GET RID OF LAZY HABITS MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE OF LIFE

Preached on 2nd April, 2006 by The Son of Man (Apostle Peter Odoemena) AT THE HOUSEHOLD OF GOD Onitsha

Man is subject to change. When you are not comfortable with the life you are living, you effect a change. You have to change your life!

-Son of Man

A Word from the Author

Your only son can disappoint you, your business can disappoint you, but Christ will never, never disappoint you. William Braham said and I believe it, “When a man meets Christ, he rests.” When you debase Christ, you live a sorrowful life. If we can learn to depend on God, He will establish us. Nobody embraces God and regret it.

We have a great challenge before us. You cannot give what you don’t have no matter how generous you may be. Most of our parents are still bad at their old age, which prompted us to begin to correct them.

          Are you glorifying God for counting you worthy to be in this Faith? There is no Message in this Faith that can be shaken. Once you are excommunicated from this Faith, you are excommunicated from life.

          Teaching is life, when you receive sound teaching, you will have life. When you listen to what Churches are preaching, you will notice that Churches have raised more criminals than any other organization. If you say Churches are “business centres,” they will be offended.

We are the most holy Faith on earth; believe it if you can. The Presence of God makes everything holy. You cannot come to the Son of Man unless you are of the Son of Man.

          If you don’t know your father’s weakness, you will fail where your father failed. The question is: Am I satisfied with the level of my achievement? When you discover where the weakness of your father lies, try to beat that mistake. “Omekannaya” is not a good name. That is why I don’t believe in duplicating names.

If I am feeling inferior to my wife, that means she is not my wife. The same way, if my wife is feeling inferior to me, she is not my wife.

The Word of God is always new. Everything can be old but the Word of God is always new. The Spoken Word is the Original Seed. The Word respects nobody, even the Son of Man, that’s why my life is tied to it.

          Our enemies are trying seriously to find out the secret of our unity. Behind every bad advice to a Brother, there is a big name. “Experts” who put people into trouble don’t help them when trouble comes.

It is not preaching that matters; I always say, “God, let me preach to myself first. May I not preach to others and perish, but to myself first and be saved.” Whatever trouble that comes your way, if it is not traced to this Faith, you should be blamed.

Where we are standing today is better than where we were standing yesterday. God will create opportunities that will beat people’s imagination. Forget all disappointment all these years; God is going to take a lot of you by surprise this year.

There is no way you can be settled without God settling you with material things. God is coming your way, not the way you think but the way He thinks. God is going to give you rest in your own homeland. Put God to test.

From today, watch how God will come your way. Families that have not been having peace will have peace to the core. The Power of the Almighty will rest on you and your health, strength will be renewed.

From now, cast all your sorrows and woes away for they will become things of the past. When God has come to bless, nothing can

stop it. This year, hold God at His Promise. Be gentle, be forgiving, faithful, patience, humble and hopeful.

I love you all. Remain in your Sanctified Estate as we continue in Him… 

Son of Man (Apostle Peter Odoemena)

Can a man describe God? You describe God from the angle you touched Him because you are blind…

-Son of Man

PART ONE

Get Rid of Lazy Habits

Chapter One

FEATURES OF LAZY HABIT

If you look at a lazy family, when there is a little work in the family, all of them will be there, doing a little work that will not be sufficient for two men. Is it not laziness? It is a lazy habit.

2. You must be satisfied with yourself everyday that you have carried out a noble activity, that you have utilized the day very well. You have to be satisfied within yourself that “I never idled away my time today. I utilized my time fruitfully today. Then you will be happy.

3. Lazy habits! Another way it reflects among the children is through what I call, “Ida anya:” When you see something you should do, you off your eyes from it, you will be expecting somebody else to do it. Another person will see it, he’ll off his eyes, saying, “It doesn’t concern me.” who does it concern? It concerns you! Because you are developing yourself either positively or negatively. If the work in your father’s compound doesn’t concern you, who then does it concern? When you see something that is about to spoil, it doesn’t concern you. In your father’s house, it doesn’t concern you, then, if you go outside, is that where you will improve? You will even be worst there. Watch all the youths among us, if you have a lazy habit, you cannot go far in life.

4. A lazy man has very “low ambition” and has a very “short vision” of life.  A lazy man doesn’t go far in life. He has very low ambition, very short vision. He delights himself in: when he sees good things, he will admire it, but he doesn’t want to pass through the “rigors” the people pass through to obtain them. He wants manna to come down from heaven. He desires a jeep, but he is not ready to pay the price for the jeep.

5. A lazy man is highly envious! I say a lazy man is highly envious!! Because when laziness has brought poverty to him, he begins to be envious of those that have succeeded through hard work.  When he has “misused” his opportunities, he begins to envy those that utilized their time very effectively, and these are the people that I called murderers. Watch lazy people with lazy habits, I call them murderers and they are good at discouraging industrious people.

6. When he comes near you when you are doing your business, he will say, “Eh eh-eh, it is enough now! Will you die? Every time you are busy, every time you are busy, where are you going?” That is a lazy man, but when you see an industrious man, when he meets somebody that is industrious, he will say, “Una well done, ooh, nna well done! I am coming; well done, well done!” Because there can never be success without labour, you have to work. But watch a lazy fellow, he has very low ambition about life, because of his lazy habits, he doesn’t aspire to be wealthy. He doesn’t aspire even to marry or to build a house, or to have something tangible for himself because he’s a lazy man, a lazy woman.

A LAZY FAMILY RAISES LAZY CHILDREN

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et me tell you, you cannot be industrious and raise lazy children. Watch any man that is industrious, he incorporates all his children into that assignment. He doesn’t like to see any of the children loafing about (idling away). He engages them in lawful activities.

8. Lazy habits. A lazy man doesn’t know the value of time. I say a lazy man doesn’t know the value of time. To a lazy man, age means nothing to him. He is never conscious of his age because of laziness. He will only tell you, “Anytime a man wakes up from the bed becomes his own morning.” Na lie! You cannot wake up in the afternoon and tell me it is eight o’clock in the morning. If you say, “When a man wakes up from the bed becomes his own morning,” well done! Make the night your morning.

9. A lazy man, I have a word for you. You that want to go to bed before the right time, let me tell you, if you “dare” go to bed before the right time, you must surely come out. If you don’t lick your lips well, the hamattan will lick it for you. If hunger doesn’t wake you up from the sleep, poverty will wake you up. So, don’t go to bed before the time.

DO NOT HELP A LAZY IN THE FELLOW

A lazy man writes himself off. He can never believe he can do something meaningful; always blaming others for his failure. A lazy man blames others for his failure and that’s why I say, don’t support a lazy man for he will waste your resources, the laziness in him can never tell him to use the resources judiciously.

11. A lazy man doesn’t know how to make out something out of nothing. A lazy man believes he must be helped before he can achieve success.

12. A lazy man always needs help, but an industrious man loves to help people.  I repeat: A real man, a wise man always wants to help, but a lazy man wants to receive help and he doesn’t know the meaning and value of help, that is why he abuses it.

13. Get rid of lazy habits, busy doing nothing, showing the impression that you are doing something, yet, virtually, you are doing basically nothing. Amen.

EFFECT A CHANGE

When you discover that you have made mistake in the time past, you first accept the mistake; secondly, effect a change.

It is not easy to effect a change in a man’s heart. Change is not easy. Before change can be effected, nature has to be subdued.

There are some natures that are inherent in ones behaviour and these make change difficult.

You can only correct somebody who has the Spirit of Truth. God has given us His Spirit to believe the truth.

