WELCOME TO THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY 2013

 OUR MONTH OF UNLIMITED FAVOUR Ps.5:12; 102:13

Yesterday morning, a Church member came to me crying that she was being mocked because she got a free and comfortable accommodation. As she spoke I immediately realized that pride was hiding behind her feeling bad without her knowing and it had blinded her to the truth that God favours the righteous. I immediately told her that the next time she is mocked for having a free accommodation, she should respond that it is not her fault; it is because God chose to favour her. I also made her realize that if she has to pay for everything she gets, then she is laboring under the curse.

I could not help rejoicing at the word for the month when I told her this. This month, God has decided to cloth us with unlimited favour. In Psalm 5:12, we read:

“For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.”

I like the way the amplified version of the bible puts this text of scripture:

“For you, Lord, will bless the [uncompromisingly] righteous [him who is upright and in right standing with you]: as with a shield you will surround him with goodwill (pleasure and favour).”

The other text the Lord gave me for this month is Psalm 102:13 which talks about now being the set time God has chosen to favour us for all the service we have rendered in His name especially as it concerns His house.

What then is favour?

The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines Favour as approval or support; treatment that is more generous to one person or group in preference to others; an act of kindness that one does to help somebody especially when asked; to have the advantage or to be given the advantage; to be preferred etc. In Prov.16:7, the bible says:  

“When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”

From this text of scripture, we can immediately see that the favour of God is tied to the ways of a man. When your ways match that of God, you will automatically please Him. The result is that you will enjoy divine preference. God will always answer your prayers and he will cause even your enemies to be instrumental in doing you good. As a minister of the gospel for instance, one of the evidences of divine favour is signs and wonders in your ministry. Remember favour is also defined as divine approval or support. When Peter was testifying of the Lord on the day of Pentecost when the disciples first received the infilling with the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues, he described Jesus Christ in Acts 2:22 thus:

"Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know:"

From Apostle Peter’s description of Jesus Christ in this message, we immediately observe that the favour of God for anyone He sends is proven by the person’s ability to work signs and wonders by the gifting of the Holy Spirit. This is the point the Lord was making in John 5:36 to the religious leaders and skeptics of His time where He said that even if they do not believe in Him, they should believe in John’s testimony of Him or the greater testimony of the father which he described as the works the father has given Him to do. He also said in John 10:37-38 that they should believe Him for the sake of the works He did on behalf of the father. He described these works to John the Baptist’s disciples in a message to John in Lk.7:22 as: "the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the gospel is preached to the poor." Now, it takes divine approval or favour to have all these demonstrations in one’s ministry. This is the reason why the devil seeks to counterfeit signs and wonders so as to deceive people away from God. The truth however is that anyone working signs and wonders by divine favour will walk in the ways of God and always point you to the Lord Jesus Christ. This is why the Lord said by their fruit you shall know them. While the devil can counterfeit signs and wonders, he cannot counterfeit godliness for instance, which is a walk in the ways of God. This explains why as soon as a purported signs and wonders minister is smeared by a scandal that smirks on their character, they lose their place before men.

In light of the foregoing, this month, we shall be looking at walking in the ways of God. The reason for this is that that is the only way we can position ourselves for this blessing. Our texts make us understand that God will bless those who walk in His ways being in right standing with Him and not compromising their righteous lifestyles.

For the purpose of clarity, let me quickly say here that there are two kinds of righteousness. The imputed one given to every believer as a gift because of what Jesus earned for us on Calvary’s Cross and the walk in the ways of God which Psalm 5:12 describes as being uncompromisingly righteous. For you to partake of this blessing this month therefore, you must be born again and walking in the ways of God. If you are not yet saved, please say the prayer at the end of this article out loud to God and you will be saved. Then to enjoy this blessing, you must walk in the ways of God which is what we are going to be looking at this month. You can access these messages on my blog quoted below. God bless and favour you with His unlimited favour this month of unlimited favour in Jesus’ name!

Heavenly father,

Have mercy on me a sinner. I repent of my sin and receive the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary’s cross for my salvation. I believe He died for me and on the third day, you raised Him from the dead for my salvation. From today, I receive Him as the Saviour and Lord of my Life.

Thank you father for forgiving me and writing my name in the book of life with the blood of Jesus. I pledge allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ from this day forever in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Amen!!!

If you just said this prayer, congratulations! You are now born again.  Please let me know by emailing flourishinggirl@gmail.com and I will send you an e copy of our “Believers’ Guide to Growth” to enable you take off on this glorious adventure of the new creation. You can also log on to my blog on www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com or follow me on face book at www.facebook.com/flourishinggirl for more resource materials to enrich your Christian life. God bless you!!!

AN EXCERPT FROM MY BOOK: UNDERSTANDING THE GIFTS AND MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

INTRODUCTION

On the 12^th day of June 1993, just after a night vigil, when I got home, I was lying down on the bed trying to sleep when all of a sudden; I was feeling what felt like raindrops on my face. I was very surprised because I was in the ground floor of a storey building. There was no way it could be raining outside and get in there. In addition, it was not even raining outside! Then I tried to wipe my face with my hand and it was all dry. I had never had this kind of experience before and since then. I remembered the scripture text of Acts 3:19 that talks about times of refreshing coming from the presence of the Lord following the night vigil because I ministered all night and needed to be refreshed.

