7 Things I have learned from walking with Jesus Christ for 7 Years.

Exactly seven years I dabbled my feet into the oceans of Jesus’ love – I was baptized in water on a Saturday morning and baptized in the Holy ghost the day after in the most miraculous way. Looking at things in retrospect, I had no clue what I was getting myself into. All I saw was the light that radiated on the face of my foundation class teacher – Sister Taiwo of Caleb class, MFM Youth Church Headquarters, Lagos, Nigeria. Many Sundays as I sat under her ministration, I would catch myself staring at her for minutes and say to myself,”I want to be like her, Lord.” I wanted to radiate and express so much light and to God be the glory, I can say without a doubt that I am light – the light of the world God has put me in. And it only gets better with each passing day.

As beautiful as my journey and walk with Jesus has been, there sure has been times I wanted the world to pause or stop but my God. But my God!

All I want to do on this blog post is express my eternal gratitude to my God, brag about my Jesus and attempt to share personal experiences from my walk – all in the hopes that you are encouraged, strengthened to press on in your walk with Jesus Christ or perhaps even begin a walk with Him.

My walk officially started with Him in May 2016 and it started with believing, confessing that He is my Lord and savior, and getting baptized. I got baptized in water by immersion and received the gift of the Holy Ghost by baptism. In no particular order, I would list the things that have stood out as lessons for me in the last seven years:

God is concerned about every detail of my our lives, even the tiniest details: Upon conclusion of my foundation class, I went back to my counselor to share with him all that I have gone through in the class. And most importantly, I shared with him the department I wanted to join in the church. As a new believer, I didn’t think it mattered so much where I chose to serve God. I thought to myself, He would or should be happy that I was serving in His vineyard. To my surprise, my counselor told me to back home to pray about it, he told me to ask God to tell me what group to serve. In hindsight, it was God re-routing me to His plan for my life and I am so grateful that I had that counselor in my life. I went back home on that Sunday afternoon with the determination to hear God speak to me about the group to join. With my mind made up, I prayed to God to speak to me and He told me Goldmine – that was the first time I heard God speak to me clearly. I am thankful to God for orchestrating everything the way He did, that singular decision has shaped so many parts of my life. Because of that decision, I have been been able to know without a doubt that God has called me serve teens and young adults amongst the other ways God wants me to serve Him. Serving in Goldmine was also very instrumental in birthing Peniel Day Foundation.

In this same way, God keeps showing me over and over how cares about the tiniest details of my life from what to wear daily, to what to eat, how to talk and so on.

There is always a war before victory and rest: Right after my salvation, one would think that everything would become rosy and a walk through the park, it wasn’t the case for me in 2016. First off, I experienced disappointments from quarters I had put so much trust in – that experience was one of my first lessons on absolute trust in my God. I also started to experience sleep paralysis and some strange sleep experiences, I literally would be glued to the bed in the middle of the night struggling to shout Jesus or blood of Jesus. I remember getting so sad about everything and as I worshipped God at a church service I began to cry, questioning my decision to follow Jesus in that moment. But I thank the Lord for the ministry I worship, where we are taught how to engage in spiritual warfare fearless. More so, the bible tells us already that we do not wrestle against flesh or blood but spiritual wickedness in high places – Ephesians 6:12. By the grace of God, I was able to wage a good warfare and God gave me victory in the same year. That year was the first and last I experienced sleep paralysis. Furthermore, year after year, there is always a warfare or the other thrown my way by the enemy but I thank my God who is with me like a mighty terrible one. Personally, I realized that many times the devil starts with a subtle attack on my mind like fiery darts of sadness or anger or the likes here and there. If I allow those vices to prosper for more than a day, it goes down the hill from there and it takes such a fight to go back up seated in the heavenly seat my Jesus has made for me. The bible tells us how the devil goes up and down the earth looking to kill, steal or destroy the great things God has made, the bible also tells us about the fiery dart of the enemy which are more or less like stray bullets or arrows, they could just hit any believer at any point in time. It is up to us to remain steadfast in the Lord, constantly wearing our shield of faith in order to neutralize these even vices of the enemy – Ephesians 6:16

