Some years ago, a Nigerian Christian man who went to Ukraine to study saw so many disheartening sights on the streets of the city on his way to and from campus.
There were many Eastern Europeans who were lost to drug addiction and other destiny-destroying vices.
This condition is the usual direction which people who find themselves without hope, freedom, the right to dream and pursue their dream head in human reality.
They ask questions about purpose and destiny. They know they were created for a purpose, but when the environment is not conducive to the purpose of fulfilment, escape becomes the haven of the weary.
In many cases, drug addicts get into the habit to escape the disturbing reality they face in real life. I should be more, become more, do more, do better, be better, and achieve something meaningful with my life are valid questions every individual poses to himself or herself at one point or another in this world.
These internal struggles, especially when there are no obvious answers or hope of an answer, would usually lead people into vices.
There are several ways to ease this condition; you cannot help every individual to fulfil their destiny. That duty is sancrosanct and personal, but you can offer a conducive environment for their aspirations to find an expression and a possible route to fulfilment.
The government is usually expected to do this. Create an enabling environment for the citizens to become whatever it is that they aspire to be.
When the government fails to do this, the citizens become frustrated, and the end result is that some of them would seek thrills and escape through drugs.
This was the condition in Ukraine in the 90s. The young Nigerian man was, however, a Christian. He understood that there is a divine destiny that does not need government policy to find fulfilment. This destiny is in Christ, not religion!
He began to witness to the drug addicts on his free days. He would show them love, assure them they could beat the trappings of their drug problem and show them the power of the word of God in rehabilitating them and setting them on the right path.
Within months, he had a group of people who believed in his message of hope and thronged to him on campus and on the street.
This was how he started a church.
Eastern Europe had been under the heavy influence of the Soviet Union and its "No God" policy for several years.
The government was at first skeptical of this young man's moves, but they turned a blind eye when they realised that he was curing the ills in their society and getting a lot of people off their drug habits.
The gospel he preached was Christ.
What Jesus came to do
What Jesus has done
The implication of what Jesus has done for every man and woman
What the Holy Spirit has come to do for anyone who believes in Jesus and accepts HIM as Lord and Saviour
The power that the believer has from the moment he or she becomes anointed with the power of the Holy Spirit
The supernatural life and realities of every believer.
This gospel was revolutionary in a country that had long declared that God was dead.
It changed the lives of millions of people.
The news of the exploits of this man went global within a few years
Many pastors started using him as an example to their missionaries and young pastors
His church was full of "White" folks who had valid testimonies and infallible proofs of their transformative destinies in Christ.
This pastor then came to Nigeria to see some of the biggest ministries in Nigeria and learn one or two things from them.
He didn't write to any of them to introduce himself
He wanted to attend their services as a believer and glean from the wealth of their knowledge.
His experience was shocking.
He saw that Nigerian pastors at the highest level were not preaching the gospel
They were teaching people about family battle, evil pattern, evil arrow, family deliverance, witches, witchcraft, voodoo, juju, sorcery, divination, glory thief, dream life, spirit husband and spirit wife, Queen of the coast, village people, enemy of Father's house, Strongman of mother's house, quarterly deliverance, fasting for anointing, seed sowing to be able to prophesy and all sorts of things that filled the minds of their members with the consciousness of the devil, evil and darkness and nothing of any value about Christ and His finished work on the cross.
He couldn't hold back his criticism, which was posted all over social media and YouTube.
A lot of Nigerian Christians have, through the teachings of these so-called pastors embrace a strange mindset full of fear and unproductive activities, which has become a substitute for the drug addiction epidemic he saw in Ukraine when he travelled there as a student.
Prayer books were being written and sold to people who then end up learning all these demon-inspired prayer points that have nothing to do with their destiny in Christ.
He bought some of the books and saw prayer points like "Every market where my glory is being sold at night, I shut you down" and so on.
How do prayers like this inspire the believer to walk in the fullness of the power of the gospel?
How can any demon ever aspire to sell the glory of the believer, which Jesus gave to Him in John 17?
Will a demon sell the glory of Jesus?
The way these pastors interpret the bible to their congregation is so twisted that it has produced a morbid and gory mindset in their members.
This mindset then reinforces what they were being taught in their dreams and life experiences.
These Christians suspect everybody of trying to hurt them or being possessed and are quick to run to their pastors for deliverance, even though they are full of the Holy Spirit and should be the LIGHT delivering the unbelievers from darkness.
The final blow was how the believers don't know they are saved and are always begging God to count them worthy of salvation or entry into heaven instead of acknowledging that they have eternal life and have become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
Unfortunately, the religious industry in Nigeria is a trillion Naira juggernaut that cannot be stopped.
