the responsibility to renew or alter our mind. To know what we are capable of achieving, you must alter the state of your  mind. Yes, you may have made some costly mistakes in your past out of a faulty sense of judgement .You may have locked yourself in a prison of self-limitations because you felt your personal history is a litany of serial failures, bust-ups, joblessness, hopeless drug-addiction, marital break-ups and recycled afflictions. But there’s no law that says you should resign yourself to a life of despair. You can abandon your tale of gloom-and-doom. True, you can re-write your story to align with the purpose of God , and watch your life transform from zero to heroic proportions. When you feel disadvantaged, and think that you have been dealt a cruel hand of fate because of the series of disappointments you suffered, you simply give the devil, your crafty adversary, the leverage to feed you the bitter pills of depression. Today, you must reject depression and say hello to joy!!  The good news is that you have not only the responsibility, but also the capacity to change and grow into the valuable person you are meant to be. So never make the allowance for your ugly past to define your future. Re-frame your story, and celebrate your capability!  Your failure is not terminal. Like Dr. Paul Wood, the focus of our letter today, your mess can become your message, instead of a silent grave-yard where crashed dreams are furtively buried. A wise man said: ‘ Failure is an event, not a person.’  Our  scriptural anchor  says you are transformed/transfigured when your mind is altered or renewed. That tells me again that your character is not static, cast in stone, but it is transitional. Yes, the sinner of yesterday can become the saint of tomorrow. You can transform from a weakling or loser into a champion who achieve extraordinary feats. Welcome to the Champion’s Playground!

              

  

DON'T BE ISOLATIONIST: LOOK FOR TROUBLE!

DON’T BE ISOLATIONIST: LOOK FOR TROUBLE! By FELIX N.JARIKRE

 SCRIPTURAL ANCHOR: PS.64:1-7.

The best form of defence, military strategists say, is ATTACK. To retreat out of fear or depression is to suffer a satanic invasion that you are in no strength to repel or stop. Some people think it is safe for them to adopt an isolationist policy, and refuse to engage or create new relationships that could be of mutual benefits to themselves or others.  They have suffered humiliation  and defeat in their previous attempts to engage, socially or otherwise, with others, so they prefer now to adopt and maintain a “ SUPERIORITY-COMPLEX,” a Holier-Than-Thou attitude that allow them to think they are “protecting” themselves from the “POLLUTION” of others. In reality, they are HIDING, afraid to be hurt or disappointed again. Their isolationist policy is simply another giant cover-up for  their insecurity and fear. And that’s what makes  them to be vulnerable to hostile attacks.

Commodore Matthew C. Perry  of the United States Navy, in 1853, came to what is now known as Tokyo Bay. Japan was isolationist. Westerners were not allowed in the country, and their influences were strongly discouraged. Japanese contact with the West was limited to trade with the Dutch in Nagasaki city. Considering Perry as unfriendly and unwanted, the Japanese asked him to depart, and go to Nagasaki, a directive which he conveniently ignored. Surrounded by the Japanese fleet, he presented a counter-demand to have a letter from the U.S. president given to the shogun of Japan. He destroyed a few buildings in the harbour when the demand was denied. Promptly, the letter was presented. A year later, Perry returned to sign a treaty that opened up Japanese ports to U.S. trade, on terms favourable and dictated by the Americans. The Japanese had little choice but to agree because they were technologically outmatched. Indeed, United States ATTACKED when they were UNWANTED and REJECTED by their “ enemy.”  They overcame the hostile resistance of their enemy, and eventually secured their CO-OPERATION. Using geopolitical realities as analogy, it is certain that TROUBLE will LOOK for you if you fail to LOOK for TROUBLE!!!  When God commanded Israel to ATTACK and  TAKE-OVER the land of “ milk and honey” originally belonging to the war-like and battle-tested Canaanites, He was actually asking Israel to come out of their hiding place of insecurity/fear, and look for trouble! Go for what you want. Don’t let your lack of experience stop you from staking a claim on what you desire. Attack that problem! What you don’t know, humble yourself to learn, and bring resolution to that challenge facing you. The only way you can expand and grow is to look for trouble! As a child of God, you are called to be an EXPANSIONIST, not isolationist! Jericho was isolationist, and it was attacked and brought down by Joshua. (see Joshua 6:1-2)  As you attack your enemies of diseases, destitution and demotion, your “ God shall shoot at them with an arrow.” So ATTACK and EXPAND!

               

  

WITCHCRAFT EXPOSED: SAD TALE FROM THE GRAVE.

WITCHCRAFT EXPOSED: SAD TALE FROM THE GRAVE. By FELIX N.JARIKRE

SCRIPTURAL ANCHOR: ACTS 8:9-23, 1 COR.2:9-10.

