I just read a book titled “How good is good enough?” by Andy Stanley and his main argument was that since no one was perfect and we do not really know what God’s pass mark is, then no one knows for sure if he is good enough to make heaven.  He claimed from his Christian perspective that we are only saved by grace when we accept Christ as our savior.  This sounded very Eurocentric in my reasoning.  Just do a little without any responsibility and get maximum result.  I then went to his website which he recommended to us in his book to ask questions in relation to his book, and I asked him if the Christian group such as the Ku Klux Klan who believes in Jesus were going to heaven despite lynching of Blacks and Jews?  I also asked him if Christian descendants of slave owners who maximized their profits at the expense of the slaves and their descendants, but still refuse to pay reparation for it would see paradise.  As expected, the man of God has been silent for about three months now and counting.  It is obvious that the psyche the African now possesses from not defining his God for himself is that which lacks responsibility to his fellowman.  Jesus makes it very clear that you do not make heaven only by believing in him, but also by being filled with the Spirit of God to guide us through understanding on how to live godly.  This is the most important piece of information many colonizers left out for the Africans to follow, which leads to a lifestyle of no responsibility and disorderliness.  God’s Spirit is responsible for the individual.  It is true that no one is perfect, and that is why the spirit guides you to a destination.  But what is the pass mark to this destination from a global spiritual point of view?

I have sat down and studied the great men of faith to know what was behind their titles either as Son of God, Prophets, disciple, or a sage or wise one, and I found out that it was their responsibility to their community that was guided by God’s Spirit.  These men were simply civil rights activist.  God's Spirit through these people made sure that the laws of the land were not only fair to all, but challenged their leaders to enforce it appropriately even if it meant their death.  They believed injustice somewhere was injustice everywhere.  They intentionally took the risk to make sure that their communities and their descendants collective had a chance to be treated fairer politically, socially, and economically than they did.  What separates a man who loves his children and community at all cost from everyone else is the courage that God’s Spirit has instilled in him to carry on a purpose.   The true Spirit of God makes one conscious and become an advocate of civil rights.  Was it Jesus standing up to the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Moses challenging Pharaoh over the slavery of the Jews, Confucius struggling with unemployment till his old age because he demanded honesty from the Chinese Kings, Apostles Peter, Paul, and James standing up to the Roman Empire, or Mohammed raising up the sword against the corrupt and idol worshippers of his time?

The religions that has being given to Africa has not only removed our conscience for responsibility and love for ourselves, but has also encouraged us to celebrate disorderliness, selfishness, and lack of value, which is totally against the laws of goodness and godliness.  For instance, God said that he loved Jacob but hates Esau.  The same God took the sacrifice of Abel and rejected Cain’s.  Then, Jesus refused some of his followers from entering heaven in one his parables because they did not cloth the naked and feed the hungry that they did not even know.  The Bible tried to portray Esau and Cain as bad people even before they tried to commit any crime of vengeance against their so called “godly brothers”, but why?  Many Christians believe that God rejected Cain’s sacrifice because it did not have blood in it, and that God hated Esau because he sold his birthright and so therefore lacked principle, but this is far from the truth of the responsibility of God’s Spirit. 

Esau was a hunter and killed animals for the family, but Jacob stayed in the tents with his mother.  Yet, the hunter had no meat saved or could not cook.  It was the boy who stayed at home that had enough meat saved and fed the one who killed the meat.  Jacob was highly resourceful as a multiplier that he could even use the food he did not produce as a bargaining power to take the birthright of the one that has meat but can not produce much with it to feed himself.  Cain on the other hand, was a farmer and producers of crops.  Abel was a Shepard whose animals feed on the crops he did not produces.  Yet, on the day of sacrifice, he brought the best sheep that was the most nourished from the crops around, while Cain brought just his crops.  There was nothing wrong with Cain’s crops, but there was nothing special about it either.  Biology is the study of plants and their parasites.  Plant or crop is the basic sustenance of life form.  What life form had Cain impacted with his crops by himself? I am sure if he had gone out of his way to convert his crop to salad, soup, or a mat people could use, God would have accepted it.  The spirit of God is the responsibility to convert whatever is given to the benefit of the community through resourcefulness and multiplicity, and by challenging your leaders to do the same no matter the cost for the sake of maintaining civil rights (not harming or hindering others in order to appear that you are moving ahead).   Jacob (later named Israel after repentance) and Abel clearly had God’s Spirit of resourcefulness, multiplicity, and responsibility, but Cain and Esau did not.  The possession of God’s Spirit in accomplishing your destiny for your community and nation through its courage is the pass mark of “how good is good enough”. 

