.

By gambling,one is choosing not to explore the potentials that was packaged in him/her from creation.Indirectly,one is opposing God's plan.This shouldn't be heard of in churches.

his source wasn't the maker of miracles,so how could he?

Here’s the article that led to this correction http://www.tosinspot.com/god-and-his-love/

When an Uncle of mine read this article (God and His Love), he pointed out 2 things.
a) Jesus wasn't created by God (The father) but rather He co-existed with the Father and the Holy Spirit from the beginning.
b) No one was superior rather they have different functions.

My Explanation

1. The reason I used the word "created" was because of how the book of Hebrews was written. The more I thought of "subjection", the more "creation" occurred to me. But it was wrong for me to have used the word "created" since it was never stated in the bible as such, "Subjection" is enough to convey my points (God's love) across.

Using the word "create" would make Hebrews 7:3 a little confusing as it may not be the terms used in the heavens, instead 1 Corinthians 8:6 should be used to grasp it. In addition, 1 Corinthians 15:28 can be used to grasp it too.

2. I disagree that, "the Father, Son and Holy Spirit co-existed from the beginning and no one is superior rather they have different functions".

There was a moment God (the Father) begot God (the Son).This "moment" might not be referred to as "moment" in heavenly terms and it is for this same reason I couldn't use the word "create" in the first case. If there was no "begotten", then there is no Father and Son relationship, if there's no father and son relationship, then there's no inheritance (privileges), it means Jesus operates entirely as His own entity and has absolutely no relationship with the father, which is not true. Colossians 1:19, Hebrews 1:4-5 and Hebrews 5:5 testifies to this moment and the rest of chapter 1 strengthens it. Jesus Christ inherited the privileges of God from the Father the moment He was begotten. This moment is before John 1:1-3 because from our beginning we were introduced to Jesus as God.

Hebrews 1 won't emphasize on His Sonship if He had no dependence on the Father. Or what is Jesus's purpose in the God Head's existence since He won't do anything of Himself except what He sees the Father do? John 5:19. This is rather what led to His adoption.

Illustration (Pharaoh and Joseph)
If one was to ask Joseph, "Is Pharaoh greater than thee?” his response would be,”Yes”. Then again he could say, No, technically (which wouldn’t be humbling enough) or better still, "I and pharaoh are one”. Jesus, according to his humility and the rest of His attributes that pleased the Father to beget him has never said no.

Do they complement each other (Pharaoh and Joseph), i.e. is there a reason this relationship occurred? Yes, to Pharaoh, it was the existence of his kingdom that mattered. Does the father and Jesus complement each other? Yes, even while Jesus is still a subject to the Father. According to the Father's nature, it is His will (even when at times we don't understand it) that matters. Remember Job?
Could Joseph try to overthrow Pharaoh, Yes. Does he have freewill to reason along that line or at least come shorter than what was expected of him? Yes. But according to his person, would he? No. Because, it was his person that got him that relationship in the first place (The father being pleased with Joseph’s ways).

Conclusion

Does the trinity exist? No, but yes technically. Its existence is as a result of the Father's nature. If we exalt God, He's ready to exalt us beyond our imagination.

Here are a few passages to dwell on

1 Corinthians 8:6
1 Corinthians 15:28
Hebrews 1
Colossians 1:19
John 20:17
Rev 3:12
Philippians 2:6
Ephesians 4:5-6

It’s very important for one to know and understand who Jesus is. Before John 1:1-3, after John 1:1-3, and His time on earth. If one does not understand Jesus’s being, there’s no way one can understand God’s love. And the statement “Jesus died for my sins” won’t hold much weight. Understanding the total package is required to break us and mold us into the expected shape. The whole bible rests on this understanding (God’s love).

Note

I'm not trying to exert my belief on anyone but lay it out as I see it for one to see. If you find any pieces of this information challenging, please feel free to state your opinion in the comment section and lets fellowship together. If you find it a waste of your time, I'm willing to pay you at least x2 at the rate at which you earn per hour to state the obvious.