The church leaders continue to milk members by preying on their fear of the enemy, an imaginary evil forces and the wrath of God.
The believers in the Bible were addressed as SAINTS in all the epistles, but the believers in Nigeria are always praying and begging for forgiveness of sin because they see themselves as sinners.
It was as if the leaders of the churches in Nigeria deliberately set up their ministries to teach a distorted version of the gospel so that their members would never really enjoy the liberty and power that Jesus purchased for them with his blood.
Sin consciousness, devil consciousness, enemy consciousness, evil consciousness, and hell consciousness were what the average Nigerian Churches feed their members.
No wonder they are so powerless.
Some of them are scared of cats, cockroaches, wall geckos, snails, and other things, and often attribute evil omen to these things if they see them in real life or in a dream.
PS: The average Nigerian Christian should pick up the Bible and read it plainly for themselves.
Read with the mindset that the word was written to show you who you are and your true destiny in Christ.
Once you discover the truth, throw away all the books, teachings, and totems reinforcing your old belief system.
Flush your system by praying in the Holy Spirit and reading the Bible daily.
You will find your body full of light and your spirit ascending into the places predetermined for you in Christ in no time.
-GSW-
The Original Witness Is Always Inward
As a minister, you will meet several people who will come to you to complain about the direction of their lives and how they are sure they were doing everything God told them to do, but not only are they not finding joy in what God told them to do, they are not successful at it.
You wonder why.
Why would God tell you to do something that you find no pleasure or joy in?
Why would God make your life unnecessarily burdensome by making you do something that is tedious and demanding of your all, without offering you any form of delight or rest in the fulfilment of that purpose?
That does not sound like God at all.
The place of fulfilment for every man or woman is the place of doing what they are born to do.
Nothing satisfies like destiny
Nothing stills a restless soul like coming to a place of fulfilment of purpose and destiny, and nothing troubles a soul like a lack of fulfilment.
You sometimes come across people who have made a lot of money, but are still restless and searching for meaning because their success felt hollow and devoid of a sense of accomplishment.
Money cannot buy fulfilment
A man or woman who has come into a place of fulfilment in life would automatically stop wandering and rest.
When you ask such people how they knew they were doing what God told them to do, their usual response would be "A prophet told me God wanted me to drop everything I was doing in Nigeria and travel abroad because this is where my destiny lies. Now I am here, and my life is worse for it."
A prophet told me to drop everything I was doing and start a ministry. I obeyed, but my life has been a struggle since then.
A prophet told me to marry this man, and from day one, it has been hell for me.
A prophet told me to start this business, and it has been loss after loss for me from the day I started.
In every instance, without any exception, the instructions they received from the prophet did not come as a corroboration of what they already knew or what they were already skilled at or gifted at or what the Lord told them in their hearts one-on-one.
In most cases, the word of prophecy took them away from their comfort zone into a territory that they really had very little conviction about.
This is why people fail.
The word is nigh you
The instructions of the Holy Spirit must first be real to you in your spirit before a second or third person would come to you as a witness to confirm what you have already heard or known in your heart due to your relationship with God.
A lot of people have no relationship with God, but they claim all the time that God gave them an instruction or told them to follow a path or do something.
Such people are very easily deceived.
External promptings are popular in the Old Testament of the Bible because the Holy Spirit had not come upon the people of God at the time.
In Hebrews 1, the preacher said God spoke to our early fathers in different ways. He spoke through the early preachers. But in these last days, He has spoken through His Son. God gave His son everything. It was by His son the God made the world.
The Son shines with the shining greatness of the Father.
The Son is as God in every way.
We all know that John had in his documentation of the last support in John 14, 15, and 16, Jesus described the Holy Spirit as the Alos Parakletos. (One like me)
This then refers to the Spirit in the Believer as the Spirit of Jesus or the Spiritual dimension of the person of Jesus.
In essence, every born-again Christian is guided by this inward dwelling Spirit and not by a word of guidance or prophecy by the external instruction of any preacher, prophet, or pastor.
Those who do not cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit within them but depend on the word of a pastor or prophet as the word of God are opening themselves up to spiritual manipulation.
A whisper of "I like that brother" in the pastor's ear, and he might tell you a sister who didn't like you in any way is your wife.
A whisper from your parents in the pastor's ears could influence you to study a course, believing you are studying the course in obedience to the will of God.
So many believers have been set on the wrong path by prophets who really didn't hear from God but pretended to do so in order to retain their respect and relevance to the person whose destiny they were fiddling with.
In 2008, right after I graduated from the University, I registered myself at the CMD library in Lagos and began to fulfil my ministry.
