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About the Book
"multiply" by Niyi Makinde is a practical guide on how to live a life of purpose and productivity by focusing on personal growth, goal setting, time management, and developing healthy habits. The book provides actionable steps and strategies for readers to maximize their potential and achieve their desired results in various aspects of their lives.
Smith Wigglesworth
Smith Wigglesworth was born in 1859 to a very poor family. His father did manual labor, for very little pay. Smith himself went to work at the age of six to help with the family income. At six he was pulling turnips and at seven he was working in a woolen mill twelve hours a day. His parents did not know God, but Smith hungered in his heart to know Him. Even as a youngster he would pray in the fields. His grandmother was the critical Christian in his life. She was a Wesleyan Methodist and would take Smith to meetings with her. At one of these meetings there was a song being sung about Jesus as the lamb and Smith came into the realization of God's love for him and his decision to believe Christ for his salvation was decided that day. He was immediately filled with the desire to evangelize and led his own mother to Christ.
Smith has various church experiences as he was growing up. He first went to an Episcopal church and then at thirteen a Wesleyan Methodist church. When he was sixteen he became involved in the Salvation Army. He felt deeply called to fast and pray for lost souls. He saw many people come to Christ. At seventeen a mentor shared with him about water baptism and he decided to be baptized. The Salvation Army was experiencing a tremendous level of the power of God in those days. He describes meetings where "many would be prostrated under the power of the Spirit, sometimes for as long as twenty-four hours at a time." They would pray and fast and cry out for the salvation of fifty or a hundred people for the week and they would see what they had prayed for.
At eighteen Smith left the factory and became a plumber. He moved to Liverpool when he was twenty and continued to work during the day and minister during his free time. He felt called to minister to young people and brought them to meetings. These were destitute and ragged children, whom he would often feed and care for. Hundreds were saved. Smith was often asked to speak in Salvation meetings and he would break down and weep under the power of God. Many would come to repentance in those meetings through this untrained man. At twenty-three he returned back Bradford and continued his work with the Salvation Army.
In Bradford Smith met Mary Jane Featherstone, known as Polly, the daughter of a temperance lecturer. She left home and went to Bradford to take a servants job. One night she was drawn to a Salvation Army meeting. She listened to the woman evangelist, Gipsy Tillie Smith, and gave her heart to Christ. Smith was in that meeting and saw her heart for God. Polly became an enthusiastic Salvationsist and was granted a commission by General Booth. They developed a friendship, but Polly went to Scotland to help with a new Salvationist work. She eventually moved back to Bradford and married Smith, who was very much in love with her.
The couple worked together to evangelize the lost. They opened a small church in a poor part of town. Polly would preach and Smith would make the altar calls. For a season, however, Smith became so busy with his plumbing work that his evangelistic fervor began to wane. Polly continued on, bringing Smith to conviction. One day while Smith was working in the town of Leeds he heard of a divine healing meeting. He shared with Polly about it. She needed healing and so they went to a meeting, and Polly was healed.
Smith struggled with the reality of healing, while being ill himself. He decided to give up the medicine that he was taking and trust God. He was healed. They had five children, a girl and four boys. One morning two of the boys were sick. The power of God came and they prayed for the boys and they were instantly healed. Smith struggled with the idea that God would use him to heal the sick in general. He would gather up a group of people and drive them to get prayer in Leeds. The leaders of the meeting were going to a convention and left Smith in charge. He was horrified. How could he lead a meeting about divine healing? He tried to pass it off to someone else but could not. Finally he led the meeting and several people were healed. That was it. From then on Smith began to pray for people for healing.
Smith had another leap to make. He had heard about the Pentecostals who were being baptized in the Holy Spirit. He went to meetings and was so hungry for God he created a disturbance and church members asked him to stop. He went to prayer and prayed for four days. Finally he was getting ready to head home and the vicar's wife prayed for him and he fell under the power of God and spoke in tongues. Everything changed after that. He would walk by people and they would come under the conviction of the Holy Spirit and be saved. He began to see miracles and healings and the glory of God would fall when he prayed and preached.