Understanding Who Jesus Really Is

In many cases, as a tradition passed down, we say our prayers in His name, and unexplainably believe that He died for our sins. Some often think of Jesus as a creation who could not do any wrong as created and had the name "Son of God" from the beginning of time.

To understand God's love is to understand Jesus’s person. Grasping His personality will make John 3:16 clearer.

He is the express image of the invisible God.

The creator of worlds and things.

We even see God (The Father) refer to Him as God (The Son) in the book of Hebrews, an extent of the admiration and love He has for him.

Bottom line, He is the Father's creation whom He(The Father) handed over His privileges (What makes Him God) because of how well pleased He was with Him. A reason why Jesus said I and the Father are one. The Father being pleased with the Son is as a result of how much Jesus loved righteousness and hated iniquity, amongst other things as stated in Hebrews. And of course He has a free will too.
This is what makes Jesus special to the Father. No other creation has been ascended or will be ascended to this position.

The Risk

Imagine what is to be loved about man, especially while we were yet sinners, absolutely nothing. But not only was God willing to save man whom He could destroy and create billions of in a twinkle of an eye, He was also putting Himself and Jesus in harm’s way by doing so.

This is what makes this type of love indefinable. Because;

What if Jesus had rebelled against the Father when he was in the human form? What would our hope have been?
What type of havoc would He have caused with the Father's privileges (being God)?
How displeased and hurt would the Father have been?

But thank God all these weren't the case as an indefinable love was also demonstrated in the son. One who "For in Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through Him and for him" came and served us with humility and through His teachings. The creator serving the created.

A thorough understanding of this should make us love the Father beyond bounds just as Jesus said, "Love God with all thy heart and all thy soul and all thy mind". If we understand the risk God took on us as illustrated above, "Love your neighbor as yourself" wouldn't be preached before we embrace it as our responsibility, we will love all men and women with passion regardless of how connected they are to us knowing the risk that was taken over their lives. Holy anger will descend upon us when we come across a life being misused. The passion to assist and bring up those less privileged at least to our standard would linger. We would do all it takes to please the father day and night.

Love As Best Defined

Love, as I’m lead to define it, is one preferring his/her husband/wife, brothers/sisters, parents or strangers over him/ herself. And this type of passion has one form of quality which doesn’t change across men. That is, the exact same way a man loves his wife or vice versa should be the exact same way he or she loves his mother, father, brothers, sisters and even strangers. This understanding is from how God loves us and the extent He went to prove it.

This definition of love perfectly answers the question thrown at Jesus by his disciples. "If a woman marries 7 times while on earth (due to previous ones passing away), who will be the rightful husband in heaven?" Of course if she grasped the concept of love while on earth, then her love for all the men would be exactly the same.

Based on this definition, a man from Africa can marry a woman from Asia or any other part of the world, regardless of their age, culture or whatever, and have a wonderful marriage if they understand what love truly means. Our tradition and culture as Christians should be strictly and only LOVE.

If this is the case, then what becomes of marriage, an institution where the word “love” is mostly used?

Marriage Interpreted

God, in His search on who to further explain the meaning of love to found His son Hosea. Not only was he told to marry a prostitute, he was also told to go and buy her back from slavery after she ran away from the marriage and continued a promiscuous life. Through his marriage God reveals His feelings to him (and us) and what should matter most to man. How He's always there regardless of how we treat Him. How He goes into His kitchen to make provision for us, guard us throughout the night while we sleep, sees us through the day and sets goals that we all rush to fulfill while ignoring Him. Shouldn't this break our hearts? Ignoring or mistreating men that He risked a lot to save can be added to the list, as our character is supposed to reflect His.

If God (Our Creator) can be slow to anger to this extent in His marriage to us, then who are we not to be able to dwell with anyone regardless of how frustrating we paint them to be? In marriages, most men see their wives, or the other way round, as less superior in thoughts, finances or activities, hence frustration sets in leading to broken homes simply because men/women refuses to be broken. We don’t meet God’s standards but because of His everlasting love, He sticks with us through the day. Shouldn’t we be able to do the same with our spouses as a reflection of our maker?

