The Oscar Ajoku Blog: Daily Vitamin Devotional

DAILY VITAMIN - Obedience Is The Key One thing a man who walks with the Lord, or who wills to, must know is that with God obedience recovers losses. It is actually the key to His heart. Many atimes when we weigh the risk of giving up all our false gettings for Christ, we tend to wish we didn't have to. That's the same way it must have felt for Peter when Jesus told him to leave the ships and follow Him, still having an urge to return to it immediately after Christ's death. The same way it must have felt for Paul when he dropped his law repute only to embrace the gospel of truth with so much fervency amidst the trials and buffeting. The same way it must have felt for the well-to-do Elisha to have dropped the wealth of his home, and the flock he had bred, only to follow the poor prophet who didn't even have a home. But in all of this, God showed Himself mighty because they all had a witness that indeed all things worked together for good to those who love God enough to...

DAILY VITAMIN - The Love Of Christ The Ephesian church was always in Paul's prayer; and one of such was that they would know the love of Christ (3:19). To the Christian, this is proportional to praying that they receive the grace to obey God's command just as Christ out of His love for the Father obeyed even to the cross; for the scripture says, And this is ...love...that we keep His commandments (1 John 5:3). But to the non- Christian, it is praying that they receive the Person of Jesus internally so as to live before others as He lived, imparting them as He did, and saving them as He did. No man can know the essence and extremity of love unless such a man has had Jesus in His passion deep within his heart. Not even Shakespeare who wrote so beautifully of love can live so great a love in reality; but Jesus can because He already did, and so can you, when Jesus is right there within you. "May the Lord bring you into an ever deeper understanding of the love of God" ...

DAILY VITAMIN - There Is Life In Every Word There is a saying that Silence is gold; yet I really do not believe that it means your not saying anything, but your not saying the irrelevancies- the abrupt and unnecessary things. Most times, our description of a fool is a talkative, one who says beyond what must be said, and that's true because while the wise listen, and think before speaking, the fool speaks before listening and thinking. He's like a truck who causes a car-crash before hitting its red lights. People are tired of listening to speeches, they want changes...life-imparting words. Jesus never spoke words unneeded at the moment by man; infact every word He spoke in scripture touched lives, and still does - Now, that's wise. Today, it is expedient we learn to use our words aright... in ways needed, and not just in ways wanted by us. Infact, I believe our orientation would change if only we knew that words are expensive. If you had only a thousand words to speak b...

DAILY VITAMIN - Look Unto Jesus Let this season be the day you choose to live your life focused and entirely reliant on Jesus. Permit me to say that the mystery of the word of God is the strength of the man who relies solely on God. We will indeed realize from the Nehustan scene in scripture (Numbers 21:8-9) that the picture of how Israel got saved every time by simply focusing on the hung brasen serpent illustrates the assurance of our safety in Christ if only we'd focus our attention on Him. In that bewildered condition, regardless of how many times the serpent bit the congregation, it didn't matter as long as they kept their eyes up; in the same way, our challenges, our hardcore trials can't kill us, no matter how much they try, because with our eyes still fixed on Jesus, we are very much still in the game....with power above the serpents of the wilderness around us (Luke 10:19). And you know the good part? Our blessed Assurance isn't anywhere hung like that ser...

DAILY VITAMIN - Living The Committed Life As children of the Supreme, one thing God desires of us is total commitment, just as a groom requires the same of his bride, or the boss of his workers. God is well aware of the fact that the tempter isn't going to give up on you, yet He expects you to always provide him with a straight-up No for an answer everytime he tempts you according to the grace He has provided in abundance for you. Temptations are bound to come, but God’s special interest is in the response you're going to commiserate its arrival with. That is, are you going to yield to it, or be shielded from it? Just as with Balaam, the devil would keep on coming with more and more attractive things, things that seem honourable, even a so-called human promotion until he breaks us. Well that shouldn't be new to you, seeing he did the same to Jesus from a bread, to an open glory and then to earth's dominion- things God has already given us in Christ, but out of ignora...

