(… let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity)- 2 Tim. 2:19b
Part 1
A PEEK INTO MY PAST
To my parent’s knowledge, I have always been a good child. However, in reality I was not. Every day, I kept asking God to forgive me for the wounds I had created and for pushing some persons to make wrong decisions. Beginning from my Senior Secondary School 1 (SSS 1), I began to date females and was very good at it. I could date four persons at once and none of them would suspect a foul play. I was very good with the use of words and used it to deceive them. I also rehearsed lines from Shakespeare’s novels to woo the girls; I bought gifts for them, said nice words to them, raised their hopes of a relationship and then dashed them.
WITCHCRAFT ON GODLY FEMALES
I was a blind witch for three years, I did not astral project but I know that I was a witch; one of my aims was to pull down “spiritual sisters” in my school. I just needed three months and sometimes three weeks to achieve this. I would get specific details of their lives from the devil, their weak points and everything. I would then become their friend, act holy and even follow them to fellowship but I made them start doing immoral things. I achieved it with about 14 or 15 of them.
MORE WICKEDNESS
Brother Utibe was a senior in my school and while he was in school, I was a lad serious with God. However when he left school, I considered myself free to do whatever I wanted. While doing all the evil, I was still a preacher in school and became the fellowship president. When I handed over that position to someone else in SS2, I was made the school’s Senior Prefect. This made me have access to any girl I wanted, I used the cover of the gospel to get them; I would preach and then deceive them. I was a wicked person. I would sit down and conceive schemes to use on people. I remember once when my uncle came to the house and asked me to get him water, I spat into the water.
ZEAL GONE WRONG
In SS2, the power of God hit me and I changed and became good a bit. I organized the school prayer band and we would pray, despite this I was still into wrong relationships. When I got admission into the university, I joined a prayer group. The prayers we engaged in were that of binding powers over different places. We prayed outside our jurisdiction and authority and the result was that one of us did really badly in his academics- he had six failed courses. He is still on probation and has not repented despite this but God helped me (To understand this, we recommend the book, Needless Casualties of War by John Paul Jackson).
Part 2
LUST GREW STRONGER
In the university, I was still considered as someone who was very zealous for the Lord, but I was not who they thought me to be. I was still doing what I did in secondary school here. I made girls fight because of me. Girls are influenced by what they hear, I capitalized on that and said what they wanted to hear. I carried a number of my relationships from my secondary school down to the university but God helped me. I was also involved in foreplay and though I did not have sex with the girls, I was into pornography. This made me lustful; when a girl passed by, I would scan her mentally and imagine what she was like beneath her clothes. It did not matter what she was wearing even if she wore up to ten clothes, the same thing will happen.
In church, I preached once and the whole place was on fire. People were moved by the preaching and this made them make comments like “This is the next John Wesley.” This event contributed also in making me get the girls’ attention, I had the ability to control their minds with my words and they did not seem to care about other guys, though those guys bought them gifts. I am grateful to God because He kept me from actually having sex with these girls because if I had done it, I’d have gone deep into it.
STRUGGLE WITH PORNOGRAPHY
I battled with pornography. Every night browsing plan I activated was to watch pornography, from doing my school assignments I moved on to watching pornography. I had the vault app locker on my phone where I saved these videos and I had many of them ranging from 30 minutes to 1 hour; I did not have short clips. My advice is that you do not even have any lock on your phone, if you do it will tempt you. When I downloaded these videos, I’d send them to the app lock straight away. These videos affected my mind.
By the way, I used to counsel girls when I felt like helping them. They would open up to me about their lives and I will advise them on what to do. I would ask them if they had prayed about it, and tell them not to tell anyone yet. I was just a nice guy. Brother Utibe used to come to my house and tell me that God says He wants me to be serious with Him. I would flow along with him and tell him that I had a dream the previous night where God was telling me the same thing too.
Part 3
A QUEST FOR FREEDOM BUT NO PARAPETS…
There was a time in my former church group, I was in church with one of my girlfriends and the words of the preacher touched me. I then told my girlfriend that we had to do what the preacher was saying given that what we were doing was not good. She became so angry with me after I had told her this, and told me that we were not that bad since we were not sleeping with each other. She refused to speak to me after we left the church hall and we broke up the relationship. Sometime later, she called to tell me that her father was dying; he actually just had a minor accident. She told me to come see her and when I arrived, she begged me not to leave her. Due to the sober and emotional atmosphere, I agreed and she hurriedly kissed me- that was how we got back together again. Then I went to connive with my Pastor then, I told him that I was tired of the relationship with the girl. He called the girl and I to his house. Upon arrival, I acted as if I was surprised to see her there. The pastor began to speak to us, he said he perceived in his spirit that we were in a relationship; I acted surprised to hear that and the girl was surprised. Hers was genuine anyway and we both looked at ourselves in utter shock. The pastor went on to say that the Lord was saying we should split, I knew what was going on because I had planned it with the Pastor but, I said it will not be easy to do so. The Pastor advised, prayed for us and cemented the break-up; it was sweet and simple. Even after this we still got back together again, it was as though she had a grip on me. I could not love someone else, I could not love God neither could I break up with her. As we returned together this time, she gave me rules for the relationship: no kissing, lots of talk about God and many others. In the end, she was the one who still flouted all the rules and then she would say “I don’t know what came over me.”