Good news! We all need to be broken in order to come close to being Jesus or else no man will see God.

The present State

Failure to understand love in this magnitude has crippled the Christendom. Priorities have been misplaced by Christians and non-Christians see every reason to mock Jesus Christ. The hopeless cries out for help (to be loved) everyday on our streets before eventually succumbing to hate, while we have supposed Christians in multitudes walking around with hearts of stones. We see divisions along tribes, ethnicities, politics etc. in our communities, offices and places of meetings, and it troubles not God's children. Division is further seen in school systems along religious lines instead of an institution where many should be welcomed with love.

Love trumps fear, it trumps hatred. It’s the amount of it in a society that dictates that society's success or failure.

Find God by Any Means

Discovering God is the only thing that makes life unique. It is the point where life starts to make a meaning and building on that discovery is very essential.

tosinspot@gmail.com
www.tosinspot.com

The Analogy

While you can come into my house as a visitor, kick up your feet, access the food and beverages in my fridge, there is no way you can ever forget that all these are not yours even though you have sunk into my comfort. To all of a sudden forget whose house you are in is a can of worms we shouldn't open let alone talk about re-proportioning sizes of food or drink I'm entitled to.

I'm fully aware of whose house I'm in (thank God for grace), so I better know how to behave. You better know who is entitled to 10% and whose is 90% .And for provision of grace, I better know whose 0% is and whose 100% is.

The origin

So what's all the noise about 10%? Where did it come from? I BELIEVE It came as part of the rules given to a stiff neck people who couldn't comprehend the analogy of God owning all things as laid out in the first paragraph. This is similar to how His grace works today. Out of His everlasting love for man, he made the 10% a law to compensate for man's lack of understanding. We know people did God's will and walked with Him before the tithe's Law. The greatest friend of God as recorded in the bible, Abraham, existed before the tithing laws. Let’s consider this analogy: A father with 2 sons would love the one that does all it takes to please the father without being told, than the one who is constantly being told what to do or has a schedule drawn for him. Solomon became the wisest and richest because he thought out of the 10% box.

What About The 90%

So even if we are foolish enough to give God 10% and keep 90%, what do we use the 90% for? Have you thought of lending your car out because your ministry/work place is within the neighborhood and it would serve a better purpose to a brother whose his/hers is miles away? What about depriving yourself of that unnecessary expense just to put a smile on someone else? Yea that same smile people have been expecting God to come down from heaven and work on. When we start to ponder on these things, we would be surprised that, we can never out give God.

I do believe that many of the ugly events that exist and continues to unfold in our society today is due to the reckless way we spend our 90%.We’ve not chosen to acknowledge it as God's or believe it is accountable to Him, hence the reckless spending. We go about feeding our wants (which happens to be an endless race) instead of thanking Him for meeting our needs, and then proceed to meeting other’s needs.

So, unbelievers keep unbelieving and even believers starts developing cold feet when they witness awful events. Where's God in all this? Well, it's not that God can't make every pain go away, but like a wonderful Judge, these events would be evidences before Him, you and I why one shouldn’t be allowed in on that day.

Jesus's Stand

Jesus's coming and teachings, an illustration of how we are to live our lives, if carefully studied and emulated would destroy the 10% blindfold. His teachings can be summarized as seeking God's kingdom with all our time, property and might. That's why he never made mention of 10%.The responsibility of bringing Jesus into any society is equally on every Christian and our sole purpose of gathering, is to continually seek God's face for Christ-likeness to further His kingdom on earth ,and to assist each other get through difficulties, no more no less.

Some members of a church would never know how impactful they could be to the kingdom until the 10% blindfold is ripped off, some, even more impactful than their pastors. Our individual characters as Christians gives the world a second thought more than the 10%.Jesus never asked for those that could give 10%, rather he asked for those that would give 100% to follow him.

In fact ,it would be genuinely difficult for one to exhibit Christ-likeness if his/her mind is focused on giving 10%.Most times, such a giver believes God’s demands has been met and he/she is no longer responsible for the kingdom’s work.