DAILY VITAMIN - Being Better Starts With A Change In Mindset Some days back, I spoke about how the major difference between the successful and the failed is the mindset they develop; well here's another reason why: A few times out of many, the odds are that the man who grew up in the slum would surpass the level of the slums, but ironically at other times the odds are against that. Such that the conditions these individuals found around themselves force them to believe they can never be anything other than that; and so it can be said that such a problem as we find in many isn't a result of a physical attack, neither is it anything spiritual, but a mental one, keeping the individual in a subconscious mental suicidal state that tells him 'No way' whenever he dares dream above the slums. But what does God has to say about that? What solution does He proffers? Romans 12:2 says, 'Be not conformed to the world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind'. F...

DAILY VITAMIN - We Are More Like Him When the government fails to provide the needed amenities, we flare up in anger, frustrated, and curse and abuse them until we feel we have gotten even. In doing this, we totally forget that our brothers and sisters make up the government; sometimes our pastors and friends, our religious companions and benefactors, yet for the reason that we are frustrated, we curse endlessly. Frustration forces us to put away. the Christ in us, to express the fallen Adam within, which always has an excuse for every wrong, and a victim to blame for every problem. we encounter. The world and the problems that come with it are bent on achieving one aim; which is to drill out the slightest bit of God out of the Christian man, keeping him frustrated until he stays more human than Christ-like. Most times, we yield not because we do not know that the eventual end- which is our being frustrated, is a gambit of the devil to make us say and do things that do not exhibit t...

DAILY VITAMIN - God Is On Your Side Almost everyday of our lives, the challenges we face come using the Sennacherib approach, taunting us with the words  ''how can your God save you now?''. As humans, our initial response would be similar to that of a people under siege- in duress, which is the same way one may feel when he sees a four legged creature in the dark wilds only to realize it was a goat whilst thinking it was a lion. We normally have a shock arrest of fear, but it is appalling that many of us remain that way- in the same shocked mode way after the cause has passed away. That is, we keep carrying the effect of anxiety even when the culprit for it has been exposed. When Sennacherib thought to invade Jerusalem, all the inhabitants had that shock of fear, but on hearing Hezekiah's words concerning God's promises, they found a shock absorber to keep them in check. And how did they do that...they 'rested themselves upon the words' (2 Chronicles...

DAILY VITAMIN - Words Do Matter I remember the sage wrote a verse in scripture, saying something along the line that 'kind words are medicine to the soul'(Proverbs 16:24). And they really are. For instance, have you ever had a bad day....a day so bad that it drives away your appetite for anything other than anger and fury? And even when your funny mates come around with his/her comic nature, it's only a grin without a smile you can squeeze out of yourself? Huh... I guess we all have. But even in this condition, when a passing-by fellow compliments you on an area nobody ever had done before, it feels like the whole volcano of fury erupted out to emptiness, causing you to feel so free and susceptible to joy and laughter once again. True or not? But guess what, nothing changed- just your feelings, because in the same way our thoughts and actions are affected by our environmental influences, they are also by verbal influences. And so like the sun out of the dark, kind words ...

DAILY VITAMIN - Be The Star You Are Regardless of how much the night cloud cover up the stars up in the sky, sooner or later it tends to just gas out, as it can never keep the stars from shining beautifully. For a moment, it seems the stars are lost up there, but thereafter they pop out from what we termed nowhere, and just continue shining. Far from it, the stars went nowhere, they were there where we last saw them, waiting patiently because they knew they would shine again soon enough. In life, we are the stars; the challenges of life may sometimes cloud us out, that we begin to lose our essence, our purpose, our meaning to life. But deep within, we would realize that nothing really changed, just a moment of dark clouds overwhelming the light, soon to pass away. And so the problem isn't that the clouds are too heavy on our stars,  but that we are not patient enough to wait to shine again. We lose patience so quickly in this pathophysiological environ of 'dos' and '...