I had received from the Lord on September 17, 2007, several instructions regarding my life and destiny.
I knew I was destined for ministry and that I would be a teacher and a writer.
My mates graduated and started pursuing employment, entrepreneurial activities, and so on.
I had no drive to do such things
I felt no energy, zeal, impetus, or enthusiasm towards finding a job or starting a business, or working for that matter.
I was convinced I had to go into ministry, but I also didn't want anything to do with planting a church and becoming a pastor or the like.
I had read "In Touch," a document from Dr Charles Stanley's ministry and other materials, and felt like producing or writing such materials, but instead of publishing them, I wanted to share the materials digitally.
The question everybody asked me at the time was "How does this translate into money for you. How would you feed yourself and start a family without a job?
I had no answers, but I started anyway.
I titled the daily devotional "Daily Laughter," and I began to write daily and send them out by email to hundreds of contacts, which I had painstakingly gathered from several sources.
The CMD library provided me with electricity and a place to go every weekday.
I was doing what I was called to do, and even though I had no money, I was on top of the world.
The mistake I made was the "If you will like to support this ministry, send your donations to......" line that I attached to the email daily.
Months after I started, I received a phone call from an old schoolmate who happened to be on my email list and who was getting the daily devotional in his inbox daily.
This brother insulted me so much that I still feel the sting.
"Go and look for a job, you scoundrel. You are going about deceiving people that you are a pastor or a preacher instead of getting a job so that you can feed yourself and your family.
You are waking up, writing devotionals and stylishly begging for money from people to suport your ministry.
Nobody will give you a dime, lazy bones!
The Holy Spirit sent me to rebuke you, he said I should instruct you to go out there and get a job immediately."
That phone call changed everything.
I stopped writing.
I went to look for a job
I started out with Prime Shelter on LTV as a freelance writer before becoming a producer with a media outfit in Anthony and later a News Producer with CORE TV.
I hated my life in those days.
The thing the brother said the Holy Spirit told me to do, i was doing it with tears and sorrow.
It is one thing not to be financially settled; it is another thing to live your life feeling as if you are running out of air to breathe every second.
Five years later, I got a job with a church as a PA, and I had a visitor. A colleague of mine named Frank Omolapeh, a broadcast journalist.
As we talked about my new job and what I should do with some of my downtime, this brother said, "Write. You have a natural flair and talent for it. Use it for the Lord."
Wow.
It was what I had always been called to do, what I started to do before I was derailed.
I began to write
I began to share the gospel in my own unique way
I began to share and demonstrate the fullness of the power of God in the land of the living.
This was twelve years ago.
Obedience has taken all over the world, as far as China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and as close as every state in Nigeria.
I have sat with kings, rulers, leaders of all categories and kinds. I have literally seen the word of God come to pass in my life progressively.
I enjoy doing what I do, and I do it effortlessly. I have practically forgotten what it means to labour and toil.
I am working now at 1:35 AM Nigerian time, and I am doing so of my own will and with the aim of pleasing the Lord.
This is what it means to find yourself positioned right in the middle of your destiny.
If you are doing something, even if it is pastoring, lawyering, doctoring, singing, dancing, or prophesying, and it is a chore and a labour for you.
It is not from God.
God brings the best out of every believer from a place of rest.
PS: If you would like to learn more about your purpose and destiny. If you would like to know God for yourself and discover how to fulfil your destiny, you can join The Pneuma School of the Supernatural and Bible College. PSSBC School 29.
https://t.co/cbshLxtCHe
Registration will close on April 10.
A lot of religious people don't know God or His voice, and they always claim God spoke to them when making serious life decisions.
The term "God said..." then becomes an excuse for not seeing red flags or paying attention to all the signs that they would naturally see if they had not dulled their senses with a blinder, which they believe is faith.
A young single lady approached a pastor asking for prayers against spiritual forces contending against her marital destiny.
At twenty-eight, this young woman had never had a suitor, not even an admirer.
In a world where parents were cautioning their children to dress properly and shun waywardness, the young lady's parents had taken drastic steps to help her catch a husband, a sugar daddy, or a friend with benefits or even a married man to impregnate her by changing her wardrobe and advising her to change her church, friends, and recreational locations where they felt she should hang out in order to meet men.
According to her mother, if she couldn't get a husband, she should get a baby.
The young lady's parents were unbelievers who saw and treated life the way wild olive trees do.
The young lady, however, was a religious Christian who gave her life to Jesus while in the boarding school, and she didn't want to live her life the way her parents lived theirs.
Her mother had taken her to several spiritualists, and she had been diagnosed with "spirit husband affliction".
She had done a "spiritual divorce" in three shrines and spent a lot of money on deliverance services.
