Olaniyi Olanrewaju

A very heart warming event occurred in the taxi I boarded this evening. I would never have imagined what God had in plan when I entered the taxi that already had a woman with 3 children squeezing themselves to occupy just one seat. I would have helped to carry one of the children, but the last passenger in the back seat was not smiling, so I just squeezed myself between the woman with kids and the woman without smile. The children chatted without considering their inconvenience. My heart felt for them. Three kids and their mum squeezed up into a seat inside a taxi. I silently prayed to the Lord to reduce their hardship. They were dressed in Ankara and the smallest (the only girl) wore a beret. I guess they were going to church. It was as if the Lord was waiting for my silent prayers because He answered the prayers immediately. The little girl had been trying to lean out of her Mum's hand unto my chest, but Mum wouldn't allow her to discomfort the nice gentleman withou...

Dear Friend, It's been a while. I took some days off because I got busy and had a number of things on my heart that I am not used to. Many things are happening in this times and I hope you are aware of the times and season. Last night, I began to think about how I use to be. I mean what my belief system looked like years ago. We have come a very long way in the faithfulness of God towards us and we must not forget what we looked like in the past. I remember how I wouldn't look into the face of any lady when I just believed because I didn't want to be stained. I almost fell inside a deep gutter as a result of this. Somehow, I thank God that I didn't have so much audience to listen to my 'revs'. My friend, don't make mockery of anyone that you perceive to have a lesser understanding of the word of God than you. Remember you have not always been like this too. I thank my teachers who patiently listened to my 'foolish' questions, but didn...

Dear Friend, My very good friend. I am sorry I haven't asked about your family since I started writing to you. Hope they are fine? Recently, I noticed that many people around me had malaria and it's because the weather here is changing. The rain is stopping and the dry season is gradually taking over. In fact, we are experiencing what they caller 'shorter day, longer night' here. By 6:30pm, everywhere would have become so dark. I wouldn't know what is happening where you are. You know when they say that a person is experiencing the night season. It means things are not right for the person at that moment. It can be so terrible that he would think that that is all that will ever happen in his life. It would be hard for him to think that morning will ever show up. If you have ever had a painful reason not to sleep for a night, you would know that the night can almost last for ever. The night seasons of our life always look as if they would never go, yet it ...

Dear Friend, My good friend, hope you're not weary of my many letters to you. It's my love for you that is compelling me to keep writing to you. I still have many more things to write to you about. I want to remind you of a particular sermon that was preached in my fellowship when I was in 300L. I was shocked when the pastor took the microphone and he began to cry. I never knew pastors cry too. My curiosity was aroused when I saw him crying. I wanted to know why he was crying. Then, he made a statement: 'I have seen God'. Wow! What exactly did he see? I hope I will get an answer one day. That day, he preached about a man I have never heard of before. He told us about Nimrod who built a lot of cities like Nineveh, Rehoboth and all. He further compared Nimrod to Abraham who didn't build a single house not to talk of a city. He reminded us of the verse in Hebrews where Abraham was said to be looking for a city that God has built. My friend, Abraham signifi...

Dear Friend, My dear friend, I am boiling with love for you this month and that's why I have chosen to wrote to you as often as I can. Nigerian celebrated her 57th independence recently and there were several encouraging words and calls for unity from our leaders. I would like you to know that there is more to ordinary planning that makes a nation to work. You would remember how we read the history of the church and how it affected nations like UK and USA. The light of Life affects the entire creation of God on which man is meant to rule. But we have a lot of alterations beginning from the treason of Adam. Presently, we have a lot of spiritual cities occupying many nations and enforcing their orders and structures over them. We must be aware of this so that we will know how to bring the culture of where we want into Nigeria. I pray that the Lord will raise us as men that can enforce His will in a very great measure in Nigeria. In the bible, we see many cities. Egypt, Sod...

Dear Friend, My letter to you today is about something I recently observed. I believe you will agree with me that there are many things we can learn by observing. Observation brings many things our way. I observed something and I would like to share it with you today. The taxis in Ibadan are gradually wearing a new color. To someone that is new in Ibadan, the color would be something new, but to someone that has been in Ibadan for a long while it is not a new color. Ibadan taxis used to be yellow and brown, then it was changed to white with two green stripes. Now, they are back to the yellow and brown color. It think that color actually fits Ibadan, but the change brought some thoughts to my heart. Do you know that a lot of our friends have changed back to what they used to be just like Ibadan taxis? It's not a good news. People are now reducing the standard of the scriptures. There is a scripture I love so much in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews 10:39 But we are not of...

Dear Friend, Hope you learnt from my last letter to you. It brings me joy each time I hear about the great things you're doing for God just like Paul, the apostle would say in his letters. I remember how we went from room to room to preach the gospel when we were on campus. I have always known that our journey in God is not a sprint, rather it is a marathon race that has a whole lot of experiences. The ups and the downs. It is part of the package my dear friend. I pray your heart will be encouraged by this particular letter. I remember how Rick Joyner explained the similarities between the journey of the Israelites from Egypt to Canaan and the journey of Christians into the fullness of Christ. It's all full of junctions. Some of this junctions may give us injuries that I hope you quickly turn into scars. Some give us fears. We even get ashamed at some points. Yes, it can be that bad. Guilt may also be around at those periods. Such experiences can be found on the way....

Dear Friend, My dear friend, my heart keep longing to write more and more to you. I believe you're getting my letters. Don't hesitate to write to me anytime the Lord lays a word in your heart for me. Some days ago, myself and some friends were cleaning the surroundings of a church. I wanted to spend time with God during the cleaning, so I separated myself and went to clean a place that was relatively quiet. People saw me from afar as I was working and some waved at me to encourage me. In my heart, I saw that I was enjoying the greetings more than the work I was doing for the Lord. It was so much that I began to long for more of the encouragements. It grieved my heart. I never knew I still had such tendencies within me. Jesus called it hypocrisy. Why would I choose to do a work so that people would see me and hail me for it? It's wrong. Many of these tendencies are so subtle that we would  often classify them as natural, but we must know that our God longs for a...

Dear Friend, I feel pressed in my heart to write to you about this times. You remember how we use to be very hungry for the knowledge of the times and season when we were on campus. I still have that hunger and I hope you still have it too. Bible says that we see in part, so just in case you haven't seen what I am seeing, I want you to be aware. This times calls for us to be deliberate about our following Jesus. Remember that scripture that says that anyone that will follow Jesus must deny himself, daily carry his cross and follow Him. Now is the time for us to live out this instructions as the Lord is calling us to align with Him. There is so much deception in town and I hope you haven't been infected? We cannot take a part of our life away from the Lord as the Lord is calling for it all. He wants us to align with Him in every area of life. He says 'put your house in order' My friend, begin to arrange everything around you now because the Lord is close. Ou...

Dear Friend, It's been a long time since I wrote to you. I have always had you in mind, though time has not been favorable, but today, I have decided to steal some time to write to you. All has been very well with me. Hope you have the same testimony too? Your music ministry nko? I want to tell you about what my playlist. I have seen several Christians advocate for some kind of music in recent times. Over time, there have been very serious arguments about the kinds of songs acceptable to God. Criteria like lyrics, tune and life of the artist have been the major yardsticks for differentiating between 'gospel' and 'secular'. You know I don't like arguments, so I mostly stay away from such discussions. When someone comes on the social media and says some songs are not good for the believer, people call him a hypocrite or 'holier than thou'. You must have been seeing such posts on Facebook. They way people abuse of Facebook these days, you would th...