Spend every kobo wisely and most importantly let everyone of it please God. And while it’s God's choice to say He would bless us back, if we truly understand the existence of man in its totality, we wouldn't be waiting on the business model of man before we give.

How to Give to God

Using the phrase "giving to God" from my understanding, is meaningless because if we think deep enough about the chain reactions of giving, we would agree that human beings are the sole beneficiaries of it, not God (The concluding part of this post http://www.tosinspot.com/a-few-words-for-nnamdi-k-kanu/ will give you more insight). But for God's everlasting love sake He coined it "giving to Him".

While you expect a list on how to give, I would rather give you the principles not laws. Pick up every challenge that bothers you in your community, love your neighbor as yourself and pray without ceasing (constantly meditate on giving). In beginning to do this, God will lead you on.

In addition, when we give, wisdom has to be applied to the process. Giving without caring or making sure it addresses the receiver’s needs is useless. Christianity should never compensate for mediocrity.

Whether it is time or money, there's no way we will understand the principle of giving and crave to give to Him, that He won't create a way for you and I to give. Giving to Him is a privilege. It is overwhelming. It is an opportunity to draw closer to Him (man's sole purpose) .It is the fastest way to kill our desire of wants which we regularly drown our thoughts in. The more we give, the faster the desire of wants fades away.

Pastor E.A Adeboye and the 1 Billion Naira

While many are shocked that a request like this could be made in a country where hunger and poverty excels exceedingly, but from my understanding of giving I am not surprised. Of course the message is for those that comprehend the analogy in the first paragraph. Those that didn't cut corners, but built their wealth gradually and legitimately. Those that gave 100% to God and testified to the blessings that came with it. While I'm not well informed on the project he's working on, I'm presuming it's for the growth of God's kingdom and I will be surprised if he can't find at least a giver in the country unless if these Billionaires have projects they 're pushing for God as well.

Just as his crave for giving has grown over the years, so as his faith. And by God's grace I will be here to witness his trillion naira project for God.

The question is, what are you doing with your 90%?We should be glad that these cases still exist, at least it gives you and I an opportunity to rethink and start giving all to God from today henceforth.

Note
I'm guilty of these words and my righteousness is as a filthy rag to say the least.

www.tosinspot.com

A Few Words For Nnamdi K Kanu

Creation of A Mini-Nigeria

His creation of Biafra can also be called a Mini-Nigeria. Since his motive is not to reorientate his selected few but to seclude them. If he’s not able to alter their mentality to be productive before the departure, he shouldn't expect anything new after the arrival. Even though the Israelites were promised a new territory, God needed their mindset altered in order to maximize the promised property. This He did, through different encounters, signs and wonders, but due to their inability to comprehend, a new generation of people replaced them. And He still continues to do that in our lives by making sure we are ready for our next level before launching us into it.

We Excel As Individuals

It’s a limitation of the mind for one to ascribe his/her success to a group of people or a tribe. As a smart student sitting for an exam, the best I can do to help my colleagues pass their exams is by tutoring or being study partners with them. I can't take their exams for them and moving them to another school won't guarantee their success either. Whether the world is segregated by countries or not, goal driven influential individuals will still emerge and they will do so under any circumstance. Many Nigerians have proven this to be true. We have different tribes excelling in regions and states that are not their origin.

Newer Countries From A New Country

Same excuses used to break away from Nigeria might be used to break ethnicities into newer countries. That is, if his ideologies fails in Biafra, a gathering with different ethnicities, it won't be long before ethnic groups’ start craving to become countries. In fact this can go as further as families becoming countries. I need a reason why this can't happen.


Suffering For The Wrong Course

Suffering for the wrong course which is equivalent to advanced self-pity does not get things done. The energy, time and resources hovering over him can be used to challenge some of the issues he believes his people are facing in Nigeria. The option of fixing the decayed political structure (which is a form of giving to government) and using it as a tool to minister/cater to his people is available. How? Where there is a will, there's a way and unless he doesn’t truly have the interest of his people at heart, will he not see a way in this option. This option in my opinion, is far cheaper and lifesaving, than breaking away.

