My dear Femi, here’s something for you to mull over today, in celebration of your birthday. May you be blessed in the very best way by it.
Do you ever look back? And imagine what was in the mind of our mother and father when they look at their infant child, and decided… his name shall be Oluwafemi. Oluwafemi… God loves me. If only one was overwhelmed by this something SPECIAL, the other certainly agreed. So not only did they remember God’s precious love for them on the occasion of your birth, they also they agreed to stamp that most wonderful feeling on you as a testimony…
Remember how we fought over that name? I still wonder today if, as I was told, I was truly given that name first? Or if it was just a way of pacifying me? But you yourself have not confirmed it was true, so many years later! And generously shared the truth with me on mo less than my birthday!
What a silly thing to fight over! But children will be children, right?
I mean, this is one name that God Himself has written on each and every human being He made, even when they were in their mother’s womb! All anyone had to do was to contemplate the world around them… the awesome wonder of it… and pick up his or her own label of God’s Love… and stamp it on his or her own head!
The day I did that was the most wonderful day of my life… and that is why today, I am a lover, not a fighter. 😉 (Please read My Conversion Testimony on this site)
And I also recall and perceive the testimonies in your life that should give reason to feel and doubly enjoy the full impact of your name… Oluwafemi.
But let me remind you of only one on this your birthday…
Today is Sunday. The first day if the week. The day we remember and celebrate the Ressurection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. The day we remember the full demonstration of the GREATEST LOVE OF ALL. No. Not the song. No. Not the words of Cassius Clay/Mohamed Ali. No.
Rather, AGAPE LOVE. The Passionate, Devoted, Unconditional Love that sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane three times, crying: Father, if thou wilt, take this cup away from me… and ended: Thy Will Be Done.
The LOVE that cried, nailed to the cross: My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.
Those words! Those words haunted me for years before I surrendered my life to Jesus. How annoyed I was with the Lord of Life, whom I, in my ignorance at the time considered merely a ‘good man’, even the Ultimate Leader! How angry with Him I was in my then foolishness that those were His enigmatic parting words to the world! Words that left me jolted from the depth of my being… for as I thought then, he left me perplexed and hopeless! If God would forsake Him at death, then what hope has anybody else! And to cap it all, as if to rub insult upon injury, he added: ‘It is finished!’
How can a man, whom in my arrogance, I had chosen as my Master, because I knew, deep in my heart, with human knowledge, that He was the Very Best there was: Good, Kind, Merciful, Wise… yes Wiser than Solomon, as He Himself declared, cry out those words in deepest agony at the point of death!
Did I really have a choice to doubt that He was the Very Best? Should anyone who ever bothered to check Him out have any such doubt?
I mean that Compassion that said to the immoral woman (or man for that matter) whom the religious world had condemned as irredeemable: Neither do I condemn you… Go, and sin no more…
I mean, that Wisdom that, in the face of adversaries, Calmly but Boldly and Powerfully silenced the so-perceived great religious leaders, (add philosophers, scientists and inventors…) : Give unto caesar what is caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. How could He have chosen those as His last words for me??
Oh, glory! For today I understand , oh so much more clearly.
The first cry, was not addressed to me, but to His Father… and He deigned to share it with me… indeed, with the world. Because you, see, He, the Sinless, had to be forsaken by His Father, who had declared severally: This my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased… because on that cross, He was carrying upon Himself, as the Lamb of God which takes away the sins of the world, the ONLY ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE FOR my sin… and yours… and indeed the sin of all mankind in the past, present and future on Himself.
He knew this before He came to the world, He knew the physical, spiritual, psychological and everything else implications before He went to the cross, which was why He sweated blood in advance. And He was quoting the Bible in Psalm 22 … But He knew this was a temporary state for Him which He willingly accepted before of His love for you and I. You see, He knew the end from the beginning as already declares in Psalm 16 verse 10: For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your Holy One (ONLY GOD IS HOLY and by extension, those who accept His Salvation) to rot in the grave.
And when He said ‘It Is Finished’, more appropriately expressed in our context today, He was actually declaring the well-know Greek business stamp: PAID IN FULL. Yes, dear brother, all my sins, all your sins, all the world’s sins, PAID IN FULL. So no one needs to go to hell, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, anymore… EXCEPT THOSE WHO REJECT THE OFFER OF SALVATION.
So tell me, dear brother, is there a better love story to tell than this? Does this not give God the right to say in John chapter 3, verse 18: He who does not believe in him is condemned already…? After all, Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8 and 9 make it clear that this is a free Gift of God, and it is earned not by our efforts or good works but ONLY BY FAITH?
And what is this faith? The letter to the Hebrews tell is that it is the FULL ASSURANCE OF WHAT WE HOPE FOR.. THE ASSURANCE OF WHAT WE CANNOT SEE…
So, you see, THERE IS NO GREATER LOVE. Oluwafemi. Oluwa fe wa, Oluwa fe o.
So apologies if I have taken too much of your time. But today is Sunday, and I believe there is a reason why your birthday falls on this day, and with a name like yours, I cannot but contemplate and share with you the GREATEST LOVE OF ALL.
In conclusion, may you experience today and for the rest of your life, in the most special way, the LOVE of God. Ephesians chapter 3 verses 18 to 19 say is better: May you ‘be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love];
In Jesus’ mighty and Precious Name. Amen!