Smith had to respond to the many calls that came in and gave up his business for the ministry. Polly unexpectedly died in 1913, and this was a real blow to Smith. He prayed for her and commanded that death release her. She did arise but said "Smith - the Lord wants me." His heartbroken response was "If the Lord wants you, I will not hold you". She had been his light and joy for all the years of their marriage, and he grieved deeply over the loss. After his wife was buried he went to her grave, feeling like he wanted to die. When God told him to get up and go Smith told him only if you "give to me a double portion of the Spirit – my wife’s and my own – I would go and preach the Gospel. God was gracious to me and answered my request.” His daughter Alice and son-in-law James Salter began to travel with him to handle his affairs.
Smith would pray and the blind would see, and the deaf were healed, people came out of wheelchairs, and cancers were destroyed. One remarkable story is when He prayed for a woman in a hospital. While he and a friend were praying she died. He took her out of the bed stood her against the wall and said "in the name of Jesus I rebuke this death". Her whole body began to tremble. The he said "in the name of Jesus walk", and she walked. Everywhere he would go he would teach and then show the power of God. He began to receive requests from all over the world. He taught in Europe, Asia, New Zealand and many other areas. When the crowds became very large he began a "wholesale healing". He would have everyone who needed healing lay hands on themselves and then he would pray. Hundreds would be healed at one time.
Over Smith's ministry it was confirmed that 14 people were raised from the dead. Thousands were saved and healed and he impacted whole continents for Christ. Smith died on March 12, 1947 at the funeral of his dear friend Wilf Richardson. His ministry was based on four principles " First, read the Word of God. Second, consume the Word of God until it consumes you. Third believe the Word of God. Fourth, act on the Word."
the great prize in christian dating - pursue clarity and postpone intimacy
I got lots of things wrong in dating, but as I think back over my mistakes and failures — dating too young, jumping from relationship to relationship, not being honest with myself or with others, failing to set or keep boundaries, not listening to friends and family, not prizing and pursuing purity — one error rises above the others, and in many ways explains the others: My dating relationships were mainly a pursuit of intimacy with a girlfriend, not clarity about whether to marry her. In my best moments, I was pursuing clarity through  intimacy, but in a lot of other moments, if I’m honest, I just wanted intimacy at whatever cost. “The pursuit of marriage” was a warm and justifying pullover to wear over my conscience when things started to go too far physically and emotionally. But even clarity through  intimacy misses the point and gets it backwards. I should have been pursuing clarity in dating, and then  intimacy in marriage. That simple equation would have saved me and the girls I dated all kinds of grief, heartache, and regret. Your Last First Kiss Most of us date because we want intimacy. We want to feel close to someone. We want to be known deeply and loved deeply. We want sex. We want to share life with someone of the opposite sex who will be involved and invested in what we’re doing and what we care about. With the right heart, and in the right measure, and at the right time, these are all good desires. God made many of us to want these things, and therefore wants us to want these things — with the right heart, in the right measure, and at the right time. Think about your last first kiss in a relationship (if you’ve already kissed someone). Why did you do it? You knew you were risking something, that this wasn’t the safest way to give yourself to someone. What was driving you most in those brief moments before you let your lips touch? For me, every first kiss was driven more by my own desires than by God’s desires for me. Every first kiss until I kissed my wife for the first time, seconds after asking her to be my wife. Before Faye, I had let what I wanted outweigh what I knew God wanted, and what I knew was best for the girl I was dating. I craved intimacy, and I knew I would find it in marriage. So, I punched “marriage” into Google Maps, jumped on the highway, and ignored the speed limits. Instead of waiting to get to my destination to enjoy emotional and physical intimacy, I pulled over and bought something quicker and cheaper on the side of the road. Intimacy — romantic or otherwise — is a beautiful and precious gift God has given to his children. But like so many of God’s good gifts, because of our sin, intimacy can be dangerous. The human heart is wired to want intimacy, but it is also wired to corrupt intimacy — to demand intimacy in the wrong ways or at the wrong time, and to expect the wrong things from intimacy. That means intimacy between sinners is dangerous, because we’re prone, by nature, to hurt one another — to do what feels good, instead of caring for the other person; to promise too much too soon, instead of being patient and slow to speak; to put our hope, identity, and worth in one another, instead of in God. Intimacy makes us vulnerable, and sin makes us dangerous. The two together, without covenant promises, can be a formula for disaster in dating. Different Prizes in Marriage and Dating God is the greatest prize in life for any believer — at whatever age, in