Facing the Mob, Finding Refuge in Faith: Justus on Courage and the Persecuted Church in Jos

In the latest episode of the “Courageous Crossroads” podcast, host Jeff Johnson interviews Justus, a priest from the Anglican Diocese of Jos in central Nigeria, highlighting the region’s unique cultural and religious dynamics and the threats faced by churches in this area. Justus shares his journey, beginning with a significant conversion story involving a Muslim imam who turned to Christianity after an encounter with Jesus. This imam discreetly evangelized other Muslims, resulting in numerous conversions, prompting Justus to establish a safe haven for persecuted converts, called the ‘House of Barnabas.’ The conversation turns tense as Justus recounts a life-threatening encounter with an armed mob while responding to an emergency call from the imam, illustrating his family’s unwavering faith despite danger. Throughout the episode, Justus encourages listeners to trust in God during frightening times, reflecting on the importance of faith amidst adversity and inviting others to share their own courageous stories.

Justice Okoronkwo is an Agricultural Engineer who transitioned to a role as a Priest in the Anglican Diocese of Jos, where he currently serves as the Missions Director. The Christian community in Jos has faced significant challenges, being among the most persecuted by militant groups globally. Justice dedicates himself to outreach efforts, supporting victims of insurgency and advocating for their welfare. He and his wife, Winifred, are proud parents to four boys, all of whom aspire to serve the Lord.”

Thank you for listening! We hope you feel inspired and encouraged by our conversation today. If you did, be sure to share this episode with others.

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See you in the next episode! Be blessed!

Full Transcript

Intro:
Welcome to Courageous by Crossroads Apologetics, A look into what motivates us to step out in courage and the everyday bravery of men and women like you. In each episode, we hear a personal story of bravery centered around this. What’s the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? And now your host, founder of Crossroads Apologetics, Jeff Johnson. 

Jeff Johnson:
Thanks for joining us, everybody. On another edition of Courageous. Today, I’m joined by my dear friend Justus from Nigeria. He and I happen to be in Oxford at the same time. And what an opportunity we’ve had. A chance to spend few days together and a few meals and anyway, he’s one of my dearest friends and I can’t wait for you all to hear from him. So, Justus, thanks for being with us. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Thank you very much. And I greet everybody that is listening to us. Thank you for having me. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wonderful. Can you tell people a little bit about yourself, Justice? I mean, whatever you want to share. You got an extensive background and a lot going on, but whatever you’d like to share with people so that they can put you in context and know where you’re from and what your family is and what you do. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Okay, thank you very much. I’m a priest with the Anglican Diocese of Joss. Joss is in the central part of Nigeria. And anybody that knows Nigeria knows that the northern part of Nigeria is predominantly Muslim. So. And the Christian south is. You have the Christian south that is predominantly Christian in terms of generalized affiliation to faith. Then Jos is right at the fault line where the Christian north, sorry, the Muslim north and the Christian south meet. So you have this pocket of tribes, and that was where the Muslim jihadists that were bringing Islam towards the southern part, that was where they met their resistance. So the bombs actually started detonating in Jos way back as 2000, 2007, when churches were being bombed and suicide bombers were looking for Christian gatherings and trying to maximize the toll and all that. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
So before it eventually metamorphosed into what we have as Boko Haram and the Fulani Militia, it was just that got the first taste of the Feast of Fury. So that is where I’m serving. I’m serving as the vicar of St. Michael’s Anglican Church. And for you to understand what it means for us to go to church, right now, where I’m worshiping every single Sunday, we have seven armed people with like AK47, seven armed people that are permitted by the government. They must be there so we can have worship, normal worship. And that’s not just my church. Many Other churches in Joss must be guarded by armed people before they could worship. 

Jeff Johnson:
Your church guarded? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Yes, it’s guarded. It has to be. It’s part of the government instruction that you have to do that to protect yourself from people who are likely going to attack, because it’s highly prone to attack. So that is where I am. And I’m married. I have my beautiful wife, Winifred, and we are blessed with four lovely boys. Marvel, Triumph, Noble and Fortune. Thank you. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wonderful, wonderful. And you’re an educated man. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Yes, by the grace of God. 

Jeff Johnson:
I knew you before you got your PhD. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Yeah. 

