39 And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’ ” Luke 5:36-39
My heart is filled with an overflowing joy this morning as I write this piece. I am excited and almost giddy with laughter and joy as I muse and write. God is doing something quite profound and I want you to enter into this joy too. I think, I have a sense of what Jesus must have felt when He announced the inauguration and accessibility of the Kingdom of God on earth. He must have been full of joy. The New Nigeria is like New Wine. It just gladdens the heart.
In times past, I have entered into debates, like most of us on the future of Nigeria and how this nation can be changed and transformed. These debates and conversations mostly ended with a lot of unresolved conundrums. We all just left to resume the next time we gather. When most Nigerians gather for whatever purpose, we always end up on the state of our nation and we all talk about possible solutions etc, but never have we all agreed on a course of action to transform the nation.
But, I recall on one of such occasions, I had a distinct impression in my heart, that the problems of Nigeria were foundational and we as a nation had built a huge edifice on a faulty foundation. How do you fix the foundation of a 60 plus storey building, without bringing the whole building down. Here lies the deep enigmatic question, that hopefully I would try to answer today.
We have all been immersed in the Old Nigeria and the New Nigeria cannot rest on the template of the Old. It must have its own pure foundations. All of us, have imbibed the Old Nigeria. Some are drunk on it. We were born into it, raised in it, and became fully immersed in it. It is in all of us, regardless of tribe, tongue or creed.
It is in all of us, regardless of tribe, tongue or creed.
It will take God’s mercy to cleanse us from the Old and grant us access to the New. It can only come to the truly repentant. Some of us are so acquainted with the Old Nigeria, we do not even see it as a sinful contraption. We think it is the right way to be or the right thing to do. The Old Nigeria is diametrically opposed to the New. They have nothing in common. By the time, the New Nigeria is fully manifested, some will not even remember the Old Nigeria. It is so different.
Now let’s go a bit deeper and explore some of the characteristics of the Old Nigeria and consequently understand what we need to repent of and what we need to renounce and then what we need to embrace. In short what we need to do to enter into the New Nigeria.
In Joshua 4:1-9, God instructed Joshua to take 12 stones from the midst of the Jordan and build a memorial in the promised land with those stones, whilst they took 12 stones from the promised land and place them in the midst of the Jordan river. This is a very significant action. 12 is the number of God’s government, Apostolic Government/Council. It is Governmental. So God was helping them establish a Government in the promised land, whilst they were to fully subdue all the governments in the land.
In our case, we will use this model to determine the 12 things we need to overcome, kill, destroy, for us to leave the Old Nigeria and enter the New Nigeria and the 12 things we must manifest in the New Nigeria.
These are not in any order of importance, nor can I say exhaustive.
Old Nigeria
New Nigeria
1
Esau (Profane), Cain
Jacob, Abel (Holy)
2
Irresponsible
Responsible
3
Corrupt, Deceptive
Honest full of Integrity, Truth
4
Tribalistic
Nationalistic
5
Selfish
Selfless
6
Careless
Careful and Considerate
7
Oppressive, Unjust, Unrighteous
Liberating, empowering, Just, Righteous
8
Short sighted (Now, NOW!)
Long Sighted (Invest, nurture)
9
Proud
Humble
10
Want to be served
Wants to serve and serves
11
Love of Money
Love of God
12
Idolatory, Witchcraft, Inpunity
Fear of God, True Reverence
Just consider the list above. I am sure you can identify.
In the days ahead we will unpack each of them and discuss them contextually, so we can repent and renounce from a place of understanding.
Before the Joshua Generation could even begin to conquer the promised land, the Lord ordered a mass circumcision of the new generation. Yes, I know it was about the covenant, but I also want to say it was about God cutting out of them the vestiges of the Old Order and the ‘Slaves’ who came out of Egypt, who had all died in the wilderness. This is what the Lord said in Joshua 5:8-9 –8 So it was, when they had finished circumcising all the people, that they stayed in their places in the camp till they were healed. 9 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” Therefore the name of the place is called Gilgal[e] to this day.
Again, we can look at 2Chron 7:14 – If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
If, means conditional. ‘turn from their wicked ways’. Here again we see the call to repentance. There must be a turning from to enter the New Nigeria.
Here is where I truly feel the Church in Nigeria needs to concentrate to first be shorn of all the Old Nigeria vestiges. The Church needs to accept its complicity in the failed Old Nigeria. The Church needs deep repentance and renunciation. Then the Church can then start to lead the nation in the New Nigeria. Today, I call the New Nigeria Church to come forth!