whatever stage of life, and whatever our relationship status. But is there a unique prize for the believer in marriage? Yes, it is Christ-centered emotional and sexual intimacy with another believer. Before God, within the covenant of marriage, two lives, two hearts, two bodies become one . A husband and wife experience everything in life as one  new person. “Couple” doesn’t describe them well enough anymore. Yes, they’re each still themselves, but they’re too close now to ever be separated again (Mark 10:9). God has made them one. Their things are not their own. Their time is not their own. Even their bodies are not their own (1 Corinthians 7:4). They share all and enjoy all together  now. Sex is the intense experience and picture of their new union, but it’s only a small slice of all the intimacy they enjoy together now. Safety for Intimacy The reason that kind of intimacy is the prize of marriage and not  of our not-yet-married relationships is because that kind of intimacy is never safe anywhere outside of the lifelong covenant called marriage. Never . There are lots of contexts in which romantic intimacy feels  safe outside of marriage, but it never is. There is too much at stake with our hearts, and too many risks involved, without a ring and public vows. Without promises before God, the further we walk into intimacy with another person, the further we expose ourselves to the possibility of being abandoned, betrayed, and crushed. In a Christ-centered marriage , those same risks do not exist. We are together — in sickness and health, in peace and conflict, in disappointment, tragedy, and even failure — until death do us part. When God unites us, death is the only thing strong enough to separate us. That means intimacy is a safe and appropriate experience in marriage . For sure, marriage is not perfectly safe. Married people are still sinners, capable of hurting one another, even to the point of abuse or divorce. But faithful married people are not leaving people. Just like God is not a leaving God. Dating’s Great Prize While the great prize in marriage  is Christ-centered intimacy, the great prize in dating  is Christ-centered clarity. Intimacy is safest in the context of marriage, and marriage is safest in the context of clarity. If we want to have and enjoy Christ-centered intimacy, we need to get married. And if we want to get married, we need to pursue clarity about whom to marry. We don’t pursue clarity by diving into intimacy. The right kind of clarity is a means to the right kind of intimacy, not the other way around. Careful, prayerful, thoughtful clarity will produce healthy, lasting, passionate intimacy. Any other road to intimacy will sabotage it, leaving it shallow, fragile, and unreliable. Much of the heartache and confusion we feel in dating stems from treating dating as practice for marriage (clarity through  intimacy), instead of as discernment toward marriage (clarity now, intimacy later). In dating, we often experiment with intimacy until it basically feels like marriage, and then we get married. The risks may seem worth it (even necessary) because of how much we want to be married (or at least everything that comes with being married). But in reality, the risks are not worth it, and they’re certainly not necessary. God did not mean for us to risk so much in our pursuit of marriage. For sure, we always make ourselves vulnerable to some degree as we get to know someone and develop a relationship, but God wants us to enjoy the fullness of intimacy within a covenant, not in some science lab of love. In Christian dating, we’re not trying marriage on for size, but trying to find someone to marry. Questions We Ask Pursue clarity, and postpone intimacy. What does that look like practically? One test for whether you are pursuing clarity or intimacy is to study the questions we ask in dating. We ask different questions when we’re pursuing clarity more than intimacy. How far can we go? How late should we hang out? What kind of touching is allowed? Is he Christian enough for me to date him? Versus: Does he love Jesus more than he loves me? Does she follow through on her promises? Do I see him showing self-control, or compromising to get what he wants? Is she willing to lovingly tell me when I’m wrong? Healthy relationships may still need to ask questions in the first set, but they’ll be way down the list. When we’re after intimacy without clarity, we ask the first set and often overlook or minimize the second. But when we’re pursuing clarity, we’ll start asking new questions. Here are some examples of questions you could ask in your pursuit of clarity: What have you learned about each other lately — stories, habits, character traits? How have you each grown in your relationship with Jesus since you started dating? Are you both committed to abstaining from any form of sexual immorality? What flags, if any, have others raised about your relationship? What obstacles are keeping the two of you from getting married? Are you each being driven by your own desires, or by God’s desires for you? In what ways is your relationship different from non-Christian relationships? Questions like these — and countless more like them — uncover what we really want in dating, and where we’re likely to leave Jesus behind. They’re the bumpers that keep us out of the gutter, guarding us from impatience and impurity. But they’re also instruments of true love — the well-made parts that keep our car on the highway to marriage. They keep us focused on where we are headed and what really matters. They’re the agents of clarity.
