It is expedient that we remember that “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. Capable of dividing asunder bone from marrow, soul from spirit.” 

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We are not reading a text that is just words spoken by empty people, but we are reading a text that has a spirit behind them – and there is something we would talk about extensively as we go forward, that whenever we read any book, not just the Bible, there is a Spirit from which that book was produced and same applies to movies, music and all kinds of art.

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The moment you engage it, you are not just engaging it but the spirit that produced it.

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In meditating on any written work, audio work or painted work, you are opening your soul to the spirit behind the creation. Now, if the spirit of Christ is the spirit of liberty, by meditating on the freedom you have in Christ Jesus, you are exposing yourself and your soul to the spirit behind that written word.

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That is however the first step. I think I spoke about this in an answer I gave to a question on Monday that it is not enough to expose yourself to the word of God and meditate upon it, there has to be a physical action upon the earth that will be a channel through which that word can be made manifest. 

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So, we don’t just meditate on the word of God but put it into practice and activity. That is how we let it be on earth even as it is in heaven. In doing so, that life can tabernacle with us. If I speak in a biblical language I will say “That is how the word becomes flesh in our lives”. That which we have perceived and cognised in spirit takes on physical manifestation in our lives through our actions.

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Beyond that, it is not enough to meditate on the word of God and begin to practise, but we also have to disconnect from anything that feeds the wrong aspects of ourselves. If I am dealing with drugs, lust or anger, it is not wise to consume materials or spend time hanging around people who are portals for such spirits. The company you keep (physically or virtually), has a profound impact on your spiritual health. That is something we have to be mindful of.

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You have to begin to identify in your environments (physically or virtually) things that are feeding these addictions. If someone likes money too much and all the movies you watch as well as friends around you are about money, you cannot break that addiction (even if you meditate on the word of God). Why? Because your environment does not support the journey you are on. 

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So there is a place where we take inventory of the environment we are exposed to and make the necessary changes. 

1) Meditating on the word of God

2) Prayer – because we are bringing down a strength greater than ours (it is by the grace of God we can break free from the reigns of the flesh).

3) Your prayer must be completed with your actions. That is when the life from the prayer can tabernacle in your life 

4) Then be mindful of your environment and what you allow your soul to feed on

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If you put these things to practice, deliverance shall be your portion. You must be intentional and understand that the deliverance we enter into, we are a part of. God helps us but we are the ones to get up and do it.

God bless you.

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Learning to focus during prayer does not begin by trying to “focus” during the prayer. It begins with us learning to focus on other aspects of our life. 

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I will give you one simple challenge, if you want to learn how to “focus” during prayer and keep your mind from wandering, when you are doing work, maybe studying your Bible, keep your phone away for at least 30-40 minutes and don’t touch it.

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Put your phone in silent mode so you will not get any messages. This is a little way to begin to learn how to focus.

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Focus is a skill in itself. It is not just about focus in prayer but an ability of the mind. Whether we use it for prayer or gist. 

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When it comes to gist, some of us can focus hard and get all the juice out and listen to all the gossip and all. When you want to do school work, office work, or study your Bible, let your phone be away from you and focus on the task at hand for 40-45 minutes, and anytime the thought of picking your phone up comes up, use your willpower to refuse until that time is up. 

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The answer to your first question is very simple. Yes, Jesus is coming soon, but we don’t know when that will be. We do, however, know the responsibility we have today. 

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That soon—is it two weeks, one year, or a hundred years? We don’t know. What we know are the responsibilities of today—responsibilities that mean something to God. 

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In the book of Timothy, Paul cautioned Timothy a lot about the responsibilities a person has to their families, home, and community at large and how service to our community and family is part of our service to God. 

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So long as you have today and you still have those responsibilities, you are obligated to meet them. 

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When is Jesus coming? I don’t know, but I know today exists, and I know that for me, today I have my wife and son. I won’t say that because Jesus is coming soon, I won’t do what I need to do.

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I must. If, perchance, tomorrow comes and I still have tomorrow, I will still do it again. Jesus Christ will meet me while I am taking care of my business, and he will carry me away while I am taking care of my business. Now, this is the mindset we ought to have. 

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For your second question, I will say that (I am going to teach this in module two where we talk about cultivating the meditative life) one thing our generation lacks (especially in an age where we are exposed to so many options) is mastery. We have people who can do so many things, but very few are masters of them. 

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We have heard of the word “masterpiece”. In the old world (especially in mediaeval Europe), they had guilds (a group of people of a particular trade) come together to establish what is very similar to a trade union.

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In that trade union (for lack of a more contemporary word), they had what we call “masters” who had spent many years working in the trade, and they had spent many years being apprentices of a master.

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To be called a master you must have:

• ● Spent many years in an apprenticeship
• ● Produced something that the masters who were there before you would call a masterpiece—just like what we call a peer-reviewed article today in academia. 
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Right? If you’ve produced something that all your contemporaries will say “yes,” what you have done has contributed greatly to the body of knowledge and work that we have, then you can call that a masterpiece.

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But that cannot happen if a person is not meditative on a particular job, occupation, or way of life. When we try and take on so many things at the same time, we may never really grab anything fully, and in doing so, we never get to experience the fullness of anything. 

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So we must first understand, “I have to achieve mastery in something." Is it possible to achieve mastery in multiple things? Yes! But you have to start with one. 

By devoting a great amount of yourself to something until it grows to maturity. There is no business in this world that cannot be super valuable. The issue is that no one really has the patience and determination to work hard enough to see a particular business or trade enter maturity.

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Rolls Royce, for instance, doesn’t make so many cars, but because they became masters at luxury and at making a vehicle that can make a person feel comfortable with prestige, they don’t need so many clients. 

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They just need the right clients in their niche, and they can make a lot of income from it. 

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Toyota, on the other hand, has functionality as its business model. You know, ease of acquisition, price, etc., so it can go to many people, and they focused on that. 

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When they wanted to add more to their vehicles, they created a new brand under Toyota called Lexus, which focuses more on luxury and the financial bracket of people who have a lot more money. 

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In this niche, they focused on getting luxurious and comfortable vehicles, and it was not just about functionality but also about user experience and enjoyment.

All these can’t be produced if we don’t pick something and hone that craft. 

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Ambidextrous people (who can do multiple things) have this dilemma because there is a saying that “when a person is exposed to so many options, that is when they are least likely to make any decision,” and in doing so, they do so many things but never achieve mastery at anything, and because of this, the fullness of their potential is never fully achieved.

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So, what that would be out of all your talents is up to you to decide and do this based on practice. We talk about purpose a lot and ask, what’s my purpose? But you can’t discover purpose without putting your hand to the plough.

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It is in doing so that you get to know the things that you have a natural affinity for and enjoy. 

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Beyond that, there are things that you can endure because work is not always convenient and there will always be trade-offs in life where I have to count the cost. Sometimes, you may love a particular thing, but what it might cost you might be too much.

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For instance, you may love baking or to be a pilot, but for you, on your hierarchy list, family is at the top, and anything that will not allow you to be there for your family is too expensive, and there is that. Yeah, I am good at flying planes or baking, but it keeps me away from my home for months at a time, so I can’t do that.

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It is by putting your hands to the plough and doing things that you will start to know what you are good at and what you can work towards. It doesn’t cost me more than what I can pay, and you put all yourself into it. 

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Then you go and study and research to expand your knowledge. To know people who have been in that field, what is the knowledge that has been invested in that field?

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If you do that long enough, you will be surprised at how you will not only become very valuable but people who can recognise that value will begin to find you. You have to have something that you are devoted to until it becomes mastery. 

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Interestingly, we will be talking a little about dreams on Saturday. To give a direct response, one of the first ways to know that God is speaking to you through your dream is by getting to know the nature and character of God. 

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I will say that I am almost particularly happy with the development of what we call “deep fake” in the artificial intelligence world, where, with technology, they can mimic people's voices and faces as well. Let me not say that I am excited or happy about it, but this will force people to begin to know people. You see, my voice is not mine. You get! My physical face and appearance are not mine. What I am is "intangible." What I am is the spirit within this vessel. We mostly know people by their outward appearance, tone of voice, and things of that sort, but we don’t “actually” know them. 

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I saw a trend a few days ago on X where people were asking their spouses to write in a way that was not them, and interestingly, a lot of them were able to detect the difference. This is because they know the heart of their spouse—the intangible aspect of that person. Even if you use their phone to chat, they will detect that this is not the person they know. 

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The same also applies to God. We have to spend time getting to know Him. First of all, through his word and also through people who have been ratified ambassadors of Christ—people who can help us understand the nature and character of God and what He is like.

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There is so much to say about dreams, which is why I chose to take this little time and talk about them. Because if we haven’t spent time getting to understand the nature and character of God, some people have had dreams and interpreted them to be that God asked them to marry two wives (there are all kinds of crazy things people have come up with that are completely contrary to God's nature, character, and way).

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If we know the nature and character of God and spend time understanding this, then we can discern what we have seen, even when it looks so familiar. Then we’d confidently say; this is not the nature of my God. 

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When we talk about dreams, they can be influenced by 

• The Holy Spirit
• Evil spirits
• Our desires, pains, and passions

This has been proven scientifically. People have done loads of research to show that you can receive knowledge from something beyond your understanding or mind through dreams. You can also receive dreams from your pains, sorrows, desires, and wishes.

