“I
saw a very young man close to his bed between the range of 18 to 20 years, one
of his eyeballs was no longer there, his head and face were swollen with some
injuries on his shoulders, initially I thought he had an accident but it was
not, he was flogged with the fulani's walking stick, mostly on the face and the
head, so he lost one of his eyes as a result of that. I was wondering the
offence he has committed, but the offence was strange to me, what he did was he
wanted to get married and according to their custom, you will be flogged
mercilessly and whoever can with stand the pain will eventually marry the girl.
In his own case they about four of them that wanted to marry one girl and the
girl really loves him, so they decided to flog him on his face and make him
blind so that the girl will no longer be interested! how wicked, Is so sad that
the girl is being forced to marry the last man standing after the flogging. The
funny part is that he will still need to go through another flogging again if
he is to marry again. His relative said, some people have died in the process
of the flogging, that their own case is better that he only lost his eyes. I
cannot stop thinking of this babaric way of getting married, I wish there is a
way to stop this tradition.”- Ojima
Edeh
I saw this post on facebook from my Nigerian friend, Ojima
Edeh. She went to the hospital to visit one of the boys from the orphanage. As
I thought about this young man that had lost his eye, I realized how much he
loved that young lady. He would be beaten by her brothers in order to marry
her. He was trying to redeem her and the price was being beaten and not crying
out. Unfortunately for him, he was not able to redeem her.
There is another
instance where someone was redeeming his bride, by being beaten and dying. That person was our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ was beaten and killed in order to redeem His bride the
church. He was beaten and crucified by Romans, gentiles, brothers to us, the Bride of Christ. “He
was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb
that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers,
So He did not open His mouth.” Isaiah 53:7 He did
not open His mouth when He was oppressed and afflicted. Jesus loved us so much
that He would desire to redeem us. He would desire to be beaten and be
crucified in order to save us. Christ redeemed us. The anguish and pain He went
through in order to save us and redeem us. Now we, as believers, are His bride.
Wow, what an amazing Savior we have.
For us guys, who are single,
would we be willing to be beaten in order to marry someone that we love? For
those of you who are married do you love your wife enough that you would be
beaten in order to marry the one that you have married? “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also
loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her,
having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might
present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or
any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” Ephesians 5:25-27. Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up
for her.
Do we love
our Savior enough to be beaten for Him? I think most of us would say yes, but
when it really comes down to it would we really follow through with what we
said or would we not want to go through that kind of pain? How great is your
love for the Savior? This is something that we must think about. There are so many believers around the world who are suffering for the sake of Christ. We need to pray for them and prepare ourselves for the day when we will be persecuted. We should be looking forward to that day and excited that we get an opportunity to be persecuted for our Savior. This desire comes when we love our Savior more then anything else. When we love Him as this young man loved his bride.
Have we left our first love like the church in Ephesus? (Revelation 2:4). Let us continue to pursue our Savior and not lose sight of Him. The way we do this is by spending time alone with Him. Not just doing service for Him, but actually spending time with Him.[1] If you love someone, you want to spend a lot of time with them. Do we really love our Savior like this? Do we desire to spend lots of time with Him? Do we desire to spend every spare moment we have with Him? Let us grow in Love for our Savior. The more we grow in love for our Savior, the more we will grow in love for our spouse or future spouse. Let us desire to spend more time with Him even in our hectic days.
Have we left our first love like the church in Ephesus? (Revelation 2:4). Let us continue to pursue our Savior and not lose sight of Him. The way we do this is by spending time alone with Him. Not just doing service for Him, but actually spending time with Him.[1] If you love someone, you want to spend a lot of time with them. Do we really love our Savior like this? Do we desire to spend lots of time with Him? Do we desire to spend every spare moment we have with Him? Let us grow in Love for our Savior. The more we grow in love for our Savior, the more we will grow in love for our spouse or future spouse. Let us desire to spend more time with Him even in our hectic days.
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