Luke 5:36-39
36 Then He spoke a parable to them: “No one[g]puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 But new wine must be put into new wineskins, [h]and both are preserved. 39 And no one, having drunk old wine, [i]immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is [j]better.’ ”
WARNING: Jesus used the expression ‘No One’ three times in the passage above. No one means nobody. If you do not forsake the old, you cannot possess the new. You cannot hold on to the old and make the transition into the new. You have to forsake one for the other. This is a warning I plead with you to consider deeply. Out of the over 600,000 men that came out of Egypt, and wondered in the wilderness for 40 years, only two are recorded as part of that generation that made it into the Promise Land. Joshua and Caleb. God patiently waited for the rest to die off. But I am convinced of better things pertaining to us in this context. I am convinced of God’s goodness and His abundant grace, that will be made available for us to make the internal and mental change that will enable us cross into the promised land of the New Nigeria.
Now back to the building. You and I are that building. We have to tear down the old building in our hearts, by repenting and renouncing all that we have seen above, and then consciously, intentionally build the New Nigeria building in our hearts, by apprehending and assimilating the new characteristics as stated above.
39 And no one, having drunk old wine, [i]immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is [j]better.’ This verse warns us of the inertia, reluctance and resistance to the New, not from anyone external, but in our selves, we find that resistance to the new, because the Old is still very much alive in us. So, be ruthless with the Old in you, so the New can live!
The New Nigeria is New Wine and it requires New Wine Skins. The Old order cannot be patched up to fit the new. We must completely depart from one to embrace the other. It is a returning to God’s original intention for Nigeria. It is the God ordained Nigeria. This is the New Nigeria.
The door to the New Nigeria is wide open. Can you find it? Will you enter in?
Grow New Nigeria, Grow!
Let’s Pray:Father God, we cry out today for your mercy. Visit us and help our hearts to depart from the Old Nigeria into the New. Lord, grant us the gift of repentance, so we can truly change our ways. Examine us deeply by your Holy Spirit and convict us. We desire to be in the New Nigeria, please help us to be part of it, In Jesus name. Amen. (This is a short prayer, but I recommend you take these model and work through it. God will help us all and we will be in the New Nigeria.)
“At last the fulfillment of the age has come! It is time for God’s kingdom to be experienced in its fullness! Turn your lives back to God and put your trust in the hope-filled gospel!” Mark 1:15
Around the year 2000, our church in the UK received a strong prophetic word that we were to become a major discipling Centre in the UK and Europe. It meant we would have to shift our emphasis from a program driven church into an intentionally disciple-making church. As we prayed in the leadership, we felt distinctly led by God to go and understudy a church in Bogota, Columbia, who had transitioned into a full disciple-making church and were running what was called the G12 vision. At the time our Snr Pastor invited all the leaders of the church to come with him for two weeks to experience and study this revival and its distinctive discipleship model. The day we arrived in Bogota; we all went to a very big meeting of about 50,000 people. Now that was a lot of people in a church, coming from London. The presence of God was so thick. The worship was so intense, and we noticed that there was something quite authentic and genuine about this move. Most of us just wept and cried out to God for His grace. We were so desperate for God to replicate this in our City and Nation. Whilst on my face weeping and sobbing before God in that hall, I heard the Lord say to me, that there is only one way into this vision, and it is through the route of repentance. Repentance. It was crystal clear.
Over the next 10 days, we immersed ourselves in the mechanics, modalities, terms etc of the vision. We asked many questions, and the leaders of the Colombian church were ever so gracious. They painstakingly explained things to us. They gave us notes, tapes, etc. They invited us to all kinds of meetings. We experienced the vision in full flow. It culminated in a mega-rally at the stadium, with clearly over 100,000 people present. All disciples of Jesus. It was simply sublime. We went back to London and immediately dismantled our program based structure and began to replace it with the modalities of the G12 vision. We were extremely professional. We created all manner of materials to promote this new vision. I remember at one of our leadership meetings, the Lord spoke to me again, this time with a bit more detail. He said, this vision is a heart matter. It is not so much about your head. It can only truly work if the heart has been touched by The Lord. He then said, repentance is the only way to enter this vision. At this stage, I really started repenting of all my preconceptions of church and how it should be. I repented that I had never really seen the great commission of Matt 28:18-20, as the Lord gave it to us. I asked the Lord to forgive me for trying to build the church with my own ideas. I also told our leadership what I had received and how God says we should not spend too much time trying to master the dynamics, mechanics and modalities, but we should cry out for an impartation of the heart of the vision.
