This post is going to be a long one. Please read to the end before liking it.
One of the greatest goods you can do to yourself is not to lie to yourself—to be true to yourself.
Don’t deceive yourself; be very realistic; also, don’t let any person try to deceive you. Don’t let people lift you to a point where your feet cannot feel reality and your hands cannot hold onto Jesus. That’s the problem with political appointments and the fame that follows charismatic ministry, or even music and sports.
The voice of sycophancy is worse than cocaine addiction.
If those who ‘lifted’ you up, take their hands off you, the fall is usually very painful and cataclysmic.
I’m not a man of extraordinary looks or abilities. It is very natural to ignore me or take me for granted. I am aware that I’m not fashionable, and I hardly wear expensive things unless they are gifts.
I have gone to address a conference of Assemblies of God men from 10 northern states at Kaduna, and the ushers refused to take me to the altar. I did not look like a guest speaker to them.
I was sitting with my host in a church, and the people who were expecting their guest preacher went to tell my host that he should tell me to sit somewhere else because that they were expecting their guest speaker very soon. They did not know I was the guest speaker.
A lady selling meat to my teachers called me at the gate and beckoned on me to go call the headmistress. She did not know I was the owner of the school.
People have always said derogatory things about me. People very close to me have always made discouraging comments about me. The irony is that I’m always amused. I laugh at myself even before you do.
I always hear voices, but I SHUT THEM UP in my spirit man.
Jealously guard your heart; out of it spring the issues of life.
I hear voices from my mind, I hear voices from inside my spirit that would want to discourage me from deep inside my mind; I always try to SHUT THEM UP.
I hear voices of imaginary disasters and things that will never happen.
I hear voices before I stand up to preach that I will not preach well. Yes, even till now I hear voices.
I have heard voices from my mother, my wife, my children, my brothers, my in-laws, my friends, fellow pastors, and even those you have mentored. I SHUT THEM UP.
I hear voices from my past and the mistakes I made. I hear voices of rejection and frustration. I SHUT THEM UP.
The worst voice is that voice you hear when you want to take a giant step or when you’re at the verge of a breakthrough.
When I was to go for my son’s graduation from medical school in 2012, in Europe, there was a voice that followed me to the embassy. It kept saying that I will not get the visa. After the visa, it followed me to the airport that they will not let me board the flight. It followed me to Turkey that the plane will crash. It followed me from Turkey to the airport in Europe. At the airport, the voice was very consistent that they will send me back. Nothing the voices whispered came to pass. I went and came back safely, and nothing bad happened.
Maybe I’m the only one who hears such voices, I may never know,
I have heard negative voices from so-called prophets; they did not leave my office the way they came.
The voices make me prepare more, they make me more diligent, they make me put more efforts to prove them wrong, they make me pray more in the spirit, and I get great results.
Remember where we started from in this series of Chicken Market lectures? The first post I made on the chickens attracted one of such voices as the first commentator. “Who will buy in this lockdown? Where is the money?” I reacted aggressively; at my level, that’s what I do—I give very harsh rebukes to such voices.
Then one other person wanted to make mockery of me. I fired him with multiple intercontinental ballistic missiles. I did not hear peem (a sound) again.
Most likely, by the time you read this post all the chickens would have been sold (and they were). Someone trekked up to 4 km, to and fro, to buy a chicken when I was writing this post.
There is a great future beyond COVID-19 and the lock-down.
Command every negative voice you are hearing to shut up in Jesus name. Sometimes, I shout at them loudly. I bark at any voice that wants to discourage you. I command it to shut up in Jesus name. Amen.
Sometimes, I hear the voice of restlessness, that would want me to move away from the reasonable thing I’m doing to go to a non-profitable duty. It is the waka waka spirit. Such people always move from place to place, business to business, from house to house, and church to church.
I call it spiritual sokugo (Burning Grass).
You can even move from conference to conference, with nothing to show. You can even call yourself an evangelist.
Have you died in the lock-down?
You have to command such spirits to die in Jesus Name.
God Bless You.
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