How about you stop dating the Church? Part 1

Jack and Grace met through a mutual friend. From day one they seemed to be the perfect match. Grace was everything Jack had always wanted. She was beautiful, outgoing, and caring - always there when Jack needed her. For the first five months they were inseparable. Jack could hardly think of anything but grace. He didn't want to look further, he told friends. "She's the one."
            Now almost three years have passed. Jack still enjoys the comfort and familiarity of being with grace, but the spark is gone. Grace's Flaws seem more obvious. He's not sure he finds her as attractive as he once did. And he's beginning to resent all the time she want to spend with him.
        One night, when she asks if they can define the nature of their relationship, Jack blows up "We're together, aren't we?" he asks angrily. " Why isn't that enough for you?" Obviously, Jack isn't ready for commitment. And it's unclear if he ever will be..."
        

The excerpt above is from Joshua Harris book "Why Church Matters"

     Have you ever been in a relationship like that of Grace and Jack? Its breaks my heart to say that there are millions upon millions of Jacks all around the word. And no Grace is not a girl she is the Church. Many people today can accept and say that they are "believers" but how many people can we really classify as "bellongers"?
       Paul in Ephisians 3:10 makes us understand that the church was an Intention of God. "His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms."  
What exactly is the Church? we may ask. So many times we think of the building when we hear the word church and forget what it really mean. To me the Church is a fellowship where men and women of all background can come together as one body and worship God. It is a body of Christ that grow day after day. For example if you were to cut off one leg off your body today will it function on it own? The answer is No and this is the same for the Church/the body of Christ. Once one member of the Church break away it is very hard for it to function alone because we do need that fellowship with one another. An iron sharpens and iron and if as much as salvation is an individual pursuit we still need one another to make the journey smooth.

    So to the ones who think/say "Oh I don't need to belong to any church I can worship God and pray on my own and at my house" I'm sorry to break it to you "No you CAN'T and it is NOT OK." It is hard to do most things alone and certainly Christianity is not an exception.  "God manifest His presence in different ways to the "living stones" of His temple when they are gathered than He does to them when they are apart" - Joshua Harris

     When we are members of the church according to Ephesian 2:19-22 " you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, ²⁰ built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. ²¹ In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. ²² And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."


 This is the beginning of the Church series that I shall be writing on in the next few post. Now this post post took me a little longer than I normally would take to write a post simply because this is a topic that is very dear to my heart and I can get very brutally emotional about it. I don't know if you can tell in some sentences but I had to rewrite every sentence a few times because I thought "oh snap that was too harsh and mean." My point is these next few post might sound harsh because I will no longer edit it to please my readers but rather say it as raw as it is because I believe Christ would love us to all share even the bitter truth as bitter as it is.  I pray that you all bear with me in these post. In the mean time check back for part 2 which shall be "Connecting to a Local Church."

xoxo
YSU

"If you refuse to take on spiritual responsibility you will becomes a liability"

11.28.11

GOOOOOOOOOODDDDDD MORNING, AFTERNOON & EVENING TO YOU ALL!!

For all my American people I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving/Turkey celebrations. I ate all the orishirishi that there was after all I only get to eat proper momma home cooking once in a while and it was so nice to take a break from campus food.

Its Monday morning and the question for the week and thought is how connected are you to people and most importantly your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Many people sees fellowship as a Sunday or Wednesday mid week service ritual but the honest truth is that it goes beyond that. Fellowship is breaking bread with one another, knowing the well being of the other person, sharing and strengthening each other in this journey we as Christian choose to embark. Overall fellowship is belonging to one another.....How many times have you overlooked the "one another" commands in the Scriptures?  I will list a few of them because the one probably in your head right now is the "Love one another" command.

Love one another - John 13:34
Be devoted to one another - Romans 12:5
Honor one another - Romans 12:10
Rejoice with one another - Romans 12:15
Serve one another - Galatians 5:13
Carry one another's burden - Galatians 6:2
Forgive one another - Ephesians 4:32
Encourage one another - 1st Thessalonians 5:11
Offer hospitality to one another - 1 peter 4:9
Confess our sins to one another - James 5:16
Pray for one another - James 5:16


My prayer is that God give us the strength, ability and wisdom to connect with one another each and every day.

This post was inspired by Joshua Harris. In December I will be doing a series about Church Dating with a lot of stuff from the book called "Why Church Matter" formerly publish as "Stop Dating the Church"  by Joshua Harris. It is going to be a very interesting series and I can't wait to share it with you all.

Have a lovely week y'all.

YSU

Nothing gonna hold me back

Hey y'all how are you lovely bloggers doing. So lately November has been month of traveling every weekend and its been a blessing going in all these retreat and conferences with God opening my eyes to see things that I have not experience before which is why my favorite saying is that "the word of God is new every time" because every time i read it there is always something new that I have never seen before.

I'm actually blogging on my phone from the bus from dc and I have about 8 more hours and definitely tired already but I thought I'd share with you guys two songs that's been playing in my head for well over a week now...