While all these claims were being pushed as the reason no man would look at her, the truth was far more obvious.
Women in the lady's family do not get married because of how they were raised.
They were raised to see men as wild beasts that must be tamed, and as a result of this, the daughters were all given certain incisions in their privates as soon as they hit puberty.
The duty of this incision is to give them domineering power over any man who shows any form of affection towards them.
The other families on Lagos Island, from which this family hailed, all knew this and cautioned their sons from marrying into this particular family.
The few females from the family who travelled far to get husbands who knew nothing of their family tradition, suddenly discovered that the fortunes of their husbands spiralled downwards after the marriage.
The husbands either die or run as far away from them as possible.
The ones that stayed became emasculated lackeys with nothing of note to offer.
This pattern had been in the family for several generations, and as a result, the women in the family resorted to getting pregnant with strangers and giving the children they bore their family name.
Seven generations have done this.
The less educated among the women would have several children with different fathers, while the more educated ones would have one or two using the same design.
This young lady wanted a marriage. She believed that giving her life to Jesus should have rid her of the curse of truncated marital destiny and saved her from the fate that befell her sisters, aunties, and cousins.
The funny thing is, almost all the male children in the family end up married with a family, just like her parents.
These men, however, leave all the raising and the provisioning to their wives. They chase skirts, have a vibrant social life, and whatever money they make, they spend on chasing pleasure. Their wives were essentially single mothers
Her two older brothers got married and live exactly this way, while her two older sisters had embraced the pattern that had become the norm in the family.
In their family, when adults want to talk about their daughters, they do not say "When is she getting married?", they say "When is she bringing us a child?".
She grew up wondering why until she became wiser and saw that this is the way of her people.
She liked the pastor, and she told him everything about herself and the challenge of getting a husband and breaking this curse for her and her unborn children.
She was a medical doctor, quite accomplished for her age, and the young pastor felt she would be a "catch" for him.
A proper altar spec who can stand beside him at any social event, and people would just respect him for marrying such a successful woman.
He prayed with her that day and assured her that God had answered her prayers.
After she left, he did a sum of all he had heard and seen in his heart.
He was 30 years old, struggling to feed and pay rent as a preacher.
The person who referred the lady to him had tacitly told him that he should consider her as his ticket out of chronic poverty by marrying her.
He decided to pray and fast about it
On the seventh day of the fast, the lady was the one who called him just as he was about to break his fast.
He considered this a sure sign that God wanted him to marry her, and he told her so.
She replied by saying, "Oh my God. Oh my God! I woke up this morning with my left eye twitching, and that usually is how God makes me know something good is about to happen in my life. I called to share this good omen with you so that I can seek your insight and ask you to pray for me for the good thing to manifest quickly. I didn't know it was you. God is indeed marvellous."
They got married, and the marriage was hell for the pastor from day one.
He did not consider the fact that the woman he married was not raised in a family where there was a traditional culture of a "husband and a wife". She had no model or training in that guise. Her mother was married, but she was a single mother who controlled the purse strings and made all the decisions while her husband just coasted along.
This was the way she was raised, and it was what she knew.
Moreover, she was making the majority of the money and literally providing for him just as her mother provided for her father and the whole family.
The pastor grew up in a totally different setting with a different worldview and mindset.
The husband was supposed to be the head of the family.
Who earns more than the other should not even be an issue or a reason for him to no longer be the head of the marriage.
His wife didn't see it that way
She was paying the rent, fueling the car, buying the appliances, paying for food, vacations, hospital bills, and so on.
She gets to lead whether her husband likes it or not.
Three months into their marriage, her husband returned home from the church and saw that she had changed the furniture, beddings, and every other thing in the house without carrying him along.
It was her modus operandi, and he had complained about it several times.
He told her he thought he wanted the material things before they got married, but the price she was asking him to pay for whatever she had to offer was too steep.
That day, he went to sleep in the church. His wife thought he would get over it and return home after dealing with his bruised ego.
He didn't.
Days stretched into weeks.
Whenever she would go to the church to see him, she would be told he had gone off to a mountain top for a prayer retreat.
Months went by. She eventually went crying to the General Overseer of the church. How could a husband abandon his wife of three months for two months in the name of a prayer retreat without informing the wife of his whereabouts or checking in?
The General Overseer placed a call to the husband, and the husband explained that his wife liked the idea of being married but did not really want to practise what it means to be truly married, and he was tired of the strife he was having with her.
The wife said she didn't see herself being married to someone whom she has to take permission from to do whatever she desired to do to make her life, career, home, or marriage better.
"Why should I ask my husband if it is okay to travel abroad for a few days to clear my head? Is it not my money? Did I ask him for a dime? I mean..."