Part 4
GOD TUGGED AT MY HEART
When Amaka told me about God’s Lighthouse, I told her that I was a comfortable Christian; that God was using me to bless people. In my class, people call me “Papa” whenever my class Pastor was not there and I was next in line. I told her that I did not have problems and people knew who I was in Christ. She told me to humble myself and seek the sincere milk of the word that I may grow (1 Peter 2:2). This word she spoke made me calm down a little bit. Then one night, Utibe asked me to come out of my hostel with my Bible and book; he told me we were going somewhere. I trusted him so much that I said that “if he wanted to take me somewhere, that means God is taking me somewhere.” When we got to the road, I asked him where we were going and he said we were going to a fellowship. I was comfortable going there with him and this was in November 2016. When we got to God’s Lighthouse and I heard the message, I was thrilled and kept making comments. However, I stopped attending the fellowship because of my girlfriend. Anytime I wanted to come, she would ask to see me for something ‘really important’.
HELP CAME FOR REAL THIS TIME
In February 2017, we had Bible study that evening and while I was there, my phone kept ringing; different girls were calling me and my mind became divided. I wanted our pastor to hurry his preaching so that I could go meet my girls. What struck me was that when the Pastor was preaching, some guys who were playing football on the field opposite where we stayed, shot their ball and it hit his car. I was expecting him to do something or tell them to take it easy but he did none of this, he just looked at them and continued preaching as if nothing happened. I was shocked that a preacher could act in this manner and this really touched me. I even wanted to get up and tell the guys playing the football to be careful but I could not stand up.
GOD SET ME UP FOR GOOD
When the Bible study eventually ended, I was so happy. As I started heading back to the hostel (about 7 or 8pm when boys and girls are huddled in pairs around the campus), I was with my friend when sister Queeneth walked up to me and mentioned my name. She asked if the name she mentioned was my name to which I answered in the affirmative. After my reply, she said nothing and just embraced me. I could hear people say “Aww”, they probably thought she was some girl expressing her love for her boyfriend but in 7 seconds, I was on the floor. The girl I had a crush on was hanging around and suddenly, my plans with her ended. While on the floor, I was rolling, shouting and speaking in tongues. Then Ibim came, laid her hands on me and prayed. She told me that she asked the Holy Spirit to pause and continue when I get to my hostel. I scoffed at her words in my mind saying, “Who do you think you are to tell the Holy Spirit to hold on and continue in the hostel? Are you consecrated? Are you called? Where is your certificate?” All these were going on in my mind.
When I got to the hostel, I made a mental note to return my missed calls but as I dropped my knapsack, I started speaking in tongues again. I felt a force carry and hit me on the locker, then I was on the floor rolling and shouting. My Pastor at the time was called and I became a bit calm. I told him “Papa, it has happened to me” and while I was still speaking with him, I broke into tongues again.
Then, God gave me three mandates; the first was to break up with my girlfriend, the second was I was to become serious with God and the third was to serve Him. He did not specify where and how I was to do these. Later, I got the specific detail that it was to be in God’s Lighthouse and I was to serve in humility. I called the girl’s phone to end the relationship but it was switched off. I also did not go for night class and quite untypical of her, she did not call me either to find out if I was going for night class or not.
Part 5
DELIVERANCE FROM THE SINFUL RELATIONSHIP
Then I prayed to God and told Him how much I liked the girl he was asking me to break up with but that I had to obey Him too. I cried so much while talking to Him because I really liked her but had to leave her. God also told me He was going to kill me; the fear of which made me act on what He told me to do very quickly.The instruction was for me to obey what He had told me or He would kill me. After saying this, He would add “I am the Lord” and this to me, was like a stamp to take away any confusion. It was not easy for me.I got this word on a Thursday and by Friday evening just before the tarry, I went on WhatsApp and sent her a very long message. After it showed two ticks, I quickly put off my mobile data and took my mind off it by worshipping God intensely during the meeting.
OBEDIENCE IS THE STRATEGY
Later, she replied my message and said that God had also been speaking to her for the past one month and different things too had been happening to her. I told her that I had sensed that God was speaking to her too, which was actually a lie; I did not sense anything. She told me that God will bless me and my ministry. The break-up seemed easy enough and this surprised me so I kept asking God why it was so easy. He told me that it was because I did it His way. He said that it would have been difficult if I wanted to do it my way and because I obeyed promptly, it was easier.
Part 6
FREEDOM TO DO GOOD WORKS
Another incident that spurred me to seek God was an encounter I had with my classmate. While we were in first year, she was a bad girl but had recently turned to Christ. I met Matilda, she was praying and talking about seeing visions. I was surprised. I, who had been ‘into church’ a bit was not seeing any visions yet this girl who was an unbeliever not too long ago was already seeing visions. Then, I told God that during the retreat i wanted to see visions. God answered me and when I went on holidays, the visions increased. I began preaching, laying hands on people for them to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost and also did water baptism for some people. Since then, it has been glorious but has come with persecution. My dad persecuted me during the holiday, I thank God for it as it made me stronger. My dad also came to believe in the power of God.
In addition, the lust issue and my battle with pornography have ceased. I have been living a happy life though suffering for Christ, mocked by others, but I count it all joy.
