From John 1:1-18, we can clearly see that the Word is Jesus Christ (John 1:14). The Word is extremely powerful. If you can know and be filled with the Word, then there is nothing that would be impossible to you.

If you meet someone and the fellow is introducing himself to you, he is likely to tell you what he does. For example, a Civil engineer will most likely introduce himself as one. In getting to know the Word also, you must first know what the Word does. According to John 1:1-3, the Word is the Creator of all things. Is there anybody who can duplicate the sun, moon, seas, or the human brain? Do you know that it is the Word that created you? To prove that all His creations are masterpieces, He put a unique code in your fingerprints such that no other creation of His is exactly like you. Someone else may have the same height, looks and complexion as you, but no two people are exactly the same. He made you unique for a purpose and you will fulfil that purpose in Jesus’ name.

When you see a masterpiece, it is usually extremely valuable, so valuable that no one can place a price on it and it’s thus often auctioned to the highest bidder. Matthew 16:26 says that your soul is so precious that even if all the riches in this world were to be put in a bid for your soul, there still wouldn’t be enough value for it. That is why I marvel when I see people selling their soul to the devil for material wealth. Such people are selling themselves short. The only price that is worth being paid for your soul is the blood of the Lord Jesus – the Word Himself. He has shed His blood and paid the price for you to be with Him for eternity.

Some sell their souls to the devil because they are lusting after a woman. Some sell their souls by telling lies so as not to get in trouble with men. There is nothing the world and the devil has to give that can be as valuable as your soul. Don’t sell yourself short to the enemy, the Word has already purchased you with His priceless blood.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

If the richest man in the world gave you $100 and then later tells you to give him the money because he needs it for something, you are likely to give him immediately because he was the one who gave you the money in the first place and you know that he can give you even much more again. This is why I am surprised when I see people who refuse to pay their tithes. The fellow who is asking you to bring 10% is the One who gave you the 100% in the first place. He even promised you in Malachi 3:10 that if you give Him 10% of whatever He blesses you with, He will pour down a blessing so big that it would be difficult for you to contain it, yet you refuse to give Him the 10%; whose loss is it?

In Hebrews 11:17-19, the Bible says that when Abraham obeyed God by taking Isaac to the mountain to be sacrificed, it was because he got him from God in the first place and knew that if his son died, the Lord who gave Isaac to him could raise him from the dead. Abraham knew that he did not produce the boy, so offering him back to the One who produced him was not difficult. It is the same with Hannah after she had Samuel and took him back to God (1 Samuel 1:24-28).

In all the cases where God asked someone for something and the fellow obeyed, God ended up giving the fellow more than He had asked for. It is obvious then that He is not really interested in what He asked you to do, but rather in your obedience. God is very particular about obedience; if He asks you to give your car to somebody and you refuse, but bought another car for the fellow, you would have missed the mark. He is not as interested in your sacrifices as in your obedience. 1 Samuel 15:22 says:

…Hath the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.

God’s instructions are tough sometimes, but when you think about it carefully and realise that He owns everything you have, it becomes easy to obey Him. Don’t become like King Saul who forgot his origin and ended up in disgrace – the same disgrace he was trying to avoid when he disobeyed God.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

We often have high expectations for how God will respond to various challenges that come our way, but after a while, when we don’t get the expected responses, we begin to wonder if God has even noticed our prayers.

The Bible says in Proverbs 13:12, “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life.”

I want to let you know that God can see you and He will answer your prayers in a way you never thought possible, in the mighty name of Jesus.

Hannah had been attending Shiloh for many years but little did she know when she was leaving home in 1 Samuel 1:3-18 that this was going to be the last Shiloh she would attend as a barren woman.

Several years ago, we went to Haiti to conduct a crusade which was being broadcast over their radio. While preaching, I relayed to them God’s word of prophecy, saying, “There is someone listening to me now who is impotent; the Lord asked me to tell you that He has restored your potency.” A man who had been impotent was lying down on his bed in his house far away from where we were, heard that word on the radio and he was healed immediately. The man ran down to where we were, shouting, “I am the one. I am the one.” I don’t know for how long he had been praying and whether he had given up hope or not, but I am sure he was not expecting God to send a preacher from Africa to him. Thank God he had not given up; he was still in tune with God, listening to the live broadcast of a crusade.

I don’t know how long you may have been praying or if you are beginning to lose hope, but God can see you and even if He has to bring a man of God from the very ends of the earth, He will answer you soon, in Jesus’ name. Keep waiting on the Lord, He’ll never disappoint you (Psalm 27:14).
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Many years ago, when The Redeemed Christian Church of God was much smaller, one of my daughters-in-the-Lord told me, “Daddy, you must be at my wedding”. I laughed and said, “Okay, let’s look through my diary for a free date”. We looked through the Saturdays for the rest of that year and even the one after, but could only find one free in July the next year. She said, “Glory be to God; that is the date of my wedding”. The next year came and my mother died in July, while I was in London on an assignment and because I hadn’t written the lady’s marriage appointment in my calendar, my wife saw that Saturday free in my calendar and said, “Yes, this is when we will bury Mama”.

I loved my mother very much – I am her last born and only son, but because of how committed this lady was to having me at her wedding, I couldn’t let her down. There was no other free day so I decided that we would do the funeral on Friday so that I could attend the wedding on Saturday.

When God sees a committed fellow, when He sees someone that will do anything to fulfil His will, He will also be committed to that person. Abraham’s heart was totally committed to God – so committed that he was willing to sacrifice his son just to fulfil God’s will. That is why God was so committed to blessing him, even to the extent of swearing thus, “… By myself have I sworn, saith the LORD, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son…” (Genesis 22:16).

