Back from Lagos

Sorry for the absence. I have been in Lagos, Nigeria this month teaching and therefore distracted or unable to blog on their slooooooow internet connections.

I taught at West Africa Theological Seminary and, as I always do when I go, had a wonderful time with their students. They soak up your teaching, then go out to be a blessing with it at their places of ministry in immediate fashion. A teacher could ask for no more.

Or so it seems.

One interesting thing out of many - on the wall of the seminary perimeter I read the words "Beware, this property is not for sale." Hmmm. Someone told me that unscrupulous "real estate agents" will sell properties four or five times before some figure out that someone already owns it!

On Sunday at my church, I made a spiritual connection. How many times do we sell ourselves to other priorities, institutions, relationships when, in reality, we have already been "bought and paid for with the price of Jesus blood." We should have proverbial signs hanging off of us that say to the world "This souls is not for sale!"

There is much at stake in Lagos. It is supposed to become the third largest city in the world in short time but with few jobs, precious little infrastructure and 10,000 people a week moving to the city limits. Incredible. The government is rudderless and corrupt, and the church is growing but having little impact on the direction of the nation. "The life of God in the soul of man" and those men unleashed into every nook and cranny in the nation is the dire need of the hour.

Almost sounds like the same remedy of what ails the USA...