Daily Devotionals

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. There is a big debate over how long it took in terms of human-scale time measurements. However, there are two things we can all agree upon. First, God did not create the heavens and the earth in an instant. Second, God did not create it at a go. He created it step-by-step over 7 time periods (each time period referred to, as a day in the Bible). Stories and movies have painted a picture of a genius that can create anything in an instant or a few hours. This is not consistent with reality.

The goal of any creative venture is to come up with something new and useful. You should never underestimate the amount of raw effort that is required to produce something that is original and useful. You should close your eyes for a minute and think about your favourite product or company or preacher. Think about how they have improved over the years. Investigate their origins, the original ideas that drove the first step. The amount of time it took to produce the first version of the product. Find out all you can about the Apple II computer, and compare with the latest version of the iPhone. You will understand how creations evolve over time.

A new invention begins with an idea. The initial idea is more likely an idea about an idea. Ideas do not come to you fully formed. It is as you set out to work on the initial idea that you gain better perspective and feedback to make something good out of it. That is why you will need a lot of time and quality feedback to evolve an idea into something useful and perhaps, indispensable. You will not create it over the course of a single day. These things take time and energy. Go to work on your ideas, get feedback early in the creative process. Your initial idea might not be so impressive, but as you improve it, there is no limit to how far you can go.

You need to be in a community where you are held up to higher standards. A place where excellence is expected and demanded from you. An environment that expands your mind. This is important because you cannot succeed alone. God designed us in a way that we cannot achieve great things without the cooperation and input of others. If you’re going to need to have relationships with other human beings. You might as well ensure that you are strategic about it. It is time to make an honest evaluation about the people you fellowship with, and consider if such associations are going to take you closer to your glorious purpose.

Two questions worth your consideration; who do you fellowship with? Who do you ought to fellowship with? An apostolic destiny requires an apostolic fellowship. Let us recall the words of Apostle Paul. “And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised” (Galatians 2:9 ESV). Apostle Paul here was invited into the apostolic fellowship by the pillars of the faith. The reason many avoid such high-level associations is because of the discipline and excellence such fellowships demand. You should recall how Apostle Paul denounced and rejected John Mark when he perceived indiscipline in the young man (Acts 15:36 – 41).

It is a good thing to be surrounded by the best of the best. You need to consciously build relationships with people at least 10 to 15 years ahead of you. People who have already achieved the things you dream about in the short term. If you only have a circle of friends who are fellow dreamers and seekers like yourself, you will not amount to much. There will be too much foolishness in the room, too many assumptions about how life works, and too much naivety overall. You have to determine the level of contribution you want to give to your world, and seek out strategic fellowships that will take you there.

Today is a great day to decide that you will allow your work ethic to do the talking. A sign of good leadership is that your work can do the talking. People take a glance at what you have done, and they can see the vision, passion and drive. They see your vision through the lens of what you have accomplished so far, and can see how they can contribute their own quota. Leaders do the work. They develop a bias for taking action because they understand that the best of ideas, intentions or schemes do not count when there is poor execution. Stop trying to draw attention to yourself. Stop running after people. Let your work speak.

Your work and the results you have will get you the attention and support you need right now. If you are not getting as much support as you think you should, it means your productivity is not what you think it is. When Sijibomi ‘SujiMoto’ Ogundele met His Royal Highness Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Emir of Dubai in 2015. Sijibomi had already accomplished some impressive feats in the real estate industry of Nigeria. However, he was humbled and amazed when the King told him; “your dreams are too small, double it, after you achieve it, contact me”. Sijibomi noted then the irony, how different people’s perspectives about the same subject can be. Many wanted him to scale down his vision and take things easy.

You have to consider the possibility that your productivity right now is not able to open certain doors for you. It is more or less a waste of time for the people you are running after. Stay in your corner, do your thing. Do the work and let your results bring you the partners, mentors and resources you crave. Consider this quote from the Holy Bible; “and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised” (Galatians 2:9 ESV). When people perceive the grace of God, by your good works, they will extend the right hand of fellowship to you. Let your work do the talking.

Jesus warned against making too much noise or drawing attention to oneself. “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place” (Luke 14:8‭-‬9 ESV). Jesus was a fan of taking the time to build a firm, solid foundation. At age 12, the Holy Bible introduces a Jesus that already had an idea of the things he wanted to do. However, he did not begin any public ministry until 18 years later, at around the age of 30. For 18 years, Jesus grew patiently, in silence, away from the priving eyes of the public.