Some people are not even committed in paying just 10% of their income to God as tithe and they want Him to be committed to their financial success. Some church workers are not committed enough to the work of God so they either go late or miss workers’ meetings, yet they want God to be committed to their businesses. Some Pastors hardly fast and pray for the work that God has put in their hands, yet they want God to be committed to the growth of the ministry. He can see your level of commitment and He is using it to weigh His commitment to you as well.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Not many people know what it really means to wait on God. I’ll try to explain it using how a waiter waits on guests at an upscale restaurant. The waiter ensures the guest sits comfortably then proceeds to take his or her order. The waiter then ensures the order is delivered promptly and exactly as specified by the guest.

Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 6:13, “Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Having done everything you know to do before God, stand. Once you are serving Him, winning souls, following up on them, paying your tithes, giving your offerings, honouring Him with your first fruits and all else you know to do, according to His word, the only thing left is to stand. You are to wait on Him, asking “Lord, what else do you want me to do?”. The moment you get an answer, jump into action.

When those who wait on the Lord go to Him in prayers, they pray the way He would want them to: they pray His word back to Him. Since it is His word, He will answer it. They don’t pray only just when they feel like it; many times, they feel Him nudging them to pray even when they do not feel like. Those who wait on the Lord don’t seek their own pleasure in life; all they want is to please their Master. If God tells them, “I need all the money in your bank account for this project” they don’t hesitate; they drop the money immediately. They are always at His beck and call, willing and eager to do His bidding.

Now, when you have had a very good waiter attend to you at a restaurant, you are likely to drop a tip for the fellow. The tip that God gives you in return for waiting on Him, according to Isaiah 40:31, is that He will renew your strength. This means that sickness and even old age will not have power over you. He will become your doctor, taking care of you by Himself. Also, He will give you wings to fly like an eagle. In other words, you will be in a class of your own. Great men will call you great. You will excel so much in all you do that it will be difficult for anybody to beat your record. Commit to waiting on God from today, He rewards all those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

The presence of the Most High God is the best place anyone can be in. Those who spend time in His presence are always in control of life’s situations rather than the other way round. Elijah was just coming from the presence of God in 1 Kings 17 when he commanded that there should be no rain or dew for three years and it was so. If you want to be in control, then what you really need is to be in God’s presence. It’s a good thing we have the criteria required for you to be in God’s presence listed in Psalm 24:3-6. They are as follows:

1. You must have clean hands. In 2 Corinthians 6:17, God said: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.” You have to be careful what you touch with your hands. I’ve always told my children to be careful what they sign. If a report is wrong or misleading, don’t append your signature. Don’t steal, don’t manipulate reports; watch what your hand touches.

2. Your heart must be pure. Matthew 5:8 says: “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” Be careful of what you let into your heart and what you meditate upon if you truly want to dwell in His presence.

3. Your heart must not be lifted up to vanity. Colossians 3:1-3 says: “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” You must regularly check what motivates you to do what you do. Are you driven by material or spiritual things? 1 John 2:15 says you should not love the world or things of the world, that if you love the world then the love of the Father is not in you.

4. You must not be a liar. Revelation 22:15 made it clear: “For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.” If you are a liar or someone who takes part in the benefits of other people’s lies, God will keep you outside His presence.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

What you wear matters. While it is true that God says in (1 Samuel 16:7) that He looks at the heart, it is also true that what is inside you can reflect on the outside. The way harlots would dress should be different from the way a child of God does. In order to buttress this point to my Bible College students one day, I bought two oranges of the same size – one yellow, the other green. I stood before the class and asked them to indicate which they would prefer to have. They all chose the yellow one, because, according to them, it was the ripe one and so would be sweet. I asked how they knew and they replied: “The outside shows”. That’s the point I’m trying to make.

What you wear really matters. In Matthew 22:1-14, a king went through the crowd of guests at his son’s wedding and saw a man who wasn’t wearing clothes suitable for a wedding and so commanded that the man be kicked out.

I was talking to a relative who was always dressing like people of the world. I said, “You belong to a special family. The enemies are looking at us; if they want to attack, they will look for someone who is among us but different from us. You’re the only one standing out. If they decide to attack, they will find it easy to pick on you”.That changed the person’s mind completely.

Finally, you remember the story of Blind Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52. When he was told that Jesus was calling on him, the first thing he did was throw away his garment. He was saying, in essence, “I will never dress like a beggar again; I’m not going to beg again, I’m not going to be in sorrow again, I’m not going to be in darkness again. “When you give your life to Jesus Christ, there should be a change of garments.

In Mark 5:25-34, the woman with the issue of blood said, “I just want to touch the hem of his garment”. The clothes Jesus was wearing was the conduit for the anointing that healed her. Acts 19:11-12 tells us that handkerchiefs and aprons were taken from the body of Paul to effect healing and deliverance. Your dressing is important and should glorify God always.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

A storm is a problem so big and weighty that no one can single-handedly resolve it. However, storms can be stilled, and from my study of the Scriptures, such an occurrence is the result of a collaboration between God and man.

When a storm was brewing at the wedding in Cana of Galilee, there was a need for the servants to collaborate with Jesus in order to still it (John 2:1-10). If they had argued about pouring water inside a pot and taking a cup of it to the Chairman of the wedding, the storm would not have been stilled.

When the prophet’s widow in (2 Kings 4:1-7) was hit with a storm that would have taken away her sons, she was told to borrow many empty vessels into which she was to pour her little oil. That instruction did not make any sense but she did her part by obeying and God did His by multiplying the oil. If you can collaborate with God, He can help you still any storm.

