It is very rampant for us to spend our youth in the club partying and our middle age in the clubhouse with fellow golfers enjoying the lavish lifestyle and before we die, we request a christian burial. Excuse my Christianese but what exactly is a “Christian burial”? oh! I get it now, it means take my corpse to church and let the priest or pastor utter some words over it before we put it back in the ground. By the way if that corpse is in America or Europe, be sure to ship it to the country of origin after all it was “made in Cameroon”. Talk about misplaced priorities!

I may not always be the sharpest knife in the drawer so someone please help me here. What exactly are we hoping to achieve by the corpse being taken to church? Do we believe that the pastor has a hidden way of getting us into heaven through the service he will perform? Or is it that the famous pearly gates to heaven can be found somewhere in the church building? Better yet, I heard that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, I mean the only way, so maybe we are believing that although we spent our lives running away from church, we can find Jesus here in death. If this same pastor/prophet was fake in life, what makes us trust him in death to manage out grand exit from earth into heaven? My brain is now on overtime. For real folks, what exactly is our thought process here?

Jesus has always been relegated to one who does not count much through out the history of mankind. Man has always thought that he knows better and that he is master of his own destiny. Proverbs 14:12 ‘There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death’. Man has always done things his own way and not bothered much to find out about what the creator thinks. The way we see things is really not going to count in the end. How we process our exit from earth with our village ceremonies which include many satanic rituals and  last for days on end will do nothing for us. Let me help us all with this truth; Jesus calls the shots! Jesus has already determined how to get to heaven and I suspect that deep down, even though we tend not to live lives that are obedient to the ways of God, we know this truth. Our soul knows this truth. This is the reason why an unbeliever will make a request on his dying bed to be given a church burial. The sad fact is, a church burial will not get us into heaven, knowing Jesus while we were alive is what will.

Let me leave you to ponder on the word of God. Ecclesiastes 12:1 Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”. If you are looking to make heaven you will have to get the right keys to open those pearly gates. Verses 13-14 say ‘The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil’.

Jesus is Lord, he is the way the truth and the life. He is keeping tabs of our club activities just like he is of our church activities. Draw nigh to him now  and secure your pass to heaven.

Friends the time to pray and seek the Lord is now oh, not when someone has died and then we start praying for their souls to rest in peace. Rest in peace actually means nothing to be honest. If you pray and serve God now, you are assured a place in his bosom. If you do not have time for God now and you die, no matter how much your family and friends pray for you to rest in peace or for you to rest in the Lord’s bosom, you will be a candidate for eternal damnation. I know most people don’t like these kinds of messages but this message is true love. We the servants of God need to stop fooling our people with messages that will not help their souls. The truth will help us all to position correctly before we die. As we say in Camer pidgin “pack fine” now oh!

You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free!

A Prayer for my country Cameroon

Lord I stand before you like your servant Abraham did, I stand in the name of Jesus, my righteousness. Please do not pass me by oh Lord, please do not pass my country Cameroon by. Lord I repent on behalf of my people, I repent for the sin of idolatry oh God, we have gone our own way and we have become lovers of ourselves, we have esteemed ourselves higher than you Lord. In self pride we have believed in our own abilities and built our country on our academics and politics. Father we have rejected your ways and mocked those who serve you in Cameroon. Father we have served so many other gods in our nation and deserve your wrath but I ask for your mercy today for Cameroon through Christ Jesus who died to wash away our sins.

Lord you are a merciful God. Your mercies are new every morning and you are rich in mercy. Have mercy on us oh Lord according to your unfailing love. Lord you are compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. Wash away our iniquity and cleanse us from our sins. Who is like you oh God, you do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy.

Father I pray that you will raise men in Cameroon who will direct their children and household after you to keep your ways. I pray that we will begin to do what is right and just in Cameroon so that you will bless our nation. Oh Lord do not destroy the righteous with the wicked in Cameroon. Father there are more than 10 righteous people in Cameroon, there are more than 50 righteous in Cameroon. For the sake of your faithful children in Cameroon father please forgive our nation and may Cameroon become a blessing to its people, may Cameroon become a blessing to Africa, may Cameroon become a blessing to the world, all for your glory.

Father I thank you that you have heard my cry and the cry of all your faithful children from Cameroon. Father I thank you that you are working to bring a change in Cameroon. I thank you that Cameroon will be changed for your glory. All this I ask in the name of Jesus, Amen.

Bible Reading: Genesis 18: 16-33

16When the men got up to leave, they looked down toward Sodom, and Abraham walked along with them to see them on their way. 17Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? 18Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.^c 19For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.”

20Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous 21that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.”

22The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord.^d 23Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare^e the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? 25Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?”

26The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.”

27Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, 28what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?”

“If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.”

29Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?”

He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.”

30Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?”

He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.”

31Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?”

He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.”

32Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?”

He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.”

33When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.