Chapter Two

ATTRIBUTE OF LAZY STUDENTS

Watch the youths among us, students among us, you cannot succeed except you study. Laziness will always make you to go to special centres where you will hire people for a pay who will write exams for you. Then you will be only a transcriber for that person you have hired to write for you. Shame on you. I say, shame on you. Is he not your fellow student? What did you go to school to do? For six years you spent in the school, instead of writing your exams at your level, you will invite your co-student at your level, then he will write and you will copy, and at the end, you present a good result.

2.       A lazy student can never go higher because you can never go beyond the help which you can get from others. Academically, there is a place where you get to and nobody will help you again. It is because your brain is not functioning. But you have been going to school; books are being purchased for you, School fees paid, why are you in a “special centre”? Why are you doing “expo”? That “expo” is in the textbook. Every “expo” is in the textbook! Why didn’t you bend down to study? It is because of lazy habits.

3.       An industrious student believes in putting on the “midnight lantern,” he doesn’t play with “midnight lantern.”

4.       But, a lazy student will always lazy about every now and then, proudly calling himself a “senior student” when his head is “empty.” Why? Because he refuses to read; he is embarking his hope somewhere, placing his responsibility on somebody outside himself whom he will give money for him to write exam(s) for him. A shameful act, a sign of laziness.

5. Now, when you get to JAMB, from JAMB to screening (university aptitude test), when you get to the screening, there you defend your brain. With your four hundred percent (your scores in JAMB), the world will like to know how you came about four hundred percent; then come and secure admission.

6. Lazy students run away from screening. They don’t appear in that list because it is a place where no help will come — that which is in you, come and tell the world, finish!

7. Even if your father is a millionaire, it is not there. Has the V.C. or Professor as your brother, it is not there.

CULTISM—AN ACT OF LAZINESS

Lazy students, they are the people that join secret cults. Watch all cultists in the Universities, in the secondary schools, higher institutions, they are filled with lazy, lazy students that have refused to read and they are being rusticated. Some have been dismissed. They now gang-up and form cults where they will be intimidating other students, intimidating lecturers – lazy, lazy habits.

9. A lazy student always watches his clock, even in the class. Watch all lazy students, their eyes are fixed on the clock; even when the teacher is willing to help them, you will be hearing, “time up! Time up! Time up!” They will be making a hell of noise to chase the teacher away, not knowing that the teacher is there to help them. They think that they are doing well. They don’t know that they are looking at the time to their own peril.

10.     They will go to school in the morning, before ten o’clock you see them back, loitering on the streets. You ask them, they will tell you “the teacher is not in the class, our teacher didn’t come. Well, I don’t have any lecture that time— stupidity. The best environment for a student to learn is the school environment. If the teacher is not there, are you not there with your books? Is the library not there?

STUDY AND SUCCEED

A lazy student claims he can do better at home than in the school. Na lie. When you come home, domestic activities are there. Your bad friends are around you, who will lure you out. Your TV is there, your video is there, your CD is there! All to distract your attention, plus your numerous girl friends who will come your way to take you away. You cannot do that (study). The best environment for a student to study and succeed is the school environment. You are there with your fellow students and you pair up with somebody who has the same ambition with you.

12.     If you have a high ambition, you want to enter the university, you have to pair up with people that are industrious, who are clamouring to enter the university.

13.     Not when you want to enter the university you will be pairing up with renegades. I mean renegades, hooligans, who do not know the value of education, who are always eyeing Main Market, always disturbing their parents: “give us three hundred thousand naira. I want to establish my own shop where I will be selling handsets.” He doesn’t know that with three hundred thousand naira, he will even do his masters degree in the best university in Nigeria. I mean with three hundred thousand naira, if you can collect it from your father, put it in a bank account, secure admission in the university, you will have a balance. Finish your master’s degree and have a balance, and then you become a man.

RECOGNIZING YOUR PAST MISTAKES

If you are not doing well in this life, find out why. You will find out that the reason for your failure can be traced to you.

Man’s greatest enemy is himself. Life is nothing but what you make it. It is you alone that will suffer the negative life you are living.

What lessons have you learnt from your past mistakes? Correction is for the future. Remember that even the Almighty cannot change the past.

Some learn great lesson from their past mistakes while some do not learn any at all.

Chapter Three

THE AWFUL EFFECT OF LAZY HABITS

Let me tell you, stealing is a lazy habit. I say, stealing is a lazy habit. If God has blessed you with sound health, your hands are okay, your legs are okay, your eyes are okay, you are a correct human being; you have no reason why you should steal. You are stealing because you refused to work.

2. Why won’t you steal? Lazy habits leads to failure. Number one step to failure is lazy habit. Get rid of lazy habits and then you will be successful in life, in your marriage, in your work, in every day life. You will be successful once you get rid of lazy habits. You won’t complain of anything. You won’t be grumbling. You won’t be grudging. Your mind will be focusing on things that are honourable, things that are noble, things that are of honest reports, things that can engender progress, which is where your mind will be wondering.

LAZINESS SHORTENS YOUR VISION

If you are industrious, there is no time to waste because time is precious to every industrious person. To an industrious person, time is precious, time is his greatest enemy. If it is possible, he will like a day to be forty eight hours. That is an industrious man. His greatest enemy has always been time. But a lazy man always watches his clock.

5. Lazy habits lead to short vision, low ambition which leads to poverty. It can even lead to pre-mature death because, when you are not “enjoying life,” you are “enduring life.” If you are not enjoying life, you are enduring life. When you become successful, you enjoy life, but when you fail, you endure life.

5. “Nna, let us be enduring it, that’s what the daybreak brought. Will we fight God?” that is a lazy man’s statement.  Amen.

THE GREAT TRUTHS (ONE)

When you obey the Word of God, you are cleansed and sanctified. But if you don’t obey, you are filthy; believing God means obeying His Word.

Believe it if you can, the thought of your heart speaks louder than the words of your mouth before God.

There is nothing (services) you will do in this Faith that will guarantee your membership of this Faith. Obedience is better than sacrifice.

If the Almighty should call you today in death, can you stand and tell Him that you have been faithful to Him? We know ourselves from the beginning.

Chapter Four

WORRY: OFFSPRING OF LAZY HABITS

Please, I want to go to the Message “Worry.” If you don’t want worry, kill worry before worry will kill you. When you kill lazy habits, you have killed worry. When you kill lazy habits in your children, you have killed worry; for nothing worries the family more than having lazy children who can never do well in everything.

2. If you have children in this Faith and they are not performing well, do you feel fine? Do you go to bed and sleep well? If you do not remember anything, you ask yourself this question: if by tomorrow I am no more, who will replace me in this life; will it be these children? I am looking at what looks like goats, but with human being’s heads, he will begin to loose his breath.

3. He will say, “All these sufferings of mine, who are my sufferings for? These mad people coming behind me, never-do-well, are they worth dying for?” The man will start selling his houses and some landed properties and everything for him to feed well and live long. Have you not seen somebody that has done this before? It’s been done.

4. So, what am I saying? This is another way of preaching “worry.”  tackle this lazy habits as it affects us as parents, tackle it as it affects our children and help them to succeed even where we failed, give them a new orientation, worry bye-bye. I say, worry bye-bye.

5. Do you know that a child that will be a debtor is identified at the early stage? It is said, “A good day starts with a very bright sunshine.” After child bearing, you give them a wonderful training, it is then you start watching what is in them. The things coming out from them will be giving you joy. 6. If you look round, you will say, “Yes, instead, let me use myself as collateral, get a loan from somebody to forge ahead.” Because there is something you are observing, something that is gingering you up. But the other way round, there are things you will be observing in them, and you will say, “No, no, instead of this...” To God be the glory.