Conclusion

We need to constantly remind ourselves that the government is us, every Nigerian. The type of results we all expect from any form of known governance is not feasible, rather we should equate our expectations to what we give to the government. We (government) give a group of people (politicians) our resources e.g. taxes, natural resources etc. and in return, we (government) are given welfare, highways, healthcare etc.

If a mathematical equation can show the ratio of what we (government) give, to what we (government) expect through democracy, it would be ridiculous. If you are quick to point out corruption, please refer to my first post, http://www.tosinspot.com/how-corrupt-are-we, I addressed corruption to the best of my knowledge.

Even though I'm a participant of the present day form of government, democracy, and I strive to abide by its laws and regulations, I’ve always and will continue to regard it as a secondary form of government. Hence, I have less interest in its structures.

The only form of government I believe would cater to all of our needs and meet our expectations is "Loving your neighbor as yourself" governance. The scale/weight of the existence of this government in any country determines/dictates the excellence/greatness of that country regardless of the form of government practiced in that country because it's the only primary form of government.
In this system of governance, a key practice is giving and not receiving. During this practice, it’s almost as if, the giver is at the same time the receiver at the other end. The standards of our communities/societies is elevated and guess who benefits from this elevation? You! You get to drive on better roads, know of little to no crime, see youths become productive etc. The amount of resources we give to our government today through democracy is a no match for our expectations, we can do better.

Bricklayers, Nurses, Tailors, Policemen, Politicians e.tc the scale doesn't matter, we all should be actively giving to government AKA our communities/societies using our God given gifts/skills. There is that skill of yours that will give our communities a face lift, sleep over it, meditate on it, and find a way to release it. We need it! The work of our hands should reflect in our communities.

Most importantly, from a Christian point of view, we don't want to be caught up in the parable of the three servants, Matthew 25. Giving to government is an indirect way of giving part of the profits from the skills/talent He gave us to Him .That way, He increases and strengthens us.
I encourage everyone to start giving to government today. The more we give to government, the less we would expect from it and actually we will all get more from it.

www.tosinspot.com

It is no news that various departments in both the public and private sectors of Nigeria are riddled with corruption. Politics, Security, Media, Education, Health and the list goes on.

From political parties sharing food stuffs or handing out cash to voters, police demanding a certain fee before letting commuters on their way, paying JAMB/WAEC officials to tweak the results of candidates, paying DJs in radio stations to play artists songs (although this so-called payola system occurs in varying degrees virtualy everywhere in the world including the US, it has attained epidermic proportions in Nigeria) and so on. These are the quickest and simplest examples (as the complex ones we are aware of might take a significant percentage of this write-up) I could come up with as I’m in no better position of explaining a practice we are all very familiar with.

But what happens when a supposed innocent one gets caught up in the mix? Such was the story of a young man whose story I came across on social media. While driving through the infamous Lagos traffic, he was stopped for a random (most likely unauthorized) search and had to part with his hard earned money because the police officers wouldn’t believe the transaction information on his phone was legit. He was an online businessman mistaken ( perhaps deliberately) for a fraudster. After several of his explanations fell on deaf ears, he was forced to deep his hands in his pockets to wiggle himself out of the situation.

Is he responsible for informing/teaching the police force about online businesses? No. Where they even supposed to go into his phone? No, because a warrant is needed from a Judge before they can do so. At this point you readers might start to giggle about my naiveness and continue to wonder if I was raised within the shores of this nation. May be I was, maybe I fell of a tree or I was shipwrecked on one of the dirty beaches of Lagos and I’m using this medium to reach for help. Anyways that has nothing to do with the truth. News Flash guys, the truth is always valid irrespective of who speaks it.