He complained that I brought company over to the house without informing him. "Sir, I paid the rent. I can bring a live bear over if I want. Even if he paid the rent, it is my damn right to live free. Marriage has not made me a slave to him.
If not for marriage, can he address me in public? Are we of the same level? He needs to soak his ego in some cold water. Poor people are always so proud for nothing!"
It was a mess.
The General Overseer asked the pastor if he hadn't paid attention to the worldview and mindset of his wife before they got married.
He said he only prayed and got a conviction that she was the one.
The General Overseer asked the doctor if she hadn't
paid attention to the worldview and mindset of her husband.
She said, "My eyes twitched that morning, and I called him, and he said he had prayed and God had revealed to him that I am his wife".
The marriage never worked.
They were officially divorced two years later, but were only married vitally for three months.
PS: Who raised your spouse? What manner of household did he or she come from? What is the philosophy of her mother? What is the philosophy of his father? What is their culture as a family?
Rachael stole an idol despite being so loved by Jacob; family culture, tradition, and religious beliefs matter a lot.
Abraham said a wife should not be chosen for his son from people of a particular culture, he knew that if his son would come to know His God, he must do so without the seducing influence of the idols of his father's house coming to his wife.
Speaking in tongues is not a criterion for a good marriage, nor is prophesying or preaching good sermons.
"God said" is not the right way to pick a life partner.
Marriage shouldn't be a black market unless you want it to be. Do your investigations. Check those digital footprints. Call old friends. Meet his siblings and best friends. Those who know him or her long before you met him or her may not say anything to you about him or her directly, but body language does not lie.
You can't see the body language if you don't get close enough to them to observe them during a meal or a social event.
Don't marry a stranger only to complain of his or her strange mannerisms, attitude, behaviour, and mindset.
Find a wife and prepare yourself to be found by your husband.
-GSW-
The truth usually has nobody rooting for it.
The reason for this is simple, the reward in supporting the opposite of the truth are numerous.
Nobody will offer you a bribe to uphold the truth, but to subvert the course of justice, people offer huge incentives.
If you stand on your principles, you get nothing
If you bend your principle, you get a reward
Portiphar's wife offered Joseph her body and other perks
Joseph said "No" based on his own convictions and principles
Joseph ends up being punished
Portiphar's wife ends up getting another houseboy
Portiphar upheld the Happy Wife, Happy Life theory
Lies forever on the throne
Truth, forever with the hangman's noose on its neck
A group of people came together to make an agreement on how they would run things fairly among their members and for the benefit of the members of the group
A few of these same people benefited from the orderliness and the principles of this agreement to come into beneficial positions that benefit their ambition, but once they got into a position of power, they decided the same agreement that brought them there should not be upheld anymore
Suddenly, tribal loyalty, midnight meetings, other agendas, and bought loyalties came into play
The agreement that everybody swore on, which was considered to be fair and equitable, was suddenly thrown in the trash
Somebody had paid more to subvert the truth
Somebody's ambition was weaponised by sentiments, and the general principles of fairness were suspended.
Usually, the strong would get away with this, and the weak would have to accept the verdict of the powerful.
You will hear words like "Don't take it to heart", "Life happens, "Another chance will come", "God will compensate you", "We know it is not right, but our hands are tied".
This is not so when the truth has a worthy advocate. The advocate or champion of the truth may not be a good man. He might be an oppressor himself who would have subverted the truth if given the chance, but, given the fact that he was disadvantaged by the decision to bury the truth, he or she may decide to champion the course of justice and fight for the truth.
It is always a pleasure for me as a person to see someone stand for the truth, put his resources behind such a fight, stand strong in the face of adversity and oppression, and emerge the winner.
It is refreshing to see someone fight for the truth and for the person to win.
Some years ago, as a pastor of a very small parish at Agiliti Mile 12 in Lagos state, I had ten members in my parish.
Only four come constantly to church
The community was prone to flooding, and Lagos State government was mounting pressure on those living there to move away because it was not healthy to live there, but the community members wanted the government to compensate them financially if they were to leave the houses they had invested a lot of money in building.
Justice and fairness were all the landlords of the community ever fought for and talked about. They were afraid the government would pull down their houses and sell their lands to very rich people to develop Magodo Phase 3.
As a parish, we began to contribute some money to buy a small generator and a sound system for the church.
The main contributor was me and my family but other church members chipped in.
We kept the money with one of the minister's wives who lived in the community.
The target was two hundred thousand Naira.
Fifty thousand Naira to buy a good generator, and one hundred thousand Naira to buy speakers and sound system equipment, twenty thousand Naira for electrical work within the church, we also needed a new signboard and some other things like funds to open a church account, etc.