We eventually went to Bogota again after about three months, now with a much larger team, our disciples etc. I kept on telling people, that the mechanics is not as important as the heart or the Spirit of the vision. I was sitting down one late morning on my own outside one of the halls, when I began to sense God’s intense presence coming upon me. I simply asked the Lord to come even more as I was hungry for Him. Next, I saw a vision of a flaming torch coming towards me. The torch came and went straight into my heart and stayed there. The Lord then said I have made you a leader in this vision and I have given you the torch of discipleship, you will now be able to walk in the fullness of this vision. What happened next was that my wife also got a major impartation at one of the meetings and we went back to London. From that moment on our cell groups began to multiply, we began to have many disciples and our group became the group everyone wanted to belong to. People asked us what we did differently, and I just kept on repeating that this only came through an impartation arising out of deep repentance. By the way, repentance is also a gift from God, and it is his goodness that leads us to repentance. So, no credit to the person repenting, but to the Lord who grants a heart of true repentance.
I recounted this long story, to simply say, the New Nigeria can only be accessed through a genuine repentance. What is REPENTANCE? The Greek word is metanoia, which simply means change your mind or the way you think. Whilst I understand this meaning, I am afraid I don’t fully subscribe to this definition, because it is premised on the Greek mindset, which is all about logic and thinking. It is important to think and be a thinker, but the seat of real transformation is the heart first, then the mind. The next word is Hebrew. The word for repentance is Teshuvah. It simply means to return. It goes beyond a mere confession of sins. It goes further than feeling pain, remorse, or angst for error of missing the mark. It includes all this, plus a metanoa or change of mind or thinking, and it also means to move away from something or change direction from one way to the other. So, In Israel every year during the High Holydays, Rosh Hashannah to Yom Kippur, the entire nation goes into active Teshuvah in what is often referred to as the ’10 days of awe’. This is why I subscribe more to true repentance as teshuvah. Now, since Teshuvah means to return, what are we then returning to? Primarily, it is returning to God. Just like the young man in the parable of the prodigal son, returned to his father, so we are all called to return to God first as a Person and then to His plan and His ways.
We have all been immersed in the Old Nigeria and the New Nigeria cannot rest on the template of the Old. It must have its own pure foundations. All of us, have imbibed the Old Nigeria. We were born into it, raised in it, and have become fully immersed in it. It will take God’s mercy to cleanse us from the Old and grant us access to the new. It can only come to the truly repentant. Some of us are so accustomed to the Old Nigeria ways, that we do not even see them as a sins. We have become so expedient in our actions that, the conviction for sin is almost non-existent. We think it is the right way to be or the right thing to do. The Old Nigeria is diametrically opposed to the New. They have nothing in common. By the time, the New Nigeria is fully manifested, some will not even remember the Old Nigeria. It is so different.
The door to the New Nigeria is wide open. Can you find it? Will you enter in?
Think Repentance. Think Teshuvah
Grow New Nigeria, Grow!
Let Us Pray: Father God, I cannot force my way into the Kingdom, without following the protocol. So, also I now understand that to be in the New Nigeria, the way in is through repentance. Father grant me the grace and mercy of repentance. Starting now, begin to convict my heart by your Holy Spirit of the vestiges of the Old Nigeria that is still within me. I surrender my heart to Your dealings and I thank you for helping me, make it into the New Nigeria. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
And the Child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom; and the grace of God was upon Him. Luke 2:40
If I say I am excited, happy, joyful and at peace, I know some may find it difficult to relate! But the truth is I am. On Saturday, after the voting exercise, I left the polling unit to go back home and await the final results. As I walked towards my car, I had an epiphany. It reminded me of the day I got born again. Something had changed drastically, fundamentally in this country. I knew without a shade of doubt we would never be the same again. I became even more conscious of the atmospheric shift from the old Nigeria to the New Nigeria. I knew that the baby just took its first bold step.
I guess, for a lot of people, the events of the past few days are depressing and disappointing, shambolic and disgraceful. But I am not fazed or perturbed. You also should not be perturbed. Perspectives are everything!
The Lord has been ministering to me for a while now about the fact that there are no emergencies in heaven. So, if I see chaos, confusion or what one may refer to as an emergency on earth, I only need to pull back and look up at the Lord and gain His perspective on the matter and I would immediately lose my panic and regain my peace, but also know what to do! Perspective is everything.
Many are erroneously looking at the natural to interpret the spiritual. This is the wrong order. The spiritual perspective helps us understand the natural world. So, why do I say the New Nigeria is already born.
The New Nigeria was not born on Saturday the 25th of February 2023. No. It was born a while back. God first spoke to us about the New Nigeria as far back as 2004. My wife and I were driving and listening to some worship on the radio in our car. Suddenly my wife began to prophesy. A New Nigeria will arise out of the ashes of the old corrupt Nigeria. She went on to say that there would come out of Nigeria a new sound that would literally affect the world and that our Adire and Ankara fabric will become mainstream on fashion run ways and catwalks across the world. (Full prophesy will be published in future blogs).