Some years ago while preparing for a programme in the North, I was told how the sandstorms there could get so bad that there would be no visibility at all. I said, “I see”. That evening, while holding the programme outside as the crowd was too much for the little Church, a sandstorm suddenly started and people began to panic. I then heard my Father say to me, “Stretch your hand and say, ‘Peace’. I did just that and immediately, the wind stopped, the sand fell back to the ground and we had a wonderful programme.

In Mark 4:35-41, the Lord and His disciples were travelling in a boat when a storm arose. The Lord got up and stilled the storm, but then asked, “Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?”

Is there a storm in your life that has threatened you for long? The question for you is, “How is it that you have no faith?” Don’t you know that, if you would only collaborate with God, you would still that storm? Go to God in prayer and stay in His presence until He tells you what to do to still that storm. A man or woman of God should not be frightened by a storm. He or she should simply speak peace to the storm in the name of Jesus and it would become still.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Beyond the willingness to do the Lord’s will, another thing we notice about people who God promotes is that they are very humble. They don’t regard themselves more highly than they ought. In 2 Samuel 6:20-23, we see the same trait in Michal as was in her father, because just like Saul, she cared too much about what the people thought, whereas David’s focus was on giving praise to the Lord who made him king. If you can be humble enough to praise God in whatever way you can in front of people, if you don’t think too highly of yourself, He will keep promoting you.

As far as God is concerned, the one who should be at the top should be able to wash the feet of his subordinates, not one who wants everyone to see and regard him as above them all. Mark 10:44 says, “And whosoever of you will be the chiefest, shall be servant of all.”

When you are full of pride, God will resist you rather than lift you (James 4:6). If you really want to experience divine promotion, you must humble yourself before the Lord.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.
1 Peter 5:6

Furthermore, James 4:10 says, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.”

One day, God showed me a vision of two graphs. The graphs look like two mountains with a valley in between them. He asked me where I was on the graph, “Top or bottom?”. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, I replied “The bottom”, knowing that from there, He could then lift me. The Lord then said to me, “If you want to go to the top, then you have to be humble; you have to remove the titles ‘Reverend Doctor’ from your name and simply be called ‘Pastor’”. I did that and since then, I have been enjoying divine promotion. If you would choose to be truly humble, the only way to go would be higher.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

1 Samuel 2:7-8 tells us that God can make one fellow poor and another rich, He can bring one down and raise another. He can lift a beggar out of the dust and keep on promoting him until he is sitting amongst princes. Psalm 75:7 says further, “But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.”

What does God look out for in the people He promotes? The first thing, according to our memory verse, is a willingness to do His will. Once He finds out that you are the kind of fellow who always wants to do His will, then He will mark you out for promotion. If He sees how passionate you are about lifting His name above every other name, He will lift you. This is the kind of heart that David had; it was this passion that made him confront Goliath when he heard the giant defiling the name of the Lord.

And David spake to the men that stood by him, saying, What shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine, and taketh away the reproach from Israel? for who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?
1 Samuel 17:26

In 1 Samuel 17:45-47, David said that the fight belonged to God. He wasn’t fighting for his own accolades; he was fighting for the glory of God. How passionate are you about the will of God being done in your life and around you?

Once in a while, a fellow could start out pursuing the Lord’s will, so He promotes him or her, but then along the line, the person could get so carried away with power that he or she is no longer pursuing the Lord’s will. The Lord responds by demoting such a fellow immediately and disgracefully, as we see in the story of King Saul in 1 Samuel 15:23.

Today, when people talk about King Saul, they use him as a bad example. You can hardly find any good thing to say about him. That is the lot of those who, after being promoted by God, begin to do their own will rather than His.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Not everyone gets the opportunity to stand before kings. Standing before kings represents being at the very top of your career or profession. It means that you have become so successful, you are also a king in your own field of operation. The Bible says that if you want to stand before kings, you must be diligent (Proverbs 22:29). Laziness must disappear from your diary. Slothfulness must not be part of your lifestyle at all.

You cannot rise to the top of your profession if you are lazy. The Bible says:

The hand of the diligent shall bear rule: but the slothful shall be under tribute.
Proverbs 12:24

Proverbs 23:21 also says, “For the drunkard and the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags”.

In the 1970s, there was a positive confession revolution. Many people confessed that they had Mercedes Benz cars, but you’ll find them still lazing around their homes by 10 a.m. on most days. Many years later, they were still making positive confessions but the Mercedes Benz cars did not appear. It is not enough for you to confess that you will be great, you need to back it up with hard work. Greatness is not for lazy people. Proverbs 24:33-34 says, “Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man.”

It is the word of God that says those who would not work should not eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10). He has given you the power to make wealth as promised in Deuteronomy 8:18, but if you are not diligent at what you do for a living, the wealth will not come.

God can open a door for you, but you would have to get up and walk through it. My God does not bless laziness.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Prayers For The Church

Father, thank you for the Body of Christ in my nation and all over the world. Thank you that the gate of hell cannot prevail over the Church.

Father, please purify your church. Cleanse us and make us whole.

Father, please let there be a new wave of revival by the Holy Spirit in the Body of Christ in Jesus’ name.

Lord pour your Spirit upon us afresh. We need fresh fire Lord. Father, pour fresh fire upon your Church more than the days of old.

Father, help the Church to do more for you. Help us to win more souls until the entire world is saved. Help us to fill the world with Your love and light.

Father, keep sicknesses and diseases far from every member of the Body of Christ in Jesus’ name.

Father, please keep your Church United. Don’t allow the enemy to divide us. Please increase your love in our hearts so we are united to do your work.

Father, when the righteous rule, the people rejoice. Please Lord, raise righteous people who become leaders in nations and states all over the world.

Father, uproot and expose all false prophets and Pastors misleading your people. Let them be disgraced if they do not repent in Jesus’ name.

Father, help us to do Your will. Help the elders, the young, old and even children in the Body of Christ all over the world to do only what you say.