Jeff Johnson:
And then you just recently. How long ago did you get that? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
The PhD took close to 10 years working with it. It was with the University of Joss, coupled with the fact that there were some strikes that took place. So the academic sessions were also not very regular. But in the long run, it took that long to get it. But before that, my first degree, my first academic degree has been in agriculture engineering. I’m an engineer. I specialize in the mechanical aspect of agriculture engineering. That’s with farm machines and processing machines. But I also met Christ when I went to get that degree, and that was way back, 1992. So I gave my life to Jesus in 1992, my first year in the polytechnic, trying to get a degree in engineering. While I was there, God also gave me the opportunity to serve in the students fellowship, the Christian Fellowship in the campus. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
It was there that I got the conviction of God’s leading in my life in terms of ministry and in terms of what I’m doing now, because I eventually served as the president of that fellowship in my final year. So when I got that conviction, I came back again and started pursuing a degree in theology, which was in theological College of Northern Nigeria there in Joss. Then I went to University of Joss to do. To have a master’s in ethics and philosophy, and then did the. Had the PhD there too, though my leaning was more on sociology of religion. 

Jeff Johnson:
Well, no doubt we’ve had a few people that have been to Nigeria that are listening to this podcast, but I’m from Iowa and you’ve. I’ve been blessed to have you as a guest at my house. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Yeah. Yeah. 

Jeff Johnson:
So you know the distinction between Iowa and Joss, Nigeria, what would be some major distinctions that you would make between the two to give people a little flavor of where you’re from? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Yeah, there’ll be major distinctions. First of all, maybe in terms of sociology and population distribution, Joss will be more. Will have a higher population density so, like, going in Iowa, you wouldn’t see so many people on the streets. And. But in Joss, you’ll find people on the streets walking, and the markets would be more densely packed than what I saw in Iowa. Then the other aspect would be the homogeneity of the culture that in Iowa, as we walked around, you greet people, you talk in English, and most people respond in English. And you can communicate generally Joss alone, because it’s sitting on the highlands on a plateau. And when the jihadists were coming to attack about two centuries or three centuries ago, when they were coming in, most of the smaller tribes ran to the highlands to protect themselves. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
So Joss is having a higher concentration of minority tribes that were fleeing from the jihadists. So Joss alone, within that little space, he was having more than 40 different distinct ethnic groups. So if you come into Jos and you speak, it’s either you speak English or you speak Hausa, which the educated might be able to understand you in English. And generally, people may understand you in Hausa, but you’ll find that if you go way beyond the normal street issues, people may not really get you because they have their own particular language. So most people in Joss may speak their own mother tongue. Then they speak Hausa or they speak English. So most people that are educated in Joss will speak three languages, most likely their mother tongue, Hausa and English. So, like me, I speak Igbo. I’m from the southeastern part of Nigeria. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
I speak Igbo, then I speak Hausa because I’m in joust, too. It helps me to communicate. And then I speak English. So that is that. That’s one. One of the major differences. Then the other thing that I would say is different is the aspect of religious freedom. Aspect of religious freedom, people feel free. You find I found your places of worship. I mean, the air of freedom is there. And as I told you right now, if I brought somebody from joust to some of your churches, the person may find it strange at the first instance. And why? Because the person will be looking out for the security people, the armed people that are supposed to be guarding that place of worship. And then maybe you would tell them, why do you need armed people? And they will be like, why don’t you? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Are you not prone to attack? Because in Jors, people will be prone to attack. So the churches will have armed people who are guarding them. Most of the churches will do, particularly the churches that are in the city center within the metropolis. 

Jeff Johnson:
Wow. Wow. Okay. Well, I think that puts you in context for our listeners a little bit. Now, this is a podcast about courage, and I want to get to the question about the courageous thing that you’ve done that you would like to share with our listeners. But before that, let’s calibrate a little bit. How would you define courage? How would you define that word or that concept? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Justin? Defining courage, I would say, without trying to lean on the dictionary or any particular field of endeavor, I would say anthropologically, thinking of humans and knowing how we are wired up with our feelings and all that, and how we are often driven by our feelings, I would say that would be a feeling that is driven by a concern that is beyond your normal, Your normal animalistic concern for shelter, for food, for protection. And that concern goes beyond you, and then it drives you to do something so that I will call courage. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And then for us as Christians, when you have given your life to Jesus, and you know, the Bible says in Philippians, when he was Paul’s letter to the Philippians, when he was encouraging them in chapter two, and he said, let this mind be in you, which is in Christ Jesus, that encouraging us to think of others more than ourselves. Now, that is easier said when you’re reading it. When you have a situation that was not choreographed, was not synthesized, and spontaneously you are driven to do something which may even put you in danger. But the concern, what was driving you was beyond your own concern. Maybe concern for others or concern for. For a higher thing, a higher vision, a higher goal that is actually beyond you. Anytime I see that kind of thing, I think that is a display of courage. 

