All posts by : Simbo Odunaiya

It has been a pleasantly revealing time of knowing God better, for us at Christ International Community Church (CICC), this year.  I say it is pleasant because I have personally enjoyed every moment of it. There is also no doubt that it has been revealing as God continues to show us a little more about Himself through the revelation of His words.  It has been a time of revival as many of us have woken up in the realization that the God we serve is much greater than we can fathom in our minds. I have seen many folks wake up to take responsibilities that I never thought they will.  I am seeing the word of God in Daniel 11:32b – that “the people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits” – being literarily confirmed by what the revelations about our God is leading His children to do among us. I see a revival in the making.

Many times, we talk about the need for revival in the Church of God.  The very concept of revival speaks to something that is dead and has to come back to life.  I see our relationship with God being revived as we continue to know Him better. Many think our relationship with God is dead because God is mad and has left us.  So, their idea of a revival is then predicated on getting God to come back. This is similar to what happens to us now when we talk about the need for a revival. We definitely need revival, but the revival we need is not of God’s return, because He never left, but of a people who need to know their God better so that they can get right with Him and their relationship with Him can get stronger.

How do we get right with God?  It is all about righteous living.  It is about obedience. It is about having a heart of worship.  It is about trusting God with all our being and all our might. However, being right with God requires a complete transformation of our minds just as Apostle Paul delivered in Romans 12:2 – “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”  Many of us Christians do not know what is good, and acceptable, and perfect, and we know not because we do not know the God we serve. I have seen many Christians who erroneously think that what is good and acceptable and perfect is to “bind and cast”. There are others who think that being a Christian is to be financially successful, so they align themselves with all kinds of prosperity gospel.  But Apostle Paul says the key to not wasting our lives with the kind of success and prosperity that many of us pursue, is by being transformed, such that we know God’s perfect will for us.

In essence, in order to get the transformation that we need to know what is good, and acceptable, and the perfect will of God, our minds must first be renewed. Apostle Paul said we should be transformed by the renewal of our minds.  Renewal of our minds gives us total transformation. Not conforming to the world is not just a matter of avoiding what the world does. That is transformation on the outside. I remember when I was first ordained as a Pastor, many people told me you cannot dance in public again.  They told me I should not eat in public again. They made a very long list of things I could or could not do again. Then, I wondered if I do not do these things openly but do it in my mind or in my room, what will that make me? In any case, how many can I realistically avoid? These are rules, and as obedience to rules go, they do not indicate the state of the mind.  However, when the mind is renewed, the transformation begins from the inside and then shines on the outside.

Renewal of the mind is not just by educating or reeducating the mind, but it is by what Apostle Paul again referred to in Ephesians 4:23 where he says, “Be renewed in the spirit of your minds.” Now, how can you be renewed in the spirit of your mind?  Being renewed in the spirit of your mind presupposes that your mind has a “spirit”. Of course, it does! What we call our “mindset” is the “spirit” of our mind. We must renew our mindset. We must renew our viewpoint, our bearing, our attitude, our bent, our inclination.  These constitute the spirit of our mind and we must renew them. “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.” When we renew our minds, we will no longer live in ignorance and in the futility of our own worldly thinking like the Gentiles do (Ephesians 4:17-18). It is only after we have been transformed that we can then rededicate our lives to serving the almighty God, and in so doing we can attain the level of grace that the Lord has planned for us.  We must be renewed to be transformed. When we are transformed, we will be ready for that revival that we all long for. – Pastor Simbo Odunaiya

Sunday, July 21st is children’s day at CICC; a day we set apart to get our children to take over most of the Service.  This is our own way of corporately doing what the Bible calls “train up your child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6).  You can also call it our attempt at “passing the baton”. A Church that does not get the children and the youth involved in their services ultimately runs the risk of becoming extinct.  This is more so in this present world where the Church is competing with a lot of other things for our children’s hearts and time. It is therefore very important for us to take affirmative or intentional steps in making sure that our children are introduced early to our faith so that they can grow in it.