As corruption continues to gain new grounds and unbelievable stories like this starts to emerge, it’s obvious that human rights which is the bedrock of thriving nations has no meaning to us in this country (notice how I said US(me and you) and not police forces, politicians etc.)And it’s just a matter of time before you get hit in an unbelievable way too. While many of you might see him as a victim of bribery and corruption, I don’t. He is as guilty as the police officers he paid to get away from. He continued a chain reaction he could have put an end to. He was in a position to start a gigantic revolution in a sector of the police force but chose to walk away from his National call. Many lives could have been saved by the young man’s bold challenge as we all know that many people are coming to walk that path that was left uncleared and their outcome might be the same if not more grievous than the young man’s. He could have gone to the station, written a statement, get locked up for a few days and stood before a Judge to narrate his ordeal.

He could have gotten the media involved in the case so that the rest of us can be motivated to stand up for injustice in any way we see fit. All that! When he could pay is way out of that stress?! Yes! All that! Redeeming this nation from its level of corruption is no child’s play and as corruption grows day by day we should expect the price to pay for stopping it to grow as well.

We’ve accepted many corrupt practices as the norm as almost everyone indulges in it either directly or indirectly. No wonder for an act to be labeled as corruption and reported as news in media outlets, it must either have to do with top officials or the money involved is ridiculous. Only if we knew these individuals moved on from regular corruption we considered as nothing to where they are now, the same way we strive to excel above our peers. Nothing new here, higher tactics equals bigger loots and costlier damages.

The heroes we celebrate today who have impacted this world and made it a better place are people who stood up against the abnormalities even at the expense of their lives. Martin Luther King stood up against racial inequality, Abraham Lincoln stood up against Slavery and Gani Fawehinmi stood up against oppression of the masses by the government. In Nigeria, its high time we standup against corruption. The more of these men you have in a country, the greater that country. Where laws are disobeyed through bribery and corruption, chaos is bound to happen.

The only reason these names are stuck in our memories and their legacies celebrated is because they were willing to give up the most precious thing to them ,life, in order to better others. This is synonymous to what Jesus said in Matt 16:25 for whosoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. For me means, Justice, Truth, Loving your neighbors as yourself, moral uprightness. These are the attributes of corrupt-free nations. As a Christian, engaging in any form of bribery or corruption is a sin. It simply means we are saving our lives instead of using it as a tool to impact the earth by fighting corruption and its likes in order to match the standards of heaven, as the primary goal of the creator was to have an extension of heaven on earth and not for us to come to heaven. And if earth is to be an extension of heaven, so should the application of it’s rules and regulations.



So of course continuous saving of our lives means we are bound to lose it. How? You might ask. Mediocrity is one of Corruption’s many children. Many of us are yet to discover how much we can endure and how tough we can be because of the crooked means we used in arriving at our various destinations. Many goals have been left unattained because of how corruption has shaped us i.e. weakened us. It’s a recipe for a failed state. Lives are lost on surgery tables to the hands of quack doctors who bribe their way through certain gates, poor performance of students in public schools are results of incompetent teachers who themselves were poor performing students that made use of cracks and faults in the system to obtain their qualifications, and the list goes on. Its ripple effect cannot be imagined or perhaps can best be imagined. I hope these few examples connects the dots to reveal a bigger picture of how this nation is losing its people and its integrity at an alarming rate to corruption.



I give kudos to patriotic Nigerians who are relentlessly wagging war against corruption and I encourage we all to participate in this struggle if we, love ourselves, our neighbors and are truly looking forward to a better tomorrow. Stand for Nigeria gallantly at the slightest opportunity presented. There’s nothing wrong in appreciating a service that’s well done by tipping, as long as it’s done with no conflict of interest and the department the beneficiary is attached to permits it. I’ve given tips to commendable customer service even when I had no job. All forms of leniency should be shown in courtrooms with no strings attached according to the power bestowed upon the Judge, and in cases where officials (Police, LAWMA, SARS etc.) have the authority to apply leniency, no forms of commodity should exchange hands in order to avoid conflict of interest.

The truth is we all (200 Million Nigerians) can have our names written in history books. We are presented with opportunities to do so daily (to take on every one of these challenges),to make Nigeria a better place but like a farmer who dreams to have many grains but refuses to plant the only one he has, we hang unto our dear lives as if we are promised tomorrow.

http://www.tosinspot.com/how-corrupt-are-we/