The first thing we want to do is get to know God through his word and people who are representatives of him, and in doing so, when something that does not look like our God appears, we can accurately identify it for what it is and say, “No, this is not my God." 

Get to know who God is and how he deals with you because no two people's dealings with the Lord are the same. Even though it will have the same nature, character, and essence as God, it will express itself uniquely to each person. So you have to get to know God from a general point of view first, then know how God deals with you in particular. It becomes much easier to discern him in dreams when that is understood. 

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As I said, “dream” is a vast subject because then we would start talking about symbols, motives, patterns, and all kinds of things one cannot cover in a short voice note like this. Fundamentally, I will say, understand the nature, character, and essence of God and how that is expressed in your life and how he deals with you in particular. 

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Let me share an example with you.

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Before my wife and I got married, we quarrelled, and I made up my mind that I was going to break up with her, and I did break up with her. For three days (back to back), police were coming to arrest me in my dream for committing a crime. Three days: Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Based on how I walk with God and some symbols, motives, and patterns I am used to, I understood exactly what he was saying.

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It was annoying at the time because I felt, “Okay! What about me? What about my own issue? I am trying to communicate what not and what not,” but he was telling me, “What you have done is wrong, and it’s a crime,” hence it symbolised as police arresting me for a crime. At one point, they even slapped me on the back, and for something like that to have happened, I knew that some line was crossed. 

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That is a very simple example. So everyone should know how God deals with and communicates with them, but you have to understand the nature and character of God first. Beyond that, I have a friend and brother who has written a very beautiful and powerful book on dreams. It is called "Dreams As God's Love Language" by Oti Longe.

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This question is very heartfelt, and I pray for you in the name of Jesus that you become exposed to the heart of the Father, his undying love, and his intentions towards you.

What can I say? It begins with accepting this simple statement: “God is for me.”

When we read the book of Psalms, we see the meditations of a man’s heart, especially in circumstances that didn’t feel like God was there.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death... thou art with me.”

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Kai!!! 

Even just writing it now, the weight of the words is coming upon me mightily.

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How did David get to the point where he believed without an iota of doubt that even if he was in the valley of the shadow of death, God was with him?

How did he know that even in such a circumstance, God was on his side, fighting for him and creating something beautiful out of his life?

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It was a mindset, a conviction, that wasn’t produced by reading the entirety of the scriptures; it was produced by meditating on the nature of God.

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It was a mindset that defined every circumstance he faced and experienced.

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A person who has been told “nobody wants you” for the better part of their lives would begin to unconsciously meditate on that simple phrase until that phrase defines the entirety of their existence. 

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That phrase would become the lens through which they engage with and experience the world. It doesn’t matter if they meet someone who wants them because they have subconsciously meditated on “nobody wants me.” That is all they will ever experience.

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This is also true about the love of God. We haven’t meditated on it enough. We haven’t allowed ourselves to “blindly” believe it enough. That's why we can’t see it.

Reality is reality, but our experience of reality, however, is subject to our understanding. 

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If I believe “women are scum,” for example, and meditate on it so much, even if I meet an angel in a woman’s body, I would still have an experience of a scum woman.

Our meditations condition our perception of reality.

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If I believe God loves me and God is for me, if I meditate on it long enough, I will begin to see and experience this love around me.

I will also see it in the scriptures. I will see it in Bible stories that look so dreadful and cruel. I will see it in the joys of my life, and I will see it in the pains of my life.

“God is for me.”

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It’s not about reading the whole Bible. 

If we read the Bible with the wrong meditation, all we will experience will be a reflection of our meditations. If our meditations are bad, God will be bad.

If our meditations are good, God will be good.

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You should first meditate on this truth “God is for me.”

Don’t try to reason it out. Don’t try to explain it. Just accept it. 

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Say it to yourself before you go to sleep. Say it when you wake up. Say it when your heart is filled with sorrow. Say it when your heart is filled with joy.

Say it. Absorb it. Believe it.

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If you don’t know how do not worry. That is why you are here. That is what you are here to learn.

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I cannot give comprehensive assistance to you in these few words. If you hang around, however, if you take all the teachings you are going to receive seriously and put them into practice, your life will change.

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You will receive healing, and your heart will be mended in many ways. Light will come to you. Understanding will come to you. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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Song: Jesus has all the power and all the glory. Jesus is King forever, all power belongs to the Lord

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You see, sometimes, when we hear that statement, we limit it to supernatural power, and when we talk about the power of God, we think it only applies when something beyond the conception of our human understanding happens. 

• Who said the expertise a doctor has to treat people, is not within the powers of God? 
• Who said that the skillset of a teacher in school, is not within the powers of God?

The Bible says that God is the Prince of all the kings upon the face of the earth and the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein.

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As Christians, we must come to the point where we understand without a shadow of a doubt that the entirety of this earth belongs to our heavenly father and there is nothing that cannot be an extension of his will and his power towards us. 

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There was a time when a woman was about to have a child and it was clear she was having preeclampsia. She went to the hospital and the doctor said “It is expedient that we cut you open and bring this child out that you may live and the child also” but the woman said, “My pastor told me, we must give birth like the Hebrew women”. The woman went ahead against doctors’ advice to try to push out that child and died with the baby that day. 

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For what? Who says God’s hands could not have been there in the doctors’ hands? God is the one who raised the doctors to understand the herbs and different things in the world to treat mankind. Who said God is separated from it? God is part of it. 

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We need to get to the point where we don’t disconnect the things of the earth from the things in heaven. 

“Who said that the practice of a Doctor cannot be an extension of the life of God”? That is how medicine is supposed to be: that a doctor, treats the patient physically, and by extension, the soul and mind and everything is an extension of God's miraculous power and healing.

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That we can understand something, and explain the same doesn’t mean God cannot be in it. God can walk through a means we can’t comprehend and at the same time work through structures that we understand but he is still God. We should make peace with that - all power belongs to God. 

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Now, is it possible that one can get to a point in faith and knowledge of God that God tells them not to take any medicines? Yes! One can get there and there are many testimonies like that. But you see, you ought to have known God that way. Because, when we talk about faith, the word faith in Hebrew is “Emunah” which talks about Steadfastness, a conviction that is a product of our encounter with God. 

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There is an encounter we must have to bring about a solid conviction. I’m not saying that one cannot try without knowing but, many people hear someone’s story and try to do the same thing. Something that stemmed from walking with God for 15 years, someone else would think they would wake up and replicate the same. 

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Now, this might work, but would you have the same patience they had? For some people, God will tell them to move their family to a different country, and for two years they will be hungry in that country before things start to show up, but because they have walked with God, and know their God will surely show up, they can endure those two years. But you, or me, who has not known God at that level, can we endure those two years? 

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There’s that place where we “journey” in our knowledge of God. 

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If a person has not gotten to that level where they can give away everything they have and follow God even if they are hungry, don’t do it because you heard of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. You don’t know the journey they’ve had with God and their experience (they made a statement from knowing and experiencing God). It was beyond the hearing of the ears but what their eyes had seen. 

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We must understand that faith is a living thing that can grow on the inside of us – and it grows from glory to glory, from stage to stage. So, there is nothing wrong with going to the hospital when you are sick and there is nothing wrong with going to the hospital and also still praying. Why not? As you are treating in the physical, you are treating in the spiritual. 

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Are there instances where God will tell you to “abandon the hospital completely”? Absolutely! But, be sure that is what God is saying to you and if God has said it to you, then by all means – if you are sure that is the God you have come to know (not just because someone is trying to use you as a Guinea pig) because many things like that have happened.

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Is it possible for God to heal a person beyond the scope of medicine? 100 percent. It has happened many times (I am a recipient of such and God has done such even through me) but the fact that God can do that does not mean that taking medicine – Panadol, is evil and you are faithless (absolutely not), the body is physical and sometimes for physical things, you use physical things.

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Yeah, there were times Jesus multiplied bread and fish but there was a time when he also gave them money to go and buy bread so they could eat, and both were the supply of God. So we have to understand that all power belongs to God. And, whether it is an angel that brings you the bread from heaven or your neighbour comes and gives you a plate of rice, it is still from the Lord, and in all things, we give thanks. 

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The Bible says, “To everything, there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven." There is a time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to sleep and a time to wake. A time to work and a time to rest.

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Under God, there is a time for everything.

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The Bible even says that the Holy Spirit can grieve. So, how can we, as human beings, not also have the right to grieve when something sorrowful happens?

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There was a time when the Bible said God repented that He had created man. Yea! That was a poor translation because the Hebrew word used there means “God was sorrowful that He made man." 

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Does that mean that God didn’t foresee it? No! But if something sorrowful happens, one has to express sorrow. There is a saying that goes, “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behaviour.”

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So if God was laughing and rejoicing when his children entered fire, would that be a good or a sensible God? Of course not. The same applies to our circumstances and situations. 

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If I lose a job or a family member, or I get sick, of course, it is okay to be sad about it. It is OK to cry. Who says we can’t cry? I know that we come from a Christianity that almost puts people in denial. 

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God does not put a person in denial. God doesn’t tell us to deny our pain. He wants us to be very conscious of the pain and sorrow that we go through. 

But, beyond being conscious of the pains and sorrows, is having dominion over them; the pains, sorrows, and troubles don't control us so much that we do things that will cost us our souls.

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Now, that is the difference between the child of God and the child of the world. Yes, we are sorrowful. Yes, we are even angry. But even in rage and anger, there are lines that we refuse to cross. 

