A federal judge sided in favor of the four leading publishers in the U.S. who sued the Internet Archive for scanning and lending out numerous digital copies of copyrighted books for free during the early days of COVID-19. Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House all sued the nonprofit after…
Come Sit With Me , look deep into my eyes. What do you see? If you look deep enough, we will talk, you and I, heart to heart. In the quiet of the morning, I can see the world around me. Come Sit With Me by Sandra J
A person who continues in his sinful lifestyle is a sinner. Then he one day heard the word of God. His conscience was pricked. He hated his lifestyle. He felt sorry for himself. He was remorseful. He prayed for forgiveness of his sins.
He chose to forsake his sinful lifestyle. He accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. He chose righteousness as his lifestyle. He became born again. He became a new creature.
Then along the way, he found himself back living the lifestyle he had forsaken!
Backsliding is an act of going back to your sinful way of doing things.
8 Shocking And Hidden Signs That You Are Backsliding
1. When you suddenly realized that you have lost your Joy of Salvation.
The way you used to bubble with joy is no longer there. It is a sign that you are backsliding.
Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even they God, hath anointed there with oil if gladness above thy fellows. – Hebrews 1:9
If you go back to sins you have forsaken, you would lose the joy of your salvation, and sorrow will come.
Do you still radiate the same joy you once felt when you got born again?
Righteousness and joy are linked, they are interrelated. The moment sin comes into your life, joy leaves and sorrow takes its place. If you notice the absence of joy in your life, you need to check your salvation.
2. When you notice that you do not have peace again in your life.
The moment you give your life to Jesus Christ, you begin to experience the peace of God. Do you still experience the peace of God that passes all understanding?
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. – Philippians 4:7
Even though the sea is roaring and the storm is raging and the people around you are trembling, you will experience the peace of God, as long as you are connected to the Prince of Peace.
The moment you begin to backslide, this divine peace leaves, been though when things around you look all right.
3. When you discovered that your mind is constantly filled with immoral thoughts and sinful thoughts.
When King David discovered that his mind was now filled with immoral thoughts, he said in Psalm 51:10
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.
When you begin to harbor immoral thoughts or you suddenly become comfortable in revealing clothes, it is a sign that your heart is far from God.
4. When you are no longer intimate with God.
Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; purify your hearts, ye double-minded. – James 4:8
When you are no longer intimate with God, he will move away from you because God can not behold sin. Holy Spirit can not stay with someone who is frolicking with sin.
Are any signs of backsliding evident in your life? Address them today.
5. You are already backsliding when you discovered that you are finding it difficult to pray.
Prayer means talking to God or having a conversation with God.
When your lifestyle has come to the point that you are no longer interested in having conversations with God, you are backsliding.
Eli heard that God was going to cut off lineage, all he had to say was “He is God, let Him do whatever He pleases”.
And Samuel told him, every whit, and hid nothing from him. And he said, it is the LORD; let him do what seemeth him good. – 1 Samuel 3:18
Eli would have gone on his knees and cried to God for mercy. This is a sign that Eli hardly prays anymore.
When someone who used to hear from God no longer hears from Him, that may be a sign that he has started backsliding.
Do you get bored after praying for five minutes? Then something is wrong.
6. When you discovered that spending one hour to fellowship with God now become a burden, you have started backsliding.
When we love someone, we enjoy spending quality time with that person. How much quality time are you spending with God?
How fervent is your prayer life? How eager are you to fellowship with God? Your answer would tell if you have started drifting away from God.
7. When you discovered that you are reluctant to win souls, you already backsliding.
Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted into thee. – Psalm 51:13
The Bible passage quoted above was David’s prayer after he backslid.
8. When praising God becomes casual to you.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness. O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise. – Psalm 51:14-15
David said in the passage above that if God restore him, he would praise Him. When you had fallen into sin, even singing became a problem.
When was the last time you praise God from the depth of your heart? When was the last time you won a soul for God?
Why Do People Backslide?
Though the conscience of such people was awakened and pricked, their minds had not changed. As soon as they heard the words of God, they felt guilty, and there and then, they decided to restitute their ways.
But when the power of guilty wore off, and the thing which provoked them to repentance ceased; they naturally turned back to their sinful ways of doing things.
4 Amazing Insights into Backsliding You Need To Know
Like a dog Who Return To Its Vomit:
The dog is sick of what it has eaten. It vomits and casts it all up. The dog does not cast it all up willingly, but because the food troubles its stomach.
When its sickness is over and its stomach is eased, because its desire is not at all separated from its vomit, it turns itself about and licks its vomit all up!
