The Oscar Ajoku Blog: Daily Vitamin Devotional

DAILY VITAMIN - Practicing The Word The words of God carry a soothing aura of rest, and if only we can hold on to it, life would be a whole lot easier, because by the strength of the Word, He carries our burdens, and bears our cares. The prophet Micah, in those medieval days, wrote a line I love so much; he wrote....Do not My [God's] words do good to him that walk uprightly (Micah 2:7). The fulfillment of the word, as reiterated in those words of Micah, reaches completion fully in the lives of the upright. Upright here signifies the strictly obedient ones. Those who take God at His word, and practice all He instructs to the latter. The Bible emphasizes on how an upright man is a delight to God, and to the people; and so uprightness is a nature and character all men must covet, for it is a carrier of integrity and a conduit towards blessings. But this is where I'm truly driving at: the words of God are always ready to be fulfilled (Isaiah 55:11), yet they are quickened only

DAILY VITAMIN - Let God Be Enough For You "In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths." ( Proverbs 3:6 AMP) A popular phrase says that every end of the race is a beginning of another. First, yesterday became over some hours ago and bore today; last month became over and bore this new one, and soon this year would become over, adding one to itself to born the next. In this year and in the coming months, we all would need a refueling medium, and what's more better than what God has to say about your life. David had so much saturated himself in God's promises that he wrote...''I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, O Lord only makes me dwell in safety (Psalm 4:8). During those times, David structured his mind not on the insecurity problems, nor on the mass flawfulness. He didn't focus on his weakness, nor his soon to be weakness, rather he contented himself in the truth

DAILY VITAMIN - Imbibing The Nature Of Faith "Therefore, [inheriting] the promise is the outcome of faith and depends [entirely] on faith, in order that it might be given as an act of grace (unmerited favor), to make it stable and valid and guaranteed to all his descendants--not only to the devotees and adherents of the Law, but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, who is [thus] the father of us all. As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. [He was appointed our father] in the sight of God in Whom he believed, Who gives life to the dead and speaks of the nonexistent things that [He has foretold and promised] as if they [already] existed. [For Abraham, human reason for] hope being gone, hoped in faith that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been promised, So [numberless] shall your descendants be. He did not weaken in faith when he considered the [utter] impotence of his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a h

DAILY VITAMIN - Every Habit Is A Choice One thing almost every individual must have learned from his/her normal daily routine experiences is that attitudes aren't born in a day;  character isn't established in a moment, and that whatever you become is a final product of all you have always been. Like Edward V. Hill said ''Little rats don't cut holes, they just follow through where big rats have made the holes''; that is, whatever a man becomes is something he has been taught to be either by someone or by himself; and that's why habits are hard to break, because they are either self-influenced or strongly established by external influences. For instance, according to the record in the first book of the Kings 12, Rehoboam, even after being groomed by the wisest man in the world, still made the mistake of making the wrong choice. This fellow was always in the company of his friends right from kindergarten- I suppose, and when it came to the point of his

DAILY VITAMIN - Having Known, Shout It Out loud! "I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise you among much people." (Psalm 35:18) If you are one of the many "us" who watch a lot of sports, you'd understand that after any sport athlete does marvelously, or perhaps wins a race, he gets into a room, has a press conference where he expresses himself in regards to how he feels, and how it all resulted to that glorious moment.  The same thing should be evident in the life of every redeemed child of God. Every time you spend with others-peers or strangers-should be a press conference to you; every moment you converse with the world should be an opportunity to tell of how you feel and how it all resulted to this.  Your testimonies of God should be something the world around you should get used to, not hidden but broadcasted. For the past so many years, and in this last 100+ days, God has been so good to you and I: faithful as He remai

DAILY VITAMIN - Can You Serve God For Nothing? "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15) There is a marvelous picture in the book of Habakkuk of a true revelation about one man's love for God. He [the prophet] said that even if all he had ceased to prosper; even if his life came to a standstill and he lost every sense of hope for a revival; even if the picture of his future loses the poise and élan he was promised, yet will he serve-and rejoice in-Jehovah (3:17-18). Just like Job, this was a man who loved God not for what He gives, but for whom He is. But here lies the irony: How many of us can the same be said of today? How many of us will choose God even if that choice had no benefit to it? How many of us will choose God all over again if we had a hall-pass to live in any way, and if judgment, heaven and hell ceased to exist? This is what it means to truly love God: to serve and obey Him even when there's no reward or consequence attached to it. Mo

DAILY VITAMIN - Getting It Right In Love  "And Isaac brought Rebekah into his mother Sarah's tent, and she became his wife. He loved her deeply, and she was a special comfort to him after the death of his mother." (Genesis 24:67, NLT) From the rear, I can hear the words "what makes you think you can write about this? You're not married and apparently aren't 'in love' presently". Touché; but while that may sound right, it's like telling a therapist he can't help you beat the addiction simply because he isn't addicted. You see, what experience may miss, observation and learning won't. And more so, who told them I haven't? Well, let's leave that for another day. Now, Love? For a long time, I have focused my attention on exploring and teaching about the love of God and the need for us to appropriate the same. But right under our noses, I have seen a plethora of young men and women get swindled by the idea of love adorned