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So, it is okay to cry, and say, "God, I am ‘actually’ tired," or “God, I am a bit frustrated; it’s been a trying time for me." Why can’t we cry to our father? He is our Father. It is very okay, and that doesn't mean we are faithless. It just means we acknowledge we are going through a tough time, which is alright. 

God wouldn’t have called the Holy Spirit a comforter if he didn’t acknowledge this. 

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What we must be mindful of as children of God is not using the legitimacy of our pains and sorrows to do illegitimate things. 

The laws of God are given for our protection. If your parents say, “Don’t jump off the balcony,” you not jumping off the balcony is primarily for your preservation.

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The first person that a sinful life harms, is the person who lives in sin. This is why, no matter what, even though trying times come, there are standards that we as children of God must live by and never break for anything or anyone. 

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You see, when we resolve to live a life that way, God always sends us support, one way or another, to give us faith, encouragement, and hope in all trying seasons. 

So, the fact that we cry doesn’t mean that we are without faith. You can cry in faith. Didn’t Jesus Christ cry when they beat him? The Bible says that in the garden of Gethsemane, He was sorrowful to the point of death (our very saviour, the progenitor of our faith), but even in that, he said, “Lord, let thy will be one." Now, that is the standard that has been set for us. 

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I hope this gives you some clarity.

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As for distinguishing between waiting seasons and delays, you have to inquire of the Lord. This is why we should cultivate how to hear from God, and there are so many media we would talk about in this programme, by the grace of God.

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We must discern when to wage war (refuse a circumstance and a situation) and know when to endure. Paul said, “A thorn in my flesh was given to me, and I prayed to God three times that it be taken away, but God said, my grace is sufficient for you, and my strength is made perfect in your weaknesses." 

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That was not a time to push away whatever that thorn represented; it was a time to endure so that the spirit of patience might be built inside him. 

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Hello Biodun, your question is worthwhile, and your confusion is valid. 

It is very valid as a matter of fact, and actually, we have a portion in this introductory part of the course where we are going to be talking about prayer and meditation, and it is something that we need to understand as a generation because this subject of prayer—even though many people talk about prayer a lot, it is quite clear that many people don’t understand what prayer is.

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And even though everyone is doing it—praying in the Holy Ghost—if you ask most people what they are doing, they say, “I don’t know.”

There is a general confusion when it comes to prayer. 

“Why am I praying long”?

“Why am I praying short”?

“Why am I always praying”?

“Why am I shouting”?

What’s this? What’s that? And so on...

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All prayers are not the same. Fundamentally, when we talk about prayer, the word prayer is a legal terminology. It is what a lawyer says when he or she wants to procure something from the judge. And he says to the judge, “I pray that you grant my appeal” and “I pray that you...”. It is a request.

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So, when we talk about the word “pray," we are talking about asking someone for something. But there is so much more to engaging God for something than asking him for something.

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For example, when we pray long—one hour, two hours—we are not praying long for God to hear us.

For instance, you begin to pray, “Oh God, change my story, change my story." The first time you say it, God has already heard you and received your prayer.

But you see, it is one thing to ask God for something; it is another thing for you to have the container to receive what you have asked for. 

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Those two hours you are spending in prayer, repeating those words, you are not doing so for God to hear you, but to lift your consciousness to a level where you can receive what you are asking God for. 

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Sometimes, it won’t happen in one day because you are saying God change my story; look at my family and this and that, but after you’ve prayed, you still go back to the mindset of:

“How can it be better for me?”

“My father and I didn’t go to school.”

“My mother is poor.”

“All my brothers and sisters, once they made money, they went back to poverty.” 

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That mindset itself can never be a vessel for receiving what you are asking for. So, what we are calling long prayer is not us trying to get God to hear us; it is us trying to lift the frequency of our consciousness to a realm where we can connect with him and receive what we need from him. 

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Even in warfare prayer, you don’t pray “I bind you in the name of Jesus," “Get out,” or words like that to chase the demon away. 

A demon is present because you and that demon have common ground. The Bible teaches that when Jesus enters a room where demons were, they will say, “Son of man, what do we have in common?” Because there was no common ground between the demons and Jesus, they screamed because there was no relationship. 

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So, if a demon can flog you, collect your money, and take your job, it is because there is a common ground between you and that spirit. 

Whether the common ground is lust, anger, or greed, all these characteristics are properties of demonic realms. And so far we have those properties in us; those realms have a claim in our lives. It doesn’t matter what we believe, my friends. 

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We like to quote a lot of scriptures at this time: “Oh! By the stripes of Jesus..."  yet, see what is happening in your life. Either the Bible is a lie or there is a misunderstanding somewhere because it is possible to be a born-again believer yet suffer a lot of afflictions. 

After all, there are areas of their hearts that are still subjected to foul spirits. 

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It is part of these reasons that we are praying not for God to hear us but for our consciousness to be lifted, and it goes beyond the prayer, even to the actions we begin to carry out on a day-to-day basis. 

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In summary, prayer is not just us asking God for something, prayer is also us entering into the heart posture and frequency where we can receive what we are asking for.

Even if you are praying, “God show me the vision for my life” or “Tell me who my wife is going to be,” what if the wife you are supposed to marry is too carnal to see who she is? So you need to pray. Yes! You need to pray for some time for your consciousness to be lifted so that you can perceive the one that God has prepared for you. 

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That is why we pray long. Not just in one day but over a period of time. Not for God to hear you, but for your mind to change. I will say this as an introduction; when we get there in the course, we will talk more about it. 

The Lord is on your side. 

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You are very welcome! 

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There is a certain level of understanding and mindfulness that must be part of anything we do.

Prayer is not primarily about solving problems or seeking deliverance but about connection with the Holy Spirit.

A person who prays only because of issues is not a friend of God but a liability of God.

If we ask, “Is this good enough?” It is because many of us have been raised to believe that we pray to do God a favour or to collect something from Him.

This naturally produces people who “perform” or people who “hate that they have to perform.”

From your tone, I suspect you fall into the category of the latter.

Prayer is not primarily about length but about connection with the Holy Spirit.

The issue of length only exists because the issue of “connection” has not yet been addressed.

How long should I connect with my wife or husband per day? 15 minutes? 1 hour? 2 hours? 

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If we truly have connection and there is a fullness that we experience, the question of length will not be an issue, long or short.

In my humble opinion, the majority of people who pray long do it for their ego and have little to no connection with God.

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The majority of people who pray do it because they are told they are supposed to pray, not because they know God or have a connection with him.

Prayer is a connection issue, not a length issue. That is where the teaching of meditation comes in. 

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Fundamentally, think of meditation as “focus.” 

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I say fundamentally because there is much more to meditation than the basic ability to focus on something. You will understand this later.

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Think of focus like the focus of your camera. Each time your camera lens fixes itself on its subject, it blurs everything else. In that moment, we can say that the camera has a “steadfast” gaze upon its subject.

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Steadfastness speaks of something that is firm and is not easily moved. It speaks of something that does not easily leave its position. Metaphorically speaking, we can associate the word “steadfastness” with focus, and we can associate the word focus with meditation.

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Meditation is “Focus”. Focus is steadfastness. 

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Do you see the connection?  If God’s love is steadfast and unwavering, we can also say that God’s love is focused. If God’s love is focused, we can also say that God’s love is meditative.

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A bee’s life is devoted to the service of its hive and its queen. It rises daily to acquire nectar to store food for the survival of its colony. It stays on this path day and night and does not waver for any reason. It never shifts from its purpose. It does not wake up one day and decide to be a cow. It is a bee. It focuses on being a bee, and it is steadfast in being a bee.

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If a bee is focused and steadfast in its purpose, and if focus and steadfastness are related to meditation, metaphorically speaking, we can say a bee is meditative.

An example of this is when the prophet Joel spoke of the sons of God, saying:

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'They run like mighty men; they climb the wall like men of war; everyone marches in formation; and they do not break ranks.' Joel 2:7

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"They do not break ranks." Each one understands its purpose, ministry, and calling and does not try to compete with or usurp another’s.

We can also say that your kidney meditates on being a kidney and does not try to be a heart.

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Listen to me; you would have to loosen your mind a little to see these relationships I am now pointing out to you; you would have to loosen your mind to understand me.

Meditation, focus, steadfastness, and even faith are all related. They are like cousins in a family. They stem from the same family tree and can be used interchangeably.

A man of faith in God does not waver from God’s commandments.

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A person who does not waver from God’s commandments “meditates on God”.

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The subject of meditation is much deeper than this, but this is a simple and fundamental way of understanding it.

As for the scripture in Joshua, the Hebrew word “Hagah” speaks of a “type” or “form” of meditation, something we are going to discuss in one of our classes in Module 1.

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I have no doubts it will be a thrilling and exciting class for many of us, as it will give us great context regarding some things.

As I said, the word “meditation” is just a label. What is most important is understanding the reality that is being pointed out. Different words in the Bible are translated as meditation; “Hagah” is but one of them.

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“Hagah” is a form of meditation that utilises the utterance and repetition of words. We can also call it “mantra meditation.”

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This utterance could be the repetition of a singular word or phrase, a passage in scripture, or even a song. 

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The utterance is not the meditation, but rather the engagement of one’s heart with the spirit behind the words they are uttering.

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In that moment, the words are not mere words but portals into the spirit.

This is why, for example, a lot of prophetic ministries utilise the book of Psalms in place of prayer.

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This is a very wonderful question, Mrs Uche! I hope that my response will give you some edification.