Like A Felon Who Stands Before The Judge:
The felon shakes and trembles and seems to repent very assuringly. Yet, he is not shaken nor remorseful for the crime. He is shaking because of his fear of the hangman’s rope.
If this man is set free, he will still be a thief and a rascal. The felon will still go back to his old lifestyle because his mind has not changed.
Like A Stubborn He-goat:
The he-goat once beaten, runs away fearfully from the scene of the offense. It runs away not because it feels bad for having caused so much trouble! It just wants to escape the angry man’s rod.
As soon as the angry man is no more looking, the he-goat shakes its two ears and finds its way back to where it has been beaten. The he-goat keeps going back because its mind has not changed about the angry man’s food.
Like A Seed On The Rock:
The sower scatters the seeds, some fall on the rock. They grow up, but the plants wither because they have no roots. The seed is the word of God, and the rock is the condition of the hearers’ hearts.
The hearers receive the words with joy but the words do not have root in their stony hearts. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing, they fall away.
In Conclusion
Sins can be very sweet and pleasant to sinners’ sinful nature, and they are unwilling to leave it. Once in a while, they look back over their shoulders. Their mind is not made up yet.
To keep a dog from going back to its vomit, it has to be made new in the attitude of its mind and therefore sees its vomit as something that does not worth going back to!
To keep you from going back to sin, you need to be renewed in your mind.
When you are no longer reading your Bible; you have stopped praying and witnessing, you have reduced your attendance of fellowship, you are drawing far away from God.
Are there other signs or hints that a Christian might be backsliding? Please do share with us.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top disease expert and an unbroken presence on TV during the coronavirus pandemic, was asked a blunt question during a forum hosted last week by the National Urban League.
He was asked if he can mention the input of African American scientists in the process of making the vaccine.
Fauci did not hesitate when giving his answer. He said the very vaccine is one among the two that has exquisite levels of 94% to 95% efficacy against clinical disease and almost 100% efficacy against a serious disease that is shown to be safe.
He told the forum that the vaccine was developed in his institute’s vaccine research facility by a team of scientists led by Dr Barney Graham and his close colleague, Dr Kizzmekia Corbett.
Dr Kizzmekia Corbett is an African American scientist. He is right at the forefront of the event of the vaccine.
Corbett is an expert on the front lines of the worldwide race for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, and someone who will go down in history together of the key players in developing the science that might end the pandemic.
She is one among the National Institutes of Health leading scientists behind the government’s look for a vaccine. Corbett could also be a factor of an outfit at NIH that worked with Moderna, the pharmaceutical company that developed one among the 2 mRNA vaccines that have shown to be kindly 90% effective.
Moderna’s vaccine is prognosticated to enter flashpoint use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration this month. The other mRNA vaccine, developed by Pfizer, won flash point use authorization from the FDA on Friday.
As of now, the coronavirus has killed nearly thousands of people and infected 15 million people within the U.S. Before Corbett took on one of the foremost onerous tasks of her professional career, she was a force to be reckoned with.
As a pupil, she was handpicked to partake in Project SEED, a program for disadvantaged adolescence pupils that allowed her to review chemistry in labs at the University of North Carolina at Tabernacle Hill and sooner or later landed a full lift to the University of Maryland Baltimore County, concordant with The Washington Post.
Corbett spent her summers at laboratories and earned a summer externship at the NIH, the very place where she’d be crucial in developing a vaccine for the coronavirus.
After graduating, Corbett enrolled during a doctorate program at UNC – Tabernacle Hill, where she worked as an enquiry aide studying fungicide infections and sooner or later admitted a PhD in microbiology and immunology, according to her LinkedIn courier. Her work with comparable pathogens began when she joined the NIH’s Vaccine examination centre as a postdoctoral fellow in 2014.
She told ABC News that she could have not anticipated what she has since been qualified to prosecute on Fauci’s platoon.
She said the reason that she began to feature coronavirus wasn’t to ever develop a vaccine, but really to possess such a robust understanding in vaccine immune responses that could potentially develop into one.
This year, Corbett said, she has had to put her last six years of coaching to work.
Dr Corbett said that in early January, Dr Barney Graham started sending him emails with the knowledge that there was a respiratory outbreak within the Wuhan district of China.
Dr Barney Graham was essentially telling him in his emails that the team should buckle up.
Early within the pandemic, when Fauci predicted the world might see an efficient vaccine during a few years, Corbett said she knew it had been possible. “It was certainly doable if all the things and each one the pieces of the puzzle came together,” she said.