Jeff Johnson:
That’s good. Well, let’s get right down to it. Justice. What is the most courageous thing you’ve ever done? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Thinking of the most courageous thing I’ve ever done, I think a couple of things will come to my mind, but maybe one will stand out because it left a huge mark in my life and then in my family. To understand what happened, I have given you a little background about Jos and Northern Nigeria, where I’m doing ministry. So we are like people who are living in not just a contested space, but a very hostile space to the Christian faith. Today, Nigeria is rated nearly number two in the world in terms of global terrorist index because of the kind of attacks that has been unleashed upon the Christian community. And most of those attacks have been within that middle belt where Joss falls into. So we have been attacked by the SUSAT bombers. We’ve been attacked by those who are branches of Boko Haram. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
We have been attacked by the Fulani militia. All of them driven by Islamic agenda against churches. So that is the kind of place where we have been some years ago. I think this should be about 2012. One of those days my archbishop called me and I went to his office. I am his director of missions, I’ve been serving as the director of missions. And he called me. When I got to the office, I saw this man who was dressed up in this. From the. From the dress code, from what he was wearing, if it was in Jaws, you would put him out immediately as being a Muslim. He was wearing that which looked. Which was more like an Arabic attire. So he was in the office with my archbishop and my archbishop introduced him. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
I may not want to say his name here just to protect him because he’s still a Christian. And my archbishop said, you need to hear this man. He just walked in here, he’s an imam, that’s a Muslim cleric in charge of a particular mosque in Jors. And he’s here saying he met Jesus and he has given his life to Jesus. And I turned and looked at the man and he was all shaking. His body was shaking. He said, look, he met Jesus. Jesus. Jesus came in that he thought he was dreaming, but eventually he found that he was not dreaming because his wife also said she saw the light that came into the room. So he said he saw Jesus and he talked about Bible verses that he was given. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And Jesus telling him that what he had been reading in the Quran about the kalmatun lahi, which is the word that is alive, that Jesus said he is the word that is alive and that Jesus gave him the gospel of John to read. John, chapter one from verse one to five which says in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made. Without him was anything made that had been made. In him was life. And this life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot comprehend it. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
So this man said he looked for the gospel of John and when he read it, when he met that verse four that said in him was life and this life was the light of men. For him it was like boom. That’s what he has been reading in the Quran, the kalmatun lihe. And that the Jesus that came to him in the dream, full of love in his eyes, not condemning him, but telling him that you have been against me, but I love you and I that word of life that you’re talking about. So he said that was how he. He said he bowed to him in that apparition or whatever he called it. And when he got up, he looked for a Bible, he read that passage and he just wanted to get a minister, a pastor to report himself to. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And then my archbishop was known to be somebody that was quite proactive in trying to. In evangelism. He was very evangelistic and he was very charismatic and he was very open. He was highly trusted among people as being somebody that will condemn evil, whether it was happening among the Christians or whether it was happening among the Muslims. So that was why he came. So my archbishop said, okay, you are the director of missions, I’m going to hand this man over to you so that you follow him up, you help him to know more, and you help him to grow. I said, okay. So we left from there. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
So I asked him more questions and he told me about himself, told me about his family, told me that was not the first time Jesus had appeared to him, but he and his wife, they made up their minds they needed to just turn over themselves to the Lord. So I said, okay, we’re going to set up a kind of a discipleship program, a follow up program so that you can learn more about the Bible, ask your questions and grow. And he told me he wouldn’t want that to be done openly. And I said, why? He said the kind of love he had experienced from the Jesus that appeared to him that he wanted his other Muslim friends and followers to experience the same. So I said, what do you want to do? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
He said he wanted to reach out to them, to tell them Jesus is the way. I said, but that would be dangerous. He said he would want to do that, even if it meant dying doing it. He said he would want to do that. So I said, okay, if you want to do that, then it means I have to set up your programs to meet with me to be covert, we just find a secret place. We meet, we read our Bibles, you ask your questions, I pray for you and I help you, give you materials that you need. But then openly, people still see you in the mosque and they still think you’re a Muslim. Is that what you want? He said, yes, that’s what he wanted. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
So long and short of it, he still went back to the mosque, he was still going back to the mosque. And I and him, were meeting secretly. We had a place to meet and he would ask his questions, he would ask about things in the Bible. Then he would go back there and what he was doing in the mosque. He would raise up a question while he was teaching, and then he would watch different people trying to ask questions, you know, or trying to answer different their responses based on their responses. He would pick some people and then tell them what you were asking in the mosque. Let me tell you the truth. Jesus is the way. So he was doing that kind of thing. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And within a span of like a year and a half from what he was doing, we got 19 people who were Muslims who turned over and became Christians. We got 19 who became Christians. Those 19 made us to start. I had to start what I call the House of Barnabas. And that was like a safe haven for those people who became Christians and they were being persecuted from the Muslim community. And then we had to just find a place for them to be and to find some protection before we could eventually find something for them or get them to a place to relocate them or something like that. So that was what he was doing. When he started doing that. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Within that one and a half years, were able to move him out of the Muslim community, out of the center of the Muslim community to the outskirts where we got a house for him. It was a three bedroom, I think three bedroom or two bedroom, small house that we got for him and got a small castle he could move around with, you know. But he was in the outskirts, but he was still doing what he was doing in the mosque. Now, see what happened. I had a meeting with the Archbishop on that. On that particular day that I’m talking about. And I was dressed up formally, so I was having my dark collar and all that. And I went to see the archbishop and my sons were with me. Then I was having three. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