Prior to this experience, I had just read the book “Good Morning Holy Spirit” by Dr. Benny Hinn. That book made the Holy Spirit so real to me that I began to relate with Him as the person He is. Then I was invited to minister in a fellowship where I taught on the will of God and I found myself teaching about the gift of the Holy Spirit and how we can benefit from Him. At that meeting, the Holy Spirit showed up in a very spectacular move. So many testimonies were shared later after that meeting. I will share two of these testimonies here as they happen to be relevant to what we are going to be looking at in this book. The first is that of an unbelieving lady who had been sick and was admitted in the hospital for two weeks prior to the program. She said later that when she was not recovering, she decided to honor the invitation to the program we were having. She said when she came in and heard the message, she decided she was going to surrender her life to Christ and when I was laying hands on them to be filled with the Holy Spirit, she got filled and began to speak in tongues unknown to her and was instantly healed.

The second testimony which is sequel to this first one is that of a little boy in the fellowship whom God opened his eyes as I was ministering. He said he saw fire coming out of my fingers and igniting the people I was laying hands on and that when I laid hands on this lady who got healed on the spot, the fire went through her whole being and the vision cleared off his eyes.

I personally did not feel anything and did not exactly know what was going on but I believed that if I obeyed God to lay hands on the people, the nail scarred hand of the Lord was going to come between mine and the people on whom hands were laid and Jesus Christ would fill them with the Holy spirit and fire. I believe that is what the little boy saw in his vision of the fire. John the Baptist said concerning Jesus Christ in Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16 respectively that He will baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire.

Over the years, I have observed that this doctrine of the ministry and gift of the Holy Spirit has generated a lot of controversy in the Church to the point of division in some extreme cases. I find this very amazing because any bible believing Christian should really have no doubt about the gift and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I have put this piece together in faith believing God to use it to clarify this message to anyone in doubt of the ministry of the Holy Spirit and help to minister this grace to as many as are truly seeking to experience God in their daily lives.

I also intend to make this little contribution to the general Church of the Lord Jesus Christ to help ministers attain to their maximum potential in ministering in the power of God.

It is my sincere heart felt prayer dear reader that this book will minister to you.

 PART 1

THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HIS MINISTRY

One day; a few months after I got to the mission field for the first time, I prayed that the Lord would wake me up at the same time He usually does because I had slept very late that night as I had to do some recordings in the studio which took time into the night. I had to be up before four that morning to host the early Morning Prayer meeting which held at four every weekday morning. When I got up and looked at the time on my handset, it was a few minutes after five in the morning and I was not happy at all as I felt that I had over slept. The first thing I said that morning was that I was not happy with the Holy Spirit and He immediately asked if that was how I was going to talk to Him. I was struck with conviction and immediately repented of my rudeness and I greeted Him good Morning like I learnt to do from Dr. Benny Hinn’s book. He responded as though I had done nothing wrong.

Then I began to reason that God never fails and it is very unlike Him not to wake me up at 3.20 am. Then something occurred to me and I jumped off the bed and switched on the lights and frantically searched for my wrist watch and when I found it and checked the time, it was just 3.20am. He had faithfully kept His part and I was even feeling more terrible about the way I had spoken earlier. What happened was that the previous day, I had removed my battery from my phone and when I replaced it, I did not reset the time. So the handset could not give me an accurate time.

At this new discovery, I apologized again for my previous rudeness and asked the Lord to tell me whatever He wanted me to do and I would do it and He said I knew what to do. So I began to praise Him. From that day, I came up with this sublime understanding that God is matchlessly faithful!

That early Morning Prayer service that day was so powerful that I can call it a landmark event in my life and ministry.

In my experience in my walk with God over the years, I can say authoritatively that there is no better companion than the Holy Spirit and He is the most patient and compassionate person I ever met. I recall my dad once saying that people take on the character of the God they serve over time which explains why idol worshippers bear children that look like the ugly images they worship. He further explained that God made all people beautiful but idolatry corrupted the good looks of men. I used to be amused by what my dad said then, but over time as I find myself striving to be more and more like the God I serve, I am beginning to come to terms with the truth of that statement jokingly made by my dad as I was growing up.

When you look through the bible from Genesis to Revelation, you will find that at no point in time have large numbers of people experienced God in an intimate way like now. The reason for this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in manifestation. His ministry to the Church began on the day of Pentecost when Peter said concerning Him in Acts 2:16-18 thus:

“But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;

And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:”

His ministry to us is intended to be forever. When Jesus spoke about it, He said in John 14:15-17:

“If ye love me, keep my commandments.

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;

Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”

This is the mystery known as Christ in you the hope of glory which Apostle Paul wrote about in his letter to the Church at Colossae in Colossians 1:27. It is this mystery we shall begin looking at in this part of this book.