Corbett first made headlines on March 3 as an area of a team of scientists who spoke with President Donald Trump at the NIH. At the time, the worldwide impact of the COVID-19 crisis had yet to be felt in America.
Corbett said that her participation during that event with the president marked a crucial breakthrough for young scientists and other people of colour who have frequently worked behind the scenes and constitutionally (who have) done the dirty work for these large exertions toward a vaccine.
“This one that seems like you have been performing on this for several cycles which I also wanted it to be visible because I wanted people to know that I stood by the work that I’d finished au revoir also, ” she added.
Fauci said Corbett’s function together with of the scientists behind the vaccines should be a sign of recourse for Black Americans who are cagey to trust the vaccine.
Throughout the coronavirus affliction, Black communities are infected and killed at a disproportionate rate across the country, according to the CDC.
But according to a November Axios – Ipsos bean, only 55% of Black Americans said they could take a vaccine if it had been proven safe and effected by functionaries.
“So, the primary thing you’d possibly want to mention to my African American brothers and sisters is that the vaccine that you’re getting to be taking was developed by an African American woman, ” Fauci said.
I have often wonder, why is sexual relationship pleasurable! Is it because God wants to encourage us all to indulge in sexual intercourse? Probably, it is NO!
Sexual Intimacy
If it is a YES, it would not have been a sin to fornicate, nor would it have been a sin to commit adultery. Right?
The sexual union was planned by God in the beginning, to be between married couples. That has not changed.
You know God always do something with a purpose in His mind, right? Okay, let glimpse at the mind of God through the scriptures. What is God’s purpose for sex?
Sex is meant to be pleasurable in marriage
God made sexual intercourse pleasurable because it is His gift for married couples.
All gifts of God are meant to be pleasurable and enjoyable. God’s purpose for sex is for couples to enjoy it.
No wonder sex is referred to as love-making! Love in the making. It is a pleasurable act, which is only ordained by God to be done in marriage.
May your fountain be blessed, and may you rejoice in the wife of your youth. A loving doe, a graceful deer— may her breasts satisfy you always, may you ever be intoxicated with her love. Proverbs 5: 18 – 19.
When the marriage bed is defiled, dissatisfaction is inevitable. You need to maintain the sexual purity of your marriage to enjoy God’s commandment of fruitfulness and multiplication.
Sex is a seed when sown in marriage, it bears fruits of love. When it is sown outside of marriage, it bears fruits of misery.
Sex is an element of love in marriage
The more of sex that you have in your marriage, the more united you become.
You find yourself growing into one another in love! Eventually, you become two hearts beating as one! That is growing into oneness.
That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Genesis 2: 24
The man shall leave his father and mother and cleaves to his wife, that is oneness.
The more of yourself that you give each other in lovemaking, the more like yourself you will become.
God initiated sex to bring married couples into a unique oneness.
Outside of marriage, sex does the opposite, it poisons relationships. Why not?
Sex in marriage is like a medicine. Whereas, sex outside of marriage is like a poison.
The devil always attempt to deceive us that sex brings intimacy to our relationship! Of course, he does not want anyone to enjoy sexual purity before marriage!
Sex involves the total surrender of your soul, spirit and body to one another.
You surrender all of yourself to your spouse without fear.
When your spirit, soul and body get connected at lovemaking, there is usually an exchange, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
You communicate trust, pain, joy, sorrow, fear, concern, love and lots more. You grow into one another, you empathized.
Outside of marriage, it is a big risk to have sex. No matter how casual the sex is, there is always an exchange.
You don’t know the kind of spiritual problems, the emotional distress, nor the physical diseases your sexual partner is about to share with you!
God is only trying to protect us from these uncertainties when he commanded us to abstain from sexual immorality.
Sex as protection in marriage
Not every one of us can abstain from sex forever. Such categories of people are expected to get married, to protect them from sexual temptation.
Fornicating and committing adultery is as if you are giving parts of yourself away to a stranger, and those parts became lost forever.
But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his wife, and each woman with her husband.
Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 1 Corinthians 7: 2 and 5
Jesus Christ knows how our body works. He had been once housed in a body like our own. He knows our strength and our weakness.
When He says couples should not deprive each other of sex unless it is mutually consented to. He has our interest at heart.
Sex must not be seen as a weapon in marriage. It could backfire and exposes your spouse to sexual temptation.
God does not intend sex to be an arsenal of war, rather it is meant to be an instrument of peace.
