Month: March 2025

Not everything is my fault

Vivian Martha2 Comments

I have always believed in effort and personal responsibility. Growing up, I was taught that we have a role to play in this universe. We should not just sit around and wait for God to do everything for us. So, I worked hard at everything I was given; convinced I was the master of my destiny. As the saying goes, “you reap what you sow”. Yet, as I journey through life, I have realized that effort does not always guarantee the desired results. Sometimes the harvest looks nothing like what you sowed.

Jesus taught his disciples a parable about a farmer in Mathew 13:24-29. In the parable he explained that a farmer sowed seeds on his farm but, in the night while men slept, an enemy came and sowed tares (weeds). When the crops began to grow the workers noticed that there were weeds among them and they asked, “Did we not sow good seeds? Where then are the tares from?” The farmer replied “this was the work of the enemy.”

This parable teaches us that we are not the only ones sowing seeds. There is an enemy waiting for the night to fall and then he sows his bad seed. We can not blame the workers for sleeping because it is natural for men to rest after a long day at work. Yet the enemy takes advantage of this moment. And it was only after the crops had grown that the famer realized there was a product he never sowed!

This lesson resonates deeply with life and with Christian living. We usually blame ourselves when things go wrong, asking, “What did I do wrong?” or “What did I miss?” But not every failure or setback is our fault. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, an unseen adversary works against us.

We always talk about how Judas betrayed Jesus and how he was such a bad person. However, Judas spent three years helping Jesus in His ministry. His love for money was a flaw, but he might have continued as a disciple. The trouble came one night, as Luke tells us “Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, one of the Twelve (Luke 22:3)“. It was only after the devil came that Judas mastered the courage to go to the Pharisees and betray Jesus. The enemy had sowed a bad seed.

I am learning that not everything is my fault. I understand that there are battles beyond my control—forces at work that are not flesh and blood but spiritual in nature. Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

In the past each time things did not work out as I hoped and planned, I blamed myself. “There is something I did not do, something I missed, something I did wrong” – often carrying the guilt of not being good enough or not doing enough. But now I know there are many things that had nothing to do with my efforts, but everything to do with the enemy’s schemes.

Certain theology had taught me not to give the devil any attention. That “All that matters is what I do!” However, I’ve learnt that a strong will and determination alone are not enough because the enemy, a master of the unseen world, stops somewhere and resists. It is not about whether I give him attention or not, because on his part he is – working in the shadows – sowing bad seed to frustrate and make it look like I never sowed anything good to begin with.

Therefore, rather than be hard on myself all the time, I have learnt to be gracious with myself and to forgive myself. I think this is why there are many things God – in his mercy and wisdom – does not even condemn us for; because he knows an enemy came in.

So, I have learnt to pick myself up from the frustration and place I was at – where I was blaming myself for everything wrong – and realize that I have an adversary. The answer is not in self guilt but in resisting the devil. James 4:7 Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Even Jesus taught his disciples in the lord’s prayer “deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:9-13).

The answer is in prayer: that even though we cannot stop the enemy from sowing seeds, we can pray that our seed survives – and bears good fruit (Matthew 13:8), that endures (John 15:16). And no matter how much he tries, in the end we stand victorious, because we have God on our side (1 John 4:4).

Occupy till I come

Emmanuel Ebinyu3 Comments

Someday, you will read your Bible as you always mundanely do. It could be sunny outside or even murky; it does not matter. But that day, your heart will burn as you eat away the words of life. Then, as you go through the pages of scripture, something of an epiphany will happen. Like the sight of a red-dressed damsel across the street, your attention will be drawn to one particular utterance in scripture, like a beckoning of eternity, a call familiar to the sons of the kingdom. Just like Father Abraham had when he was still in Ur of the Chaldea’s (Genesis 12:1). That scripture will sink into your subconscious, resonating into the very essence of your being, as though it is your life’s purpose to give it expression. Then for a moment, as though Einstein’s inertial frames of reference all stopped at once, as though the scripture is the manifestation of a man, in whom your true essence lies and your predestined inheritance resides, the evidence of things unseen will find a place in your heart. Then perhaps John 1:14 will start to make sense, or perhaps you have not come to think of the Word putting on flesh yet.

Perhaps, lightly, you will dismiss the motion in your heart first. Then, you will read the scripture again, marking it in your Bible and proceeding to note it down in your notebook. It could be that you may go about your daily business, but a reverberation of that scripture will linger in your heart and mind. The phrases and lines of that scripture will pop up in your mind like a man being troubled by digestive heartburn. As I have come to find out, the Lord God has made provisions in His grace that as men seek Him, he may be found of them.

Isaiah 55:6
Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near.

If there was a single-entry verse into the mystery of God revealing himself to men in the Bible, then I yet have much work to do in understanding. For it is revealed that we are the members of one body (Romans 12:4), but we have different offices (which, being interpreted, means a doing, a mode of acting, a deal, a transaction, a thing to be done, a business). Therefore, every man will experience the same Spirit, submit themselves to the same Lord, and find the same God. But our transactions will differ, each according to the grace given (Ephesians 4:7), according to the measure of Christ.

In any case, the revelation of God is not for sport, that we may brag amongst colleagues or accrue mental acuities, but for the profit of the body and the exaltation of the Kingdom of God. “For whom much is given, much is expected (Luke 12:48)” remains a pillar of stewardship in all arenas of human endeavour, even so in the Kingdom of God.

Luke 19:12-13
And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come.

In one of those sermons of the Lord, he made a statement that I have grown to endear. He said, “Occupy till I come.”
As I turn the pages of the Bible and walk about my personal life, he tells me that I have spaces – businesses, papers to author, audiences to address, souls to win, etc. – to walk into and utilise the “unrighteous mammon” to find a “home” according to Luke 16:9-11. Our entry into places of our occupation will always come by natural, worldly orderings. Perhaps it is a job, an assignment, a friendship, or a relationship. The Lord expects that we occupy. And as the proverbial “Trojan Horse”, the Lord will come to occupy that space if we stand strong in the grace that He gives.

Hebrews 10:37
For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.

As sons of God, we have been given the Spirit of God and an assurance to cry to him, “Abba Father”. This same Spirit has been given to us, that we may have the earnest of the Spirit (2 Corinthians 5:5, Romans 8:23) in bringing forth salvation to creation. We possess a Kingdom mindset to occupy, that in there we may “groan, agitate, cry, workout, influence, possess” and that by us God may have a victory upon the earth.

For the Lord will show us the path of life; He will call us to deliver talents, businesses, and “pounds” into our stewardship, and it will be required of us to be found faithful (1 Corinthians 4:1-2).

As for me, the statement “Occupy till I come” became that lingering phrase by which I saw the Lord (1 Corinthians 15:8). I pray that today God will be found of you and that you will embrace his calling to occupy till he comes.