We’ve indeed seen a Christianity that has people going to church, praying, fasting, and carrying out all manner of religious activities, yet we find the fruit of the Holy Spirit missing.

Let me start by saying that genuine and lasting change is never something that happens coincidentally. Our character is a summation of the conscious and unconscious choices we’ve made over the years.

There is a saying that goes: sow a thought and you will reap an action; sow an action and you will reap a habit; sow a habit and you will reap a character; sow a character and you will reap a destiny.

The Bible puts it plainly like this:

'Do not be deceived; God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, he will also reap. For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. '

Galatians 6:7-8

I taught on Saturday that every single one of us is a product of our meditations. I will also go further to say that every single one of us is a product of our decisions.

Yes, upbringing and environment indeed have a great influence on the formation of our character, but that is all they are: influences.

It is not the influence that forms our character, but the decisions we make based on that influence.

Shouting is a decision. Anger outbursts are decisions. Deception is a decision. Foul speaking is a decision.

The more we continue to make these decisions, the more we become hardened by their nature.

Everything we are today is learned and perfected through practice. Laziness is learned. Greed is learned. Vengefulness is learned, and so on.

Anything that is learned can also be unlearned.

Now, where does the Holy Spirit come in? Jesus described the Holy Spirit by saying:

'And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another helper, that He may abide with you forever—

John 14:16

Why is the Holy Spirit called a helper?

Spirits are like energy; they are like fuel. They don’t do things for us; rather, they enable us to do things. - Fuel does not drive the car, but it enables us to drive the car.

SPIRITS ARE ENABLERS.

When you decide to carry out an action that pertains to a spirit, then you will experience their support.

You are the one who has to open the door for them first before they can take over.

How do we open the door? With our thoughts and actions.

This is true with the Holy Spirit, and this is also true with the spirits of this world.

We fellowship, pray, and study to receive fuel. Change, however, can only happen when we put this fuel into action.

It is not enough to just pray or read; we must intentionally practise what we have prayed and what we have studied.

In the process of practice, the spirit behind the practice begins to rest upon us and support our labours.

One of my students told me of a time she went to a conference hosted by Apostle Arome Osayi in Kaduna. She said after he taught and prayed, he imparted them. According to her, he cautioned them that this impartation will only stay and bear fruit in their lives if they study their Bibles daily. So, she studied her Bible every day for a month and had all manner of wonderful experiences and changes in her life. The moment life got in the way and she stopped reading her Bible, everything ceased.

This is what happens a lot in church. A person gets prayed for, and they fall down and think that is it. There is a need to inquire, "What exactly was imparted to me?" "What must I do to fully utilise and harness the impartation that just happened?"

In the same way the spirit of lust needs us to practise lustful things in order to tabernacle with us, so also does the spirit of self-control.

Every spirit has a work. Every spirit has a labour. The moment we begin to put into practice the labours that pertain to its dimension, we begin to manifest the dimension of that spirit.

There is something I always say, and I want everyone reading this to remember this phrase: “Christianity is a practice.”

We have to practise telling the truth. We have to practise forgiving people. We have to practise kindness and generosity.

It is in the practice—the conscious practice—that we begin to experience the help of the Holy Spirit.

There is no other way. Our willingness and efforts must be involved in the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Beyond that, we actually have to desire these things. We have to spend some time visualising ourselves speaking calmly to someone who is speaking rudely to us.

We have to “want” to be that kind of person.

Prayer brings down potential energy, but that is all it is: potential. 

It does not become kinetic until we begin to practice. That is why James said:

'But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. '

James 1:22

It is good to hear the word when we go to church, pray, and study our Bible, but beyond that, we have to “PRACTICE”.

We will speak heavily on character development in Module 3: Awareness.

It will cause every single one of us to look in the mirror and give us tools to expose ourselves to ourselves so that we can begin to collaborate with the Holy Spirit to break the hold of vices in our lives.

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Oh, my dear friend, the sincerity of your question is beautiful, and I am glad you asked it.

The Bible teaches us:

'And you have forgotten the exhortation that speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him; for whom the Lord loves, He chastens and scourges every son whom He receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons. '

Hebrews 12:5-8

The Bible teaches us that Jesus is the express image of the Father. What does this mean? It means that everything that Jesus is, is exactly what the Father is.

Love does not begin in the New Testament. How can it be? The Bible tells us in John 3:16 that “for God so loved the world...”

The Father has always been about love. The Father will always be about love. 

How can there be love, however, if there is no correction?

I have a 14-month-old son with my beautiful wife, Esther Ideh (who is also a wonderful teacher of the word). Being a first-time father has taught me a lot about the love my Heavenly Father has for me.

My beautiful son, Bethel, God bless him, put anything in his mouth. Now, when I seize from him something that is obviously harmful to him, he cries.

At that moment, he feels as though cruelty is being done to him. At that moment, he suffers from the experience of not being able to have what he would like. 

I am aware that he is suffering from being denied, hence his tears. But should that deter me from preserving his life? 

Yes, at that moment, I was a cause of pain for him, but does that mean I do not love him? Quite the contrary!

Between the ages of 5 and 11 years of age, I was a kleptomaniac. That is, someone who has an excessive compulsion to steal.

Imagine if that behaviour was not corrected in my home and I went on to steal, maybe somewhere in Northern Nigeria.

Which is worse, the tears of the rod in the house or the tears of losing an arm to the Sharia police?

Yes, God chastens us and creates the necessary sorrow for us in order to lead us to the right path. He does this to save us from the greater sorrows we will face if we miss our way.

The Bible teaches that:

'For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. '

II Corinthians 7:10

God causes us to experience a sorrow that is actually medicine for the soul, in order to save us from the sorrows that can be poison for the soul.

Jesus' ministry was very fierce and corrective, especially towards the Pharisees. This, however, was deep love, cleansing love, and redemptive love.

Any love that accepts you without cleansing you is not love at all. Love ought to leave you better than when it met you. Love does not enable weakness, simply because it does not want a person to feel bad.

There is an old saying that goes: “If the truth shall kill them, let them die.” 

Anything that can be killed by the truth should never be allowed to live because it is not alive in the first place.

Grace is not a licence for sin. Grace is the divine empowerment given to every child of God to live a life above sin in a sinful world.

It was God’s grace that gave Joseph the strength to reject the advances of Potiphar’s wife.

It was God’s grace that gave Moses the strength to choose a nomadic life in the wilderness over the pleasures of Egypt.

It was God’s grace that gave Jesus the strength to pray for the forgiveness of his assassins.

God is love, and this love strikes. It strikes, but it also heals. It is written:

'And the Lord will strike Egypt; He will strike and heal it; they will return to the Lord, and He will be entreated by them and heal them.'

Isaiah 19:22

The rod is one of the most powerful manifestations of God’s love. It sets us back on the path when we lose our way and saves us from our own ignorance.

This is why David said your ROD and staff comforted me.

Yes, a true son is grateful for the rod of the Father. A true son is comforted by it. A true son is healed by it.

I will conclude with this: God’s love has the intention of making you whole. It doesn’t have the intention of making you happy.

Your happiness is only a priority to God when it has received true education, when you learn to be happy about what is right and sorrowful about what is wrong.

Until then, we must grow to enjoy the love of the Lord that comes with a staff and a rod.

As for your question about the Canaanites, I will treat that as a separate question. 

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Hello Faith! 

Your question is more than worthwhile. I am more than happy to attempt to give you an answer.

Your Father was right when he said prayer is both an action and a position you take through your day.

For example, how can you pray for God to cure you of the flu while drinking cups of cold water or taking ice cream during the day? 

The very action defeats the prayer and does not put you in the right position to receive what you need from God.

Our walk with God is symbiotic. The Bible teaches us:

“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” Philippians 2:12-13

Yes, behind our human will is the will of a spirit that is willing in us, and behind our human works and efforts are the works and efforts of a spirit in us.

The spirit wills and works, but this will and work cannot be complete without our willingness and workings.

How can we keep our minds on God throughout the day? These are things we will teach extensively during this programme, not to worry.

For now, however, I will say that we need to have “anchors” for our souls during the day.

The mind is like a ship docked at a seaport; without something fastening it to the river's bedrock, it will drift into the boundless ocean and never return.

We can use many things as anchors in our lives, which will be greatly addressed in Module 2: Cultivating a Meditative Life. I’ll share two simple anchors with you.

1. 1. How you begin your day. 

We must never underestimate the power of a decided mind. It sets the entirety of our being on a trajectory of energy and greatly influences the flow of our thoughts.

It is worthwhile to begin your day with a resolution you say to yourself not just with prayers. You can say, “Today, I will remember my God in all my doings.”

• You don’t just say it; you must do it. You can remember your God by simply tidying your room after waking up.
• You can remember your God by the way you smile and give a greeting to your spouse, parent, or sibling.
• You can remember your God by the way you address people on your way to work and at work.

Everything that pertains to your day becomes a part of your worship to the Lord, and in doing so, the Lord is always at the forefront of your daily experience.

All of this begins with the firm decision you make in your heart at the start of your day.

We jump out of bed many times without centring ourselves, not even realising that we are still saturated with the anxieties of the previous day.

So, before our day begins, we are already stressed and mentally frazzled, and our peace is lost before we’ve even had the chance to experience it.

Remembering God amid all your doings is a powerful way to anchor yourself to God in your daily endeavours.

1. 2. Spiritual bus stops.

