Author: Olaperi Okuboyejo

  • Timing Matters

    Timing Matters

    Timing is important in the execution of our assignments.

    When Moses went ahead of his time, he did wrong; he killed someone. The people he was sent to, his fellow Israelites, didn’t accept him; he eventually had to flee for his life.

    Although he knew he had been sent to free his people, he decided to visit them ahead of time, and it didn’t end well. Anything we do ahead of time doesn’t usually end as planned.

    Let’s read the story from Acts 7:

    23 “When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. 26 The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, ‘Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?’

    27 “But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, ‘Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?’[e] 29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.

    23-26

    However, when it was God’s time, God sent him.

    vs 30 After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses…

    At that time, he didn’t want to go anymore; there was fear, which was caused by his going ahead of his time. Notwithstanding, it was then God’s time, and God sent him. He went, and the mission was delivered – the rescue of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

    35 “This is the same Moses they had rejected with the words, ‘Who made you ruler and judge?’ He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself, through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. 36 He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.

    Even when we are sure of what God wants us to do, we must also confirm his timing.

    Timing matters!

  • Philip was Ready!

    Philip was Ready!

    Imagine you’re in a shopping mall, and God instructs you to go to a particular restaurant in the mall, and as you go in, he asks you to go and sit at a table, directly behind someone. As you do so, you hear the person listening to a podcast and the Holy Spirit nudges you to engage in a conversation with the person, based on the message from the podcast.

    Well, yes, something very similar to that happened to Philip. The full story is in Acts 8:26 – 40.

    In our last conversation,  we talked about how it’s our responsibility to spread the word of God further. And how we must be prepared to do that. Read that blog here.

    Today, I read this story of Philip, and it just occurred to me that Philip was prepared. Let’s learn from Philip what it means to be prepared.

    To be prepared:

    1. We must be discerning and attentive to those nugdes in our heart from the HolySpirit.

      Philip heard the angel of the Lord say to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza”. [Acts 8:26]. He also heard the HolySpirit say to him, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage”.

      If Philip wasn’t able to hear God, we won’t be having this conversation. While in the mall or at work, at the park or in our home, we need to be able to hear God.
    2. We must be obedient.

      Right on the next verse, vs 27, the Bible lets us know, he started out on that path as instructed. Again, he obeyed the next instruction in vs 29 to walk along the carriage he saw. Be prepared to just obey.
    3. We must be timely.

      In vs 26, he was instructed to go to south down, and immediately in vs 27, we saw him do that. Again in vs 30, he ran over, when he was asked to walk beside the carriage. If he didn’t ‘Go south’ immediately, he wouldn’t have been able to see the Eunuch, because the carriage was moving, if he had waited or delayed, the carriage would have been gone. He also needed to quickly run over to walk beside the carriage. If he wasn’t prompt, perhaps the carriage would have been too far gone for him.
    4. Don’t waste time contemplating.

      If he was questioning, ‘why should I go south’? Or if he bothered – ‘why would I just go and walk beside somebody’s carriage’? That’s going into someone’s space. Won’t I look like I don’t know what I’m doing? Be prepared to forget about yourself and your ego, and just move.
    5. Be ready to start the conversation.

      Philip was bold and not shy, he also did his part. The Angel and the HolySpirit had led him, now he had to play his part. Being sensitive, he heard what the man was reading out loud – and started the conversation.

      Yes, be ready to start that conversation. You might need to start it. Don’t wait and say, ‘okay let me just wait for him to say something, then I’ll continue from there’. The other person might not say anything – you start the conversation.
    6. Take up the opportunity and share the goodnews. He took the opportunity, for he was ready.

      Acts of the Apostles 8:30 – 31. Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” [31] The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.

      Philip took up the opportunity and he shared the goodnews.. The man had so much understanding, that he was the one who requested to be baptized.
    7. Know the Gospel, know Jesus!

      Finally, Philip knew what to share. He had read the books of the prophets so much (that was their Bible in that time) that he knew the passage the Eunuch was reading. He also knew about the gospel of Jesus. And beginning from the passage the man was reading, he went on to share the gospel of Jesus.

      Do you read your Bible? Do you know Jesus? Do you know what and who you want to preach about? Philip started out from what the man was interested in and went on to share the gospel of Jesus. If you were to have a conversation today, do you know what to share, or how to lead the conversation and the person to Jesus?

    Think on these points and be prepared to share about Jesus.

    In the next post, I’ll talk about easy ways to have that conversation, and talk about Jesus.

  • Would you play your part?

    Would you play your part?

    As I read the first 5 chapters of the book of Acts last week, something struck me. Christianity actually started as just a few group of people – only 120 of them on the day of Pentecost.

    Yet, in those few chapters, they moved to 3,120 and then 5000. How did the numbers increase? have you ever wondered? How did only 120 people know Jesus, and then the numbers suddenly grow to 5000? The answer – Someone told someone!

    Yes, that simple. And guess what? God is actually expecting you to tell someone. In John 17:20, Jesus was already praying ahead, for those who will believe him through your witness,through your word. Are those people already in the faith? Or are they are waiting for you to tell them about Jesus.

    One important secret is to recognize opportunity and seize it. Acts 3:12 states that Peter saw his opportunity and addressed the crowd.

    Peter saw his opportunity and addressed the crowd. “People of Israel,” he said, “what is so surprising about this? And why stare at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or godliness?

    Are you seeing the opportunity around you? And are you prepared to jump in at that opportunity? Is your story ready? Is your testimony ready – of how Jesus changed your life, and how He can change theirs too.

    The Christians went out and shared the word. If the next increase in the believers of Christ is dependent on me and you, are we playing our part?