When our time passes by, the success we made of it will only be judged by the preparations we made for sustainment.  While it is important for leaders to disciple other leaders, who can succeed them and also maintain their legacy, it is even more important to make sure that the baton is correctly transferred to the generation coming behind.  As I always say, children are very good passive learners. Passive in the sense that when you are actively teaching them, they hear what you say but they do not necessarily follow what you say. On the other hand, what you do when it is not your intention to teach them is what they catch very quickly and imitate. This is what I call passive learning.  Values, especially, are caught and not taught. So, we must make intentional efforts at making sure that the values we display to our kids are the ones we want them to catch.  

In the letter Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he encourages them to be “imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2).  Paul is teaching us all how to live with this statement. It is reminding us that as we look to imitate our Father in heaven, so also our children are looking to imitate us.  Being aware of this, we must choose to live in a way that shows a good example to our children. This imitation thing has a bad side. It is one thing for the children to imitate what they see us do in Church, like they are doing today.  It is another thing, if they choose to imitate both our Church and our out of Church attitudes. Children learn how to act by seeing how we act. So, if they see us live our lives as loving Christians, the tendency is for them to grow up and become loving Christians.  If they see us as hypocritical Christians, there is a high probability that they will become the same. They will come to Church and put up a show just like we do, and when they get out of Church they will become monsters.  

My favorite Bible passage about children is Psalm 127.  Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain (Psalms 127:1).  We need the help of God to raise our children the right way. We cannot do it by ourselves.  So, we must make sure that we always reach out to God for help as our efforts alone are not enough.  The same Psalm 127 goes on to say in verses 3-4 that “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.  Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth”. One only needs to ask an archer, people who participate in the sport of shooting arrows, and we will find out how much time is spent in taking care of their arrows.  Only an arrow that has been well designed and well taken care off will hit its target. Our children are like that. The process of training them in the way they should go is the same as making sure the arrows are well polished, straightened, and ready to go.  When they are released, they will stay on their path and surely hit their intended targets. When, our children are properly prepared, when they are released, they will stay on their path and they will also hit their intended target. Malachi 2:15 tells us that God seeks “Godly offspring” from us. How do we make sure that our offspring are raised in a Godly way?  We must seek God’s help, and we must train them the way they ought to go. Training them the way to go also depends on how we live our lives. We must live a Godly life for us to raise Godly offspring. Therefore, when we talk about passing the baton, that baton we talk about is the Godly life. So, as much as we can, let us model a Godly life for our offspring and when they grow up, they will not depart from it. – Pastor Simbo Odunaiya

ey can grow in it.

When our time passes by, the success we made of it will only be judged by the preparations we made for sustainment.  While it is important for leaders to disciple other leaders, who can succeed them and also maintain their legacy, it is even more important to make sure that the baton is correctly transferred to the generation coming behind.  As I always say, children are very good passive learners. Passive in the sense that when you are actively teaching them, they hear what you say but they do not necessarily follow what you say. On the other hand, what you do when it is not your intention to teach them is what they catch very quickly and imitate. This is what I call passive learning.  Values, especially, are caught and not taught. So, we must make intentional efforts at making sure that the values we display to our kids are the ones we want them to catch.  

In the letter Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesians, He encourages them to be “imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Ephesians 5:1-2).  Paul is teaching us all how to live with this statement. It is reminding us that as we look to imitate our father in heaven, so also our children are looking to imitate us.  Being aware of this, we must choose to live in a way that shows a good example to our children. This imitation thing has a bad side. It is one thing for the children to imitate what they see us do in Church, like they are doing today.  It is another thing, if they choose to imitate both our church and our out of church attitudes. Children learn how to act by seeing how we act. So, if they see us live our lives as loving Christians, the tendency is for them to grow up and become loving Christians.  If they see us as hypocritical Christians, there is a high probability that they will become the same. They will come to church and put up a show just like we do, and when they get out of church they will become monsters.  