The youngest had not been born then, so the three young people were with me. My eldest son was in the front of the car, and we drove to the Archbishop’s office. I picked them from school to take them home. And then I branched the Archbishop’s office to see him because he had sent for me. While I was in the Archbishop’s office, my phone rang, and it was this man, and he was speaking in harsh tones. He was saying, pastor, we are under attack. We are under attack. Come and get us out. We are under attack. I was like, what’s happening? He said, they have known. They have found me out. We are under attack. We are under attack. And I could hear some distant gunfire, not too close, but I could hear something in the background. And he. He said, we’re under attack. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Get me out. You know, Being somebody who had grown in Joss, doing ministry in jobs, I knew what that meant. The sense of danger that he was in just overwhelmed me. I ran immediately into the car and I started driving. But I, I must tell you, I wasn’t coordinated. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind because I should have reminded myself that my children were in the car. I drove off with the children and started going to that part of Joss where he was. For me to get to his house, it was either I passed through the Muslim community to get to his house, which would have been dangerous for me, the way I was dressed, or I could follow a back road to get to his house, but that would mean me driving through some farmlands. So. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
So I chose the second option. I got off the road, off road, and it was a Toyota Camry, 1998 Toyota Camry. And it’s not a four wheel drive vehicle, so it was doing badly trying to go through the ridges. You know, it was bumpy, boom. But I was willing to drive that way to get to him, to follow the back of those communities. As I drove around a rock, boulder like that with some bushes, just driving around it, I saw this mob coming. They were coming my way and you could see that immediately I stopped. I recognized that I had driven into that kind of situation before. I had been attacked before and you’ve had cases of people being burnt in cars and all that, but that was just a mob that was coming my way. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
From far, you could see some of them were holding guns, some were holding machetes, some were holding sticks and crackles and they were coming. They were chanting la ila illala. Some were saying they were just coming. So I stopped the car, I tried to put it in reverse. It wouldn’t go. It was not a four wheel vehicle, it was not a truck. I tried to go forward and it was like stuck right there. And these people were coming. I was dressed in color, sitting in the car and look at them coming. So what I did, I was playing the gospel music and I just lowered it. I lowered the volume, turned it down. Then I just pressed the buttons so that the glasses just went up. I was scared. My body was shaking. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And then I remembered the collar, the dog collar I was wearing. I stood out clearly. I was a sitting dog there. A pastor in the midst of that. These people would not just kill a Christian. These people would delight more in killing a pastor. Because at that time there was bounty on the heads of pastors. If you are able to kill a pastor and you take the photo to show, to give the evidence that you’ve killed a pastor. You had some money paid to you had some rewards, some reward given by some people who sponsored those kind of assassinations or killings. So I knew that. So I pulled the dark collar gently and removed it. Now, when I stopped the car, turned down the volume. My son, Marvel, the first son, was looking at me. Then. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
He was about eight years, if I’m not mistaken. He was looking at me. Then I turned the volume. He was looking at me. Then I removed the dock collar. It was when I removed the dark collar that my son said, daddy, what are you doing? Don’t you want them to know that you are a Christian? That was what he said. And my body was like. It was like I froze. I knew why he said that each time we had our quiet time in those days, we prayed with the children and we watched the news. People being killed, houses being burnt, churches being burnt, Christians being killed in different places. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
We told ourselves that if were to find ourselves in that kind of situation and somebody put a gun on our heads and asked us to give up our faith to stay alive, we had told ourselves that we would rather die and be with Jesus. So that was like our family mantra. Then here was I. He could see those people coming. And the daddy that had been talking tough in the house, who was removing his dark collar. So when I looked at my son, I looked at the ones at the back seat. They were sleeping. They didn’t even know what was happening. It was just Marvel that knew what was happening. I looked at the ones at the back, I looked at him, and in my mind I felt, well, maybe today will be our day. Maybe today will be our last day. Maybe. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Maybe this is very likely to be our last day. And I looked at him and I said, I’m sorry. I told him, I’m sorry. Then I took the dark collar and I put it back. I slipped it back. And I just kept my hands on the steering. My hands were just shaking. I just kept them on the steering. And with one hand on the stairs and the other hand, I just tried to reach out to him and just to brace ourselves. But you know, Jeff, I will never forget that day. I still replay it in my mind, like every day. I can see it so clearly. These people came upon the car, and they were just passing the car. They were walking past the car. Nobody asked us, who are you? Nobody said, what are you guys doing here? Nobody challenged, nobody questioned us. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Nobody looked in our direction. They just passed the car. And were sitting right there. And as they were passing, my son asked me, he said, daddy, are they not seeing us? I didn’t want to even answer audibly. I didn’t want to hear. I was dazed, I was frightened. My hands were shaking. And they passed until the last one of them passed. I was looking at the mirror and I could see them. They’ve passed. They were receding. Nobody had said anything to us. With my hands shaking, I tried the key again in the ignition. And the car started and shifted into gear and put it on again. And it went. The wings will spun again. And then I pressed hard on the accelerator and it went over that ridge and went boom, boom, like that. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And that was how we moved out of that situation and got to the house of that man. And it was from that man’s house that we made a phone call to the security operatives. And they sent a truck with some soldiers to escort me. The man was okay, his wife was okay. And they sent a truck to now escort us. And we’re able to get him out of that community safe and alive. That was actually the end of that ministry. He stopped doing what he was doing in the mosque. We had to relocate him. That is why I’m not mentioning his name, just to protect him, because many people still didn’t know he was the one doing what he was doing right there in the mosque. But for me, it so strengthened my faith and Marvel. My son looks at me. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
For him, two things happened. He looked at his dad like, okay, one courageous dad. I’m like, oh, courageous? What kind of courageous? I removed the collar. Removed it? I removed it. But Marvel had been telling his fellow students in high school that he wants to serve the God of his father, that he wants to serve Jesus. And they say, why? He said that the God of his father, Jesus, protects. And he tells them that story, tells them what happened. For me, I don’t know. I don’t know where to place it. I know that with my senses full, I removed that collar. I was so frightened with what I saw was coming upon me. I removed the collar. But when that boy challenged me and said, don’t you want them to know you are a Christian? I put it back. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And when I put it back, I was not expecting to see another day. I thought that was our end. But God in his grace, protected us. Up till today. I don’t know how it happened. I cannot explain what. I can’t explain what happened. All I know is that I’m here, I’m alive, and I survived that day. And I give. Glory to God. Hallelujah. 