The Holy Spirit is the fuel for the vehicle of our christian Journey: I am so grateful that I went through discipleship and was taught the importance of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. More so , I am immensely grateful that God filled me with the hunger and thirst for this baptism because I did not receive the baptism with my cohort when we gathered in the upper room on the designated day. I had to go the extra mile to cry out to the Lord for this gift, I shared my testimony here. The Euphoria of beginning this faith walk is indescribable but I would tell you first hand that it is so easy to fall off. To grow in faith, intimacy and depth with the Lord you have to make time out every day to read the bible, have fellowship with the Lord amongst many other things. There are days that I just do not feel like doing anything but with the help of the Holy Spirit, He strengthens me to keep going. Furthermore, the Holy Spirit helps to elaborate God’s word to me, He breaks it down to my level, in forms that I can comprehend. He communicates God’s mind to me per time, He helps me to do the seemingly daunting things that I could never do in my flesh or strength. I could go on and on but the Holy Spirit is my G! A great example, is something the Lord put in my heart to do earlier this year. God told me to do pray in the spirit for 30 days, 30 minutes online at 12:30pm in the month of February but I stalled and tried to shove it aside. March came and the Holy Spirit would just not give me rest, He kept reminding me of this instruction. With His help, I was able to go through this instruction in March through April. I can write a whole book of ways the Holy Spirit has helped my life, to add to it He has a great sense of humor,He makes my faith walk with Jesus enjoyable and beautiful. This last example, I would share – there was this man in the picture sometime ago and there was some form of attraction and as always I asked the Lord if this man was His will. The Lord showed me a vision of shoes walking in the mud and as I woke up, the Holy Spirit said to me, “marriage in the mud”. It cracked me up so much and it still cracks me up every time I remember it. I love the Holy Spirit! Another example comes to mind, but I will stop here, I’d probably do a podcast or write a book in the future about Him. But above all, I hope that you can make out of my stories that it is essential that you get baptized in the Holy Spirit if you are not and if you are baptized already, cultivate a relationship with Him. Ask Him questions, listen to Him and gist Him about everything you are going through.

The Holy Spirit gives me the Strength to live the faith life and do the impossible: This is more or less a continuation from above but it only stresses how expedient the baptism of the Holy Spirit is. It is exciting to come into the kingdom of God but it takes great help from God Himself to thrive in His kingdom. For example, I spoke about certain groups of friends that I had great expectations from, christian friends that broke my heart and made my cry. For days, perhaps weeks I held grudges against them, began to resent them. But the Lord wasn’t happy with me, He wanted me to forgive them and let things go – that was so hard for me to do. I remember asking the Holy Spirit to help me through the process while on my bathroom seat. It was a gradual process but to God be the glory, I forgave them, spoke to them about it many times and we are pretty much cool now. This example amongst many others are hard things the Holy Spirit has helped me to do in my daily living

Do not put your trust in princes or in mortal men that cannot save- Psalm 146:3: God has showed me this in so many different ways, “make God just dey help my life”. The very first time He showed me this was in 2016 when He told me to leave my job at the time, He spoke to me through my mother. The only reason I listened was because I was pretty much tired of that job and I trusted so much in my father’s connects here and there to help me. My father did try his best here and there but every attempt to use the arm of flesh to get me a job failed woefully. I can never forget the day I went to a church meeting from a job test and I began to cry as worship started. I questioned the new life that God had called me, a life with no job? It couldn’t be! God showed me that He reigns supreme in the affairs of men and he stirs the hearts of men as He pleases. I literally got a job that I had flopped at the interview, He favored me. I had my final interview with the regional head who was based overseas and I wobbled through it, I knew that I had failed woefully. Only for me to get a call from the national head in Nigeria at the time on a fateful evening, I don’t remember the details of the conversation but I had found favor in his eyes and he was going to help me and was going to influence the choice for me to be picked. I knew not this man from Adam but he put every thing at stake to hire me. God showed me in grand style that the arm of flesh would always fail, hence I should only put my trust in Him.