Father, help us to follow You whole heartedly in Jesus’ name.

Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Jesus said in Mark 16:15, “…Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel…” This is an express command to all disciples of Jesus Christ. From the scripture above, it is clear that all followers of Jesus have been assigned to preach the word but you may then ask, “Who should we preach to?” Jesus also provided the answer in the concluding part of the verse above. He said His followers are to preach to ‘every creature’ and in Matthew 28:19-20 He also said, “Preach the gospel to all nations”.

You may then ask, “When should I preach the word?” The Holy Spirit answered this question through Paul’s second letter to Timothy as we see in 2 Timothy 4:2. The word of God should be preached at all times. In other words, we must preach the word when it is convenient and when it is inconvenient.

You may also wonder why Jesus commanded all His disciples to preach the word to every creature and all the nations of the world. Romans 10:13-15 provides a clear answer:

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!

It is God’s desire to save the whole world from sin and eternal damnation – but how will everyone hear the gospel if there are no preachers? Jesus Christ said that the harvest is plenteous but the labourers are few (Matthew 9:37). Sign up today to become a vibrant co-labourer with the Lord and you will begin to experience divine signs and wonders in your life.

Indeed, the feet of those who preach the gospel are beautiful (Romans 10:15) and he who wins souls is wise (Proverbs 11:30).

If you have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and saviour, please do so right away so you can also join in spreading the gospel of God’s salvation to every creature on earth.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Everything you see on earth originates from God – even those that were manufactured by man. This means that God is in control of all resources on earth. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is the LORD’s, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein”. Whatever anyone has was given to him or her by God. That uncle you are depending on to help pay your school fees is only a vessel in the hands of God; he is not your provider. If your hope is in him and he were to lose his source of livelihood tomorrow what would you do? Man cannot be depended on at all; only God can provide for you in any situation or circumstance.

Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.
Jeremiah 17:5

Every good and perfect gift comes from God (James 1:17). Put your trust in Him for the provision of all your needs and you will see Him meeting them one after the other. Before you seek help from any human being, ask God. Talk to Him and let Him be the One to direct you to whoever He has ordained to help you. David understood this, so he said, “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth.” (Psalm 121:1-2).

What do you need to do to keep enjoying the provision of God? Be generous. If you are stingy, remember that you will receive in the same measure you give. Jesus taught us in Luke 6:38 that when you give, men will in turn, give unto you. In other words, do not expect to receive if you don’t give. This principle is simple and easy to understand. Give to the poor (Psalm 41:1), to them that are of the household of God (Galatians 6:10), to the Lord (Proverbs 3:9-10).

Remember, God is your only source and giving according to His will opens up avenues to receive good and perfect gifts from Him.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

There are many great leaders in this world. However, there is Someone called the Most High, the Almighty (Psalm 91:1). He is higher than the highest (Ecclesiastes 5:. Isaiah 66:1 says heaven is His throne and the earth is His footstool. According to Revelation 19:16, He is the King of kings. Put in modern terms, He is the President of all the presidents in the world.

The Most High God rules in the affairs of men (Daniel 4:25). In Daniel 4:34-35, the king of the country considered as the superpower in the world at that time confessed that the dominion of the Most High is forever. Thus, once in a while, when one earthly leader or the other is beginning to feel big and in control, God teaches the fellow a lesson and shows the whole world that He is still in control. God demonstrated through the Coronavirus pandemic that despite the sophistication of the leaders of the world, they are powerless without Him and so they must surrender to His Lordship.

Proverbs 21:1 says He is the one who controls the heart of kings like rivers of water. When an earthly king is beginning to prove stubborn and refuses to bow to His Lordship, He can deal with the fellow in one of two ways. The first is by shifting something in the king’s brain so that he would begin to act like an animal. After a while, when he has learnt his lesson and really seen who is in charge, God would then restore his sound mind and He may even restore his throne too. This is what happened to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4:30-37. The second way that the Most High can deal with such a king is to harden his heart and then destroy him, using him as an example to the whole world that He is still sovereign. This is what happened to Pharaoh in Exodus 15:4-6.

Something similar happened in Nigeria a few years ago when a military head of state was acting as if he owned the country, killing people and doing as he pleased. When his cup became full, God removed him permanently.

If you find yourself in a leadership position, don’t let it get into your head; always remember God is the one truly in charge.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Romans 13:1 says that anyone who is in authority was put there by God. In fact, Romans 13:4 says a leader is a minister of God and a revenger to execute wrath upon those that do evil.

Ecclesiastes 8:4 says, “Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What doest thou?” Anyone in authority is powerful and should be obeyed unless their commandments negate the word of God.

Romans 13:3-4 says that the king bears a sword and you should fear him because he is not wielding it in vain. In other words, he is empowered to use that sword if you do wrong. Our experience when the Coronavirus pandemic started clearly showed the power of those in authority like never before. For example, when the government declared a lockdown, everyone was more or less automatically placed under house arrest. God gave them that much power. It doesn’t matter whether you are the most anointed fellow around – you must obey them because the One who anointed you is the same Person who put them in power.