When you think about the greatest people, companies and organizations of all time, you discover that their overnight success and popularity was decades in the making. Facebook was already the best social media platform for over 10 years, before you even heard about it. Nelson Mandela had been working for decades before he got on the radar of the international community. If you want to rock your world, and administer it for God. You will need to build depth and capacity to operate at that level. It is hard to develop strong roots when you are already in the public eye.

If you want to serve as the salt and light of the world. You should try to get some sense of how long it would take before you can begin to see results. It would be a disaster to approach your 18 year journey (like Jesus) with a 12 months mindset. There is no amount of tantrums that would reduce the knowledge and experience you would acquire within 18 years into a single year. You should ignore the media. Avoid working with short-sighted people who crave success but not willing to commit for the long term. If you want success, commit to growing silently. You don’t need any attention and drama for now.

If your heart is in the right place, and you have evolved your spirit beyond hedonistic pleasures. You should increase your influence over your world. You should set a watch over it. One of the ways to influence your world is to own a (small) piece of the economy. You need to understand two things for this to make sense to you. First, you have to realize that your world is shaped by socio-economic forces that must be controlled by someone. Second, you need to know that if people with good intentions do not exert themselves, the worst of humans will.

You have to desire to own a piece of your local economy. If your job is to watch the world, you require economic powers to do so effectively. Start a farm. Build a high quality school. You should be thinking about supplying the cement and blocks for every building project in your area. Run the biggest bakery or grocery store in town. You should invest in real estate. This is not about the money. This is about the influence you will build in the community. You can then leverage this influence to do even more. When you have economic influence over your community, it is easier to steer your world towards where God wants.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it”. The Holy Bible agrees with this view, as it is written; “he gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength” (Isaiah 40:29 ESV). God can increase your economic might over your world if you have faith. And ready to do your duty as you understand it. So, do not exempt yourself from this because of any financial handicap. Your faith in God is good enough to empower you to do the impossible. What you have or do not have is not relevant. You can own a (small) piece of the economy of your world. You should.

A lot of third world countries like Nigeria miss the point when they think that they are a rich country. They think that due to the existence of “natural resources” within their borders, they are rich. This is false. The true wealth of a country is not the abundance of things we can consider natural resources. The wealth of a country depends upon the people that constitute the country. Third world countries are poor and underdeveloped because those societies are dominated by mediocrity, and third class thinkers. If you want to steer your world towards a prosperous future, the key is to educate and train the youth.

The true wealth of nations lies in the strength of its human capital. The USA has a fair amount of natural resources, but nobody ever ranks that country as a rich country on the basis of that. The wealth of the USA lies within the minds of people like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Tyler Perry and so on. The genius is not in selling crude oil or cocoa. The genius is in developing machines that require refined crude oil. The genius is in converting cocoa to chocolate. Wealth is not something we seek from abroad, it is something we birth from our spirit.

The wealth of your world is determined by the quality of the people that make up your world. Your most important assignment as a watchman tasked with steering us towards a prosperous future, is to train and educate the people in your world. You must become uncomfortable with mediocrity and third class thinking. Demand that the people in your world – brothers, sisters, children, siblings and niblings – all get the best education they can. It is your job to develop the human resources available within your family, church, business, or organization. When they are developed, their productivity will increase. This is how you can create wealth and abundance in your world.

One of the founding fathers of the United States of America (USA), George Washington has been widely regarded to have said, “The future of this nation depends on the Christian training of our youth”. It is safe to assume that the nation in question here would be the USA. George Washington realized that great nations are built by people that possess integrity of character, work ethic and selflessness. Proper Christian training moulds people who possess these characteristics and much more. It takes more than prayer and fasting to build a nation. If you want to steer your world towards a better future, you have to train the youth. Don’t give them money, train them.

These days, there is a big debate around “American decline”. American decline is the idea that the United States of America is diminishing in power. The USA is no longer the worldwide moral and spiritual force it used to be. They still have their military might, which keeps the entire house from crashing down, but something is amiss. This is not about hating the USA, the data speaks for itself. Gun violence and school shooting problem in America is so bad, that many now refer to it as an epidemic. We all understand that guns don’t kill people, people kill people. We can speculate that having more people trained the Christian way would have helped that nation.