    From 120 to 5000 – Are you playing your part? Read the next blog here, on how Philip played his part.

    Prayer: Dear Lord, help me to recognize every opportunity you give me to share the good news of Christ, and let me always be prepared to tell others about you.

    How can I be prepared to share the good news of Jesus?

  • Busy Versus Productive (Fruitful).

    Busy Versus Productive (Fruitful).

    Busy Versus Productive (Fruitful).

    So, let’s get on to our series on Time Management.

    I once heard the statement, “If you are too ‘busy’, then you’re doing too much”.

    But wait a minute, should we actually be busy or productive, aka fruitful? Have you been busy, or have you been productive? Hmm… Is there a difference between the two words?

    For the sake of this conversation, being busy means being occupied, yeah, literally busy doing something. A roller coaster is busy, right? It just moves round and round and round. You are not just lazing around, sleeping and lying down all day – you are engaging in activities.

    On the other hand, being productive – fruitful implies that there’s fruit – an outcome of being ‘busy’. Did your time being busy yield any results? Or like the roller coaster, did your To-Do list only move around – nothing actually checked off the list.

    At the end of the day, are you able to pinpoint what you achieved for the day? Are you able to account for the 24 hours that just passed? Are you just busy, or are you also fruitful?

    Not to worry, that is what this Time Management Series will be about – how to move you from just being busy to being productive.

    Just one tip for this post – Planning.

    Proverbs 21:5 – Good planning and hard work lead to prosperity, but hasty shortcuts lead to poverty. (NLT)

    That Bible verse says it all, most times, we jump into the day so hastily, yet we expect a productive day. What about spending some time to sharpen the axe, before attempting to cut down the tree?

    Planning helps – Don’t just jump into things, rather, plan them. Give a purpose to every piece of time. Plan out the entire day. Don’t leave anything or portion of time to chance. If you don’t have something to do, others will give you what to do.

    So what are you planning to do by the next hour from now – are you thinking of that right now? Are you shuffling your memory to remember the other deliverables you need for the day?

    Get a piece of paper, notebook, digital planner – and write down something for every single hour of the day – that’s how to start.

    Seems like we’re moving from bottom-up, but yes, the secret is to just start and then refine. Over the next posts, I will discuss some guidelines to planning, some tips and tools. I have tried different tools, but one that is currently suited for me right now is Google Tasks – I am able to use it for both my personal and domestic tasks and my office tasks. We’ll talk more about that in subsequent posts.

    For now your action point should be this – write down what you plan to do in every hour of each day. See you in the next post!

  • The Second Great Commission.

    The Second Great Commission.

    How often we talk about The Great Commission – Jesus’s final words and instructions to the church, as recorded in Matthew 28:16-20. 

    Alas, I discovered another Great Commission, which we rarely talk about. Again, another of Jesus’s last words to his disciples. This time, not about what we should do to the world, but what we should do to ourselves, to our fellow believers and disciples.

    My discovery, by the inspiration of the HolySpirit is found in the book of John.

    John 13:34-35 NLT:

    [34] So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.

    [35] Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.

    Jesus instructed us to love one another. That was His commandment to us, in His final moments. This instruction, or better yet – commission is so important because, it’s actually how we will prove to the world that we are His disciples. 

    My question to you is this, are you obeying and observing these words of Jesus? Are you loving one another? Are you loving other members of the body of Christ, both within your local assembly and outside your local assembly?

    May the Lord, help us to love in deed and in truth, that we may show to the world, that we are indeed His disciples. Our guiding principle, is to love.

    So what then does it mean to love? Next Post Loading…

  • Let’s Begin!

    Finally! The very first official blog post…here.

    As I typed the first sentence, I remembered that I had previously started a blog, well over 10 years ago. And I definitely have been writing for a long while, so let’s say this is the first blog…hmnn… here, on my own website!

    So many thoughts to pen down, topics God has laid in my heart. From Purpose, to insights from Books and Sermons and learnings from my yearly Bible plan. And more recently, a burden on Time (and energy) management. There’ll be different series along these paths, but let’s begin with Time Management. For different reasons, this has been on my mind for a while, and it keeps coming back.

    First, I see a lot of people who want to do things, but who are unable to (myself included…sometimes). I run a book reading program (with the third cohort ongoing), I have had several people join, with great intentions to finish the book reading, but only a few do. Why? You may ask – the sole reason, I can say, based on their feedback – has been time.

    People are ‘busy’ with many things, and often the time is not enough. Can we really say that time is not enough? If a day was to become 48 hours, would time then be enough?People want to spend time with family – but there’s no time. People want to read books – no time. They want to study their Bible and spend time with God – no time. They want to take courses and write exams – no time. Want to cook an healthy meal – no time.

    So what really is there time for? Didn’t God know we’ll have so much to do? Why did He give us just a little time that is barely enough. But wait… before we go down that path, I doubt that is the problem.

    A lot of people seem to be doing great stuff, and they have the exact same amount of time that we all have. How are they doing it? I want to believe that some people have mastered the use of this great and finite resource, that we all have an equal share of, they have mastered the art of time management.

    Better yet, God in His word definitely has great insights for us in the use of our time. Perhaps we must go learn from there.Yes, let’s get started with the topic of effective management of our time, learning from the scriptures and others who have gone ahead of us, on this matter of the time. Let’s unravel this topic together, and be more productive with our time.

    Ephesians 5:15-16 AMPC[15] Look carefully then how you walk! Live purposefully and worthily and accurately, not as the unwise and witless, but as wise (sensible, intelligent people), [16] Making the very most of the time [buying up each opportunity], because the days are evil.

    Welcome on board!