7. I know I am planting a seed which I will reap the fruit sometimes, someday. I believe that even if parents will deny me, these little children will not deny me, so I am leaving something for posterity. Something money cannot give to us. Something our parents couldn’t give us because they didn’t have it. Even till today, they are still suffering.

LIVING BEYOND THE PRIMITIVE PART OF LIFE

If you are not moving with time, you will be left behind. As long as God is alive, everything will be changing—politics, markets, climate, economy is changing.

As cost of things are rising everyday, is your income commensurate with the rise of cost of living? Or is your income fixed? Find out whether your income is traveling with time or fixed.

Are you in the position to increase your own income so as to be in tune with the time?  Half-bread is permitted where there is no bread at all. But where there are assorted breads, half-bread is an abomination.

Chapter Five 

THE ESSENCE OF EDUCATION

Now please, cast your minds back, look at the family where you come from, whatever you could see as your father’s success or as your parents success; if you actually knew your parents before they died or if they are still alive, whatever you may be calling their success or their noble achievements, what do you think contributed to that which you have seen in them or in their lifestyle?

2. Do you think their parents made them what they are or they made themselves what they are? What and what have your parents told you they inherited from their parents which made them what they are? What type of stories have they been telling you about their own ordeals in life which made them what they are, whether poor or rich? Are there opportunities they told you they missed; I mean opportunities that could have made them great? Are your parents living a life of regret or a life of praise? By life of regret, I mean, are they regretting good opportunities that eluded them may be because of their carelessness or discouragement from somebody?

3. Let me use one for example: My mother and my mother in-law have similarities. Before I got married, my mother was always placing a curse on her senior brother who took her to Afikpo when she was too tender to help him take care of his children. While the man was sending his children to school, he didn’t send my mother, the highest thing he could do for my mother was to send her to convent school at Emekuku to learn weaving, and that was what she was learning when my father married her.

4. But this man who co-opted her when she was too tender, was sending his own children to school, but refused to send my mother. For that, my mother doesn’t know how to read and write. And everyday, she continued to lament, she continued to place a curse on that man.

5. One day she came back from Owerri where they attended a convention with another woman of the same grade with her. So, she called me, she said that she wept in the convention when she saw some prominent women speaking English, reading the papers they passed round. That immediately she recollected herself, she said she would not misbehave herself there. With her friend there, she would not misbehave herself there. With her friend there, she moved her hand into her hand bag and brought out a very “big eyeglass” which she bought because of her Apollo (conjunctivitis), put it on her eyes with a big head-gear. She said she collected the paper from them, placed it before herself, and was moving her lips pretending to be reading the contents of that paper.

6. Then, each time people begin to clap for the woman that was reading, that she would also clap, but she was not reading anything out of it. Though, she brought the paper and gave me, saying, “See what Ikebu (her brother) caused me!”

7. Then down here, I got married, up till this morning, my mother in-law is still placing a curse on her parents, verify from my wife. Any day she comes to my house, first statement, “It will never ‘be well’ with my father and mother in the grave for not training me. If they had educated me, at least given me elementary six, I wouldn’t have been what I am today.” I believe that.

IGNORANCE KILLS

Let me tell you, if you watch our parents that were denied academic education, they were brilliant people, they were all very brilliant, very articulate, very industrious.

9. Do you know that, that time, only fools were send to school so that Oyibo people would kill them? If you have a stubborn child, in order to punish him, you send him to school.

10. But to intelligent people, you marry for them, give them barn of yam, give them very big land to cultivate. If it is a girl, you dare not send her to school, lest people will spoil her. You will keep her around you and then betroth her to a man. You will always be proud, “My daughter married at seven, my daughter is six years old and people are coming to marry her,” and the man is proud. You see what ignorance can cause.

11. I am saying that the greatest sickness that deserves a permanent cure is ignorance. Nothing destroys a man’s future more than ignorance. Amen.

Part Two

MAKING THE RIGHT CHOICE OF LIFE

Chapter One 

CHOICE, THE MOST PERPLEXING PROBLEM

CONFRONTING EVERY MAN IN LIFE

Do you know that ignorance is self-inflicted injury? It is self-inflicted injury!  People today behave like their fathers who made wrong, wrong choices of life; you know the life our fathers lived was a “question of choice,” and where they introduced us was also a question of choice.

2. Now, your father can make a choice for you when you are too tender, but, once you become an adult, you have the right to make your own choice and your own choice may clash with that of your father. Please, follow me very well; I am handling a topic, which I handled on my family altar also, because I believed it is good for everybody.

THE PROBLEM OF CHOICE

Making the right choice of life. The most common everyday language we use is “choice.” “Nna, na my choice-o.” The hardest thing a man should make in life is a choice. It is not easy to make a choice. It is not easy for one to make a choice. The greatest problem that has always confronted mankind in life is the problem of choice.

4. Even if I place life and death before you now, and ask you to make your choice, you may appear confused as to the right one to make. If I place poverty and wealth here and ask you to make your choice, don’t be surprise that fearfully, you will be confused, you may be tempted to make wealth your choice, but you may not know the consequences. The fear of the unknown may grip you, then you look at poverty, you say, “No! no human will like to be poor. But assuming I take poverty, who knows whether God is hidden in poverty. So, the most perplexing problem that confront every man in life has always been the problem of making a choice.

CHOICE IN ACADEMICS

Let me go to the students now. To those in the secondary schools, they might be performing very well. Some may be performing very poorly. But once it comes to making the choice of the subjects, they appear confused. If they succeed in making that choice at last, once it comes to making the choice of the profession they will like to go in for, they also appear confused. Do you believe that? They don’t know where to go, say, “Okay, Engineering, okay, let me check, Medicine, Pharmacy; I am proficient in the Sciences, I am equally fair in Arts, but let me just check. But what does the society need? If I would do this one now, supposing I come out with good results, can I be established? Can I secure a job? Going by the look of things in the society, will there be a place for me? In short, I don’t want something I will do and come out and be roaming the streets.” What is happening in you? You are confused.

CHOICE IN MARRIAGE

To you young men and women in the Faith, no matter how gentle you may be, once it comes to making choice in your marriage, you appear confused. You might even be having your own boy-friend or girl-friend very dear to you. You have been moving together for years, but once marriage is mentioned, you appear to be confused as to whether the woman can be the right choice or not. The woman is equally confused as to whether the man can be the right choice or not. Is it not true?

7. But when we say choice, choice, some people think that choice is very easy. If choice is easy, why do people regret after making a choice? You made the choice, nobody forced you to do it, but you discovered that even if you do not utter it out, in you, your heart is full of regret(s) from time to

 time because of the choice you have made. That goes to show, you have made the wrong choice, for there can never be regret over a right choice. Amen.

Chapter Two 

MAKING THE FIRST RIGHT CHOICE IN LIFE

I am laying a little background. Little children, take note.  Choice is very, very important in life. If you do not know the importance of choice; you want to make the right choice out of life?

2. Now, first step is making your choice on who will be your God because you have to choose who will be your God like Joshua said, “Choose for yourself this day, the type of god you will worship, as for me and my family, I have taken the God that is sustaining me all these years.” There are too many gods; every religion espouses you to a god. As we have different religion, so we have different gods. As we have different believers, so we have different gods.

WHAT IS RELIGION?

What is religion? A man’s belief about God is called religion. Do you get the Message? I thank God we have some social scientists here. A man’s Faith or belief about God is religion. Why not pause a little and look into my definition and find out whether it contains some Elements of Truth. What is religion? it is ones belief about God. That is religion, no more, no less. You believe that God is “three-in-one,” that is religion, that is your faith.

WHAT IS GOD?