For ten months, I contributed twenty thousand naira to this project, while other members also dropped what they could.
When it was time for us to buy what we had contributed money for, this minister and his wife suddenly stopped coming to church.
I asked all the other members of the church living in the community to intervene, but they refused. They said they didn't want to make enemies with that minister and his wife. They told me to forget about the money or pray that the Lord will touch the heart of this woman.
I was deeply hurt by everything that happened. It was my first posting as a pastor. I spent a lot of money on transportation twice a week to minister there, and the journey was gravely inconvenient due to the flooding.
I sincerely hated being taken advantage of in any way, but my quest for justice had no champion.
I lost faith in the parish and decided to stop reporting there. I went back to the church that posted me there and told the pastor I didn't want to be a pastor anymore.
The pastor was disappointed, but he had no option but to accept my verdict.
A few months later, the Lagos State Government arrived in this community with bulldozers and a court order instructing all residents to vacate the community within two weeks.
The members of the community needed public sympathy and press coverage on the issue to force the government's hand to offer them any form of compensation so that they wouldn't leave empty-handed.
One of my former church members mentioned my name and told the community that I was a journalist who could bring them a news crew and do a human angle story on their situation.
I had earlier suggested this to them while I was pastoring there, but they were reluctant to take the government to task.
I woke up one morning, and the same members of the church who told me to forget about my money were at my door.
They said they needed my help
They begged and pleaded
When it was within their power to stand for justice and truth to help me recover my money, they were unwilling
But when they became the victim, they wanted the same justice and truth to fight for them
I told them I want the woman who made away with my savings to come with them the next day with my money in full.
She must come with her husband prepared to apologise, and i must be refunded in full
Once that is done, I will help them fight for their community.
They did what I demanded.
The next day, by 7 AM, they were all in my flat.
I got the two hundred and thirteen thousand, five hundred and sixty-five naira, which was contributed back from her
She said she had to borrow some of it, and the community members also pitched in to raise the money
I asked her what she spent the originally contributed money on
She said she went to the village for Christmas celebrations with her family.
The trip didn't come cheap.
I said Okay.
She apologised and handed over the money to me.
They left at about 8 AM.
Two days later, a journalist from our office went to the community to interview them. It made the news and gave them a bit of reprieve at the time, as I promised.
One would think only the rich can subvert the course of justice by trying to use their wealth to influence outcomes, until you meet poor people who will do the same to you simply because they can!
When the truth is left without an advocate, justice suffers!
-GSW-
Money And Ministry: A Conversation On Making Money And Serving Jesus
I don’t know why, but these two ideas seem to be at odds with each other: money and ministry.
If you make too much money or have nice material possessions, some would say you are probably not serving Jesus. If you are voluntarily poor and minimalist, you’re probably living the Gospel.
Being poor is seen by many as the first sign of being a good Christian. The reason for this is not far-fetched, Christians were raised with the mindset that wealth is a prevents one from truly serving God.
At least that’s what we perceive.
It’s a tension we don’t bring up often. But it’s a conversation I want to have with you.
And I apologize up front: this post is longer than usual. But I guarantee you it’ll be worth it.
A Passion For Ministry
I have a passion for ministry.
I long to see worship leaders, church planters, pastors, and apostolic leaders released to do the work of the ministry in their generation.
I long to see the lost saved, the sick healed, and the Gospel proclaimed to all the unreached people groups.
I want to spend my life raising up worship leaders who are close to the presence of God, ushering the church into deeper levels of His presence.
But there’s a story I hear too often.
A Story We’re Afraid To Tell About Ministry
It’s the story of Jimmy. Jimmy is a fictional character, but he represents a lot of young ministers.
Jimmy felt a call to “full-time” ministry when he was at a church camp while he was in primary school
He wanted to either be a missionary or a pastor. He went on numerous short term missions trips through High School, maintaining a positive, youthful exuberance about his future as a minister.
He was confident God would make his path clear for the future.
Unsure of what exactly to do after high school, he enrolls in a Bible College in order to further “prepare” for God’s will. Throughout this whole process, he is waiting, stalling, longing for some shining light to direct his path.
College drags on, and life sets in. The youthful zeal he used to experience becomes overwhelmed by classes, dating, and hanging out with friends. In the end, he graduates from college with a degree he might never use, but He’s still holding onto His calling to serve Jesus in full-time ministry.
His mates were getting jobs and beginning to settle down to life but Jimmy’s options are limited.