It happens all the time. In every society and community, certain diabolical individuals, like Simon the villain of Acts chapter 8, had advertised themselves to own magical powers  that enabled them to resolve whatever challenge brought to them by gullible and desperate people,  seeking for answers in wrong places. Exercising undue influence over their victim, these witchdoctors guarantee to conjure whatever it is their supplicant is looking for in exchange for money. Truth be told, these counterfeiters, as harmless as they appear to be, are lawless satanic agents sent to steal, destroy and to kill.(see Jn.10:10)

The public stop pretending not to pay attention only when these evil transactions take a tragic turn for the worse. The Punch newspaper of June, 24, 2014 reported how the Lagos State Police boss, Umar Manko investigated a murder suspect, a 64-year –old native doctor who confessed to have buried alive on May 10, 2014 a retired customs officer, Mrs Angela Kerry and her 10-year-old adopted daughter, Obiagulum. The woman had gone to this sorcerer to solicit his help to get pregnant as she was barren. In the process, the man swindled over N200 million both in property and cash from her. When the remedy she sought became elusive, she started demanding and threatening to recover her money from the native doctor. To cover his sordid tracks, he decided to lure the woman and her daughter to a room in his house where he had constructed a well. Having covered the hole with a white mat, he instructed them to kneel down on it. Without a clue, they fell into it. The man then covered up the well with sand, and cemented the place with the service of two bricklayers. Thinking that his gruesome crime would remain undetected , the heart-less witch-doctor never counted on the tracking device installed in the dead woman’s Toyota Camry. It was this tracking device that enabled police detectives to recover the decomposed bodies of mother and daughter in the man’s house.

The retired customs officer was not only defrauded of a huge sum of money, she also lost her life, and that of her adopted daughter by patronizing  a native doctor in her futile attempt to conceive a child. The question is, what kind of deception would make people turn to a native doctor, and ignore the strong consolation of the Holy Spirit? Peter had rebuked Simon the sorcerer who offered money to receive the Holy Spirit, stressing the unmatchable power of the Holy Spirit to freely heal and deliver people from unclean, oppressive spirits. The Holy Spirit has  the Ultimate Tracking Device from which nothing can remain unexposed. Whatever it is you are looking for – be it fruit of the womb, marital connection, healing, visa – the  Holy Spirit is eager to search out and reveal for your possession what God has prepared for you.

        

CODE-NAMED SETBACK: PATHWAY TO UNCOMMON SUCCESS!

CODE-NAMED  SETBACK: PATHWAY TO UNCOMMON SUCCESS! By FELIX N.JARIKRE

SCRIPTURAL ANCHOR: ROM.5:3-5, MK:16-17

Welcome to today’s letter as we pay attention again to Jehovah TROUBLE-MAKER  who allow our setback to be the unquestionable prediction of our come-back!  A wise man once said: “ Sweet are the uses of adversity.” Still, I have never seen or heard any man/woman praying, “ Lord Jesus, give me pain; give me more and more of it: because pain is sweet!” Truth is, we do all we can as much as possible to avoid adversity. While challenges and setbacks are not strange in life, sometimes they come in such a way that they become a serious threat to your ability to survive or thrive. Do you allow adversity to retire or re-fire you?  Does hardship give you an excuse to despair? Do you bury your head in the sand when confronted by extreme difficulty?  Do you panic and flail at the first sign of crisis? Do you become resentful as fearful memories of your past failures come rushing? While we do not pray for adversity to come, to resent it is to neglect the reward that comes with it. The basic scriptures are instructive: Adversity contains the raw ingredients that God uses to manufacture our SUCCESS VEHICLES! It is true. Adversity brings into the open unexplored options and choices that you would not have known were  available had you not been halted by pains and difficulties. So hardship is not designed to shame you, but enrich your experiences of life’s adventures.

When Ray Charles, blind from age six, was growing up, his mother had taught him not to have any part with self-pity. “You’re blind, not stupid. You’ve lost your sight, not your mind,” his mother had said to him. Not forgetting that, he developed his capacity to recover quickly from difficulties. Struggling and unknown as a young man, his fellow musicians callously denounced his abilities to sing and play the piano, but he refused to abandon his musical ambitions. He stayed on track and persisted through trying circumstances. The rest is history as he went on to become a legendary international musical sensation. Alan Lock had to be discharged from the Royal Navy of England – his dream career –when an eye test, at age 23, revealed that he had a genetic abnormality leading to macular degeneration, that left him with only peripheral limited vision eventually. Despite grieving his fate, he refused to despair. Accepting what was not in his power to change, but rejecting a boring lifestyle, he decided to paddle a rowboat across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain to Barbados, raising money for charity. With an intense level of self-confidence, he travelled with a sighted friend, a GPS, and plenty of equipment. After 86 days in 2008, they completed their journey, and he became the first legally blind person to row across the Atlantic. So RE-ASSIGN, not RESENT your pain!!  And get a reward for your pain, instead of crying to quit!