You believe that God is “unseen,” it is religion, it is your faith. You believe God is one, it is religion, it is your faith. You believe God is a tree or a fowl, or a pigeon, it is your belief; it is religion, that is god

to you.

5. God is nothing but object of worship. I repeat: God is nothing but object of worship. When there were no human beings, there was no God. When human beings never existed, God never existed. Are you getting what I am saying? For there can never be God without worshipper. It is the worshipper that identifies God, not God identifying the worshipper.

YOU MUST RESEMBLE THE GOD YOU WORSHIP

First choice you will make in your life is the choice of the type of god you will worship because you must resemble the god you worship. Every man must resemble the god he worships. They that worship idols are like idols, inanimate objects – something that has eyes but cannot see, has mouth that cannot talk. I mean lifeless body. If that is what you have made your god, you will also be lifeless for you must resemble the god you worship. You are the image of the god you worship. A physical representation of the god you worship.

7. So, tell me the god you worship and I will tell you who you are, why you are what you are. If you are worshipping an imaginary god, you are an imaginary human being, one that does not exist; you do not exist because your influence can never be felt by anybody. You are alive, but death is better. Whether cold or no cold, a heap of firewood doesn’t feel it – big for nothing!

8. Do we have such people? There are too many of them. They look like human beings. They are imaginary human beings serving imaginary gods. So, the first choice you will make is the type of god you’ll worship. If you succeed in making the right choice, by making the Supreme Law Giver, the Supreme God that created every human being; if you make Him your God, you have succeeded in making the first choice. Automatically, all His Divine Attributes will be transcended on you. All His Attributes, all He is made up of; divinely, they become your portion.

GOD IS HARD-WORKING

D

o you know that the Creator of heaven and earth is an industrious God, a hardworking God? That is why He enjoins us to work. Even Jesus said, “Even as my Father work, so I work.” He is not a lazy God; He is a progressive God who doesn’t believe in failure.  

10. When you make Jehovah your choice of God, the God of heaven and earth your God, you have made the first right choice.

11. You want to go the traditional way and pick idols like Amadioha, Abuma and every kind of thing; you are on your way to failure because you can never go beyond the god you worship. Some of them are no longer existing. In their shrines today, they are no longer there. People are now cultivating their crops wherever they were being worshipped before. It is not so with the Almighty God, no man can push God. That is first choice.

12. Now, because you have made God your choice, I mean the Living God, the Great God of all the Ages; you have made Him your choice of all whom you will worship, you have made the first right choice.

13. Now, many things will begin to happen to you. He will now begin to direct your footsteps because He knows that it is not in a man to direct his steps. If the Lord does not direct a man, he must make the wrong choice out of life. Do you know when the Lord meets a man without direction, and put life and death before them, and ask them to choose the one they want, human beings choose death.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

It is not in the hands of a man to direct his ways. Now, because you have made the Almighty God your choice of God, your duty is now to commit all your plans into his hands. Are you getting me?

15. You are not alone. You are now walking with God your Father. Anybody that is moving on the way with his father, is he afraid of any amazement? Even if it is in the night and your father said, “Accompany me, follow me to so and so place.” Do you begin to query your father? You continue in your discussion with your father. While you are moving, you will be in fellowship with your father as long as you are walking in that night. Do you begin to query your father? You continue in your discussion with your father. While you are moving, you will be in fellowship with your father as long as you are walking in that night. Do you believe that? Because you are friendly, at a point, you don’t see your father as your father; you begin to see your father as your friend. You will be discussing friendly matters and you will be happy you are walking along with your father; so it is with God. You have your father as your partner, as your friend whom you can discuss with, so you are not alone.

16. You can tell Him your plans, He can give you counsel because you are friendly, He wants you to succeed because you must be like the God you worship.

MISDIRECTED OFFERINGS

This was the first mistake our fathers made. They were espoused to things that were no God, and they were pouring their offerings, pouring their prayers, their thanksgivings to things that were no God. For whatsoever the sacrifice the heathens offer, they offered them to idols because there was no one to direct their foot steps and they lost bearing about life. 

WRONG CHOICE DISCOMFORTS

Sister Rose, you are not following me, and you are not happy because you are here. You are “nominally” here, but your mind is too far away from what is happening here. The highest thing you can do is to quarrel with Vicky or quarrel with Godwin. The next thing that will trouble you is when you see Bro. Ik and his wife, then you’ll be troubled. That is because you are foolish; you don’t know the meaning of life. Let me tell you, if no other person should pay attention to this second Message, you should pay attention to this second Message. Even if Ik married you, he made a wrong choice, that is why he regretted, and he has repented because once you make a wrong choice, you can never be happy with a wrong choice. Are you getting me? Nobody feels happy staying with a wrong choice. Hear me very well, if I make a wrong choice, if I do not terminate it, events must terminate it for me.

USE YOUR BRAIN

Please, little children take note. The Lord Almighty has fashioned us by giving us common sense, thinking faculty, espoused us to Himself because we are His off-springs. He has given us the power to subdue the world and occupy. If the Lord doesn’t give us thinking faculty, we cannot make a choice, we cannot discern between good and error. Everything will either be okay or everything will be wrong. But He has given us His Spirit for us to discern that which is right and that which is wrong. That is what will lead you into making the right choice. Amen.

GET RID OF YOUR VILLAGE SPIRIT(S)

For you to make headway in this Faith and in this life, you must get rid of your village spirit, for every village has a spirit.

This Faith has taught us to be humble, to be polite, to learn to accept correction, because accepting correction means advancement. That nobody can claim to be a “repository of all knowledge.”

This Faith has taught us to be tidy, to be neat. So, if you are carrying your filthiness as it is known among your people into this Faith, you have not entered this Faith.

If anybody is in Christ, he or she becomes a brand new person, having a new vision, a new awakening, and a new life altogether.

An excerpt from:  WEDDING UPDATE

Chapter Three 

YOUR CHOICE DEPENDS ON WHAT IS

INFLUENCING YOU

Now, I am narrowing down making the right choice of life. There can never be any choice without influence. No man wakes up in the morning and say, “I am making so, so and so choice.” Something must influence your choice if you are really sincere. Please, choice is very, very essential.

2. The choice you make in life will determine what you will be in life, do you believe it? Why not say Amen. The choice I make in life will determine what I will be in this life. Remember, God will not make a choice for you, for He has given you all things, which will help you to make the right choice. 

3. There is no “try your luck” in choice. Any day you begin to do “try your luck” with choice, you are no longer walking with God; you are walking with your own mind alone. God has left you.

4. Hear me very well; nobody can accuse God of giving him a regrettable choice.

God doesn’t do that; the choice is in your hand to make, whether good or evil. But it is determined by what is influencing you. What is motivating the choice you are making? Whatever that is influencing you, will determine the type of choice you will make. Do you believe that? 

5. Now, you cannot begin to choose to do 419, unless you begin to see 419 people, the type of life they are living, the way they are enjoying it, how they are splashing money; once you are influenced by that, noble work becomes useless. Are you getting me? You will now decide to make 419 your choice.

6. You cannot make stealing your choice, armed robbery your choice, without being influenced by the lifestyle of armed robbers. 

7. You cannot decide to make prostitution your choice without prostitutes influencing you. You cannot be a trader without traders influencing you.

EVERY DRIVER HAS AN EXCUSE TO GIVE

You cannot just wake-up in the morning and become a driver. The lifestyle of drivers must influence you. How they chop (lavish) their money, how they sleep on the high-ways, how they are always at liberty, leaving their families, going in the forest, going anywhere, staying many days, even with strange women there, and when they come back, you dare not query them because every driver has “excuse” to give: If the vehicle doesn’t spoil, police caught him. If police didn’t catch him, there was no business, and I don’t want to come home empty handed. If that one does not occur, oh! Malaria nearly killed me. For four days, I was just sleeping there. In short, I thank God I am alive. Who do you go and ask? Do you know where he went to?