What will we Christians look like if we always disobey constituted authority? Do you think our Heavenly Father wants the whole world to see His children as stubborn and unruly people? If anyone would disobey authority, it should not be Christians because the very essence of Christianity itself is in holiness, that is, complete obedience. When a businessman who is also a Pastor is the very one doctoring figures and evading taxes, would he be able to preach the gospel to the tax officials who discover his crime? When people see you throwing trash on the street or running a red light, what image are you painting to them of your Father? Believe me honestly, when you disobey constituted authority, you have disobeyed God, so when the authority uses their sword on you, God will not come to your rescue. God requires His children to obey constituted authorities. Disobeying those He has put in authority amounts to rebellion, which is a sin (1 Samuel 15:23).
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

There are many people living substandard lives because they don’t balance their spiritual and physical lives. Many Christians do everything spiritual; they pray, study their Bibles, are wonderful workers in the Church, evangelise and so on, but then, ignore diligence in the workplace, the need to eat healthy, and the need to build a good connection with their family members. At the end of the day, they are not pleased with how their lives are and they sometimes wonder why God is not magically making everything right. While you must do all that God expects you to do to be fit spiritually, you must not neglect what you need to do to be fit physically as well. Galatians 6:7 says, “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

If you neglect your health, do not be surprised when you fall ill. If you sow disregard for your wife/husband and children, you would naturally reap disregard from them too. If you sow lack of diligence in your workplace, poverty would follow (Proverbs 6:10-11). What you sow in the spiritual, you will reap just as you will also reap what you sow in the physical.

3 John 2 tells of God’s wish for our prosperity, good health and spiritual growth. The case of those who put all their attention on the physical and neglect the spiritual is however, worse. For many of such people, they begin the fire brigade approach of fasting and praying for that specific problem, but may not get the desired answers because there are some things that only answer to a Father-child relationship with God (Matthew 15:26).

The kind of life that God wants you to live is one where there is a balance between the spiritual and the physical – one where you can live a fulfilled life here on earth and then spend eternity in heaven when you leave the earth. That is a well-balanced life. That is the kind of life you should seek to live.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

In John 10:10, Jesus Christ promised that He came that we may have life and have it more abundantly. Furthermore, in Psalm 68:19, the Bible says that God daily loads us with benefits. God wants you to prosper because the Bible says Clearly in Proverbs 10:15 that the destruction of the poor is their poverty. You will not be destroyed, in Jesus’ name. (1 Timothy 6:10) says clearly that it is the love of money, and not money itself, that is the root of all evil.

God wants you to prosper because His plan for your life is that you will be a blessing. You cannot be a blessing to others if you are not blessed. If you have nothing to eat, how are you going to feed the poor? I decree into your life: you will prosper, in the mighty name of Jesus!

Some preachers talk about the story of Lazarus and the rich man in Luke 16:19-31, saying because the rich man went to hell while Lazarus the beggar was carried into Abraham’s bosom, then rich people will all go to hell while only the poor will go to heaven. That conclusion is not in line with the story. When you study that passage very well, you would see that the rich man pleaded for Lazarus to go back to earth to preach to his brothers, but Father Abraham responded that if his brethren did not listen to the prophets, they would not listen to Lazarus either. It is therefore clear that it is not wealth that sent the rich man to hell, but rather his refusal to listen to the prophets.

John 3:1-16 shows clearly that the way to make it to heaven is to be born again. It doesn’t matter whether you are rich or poor; if you are not born again, you are going to spend eternity in the lake of fire. You can be the richest person in the world and go to heaven if you are born again; you can be the poorest fellow in the world and go to hell if you refuse to surrender your life to Jesus.

Proverbs 10:22 states clearly that the blessing of the Lord maketh rich and addeth no sorrow. You cannot end up in hell when your wealth comes from the Lord, and you live according to His will.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.
1 Corinthians 14:14

Each time you are praying in the Holy Spirit, you are praying by faith because you usually wouldn’t understand what you are saying. In other words, when you are praying in the Holy Spirit, you are exercising your faith. Physical muscles grow by exercise; likewise spiritual muscles. Faith is your spiritual muscle; you grow it by praying in tongues.

It is amazing how many Christians, including Pentecostals don’t pray regularly in the Holy Ghost, and because of this, their faith has remained stunted. The more you pray in the Holy Spirit, the greater your faith and the brighter your future.

If you have not yet experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I pray that you will get it today, in Jesus’ name. If you have been baptised and have not been exercising your baptism, you must begin to do so.

On the day of Pentecost, when Peter preached a great sermon after he got baptised in the Holy Spirit, the people came to him and said, “Sir, what must we do” and he laid it out for them as seen in Acts 2:38:

Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Peter informed them that the first step is repentance, the second is water baptism, and the third is to receive the Holy Spirit. This same Peter is the man who had given up on his dream to become a fisher of men. He preached and won three thousand souls the day he started speaking in tongues. His ambitions came alive after he was baptized in the Holy Ghost. After that, there was no going back. He kept getting greater and greater until even his shadow was healing the sick. Your dreams can also come alive if you pray in tongues regularly.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

After studying God’s word, memorising and meditating on it, you must ensure you act on it so your faith can grow. James 1:22-25 says clearly that we must not be hearers only, but doers also. In fact, verse 25 says that if you are a doer of the word, you will be blessed indeed.

In other words, the more you apply the word, the more blessed you become. While faithfulness is a noun, faith is a verb. If you truly believe, it would show in your actions (James 2:26). After you have meditated on something you read in the Bible, the next thing you are to do is apply it.

Make a move in line with what has been revealed to you in the word. When you read Proverbs 21:13 that says you should not close your ears to the cry of the poor, do you apply it? When you read Deuteronomy 28:7 that says that if enemies gather against you in one way, they will be scattered in seven, do you still fret at the sight of them?

When you apply the lessons you draw from the word of God, your faith will begin to grow. Very soon, little faith will become great faith and great faith will become very great faith. All you have to do is practice what you learn.

I didn’t start out with the level of faith I now have. I remember very well when I had just gotten born again; my Sunday School teacher taught us then that if a little boy is on a roof and his father tells him to jump down, promising to catch him, the boy would jump.

He said in the same vein, when God asks us to jump, we should just jump and He would catch us. I meditated over that deeply; since then, I have been jumping and God has been catching me.