Another powerful anchor is what I call a spiritual bus stop. Observe how a bus travels a distance and stops to offload old passengers and pick up new ones.

In the very same vein, we can have times in our day that can serve as “bus stops.” Once that time comes, we stop what we are doing and become intentionally mindful of God through prayer, contemplation of scripture, or worship.

Doing this helps us shift our gaze to the Lord, and connects us to a new and better kind of energy that can diffuse the negativities of the day.

If our daily work life cannot afford us the time to pray or study, we can plug our earphones in and listen to a sermon or worship playlist.

As we listen, we allow the music not just to entertain us but also to centre us and remind us that we are vessels of God to express his nature and character.

This way, the ship of our soul never ventures too far from the harbour, and we can always find our way back!

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I believe the question you're asking is from Psalm 24, which says, “Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? He who has clean hands and a pure heart.”

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It is good to say that God dwells in an unapproachable light, and anyone who sees God will die. But with this death, you must understand what it means. It's not a death that is a cessation of existence, but a death that is a cessation of a way of being, a state of mind, or a death of an old nature.

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Yes! You cannot go close to God without clean hands and a pure heart, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't call upon his name and draw near to him. What it means is that even if you call upon his name, there is a purification process that you still have to go through, and thanks be to God, the Bible says that the Lord prunes every son that comes onto Him, and He scourges those He loves. So anybody can come to God. No matter how you are, come as you are. But coming as you are does not mean you will stay as you are.

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God is like a university. You come as an illiterate person, but after spending 4 years, 5 years, and 6 years, you come out as someone with knowledge. So come to God as you are; don't feel like, Oh, I need to be holy before I can come to God. No. God so loved the world, not the church. So you come to God as you are, but don't think that God is going to leave you as you are.

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God will challenge you; He will challenge your way of life, your way of reasoning, your state of mind, your deeds, your thoughts, and your belief systems; and He will change you so that you can look like Him, and when you can look like Him, you can dwell in His presence. Right?

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It's like you want to serve in the cabinet of a king. The king has to fashion you into the characteristics, nature, and way of being of kings. You understand?

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So if you want to work for Queen Elizabeth or spend time in her cabinet, they will teach you all the etiquette of the royal house. And in learning it, you become the same kind of, well, energy that they are. You speak like them. You have the same decorum and body language as them.

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God is just like that. So come as you are, but understand that He will purge you with His fire and make you become what you're supposed to be.

I so much like the question because it shows that you're not just reading; you're reading and paying attention. Oh, why? “Why is he writing this way?” It makes me happy that things are not being taken, hook, line, and sinker, but you're being a Berean.

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For your first question, why is he called “the Christ”? Well, let's, first of all, remember that the Bible was written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek and then later translated to English.

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Furthermore, the word Christ is not the name he was called in Hebrew but an English rendition of a Greek word called "Christo,” which was derived from a Hebrew word called “Mashiach”.

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And in Hebrew, he was called Yehoshua Hamashiach, which means Jesus the Christ.

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Pause and let all that information sink in.

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You’ll read in the book of Acts where it is written: "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." Acts 2:36

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It's very deep. It's deeper than I can explain here. But Christ is beyond a person.

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I know we think of Christ. We think of the man Jesus of Galilee. But the man Jesus of Galilee said, before Abraham was, I am. What does this mean? It means that the physical person of flesh and blood that you saw was an expression of Christ. The physical form of Jesus that we saw was a container “the Christ” was using. But “the Christ” itself has been there from the beginning. The Christ is not a thirty year old man.

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John taught us, in the beginning, was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So even before Genesis chapter 1, there was “the Christ,"  right? Beyond personality.

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I know we think, “Oh, you know what makes Christianity better? Because our God is a person." Actually, that is a wrong statement because if your God was a person, your God is small because personality is always a product of time and place. Right?

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That's why we have media personalities, okay? The word personality is from the Latin word persona, which means mask or a facade, something someone puts on for the sake of time and place, which was Jesus of Galilee, right? He came in sinful flesh. Who is the one who came in sinful flesh? That's what we call Christ.

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Something that is more than space and time, something that is more than 33 years of age. So when you read the Bible in Hebrew, it says "The Christ." Hamashiach means "The Christ." "Ha" is "the" and "Maschiach" is Christ.

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That's why I just translated literally by saying “the Christ,"  but I'm not so frozen that I can't say Jesus Christ. You know, some people can get very, very carnal about those kinds of things and then say, Oh, you must say it like this.

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Not really. If that's the case, then, I mean, in the Bible, Jesus in his day wasn't called Jesus Christ; he was called Yehoshua. So that means everyone is calling the wrong name by saying Jesus—all those childish limitations—we are not about that.

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But, yes, I just said “the Christ” because, actually, in Hebrew, that's how it's pronounced, but there's nothing wrong with saying Jesus Christ, but the Christ is the spirit that became flesh and died for our sins. Yes, they killed the body of the man, but they didn't kill “the Christ." Christ was, is, and will always be.

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Amen.

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For your second question, every Christian is called to intercession. And we must understand where intercession comes from. The Bible is a very legal and economic book, and most of the terminologies that are used in the Bible are derived from legal language and economic language.

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An intercessor is similar to what we call an advocate or a lawyer, literally speaking—one who stands in the gap between a judge and a criminal. Jesus Christ is an intercessor. He still makes intercessions on our behalf. And the devil is called the prosecutor, right? The word shatan means adversary. The word devil means accuser. That's someone who brings out your crimes. So the devil doesn't lie in the courts of God. The devil tells the truth. Okay. He brings about what you have done to gain a negative verdict from God against you. And he can do that (but we won't touch those deep portals today). Hallelujah.

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That's why Christ comes out as an intercessor to stand in the gap on your behalf.

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So every Christian is called to intercession. Okay? We stand in a gap for people. People who can't pray for themselves or those who can. But, you know, how can I say it? In the realm of the spirit, just like petition.org, where people sign a petition for or against a person, if you have 10,000,000 signatures, the government is forced to act because the government is democratic. So whatever the people want, they get. God is something like this.

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In the Bible, when Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, it says that a lot of nations were crying because of the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cries went up to God, and God sent angels down to come and investigate whether it was true. And the angels came down and discovered that the petitions against Sodom and Gomorrah were true, right?

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Meaning that when many people are praying for you or when many people are crying because of what you have done, it reaches heaven. You understand? So when God wants to work on the earth, He raises people who can stand in the gap so that He can have a legal right to intervene in a particular matter.

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Yes, God is God, but God is sovereign. And God doesn't stand above the laws that He has created, right? So when He wants to help someone, He still needs the participation of men to carry out things on earth.

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That's why He raises people and says, I want you to stand in the gap for this; I want you to stand in the gap for that; I want you to pray for Nigeria; pray for your mom; pray for your husband; pray for your child; and so on.

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Every Christian is called to this. Is it possible that some are more intensely into this than others? Yes. But this is the life of every Christian, and it's something that we have to make a part of our lives.

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It's between you and God to decide how those prayer moments will be. God can tell you that one day a week, I need you to stand before me for a certain amount of time for this person. And sometimes, in your daily prayers, just insert that particular person or that particular thing there. So as you pray your normal prayers, towards the end, there's a particular person you always lift every day; there's that too. But allow the Holy Spirit to tell you what He wants your intercessory to be like.

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Sometimes He can tell you I want you to fast three days every month for this particular matter, and that's what He has asked you to do. There's a woman called Anna the prophetess in the Bible who spent her life praying in the temple for “the Christ.”.

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Have a moment in your day where you have your prayer time; that's very important. And during that prayer time—your communion with God, your fellowship with God—input prayers for the people God brings to your heart. Every believer is called to this.

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There's nobody who is not called to intercession. If Christ is an intercessor and we are after the order of Christ, then we are also intercessors. Amen?

Yes, yes, my dear. Beyond the name, Christ is a nature, character, and way of life. If those things are missing from our lives, the name cannot work for us to its fullest potential.

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That’s why, when the sons of Sceva in the Book of Acts tried to use the name of Jesus to cast out demons, the demons beat them and stripped them naked.

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The name of Jesus is not separate from the principles and laws that Jesus lived by. Those principles and laws are what lead to salvation.

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To believe in Jesus is to believe in those very things that guided Him. God and His laws are one and the same. You cannot love God and not love the laws that He lives by. That is why it is written:

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“If you love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15 NKJV

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As for prayers, being in a space where you are least distracted is indeed ideal. Nevertheless, you can pray anywhere and anytime. In Nigeria, we say, “At all, at all, na im bad pass.” Which means “half bread is better than no bread.”

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So long as your heart is sincere, you come in the name of the Lord, and you come in great faith, there will be results.

Well, I'll teach more about this in the module on awareness, where we are so perceptive and observant of ourselves that we notice, “This thought I just had; this thought didn't originate from me.”.

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I'm not just saying this concerning the Holy Spirit. I'm saying that when you are just sitting down on a casual afternoon, all of a sudden, you just get a thought. “Oh, you've not masturbated in a while, and images of pornography just enter your head." You have to be able to identify when a stranger or something external comes in. You are just sitting down, and the next thing you know, you have thoughts of being irritated with your friend, your wife, your husband, or your mother. From nowhere, it just comes in. What is going on? Yes, you must be perceptive of the happenings in your inner life.