9. That is why I keep on saying it, I don’t look at your faces. If you are married to a driver, you have no husband. You are like a man that has fowls. If you have fowls, you don’t have any domestic animal in your house. It is your property any night it comes in. If it goes out in the day, the wolves can take it away.

“ALREADY-MADE-HUSBAND” SEEKERS

Hear me very well; this choice can equally come to your marriage. Whatever that is influencing you to marry will determine the type of choice you will make in your marriage, man and woman alike. 

11. If you are a woman that is having your eyes on wealthy people, you want already made, you don’t want to suffer. You want to ride every kind of car from your wedding day, you don’t care what the man is doing, all you want is money, that will determine the type of person you will be expecting to marry you, and until that person comes, you will be waiting. You can only change your mind if time runs out of you. It will then be after looking for where to rest your hand, you rest it on the knee.

GOD DOES NOT CANCEL YOUR CHOICE BUT MODERATES IT

Making the right choice out of life is all in your hands.  The Lord is not making the choice for you, He will only guide you, but the decision is yours. The Lord will guide you, the Lord will advice you, the Lord will talk to you, but the decision is yours.

13. Let me tell you, the Lord doesn’t cancel a man’s decision, rather, He moderates it. The Lord doesn’t cancel a man’s decision, even if you decide to hang yourself here, the Lord will only tell you how painful it will be, but He will not ask you to stop because the power to take away your life is in your hands, but He will tell you how painful it will be. He has moderated it. Then, you go and hang yourself.

14. You want to run away from your family, divorce your wife or your husband, the Lord won’t say no, but He will tell you how painful it will be. The decision is yours.

WORK IS INESCAPABLE

Choice affects marriage because after your salvation, the next thing God gives you is a wife. After your salvation, the next thing God gives you is a wife.

16. Talk of work, work is ordained already, for you cannot exist without work. Are you getting me? So, whether you make it (work) your choice or not, work is there! You can’t run away from it. Running away from it means dying. So, whether you like it or not, arm yourself with the truth that work is inescapable. No human being can escape work. You can escape everything, but you cannot escape work.

WHAT IS INFLUENCING YOUR CHOICE(S)?

If you are a man, when it comes to choice in marriage. Let it be known to you that what will determine whether you marry Sister A or Sister B is what is influencing you. What are you looking for? It depends on what is influencing the marriage.

18. Like a Brother told me that he has looked into our midst, that he has not seen a Sister that is wealthy. That he will like to marry a heathen who will support him financially. I said, “Fine! We don’t have wealthy Sisters. Okay, anywhere you see a wealthy woman according to your choice, go ahead, I won’t stop you, but let it be known to you, you will be a “perpetual slave” in her hand for a woman can never feed you and earn your respect.

19. Hear me very well, sometimes, women suppress their feelings, sometimes they exude (show) their feelings. A woman can never feed you and earn your respect.  Once you place yourself in a position where the woman is feeding you, she is indirectly marrying you, you have shifted your responsibility, you are conferring your authority on her indirectly. Are you catching the Message actually? Then, the Lord will tell you all these things and finally, He will tell you that a man that is being fed by a woman is in perpetual bondage. He is in a prison yard which he placed himself and you cannot say no. saying no means incurring her wrath. Hear me very well; it is easier to put away the wife you married than to put away the woman that married you.

20. If I am sure I married my wife, whether she likes it or not, no matter how stubborn I am, she must respect me anyhow. If she is too much for me, I will put her away because I married her. But if she married me, courageously, she will tell me from time to time, “If you do not change your lifestyle, this house can never accommodate two of us. This house can never accommodate two of us.” In other words, I must find my way out. But as for her, she is “tandering” there.

THE NEED FOR KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM

What is informing your choice, you are being influenced? What is that thing that is influencing your choice? For you can never make a choice of anything without influence.

22. I know some boys, and that is where their problems begin because they were ungodly, nobody directs them. They don’t have Jehovah as their God. They may be stark illiterates, but they want to boast, they want to be proud. When the choice of marriage comes, they don’t want to look at character, they need graduates. Not graduates they will marry but, graduates they will humiliate. They don’t want graduates they will marry, but they want graduates they will always humiliate.

23. You know what humiliation is? Everywhere the man will be bragging, “You know I didn’t go to school, but my wife is a graduate. She is not doing any work; I parked her in the house.” And really, he parked her in the house with her certificates just to humiliate her. Along the streets, so he will be bragging with other ladies, “Don’t talk rubbish to me, I have somebody greater than you, my wife is a graduate, I parked her in the house, she is not doing anything.” The highest he can afford to do is to invite her to the shade and open a little thing around the corner for her, humiliating her and her certificate.

24. You see, something influenced him. He wants to show everybody that with his money, he can marry any type of woman, her educational background not withstanding, you see influence.

25. To the lady that allowed herself to be married by a stark illiterate with her degree, something informed her choice. Maybe she feels if she marries a stark illiterate, that she will be intimidating the man or she will be at liberty to move anyhow. After all, the man doesn’t know anything. But getting there, she will be disappointed, the money will not come, and the freedom will not come. Then the man will be using her as “rag.” She has made a regrettable choice.

26. To the man also, although he is bragging, he is always threatening to have another wife that will “serve” him because service will not come from one that is higher than you. And everyday, “I must get another wife.” He will be looking for one with elementary six, who will now serve, but the other one is “object of boast” to show people, “my money can fetch me any woman. No woman can brag for me.” The aim was not to marry, but to show wealth and humiliate academic education; instead of striving to improve himself, to see whether he could elevate his academic background, so as to be able to communicate effectively with his graduate-wife. Instead, he will cover his inferiority complex with boast and the family will suffer. What informs your choice? Thou knoweth.

27. Let me tell you what choice is after: What you choose is what you will get, and what you have in mind is what you will choose, even if the Lord will show you one that is better, that will meet your need, you will say, “no” because your mind is fixed.

28. From the beginning, the Lord is not your Guide, from the beginning; you did not even make Almighty God your choice of the God you will worship.

29. Some walk by sight, some walk by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Nobody walks by sight and makes a right choice. Nobody walks by sight and makes a right choice in this world. But the Spirit does not mislead.  Amen.

WHAT ARE YOU TODAY?

It is an unpardonable sin to talk against this Faith.

The “bone of contention” in every age is that God is a Man.

The Word of God is to reveal who you are and what you will be tomorrow. A wise man sees tomorrow while a foolish man sees today. Remember that I am what I am today because of what I achieved yester-years.

          What are you today? Before you begin to define what you will be tomorrow, is there anything you regret today? If the answer is yes, then correction is needed. Correction signifies growth; it shows you have gained more experience.

Chapter Four

WHY YOU HAVE TO BE CAREFUL WHILE

MAKING YOUR CHOICE OF LIFE

Choice is very, very important in life because the choice you make will determine the extent you will go. The choice you make will determine what you will be, man or woman, young or old.

2. If I choose to be a barrow pusher, I don’t think I will be expecting to be the President of Nigeria. Are you getting what I am saying? I cannot expect to be a school dropout, a lazy student, having lazy habits, and I expect to be the Managing Director and Chairman of a firm. I cannot be influential if I am a dropout, I cannot make success of life, if I am a dropout.

3. You can be a dropout in the school; you can be a drop out in any work, even in any profession. You can be a dropout in business; you can be a business dropout. In craftwork, you can be a craft drop out. In marriage, you can be a marriage dropout. Therefore, you can be a dropout in every kind of life.