So many times, I start projects not because I have the funds required to complete them, but because I know that God will ‘catch me’ and He has never failed. For every time He showed up, my faith grew and my dreams became bigger. I keep going for bigger mountains because I am sure that He lives and is supporting me all the way.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

As we continue today with the study on how to grow your faith, we will be focusing on memorising and meditating on the word of God. Let us consider David. He was a shepherd boy who was not even invited when his brothers were summoned into the army, yet he dared to dream big enough to fight and defeat a giant the entire Israeli military was scared of (1 Samuel 17).

One of the major secrets of David’s success lies in this statement he made in Psalm 119:11: “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee”. This was another way of him saying, “I memorise the word of God”. No wonder he is recognised today as one of the greatest kings Israel has ever had.

A child once asked me, “How is it that you know the Bible so much?” My response was, “Because I memorise it”. When I got born again, I started memorising just one verse per week. In the Sunday School pamphlet, there is a memory verse for the week. One memory verse a week means 52 memory verses in a year. Since I have been born again since 1973, do the calculation and you will have an idea of how many memory verses I have stored up in my heart. Just one little effort every week and as year rolls after year, you would have memorised so many Scriptures and your faith would have grown greatly.

You must also meditate on the word of God. By meditating, you are turning it over on every side. Just like a cow would eat grass and then go and lay down in a corner to regurgitate and chew it little by little, you need to go over the word that you have memorised in tiny bits again and again, so as to keep getting deeper revelations that would foster or boost faith. This will in turn bring good SUCCESS.

Psalm 1:1-3 says to be blessed, you must meditate on the word day and night. You see, the word of God is God Himself (John 1:1), so when you meditate on it, you are actually exploring God Himself. Memorise and meditate on the word of God daily and your faith will grow exponentially.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Romans 12:3 tells us that the day you became born again, God gave you a ‘measure of faith’. Ephesians 2:8 says that by grace you are saved through faith. In other words, if there isn’t that measure of faith, there won’t be salvation at all. This also implies that faith can grow from the measure given at salvation or remain stagnant. For faith to grow, we must take certain steps. Our study today would focus on one of the steps, which is ‘hearing the word of God’.

So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Romans 10:17.

The first way your faith can grow is by hearing the word of God. Some people wonder why we keep coming to fellowships, listening to sermons and reading the Bible; it is so that our faith can grow. In Psalm 119:130, the Bible says:

The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.

The more the word of God comes into your heart, the more light you have and the more understanding you get. It’s like someone who is driving a car at night; if the headlights are bright, he or she can move fast, otherwise the person would be compelled to move slowly. If the headlights were to go out completely however, the driver would be forced to stop. Proverbs 4:18 says, “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

The more you study the word of God, attend Sunday School and Bible Study sessions as well as listen to sermons, the greater your faith and the brighter your future too.

God expects us to be deliberate about growing the faith we received at salvation. If however, you have not accepted Jesus as your Lord and saviour, you should do so right away so you can also begin to grow your faith In God.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Children of God can have great dreams and be confident they will come to pass because their heavenly father is the Alpha and Omega (Revelations 1:. Children of God who put all their faith in Him can rest assured that God can bring their dreams – no matter how great – to pass because He is the only one that can declare the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9-10).

No matter how great your dreams may be, God can bring them to pass if you have faith in Him. God himself said in Habakkuk 2:4 that the just shall live by faith.

2 Thessalonians 1:3 tells us that faith can grow. Since your faith is a significant ingredient in the manifestation of your dreams, you must feed and grow it by listening to, studying, meditating and praying the word of God diligently.

In Mark 4:35-41, the Lord asked His disciples why they had no faith, but in Matthew 6:30, the Lord said to them, “O ye of little faith”, meaning that they now had faith, though little. Your faith can even grow further to become great faith (Matthew 15:21-28). Your future can actually be far better than your dreams; all you have to work on is your faith. Beloved, your faith must grow. When you hear me talking about my aspirations and dreams, I am only saying such great things because of how much faith I have in my God who is almighty.

Before I was born again – when I had no faith, my greatest ambition was to be a Vice Chancellor - the youngest Vice-Chancellor in Africa. By the time I got to know Jesus and surrendered my life to Him, I began to understand that my natural mind could not even imagine how far He could take me. Now, I have learnt to dream big because I have a God who can do truly great and mighty things.

God rewards those who have faith in Him (Hebrews 11:6), so dream big and have faith in God that He will bring all your dreams to pass.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

When you look at the story of Saul of Tarsus who later became known as Paul the Apostle, he himself said in 1 Timothy 1:15:

This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

In 2 Corinthians 11:5 he however, said:

For I suppose I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles.

God moved him from being the chief of sinners all the way to being compared to the very chiefest of Apostles. Today’s message is primarily for someone who has been struggling with one sin or the other; God can transform you so greatly that you would become one of the saints of your generation.

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.
Ezekiel 36:26-27

What you need for that transformation to take place is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Once the Holy Spirit is within you, you will become a whole new person. Study your Bible regularly; His sanctification power is in the word (John 17:17), spend time beholding the face of the Lord by praying without ceasing and meditating on the word of God.

2 Corinthians 3:18 says:

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

If you do all these things consistently, you will soon discover that those sins that so easily beset you (Hebrews 12:1) will become history.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

There are many people in the Church who look at the Pastor as if God cannot use them similarly. They think that they cannot heal the sick or even raise the dead, but this is very far from the truth. Maybe you feel so because you believe that you cannot make the same sacrifices that the Pastor makes, especially in fasting and prayers, but that is also not true. Zechariah 4:6 says, “.. Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts”.

