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| Believing in God will make the blessing real in your life. |
Back
in the days when Winners’ Chapel came to Ghana, my friends and I were young enthusiast
for Christ and so we were eager to join because of the testimonies we heard. The
church grew like how an elephant’s baby grows, in leaps. We were fellowship
members and wanted to know what made these strange people tick.
I
quite remember how most churches became empty overnight because their members
had left them for the new sensation in town. What even puzzled me was the numbers, because
the church grew astronomically. I remember their main message was faith. They
always preached about faith and criticized our Ghanaian pastors and even
bragged about how their Bishop was more powerful than our Archbishop. Ei, this
Nigerians! I joined because I wanted to be rich too. When I went to church, my
pastor used to lament bitterly, ‘we have provided chairs and roof to cover
their heads but they go to those Nigerian churches and stand for long hours
only to have the sun beat their foreheads!’. I looked at my pastor and thought
silently, ‘but pastor, I want to be rich too, you have too much unbelief look
at even the way you are talking negative!'. Most of the charismatic churches
collapsed during that time or were left half full. I saw one awayo church immediately
beside Winners’ Chapel, so empty and lonely!
The
message of faith
The
Nigerian pastors at Winners’ Chapel preached about faith and this changed the
way they treated most subjects on sickness and money. For instance, when you
are broke you don’t have to say it. So we asked them how we should
communicate it, this is what they taught us, ‘when you are broke and you want to
borrow money, if you let it come out of your mouth that you are indeed broke you
will never be rich. Jesus has taken your poverty away because bible says he
became poor that you too will become rich. Now even when broke tell the person
that you are not broke but you need money’.
But this looked absurd to us because nobody will loan you any money when
you claim to have some! So when my head ached, I shall go to my guardian and
say, ‘oh my head is not paining me at all’ then I shall make my face show how I
was in pain. Funny. I tried to conform because I too wanted a miracle, a car.
This
message about faith confused us and so we that didn’t get rich immediately as
the Nigerian pastors promised, lost our patience and returned to our churches. I remember when it was
raining and Rees, Celia and I said ‘by faith it will not rain’. But the rain wouldn’t
have mercy on we young zealots and started to rain in torrents and being stubborn and trying
to believe for the rain to stop we, continued with our faith confessions, ‘hallelujah
it is not raining’. We were soaked like Gari that day.
The
unanswered questions
Over
the years faith preachers make it look like the moment you ‘faith’ your life
changes instantly but in reality it is not so. Let me answer the questions
below.
The
questions are,
- 1 When you believe does your life change instantly?
- 2 When you don’t have money and you want to borrow must you say you are not broke when indeed you are?
My
first answer to the number 1 question is yes and no. Hebrew says, ‘Now faith is the
substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (11:1). The word
faith in Strong’s Hebrew and Greek dictionary is ‘pistis’ it connotes persuasion,
moral conviction, especially reliance on Christ. This implies that you trust in
God so that you rely on him for things that are not available physically. Those
things however are available to us spiritually as the book of Ephesians
confirmed, ‘Blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual
blessings in heavenly places in
Christ: (1:3).
So
our blessings are inherited spiritually but we have to ‘faith’ to make it manifest
physically. Every believer is already rich and free from sickness but this is
spiritual. Your faith will make it become real in your life. I said yes to the
answer because your life changes instantly in the spiritual and no because
physically your life stays the same. Miracles start to happen when you put your
faith to work. However, some are privileged to have their miracles instantly.
The
second question; when you are walking by faith you have to ‘believe in your
heart and confess with your mouth’ so that you will receive what you hoped for.
Positive confession or confessing the word of God is very important. When the
thing is not there you say it is there so that God will make the ‘salvation’
happen. The bible teaches us a lot about
saying positive things, because what you say often comes to pass in your life.
Scripture says, ‘thou shall have whatever thou sayest’. Other scripture also
affirms that ‘we shall eat the fruit of our mouth’. This is why when you meet a true believer, he
confesses I am rich not because the money is there but firstly he believes that
Jesus has made him already rich and secondly, he is confessing it so that he
will see it materialize in his life. If you have the riches physically too and you
confess it negatively, you are reversing your riches. Looking at those who are confessing the word today, you might see nothing but watch their tomorrow and you will their beautiful life.
So,
when you don’t have money, you can say it wisely like, ‘Akwesi, I need some
money today and I shall pay you tomorrow. What I am having now is not enough; I
shall receive my salary in three days’ time’. Or, when you encounter a head
ache and you want medicine, you say ‘doc, my head feels hot, can I have some Para?’
This is better than confessing in Toto that ‘doc, I am sick ooo, I am dying’.
Believers are doers of the word. The book of Romans says, ‘God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar’ (3:4). If God said you were healed long ago it means you don’t have sickness now, what you see is not there. Don’t give place to the devil by affirming the negative. If you continue in faith like this, your life will transform over time and you will see things happen.
Believers are doers of the word. The book of Romans says, ‘God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar’ (3:4). If God said you were healed long ago it means you don’t have sickness now, what you see is not there. Don’t give place to the devil by affirming the negative. If you continue in faith like this, your life will transform over time and you will see things happen.
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share this article and thanks for reading.
