© Ayo Omolayo
“So I’ll be handing over to my Apostle Paul. He’ll be teaching us on the topic HOW TO REMAIN SPIRITUAL IN MARRIAGE. Robertic Roberto, over to you”, my mentor said to her husband.
He looked at her and shook his head in a playful frustration.
“You’re such a trouble maker”, he said grinning and she returned the smile.
“Silas and Cris. There’s a common trend in the body of Christ today. I call it THE EXCUSE MECHANISM. This what I’m here to help you deal with.
The truth is marriage is full of responsibilities. Infact, when you get married, your workload gets doubled. Children will come and believe me when I say this. It’s more easier to take care of an adult than a child.
From zero to seven years of age, they are alot of work. When you want to pray, they cry in the night. When you want to sleep, they need your attention. When you want to read the bible. That’s when they want to read the bible too.
I remembered how many times Tina tore my Bible because she she was zealous for the Lord. She really wanted to know mysteries at the age of 2. So whenever I wanted to read my Bible, she will come and sit on my laps.
And you know what happens when children read the bible. They prove to you that they are incredible readers. They leave their footprint or should I say, handprints there”.
We burst into laughter.
“So much to do and so little time to do it. But there’s a saying that whatever you find the most important thing to you, you would always create time for it.
That’s absolutely true. You would always create time for that thing that means so much to you. When I first got married. I mean when we first got married. Alot of things tried to bury our spiritual lives. There was a particular scripture I held on to back then.
With God all things are possible. So instead of seeing the obstacle or the excuse why I won’t be able to make out time for God. I think outside the box and begin to finds ways on how to make out time to spend with God.
Don’t allow the things of this world to take over your love for God. The truth is this. The road to heaven is a narrow one. A lot of us have forgotten that even Jesus himself said it while he was on earth. He never said the road to heaven was going to be easy or smooth.
He said it was going to be really hard. Many of us so jot want the hard life. We want the easy life. The life where there is no stress, no pain, no struggle, no sacrifices. Just too easy. We want to get closer to God without having to follow the narrow road.
So we observe our quiet time when we feel we can. When it looks so easy for our bodies. And when it seems difficult or when our flesh complains to us. We immediately pamper our flesh and make sure he is well taken care of.
We have forgotten that the road to heaven is a narrow road. A road of physical pain. A road where if you are not a disciplined person, you’ll give up and turn back. How is praying everyday ab easy thing to do? How is studying the word of God day and night an easy thing to do?
But we don’t realize it’s a must. One if the biggest problem with Christianity today is indiscipline and laziness. I’m sorry to use the word laziness but that’s the truth in plain words.
We don’t want to follow the narrow road. Sometimes we even go as far as complaining to God that it’s too difficult. Why is Christianity so hard? Why does building our spiritual lives have to be this hard? Why is it more easier to live the normal life than to be a Christian?
Matthew 11:12. And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
You cannot grab your spiritual life if you’re not ready to go after I bought force. You must learn to go for what you want and not stop until it is yours and completely yours. If you’re not ready for war, you’ll end up a prisoner of war.
A lot of Christians want to grow spiritually. But they don’t like the rigours and difficulty growing up in Christ will cost.
Let me show you something in the book of Revelation 3:17. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
Verse 18. I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Excuse me, who is the speaker in that scripture?”
“Jesus”, we both answered.
“What did Jesus advice them to do?”
“To buy”.
“Imagine, Jesus telling you to come and buy. Cris! He said com and buy from me. He didn’t say come and collect it’s free. It’s your bible ooo! Thank God I wasn’t there when the bible was written.
Sheybi we are used to this popular saying. Jesus paid it all. Everything is free! Everything is free! No more price to pay.
Now the same Jesus is telling you that I am selling gold. Cris come and buy. It’s not free, it’s for sale. Come and buy.
You pay through your prayers. Your sacrifice of time and energy. Your sleep and your comfort. There is a price that must be paid. It’s non negotiable. It’s either you pay the price to get it, or you don’t get it.
It cannot be exchanged for something else. The narrow road remains the narrow road. It’s the hard way Cris! It’s nothing but the hard way. And untill you’re ready to accept it’s going to be hard. Untill you’re ready to live a hard life. You’ll never be able to live the Christian life consistently.
We have two types of Christians. The civilian Christian and the Military Christian. The civilian are so rampant in the world today. They are the easy going Christian. Anything rigorous or difficult in the body of Christ. Count them out. Fasting is a no no. Prayers, just five minutes. Bible study, just one verse.
Movies, five hours. Playing amazing Spider-Man on Android, 2 hours. Unnecessary chatting on social media, ten hours. Gossiping and gisting with friends, two hours. Eating, 4 to 5 square meals a day, lowest is 3 square meals. Sleeping, don’t go there. The minimum time they give for sleeping is 7 hours.
