You would have seen and read many posts on this subject but I still want to make this sincere request.
Please, please don't drink and drive this festive period.
If you want to drive we're ready to help you. Please call us.
Our volunteers will come and drink for you.
Happy Christmas season
I can't stop laughing anytime I remember what happened yesterday night. I was sitting in a joint (Strawberry joint, Gwarimpa, Abuja) quietly sipping my STAR when these two lovers walked in and sat close to my table....From my table I could hear everything they were saying.
After a while, the guy goes on one knee!The girlfriend immediately cries,"Oh my God, I can't believe this is
happening. I can't believe this, wow! Atlast, You are proposing to me...
The guy who was still on one knee calmly with fear on his face said to the girl: "shhhhhh!! Don't make noise, my wife just walked in!"
The girl fainted!.....😎😎😎😎😎
Have a great day.
One fateful morning, you walk into the office. You notice that Jumoke the secretary, has her head on her desk. She is sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. You move close, raise her head and she immediately falls into your arms. Her multicolored face, and tears, ruins your very fine shirt. Finally, she calms down and explains that she’s currently having relationship issues.
Instantly, the burden bearer in you pops out. You give her a shoulder, and a chest, to lean on. After that day, you become her confidant.
Over the weeks, you become very close. You go out, eat, swim and do everything else together. You become her therapist. Tongues begin to wag at the office but you ignore them.
Your bond with Jumoke begins to grow stronger. And your bond with Tinuke your partner who knows nothing about Jumoke begins to wax weaker.
Your partner begins to see less of you, she barely hears from you. She is worried sick at her father’s house, but you are busy helping Jumoke. And some unfortunate chemistry is beginning to brew. Your relationship is suffering but you cannot see it.
One day, you are at the canteen with Jumoke and your phone rings. Tinuke You ignore the call. Jumoke asks you why and you tell her that the caller is one of the less-privileged church people that you are responsible for. So you begin to drift away from your partner and as you watch Jumoke become happier, your mind tells you to go for the kill.
After subjecting Tinuke to emotional torture for long, she finally walks away. You smile to yourself. Good riddance, you exclaim. From that moment, you begin to bid your time. Every day and night, you rehearse your lines, waiting for the perfect moment to ask Jumoke out.
Finally, the day comes; at the same canteen. After doing the mushy mushy things that couples do, you put on your most charming smile-the one she always admires- and you ask her out. She almost chokes on her juice as she laughs and tells you that you both can’t be together like that. You look into her eyes and ask, “Jumoke what are we?” Unfazed, she looks into your eyes and says, “We are nothing but pencils in the hands of the Almighty.”
Your heart drops into your stomach as she proceeds to tell you that her relationship has healed. She thanks you for giving her the strength, courage and inspiration she needed. She says you are the big brother she never had. Almost immediately, she crowns you Otunba Asiwaju of the Brotherzone Dynasty. Then her phone rings. You glance at the screen. “My Life.” She excuse herself, picks the call and walks away, chirping happily on the phone.
As a sharp guy, you unsheathe your phone.
You dial Tinuke’s number. It rings. Once. Twice.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Tinuke. It’s me.”
“Who is this?”
“It’s me, James.”
“James? Which James?”
“Baby, come on. Don’t tell…”
“I’m sorry, the only James I know is my cousin. The other one I know died of a terrible accident last week.”
“Baby, please, I….”
Click. Static. Silence.
Then it dawns on you. You seek death but your guardian angel pops out and says, “You shall not die but live to declare the glory of God.” You look for where to faint but all the fainting spots have been taken by the social media “fainters.” You bow your head and begin to cry. But it is too late. You have lost. Twice. Two gems.
Brother, when a girl is in emotional distress and she comes to you, she needs your attention and your counsel. It doesn’t mean she is in need of a lover. In fact, together with your partner, you can help any female friend overcome any emotional problem.
Don’t mistake vulnerability for availability. Refuse to be led on. Do not throw away diamonds while searching for stones.
I tok well abi i no tok well...... 🤗🤗
Monday Fellowship: Oya... Pay your tithe and offering in the comments section😜😜😜
1. Symptom : Cold and humid feet.
Cause : Glass is being held at incorrect angle (You are pouring the Drink on your feet).
Cure : Manoeuver glass until open end is facing upward...
2. Symptom : The wall facing you is full of lights.
Cause : You're lying on the floor.
Cure : Position your body at a 90-degree angle to the floor.
3. Symptom : The floor looks blurry.
Cause : you are looking through an empty glass.
Cure : Quickly refill your glass!
4. Symptom : The floor is moving.
Cause : You're being dragged away.
Cure : At least ask where they're taking you!
5. Symptom : You hear echoes every time someone speaks.
Cause : You have your glass on your ear and trying to drink from it
Cure : Stop making a fool of yourself, position your glass correctly
6. Symptom : Your wife and all your kids are looking funny.
Cause : You're in the wrong house.
Cure : Ask if they can point you to your house.
7. Symptom : The room is shaking a lot, everyone is dressed in white and the music is very repetitive.
Cause : You're in an ambulance.
