SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER

As a surreal artist I've been practicing over the years how to create and interpret things differently. Like when ever I see a huge task, I Imagine my self as the ice cubes in a cocktail, what ever you can make about that, that's how it is. And because man is in search of his creator, he has been easily manipulated for that sake for generations. Wiser men have realized and have been capitalizing on it massively. My family is highly religious, and we are in the Christian faction. Since I was little I have had the opportunity of attending so many Christian churches, from Anglican to so many Pentecostal churches. It's not something new to most Christians. We leave a church when we sense the God we went in search of no more attends.

Mr Jones no longer sits In front, he now sits where the ministers sit. I know Mr Jones very well. This Sunday is the first Sunday in December, the last month of the year, so it's a very important Sunday according to my church. We would be streaming live feeds from the headquarters. It's like watching a live football match and players communicating with you. Network is sometimes messy it isn't enough to alter our wonderful sunday service.

When it's Sundays, my mother is always a different person. I always feel she is anxious for nothing, but to her it's a date she must keep with her God, irrespective of what ever anybody thinks. She couldn't wait, she left without me to the church, the service starts by 7am today and it's almost past 8. I found my way to the church and sat next to her. Everybody was already in the spirit. A woman who came in and sat in front of us had to kneel down and say a little prayer so she too can be in the spirit.

The (GO) General overseer told us to stretch our arms to the alter and say nothing, later he said hit any part of your body that has a problem twenty one times. People were hitting themselves very had, I saw a granny hitting her head hard, if they would be healed instantly after the 21st blow.

The Pastor began speaking on a very interesting topic SELFISHNESS. "A selfish man is a thief" he said. How it has found its way into the house of God, and even the pastors have become selfish themselves. He sang a sarcastic song;
"It's me o lord
Not my brother, not my sister
It's me o lord
Me, me, me, me". When you hoard what you have, your world shrinks. Selfishness is linked to pride and to greed, he added.

I looked at my mum and told her "isn't it what I've been saying in the house all this while?" Until the pastor says it, it isn't true, I've know that over the years.

Then the pastor said "when Eve saw the apple in the garden of Eden, she didn't need it, but selfishness made her eat it" it got more interesting when he told a story to elaborate on selfishness. Like a dog with a bone, backing at the water, and lost his bone to the water.

He started, A couple, the husband went abroad to study. The wife at home (Nigeria) would go through pains to send him money, and on his completion of studies abroad, she was so happy she invited some friends, and few church members to accompany her to the airport to welcome her husband. On getting to the airport, the husband was seen holding hands with another woman, a white lady. The husband walked up to his Nigerian lady and told her thank you for all her effort, he had gotten the wife he needed, and she immediately passed out on the airport arrival.

It was the General overseer still speaking on selfishness, he said once they sent a pastor to a church, the church had no toilet nor a car park, but the pastor was busy buying decoders and projectors. That was an example of selfishness.

My pastor amazes me though, he sometimes says a lot of scary things and they must always end in death. Selfishness ends in death

The woman whose husband left her for the white lady died in a car accident. They both die, it was like a Nollywood happy ending. Everybody was like Wow! Shaking their heads in approval of the death. As if God endorsed it. At times like this I tend to be a bit skeptical, it's not really my fault, it's just my mind. How did he know? Well, that's for another day.

If I follow what the church tells me to do, I will never have time to help the society with my talent neither will I make money for myself and family.  The church is becoming like a small country, and in a society like ours where the system is like a heavy drug addict in comatose, everything is crippled, deef and dumb at the same time, one will think we don't have able hands to resuscitate it.

The church is strengthening itself with the strength of the people and leaving the country in unending comatose, whether knowingly or unknowingly, I cannot be certain enough to tell. But that to me is selfishness. If I was a doctor or an engineer, there is a group in church that I can join and give out my skills, either by cash or by kind. And we have about 21 of such groups.

Talk about separating the country unconsciously, we have tribes day. Where different tribes compete amongst themselves. The most interesting part of today's service was the interpreter, when the (GO) started speaking in tongues, the kind interpreter was also kind enough to interpret it to us. It was a really interesting service and at the end of the service he told us to close our eyes lay our hands on our chest and plead the blood of Jesus to wash our hearts.

"When the enemy wants to attack, they first of all attack your head" the pastor continued. "I stand here as the servant of the the most high God"  "Ride on sir!" Echoed from the rare.
"We fall down all Jericho, Jericho of poverty!
"Amen!" Roared.
"Jericho of late marriage, Jericho of failure at the edge of breakthrough! Collapse!!", In the name of Jesus
"Amen".

Let's just pause.
Covenant offering, seed offering and prayer request and normal offering. If Jesus was still on earth, I believe the first miracle he will perform when he comes to preach to us in Nigeria is to real our unprovoked seizures, especially the epileptic power supply, I just wonder why his followers haven thought of it since they represent him.

We will call the name of Jesus, twenty one times, the bible said at the mention of the name, all knees must bow.

"Close your eyes and shout thirteen powerful hallelujah, are you ready? Let's go!

SUNDAY BEFORE EASTER~e.i.o