Greetings in the precious name of our Lord and Savior – Jesus Christ. Heaven and earth may pass away but not a jot or a title of God’s words shall go unfulfilled. Hence, the truth that Jesus Christ is coming back is sacrosanct and, therefore, as expectant pilgrims, we should do all within our power to ensure we both hasten the consummation of this expectation and are not caught napping on its crystallization. Consequently we have been looking at the necessity of understanding the times. You will recall that in the last edition we considered the fact that it is an age of relativism, where everything all depend on prevailing circumstances. Again, what time is it?
It is an Information Age: It is an information rather than a revelation age. Information, defined as a message received and understood, by its very nature is powerful because it has capacity to either inform, reform or deform the mind. Just as we all rightly know, every man is a reflection of his mind. For instance, the bible says in Proverbs 23:7 that a man is exactly what he thinks (my own reflections). The greatest battle ever, is the battle of the mind. Unfortunately, this is where the spirit of the times has targeted to engage. While God through His Holy Spirit is calling for our attention, the spirit of the age is also, through various means, struggling for our attention. I was in a public place sometimes ago and, I was amazed at how everybody got glued to their hand devices checking up on one thing or the other on the net. As I sat down watching, the question that kept ringing in my mind was, how well and best can God reach these minds already preoccupied with every other thing, that appeal to the flesh, but God! To a large extent, in my opinion, a large proportion of these information are designed and targeted to distort and impair the free flow of the gospel in the heart of men. Because they appeal to the flesh, they therefore, command attention of men for a long time – have you observed that you hardly get distracted whenever you are reading through an ‘interesting’ post on your device? The implication of this is that, moments of meditation on the scriptures have shrunk very significantly for some unwary pilgrim. Productive thoughts have diminished with cheap availability of scraps that feed the flesh. Consequently, in times like these, what should be the attitude of the rightly focused believer? I opine, and that very strongly, that as pilgrims, we should be selective about what we feed our minds on. In Philippians 4:8, the bible says “Finally, brethren, whatsoever 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.”
Beloved, I believe if you can allow God to keep your mind sane at this time, I am sure you can as well keep your life save for eternity. The glory is indeed ahead and we strive to stay on course. Happy congress and wishing you Merry Christmas and a happy New Year all in advance. I like to pause here at this time and trust God to be with you again in the next edition, if Jesus tarry in His coming. Until then, God bless you and thanks for your time.
Maranatha!
Your companion in the race – EZEKIEL ONI.