Jeff Johnson:
Justice that’s an amazing story. Thank you so much for sharing that. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Thank you. 

Jeff Johnson:
Well, there’s a hundred other questions that I want to ask about that, and I can’t imagine all of the other courageous things that you’ve done in your life. So you’re definitely going to have to come back and visit with us again. But let’s leave our listeners with this. Think of that person that’s sitting out there hearing that story right there and give them a little bit of an encouragement for the next opportunity that they have for courage. Why should they do that? What should they do when they’re confronted with a situation where they’re terrified or scared or whatever it is? Encourage our listeners? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
Justice I think for me, what stands out is one single word. Trust. Trust God. We have a huge with our, with a globalizing world information superhighway, education explosion and all that, one of the things it’s doing for us as we think we get more education, we know more, and all that, is that it increases the trust deficit between us and God. We are trusting God now, not as much as we did before, but the Bible, you remember he actually charged us when David said, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your path. So when it was given us as a counsel in Proverbs, you find that for us, to trust God actually means to let go. But you know that letting go means to be vulnerable. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
But God wants us to let go many times and let him be God. One of the things that I want to encourage everybody is that every time you find people that God has used to do anything that we’ve said to be courageous, he introduces himself to them. He tells them, I am the Lord your God. And when he says, I am the Lord your God in the Hebrew language, he says, I am the Lord, that is Adonai, that is the owner of everything. But he says, I am your God. That God is Elohim. It’s in the plural. It’s in the plural. When he says, I’m your Elohim, you know, like in English, when you want to indicate something is more than 1. To indicate plurality, you add S. You add cups, you know, books, shelves, microphones, speakers. You know, S indicates plurality. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
But in Hebrew, one of the ways you indicate something is plural is I am. So when you add that I am im, it indicates plus plurality. So one angel is cherub, more than one cherubim, seraphim, Melek for one king, Melekim for kings, like that, Eli for God. Jesus said, eli means God. But each time God wants to encourage his children to walk into the space with their faith on their chest, he says, I am the Lord your Elohim. He includes, I am. It’s like saying gods. So when he introduced himself to Moses was like, so are you like the pantheon of gods of the land of Egypt? And he said, no, hear ye, O Israel. The Lord your Elohim is one. So if he is one, why is he bearing Elohim? Why does he introduce himself like that? 