DAILY VITAMIN - He Will Remember! Being overwhelmed by problems and sorrows of the heart often times can be a job much more harder than most menial ones. Nobody likes it, because it brings torment. Israel had known torment. They had been in captivity for 430 years in Egypt, now they were serving an additional 70 on Babylonian soil. The torment was so grievous that most of them were losing their identity in order to bear babylonian nomenclatures; but at the 11th hour of this phase of their lives, God remembered them. I want you to note that. God remembered them even under the reign of an heathen king. He didn't just remember them, He went further to favor them. Learn something from that....learn this, that God's favour and restoration is far above a function of environment; for if Daniel's promotion could come in the den with filthy lions, Joseph's in prison, and Jacob on a open field, then it is distinct that God knows no borders in uplifting an individual. Back to y...

DAILY VITAMIN - It's Not All About You I have come to realize that the most difficult thing in life is not becoming who you are meant to become, but being it without causing someone else to fall off. Most times, many of us display a non-chalant attitude towards the affairs of others as a result of our actions. We have so much soaked ourselves in a state of 'I don't care'ism, but whether we like it or not, God is interested in our influence on others. God is interested in how our lives affect the many lives of others. In his epistle to the church at Jerusalem, Paul highlighted on the presence of witnesses all around us, both physically and in spirit, and one thing he desired was that the hebrews failed not before these witnesses through their actions (Hebrews 12:1). God does not expect the praying man to be the loudest voice in an insult bout. He doesn't desire the man who supposedly should be Christ-like to behave unseemly, somewhat worse than Lucifer himself. An...

DAILY VITAMIN - Value This Moment With Utmost Focus The major misdeed of man always will be forgetfulness; not because they don't have a picture of what must be done, but that at that moment, they lost it. Oftentimes, we lose it at the most crucial moments of our lives. A boxer in the ring could afford to lose at the 1st round, at least that shows he isn't worth the fight, but if he does at the 11th when he is so close to a tie-break, then it stops being about his non-worthiness, but his inability to really value the opportunity he obtained. The aim is always to stay in the fight and to stay in race, because we never truly know what happen. But come what may, the man who quits gets no reward. When God would send Moses on his exodus journey, one commandment would remain stuck in Moses' head from the lips of God, which is 'Ye shall observe to do therefore as the LORD your God hath commanded you: you shall not turn aside to the right hand or to the left' (Deuteronom...

DAILY VITAMIN - The Power of a Praying Man When we study Nehemiah, we would realize one action he took in each chapter was the act of prayer. He teaches one thing by this singular action of his: that is, that prayer is not just one religious rite, but a medium to getting instructions and directions from God to make the journey of life a celebration of glory. Whenever he was on the ledge, he would pray for directives; and guess what, God always answered. You know when we read of what Paul wrote about praying everywhere we find ourselves (1 Timothy 2:8), it may sound unreal and unachievable; but study Nehemiah's lifestyle, and you will find out that he even prayed right there in front of a king (2:4). Time or place was never a limitation to his alone time with God. And it shouldn't be ours too. Prayer sanctifies you, after which it edifies you, because as you get deeper into God, you never just leave as man, but as man having a part of God with and in him. You would also noti...

DAILY VITAMIN - Trust Your Way To Supernatural Possibilities Have there ever been times when your present condition and your expected goal don't collate well, and you just succumb to the thought that may be you weren't just created to be that great? A lot of us have. And such experiences I have come to believe so much that our greatest opposition in life is nature. Let me explain: Nature only supports the natural things; such as how the poor kid got to remain poor by simple permutation. And that's why Nathaniel asked if any good thing could come out of Nazareth; because it was natural for nothing better than casuals and carpenters to proceed out of that little town. But guess what? God is highly involved in the supernatural; and it is the supernatural that tells the poor that now you are rich; that tells the barren that now you can bear; that tells the lonely that now you got company; that tells the sick that now you are whole; that tells you that now your goals are achi...

