IF

British Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling, in the last stanza of his poem IF, wrote:

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!

WOW!!! It’s amazing how many conditions we have to fulfill to be happy and have dominion over the earth .You can search for the rest of that wonderful piece on the internet.

The IF-clause can be used when forming a conditional sentence ‘IF I study, I will pass my exams, or I will pass my exams, IF I study’. Our parents used to/still tell us ‘If you don’t do this, I won’t give you this, or if you don’t do that, I won’t give you that’. The truth is, there is always a condition attached to whatever we want or need. Most times, the conditions are not as monumental as our actual desires, so we keep running with the whole goal-getter mentality, thinking it’s only about having a ‘BIG PICTURE’ in mind. (We’ve been deceived for too long o).

You pick up a handbill with attractive prizes drawn all over it for an ongoing promo or you see adverts of companies showcasing their products and services, telling you ‘buy one, get one free’ or ‘One-million naira up for grabs’ or ’50 laptops to be won. It’s easy and convenient’ and at the end of the commercial, or just beneath the huge ‘attractive’ items, there’s a tiny print that reads ‘terms and conditions apply’. (HahaHa) “who cares about terms and conditions, after all people have been winning”, some would say, but trust me, if many of us would only take our time to read and consider the conditions attached, only then would we be able to conclude if we are about to make a foolish decision. We ignore the conditions, and expect to win by faith? Come on!!! Aight, let me give it to you, Luck still exists!

It’s good to use the faith-talk ‘I have all things in abundance, I’m the head and not the tail, I’m above and not beneath’ They all sound very sweet to the ears, but go and read the conditions for being the best; go and read the conditions for being above. You can’t be the first by sleeping all day while men are on the field running; and you definitely cannot be above when you’re not even attempting to climb!!! Yes, it’s in the scriptures, but it’s the same scriptures that says ‘IF a man does not work, let Him not eat’. Even In school, there are prerequisite courses that must be passed before you can be guaranteed a place in the next level. Those conditions have to be met, first!

Last week was a very interesting one for me. I did a lot of scripture searching and studying; waiting on God and bullying my flesh. By bullying my flesh, I mean ‘depriving it of food until an appointed time’. While studying, I stumbled across a lot of promises o – just too much to enumerate, but I found something common to most, if not all of them - A condition. A very popular one is “blessed shalt thou be in the city, blessed shalt thou be in the field. Blessed shalt be the food of thy body, and the fruit of thy ground…” Deut 28:3-4a. The condition for these blessings and the ones that followed in subsequent verses of that same chapter was straight-forward, and in just a few words. Verse 1 says “And it shall come to pass, IF thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe and to do all His commandments which I command thee this day, that the Lord shall set thee on high above all nations of the earth.” There were numerous blessings that followed. But despite the fact that the Lord Chose them as His people, there was still a need for them to meet the requirements – ‘Hearken diligently’ and ‘observe to do all all His commandments’.

We want to reap where we have not sown; we claim the blessings yet we are not even planning to meet the conditions attached to them. I’m sorry to say this, but we can continue to shout ‘God said it, I believe it, and that settles it’ till thy kingdom come. let’s not deceive ourselves, NOTHING will be settled, until we fulfill the conditions attached to it! Go back to the books. We just like feeding on ‘fast foods’. The bible says “You shall eat the good of the land” but for you eat the good of the land, you must be “willing and obedient.” You want to have good success? You want your way to be prosperous? Read Joshua 1:8 - Meditate on the word day and night, and observe to do all that is written there in.

Deut 28:45 says “All these curses will come upon you. They will pursue you and overtake you until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the LORD your God and observe the commands and decrees he gave you.” (NIV). You don’t like that part, do you? It sounds negative, right? But isn’t it still God’s word? Don’t be surprised when God does/permits some things…just to take the glory, and to prove to us that we CANNOT do anything by our own power.

In our daily dealings with men, in our going out and our coming in, IF we really want to be partakers of the Blessings of God, His protection, His provision, and ultimately His kingdom, then we need to ‘Hearken diligently’ and ‘observe to do all that he has commanded’.

“To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 2:26

In all you do, strive to please God…not MAN!

Work hard. Pray harder. Thank God