This second example, I can share now because i have had the conversation with people involved and I know without a doubt that God yet again was teaching me to only trust Him. I started a non-profit with a group of friends about three years ago and I had high expectations from a number of them. So much I tell you, but I forgot that they are human as well and can be flawed just like I am flawed. As high as my expectations were of them, so were they shattered. It broke my heart, made me angry on other days, became spiteful and resentful at other times but I thank God for the Holy Spirit who helped me and keeps helping me. I do not resent them anymore, I forgave them and we work smoothly right now with all of my confidence and trust in the Lord to help accomplish all that He created Peniel Day Foundation to do.

God lives in the Worship of His children and not in the physical church: This is probably one of the myths God helped me to debunk as I came to Him. For some reason, I believed that God’s presence only existed in the church but I have learned over time that God’s presence can be hosted and the easiest way to do so is to worship Him with our mouths and our lives. The bible tells us that our bodies are the Lord’s temple, then when we constantly present our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to the Lord, He graces such a life with His presence. And finally, a life that exudes acceptable worship to the Lord constantly hosts the presence of the Lord. Psalms 22:3 sums it all for us – God lives in the praises of His people.

I cannot Worship God with my lips and worship the devil with the same: When I first came to Jesus, I thought it was ok to sing worship songs and still sing and dance to secular songs. The very first time I began to reconsider my resolve about this was when a guest pastor touched on it in church. I don’t remember the pastor’s name neither do I remember the title or other details of the sermon but I remember how He phrased his statement and I will paraphrase, “As a Christian with the Holy Spirit alive in you, if you do not feel some “kinda” way when a secular song comes on- it is not ok”. He more less was saying that believers should not be comfortable listening or dancing to secular songs. That was more or less the Holy Spirit speaking to me in that moment to change my life-style. Although, I didn’t have secular songs on my phone at that time, I began to make conscious efforts not to dance to them at parties. LOL! I literally remember December 2017 at my firm’s end of the year party,I danced my life out to secular songs. If I remember clearly, that was the last. oh! I love to dance and I am so grateful for young Christian artists that have coined out great upbeat christian music that I can dance to and glorifies God. Over the years, I have grown in understanding of this lifestyle. The bible tells us that everything, every single thing we do must always bring glory to God – I Corinthians 10:31. Therefore, my music playlist should and would not be left out in glorifying God. There is so much to say about music and I did share a little bit about it here, do have a read. 🙂

God speaks to His Children in diverse ways, I mean diverse ways! Exactly this time last year, I was struggling with taking a decision that God had spoken to me clearly about. But I was stalling, thinking I could play smart with my God. Oh! How I love Him. He spoke to me yet again through a poem by Genetics who is a Christian poet. I never watch a movie twice or read a book twice, no matter how good it is – I just never go back. This same goes for poems that I love to watch but at this certain time last year as I turned on my YouTube app, this poem by Genetics came on and I was led to watch it again. She did this poem about ten years ago and I had watched it about three years ago or so but on this evening I was led to watch it. As I watched, a line of the poem stood out for me, it was like the Lord was highlighting that statement for me to drive in His instructions yet again. I slept with unease that night because I had gotten to the point where I had to act. To top things up, the sermon the next day was directed at me, everything the pastor said was screaming at me to act, to obey God’s instruction ASAP.

In the year 2020, the Lord literally spoke to me through a bank’s commercial. I was at the time in search of a job opportunity and I remember clearly that a number of times a commercial for this particular bank stood out to me. There was a line in that commercial that just stood out, it was more or less high-lighted for me to take note. I currently work at that bank. I have also heard God’s voice loud and clear at different times, He has spoken to me through His word as well. Just today, He spoke to me through Philippians 1:28 – “Don’t be intimidated in any way by your enemies. This will be a sign to them that they are going to be destroyed, but that you are going to be saved, even by God himself”.

It is indeed the most beautiful thing to walk with a God so powerful, yet there is no barrier to access Him and speak with Him. As much as I am elated for seven beautiful years of intimacy with the most high God, I hope that you are in this kind of relationship with the Lord as well. And if you are not, I invite you to come to the Lord, He loves you, cares for and wants to have sweet communion with you. To To take this decision further, please say the prayer here