DAILY VITAMIN - Keep Moving A writer once wrote 'One day at a time, sweet Jesus, that's all i'm asking of you'. In those words are laid principles and truths that can be applied to life to get all that God has laid for your getting. For each day God gives you, He has provided the means to achieve all you should, because indeed He wants you to achieve something specific. He provides the day, shows you the lane, but you've got to walk......a step at a time to get to where He's prepared for you for that day. By faith, we can take the step God has shown us, until He gives the next one; but here lies the major problem with many of us, we don't want to move. Anyway, just so you know, it is known that swallows migrate a lot; now to the birds, it doesn't matter if they haven't glided those skies before, they are still willing to try new places because they think more on the potentials ahead than the problems. In the same way, until you go past your pres...

DAILY VITAMIN - I Am Greatness Personified One of the greatest virtue you can be assured of as a christian is that you carry something great within you. There is a saying that there is an element of greatness in every man, well, that is very true for the man who has Jesus in his life. For the scripture tells us that He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world (1 John 4:4). Not only are you made wonderfully with an intact mental acuity and physical charisma, but above that you have within yourself a well of awesome virtues springing forth greatness laid in the Person of Christ. John the beloved, in his record of the Lord's days on earth, wrote down a word which Jesus spoke without any intent to produce doubt in the hearers and readers. He said '...I am in My Father, and ye in Me, and I in you' (John 14:20). So in simple words, Jesus used the picture of Him and the Father unity to depict how close He is to you and I. In fact, way close; so close that He is on ...

DAILY VITAMIN Most times we live life believing the other person should do what we ought to do; and so as a result, we quickly squirm when so much is required of us, and without hesitation pile it up for the other guy to do. We become so self-absorbed that we think responsibility belongs to everyone else but us. However, the simple truth is, you were created with purpose to fulfill specific moments in the grand plan of God. So, this means that everyone even you is born with a responsibility from God to fulfill His Dominion plan on the earth. Mordecai, when speaking to Esther said ''you might believe the present threat cannot affect you, but know this, if you fail in your responsibility as a solution-maker, God will set up someone to accomplish the job, but as for you and all you stand for, it would be as though you have no more essence, and perhaps you might be shocked to realize later that this was the purpose of being at this place at this particular time'' (Esther ...

DAILY VITAMIN The kind of man mostly appreciated by the world's populace is the eloquent one bathed with human wisdom, but before God it is the one who walks according to His wisdom- for that which is from above is above all. Wisdom, in all its ramifications, is profitable and a beauty to possess. Scriptures says that by it kings reign (Proverbs 8:16). It places signets of royalty on paupers, and gives positions of nobles to street rats. Inevitably, wisdom elevates. But inspite of all this, God has categorized wisdom into several forms. First, there is that which is sensual: This is that sort which has everything in it except God. It's intellect dependent and intellectually centered. It solves problems, bring solutions, help the hapless, yet still doesn't have God in its orifice; and a typology of this is found in the rich fool. His wisdom got him all any man could ever wish for, but it couldn't bring him what a man really needed, which is God who gives every good and...

DAILY VITAMIN - Renewed IV Have you ever stopped just for a moment to think about why even after being born again, many of us still struggle with our old nature? The addiction doesn't become extinct; in fact it suddenly begins to feel more real than it did before, and as a result, we end up fighting against our sensual wills most of the time. It is almost like the temptations increased in multiple facets; and though we are new, it seems as if we're still fighting an old enemy. However, oftentimes, it's our ego which tends to remain stronger, making us at unconscious moments to take the place of God in our lives just like Nebuchadnezzar did. Here's what you should know: God knew the transformation He did plan for you won't be instantaneous; to prove it to you, Peter was still of self even after three years with Christ, choosing to lie and live rather than tell the truth and die. The Holy Spirit's work in our lives at new birth was a transformation of our spiri...