Sex as an entity of comfort
A friend was worried about his incessant sexual dreams and early morning hard-ons! He was afraid that his mind would be corrupted by these sexual thoughts.
When such things begin to happen in your life too, it means it is time for you to get a wife, your own woman or to get a husband, your own man!
Do not be afraid, just work on getting married. You will be comforted.
Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her, and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Genesis 24: 67
Sexual drives are not an avenue for you to fornicate, nor to indulge yourself in extramarital affairs.
Your sexual drives is just an indication that you are human and normal. It means you are full of sexual hormones like everyone else.
Sex as a mean of procreation
If sex is not meant to be enjoyable and pleasurable, I wonder how many couples will endeavour to do it!
Of course, God designed sex so that we can always look forward to it.
We all incline to crave for something that we truly found pleasurable and enjoyable.
God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Genesis 1: 28
God wants us to increase in population, through the procreation of course. His purpose for us is to dominate the earth and subdue it. To fill the earth by been fruitful and multiply in number.
Sex brings about loving children when it is done in the ordinance of marriage.
In Conclusion
God has procreation in mind when He designs sex for couples. And He wants them to have the pleasure of enjoying His gift.
God also wants married couples to be comforted through sex.
Many domestic misunderstandings have been settled on matrimonial beds!
God’s gift of sex is meant for couples to communicate in nonverbal ways. And to protect the couples from sexual sins.
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; You were bought at a price. Therefore honour God with your bodies. 1 Corinthians 6: 19 – 20.
Our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit of God. We must not indulge it in sexual immoralities.
According to Matthew 15: 19 – 20, what defile a man (man and woman) is sexual immorality.
Will God judges sexual immorality? Yes, God will judge sexual sins.
Sexual union outside of marriage is never God’s purpose for sex. What do you think of God’s purpose for sex? Leave your comment.
Shut up, God! Is the word we say without even realizing that we say it. Shut up, God! Let me have my way. How often have you made a resolution and you find yourself going back on that resolution? At that moment in time, you are saying, shut up, God! I want to have my […]
It was a jolly holiday time again! Pupils ran all the way home, their school uniform flying after them. They were very happy. No more morning bells; no more teachers’ cane. They were going to spend their jolly holiday.
Josephine the dreamer
Sophie ran all the way to her mama’s tailoring shop. Pupils were more than excited going for Christmas holiday, because there would be no report card that would spoil the holiday fun. Where there was no report card, there would be no sign that a pupil had perform below expectation at school.
Her mama had said in July, that if she passed her promotion examination, she would buy her a fowl and a gown for Christmas. And she had passed! Now was the Christmas holiday, she could not wait to eat the fowl’s head. Christmas was around the corner, it would arrive in two weeks time.
Sophie’s mama was a poor widow. She had no money but she had faith in God. She usually tells her daughter that even though they have no money, they are rich in the Lord. Inside of them, they are very rich.
She knew that she had promised her daughter a fowl head and a gown; she could not because of her poverty and break the little girl’s heart. She could not see herself, therefore shattering her daughter’s hope and expectations. She had to fulfill her promise. She would not bowl to poverty.
‘Mama, Ife said her mama had bought her Christmas dress. So was Kofo!’ Sophie announced brightly to her mama.
She was very excited. Though, she had not seen her own dress, she was sure her mama would buy her a Christmas dress. She knew it would be unlike Easter festival when she had wore her previous year Christmas dress. Afterall, she had passed her promotion examination.
She could not forget that Easter. She had cried and cried when her friends were wearing new cloths in the church. She could not play with them, she had to hide until it was time to leave the church and go home.
That Easter, she learnt that no amount of tears shed; usually give you the thing you are crying for. And she was told that to be happy in life, a person has to be comfortable and satisfied with whatever one has.
Sophie’s mama promised again to make a special dress for her. But as Christmas drew nearer, Sophie’s mama was yet to have money to buy Sophie’s new dress. Everyday, Sophie would sit with her mama in the shop. She would be watching her making other people’s cloth.
What a beautiful dress, mama used to sows, Sophie would admire each dress. But mama was not happy. Soon, it was 24th of December. It was Christmas Eve! Sophie’s mama had an idea, she called her daughter:
‘Sophie, you must know that I love so much,’ she said. ‘I will sow your cloth today; I will not do any other work today but to sow you a lovely gown. Sophie, you are all that I have!’ she was crying, though she quickly wiped her tears away. Been a widow was not daughter’s fault. She must not suffer on that account.