The first song is one of my Hillsing favorite 'Forever Reign' and the second one I just discovered last week at a retreat and I could not help but to fall on love with it.... 'Nothing gonna hold you back' by Kim.

Happy Sunday y'all many hugs and have a lovely week ahead

Cheers

~YSU~

Who is He?

To me He is a friend, a brother, a father, and a lover all at once. To Him I can pour out my heart and He listen and hear every words that I say. With every day that I have an encounter with Him I see everything new which is not strange because His words are new every morning.

In my thought today I thought how would it feel like if Christ was here on earth physically today? Would there have been more or less believer? And if He was here today how would He answer questions thrown to Him by men. Its so amazing that Christ is Both the Son of God and yet born of a Woman, and then there are so many other things about Him like

On His mother's side He was hungry but on His father's side He is the bread of life
On His mother's side He was thirsty but on His father's side He is the living water
On His mother's side He was been nailed to the cross but on my father's side He rose again
On His mother's side He slept on the boat but on my father's side He commands the storm in the sea
On His mother's side He died and was buried in the grave but on His father's side He raise the dead from graves.


Now Imagine if He was ask as a young boy 'How old are you?' and He reply something along the line  'you know on my mother's side I'm 12 and on my Father's side I'm eternal." These are things that would make any man confuse which is why men and women on earth today get so confuse about Christ and say there is nothing like Christ and it is all a lie. The best I can say is that Christ is the best thing that have ever happened to me. I don't know about you but He has done so much for me that with every breathe that I take I just want to give Him my all in all which would never be enough considering the prices He paid for my sins.


Question for thought: what if God got tired of forgiving you?

Have a lovely Sunday and a beautiful week ahead.



XOXO
YSU

I miss you

My lovely people I miss you guys....This school thing have taken over my time and I no longer have time for outlet or whatsoever....Now I feel so lost and have to start catching up with blogville again. While I'm in the Library studying for my 3 exams next week I wanted to quickly say that I miss you guys. I miss my awesome Nigerian receipts Naija Food, my mommy on here N.I.L, Ms. Hilarious Madam sting, The place were I take awesome notes on single-hood, marriage and relationship In the midst of hers, The place I go when I'm down LDP and Jaycee, the one who always make me smile Myne, the place I see the other side of men 9ja Great, My favorite twitter buddy DiDi, The place I always can't stop laughing Sisi Yemmie The one I call ms. talented and bold Suggabelly, and the list goes on and on but my point is I miss you all.

Shout out and thanks to Coy-Introvert,  DiDi and Relentless Builder for the Blogger's award of which I shall be answering on my next post and possibly sharing some awesome things I have been doing this semester.

On the other hand who sabi interpret dreams?....The other day a friend of mine dreamt of cat, the cat came up to her and walked around her in a friendly manner, then the next day she woke up and while walking out of the house, a black cat runs out of no where to her and began rubbing on her legs and muewwing at her....If you know what this means please share

xoxo

YSU

Just because

A single man cannot fight a battle alone but a group can sure make a difference. First was ABSU case and now Troy Davis. It really breaks my heart to see another Innocent man been executed....R.I.P Troy Davis


The time has come for us to stand for one another more than ever before.



"If not you then who, if not now then when?" 

- phillip vera cruz








xoxo 
YSU

A letter from I to You

Dear YOU

I hope all is well. Lend me your ears that I may speak and you may hear what I have to say...Its been  years strong hiding in the shadow of just yourself and God, refusing to get out of it. The Lord is great and sees the inside but yet unless you let it out to a fellow brother or sister it becomes difficult to ever resolve the issue because you are too ashame to let your neighbor see your weakness. Hundreds of friends you have and yet not even a hand full can say they know you inside and out. To say that I'm your closest person is embarrassing that sometime I'm questioned about you but I have no answer because I do not know.

I hear you say the world/friends are not to be trusted but remember "The bad ones have ruin it for the good ones that we have become a shadow of ourselves only to be seen by a few, so far apart that even the good ones can no longer see each other" - Mr. Honest & YSU

Now do you know what a true friend is?...He/she is one that knows not to hide anything from you weather it may hurt you or make you smile, he/she is willing to risk losing you as a friend just to tell you the truth or something that may hurt you in the future, he/she may know you and understand you more than yourself, he/she sees what is wrong and no matter how much older you are than them, they are willing to slap you in the face with it in hope that you do not fall in the pit that is been dig for you. My love, many ears are busy these days and plugged on to the headphones of their personal interest, that I will say that he that find an ear find a great thing. 

Now personally I do understand sometime when we know we are wrong the hardest/embarrassing thing is have someone you know slap you in the face with it, but sometime we've got to learn to accept it because God is a God that sees everything so imagine how much more of a greater embarrassment that will be. Admitting our wrong is difficult but I've got three mini step that might ease the process. First we admit our wrong to God, and then to ourselves and then to a trusted human being around us.

                                                                                                                                            Yours in Christ,

                                                                                                                                             I

I hope and pray that there is a YOU out there reading this and  I pray that this may be of a help in some ways.  

Love

Mz. YSU