Justice Okoronkwo:
God is not just talking about the plurality of his majesty. He is also talking about the multiplicity of. Of his dimensions of intervention. He’s introducing himself as the God that is unlimited, that if you are hungry, I am your Jehovah Jireh, I’ll provide. You’re sick. I am your Jehovah El Rapha, I’ll heal you. You are lonely. I’m your Jehovah el Shammah. I’m ever present. You are considered a minority and you have been discriminated upon. He said, I am your Jehovah el Nisi. I’m your flag. I am the reason why you can stand out. You fall into saying, I am your Jehovah El no, say, I forgive you. You are wondering, how can I live a holy life these last days? He said, I am your makedishkim. I am the one that sanctifies you. I am your Sikinu, I am your refiner. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
You are disturbed by situations. He says, I’m your shalom. I give you peace. And you’re worried that you may be attacked by all distances, different kinds of attacks, spiritual attacks, physical attacks. You say, I am your El Gibor, the mighty man in battle. I am that I am. I will be what I will be. So if you understand that God says, I will be what I will be in your situation, then this passage comes alive. Proverbs 18:10, when it says, the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous run into it and they are safe. So I want to say to anybody that’s listening to me, we have the name of the Lord. We have the name where we, the righteous, we can run into it and we are safe. And all God wants us to do is to trust him. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
He has given Jesus a name that is above every other name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow. And we step into the public space knowing that the assassins of hell have us in their crosshairs. But we have the name of Jesus. Step out on the ledge and let him give his angels charge over you to keep you, lest you dash your foot against the stone. Remember your Psalm 91. Moses said, he that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And he will say of the Lord, he is my stronghold. He is my God. He is my fortress, in whom I will trust. Trust is the matter. Do you trust God? If you trust God, step out and just do what he has asked of you to do. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And I must let you know that in our world that celebrates intellectualism, celebrates empiricism, celebrates knowledge, people that trust God look foolish. But I want you to know the just shall live by faith. And faith in God looks foolish to the world, but it gets the job done. Keep going. God bless you. 

Jeff Johnson:
Justice. Justice. Thank you so much. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
God bless you, Jeff, for what you’re doing. 

Jeff Johnson:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

Justice Okoronkwo:
And thank you for those who listen. God bless you. 

Outro:

Thank you for joining us today on Courageous. If you’d like to hear more about the work and ministry being done at Crossroads Apologetics, please visit our home on the web at crossroadsapologetics.org Would you or someone you know like to be featured on Courageous? Send us an email at info@crossroadsapologetics.com or info@crossroadsapologetics.org telling us about the most courageous thing you’ve ever done.