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In the same vein, as I'm talking and answering all these questions, I'm not just answering them by myself. I have help; that's why we can do this for a long time. Even if there are 100 questions, if there is time, we can do it because there is help. Because as I look at the question and I begin to talk, a thought will just enter my head, and that's why sometimes when I'm responding, I will say, “It just came into my mind." What I'm saying is that God blew it into my mind.

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So every story I use, every analogy, I did not make in my imagination. There is support behind me. But you see, because I've been working with God, I'm able to recognise that it's not just my bright ideas; I'm receiving help from God; he gives me jokes, he gives me analogies, he gives me stories, and he gives me the relevant scriptures that pertain to the particular thing I'm saying.

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Before one can discern that, one has to know the voice of God, and the first way to know the voice of God is through the scriptures and teachers of the word of God. Those two are so important.

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I know that in our generation, we say,” “Know God for yourself," "Know God for yourself." Hallelujah! If anybody could just open the Bible and become an apostle, why would God make people stress and write all those books? Because Jeremiah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Paul—all these people who wrote—are teachers, are they not? The whole New Testament is nothing but a commentary on the Old Testament. That's what it is: a commentary on the Old Testament. Everything written in the New Testament has its roots and foundation in the Old Testament.

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If there was no need to explain, expand, and reveal what was written, they would not have done that. So there will always be a place for teachers and instructors who can educate the people of God as to the nature and mindset of God.

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So you must spend time reading scriptures, meditating on scriptures, and also listening to the instructors and teachers that God has raised for the body of Christ. That will help you understand the nature of God and his ways.

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When you understand the nature of God and his ways, the first thing that will happen is that you will know when something is talking to you that is not like God. You understand? God will never tell you to get up and slap that person. He will not tell you that. God will not tell you to gossip about that boy who just lost his job and mock him before your friends. God will not tell you that.

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But you see, if you are in a room and everybody's gossiping about a boy, and all of a sudden you feel this nudge to say, “I don't think this is right," Now, that nature is not the carnal nature; it comes from somewhere, and then you realise, Oh! God is talking to me, and you say, “Thank you, Jesus.”.

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It doesn't have to be “Oh my friend, I talk to you...” (In a deep voice), it can happen, you understand? It can very much happen; God can talk like that. In a general sense, God enters as a thought, a whisper, or a wind (which blows air). And because you know the nature of God, you can discern what has just entered your mind. And you say, Ah, this is the Holy Spirit.

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So for example, as I said, when I teach, it's the Holy Spirit—that is, I'm just sitting down, and it's like there's an open book, and I'm just flowing. I'm just flowing. I'm just flowing. I've learned how to rely on God when I'm teaching. So I can teach for 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 hours, and the word will not finish. Because I'm not speaking with my strength.

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So when I sit down, my mind is out of the picture (well, not really).

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Everything passes through my mind, but I'm not leaning completely on my mind. I'm leaning on the "wind." And it comes in as suggestions. Okay! Remember David? Oh! Remember Joseph? Oh! Ah! This is what Paul said in Galatians. Oh! In Revelation 6, Oh! And I've gotten to the point where it's natural because I'm used to it.

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But it begins by being perceptive of your inner life and the different things that are entering that space.

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“This feeling I'm feeling now—when did it begin?” You know! We don't spend time observing ourselves.

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I'm going to teach on this, you know. We're going to learn a lot, so, you know, this is just week 2. I'm spending time in module 1 introducing a lot of concepts and a lot of theories so that we get some basic things, and then we start going through deep practical matters that would separate those that are here for business and not because it will get very practical because it’s a practical course—it is not theory. You understand? For this course to benefit you, you have to put into practice the things that are taught.

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So there'll be a lot of practices, or introspection, self-review, self-awareness, and self-observation, and from there, you know, you begin to observe your inner life and the things that are transpiring within you. And you can start to discern, ah! This doesn't sound like God. But you cannot know what sounds like God if you have not learned about Him through scriptures and instructors.

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The Holy Spirit speaks to everybody; there is nobody the Holy Spirit doesn’t speak to. Even if you have never heard of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit has spoken to you. But you see, because you don't know his voice, you cannot know that that was God talking.

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There's nobody who hasn't heard the voice of God. Everybody has heard the voice of God. The issue is discerning God's voice. The first way to begin discerning God's voice is by understanding His nature through scripture, and through this, He begins to reveal Himself through the instructors that He has raised.

The first sign of understanding is the birth of new questions. That is an indication of life-long growth. Life is not from question to answer, but from question to question.

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Yes, that is where a scripture like Romans 12:1-2 comes in. How can you serve someone you do not know? The more you spend time with him, the more you get to know him, and the more you know what he can and will give you.

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As four-year-olds, we don’t know what our parents can and will give us. We just have desires. As we grow older and understand their temperament, financial capacity, and so on, we start to know what we shouldn’t bother asking them.

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What we are speaking about is a matter of intimacy and the fruit of intimacy, which is knowledge and understanding.What have you understood from this?

I'm right now reminded of a doctor from Honduras called Doctor Sebi, who's late now. He had some theories on medicine. Right? And one of his theories was that bacteria are just like human beings.

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Bacteria live, move, breathe, eat, and die if they are not fed. And one of the ways he treats his patients is by putting them on a fast and making them eat particular things that he knows will not feed certain bacteria, especially cancerous bacteria. I don't know if that's what they call it in medical terms, but he talked about how cancer cells feed on certain foods that we eat. And he said, If you starve the body of those foods, the cancer cells will die. And apparently, there were a few people who, you know, went for his treatment.

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I don't know how true it is. But that principle of starving a thing and it dying is not just a physical thing but a psychological thing as well. Every thought is fed by something. It has a base of nourishment. It has what feeds it. It has what empowers it. If that food for thought is taken away, then it doesn't have any basis for survival.

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And it's something I want to introduce to you, which is what I will call “thought replacement." That's actually why we meditate on scripture.

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It's not just to read them, quote them, and recite them; that is great, but there is a life inside of them. There is a power inside of them; there is an energy inside of them that we want to download into our being. So for example, if I think about lust, right? The way to counter thoughts of lust is to replace them with thoughts of purity.

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For example, when one starts to think about a sexual image, you can use your imagination to replace that picture with something very holy. Every time that thought of lust comes, replace it with an image of something holy. It can be a picture; it can even be a scripture. Every time it comes in, replace it, replace it, and you will do this over and over again with prayers; you know, you just have to replace the thought.

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As you do that, the energy of that thought begins to weaken. The more we feed or rest on a particular thought, the more that energy feeds itself. So a lustful thought comes when you begin to brood over it. Because lust is a spirit. It's a living entity inside of us, and I will teach more of this in the awareness module. Lust is alive. Anger is alive. Pride is alive.

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These are living beings. This is what Jesus Christ called the members of your household who are your enemies. They are living entities that live, move, and have a being inside of you. And they are fed by the degraded aspects of your heart.

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Are you following?

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These are the things that ought to be starved to the point of death. So the moment a lustful thought comes into your mind, you replace that image with something holy. It could be Jesus Christ on the cross. It could be Jesus Christ feeding the 5,000. It could be David fighting Goliath. It could be Moses crossing the Red Sea and finding a path through a place that seems impossible (the images I give are not random). They are not just images of scripture; they are not just scriptures that have spiritual power; they are also what I will call the language of the subconscious mind. And I will teach that later on, by the grace of God. Because the subconscious mind is controlled not by words but by images,.

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That's why when people want to do hypnosis, they start to say things, they get you to picture things, and before you know it, you can sleep off, and many things like that. The subconscious mind is controlled by images; that's why you dream; you see pictures; that's why the Bible paints pictures and stories; all the prophets told stories; they paint a picture because they want it to bypass your mind and go somewhere deeper beyond the mind.

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So there's a way that we can manually begin to apply this in our daily lives. Someone has upset you, and thoughts of anger come into your heart. Begin to brood upon the image of goodness, kindness, and holiness. Visualize yourself forgiving them, being kind to them, or even if the image of them is so disturbing, visualizing yourself being kind to someone else.

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When you breathe in, it's like the thought of anger or loss is like fire. Based on energy and the natural affinity of all things, for every fire, there's water that can quench it. You understand? So there's always a contrary force to every kind of thought. If you have a lustful thought, an angry thought, a prideful thought, or a greedy thought, you counter it and weaken the energy of that thought by introducing its opposite. So the opposite of lust is purity; holiness is looking at things in their natural beauty without trying to defile them or covet them in the wrong way.

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So you can have a picture of Jesus on the cross; you can have a picture of the Virgin Mary; that's why the Catholics had a lot of statues and paintings; it was for meditation purposes; it wasn't for worship (like the people of this generation think): when people don't have understanding, they just judge things without even asking any questions or doing research or whatever.

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They were for meditations—to help the imagination. Because a lot of people struggle to imagine things when asked to. So those statues, sculptures, and paintings were given to aid the imagination, to use pictures that are based on scripture to be able to enter the mind and serve like a spiritual or psychological GPS that can help you go on the right mental trajectory.

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So you weaken a wrong thought by empowering a right one. Paul said, “Whatever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.”

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The way the world is will force you to meditate on the wrong things. So you have to be intentional. Every one of us naturally has a childish mentation. Adult mentation takes intentionality, and I'm going to write more about it in the course manual.

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I know some people are asking me to talk more about it. Don't worry. In the course manual, I'll write more about adult mentation. It involves a lot of willpower and intentionality, as opposed to being like chaff that is blown by every wind.