YOUR CHOICE DETERMINES YOUR SUCCESS OR FAILURE

To you little children here, you are too small. This is your time. Whatever you want to be in this life, you will lay the foundation from now, little children are you paying attention? If I see you disturbing, I am going to hit you on your head. If you are not paying attention, I am going to flog you. Little children, please take note. If you want to succeed in this life; how many will like to build a big mansion? Little children, I am asking you. Show by raising your hand. If you will like to build a very beautiful house, show by raising your hands. 

5. The choice you are making today has a lot to do with the type of life you will live. If you want to build a very nice house when you grow up, you have made a very right choice, but you cannot build the house if you die. You will stay alive before you build the house. Is that not true? Moreover, for you to stay alive, you know you must keep away from bad company because bad company spoils good character. If you are joining yourself with people that play too much, you join yourself with people that steal their parent’s money like Olisa Amobi; when you go to school, instead of paying attention, you will be buying akara, buying groundnut, buying everything.

6. If somebody dashes you money, instead of you to give your parents the money to keep, it becomes your money. Even if your parents will collect it from you, you will be crying that they collected your money from you. You are learning how to steal. I say, you are learning how to steal.

DO NOT OVER-PAMPER YOUR CHILDREN

Mothers, take note. Pamper your children, but not to the point of allowing them to touch money. And if somebody dashes your child money and he doesn’t bring the money to you and he hides it somewhere; or you discover the money in his hand, you collect it from him and he begins to demonstrate against it, becomes angry; please listen to me, it is a dangerous spirit. Lie the child down on the ground, give the child not less than six strokes, very hot strokes to enable the child realize that what he has done is very bad. Don’t just collect the money from him, or rebuke him. If you rebuke him, he will remain angry with you and be grudging and moving about (demonstrating). However, once you flog him seriously, and you are firm and strict, fear will grip him. He will be begging for forgiveness. The spirit has left. Did you get the Message?

8. Let me tell you little children, it is a criminal act for you to demonstrate against the judgment of your parents against you. You did an evil thing, and your parents rebuked you or flogged you, and your face is swollen, call the child back again, lie the child on the ground, give the child “ten strokes” until the child begins to beg you, “I will not do it again.” You have regained that child. But if you allow the child to continue to demonstrate and be reporting from place to place: “Why are you crying?” “Mummy collected my money from me.” “Why are you angry? “Daddy said ...,” you are raising a criminal; you are raising a hooligan who is learning how to demonstrate against you from infancy. Don’t ever permit it.

9. I hope I am talking to intelligent people. If after talking to you, you go home and ignore it, do you blame me? I am doing my duty as your Shepherd. You have to do your duty as the flock. Your duty is to comply, I shouldn’t be blamed, I am washing off my hands.

10. Sometimes, parents can hardly see evil tendencies in their children especially when they are still too tender, when they will begin to deep their hands into your soup to take meat when even they have eaten.

11. When they will begin to tell lies, they will do something wrong at a tender age, they’ll begin to tell lies. That goes to tell you that he or she is no longer a kid.

12. Begin that time to chase the spirit, rush the spirit and then regain your child. Remember, it is not your child until he or she starts behaving well.  For a child that doesn’t behave well constantly brings dishonour and shame to the parents.

13. If he goes to school, he will steal biscuits from other pupils, his own might be there. He will eat other pupil’s food, steal other pupil’s snacks and then keep his own.

14. From time to time, reports will be coming to you concerning the misbehaviour of your children in the school and you think they are too small. If you allowed them, you are more stupid than your children.

 A TOP SECRET TO REGAINING A CHILD

Hear me very well; there is a secret I want to give you now: If your child is being accused of anything, and you know, you’re sure your child didn’t do it, don’t defend your child in his presence. I don’t know whether you’re catching what I am saying. Defend the child in his absence. Rebuke him or her when he or she gets home. I don’t know whether you’re getting what I am saying. Let me explain: If they accuse your child, and you are sure he or she didn’t do that thing he or she is being accused of, as long as the child is there, ask him or

 her to walk out. Then tell the person that your child didn’t do such a thing because you are sure he or she didn’t do such thing.

16. If you get home, then tell the child that he or she did that thing not minding that he or she didn’t do it. Clamp down on that child, you are gaining the child more and more. But if you dare go home, simply because you know he didn’t do it and you begin to pamper him or her, apologizing to him or her that, “that is how they behave there; that they have always been accusing one,” you have finished that child. I said you have destroyed that child. You know he or she didn’t do it, you are sure, but at home, Clamp it down on him or her, that he or she did it to enable you to talk to him or her more and more on such habits; although he or she didn’t do it. If the advice suits your family, take it. If it doesn’t suit your family, drop it. Amen.

YOUR DESTINY IS IN YOUR HANDS

If we discovered that we made a wrong choice, don’t we have a remedy? The remedy is that you change your choice. You must change your mind. When you change your mind, you change your destiny.

My destiny is in my hands. Your destiny is in your hands. Change your mind and you change your destiny straight away! 

We certainly or constantly eclipse ourselves by ourselves and then turn round to blame it on ‘fate’ or ‘destiny.’

Nobody should blame his destiny anymore. A man is known to make strong decisions that will affect his life-style and then abide by them come what may. A feeble-minded fellow don’t take decision at all.

Chapter Five 

WHAT IS YOUR CHOICE?

Little children, what is your choice? What do you want to be in life? I am not talking to your parents again. Where we are standing now is a vindication of what we want to be or what we have already been. Nobody will ask me what I will like to be in life again.

2. It is true that Nnamdi Azikiwe, before he died said, “Life starts at fifty.” Well, I think what he means is that enjoyment of life starts at fifty. Whatever I cannot attain at fifty; may be you do not know that at fifty, I have divided my years into two or into three as the case may be. At fifty, that’s the peak, enjoyment should begin from there. I have laboured from eighteen to fifty because eighteen to forty-nine should be your “productive period.”

MAKE HAY WHILE THE SUN SHINES

If you watch great men today, whatever they attain in life was attained between eighteen and forty nine, if from eighteen to forty nine, you attain nothing, forget about it, the night has fallen on you because you will be having occasional waist pain, your neck will be paining you, your legs will be shaking some how. Look at Bro Amobi, he is not up to fifty, but his legs have started complaining. Let me tell you, a man’s health gives him signs. Don’t mind that I am strong by nature. Nevertheless, there are certain things I am feeling in my body that I am nearing something and I have to alert my children. You make your hay while the sun shines because beyond fifty, I will be talking of resting. Beyond fifty, I say I will be talking of resting, not labouring. You cannot expect me to run from here to Benjamin at fifty. But before then, I can do the jogging. I don’t know whether you are catching the Message.

THIS IS NOT FAILURE

Thus, don’t ask me my choice in life. I made my choice, and I have fulfilled it. I have no regrets. I mean so far. Although it is true that a man that looked back the way he lived and said he has no regret, he lived an empty life. It doesn’t mean that I have no regrets of the past. But I will not waste my time on the foolish regrets of the past. The scars have great impetus to me to amend my ways, but where I am standing now, I have no regrets. The regrets of the past serves as a great stimulus for me to forge ahead because a man is not a failure because he fell down, but he is a failure because he refused to get up. I repeat: a man is not a failure because he fell down, but he is

a failure because he refused to get up.

5. So, when I am talking about choice of life, choice of life, I am not referring to myself, neither am I referring to Bishop Nnachor, or  Papa Nzegwu, no! Or Elder Mike never, never! Or Bro Ebenezer, we are on our way home. I am referring to you (the youths).