DAILY VITAMIN - Born To Reign "For He has made us unto our God Kings and Priests: and we shall reign on the earth." (Revelation 5:10) Who do you think you are? Men may call you normal; the devil may call you a potential victim; but God calls you His child. And being God’s child means you have a king's gene deeply trenched in your spirit. Choosing to live conscious of it in words and deeds is the responsibility that eventually makes it real indeed. But, will this bother people? Of course it will. Most times, when we speak of our positions in Christ as kings and peculiar people, a lot of persons tend to shrug, calling our words bluff. They mock and judge our claims as outlandish. With their angry faces, they dispute our belief until we even begin to doubt God ourselves. But I'm here to tell you -don't let that bother you. The fact that something seems untrue doesn't yet make it untrue. The fact that the same seems impossible doesn't cancel out its pos

DAILY VITAMIN - Cheer Yourself Out Of Fear In a world like ours where the greatest epidermic is fear, what sort of permanent solution can be proffered? In fact, it is an overlapped pandemic common to both the man with cancer and even the man with just a cold. It haunts both the rich and the poor alike. It cripples the strongest of men; leaving him to believe he is lesser than he knows he actually is. And not just that, fear, in its sinister state, overwhelms the man, emptying him of every thought of betterness, until all he has left is a mindset jammed with impossibilities, shame and the 'its all over' view of all things. It diminishes the actualization of an achievement that is very much attainable. For instance, when Peter shoved away fear for a moment, he walked on the sea of Galilee....leg on water manifesting upthrust. But at the entrance of fear, this high stander began to sink. The grievous effects of fear are currently ruining nations, states, organizations and fam

DAILY VITAMIN - We Live As We Think "For the rest, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is worthy of reverence and is honorable and seemly, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and lovable, whatever is kind and winsome and gracious, if there is any virtue and excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think on and weigh and take account of these things [fix your minds on them]. Practice what you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and model your way of living on it, and the God of peace (of untroubled, undisturbed well-being) will be with you." (Philippians 4:8-9 AMP) It's true to say that in life there will always be good times and bad, but your chances of making both days seem blissful depends on your ability to paint both days blissful by seeing good in all things. Our confessions and perceptions define our realizations and actualization. You are what you see yourself as. Apostle James speaks of how believers should rejoic

DAILY VITAMIN - You Must Finish Well "I have fought the good (worthy, honorable, and noble) fight, I have finished the race, I have kept (firmly held) the faith. [As to what remains] henceforth there is laid up for me the [victor's] crown of righteousness [for being right with God and doing right], which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me and recompense me on that [great] day--" (2 Timothy 4:7-8) Finishing well isn't an act that always seem as though it would be right from the onset of a task, but by a persistent reminder that it's the only alternative, your willpower to work until you meet the goal stays on top. Whenever you have a task before you, the lacked materials, the unknown exclusive integrated knowledge for such tend to stand as a barrier, creating a siege against your accomplishment of such a task. In this dilemma (of confusion and pressure), the first thing to do to yourself is to remind yourself of how important that task's accom

DAILY VITAMIN - Strive To Thrive "I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:14) Why do we settle for less? Why do we embrace the meager possibility when we could have it all? We convince ourselves by saying we are being content; when in reality we are actually being scared. We accept the normal life, when God has an extra normal one reservations for us. He says all things are yours (1 Corinthians 3:21); then why do we live otherwise? We claim that it's better than nothing; saying that a living dog is better than a dead lion- and so living an unfulfilled life is better than not living at all. But I disagree. You see, the quote a living dog is better than a dead lion is an excuse of a consolation for mediocrity. God never called us to live mediocre lives. He says we are the lights of the world, but here we are being comfortable with being just mere sparks. We can be more. We can be a fire; but you have to first g

DAILY VITAMIN - Living For Possibilities "All things are possible for him who believes" (Mark 9:23) God has given unto man the key to the labyrinth of possibilities. That is to say, that you as an individual has all it takes to be all you want. You can be anything and everything you desire to become. You possess deep within yourself all things required to get that which is desired. In a simple sentence, you are a treasure of possibilities- a treasure in that it's only in digging deep that you would discover how much you have embedded in your Person. Just like we are, Gideon was a regular wheat thresher, believing all he was good at were threshing and hiding. Oh yes, he thought himself a good hider, since he was so afraid that the sound of the name Midian could aggravate his pulse's intensity. Little did he know that a giant laid within him, a giant who should be scaring away lilliputians, and not running away from them. But not until Gideon received insight of wh