Praying for 12 hours nonstop would be generally impractical unless the Holy Spirit helps the person. It is the same Holy Spirit in you that is helping those you look up to, spend so much time fasting and praying to the extent that they carry such great anointing. Your willingness and total surrender to God are the major determinants of how much God can use you. Willingness means that if you decide to fast for 7 days and by the 2nd day, your stomach is protesting, rather than break the fast, you would go to God in prayer for grace to continue. If you plan to pray in tongues between 9 pm and 11 pm every day, but you get home very late and tired one day – rather than sleeping off by 9 pm, you’ll still fall on your knees and compel yourself to pray.

I have always found the story of John Mark very interesting. Acts 15:37-40, tells how this young man – full of zeal, followed Paul and Barnabas on a missionary trip, but got to the mission field and, seeing how difficult things were, especially seeing people stoning them, ran back home. In Acts 15:38, Paul and Barnabas were about to go on another journey and Barnabas wanted John Mark to come with them, but Paul said, “No way, I’m not taking this deserter with me”. When you read (2 Timothy 4:11) however, this same Paul now said to Timothy, “Bring John Mark to me, he is useful to me for the ministry”. The Gospel according to Saint Mark is attributed to this same boy who failed on his first missionary journey.

No matter how weak you seem now, with God’s help, you also can become a pillar in His Kingdom.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

When you are a child of God, even when walking in the valley of the shadow of death, you will have nothing to fear because the Lord of hosts is with you (Psalm 23:4). The Bible says in John 11:25:

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

Once you become a child of God, death is no longer something to fear. In fact, it becomes something you look forward to because if Jesus tarries, it would be your passage into heaven where you will be with your Master, without pain or sorrow. Apostle Paul said in Philippians 1:21, “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

My fear of death vanished completely from observing my Father-in-the-Lord – Pa Josiah Akindayomi (the founder of The Redeemed Christian Church of God) and his friend, sending messages to each other back and forth. One would say, “I will die before you” and the other one would reply, “No, I will surely go before you”. These two men were talking about death like someone talks about going to the market. When you are truly redeemed and know that death is only your visa into great bliss and glory, you will live above it.

Beloved, I banish every fear of death in your life, in Jesus’ name. From today, you will live above death, in Jesus’ name. I want you to note however, that if you are not truly born again, if you still have pending restitutions to make, if Jesus is not truly your Lord and Saviour, then you should be afraid of death, because it would then be a visa for you to spend eternity in the lake of fire.

If you are not yet born again, please say this prayer:

Lord Jesus, I invite You into my life as my Lord and Saviour and ask for the grace never to commit sin again, to be qualified to be with You in heaven when I leave this earth. Thank you Lord, in Jesus’ name I have prayed.

Congratulations! Now look for a Bible-believing Church near you to attend regularly.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Psalm 91:11-12 says the Lord will command His angels to carry you in their hands. Hebrews 1:13-14 tells us that angels are ministering spirits – in other words, they are sent to serve those who are children of God. When people ask, “Daddy, why are you travelling alone at night, don’t you know it is dangerous?” I tell them I have my own bodyguards, only that they cannot be seen – two huge fellows, each one capable of dealing with any amount of confrontations. Their names are Goodness and Mercy. As Psalm 23:6 says, Goodness and Mercy shall follow you all the days of your life.

The first time you see an angel, you would most likely be afraid, because they are very huge. They are also very powerful – so powerful that one angel can kill 185,000 soldiers in one night (2 Kings 19:35). Whether you believe it or not, the day you became born again, one of such big and powerful angels was assigned to follow you everywhere you go and to do whatever you want him to do in line with the will of God. Anytime your enemies think they have gotten you, your angel can come in the middle of the night to save you (Acts 5:17-25, Acts 12:5-11).

Now, you must understand that even though angels are assigned to serve you, you still need to give them instructions to follow. They are primarily subject to God’s instructions, so to instruct them, echo God’s word back to them and they will obey promptly. For example, God has already said that they will carry you so that you would not dash your foot against a stone (Psalm 91:12), this means that you can ask God to command them to clear any form of accident from your path before embarking on a journey. God said that if enemies gather against you in one way, they would flee in seven (Deuteronomy 28:7), so you can ask God to command angels to scatter the camp of your enemies.

You must understand though, that God’s word is only potent in the mouth of His children; if you are not born again, rather than angels obeying you, they can work against you. If you don’t believe me, ask Balaam (Numbers 22:21-35).
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Ephesians 1:18-23 says that Jesus is seated above all principalities and powers. If you are a child of God, you are part of the body of Christ and the body of Christ includes His feet. The biggest demon is under the feet of Jesus; you are therefore above the biggest demon. In John 14:13, Jesus said that if we ask for anything we want in His name, He would do it, that the Father may be glorified in Him. Philippians 2:9-11 says that He has a name that is above every other; that at His name, all knees should bow – whether those in heaven, on earth or underneath the earth. Mark 16:17 says, “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.”

When you cast out demons in Jesus’ name, they will flee, if you are truly born again. You must note however, that there are two types of demon-possessed people – unwilling victims (possessed by demons against their wish and desiring deliverance) and the willing. It is easy to deliver the unwilling because the host is in agreement with you to cast out the demon. For the willing victims however, they don’t want to be delivered and you cannot force them. The only thing you can do is to find a way to convince the fellow to seek deliverance.

One day, a man came to my office with his wife and said, “Daddy, my wife is a witch; please help me”. The woman retorted, “Don’t mind him, it is his mother who is a witch”. I responded, “No problem. I will pray a prayer that if you are not a witch, then you would just keep prospering, but if you are truly one, then I will bind that demon inside you so that it won’t be able to go out”. She said, “Go ahead and pray the prayer”. I prayed and they left. One month later, her husband brought her back to me; this time, she was all swollen, because the demon in her was trapped in her body. By then, she was ready to be delivered.

