I conclude today, my write-up on, ‘The blessings of God’. Please, read on: To sustain the Blessing of Peace, God guarantees the Protection of His children. He wants the man, who is born-again, who has surrendered his all to Him, and who, He has given Peace, to live long. “With long life will I satisfy him and shew him My salvation” – Psalm 91:16. He thus, protects him from all dangers and activities of the devil.
“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds…” He says in 2Cor.10:4. The result of this is that, “No weapon fashioned against you shall prosper” – Isa 54:17. This is why a child of God lives in peace, irrespective of enemy’s threats. A cook was hired to kill a student. He poisoned his food three times and nothing happened to the boy. He gave the poisoned food to his dog and it died instantly. He confessed to the student what he did and pleaded with him to take him to the Baba that fortified him. The boy took him to the Lord Jesus. Glory!
A lady boasted to someone that my wife would be mad, and would strip naked in the office. We laughed the person told us. It did not require any fasting. It was an insult to God that His beloved daughter of Zion would strip naked before unbelievers! It was an insult to the Scripture Union Nigeria, that their National Prayer Secretary, would strip naked before the people she was ministering to! It was an insult to Evangel Pentecostal Church that their National Prayer Pastor would be made mad by someone! In spite of all these, we prayed for the lady, when she had cancer, though she did not survive it.
I fouled the air by starting a Christian Fellowship in my Company in 1981. I would declare fasting sometimes for those of us in the leadership because our company’s explorations were ending in dry holes, making us to depend on work-over wells for survival. One day, we hit a gusher! As our members were yielding their lives to Jesus, our female members were no longer available for immoral relationships. It angered their male partners. They tried to close the fellowship but could not. Terminating my employment, they felt, would stop it. It was in the rumour mill all the time.
I laughed during the Management Audit, when the officer from Ghana, for no reason, asked me my tribe of origin. They brought a Whiteman from the US to sack me. “The MD told me that you read the Bible six hours and work for two hours every day,” he told me. How could I, a man celebrated always for sending his monthly financial Reports to our US office two days before the due dates? “Are you saying that I am a thief?” I asked him. “No, nothing like that! Nobody said so, not even the MD. He only said that you read the Bible for six hours and work for only two hours,” he replied. “You pay me for eight hours every day and I work for two hours, is it not stealing?” I argued. He got the message right inside his cranial cavity. He knew then, who was lying. Unknown to them, the man they brought for the bad job was born-again like me, and a member of Assemblies of God Church. “Don’t disappoint me,” he told me before he left Nigeria. I did not. I worked till I applied for retirement. The company rather retained me on contract for six months on a higher salary!
Outside God’s special provisions for His children, He allows them to exercise their choice of whatever thing they want through prayers. I witnessed this in Glen Cove in NY during a Leadership Training in 1980. The Centre was owned by the major Oil Companies in the US. I describe it usually as ‘luxurious and wasteful’. The White man, who drove me there could not believe that a Nigerian was going to stay there. We ate whatever type of food we wanted during breakfast, lunch and dinner. Food was kept also between the lecture hall and our rooms all the time. Outside all these, we were told to order from them any type of food we desired.
If you ask anything in My name, I will do it,” Jesus said – John 14:13. Mark His Word – ‘anything’. James said that we do not have because we not ask. It is not God that will ask for us. We are the ones. Kneeling down in prayer is not metered, so you do not pay more for praying more. “You will decree a thing,” as Jesus did, “and it will be established for you” – Job 22:28. For Jesus to tell the born-again Christian, who has surrendered his all to Him, that if he asks anything in His name, He will do it, is to give him an open cheque, unlimited prosperity! If he looks at the lady with the most beautiful legs in this Church and then decrees that she will be his wife, since she looks 21 years, though her first child is 39 years, God will not honour that prayer as she is a Pastor’s wife! That is why James 4:3, says, “We ask and receive not because we ask amiss”. May it not be our portion!
God demands obedience from the believer. We know that He loves us and that was why He sent the Lord Jesus to die for our sins. God is also a consuming fire – Heb. 12:29. No coin spins in the economic market unless the two sides are intact. And so is God. He then requires our life of obedience. In Deut 34:4, He told Uncle Moses:”This is Canaan, I promised My people. I have caused you to see it but you will not enter there”. It is like saying, “Osondu, this is Heaven, which I promised My people. I have caused you to see it but you will not enter there”. Me, not enter Heaven! God forbid bad thing! May it not happen to me in my dream! What of my fasting and prayers? ‘Not to be remembered!’ What of my Missions Ministry – at Ajamgbadi, Tarkwa Bay, etc, the mosquito bites? ‘Not to be remembered!’ Have you forgotten that, because of my faith in You, my Petroleum Oil Company denied me living in Victoria Island? ‘Not to be remembered!’ “But why, my God?” I may ask. “There shall in no wise enter into it [Heaven] anything that defiles or works abomination or tells a lie,” He points at Rev. 21:27. ‘Shall in no wise’, means that no reason is enough and nobody can be exempted.
I may not know if God has the same verdict for you concerning Heaven, but for Moses not entering Canaan, his sin was disobedience – Num. 20:10-11. God told him to speak to the rock to get water for His children but he chose to do it his own way, by calling them ‘rebels’. Some people want to enter Heaven after calling their children, housemaids, and the people, who offend them, ‘idiot’. Moses smote the rock in anger instead of speaking to it. The sin of disobedience and anger qualifies someone for hell. You can repent now and then plead with God for forgiveness.
For further comment, Please contact: Osondu Anyalechi:
0802 3002-471; [email protected]