He either goes blindly into full time ministry by erecting a small signboard, doing morning cry in the morning and hoping people will seek him out or he gets a paid church pastor work or missionary work which will pay him so little
Everybody expects Jimmy to do something tangible with his life but nothing was working for him
He finds a woman who has a job and is desperate to get married, he marries her and they have a couple of children
The salary obviously isn’t enought to provide for his family so His wife begins to quote that famous scripture to him that a man who cannot provide for his family is worse than infidel
Jimmy and his wife get along, but there is constant strife in the home due to financial strain. The wonderful, should-be life giving, calling to “ministry” is looking more and more like curse in Jimmy’s life.
Is your story similar?
What if it didn’t have to be this way?
What If We Told a Different Story?
What if ministers tapped into the power of entrepreneurship – to generate good income on their own, not dependent on a church salary?
What if Jimmy was financially independent of the church and could spend his extra time focusing on ministry, not as a means to making a living, but as a passionate calling he could pour His life into?
What if church planters were trained on how to make a living online?
There are so many options for online business that require an initial investment of time, but can eventually run in a passive way, depending on your skill.
What if there was another way to be in ministry without running into debt
Too often, college is a form of “stalling”.
You don’t know what to do, so you go to college to hopefully discover that. I’m sorry, but that’s an expensive, bad plan.
What if our young ministers took action to start businesses with their church plants without waiting to be “picked”?
What if we weren’t so overloaded with debt but were free to be a vessel that God could give through?
What if business and ministry served one another in our lives?
Go And Glorify God
I believe God has called you. No doubt.
But don’t expect God to brush your teeth, put your clothes on, and tell you what to do today.
As you delight yourself in His goodness, He will give you the desires of your heart. He has given you passions. Pursue those passion creatively, make money, and go serve Jesus. That is glorifying God.
It’s not a sin to make money.
It’s a sin to treasure money more than God.
Having money will give you margin in your life, minimize stress, and enable you to give like never before.
To put it simply, you must have something in order to give something.
Take action. Embrace responsibility for your future.
Go and shine amazing grace into the world.
Join PSSBC today, especially if you are a minister who is struggling financially
Our class runs for three months, and the classes have been incorporated with practical wealth-making teachings that will help you as a minister
https://t.co/cbshLxtCHe
Lectures start in less than a week
-GSW-
Ezekiel stood before the valley of the dry bones
God also stood
God asked Ezekiel, can this bones live
Ezekiel looked at things from a human perspective...(How can skeletons, dry skeletons, live?)
Ezekiel said: Only you know...
God said to Ezekiel, " Say after me."
God spoke
Ezekiel said exactly what God said (not logic or reason or man's perspective or human reality)
Ezekiel said exactly what God said and the dry bones lived
They became a mighty army!
Ezekiel 37!!!!!
There is a way a believer must see and speak in order to walk in divinity
Unless you speak and see like this, you will always be mortal even though you have eternal life.
institute a new and different rank of priest, meant a new law had to be instituted even to allow it. The law we have now is the law of the Spirit and Life. The coming of Jesus restored us back to the first order before the fall of man, where there was no mortal law. Drops mic 🎤
righteousness consciousness that was inputed on us, but if you focus on the 10 commandments you will continuously struggle with sin consciousness. I would employ everyone who has a different opinion to go read the Book of Hebrews and Romans. Hebrews 7:12 stated that for God to
We have no business with the 10 commandments. Jesus is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. The New Testament believer operates by the Law of the Spirit. The spirit of God in us guides us into all truth. The law of the Spirit consistently brings to our consciousness, the
Hebrews 7:11-12 AMP
[11] Now if perfection [a perfect fellowship between God and the worshiper] had been attained through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people were given the Law) what further need was there for another and different kind of priest to arise,
The ten commandments is not for Christians, it is for the JEWS and primarily meant to be their written constitution, which guides them as a nation.
Jesus said, "A new commandment I give unto you that you love one another, as I have loved you. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another"
one in the manner of Melchizedek, rather than one appointed to the order of Aaron? [12] For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is of necessity a change of the law [concerning the priesthood] as well.
Jesus Christ is the new law. As new testament believers
Soteria
Sometimes all the Christian has to do is pay attention to the pattern through which the Holy Spirit speaks to him or her.
The voice of the Holy Spirit is important, being led by the Holy Spirit is important, seeing by the Holy Spirit is important, but being sent by the Holy Spirit is also important.
Many believers pay very little attention to the last point, on being sent, and most times this negligence is expensive.
Like we read in the story of Jonah, God is not determined even from the Old Testament to destroy sinners or those who don't know him.
The intention of God right from the start was to reconcile mankind to himself
Of what use is punishing a people who had no idea they were flouting your rules?
What sense does it make to make war with people simply because they didn't know you?
