Just so we are clear...


• You don't have to call the name of Jesus 3 times to make your prayers effective.


• The louder your "amen" gets has no influence on the "size of your blessing". God is not impressed by the pitch of your voice. Your prayer leader may be. The dumb also prays and receives answers.


• There's no "law" that says you have to close your eyes during prayers. There's no where God asked us to do so. If it enhances your concentration, so be it.


• The much-touted fixed 7 cononical hours of prayer is a carry-over from ancient Jewish tradition. God has no timetable for prayers. His doors are open 24/7. You can pray "on the go". Pray without ceasing.


• Midnight prayers are in no way more effective than day-time prayers and vice versa. The God of the night is the God of the day. Night and day are only experienced by those who pray and not by Him who answers prayers. By the way, morning time in Lagos is night time in New York City, yet the same God. God does not run shifts.


• Giving money, the purported act of "seed-sowing" to back prayers does not confer efficacy on your prayers. "Answered prayers" are not for sale. I know all the scriptures coming to your mind. They have been twisted to make you believe God wants to be tipped before he responds to man. They paint the picture of scratch-my-back and I scratch-your-back kind of heavenly father to you. This is not true.


• If God answers prayers based on how much you can give, then the rich have better access to God than the poor. I know that religion generally discriminates against the poor. But God does not. Your money may give you better access to your religious leaders but not a better access to God.


• Where the Bible says "....you will lay up gold as dust(Job 22:24), it wasn't a declaration of promise of wealth to man as many have posited. It was a friend of Job advising him to not trust in his wealth but make the "Almighty" his defence.


• The presence of wealth is not the same as the presence of God's approval of you and vice-versa. Money is not the indication of God's presence. God is not Gold. There are many wealthy people in human history that did not acknowledge God. You can argue with the obvious.


• When the Bible says "the gift of a man makes room for him and brings him before kings..", contextually, it refers to bribe. Yes, a bribe. Here, the pundit was reflecting on how people bribed their way up; sent gifts to great people in order to get their attention. It happens in politics as well as in religious circles.


• Wealth or access to money does not discriminate. God gives power to get wealth but He doesn't show favoritism along religious or tribal lines. Men and women of all colors, religions, creeds, tribes and tongues have access to wealth that God put on the earth. He makes his rain to fall on all and sundry without discrimination.


• Faith in Christ Jesus is not a guarantee for wealth or earthly riches. Jesus did not come so that mankind can have money. Men have been acquiring wealth before He came. The blessing that Christ brought to man is eternal and not ephemeral - reconciling man back to God. In the same vein, What God gives to man through Christ Jesus is not long life but eternal life. Men have been living long on earth before Jesus came. This does not mean that the believer is exempted from long life and wealth. But these are not the focus of the Christian faith. Saying what Jesus came for is "all-encompassing" has gotten many into muddled waters.


• When Paul asked Timothy to take a little wine for his troubled stomach, he was only asking him to take his medicine 💊. From time immemorial, certain liquids have served as media/solvents for herbs 🌿 used in treating ailments. They include alcohol, water and olive oil, alcohol being the commonest. You won't need to look hard to see that the practice is still alive in spite of the advent of modern medicines.


• For nursing mothers and their husbands, there's nothing that says a woman must stay at home for 40 days before showing up at a church meeting or elsewhere. What was imported into church was the ritual cleansing obtained in Judaism. Typically, under Judaism, a woman was considered to be "unclean" because of lochia (the flow that lasts for between 3 to 6 weeks after child delivery). This is not the position in the Christian faith. If you think it is for you, why not go the whole length? Take along with you 2 turtle doves or a lamb for ritual cleansing as customary under Judaism. You can as well consider yourself unclean to be in the gathering of God's people during menstruation. Temple worship under Judaism is not the same as the gathering of the saints in the Christian faith. 


• Lastly, the Bible contains an elaborate description of two different types of faith and how one is a pale representation/ shadow of the other; Judaism and the Christian faith. Being able to tell the Christian faith apart from Judaism is the end of religious confusion and the beginning of true rest that is found in Christ Jesus.


Friends, have a beautiful week.


It is a new day!


Credit: NINYO