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So you counter a negative thought by replacing it with a positive one, and you do it over and over again until it becomes natural that when a funny thought comes into your mind, you already have a natural counter for it, and then back it up with prayer and inviting the holy spirit as you bring that new image or new thought into your heart. And you’ll see how, after a while, that energy becomes diffused. It is well with you.

It is beyond just a meditation. It's a mental reorientation. If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will, and it shall be done unto you.

What does this mean? There's a saying I heard several years ago that I never forgot because it gave me deep insight into the ways of God. The person said that if you desire everything that God desires, then every desire you have will always come to pass.

The reason why our desires and will don't come to pass whenever we will is because what we desire and what we “will” are contrary to the desires and will of God.

Think of yourself like someone inside an ocean. If you swim in the current of the ocean (in the right direction), your speed will be amplified, and you will move fast. However, when you go against the tide, oh, that's when you begin to struggle. It becomes tough, and you might not even make it to the shore because you are going against the wind.

So Jesus Christ is teaching that if my words abide in you—my statutes, my values, my principles, my will—if those are the things that govern your existence, that are the centre of your gravity, everything you desire will come to pass.

If God wills for you, “Hey, listen to me. I need you to stay in this place for the next 6 months and be humble. There's something I want you to learn." If you “will” that for yourself, then that wish will come to pass, and for six months, you will be humble and you will gain what God wants you to gain.

The reason why Jesus Christ's miracles were so consistent was because everything he did was what his father was doing. He was never against the will of God. So if you saw a person sick and he healed them, it's because God was healing them. And that's why he was always a channel, a portal for the life and power of God. He always desired what God desired.

If we desire what God desires, our desires will always come to pass, and anything you ask of God, he will give to you because you have asked him what he wants to give to you.

If a child says to a parent, Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy, today I only want to eat sugar. Your dad will reject you now. Because it's not good for you. But if you ask him, Daddy, Daddy, can I have some carrots with some cabbages? Well, I don't know about that, but hallelujah.

Carrots and cabbages. You know, I am always happy. Yes, my boy. You can have some carrots and cabbage. But let them mix.

So carrots, cabbage, some meat, and maybe a bit of rice. Your daddy will give it to you, won't he? Because that's something he wants to give to you.

The issue is when you want for yourself something your father doesn't want for you. And believe me, what your heavenly father doesn't want for you, you don't want for yourself. The thing is that you don't know that just yet. God bless you.

How do I know when to switch things up and get on the same page with God? I believe that if you are actively following someone, you don't have to switch things up. You're just going where they're going. It is like having a GPS. The Google Map says, in 100 metres, turn right, enter Michael Olubode Street, and turn left. Right?

If you're following the Holy Spirit, always checking with him, and following his promptings, you will always be on track. I remember hearing a message from Apostle Arome in WAFBEC 2023, and he said one of the ways that God is going to show the ministries that are relevant to his purpose is by how well they can keep up with what he's doing per time.

And how you know is a ministry that is working with techniques—that is, they find a method that will “bring in people” and “get people excited"—those different techniques that people do in their carnal strength that make it “seems like it’s working"—that's how we will know those that are following God. Because, after a while, there will be no light there, and it will just fizzle out. He said in his time he has seen many ministries like that—at one point it looked like there was light, but it fizzled out after a while—because there wasn't a constant gaze on the Lord.

If we are always asking God, “What are you doing?” And by asking him to check if our hearts are in the right place, we will open ourselves to correction by the Holy Spirit and readjustment when necessary. God is always dynamic, and it was revealed in the wilderness. When the spirit of God rests upon the tabernacle as a cloud, they will make their tent. When it lifts and begins to move, it moves.

You can't put God in a box. So you see, in the past 100 years, there have been so many moves and so many dispensations that have come about, and in each season, based on the needs of the time, God has become what he needs to become when he needs to become it.

Our job is to always ask the Holy Spirit, “Where are you? ” “What are you doing? ” The strength of Jesus Christ's ministry was that he was always watching for what the master was doing. That's why one day he will heal someone with his speech; on another day, he will heal someone with a lean hand. You couldn't put him in a box, and it's so funny how people read those stories; they now put it in a box. It's okay, this miracle you just performed; show me where Jesus Christ did it like that. As if everything Jesus Christ did was captured in the Bible, and as if the things captured were the only ways God could manifest through Jesus.

I know there's a place where we make sure we don't stray off course (we have to check the spirit); it is by the spirit that we’ll know. Sometimes the manifestation might not look like what has been done before, but when you discern the manifestation, you will know that it's the same spirit.

So God is dynamic. And if you keep our gaze upon him and keep on asking him, “What are you doing?” “This thing I'm doing, are you still here?” “Is it still what you want me to do?” If we have that humility to keep on checking with the Lord, as though we don't know anything, we will always find ourselves where He is.

It begins with honesty. One thing Jesus came to do was make people honest with themselves, and that is why they hated him because everything he was saying was true. As annoying as it was, you brood of vipers, you are killers, your words poison people, and you bring them to a spiritual grave. You are liars and thieves, and you don’t care for anybody.

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It was true! But, you see, those people were not honest with themselves.

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‍“Let the one who is without sin be the first to cast a stone.”.

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For people who were so self-righteous that they were ready to kill a woman, even though they themselves had their skeletons in their cupboard, it was something annoying for them. You see, if they were people who were truly reflective, introspective, and honest with themselves, all those things would not come as a surprise.

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There is a point where we begin to question ourselves: Why am I nicer to that guy and meaner to the other? Why is it that when this girl talks to me, I have to hold my breath and stammer, but with the other girl, I am so confident? We need to ask "why." What is it about this person that makes me so free and the other that makes me so uptight? We have to observe ourselves in our interactions with people. You can’t just sit down and say it is what is in my subconscious. NO! The subconscious is a responder (it responds to experiences).

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So you enter a place, and you, who are normally very bold, become very timid. You begin to question what it is about the room that triggers timidity in you. I thought I dealt with this 10 years ago. Why is my confident girl or boy  now afraid here? There is a place for observation of oneself, honesty, and sincerity. No matter how it makes us feel, like “this person makes me feel like I am so dumb, and the dumbness makes me feel like I don’t have anything smart to say," you have to be honest in observing yourself. That’s the first step.

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In dealing with fears, the only remedy to fear is confrontation, because fear is the product of ignorance (when you don’t know the outcome of a certain thing). That lack of knowledge that makes one exclaim, “Mehn! ” “Oh my God! ” “Ahh, I am going to die... I don’t know what is beyond there,"  “This thing is going to hurt me; I don't know how I am going to survive this pain,” and so on.

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That is why athletes are not so afraid of pain like that because they’ve had it so much that it does not even scare them anymore. They’ve broken their hip, toe, nose, etc. Someone like Shaquille O’Neal, if you find out how many surgeries he’s had, you will be amazed.

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One of the strengths of fear is ignorance (when you don’t know what’s on the other side), and sometimes there is a need to face it. But face it in small doses. Are you afraid of talking to people? You have to start talking to people. Even if there are five people in a room, then twenty, then a hundred, then ten thousand, you can only deal with fear through confrontation. Are you afraid of heights? Try and jump from some places (don’t do something that will kill you, but in a controlled environment). That is the only way to deal with fear. It is not about reading books or saying you want to meditate. Meditation must lift your action if the circuit is going to be completed. So, out of fear, you have to confront it in doses. Then gradually, you can face more until the fear is quenched.

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Crazy story…

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Back then, when I was in the world, I had a friend from the Dominican Republic; his name was Carlos. Carlos was a ladies' man. The way he would approach girls without fear, I couldn’t understand it. You know, I used to talk to girls and all, but he could talk to just anybody. In the morning, he will block girls, “Hey!” and I will be like, Carlos, How can you do this? and he will respond, “What’s the big deal? If they tell you no, no problem, you move on." But for me, the fear of rejection will stop me from talking. I will talk to a girl if I know that I have an upper hand or have a high chance. But he didn’t care, and even if she said “no” to him, so what? What’s the big deal? And he moves on. I am sure it came about as a result of facing it to the point where it doesn’t disturb him anymore.

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So, fear is conquered through confrontation.

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God bless you.

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If you put into practice the teachings that will be given over the next couple of weeks, you are the one who will begin troubling me saying, "My dreams are too much! My issue now is interpretation."

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There is nobody who doesn’t dream. Every blessed day, when you go to sleep, a dream happens. It is so much deeper than we think. If God permits, it will be one of the mystery curricula that I add. You know I said that I gave six extra weeks to the Holy Spirit? Yes! He is the one who will do a lot of things with what he wants to do. Maybe one of those days we would put some stuff there and talk about some deep matters.

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Everybody dreams. The issue is that we forget, and part of the reason we forget is that, just the way we go to bed sometimes with a frazzled mind, eat too much, lie down and not pause to have a one-pointed mind, sleep watching movie shows on Instagram—all these things frazzle the mind. Then, when we go to sleep with a destabilised consciousness, how do we expect to have a one-line train of thought in the realm of dreams? It won’t happen. We would forget what happened, even though something happened every night in the realm of the dream.

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This is not a spiritual matter per se. When they say pray, there is a place for that, but it is not really a spiritual matter. The spiritual matter is now how we engage the Lord so that our consciousness can find him in that realm. If it is about getting dreams, there are simple exercises you can carry out that will awaken you there.

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It is a small thing, but you must put into practice what will be taught and watch how that place will open up with wildfire.

