By Abiola Olubiyi
The book ‘Who are You’ written by Pastor Kunle Oni, is an extremely powerful book, which contains 10 chapters.
It’s a no-holds-barred book, with the author writing with heartfelt frankness and openness about who a believer truly is. With an unapologetically realistic delivery packed with emotion, this emotion can be felt pulsating throughout the 249 pages of the book.
Pastor Kunle, the author, like a boxer in a ring, literally delivers punch after punch of hard truths which hit below the belt.
Just when the reader is reeling from and tries to recover from one punch of hard truth, he is hit by another – there is no doubt that the author clearly has an urgent message to deliver and is in a hurry to do so!
The book opens with a powerful beginning in chapter 1 and talks about the different personality types – sanguine, choleric, melancholic and phlegmatic. Can these personality types define a believer? The author doesn’t think so. He debunks such well-established theories and he argues that who you truly are can only be defined from the spiritual angle – you are not what you look like physically; who you are in God is your true personality.
In the following chapters, the author warms to his subject, writing passionately, almost in anguish about things that have gone wrong in Christendom and the society at large.
He sounds the trumpet, saying that God tells believers to awake and exercise their God given rights. The discoveries you make out of God’s word will influence the kind of authority that you will have. The believer’s personality is predicted on sonship – matured sons who understand what He’s saying, and not babies still struggling with the elementary doctrines of the faith.
Expatiating this further in chapter 3, the author says that God’s dominion mandate is for all believers to be fruitful in every area of life and become a voice in their generation. Citing examples of people like Bill Gates and other rich people who are voices in their generation simply because of their huge wealth, he is of the opinion that this is a time to shy away from being poor – as a believer you can’t have a voice with the people or in the nations if you are poor. And God’s economics revolves around multiplication, which is His reward for believers who key into His mandate.
He describes believers as ambassadors who represent God’s kingdom here on earth. They live and work by this kingdom’s core values, and they have their basic needs met as they do so.
In chapter 4, he goes on to say that believers are peculiar people who have special assignments chosen by God for them to fulfil. But he argues that the bedrock for this is character. He quotes Bishop David Oyedepo’s charge to new graduands of Winners Chapel Word of Faith Bible School (WOFBI), where he says ‘we have showed you all that pertains to this faith, you now need to get character.’ Character is needed to make foolproof of one’s ministry and the author bemoans the fact that this is sadly missing in many of today’s believers. Character flaws such as greed, anger, pride must be firmly dealt with, he insists.
Chapter 5 talks about relevant scriptures that capture the believer’s personality.
He continues his powerful thrust in chapter 6 by asking where the Elijahs are. He paints an awesome picture of Elijah. Elijah had no jet, yet he overtook Ahab with his chariots and horses as they raced to Jezreel. He fearlessly challenged idol worship and eliminated 450 prophets of Baal and turned the nation back to God. He displayed signs and wonders – axe head floating, miraculous cancellation of the prophet’s wife’s debt through the miraculous miracle of the ever-flowing cruse of oil. When it was time for him to die, he simply took a bow and was caught up to heaven. What a man! Now than ever before, we need such Elijahs who will demonstrate such signs and wonders
The author turns a microscopic eye on today’s church and is clearly displeased with what he sees. While there are generals of faith today who paid the price of diligence in their various secular careers before God called them, other pastors have what he describes ‘the ministry of the belly.’ They lack spiritual backing and because of this, they turn to counterfeit sources for spiritual power. They build a wall around them, are inaccessible to their sheep and see themselves above law.
He strings together terse adjectives in describing many of today’s believers. He describes them as ‘lying Christians, fornicating brethren, cheating pastors and people with eyes full of adultery, covenant breakers whose Christianity is of the face and not of the heart.’
In Chapter 7 he acknowledges the fact that a believer is the Lord’s vineyard, but even at that, He allows inclement weather to devastate us and observes our reaction. He says there are many false shepherds who are merely users of sheep. They are not interested in providing green nutritional pasture for their sheep – all they are interested in is unhindered tithe and offerings.
In Chapter 8, the author talks about Dr Fred Price’s prophecy which says that there would be a powerful forthcoming revival and encouraging the ‘faithful few’ to be prepared for this move of God that would will break even the most calloused hearts.
With a heartfelt cry, Pastor Kunle asks where are the mighty men of David? In these perilous times, David-like believers who would enrol into God’s army and bring deliverance to this generation are urgently required.
In Chapter 9, Pastor Kunle talks about how God raised Gideon to bring deliverance to Israel, who was being judged because it had fallen into sin. Sin is a bane of today’s society and only true repentance will turn away God’s wrath.
He concludes in chapter 10 that life is transitionary and it is but a pilgrimage for all men.
Throughout the book, the author punctuates his narrative with real life experience. From his being shot at close range, yet the bullets were impenetrable to his body, to in chapter 2, to chapter 4 where his dishonest staff, a believer and worker in the church defrauded him of a huge sum of money when he paid money meant for the business into his own personal account.
Still in the same chapter, his neighbour, a herbalist unfortunately had this to say: ‘many pastors have turned to me for help in the past…they have prophesied falsely in God’s Name using the powers I gave them.’ Further on in the book, there’s the story of a believer who collected money to purchase land for the church – not only did he fail to purchase the land, he also failed to return the money! What about the author’s miraculous delivery from a raid by armed robbers on his home, during which the robbers fled for their lives, scampering away to safety, and leaving behind a piece of loot – a bag containing gold jewellery!
There is a recurring theme throughout the book – we need believers in the true sense of the word, who would leave their comfort zone, rise up like the heroes of old, pull out their battle axe and contend in intercession against the decadence in the society – corruption, terrorism, fornication and all such vices.
The strength of the book ‘WHO ARE YOU?’ lies mainly in the heartfelt delivery of the author’s thoughts. He has a particular terse style and writes in an unpretentious manner, not caring whose ox is gored.
This book is a wakeup call and a must-have for all heaven-bound believers!
Olubiyi, a HR Consultant/Script Writer
abiolaolubiyi@gmail.com writes from Lagos
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