I cannot fast, my stomach will be doing me as if I want to die. I cannot pray, I don’t know what to pray about. No prayer point. When I start praying, sleep will be disturbing me, so I will round up the prayers and go back to bed, instead of disciplining myself and asking God for the grace to continue.
I cannot read the bible. If I’m reading it, I don’t use to understand what it is saying. It’s as if I’m reading novel. So I close it and open Facebook to read comedy. Instead of asking the Holy Spirit for interpretation or taking what you studied to people who can explain it for you.
These kind of Christians are so many in number. They are spiritual babes who are comfortable in the spiritual cradle. Putting on pampers in the realm of the spirit. They cannot do anything by themselves. Spiritual food must be served to them by an older Christian.
That means the only time they hear God’s word is when it is being preached to them. Whether on TV, social media, radio and in the church. They can never eat Spiritual food by themselves. That is to open the bible by themselves and feed their spirit man.
It is someone that must feed them with God’s word. The only thing they know how to do is play with toys.
What are toys in the spiritual realm? Toys are all those things or activities that are unnecessary and have no benefits to your spiritual life that drain your time.
Another name for it is idols. So you see them driving motor on their android phone. Watching Money Heist for hours. Sitting down with people who have no ambition to know anything about God and spend hours gisting with them.
The truth is, evil communication corrupts good manners. So if all your friends are unserious people who do not care about their spiritual lives. You will end up becoming like them. Just give yourself a little time.
In a short while, all your passion for God will die a natural death. It’s passion for movies, football match, and how to argue about Nigerian politicians and Yahoo boys that will take over your heart.
There’s something called SPIRITUAL RUSTINESS. Any person suffering from this always happens to enjoy movies, football matches, social media, sleep and eating more than anything that has to do with God.
These kind of people can watch season films from 10pm to 5am in the night and go to work the next day without dozing off. Even at work, they will never doze off at all. But tell they person that we’re having alnight by 12am to 1am. Just one hour. He’ll doze and even fall off his chair during the alnight.
They can chat in the night on social media and their eyes will very sharp like that of an owl. But 5 minutes of reading the bible, they’re already pouring saliva on it. They have used their bibles as pillows countless times and tore it into shreds.
These people can spend their last money on subscription of one thousand naira. But cannot buy Sunday school manual of two hundred naira.
Anything about God is difficult for them to do. They don’t understand that their spirit man is rusty. What does that mean?
Spiritual rustiness is a state where flesh is active and incharge of the life of a Christian. It is a state where the will of the man has been consistently obedient to the desires of the body to the point where it has become an demonic programming.
Normally before the flesh can fulfill it’s desires, it has to persuade you and make suggestions. It has to plead with you and speak with you to allow him to sleep when prayers are going on.
But in the case of these people, the flesh doesn’t beg them to stop the prayers and go to bed. He just comes and stops the prayers without your consent. He doesn’t ask for your permission to fulfill it’s desires. He is the boss. He decides when you fast and when you don’t. He decides when you pray and when you don’t.
It’s like when a wicked mother gives food to her daughter. Let people not say I am a bad person, oya let me allow you to pray small. Just small! Five minutes! Oya stop! Five minutes prayer is enough. Turn on the TV for me. It’s television I want to watch.
And the Christian has no single control over himself. He finds himself doing what he doesn’t want to do. His flesh does not make suggestions, it makes decisions for him, whether he likes the decision or not.
Such Christians are the type that will want to fast from morning till 3pm or 12pm. But by 10am, the flesh will come and drag them to where they are selling popcorn. The aroma will be so enchanting and irresistible as if you have never eaten popcorn since you were born.
How you will eat the popcorn, you will not understand. These are the kind of Christians that are fed up with their spiritual lives. They cry day and night to God for intervention. Because in the realm of the spirit, they are slaves. Slaves to their own passion.
God I’m so useless. I need a change. I want to pray but I cannot! I want to fast but I cannot! I want to read the bible, bit it’s too hard! God please rescue me.
Do you want to know the remedy for these people?”
To be continued………
Brethren, the flesh is oppressing alot of Christians out there.
Many of them cry in the secret. When am I going to be free?”
And please keep praying for me. I appreciate the prayers of all those who never round up their quiet time without mentioning my name.
Believe me when I say this! God is set to resurrect the spiritual lives of a lot of people reading this story. Don’t look at the length of the story.
Look at what God is doing through it. Personally, I have been stylishly asking God to stop the story. But when I start typing, how I arrive here, I don’t understand.
God I’m so useless. I need a change. I want to pray but I cannot! I want to fast but I cannot! I want to read the bible, bit it’s too hard! God please rescue me.
Who’s ready to experience a breakthrough?