This weekend, I was humbled to be part of a women’s conference with the theme ‘bringing out the jewel in you’ amidst some powerful women of God who shared so many valuable nuggets on the process of becoming a jewel in Christ. As someone that serves the body of Christ by leading people to freedom from spiritual oppression, I shared my perspective on how you become a jewel.

Many of you know deep within that you are supposed to be more than what your life represents at the moment. You know there is more for you and you want more. You have done all you know to do to get to that next level but there seems to be no change. You have fasted, prayed, been to conferences but you are still experiencing stagnation in your life, or maybe even a declining stance in life. This is an experience that I have personally been through and it can be extremely frustrating. So what is the missing link?

There is an unseen agent that does not want us to become that jewel. As I shared at the conference, I believe that the secret lies in Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” God himself is speaking here and letting us in on a key to our freedom from bondage. This sounds like warfare to me and although the church tends to shy away from addressing and teaching on this, spiritual warfare is a fact of life. You see the enemy is in a war with the woman and her seed, whether the woman acknowledges it or not. Christ came to help us win this war. 1 John 3:8 … For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

Bringing out the jewel involves spiritual warfare! There must be a victorious battle in every oyster for the jewel to be brought out. If you are going to birth your destiny and walk in your purpose, you will have to learn how to take a hold of the legal certificate of freedom Jesus gave us and use that to posses your freedom. If I am a homeless person living under a bridge and someone gives me a title to a luxurious fully paid for 4000 sq ft house with my name on it, if I return to sleeping under the bridge, my condition will not change. I must understand what the title means for my life and how I can use it to get the keys to my new home in order to possess and occupy my new home.

Thank God for Jesus! We don’t have to loose this battle. We can learn how to crush the head of the enemy. Psalm 144:1 says Blessed be the Lord my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. Remember that Christ has won the battle for you and I, he has given us the title to the treasure house. Colossians 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Use your title today and demand your rights to occupy, poses your possessions in Jesus name!

If you do not have things in your life that you have kept secret because you feel ashamed or embarrassed,  please stand up. I need to meet you! I know that there are many people in this part of the world with the name Jesus but your last name is certainly in Spanish and definitely not in Greek as in the anointed one. Jesus Christ is the only one who never sinned. As for you and I, and even that sweet grandma next door, we all have had skeletons in our closet. As you read this you may still have hidden secrets that cause you to have sleepless nights at the thought of anyone finding out. Maybe that envious friend is trying hard to drag your skeletons out of the closet into the exhibition hall downtown so the world can see that you are not as good as you have led people to think you are.

Truth is, we have all done some things in our lives that made us feel really ashamed, then we prayed hard that we would not be exposed and disgraced. Sometimes the errors we made were things that could have cost us a  job, a marriage or a valued friendship. Most often those around us are only too eager to gossip about our weaknesses and mistakes. Because we don’t want to be ridiculed, we have learnt how to keep those secrets in the darkest closets.

Today I want to encourage you to stop hiding.  The Bible says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Even those friends who are mocking you have sinned, yes even the church folk! Those who look like they are perfect have sinned. The friends on Facebook and Whatsapp having a party about your shame have sinned. Your parents, teacher, pastor and this writer have sinned! In fact many who appear faultless have probably just mastered the art of keeping their own shameful secrets well tucked away.

The devil loves it when we hide things because when we hide we will not be able to get the help we desperately need. After Adam and Eve sinned in the garden by eating the fruit, what happened? You guessed right, they became ashamed and hid from God. This is how the devil deceives us. There is nothing that God does not see. The good news is, there is nothing too shameful that Jesus cannot forgive if we come to him rather than hide. There is no mistake that His blood cannot wash. 1 John 1:7 says that Jesus is the light and his blood cleanses us from all sin. Isaiah 1:18 says ‘though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’. Allow the light of Christ to shine in every dark place in your life. Let his light come into every dark closet and the Holy Spirit will help you to move past your shameful past or present. So what if people laugh at you or look at you differently because they found out about something you did? When the woman was caught in adultery in John 8:1-11, Jesus asked anyone who had never sinned to cast the first stone at her and we all know that not even one person could do so. All Jesus is asking of you is that you go and sin no more.

I have learnt to use my mistakes, weaknesses and shameful secrets to testify when I am ministering to others. When you have repented of your previous ways, every skeleton changes from a thing of shame to a source of power to transform another life by the finished work on the cross through the blood of Jesus. Let those who want to laugh at you have their fun at your expense, when Jesus is done with you, they will come to you for help. Like Job’s friends, they will one day need you to pray for them. Can the dry bones live again? I dare say yes, every skeleton that encounters Jesus, when the wind of the Holy Ghost blows on it, it will have new life and  become a mighty soldier in the army of the most high God. As for me, I’m trading my shame, I’m  laying them down for the joy of the Lord!