As it is written in the Book of Proverbs, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people” (Proverbs 14:34 ESV). Any watchman or nation builder worth their salt must understand the role of training young people to follow a path that promotes righteousness, mercy and justice. Your world does not have a future if you ignore the command of Jesus to make disciples. Enough with the thrill seeking, miracle seeking funfair. It is time to settle down for proper training and discipleship. The future of your world will depend on your ability to disciple and train young people in the Christian faith.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing that beats the joy that comes from creation. When you create, giving life to something that had not existed before, you feel something inside. When you see people getting value from something you created. It elevates you to a different level altogether. The story of creation talks about how on the sixth day, God reflected upon his work. He was pleased with his creations. He evaluated his work and concluded that it was very good. In the same way, you are able to evaluate your work, and derive pleasure from the act of creation itself.

Deep down, you are wired to create. Every human being is a creator. Worst case scenario, you become a co-creator of another human being. Parents look at their children all the time, with a sense of awe. A deep spiritual sense of “look at the human being I helped to bring to life”. You possess this ability because you are an image-bearer of God. You have the same creative nature of God inside you, and every day, it yearns for expression. Creativity is a pleasure, an experience you owe yourself. It will require discipline. You might be wasting too much of your creation power on your sexual appetite for example. Worse, you cannot focus long enough to give life to a project.

Today is a great day to make a decision. Decide that you will create every day. Embrace the discipline that is required to channel your God-given creative talents every single day. At the close of the day, reflect upon the works of your hands. Ponder upon your creations, evaluate them, and with thanksgiving, consider how you can improve your performance. If you want to experience the beauty of creation, be ready to seek out the truth of every matter. The Almighty God adjusted his work later on when he got the feedback that it was not good for a man to be alone. Feedback improves your creative output.

There is no good or benefit to getting married anymore. At least, if Hollywood and social media is to be believed. It is quite clear that the concept of marriage is under attack. Gone are the days of people that are actually happy and fulfilled in marriage. Marriages these days are for dull and ill-advised people. The message is clear; if you want to be free and happy, skip marriage altogether. If you decide to risk getting married, be ready to abandon the ship at the first opportunity. Gone are the days when one got married “for all of time and eternity”. Not every marriage will be heaven on earth, but getting married is the very foundation of the human world and we must defend this institution.

Destroying the concept of marriage due to bad marriages is the equivalent of eliminating all doctors because of quack doctors. The logic does not work. The argument has no basis. Like everything human, there will be a spectrum of great marriages to emulate. And bad marriages that should be dissolved. There are heaven-on-earth, great marriages. It is inevitable also that there will be hell-on-earth marriages. We should not trumpet the worst amongst us as the ideal. The common sense approach is to set the standard and demand that people step up to the challenge. It is an illusion to think humanity will be better off without marriage.

Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life (Proverbs 4:23 ESV). In this age and time, you need to guard your heart and be very careful of your information sources. It is not a smart move to make important life decisions on untested philosophies. It is better to be a respectable wife and mother than to aspire to become a baby-mama. A man should turn his heart away from selfishness, and get ready to build a home with a sense of duty to God and mankind. Marriages work very fine today if we approach it with the Holy Bible as a guide. Marriage has no chance if your sources of information are poorly plotted, mischievous movies. And hungry bloggers looking for some advertising revenue.

Since the call of Abram, out of his father’s house to a land God would reveal fully, only after the journey begins. God continues to call people. He calls you out of your comfort zone. Out of the cosy place you feel safe, and 100% in control. God calls you out of the familiar, away from the mundane and to a life of adventure. You will never find a sense of purpose by concentrating on the domestic affairs of life. Purpose requires you to take on a burden for your world. You have to watch over your world and steer it towards where God wants.

There are no crowns awaiting the coward that turned down the opportunity to carry a cross for Christ’s sake. When God calls you on a journey of faith, remember that your glorious purpose awaits on the other side of that journey. To succeed, you learn to depend more upon the providence and grace of God. If you are living a life of low stakes. If your life currently revolves around issues, problems and situations that you can solve with your own brilliance and resources, what do you need God for? Are you sure you are living for a higher purpose?

Christianity is not a call to bland religion. Where we sit around in fancy buildings, fraternizing with friends, and learning how to be polite, law-abiding citizens. Christianity is a call to an active life, a disciplined life of missions. Will you take up the call to go on a journey of faith? Will you volunteer to take on the important task of steering your world towards where God wants? This is no easy undertaking. Recall that Jesus died a disgraceful, unattractive death. He was crucified like a notorious thief or bandit. Apostle Paul was labelled a pestilent fellow (Acts 24:5). The prophet Amos was resisted and came under pressure to relocate away from where God had posted him (Amos 7:10 – 15).