DAILY VITAMIN - It's Only A Test "You can trust God to keep the temptation from becoming so strong that you can't stand up against it, for he has promised this and will do what he says." (1 Corinthians 10:13 TLB) Just as you know, most times in life God would always put us up to the test; and one major test is the trial of our faith and patience in Him: Your contentment in Him. With many of us, God is going to set up a meeting date, and purposefully He's going to show up late just so that He could see what we are really capable of doing when it seems as though He's absent or not coming any sooner. Saul had the same test. In First Samuel 13:8-14, a meeting was set up between him and God through the person of Samuel the seer, but Samuel never showed up. In an attempt to preserve his ego, Saul carried out the levitical and priestly duties that were forbidden for him to perform. At a period when it seemed like God wasn't around anymore, he decided to take

DAILY VITAMIN - Starting Fresh "Choose this day..." (Joshua 24:15) Seeing that today opens the countdown to the beginning of the 2nd quarter of the year, it is expedient to begin to put plans into place on how you desire to turn tables around, doing things in a better form than you did before, in a way that one could say the coming days is going be better than the previous. So if you desire to start afresh, you must make up your mind to begin today. That is, if you've had so many bad times than good at school, this is that time to make up your mind to cause a change. If you're having a 'ship wrecking' relationship, this is that time to fix it. No matter how much aspirations you have, it needs plans and decisions to manifest. This year is meant to be an opening into a new chapter to your education, marriage, career, relationship etc., but what would be written on those pages depends on you. So, if you desire an imprint of life-impactful tales on these page

DAILY VITAMIN - Making Jesus Your Priority One problem with man is his selfishness. As someone once mused that man is naturally selfish. Everyday we see everybody trying to advertise themselves; it's not like that's altogether bad, but if its against the 'rule of the day', then it is. For instance, we see employees who are paid to advertise their employer rather using their working time to advertise themselves. If it were their spare time, then it wouldn't be that wrong, but with their bought time, that makes it worse than plagiarism. The same thing can be likened to our walk of faith with God- or rather if you like, our Christian walk. Your life today was bought by God, and it is only candid that you use your bought time to advertise more of Him than yourself. The angels proclaimed that God giving Christ to us brought glory to Him, peace to our world, and the goodwill we all now enjoy (Luke 2:14). So the ecstatic life we now live was only possible because God

DAILY VITAMIN - Waiting Out The Storm In this year, as at other times, there are going to be a lot of panic attacks- giving ups on some people's part and discouragements from even those we think wouldn't; but as clearly as the sun comes out at 6, it's an inevitable phase in life. The only difference between its effect on one person from another is the way they handle them. Their attitude is what makes the difference. So, it's never the problem, it is the person. A lot of people are going to say to others as it was said to Joseph 'Let's see how their dreams are going to manifest'; and as to Jesus they would tell them 'Nothing good can come out of here' . As to Jephthah they are going to spew them out because of their petty societal class; and these are really going to shake a whole lot of persons, making them feel unworthy, even to the extent of burying their own dreams with their own hands. David was once in this same situation. He had at various

DAILY VITAMIN - Finding The Pieces That Completes Your Game Only a few set of people can affect us in ways that will spur us to get that which we must to make a mark in our world, but the gambit sometimes is finding and accepting these ones. A lot of people come and go our way everyday of our lives, but our ability to acknowledge and stay acquainted with those that we must meet, and the grace for them to reciprocate, is the defining factor of how well and fast we would receive our long-awaited rising. David had had friends come and go- right from when he tended to the sheep in the desert to when he got enlisted into the infantry ranks, but none of these were as impactful as Jonathan was to him....And Jonathan loved him as his own soul..(1 Samuel 18:1), even to the extent that he aided David's rising to his betrothed throne at his own expense. The same thing with the blind man at Bethesda; he must had received a lot of greetings and alms daily, but on  that day he heard Jesus&#

DAILY VITAMIN - Finding Rest In God And Peace With Men Most times than often, God's will would always clash against our personal will; and at this stage, our rest would be dependent on whose we would choose. A lot of people experience this daily; that is, placing their wills above God's, and though they might get what they intended for, but they lose that soothing peace they relished. They develop a conscientious feeling that haunts them as a result of their neglect of God's best for their best. While some others, despite the loss they may encounter, still choose God's above their's, and as a result even with the losses they acquired still remain at peace and joyous, because they believed God's best is what's best for them. You see, just like you must understand, what's right may not be beneficial, but it definitely leads to where's right. There is nothing more precious to all beings than peace - peace in the country, peace of mind, peace at hear

DAILY VITAMIN - Why You Must Thank God "Thank [God] in everything [no matter what the circumstances may be, be thankful and give thanks], for this is the will of God for you [who are] in Christ Jesus [the Revealer and Mediator of that will]." (1 Thessalonians 5:18 AMP) The most important thing in life is not marriage, neither is it greatness, nor wealth, nor your having a lot of wonderful kids, or a good career with awesome giveaways; all these are graciously nice, but individually they do not constitute the most important thing in life. The most important thing in life is the privilege of life itself; because without life, there wouldn't be any need for a wedding, or a journey to greatness, or more money. Your being alive is the center for the commencement of the accomplishment of these things mentioned. So, instead of waiting until you get a perfect spouse before you thank God, think again and thank Him for the life you still live. Instead of waiting until you move