That morning, with the little amount of money on her, Sophie’ mama went to the market. She bought foodstuffs, soup ingredients and a fowl. The mere sight of the fowl made Sophie felt very happy. A fowl head was as sure as heaven!
‘My daughter,’ Sophie’ mama said to her, ‘I want you to be a Joseph, the dreamer. I’ll call you: “Josephine the dreamer” Sophie beamed with joy.
‘Joseph in the Bible wore a cloth of many colors. A special clothe made for him by his father. And Joseph did many great things for his people thereafter!”
Sophie listened, “Tell me the Joseph’s story’, she asked.
Her mama gathered all the pieces of cloth that was left of other people’s cloth. She put Sophie on her laps, “let me tell you the story, while I sow your own clothe of many colors.”
Her mama told the story while she was joining the pieces of cloth together. Each piece of cloth was joined together with love flowing out from mama to daughter. Sophie could not sleep that night, she could not wait to wear her clothe to church for everyone to see. She wanted to help her mama, she wanted to be Josephine that mama wanted her to become.
As soon as it was Christmas morning, Sophie woke up, cleaned the whole house and washed the plates. She had her bath. Sophie’s mama was very glad. She killed the fowl to make a delicious Christmas soup. Later the rice was ready.
After Sophie had eaten her Christmas rice and a fowl head, she wore her magic clothe. She was very beautiful in her gown and was happy.
At the Church, all the children gathered to look at Sophie’s dress of different patterns and colors. The children were laughing and making jest of her. Sophie was laughing with them; she knew they did not know what she knew. It was a happy and merry Christmas for her.
She joined the other children to sing Christmas carol. After the carol, Kofo and Ife asked her, ‘Why is it that you’re wearing part of everyone’s cloths?’
Other children had gathered again behind Sophie. She turned around to let them see her dress. ‘My mama made it for me. With every piece she sews, she told me a story of a boy Joseph in the Bible!’ she explained happily.
One of the girls behind Sophie asked her, ‘is that why you are so happy wearing part of everyone’s cloth?’
‘Teacher even said that she has the most sonorous voice!’ another girl said.
‘Yes! This is not just a dress. This dress made me a “Josephine the dreamer!” it is a magic dress like that of Joseph in the Bible: Joseph wore it and saved his family and the world from hunger!’ Sophie answered. ‘Each thread of this cloth was sow with love. It is made just for me.’
The children were unable to utter a word. They were staring amazingly at the magic dress. Sophie was very happy, the Christmas was unlike before. She ran around like never before.
God had continued to whisper softly in his ears but his anger was too profound to make him hear a word. ‘The man who raped someone'sdaughter could kill someone!’ he was reasoning. He had made a decision and nothing would change his mind about what to do. His sleep had been robbed by this unfortunate incident.
The incident even sometimes made him forget what he wanted to do or what to eat. He was obsessed with the progressive plans on his mind. Each time he looks upon his daughter, he sees the man and feels the pain his daughter has felt. The more he felt the pain, the more he knew, he had to revenge the wrong to smile back on his daughter's face.
He was tossing and turning on his bed, rain was hitting hard on the roof and knocking on the windows. The winds were roaring outside. It had been like that all night. It was a storming night. The Priest got out of bed. The light was on in his daughter's room.
Maybe she could not sleep either.
The Priest‘s heart was shattered into a million pieces to see his family this way. He reasoned that if he had done something worthwhile about it, this would not have happened. And the memory would have gone away like a bad dream.
He walked back to his room like a strangled man. The worst of the world was written on his face like a ruin. He was waiting for the day to break so that he could put his house in order and bring smiles and laughter back to his home. There would be peace again.
He began by making plans in his heart: he would call his daughter to show him the man. He could not imagine what the devil would look like. Of course, he would be handsome, soft-spoken, and friendly.
The world has often made the mistake of imagination that makes evil men look like a creature that has claws and horns. How else would a rapist look like, if not like the rest of us! He decided to kill the man, his mind was finally made up.
He would turn deaf ears to his gentle inner voice and listen to his anger and disgrace instead. Otherwise, he won’t do anything about it, and worst of all, he would allow the evil to walk about free. Soon he would rape another man's daughter!
His priesthood had often denied him of his human right to avenge a wrong. He stopped listening altogether, and there was indeed a knock on the door!
‘Who could be calling so early at this hour?’ he wondered, ‘why had the caller chosen the church?’ It was a duty call.
Priesthood took over in that instant. He walked briskly to the church without a second thought nor a glance at his worries. At the church entrance stood a man in his late twenties. He was drenched and shivering. His worries were written all over him like a gigantic billboard.
