My girlfriend visited me for a weekend and I took her along to a church programme where I was invited.
The two guest speakers for the first and second days were wonderful. We laughed and shouted “Fire” and even sowed seeds of greatness. And I took my girlfriend back to my house. However, the guest speaker that came on the last day was the one that turned the whole programme sour for me. He did not wear any big shoes or expensive suit. His haircut was even scattered. Unlike other guests before him, he did not have any escort or security. But I noticed that the moment he climbed the pulpit, the atmosphere changed.
He started singing: “Something more than gold… Something more than silver…The Word of God in the heart of a believer, is something more than gold.” And within five minutes, I began to see something like a mist, like a thick cloud inside that auditorium. It was not long before I began to hear cries of men and women, boys and girls. The church hall was tense. You would wonder if this was the same church we had been coming to for the past two days … “Lord, help me”… “Forgive me Jesus…” “Don’t leave me this way.”
The glory inside that house was too much.
When I managed to open my eyes, I didn’t see anybody standing. I was the only one on my feet. The host pastor was on the floor, in front of the church, with his wife. The assistant pastors were with him in front of the church, crying. The preacher was lying flat, crying on the altar… And for more than 1:45 minutes, people were rolling on the floor, crying their hearts out.
I was still standing, looking around for my girlfriend. When I found her, she was crying and blasting in tongues. I can’t forget what she t told me: “Felix, when that young pastor was singing that song, my eyes were opened and I saw Jesus for the first time in my life. I saw the kind of splendour I cannot explain. I saw His wounds… I saw Him on the Cross… I saw Him calling me to surrender my life to Him…Felix, something has happened to me… And I am no more that same person.
“Felix, did you not feel what I felt? Did you not see what I saw? What I saw is worth more than the whole world. I saw a Crown that I cannot lose… Felix, I have to surrender to Jesus…I know I love you and you love me too…. But I have to let you go. At this moment, I have surrendered to Jesus. It will be better to lose you than to lose that Crown that I saw.”
Tears had dried on our bodies and fresh ones were coming. I could not even stop her, as she left. The girl I knew before had changed. It dawned on me that that young man of God had made me lose the girlfriend I loved so much.
As I rolled from one part of the bed to another, alone, inside my room, from morning till night, I began to blame myself for taking her along to that programme. Don’t blame me; I was not born again then. Where else was I going to see another girl who would love me like she? I was furious, but deep down in my heart, I knew that she had met with God. I knew that this was exactly how it used to be in the 1980s and 1990s before Satan came to church.
My friends told me to give my girlfriend some time that she would run back to me when memories of our sinful past would begin to haunt her. I waited for months and years, up till now, she never did.
And thank God, in the fullness of time, when it pleased Him to intercept me from a speedy journey to hell, I understood what happened to my ex-girlfriend. Several times, I have seen that same thing she saw that made her abandon me without looking back. Brethren, if you see what she saw, you would never be afraid to lose any man, or woman, or honour. Lord, anybody, anything can go; I don’t want to lose the glory you showed me!
Why do we complain that nobody will host us in his big auditorium and give us big honorarium?
We did not see honorarium before we left all and embarked on this journey. We saw a Crown that we must not lose on the last day. Many are already wearing their own crowns here (crowns made of straw)… They have forgotten the encounters God used to give them when they first met Jesus. We don’t need those who want to show everyone that they are succeeding in ministry, even when they are not known in Heaven. Our lives are better with fewer people whose eyes are still on that Crown.
In the last crusade where you ministered, you came back with car keys, laptops, iPhones and landed documents sown as seeds into your ministry. But there were no tears of repentance. Sinners came as sinners, sowed their seeds as sinners and left as sinners. When again are we going to see you preach and men will start falling over another, even without altar call, asking God for repentance for their sins? Your choristers are already singing with snared hearts. When are we going to hear somebody say about you, that: “This is that man of God that I heard and I left my sins and did not go back to them again?”
Brethren, I don’t know what they tell you in your church every Sunday. I know you want to shun your evil ways, but the church you submitted to seems not to have a problem with your sinful lifestyle. From year to year, they don’t preach against sin; only giving you 100 ways to make wealth, even when you are sinking miserably in sin and addictions. Brethren, stop playing church while you are feasting on your vomit. It’s time to cry for an encounter. How long will you keep falling and rising and falling again? It’s time to cry for just one touch of Fire…I am sure heaven will not shun your wet eyes and cracked lips.
I adapted this convert’s experience on the walk to heaven whose original author God will continue to bless. This is the message we need in these dire times. Sadly, showmen have seized the pulpits with so much fanfare and razzmatazz. Even witch doctors are now adorned in designer suits, simulating our language but are not of us.
Beware, brethren, beware of suborned miracles and quackery. Stop chasing after that spurious miracle, saint of God. Don’t you know that once you give your life to Christ, miracles are birthright? (Matthew 6:38). Why then do you sell yourself cheap at the expense of your soul?
Jesus stole my girlfriend but I’m blessed that I lost her to Him rather man. I’m blessed that I did not hinder her. I’m blessed that I too have lost myself to Jesus, the only hope and truth. Whose road are you blocking from following Jesus? Maybe you are even blocking yourself because of the varnished dainties of life.
Ironically, the gifts of men are silly. One day, you are monarch, with all the trappings of power and glory at your beck and call. The next day, you are at the mercy of your subject, who would ignominiously shove you off the throne and quarantine you where they please, and that’s not because you have coronavirus. Any wonder the most glorious, most wise of kings, Solomon, described all as vanity?
Brethren, in God’s business of salvation, if you are headed in the wrong direction, U-turn is allowed.
It does not matter who or what you are: President, Governor, senator, business czar, academic, Igwe, Emir, Oba, cleric or plain nobody – humanity has common destiny six feet in the red earth. The difference is on which side we wake in the hereafter, in heaven or hell. Think about it; the choice is yours.