How does this apply to Nigerians and Africans in 2008?  A year that is destined by God to purify and cleanse all Africans regardless of where they may live off the satanic forces that lack collective resourcefulness in our nations, the collective culture of multiplicity of our resources and job creations, and most importantly, God’s responsibility to collectively take risk for our children by demanding with our lives proper civil rights and its enforcement by law.  In America, a homeless White will still not want to trade places with a rich Black because he knows that he is of a higher value collectively by today’s standard.  The average White knows that for every dollar he gets, it could have being a penny if not for the resourcefulness of his race.  The average African knows that for every dollar he gets, it could have being twenty if not for the colonial psyche of his race.  People will tell you to run to Nigeria and Africa and that your classmates are leaving you behind, but a man living steadily with expectation is better than he living far below his expectation no matter how much he has.  A Nigerian stock broker once told me to come invest in Nigeria no matter how dirty and disorganized.  He claimed no matter what, are people making money or not?  But if there is really money for all to enjoy and share, why is the place dirty and disorganized?  People who have enough love order and cleanness, so that no one gets cheated.  You will hear that the latest Hummer is in Nigeria, but Nigeria did not make it and they usually pay the latest price for the vehicle that has about 200,000 miles.  Many African Children do not want to go back home, not because the Whites told them not to, but each day dad has to send money because there is no job, someone is sick and no medicine, the leader lost the election but he is still the president, or grandpa died and they can’t bury him.  In the so called “Giant of Africa” (by population only), after over a century since the introduction of the automobile, people now prefer to use motorbike rather than cars because it is more efficient of our roads.  You will always hear that only one man has the right to import sugar and cement at inflated prices against local production to created jobs, and over one and half million people can’t resist it because of his three friends in the government.  Is this not the spirit of Cain to the Nigerian populace and to some who even profess to speak in tongues and see visions?  Is this not the burden of Esau on all Africans in the Diaspora?

I strongly recommend that All Africans should stop taking their places of worship seriously unless it is committed to fighting for their civil rights in their communities and nations wherever they live.  After prayer and meditation, God needs people filled with his Spirit to go out there and bring change of responsibility, resourcefulness, and multiplicity by demanding fairness for all regardless of race, gender or religion.  Jesus and his Apostles, Mohammed and his followers, and Confucius were basically civil rights activists whose movement became a way of life for others to follow.  Their successful destinies is the foundation that the Europeans, Jews, and Arabs enjoy till today, and now the Chinese are creeping to over take them.  Where are the African prophets who can lead a successful movement that our descendants can enjoy for the next 2000 years and others may even follow their lead?  I also recommend that we join any established Black oriented civil rights organization today in our locality or start one, and channel all of your tithes and offering to their cause as long as they are matching, litigating, and addressing your issues here on earth for the benefit of your descendants.  God does not move when people are voiceless.  God does not move when his people do not carry his Spirit to progress collectively.  God does not hear the prayers and tongues of those who nonchalantly live beneath their expectations.  Some civil rights organizations in the United States are currently organizing a 100 Millions Candle Light Vigil for the 100-300 million African slaves that died during African colonization and slavery.  They feel that a spiritual cleansing is needed on Sunday, October 19, 2008 at 7.A.M Easter Standard Time to wake all African peoples from their slumber to acquire God’s Spirit and its courage.  Slavery and colonization is what relegated us to this stage of living a life that is not our own and we plan to lights at least a million candles in every nation’s capital at the same time and the same day.  This year must be the year that the Black race responds positively to the power of the 100 million flames worldwide under the Spirit of God.  Please keep your ears opened, keep surfing the internet, keep reading your news, and plan to be at Abuja or any capital where you live with a candle in your hand, and let us for once break the chains of African generational curse of slavery and colonization with the pride of unison.