Cure : Don't move. Let the professionals do their job
ISSUED IN PUBLIC INTEREST
I call on all priests and ministers of the Gospel to rethink the meaning of our life and vocation as priests and ministers. Each person should ask himself why he chose to become a priest or a Gospel minister. What does God expect of me as a priest? The priest is alter Christus, another Christ. What this means is that people who encounter me should be able to see the touching presence of Christ in and through me. They should be able to feel Chist’s love and compassion, his care and concern. My words should reveal and reflect Christ’s message of hope and salvation. During our retreat, I told the retreatants the story of a young priest (and this is a true story) who, intending to bamboozle his audience with high sounding theological terms, kept repeating to them “As a priest, I am altar Christi.” And I said to him what do you mean by that? He replied, you know nah, it means another Christ. I corrected him. He intended to say “alter Christus”. But I added, how I wish you meant the one you said, “altar Christi” because that is also a grammatically possible expression in Latin, and it means “altar of Christ”. You see being a priest involves sacrifice. The priest should be ready to become the altar upon which the sacrifice of the Christian community will be offered. He should be ready to bear the sacrifice upon himself.
But what we find is a situation where the priest thinks he is there to enjoy life. The priest craves a life of affluence and excessive wealth.
The priest should take a look at the inaugural message of Christ in Luke 4,16-30 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me. He has sent me to bring good news to the poor. ..” The priest who models himself after Christ cannot but take seriously this mission to the poor. But what we find in the Church today is an overall exploitation of the poor masses. Some parish priests cannot begin a Sunday mass and end it without calling for two or more extra collections outside the regular offertory. This is highly unacceptable. I call this “exploitation of the people’s faith and devotion.” Presently Nigeria is going through one of the worst economic downturn in its history. Life is at its ebb. Families can’t afford their food daily. Yet they somehow manage to give some to the Church and the priest. We should all be grateful for this. But the greedy priest is not satisfied with this. He must, like Oliver Twist, ask for more, and more and more, until the pockets are drained. That is exploitation. The priest should take cognisance of the real life situations of his flock. Part of our duty as priests in these hard times is to help our people to navigate through the difficulties that face them, and we cannot do this if we exploit them financially.
Let me give you another example of how we are exploiting the people. Recently the idea of tithes and tithing has crept into the Catholic Church in Igboland. Clearly this is one of those influences we picking up from Pentecostalism. However, is it justitifiable biblically and otherwise? My answer is a categorical NO. In the Old Testament texts which speak about tithes, the whole idea was that of a redistribution of wealth, in order to make sure that the people who don’t have would get something from those who have more. It was not something principally to be offered to priests or those who served at the altar. If you take Deut 14:22-29 for instance, this point becomes clear. I call on everyone, both priests and lay faithful to go and read this passage very well. The idea here is that there was an annual occasion for tithing, in which each family was to take one tenth (i.e. the tithe) of their year’s produce to the temple, and there in the temple the family itself (not the priests) will together eat what they have brought. In their feasting however, they are enjoined not to forget the Levites, “because they have no property or inheritance”. They should also remember to share some of it with “the resident foreigner, the orphan and the widow.” So tithing as the book of Deuteronomy makes clear is an occasion for feasting, in which a part of it is shared with the poor, namely the Levites, the resident foreigners, the widows and orphans.
One may argue that the priests are the Levites of our time. That may be correct, but in this passage what entitles the Levites to a share in the tithe is not his serving the Lord, but the fact of his possessing no property. The priests of today (or in the Protestant and Pentecostal churches, the pastor, minister, evangelist) all have possessions: cars, landed property, fat bank accounts, etc. They no longer belong to the poor who were meant to eat the tithes with the people. The primary concern in the Deuteronomic law on tithes is that the people, by means of a communion meal before the Lord, involving one tenth of their produce, should recognise God as the one who gave the land and its increase, and tha they should share it with those who do not have. When we come to the famous passage in Malachi 3, God laments that the people rob him by not bringing in their tithes. This passage in Malachi can only be interpreted in reference to the bringing in of tithes means in Deuteronomy. That is to say, God laments that people were not bringing their tithes to the temple to eat as the Law requires, but were eating them them at home. And by doing so, the poor people including the Levites, the widows and orphans, could not get their own share. God’s concern for the poor is offended.
Now leaving the Bible aside, let’s talk of morality and justice. What moral justification can a priest who owns a car, sometimes the latest model in town, has millions in his bank account, owns buildings all over, lives in Parish house that is paid for and catered for by the parishioners, whose feeding and overhead expenses are taken care of by others. What moral justification can such a person ever have to demand that a poor parishioner, whose earning is so meagre, should give him 10% of it, under false pretence that you are the modern day Levite. There is a huge difference. The difference is that the modern day priest is, to say the least, well-to-do while the ancient Levite was destitute. When the priest or minister or pastor under the pretext of being a Levite, demands tithes from his congregation, that would amount to exploitation and forming part of the oppressive machinery. Only a warped sense of rightness, fuelled by egoism, will allow that.
So my advice to fellow priests is that we should keep the seeking of self interest and financial gains by the side and focus on service to the people.
On a further note, discipline and self control are very important in our lives as priests.
Pls forward this message if you found it enlightening and eye-opening.