YOUTHS ARE THE PILLARS OF THE NATION

The pillars of the nation are nothing but the youths of the nation. Do you believe that? Anybody that is of the “productive age” in a family is a part of the pillars of the family. I am saying that the strength of the family is measured by the quality of the youths in that family. The strength of the nation is measured by the quality of the youths that make up that nation. We are likened to banana trees or plantain trees. Any plantain that doesn’t have offspring, that is the end of its generation; that is what we are. I am talking to the youths that are taking after us.

7. In the next few years now, I may not be speaking from this pulpit; I may be sitting down for you to “nourish my soul.” I may be sitting down as your counsellor. So, what is your plan about your life? The choice you are making will determine who you will be in the society. What you will be or what you want to be will always energize you to work towards attaining it because the life you are living now will determine whether you will attain that thing or not.

YOUR CHOICE IS A FUNCTION OF WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN IN THE SOCIETY

Hear me very well; when you have made your choice, it is your choice. You want to be poor, it is your choice. You want to be a beggar, it is your choice. You want to be industrious, it is your choice. But whatever choice you want to make, what is influencing you? It is what you want to be that will determine what your character will look like, and what you want to be is a function of what you have seen in the society. You have made comparison between individuals and their various attainments and that determines the type of choice you want to make. Amen.

REFINE YOUR THOUGHTS

Don’t key-in negative things into your minds. Wrestle not against the Word of God but believe in the Word, act by the Word, live by the Word and you will live a life without regrets.

Don’t say, “Well, I have heard, I will start tomorrow.” God said, “Start now.” A sound decision you take today can change your entire future for good.

A single decision you take today with all your heart can make a U- turn in your life. It can erase all the sorrows of the past and give you a place among kings.

If you have made a wrong choice, and it has affected you; God has offered you another opportunity because you are not yet dead, you are still living. Take a decision, walk by it and then change your destiny. 

Chapter Six

REORDER YOUR PRIORITIES IN LIFE

Now, when you make the choice, it is not its attainment. One thing is to make a choice; another thing is to attain or to realize the choice. You cannot use your mouth and say, “I have made so and so my choice,” and then you fold your arms and your choice will come anyhow? Na lie. You have to work for it, because success is worked for and not earned. I repeat: success is worked for and not earned. Nobody folds his arms and attain success in life.

COMPARE AND CONTRAST

The choice you are making is influenced by what you have seen in the society. You have seen a lot of engineers, a lot of doctors, and other professions. You have seen pilots, you have seen trailer drivers, okada riders, wheelbarrow pushers, you have seen carpenters, cabinet makers, you have seen traders of different type, some are importers, some are exporters, some are clearing and back-forwarding. I say clearing and back-forwarding.

3. There are too many professions; you have seen many of them. You have seen prostitution, you have seen restaurants, you have seen hotels, you have seen beer parlours, you have seen local bars, you have seen snacks bars, you have seen every kind of thing. You have seen armed robbery, you have seen the police, you have seen the army, you have seen every kind of profession, you have seen what they are doing and the heights they are attaining.

4. You have seen professors, lecturers in the Universities, you have seen the Head of States, the Presidents, the Governors, Commissioners, you have seen everybody, you have seen politicians.

5. Now, have you ever settled down one day to make comparison, so as to determine the choice you will make? What if you want to become the President of Nigeria, and by the way you are behaving, you’re working towards becoming a wheelbarrow pusher or okada rider, do you think you can realize this dream? This dream can never be realized till eternity even if there’s military coup; there can never be military coup that will put okada rider as President. Even if there is political appointment, there is no political appointment that will make okada rider a Commissioner, impossible!

6. Now, if we are to depend on cabinet makers, how do you think Nigeria will look like, who has ever attained greatness through cabinet making or carpentry work?

THE LEVEL YOU JOINED A BUSINESS DETERMINES ITS SUCCESS OR FAILURE

But even it you are led to choosing it, will you choose it at that elementary level? At least you will choose it at a professional level because the level you joined a business will determine what will come out of it. I don’t know what I am saying, but I believe I am saying something. 

8. Let me tell you, no matter how I love street trading, it can never metamorphous into a warehouse. Street trading is street trading. Hawking is hawking. You cannot be doing this hawking: running after vehicles with bread, with gala, with pure water and expect to build a very nice mansion. Little children take note. How many of you will like to be hawkers, “Buy banana, buy groundnut, buy fruits, buy pure water,” how many of you? How many? If you know you will like it, show by raising your hand. You see, like father like son. See am, like father like son. Sister Ebele, you should be checking-o. You should be mindful of the type of discussion you have with your husband in the presence of the children. You should better know where your children are focusing their ambition.

HELP YOUR CHILDREN TO AIM HIGH

I am not surprised, if Bro Ben. could come to me, telling me that he wants me to sell his new bus and buy L300 Mitsubishi for him; I said, “Eeh! I will sell long-frame-608 to buy Hiace for you?” He said yes, that is what he needs. I said, “Didn’t you see it before you bought this one? Okay, go and tell your wife, I will do that.”

10. How many were in my house on Friday and saw what happened? So, are you surprised that the son wants to be a refuse disposer.

 How many children here will like to be a refuse disposer? Then if you don’t want to be a refuse disposer, then you must face your studies because if you do not study, you will not pass. You will not be playing too much. You will make your choice of what you want to be. How many of you here will like to be nurses? I mean medical nurses, very good! How many will like to be doctors? Ok. How many will like to be engineers? Ok. Thank you. How many of you here will like to be barrow pushers? Does it mean I am ridiculing a barrow pusher? No! I am telling a barrow pusher that he should be very careful that he doesn’t lay down a legacy for his children by exposing the children to barrow pushing. No matter how you are pushing it, it is because you don’t have any other thing that is better. Discourage your son, discourage your daughter. 

11. I know what I am suffering in the Civil Service; and everyday, I don’t discourage my children from joining Civil Service, but I am encouraging them to join at a level higher than where I joined because the level where you joined will determine the height you will reach. Assuming I joined with master’s degree, by now, I would have become a Permanent Secretary.   Help your children as god over them by directing them on the right choice of life. But you as parents, the choice you made, do you have any regrets? Because if you have no regrets, there will be no room for improvement.

HAVE A TALL AMBITION

You may even be better than they may, for you joined in that group when the land was level. But today; everything has “high mouth.” Gone are the days when somebody will simply come out from the school with school certificate and expect to get a reasonable job with school certificate when graduates with first degree have not gotten one. For that reason, the stage you have found yourself is so challenging that you should begin now to reorder your priorities in life and begin now to have a new focus, a focus away from that of your forefathers, for that is the only way you can succeed. But if you have a very low ambition, you are idling away your time, you are making guy-yoyo, guy-yoyo out of nothing; anyway, the highest occupation you can get if you are from Anam for example, is fishing. But let me tell you that there is no fish again in the water. For the past three years now, no matter how the bank of the river has over-flooded, you can’t get any reasonable fish again. People eating fish are by far greater than the fish in the ocean.

LOOKING FORWARD IS THE SECRET OF MOVING FORWARD

You want to do farming, the land has expired. I said the land has expired. Before now, people use to get very large tubers of yam from their farm, but today, little, little things, the land is no longer fertile. So, what am I trying to say? Please, please, help your children to make the right choice out of life by teaching them that which is noble, that which can meet the challenges of time, for we are living in a “growing world” with “growing challenges.” That is why you see Bro. Chime there, I have told you, if you do not look forward, you will stop moving forward. The secret of moving forward is looking forward. Bro. Chime is looking forward a little and looking backward too much. He takes much time looking backward and less time looking forward, that is why you don’t know whether you are moving forward or backward. It is applicable to Bro. Kelechi and Bro. Amankem. It is applicable to Pastor Christian Dike. It is applicable even to Bro. John Chukwunomso. If you are not careful, you will end it even being ejected from your father’s flat. If you are wise, stay in your father’s flat and build your own house. You have no family house any more. The one your father built has been confiscated by the first son. As long as your eldest brother has put a storey or two on top of it, renovated it to his taste, redesigned it, he is saying “bye- bye” to every other person. Because the house belongs to the first son and he has now established legal ownership by using his money to renovate, redesign and elevate it without any body’s help. Are you going to reap where you didn’t sow?