My favorite bible passage about children is psalm 127.  Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain (Psalms 127:1).  We need the help of God to raise our children the right way. We cannot do it by ourselves.  So, we must make sure that we always reach out to God for help as our efforts alone are not enough.  The same Psalm 127 goes on to say in verses 3-4 that “Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.  Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth”. One only needs to ask an archer, people who participate in the sport of shooting arrows, and we will find out how much time is spent in taking care of their arrows.  Only an arrow that has been well designed and well taken care off will hit its target. Our children are like that. The process of training them in the way they should go is the same as making sure the arrows are well polished, straightened, and ready to go.  When they are released, they will stay on their path and surely hit their intended targets. When, our children are properly prepared, when they are released, they will stay on their path and they will also hit their intended target. Malachi 2:15 tells us that God seeks “Godly offspring” from us. How do we make sure that our offspring are raised in a Godly way?  We must seek God’s help, and we must train them the way they ought to go. Training them the way to go also depends on how we live our lives. We must live a Godly life for us to raise Godly offspring. Therefore, when we talk about passing the baton, that baton we talk about is the Godly life. So, as much as we can, let us model a Godly life for our offspring and when they grow up they will not depart from it.

– Pastor Simbo Odunaiya

One of the most difficult things to convince a believer about is the goodness of God.  They do not even wait too long before they challenge you that if God were good, why is there so much evil in the world.  An obviously good question. So, we must go there, if God were good, why is there so much evil in the world? There is an age-old dilemma that we as Christians always have to deal with.  If God is all-good, then He would want to get rid of evil in the world. If He is all-powerful, then He has the ability to do it. Why then, is there so much evil in the world in the face of a good God.  It is a concept that is difficult to understand.

When we say God is good, we are saying that is His very essence.  God will not be God if He were not good. So, the goodness of God is one of His basic attributes.  Psalm 34:8 says “Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” As it is with all of His attributes, the goodness of God can be seen in His creation.  Genesis 1:31a says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” The goodness of God is very germane to our faith. We feel His goodness in our souls, we feel it in His provisions and His protections.  If, for example, someone was to prove to us that God is not good, or our mind somehow perceives that God is not good, then our faith can fall apart like a pack of cards. This is what the devil tries to do daily.  The devil tries to prove to us that God is not good. The devil tries to play with our mind and create a perception that God is not good. We ask questions like, if God were good, why am I suffering like this? We wonder why all the natural disasters if God is indeed good.  We tend to think the negative things all the time because that is what Satan will have us do so that we can begin to doubt this important attribute of our living God.

The truth, however, is that we can see proof of the goodness of God all around us daily.  This proof abounds in the life-sustaining provisions of God, in the crops that come in their own season for our food, and even in the air we breathe. As Christians we must be ready to showcase these proofs of the goodness of God to others every day.  But, what about the evil? This is how C. S. Lewis a former Atheist puts it: “If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having” (A Mind Awake: An Anthology of C. S. Lewis).  In essence, the idea of evil in the world is the only reason goodness is appealing and worth pursuing.  When we look at the things we consider to be good, we find that there is supposition that there is evil.  For example, how can we talk about love without talking about hate. How can we talk about mercy without talking about wrong doing?  So, we have a choice, between love and hate; and between kindness and wickedness.  

Apostle Paul says when we sorrow, we should not do it as those who have no hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13).  This is because we know our God is good and that good always overcomes evil. In our sorrows or when evil strikes, we can always cry out to our benevolent God.  When my late wife died at a young age, that was torment from Satan himself, but because I know I serve a good God I was able to cry out to Him in my anguish just like Job did in Job 1:21c, “The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”  The good Lord restored my soul, He restored my hope, and He ultimately restored my joy. That is our good God. The idea that God is good does not mean we will not have trials. The idea that God is good does not mean we will not be sick. But in all things God will establish His authority and show His benevolence.  The lessons we learn in life do not usually come through pleasure. In fact, great lessons of life will come during periods of adversities and pain. Afflictions can be blessings in disguise. The bible teaches that “tribulation worketh patience” (Romans 5:4, KJV), and “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17, KJV).  It is the way of salvation and does not take away from the goodness of our God. Despite the evil in the world, our God remains omnibenevolent. He is all good, and He is good all the time.