God desires to bring all men to the knowledge of Himself, and for this reason, he sent Jesus Christ, who is His express Image and who exhibited his express nature to all men.
Jesus in turn, sent all those who believe in Him to all the nations of the world after the baptism of the Holy Spirit in Acts of the Apostles chapter two.
There is a receiving and then there is a sending forth. We did not receive the gift of salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit so that we can harvest the fruits without planting new seeds that must grow for others to harvest in the future.
A lot of Christians refuse to preach the gospel or share the good news with the world after they become saved. Some said they were shy, others said they were scared of being rejected by the world, while yet others said they did not want to be persecuted for their faith.
Annointed firefighters gave so many excuses while the world continued to burn.
Heroism is dead.
This was the kind of Christian I was for several years.
The kind of Christian who only prays to be blessed by God but refuses to be of use to God as an instrument through whom the world will be blessed.
I expected the world to come to me running out of thirst, after all, out of my belly flows the living waters.
The world did not know I have what I have; I refused to tell them or demonstrate it because it was inconvenient, and so many people suffered due to my selfishness.
Was Jesus not rejected for his message?
Was Jesus not persecuted for his message?
Was Jesus not almost stoned to death for his message?
Was Jesus not almost thrown down from the cliff for His message?
Was Jesus not eventually crucified for his message?
He chose to save us rather than save himself
He died that we may be the prolongation of his days and complete his assignment
This was as prophesied by Isaiah
Jesus did His part, and He finished it.
We are benefiting fully from the finished works of Christ.
Reaping freely from all the attending benefits of salvation
We have a part to play, but we would rather not play it because it is inconvenient
To this end, the Lord taught me serious lessons some years ago.
I will share a few of them with the hope that a believer in my shoes will learn how to save himself from the crisis that we experience in the place of disobedience.
1. I was working as a PA to a big Pastor in Magodo Phase II when I had my second son.
This young man was very strong and healthy from birth.
I suddenly got an emergency call one Tuesday afternoon that the young man was dying
The carer said he was not breathing well and was growing weaker and weaker by the minute.
I rushed out of the office, jumped into my car, and drove furiously to the house
I picked him up and drove as fast as I could to a hospital just outside Magodo Phase II, second gate from Ketu, where I was living at the time.
All the while as I was driving, I was praying in tongues and screaming his name over and over whenever he seemed to be slipping into unconsciousness, with his eyes rolling in his head
When we got to the hospital, I jumped out of the car, carried him, and rushed off to the emergency
I neither switched off the ignition of the car nor closed the doors
He was almost gone
Thankfully, a doctor was on his seat and as soon as I told him what I observed, he turned my two-year-old son upside down by carrying him with his feet up
Then he spanked his buttocks.
The pain jolted the boy, but not enough
The doctor looked at me and said, "Spank this boy, sir, do not pity him."
So I spanked the boy hard, and whatever was lodged in his throat came flying out as he screamed in pain.
The doctor then turned him around and petted him a bit before administering more treatment
The doctor turned to me and said, "He swallowed something, and the thing was disturbing the passage of air into his lungs. If we didn't do that, he would have died."
I nodded
Then he said, "Your son is lucky, you got here on time. If you look at the compound, you will see an ambulance. A mother is in that ambulance with her dead baby. They had the same issue, but they arrived here too late.
I left the doctor, my son, and his carer in the doctor's office.
I went to the ambulance and I saw this woman in tears, lying beside her on a stretcher was her dead daughter, who was roughly my son's age.
I stepped into the ambulance and asked if I could pray for the young lady
The mother didn't even hear me
I laid my hands on her and prayed
(Remember that I prayed for my own son over and over in the car, and he did not recover.)
The woman's daughter came back to laugh.
Within a few seconds of laying hands on her, she sneezed and coughed out whatever was in her chest.
Glory!
The lady climbed down from the ambulance with her living baby, and the entire hospital erupted in joy
The doctor handed my son over to me and turned his attention to this wonder girl.
The mother hugged me and cried for joy
In all, we spent an hour at the hospital
When we got to the car park, I found the doors of my car ajar and the engine running
The security man stood close to it and said, "I didn't touch anything, sir. I just stood close by so that nobody would come here and drive your car away."
As I began to drive home, I wondered what had happened within the last three hours.
Then the Holy Spirit said to me.
I brought you to that hospital because of that poor lady whose daughter had died
She had prayed and needed that miracle, but there was no one to help her faith or trigger a miracle
You were at work, and I couldn't get your attention so I used your son to call you away from your office so that you could bring salvation to that family.
This incident happened in 2015.
I will share three other instances in Soteria II, make sure you read them
-GSW-