CHALLENGES!

If you are living in your father’s house, it is not your house, it is a challenge, you are there to stay temporarily and then get your own. If your father built one, and you cannot build one or even two, you are a failure. If your father with his own effort(s) succeeded in building a storey building, you are expected to build four-storey building. That is the only way your success can be measured. If you build an up-stair like your father, you are still a failure, but if you go beyond your father, you are a success. But by the way you are working today, are you sure your father will not attain more success than you? Are you sure? The choice you are making even from this very moment will determine what you are going to be, because once you make that choice, you pursue it vigorously; the Lord whom you serve will crown your efforts with success.

MURDERERS!

But where no choice is made, you are living a plan-less and purposeless life, you have no anchor. A man that has no target will only reach his target at infinity. You don’t have any place in mind where you are going; you don’t know when you’ve reached where you are going. A mad man is better than the person. Let me tell you what I want to drive at: Many of us today are causing sorrows to our parents instead of bringing joy to them. If as a result of the type of life we have chosen to live, we are still expecting help from our parents when we should be helping them, we are murderers.

16. Let me explain to you what I am saying: December 27th this year, I will be forty-nine (49 years) proper. If at forty-nine years, I have not freed myself from my father, where my father should be expecting me to be coming home and help him financially, where I should be caring, at least tell my father to rest, “You have laboured enough, I will be taking good care of you and my mother.” If I cannot give them that rest out of their labour on me at the age of forty-nine, when do you think I will be looking after them? Will it be when they are in the grave?

17. I, at times, ask some people question: “that which you could not do when you have not married, you are at the full of life when you were a young man, will you do it when you marry, start having children? You did not feed your mother, you did not feed your father, you didn’t make any achievement, when you were supposed to have it, you are still roaming about as a young man. Is it when you are asked to buy milk, that your wife is in the hospital, your child is at so — so — so place, is it then you will start to dance Igwe?

PLACE YOUR PARENT ON PENSION WHEN THEY ARE OLD

Have you seen how important it is? Some one said, “Madness is better in the teenage age.” It’s better to be mad as a young man or young woman. Then, the question arises: if your father should after looking at you for a while and curse you in this manner: “may your children treat you as you treated me.” Is it a bad curse? “If you know how you treated me, may your children treat you like that,” is it a bad curse?

19. If your children treat you how you treated your father, will you be happy?

20. What is the joy that a man has children? Is it not when he is receiving his pension at old age from his children? Every parent should receive pension at old age from his children. Pension is not only for Civil Servants; pension is what your children bring when you are at old age. The Scripture said, “My children do not forsake your parents at old age.” I mean your parents at old age, look after them; for that is their reward from you. But how many are obeying? How can you obey when you are empty-handed? Why are you empty handed? It is because of the choice you have made.

CEREMONIAL OCCUPATIONS

There are too many occupations. But not all occupations are decent and viable to sustain a man. There are some occupations I call “ceremonial occupations.” Let them say that I am doing something. If the job you are doing is just for people to say, “You are doing something,” well, as you are alive is for people to say, “You are alive.”

22. Nobody forced you to make your choice in your occupation, the choice is yours. That is why the Holy Ghost said, “You have no right to think of marriage unless you have a visible and viable means of livelihood.” You must have a “visible something” you are doing, which will be sufficient enough to bring out money to lay the background of a good family.

WATCH—DO NOT RUSH INTO MARRIAGE

Do you think that God is not wise? He gave us that as our standard; and then banned students from thinking of marriage. If you are a student, don’t think of marriage even if you pass out. The reason why your parents trained you is not just to come out and then present wife as your first achievement, no; you have responsibilities towards them even towards your relatives who suffered because of your education. That doesn’t mean you won’t marry. You will marry when you must have established yourself, then you marry. You can be hasty in everything, but you cannot be hasty in marriage, that is all.

YOU MUST BE INFLUENCED

Making the right choice out of life. What type of choice are you making from today; and what is influencing it? When you buy newspapers, do you read only news or do you show interest in reading the profiles of some personalities in the papers, their possible contributions to the society? Those that have made marks in their professions, do you read about them? Are you influenced by them? When you read about your governors and their profiles, are they not human beings born of women? If you become one in your day, is it a crime? I am saying that you must have influence before you make your choice, you cannot decide to be roaming about the streets, changing dresses, when you have no occupation: “Do you know who we are?” Somebody is influencing you.

A FULFILLED DREAM IS A FULFILLED LIFE

And what you want to be is what you must be. What you want to be is what you must be. A man never rest until he becomes that which he wants to be. What you want to be is what you must be. That is why; if you have a child that is heading towards prostitution, no matter how you rebuke and flog that child, until she practices prostitution, she will never rest because that is where she is aiming at. And God cannot change her decision.

26. You have your child that wants to be an armed robber, until he carries gun, even if he goes to prison, he doesn’t feel it until he carries gun, because that is his ambition. He has decided it; that is the choice he has made. He may gain entry but not always. One day, his intestines will litter the main road and all eyes will see the source of his prosperity.

27. But if you want a noble work, an honourable work, you desire a good thing; pursue it, live a life that will help you achieve it, and then you will make a “mark.” A fulfilled life is a life of greatness, a life of selfless attainment; that is a fulfilled life. On this note, I am saying that you have to make the right choice of life and that will determine what you will be.

EFFECT A CHANGE

If from all indications, you noticed that the choice you have made all these years had been working against your progress, working against your prosperity, God has given you mental faculty; do not stop at regretting, after regretting, effect a change for man is subject to change.

29. You are not a tree that is stationary, and you cannot change until you decide to change. What brings about change? When you feel uncomfortable, you have to make a change. Are you comfortable or uncomfortable with your position both in the family and in the society?

30. Comfortable with the height you have attained? If you are comfortable, remain there. However, if you are uncomfortable, do something. Who is responsible for where you are, God or yourself? Or the choice you have made?

SENDING YOUR CHILDREN TO SCHOOL IS NOT ENOUGH

On this note, I say, help your children as they are coming up, educate them, Inform them, enlighten them, use your family fellowships very well to instruct everybody to work in the right way that will make them to have that right vision, make right choice and succeed where others failed. But where you dodge your responsibilities, sending them to school is not enough.

32. A child may be sent to school without the child realizing the purpose of going to school. He goes to school nominally like others, but he has no ambition. Somebody has to help him to know the essence of going to school, to know that “half-education” is as dangerous as dangerous can be; that your education is incomplete until you come out with a reasonable certificate that is in tune with the present society, in tune with the demands of the period you found yourself. 

RIGHT CHOICE IS THE GREATEST

I am solving your problem of worry. If you have made a wrong choice, nothing stops it from worrying you. When you make a right choice, you free yourself from worry.

34. Nevertheless, if you make a wrong choice, worrying is there. You have indirectly made worrying your choice. What if your children are not doing well because they make wrong choices of life, as parents, won’t you feel worried? So, I am still speaking to you on worry, worry in another dimension.

35. On this note, I say thank you and remain blessed in Him eternally.