Just over two years ago, during the Lekki Toll Gate protests turned massacre, the Lord called a few of us to start daily intercession for the New Nigeria. So, for the past 28 months, we have been praying everyday for the New Nigeria. Our motley group, made up of mostly Nigerians from and in the diaspora and other nationalities, that have been called to intercede for Nigeria, stand daily before God to affirm the New Nigeria and pray His will.
So, the New Nigeria. What is it? To understand the New Nigeria, you must understand the Kingdom of God. Mark 1:14-15 14 Now after John was put in prison, Jesus came to Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel.”
First point you cannot access the Kingdom of God without repentance. It is accessible only through a repentant heart. So, is the New Nigeria. You have to change your thinking to access it.
Luke 17:20-21 – Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; 21 nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”
20 Jesus was once asked by the Jewish religious leaders, “When will God’s kingdom come?” Jesus responded, “God’s kingdom does not come simply by obeying principles or waiting for signs. 21 The kingdom is not discovered in one place or another, for God’s kingdom realm is already expanding within some of you.” Luke 17:20-21 TPT
Next, Jesus said the Kingdom of God does not come with observation. What? I thought He said it was at hand. Well here lies the conundrum and why people miss the Kingdom and also miss the New Nigeria.
The New Nigeria is not so much a physical geographic expression as it is the following: An Expression. A State of Being. A Consciousness. A Set of Values. An Ideal. A People. A Paradigm or Mindset. It is a firm sense of a definite future state of a people about who they are, what they are called to be and what they will become. It is a heart condition that we have been righteously afflicted with and would never recover from. We will only get deeper in it. With every passing day, the immersion gets more profound. The New Nigeria is a mystical or spiritual experience or state. It is within us. It is atmospheric. It is among us. It is growing every day. It cannot be killed. It cannot be shot at. It cannot be legislated against. It is enigmatic.
It is a phenomenon.
It is an incurable, beautiful affliction. It is us as God ordained and empowered. It is that which sends terror into the devil’s heart. It is God’s expression of Nigeria in the hearts of His people. It is unstoppable. It will gain full expression. Because it is more than the New Nigeria.
It is primarily not about us. It is about those whose liberty, expression, identity, and destiny has been inextricably linked to the emergence of this phenomenon called the New Nigeria.
It is about the propagation of God’s Kingdom on earth. It is about the New Apostolic order. It is about the third Reformation. It is about the triumphant Ecclesia. It is about the end time harvest. It about the Army of God in these last days. It is about the Youth. Young people! It is about Gen Z++++. It is also about Joshuas and Calebs.
Don’t get me wrong. It will have physical expressions. It is already having it, but its primary manifestation is not physical. It is an ideal whose time has come.
So, why should we lose our peace because some people refuse to let go? Ask Pharaoh. Ask the Egyptians. Ask Herod. Ask the Philistines. Ask King Saul. Ask the Emperors. Ask the Demagogues. Ask the Tyrants. Ask Hitler. Ask Franco. Ask Napoleon. Ask Stalin. History’s highway is littered with the tattered decomposed relics of all these and more. They all failed and woefully too. So, why should we be discouraged? When we have the future in our hearts and flowing in our blood. No one in their right senses will stand in front of a freight train at full speed, trying to stop it.
Let me end this first part with this scripture.
2Sam 3:1- Now there was a long war between the house of Saul and the house of David. But David grew stronger and stronger, and the house of Saul grew weaker and weaker.
A long war. In warfare, there are many battles that makes a war. As battles go, there are some you must fight to win the war. There are some you ignore, because they are what we call ‘skirmishes’. They appear important, but they are not consequential to how war plays out. But great generals often use skirmishes to distract their opponents and cause them to lose sight of the purpose of the war. They use skirmishes to cause a diversion of resources and a dissipation of energy. This is a marathon, we must not run it like a sprint. The house of Saul is diminishing daily, growing weaker every minute, but David is growing stronger and stronger with every passing day.
The Old Corrupt Nigeria is wasting away. Decrepit, old, frail, failing, bumbling, spent and incoherent. It is on its way out! The New Nigeria on the other hand is rising in strength, growing in stature, growing in favour, wisdom and grace. Full of life and vitality. What an irony. What a vignette! What a parody as we even today observe our nation. What a parable!
Grow New Nigeria, Grow!
Let us Pray: Father, thank you for the New Nigeria. Thank you for the revelation and reality of the New Nigeria. Thank You for bringing me into it. Lord, deliver me of all the vestiges of the old, corrupt failing Nigeria. I renounce all its ways and embrace those of the New Nigeria. Lord, give me strength to play my role in the New Nigeria. I am so grateful that the best is yet to come. In Jesus name. Amen.