The Bible teaches that whoever breaks the hedge, the serpent will bite. God said to Cain, Sin is crouching at your door, and its desire is to master you. Even if you have worked with God for 50 years, we must understand that when we talk about God, we are talking about a kingdom, and when we talk about a kingdom, we are talking about jurisdiction.

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In Nigeria, there are certain things that America cannot do to me so long as I am within the sovereignty of Nigerian lands. But you see, the moment I cross the border and enter the Benin Republic, that becomes a different situation. I am no longer within Nigeria, and Nigeria can no longer cover me so long as I am out of the country. Once I stepped out of the lands, I put myself under the governing power of another kingdom, and once there, that kingdom would have a legal right to “access my life” and do as they please.

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The reason why Jesus Christ went through what he went through was because God removed the hedge as a result of the sins that came upon him. He was cast out of the kingdom of God and put under the powers of the kingdom of darkness for a time, and that is why they could do all the things they did to Him because He was out of the kingdom for your sake and my sake.

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The moment a person leaves the covering of Jesus Christ, they enter into the hands of another power—it's simple logic. We quote lots of scriptures like “I am seated at the right hand with Christ Jesus” and later go and romance a boy or girl. Okay! After quoting scriptures and going to the boy or girl’s house, the question is, What happened there? Was that under the jurisdiction of the Holy Spirit? Now that we have done that, are we not aware that spirits are involved in the coitus that took place? When we carry out their labor, we are subject to them.

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The Bible says, “Do you not know that you are slaves to whomsoever you obey?” Be it obedience to the law leading to righteousness or sin leading to death, whatever you obey automatically becomes your master in the spirit (it doesn’t matter who you call daily). Jesus Christ said, “Why do you call me Lord? Lord!! And not do what I say?” This means that your Lord in the spirit is the one whose instructions you follow.

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If you say that you follow Jesus but that anger always inspires you to do things, pride is always making you talk, and lust is always moving you, it doesn’t matter how many scriptures we’ve quoted or how much we have prayed; by the fruits of our lives, our Lord and master are clear.

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It is a hard pill to swallow, but this is something we have to know to diagnose ourselves and know when another power is active in our lives. Even if you have elevated your consciousness to the realm of God, by being in that place, you have come down, and when you come down, you are in their realm now.

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Physically speaking, haven’t you seen when you are happy and suddenly get angry and irritated about something, and for some reason, thoughts of anger or violence just begin to find their way into your mind? Why do you think that is? Why didn’t those thoughts enter when you were happy? Because that state of happiness in the spirit is a location, and when you got angry, that was another location in the spirit realms. In both realms, you attract beings that are natives of those realms, and they will come and supply you with the relevant energy you need for that state.

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So even if you believe in Jesus and confess him as Lord, the moment we step out of the jurisdiction of the Lord... Jesus Christ healed the paralytic man and said to him, “Go and sin no more; that something worse will happen to you." Jesus Christ can heal someone, but if you leave the jurisdiction with your own hands, you can re-do the work he has done.

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When we talk about the walk of faith, I know many of us have heard, “Once saved, always saved." ! This note is too small to address such big matters. Maybe we will address that one day in our classes and open the can of worms.

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You see, the mindset that is looking for ways to join serving God and serving the world already knows where it belongs, and it doesn’t belong to the house of God. When we look for a way for two things to co-exist, it is already clear who has power over our minds. I am not saying that is you; I am just speaking about that mindset that’s always trying to reconcile worldliness and godliness. A godly mind can never want to do that. Only the mind of a thief will try to do something like that.

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For instance, you are addicted to smoking, and with the help of God, you stop. Then one day you did it again. Let’s leave spirituality aside. That cigarette you stopped smoking—there are chemical reactions that happen in your body that make you depend on it, and it took God’s grace for you to stop. Once you smoke it again, there are things called cell memory and muscle memory. Your body remembers your deep relationship with that cigarette, and in that moment, the portal has opened again (this is not even spirit; even though spirits can be involved, let’s just talk about your neurological system). In that moment, you have opened an old thing, and your batteries are fresh.

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Let’s not kid ourselves. God delivers me from alcohol, drugs, sexing around, etc., and I touch it again. I have brought fresh battles that I must face. It doesn’t matter what I believe. In this moment, belief does not matter. We must discover what reality is.

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A renewed mind cannot have common ground with the devil. It will not go and lie, steal, cheat, etc. Galatians 5 says the fruit of the spirit is love, long-suffering, patience, joy, peace, self-control, and the like; against this, there is no law. But before he talked about the things the law is not against, he talked about all the works of the flesh that the law will always be against—lasciviousness, envy, slander, gluttony, pride, outbursts of rage, proud looks—he talked about all the things a renewed mind can never have.

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So, if one has all those things, it shows that the mind is not fully renewed. We can say the mind is on a journey of renewal. The Bible says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind." So many of us are on the journey of renewal. We have not yet gotten to the destination. There are scriptures that say we are saved, other scriptures that say we have been saved, and others that say we shall be saved.

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It tells us that there is a journey that we are on. Have we begun the journey? Yes! But have we gotten to the finished line? How can we say we are there? Yes, Jesus has finished the work, meaning that everything that we need he has already released, but have we entered into it? We haven’t. We are still on that journey. Jesus has paid the school fees, but we have to do the four years of school. He has paid the $200,000.00; it’s for us to go and spend four years in that college and come out with our degree. He has finished the work, and we now have to enter into the work that he has finished.

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I hope these words have brought you some insight. God bless you.

Yes! It is possible but we must, however, have a hierarchy of priorities in the natural order and sequence that they follow.

A simple example: on a particular day, I have “non-negotiables” (things that I must give my attention to). I have my physical health and well-being in the form of showering, brushing my teeth, grooming, etc. I have my wife and child, I have God, my spiritual health, and I have work. All of these things I am meditating on simultaneously but there is a hierarchy of priorities. Based on the hierarchy, I know which one I will start first. Remember that I said, “hierarchy of priorities and natural order and sequence that they follow?”.

So when I wake up in the morning, there is something I do first based on my hierarchy of priorities and after that, I do the next one and so on. We all need to have a proper hierarchy of priorities and live according to that hierarchy.

So if you say that God is at the top of your priorities but you start your day and the first six hours are spent on Netflix, then it is clear that God is not really at the top of the hierarchy of your priorities (it’s just something you say to feel good about yourself). A time might come when your house catches fire and normally, you will brush, take your child to school and so on. You will have to push everything aside and what must take your full attention is to ensure that no life is lost and to get some valuable properties out of the house and call the fire department.

So, yeah, you can have more than one thing you are meditating on at a time but you must have a hierarchy of priorities. This way, you don’t waste the best of your time doing something that gives a tiny yield for you, especially when it collects so much in return.

For example, in a season of your life where you have a ministry, career, charity work, or a wedding you are planning, you have to focus on all these things because they are all important, but you will have to put them in a hierarchy list. Based on that hierarchy, you will engage them in their natural sequence and order so long as you know that an emergency happens and you will give each one the time it deserves.

When engaging any of them, you want to give yourself fully to it. So, in the time that you are working on ministry stuff, you are not thinking about work so much (you are giving your heart here). When you get to work, your mind is not on ministry this or that and so on. It will be easy to do all these because you have given every one of them the necessary attention.

You must give yourself fully when engaging in a particular thing, even if it is for 10 seconds and in those 10 seconds, the fullness of your being must be there. And when you have completed that task, you transfer it to something else. As I am answering your question, I am not thinking of my food on the table or my son; the few minutes that I am answering this question, my attention is on you, and when I finish it, I will take that attention and put it elsewhere.

This is how we can do things and have a natural sequence that will enable us to be productive. I hope this has answered your question.

The Bible teaches us in the book of 1 Samuel, chapter 10, that when Samuel sent Saul to hang around the company of the sons of the prophets, Saul began to prophesy. He didn’t have any prophetic training or history, nor was he from the lineage of prophets, but by being in the company of prophets, the spirit of prophecy came upon him.

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Our environment has a profound impact on our spiritual lives. If one struggles to pray, there is just one cure: attach yourself to a group of praying people and watch the spirit of prayer come upon you. That is the purpose of a community; what one cannot achieve individually, one can lean on the strength of the collective.

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Think about how you have a hoard of water buffalos. As individual buffalos, they can’t fight against a pride of lions, but when they band together, the lions become handicapped, and the lion is always looking for the buffalo that will stray from the park; that is the one it will strike. There is strength when one is within a community. When you are in the company of praying people and stick there with true humility and an open heart, the fire there will also come upon you.

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Beyond that, we need to know that when we talk about spiritual practices such as prayer, bible study, and things of that nature, it is beyond good feelings. It is a discipline. Because the flesh wars against the things of the spirit. Naturally, the flesh does not want to pray, meditate, study, or do anything that pertains to God (it will fight you). This is why we must cultivate disciplines that can enable us, regardless of whether we are excited, happy, or not. It is a discipline because we know this is what is needed for our spiritual health and well-being.

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You must know that prayer is a discipline that every child of God must have. We don’t just pray when things are going well. No! The Bible says “Pray without ceasing." When I’m broke, I pray. When I’m rich, I pray. When I am sick, I pray. When I’m healthy, I pray. When things are going right, I pray. When things are going tremendously wrong, I pray. Because it is a part of our lives and how we download strength from on high.

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We pray! We pray! A good way to help yourself is to find a band of praying men and women and attach yourself to them, and that same spirit will come upon you mightily like a tempest.