Take charge over every demon in your vicinity because as a child of God, you have the power to do so.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

PRAYERS FOR MARRIAGES
Father, thank You for my marriage. Thank You for sustaining, protecting and blessing my home, in Jesus ‘name.

Father, please let Your presence never leave my home, in Jesus’ name.

Father, please uproot every plant You have not planted in my home, in Jesus’ name.

Father, please help me and my spouse to win souls for You daily, in Jesus’ name.

Father, whatever will make my spouse miss Heaven, let it be uprooted today, in Jesus’ name.

Father, please bless my spouse and enlarge our territory, in Jesus’ name.

Father, let my marriage glorify You like never before. Please, let Your glory fill my home, in Jesus’ name.

Father, please keep all forms of evil far from my home, in Jesus’ name.

Father, please provide the right husband or wife, as the case may be, for all Your children that are due to be married, in Jesus’ name.

Father, please grant every home victory over all the attacks of the enemy, in Jesus’ name.

Father, please open the wombs of all Your children that are married and are seeking Your face for fruitfulness, in Jesus’ name.

Your special prayer points for your marriage and all the homes around you.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

Doctors are wonderful people and God has used them to save many lives. However, a doctor can try his or her best without the patient getting better. Doctors are limited because they can only try their best; the Almighty God is the healer. I believe that the Coronavirus has shown the world now that only God can heal. For every vaccine that scientists created thinking they had contained the virus, a new variant emerged.

There are sicknesses that doctors tag as incurable. That word does not exist in Jesus’ dictionary because He heals all sicknesses and diseases. There are sicknesses that doctors just cannot diagnose. My God does not even need a diagnosis before He heals you. A woman who kept throwing up everything she ate and couldn’t be cured by doctors came to one of our services in the RCCG. Just as I was about to start preaching and said, “Let somebody shout Halleluyah”, she shouted halleluyah and a worm jumped out of her mouth. She did not have to undergo any tests, Jesus just got rid of the problem in an instant. In Jeremiah 32:27, God said:

Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there anything too hard for me?

Beyond healing, God can ensure that you never fall sick again. He can shield you from sickness to such an extent that even if everyone around you gets infected with a contagious disease, you would be immune to it.

Beloved, obey God completely and He will ensure that you live above sicknesses and diseases. You should also note that If He heals a person and the fellow goes back into sin, a worse disease will come on such a fellow (John 5:14) hence a holy lifestyle is mandatory for all His children.

God is our healer, put all your faith in Him like the woman in Luke 8:43-48 and you will receive divine healing in any area you require it in Jesus’ name.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.
Psalm 3:5

The Bible passage above says that you sleep and wake up because God sustains you. No matter how strong you are, if your enemies cannot defeat you when you are awake, they can defeat you when you are asleep. You may say, ‘Oh, I have bodyguards watching over me 24/7’. There are enemies that bodyguards cannot even see, not to talk of fight. Could your bodyguards have protected you from Coronavirus? In any case, even the best bodyguards sleep too. In 1 Samuel 26:5-16, King Saul was sleeping and Abner – a warrior so mighty that even David respected him, was supposed to be guarding the king, but he fell asleep also. David came and on seeing them both sleeping, took the king’s spear and water bottle away. In the morning, he cried to the king and showed him that even with the best of bodyguards, he could have lost his life the previous night. No matter how many people you have guarding you, without God, you are not safe.

A few years ago, we had just finished the convention on a Sunday and that night, around 2 a.m., I went out, walking through the camp and thanking the Almighty God for what He had done. For a long while, I didn’t see a single guard. Finally I saw one sprawled on a chair, fast asleep. He had another chair beside him so I sat on it. In his effort to drive mosquitoes away while still sleeping, he nearly slapped me, so I got up and left. The second guard I saw was not even pretending – he spread out four chairs, removed his shoes and lay down. Now, even if they were awake, could they really prevent any evil from happening unless the Lord helps them? Indeed, except the Lord keeps a city, those who watch over it do so in vain (Psalm 127:1).

Thank God that we have a Father who never sleeps. He is the only One who can really protect you and yours.
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.

I was reading my letters one day when I noticed two whose writers had the same surname – the first was from a woman asking me to pray that God would kill her mother-in-law because she was a witch. The second was from the mother-in-law, asking me to pray that God would kill her daughter-in-law because she was a witch. Of course I disregarded both prayer requests as the Bible says that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. While that fellow may be a tool in the hand of the devil to fight you, you are not to fight him or her. You are to go on your knees and fight the forces of darkness behind the person.

There are three types of hosts. There is the angelic or heavenly host which comprises the angels of God as we see in Luke 2:13. There is the demonic host – soldiers of Satan, with their officers (principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world as detailed in Ephesians 6:12). Finally, we have the human host – the armies of the world. The army, navy, air force, paramilitary and the likes are also called hosts. For example, in 1 Samuel 14:19, the Bible talks about the host of the Philistines.

There is constant conflict between these hosts. In Daniel 10:4-14 for example, the demonic prince in charge of Persia blocked the angel that was to bring the answer to Daniel’s prayer for 21 days until God sent Angel Michael to assist him.

While we cannot see demons with our physical eyes, they can see us. How do you fight an enemy you cannot see? You need the help of an ally who can see your enemy and help you gain victory. A major reason many people fall prey to the devil and his agents is that they try to fight spiritual battles with physical weapons. 2 Corinthians 10:4 says the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. If you want to win over the forces of darkness, you need to employ spiritual weapons – worship (2 Chronicles 20:22), prayers (Ephesians 6:18), the word of God (Ephesians 6:17), love (Romans 12:20), and above them all, holiness (Proverbs 16:7).
Written by Pastor E.A. Adeboye.