Hear God’s Voice

By Pastor ChyChy Ayodele

Fellowship with The Holy Spirit and you will hear God’s special voice.

You will hear His unique and specific teaching for your life from His Word as you sit before Him, giving Him lots and lots as well as more of your time daily. Spend night and day, set aside quality time to worship Him and pray in the spirit.

Set your mind on encountering God daily. Assimilate volumes of the word at these times. This is full time work. You are simply emptying yourself of trashy, earthly distractions to allow Him fill you with His Word and Himself.

Emptying yourself of vain, frivolous and pointless desires and pursuits to allow Him fill you with His Word and His presence and His Power. Get rid of parasites in your life. They must fall off your life because they are obviously going no where in the spirit. Keep yourself from pointless company, these are time wasters. Join yourself with people of same mind, same spirit and same drive to fulfill your purpose.

Rise up now by the power of the Spirit and of the word to fulfill your purpose in Jesus name. Get rid of hobbies, leisure activities, soul entertainment, inaccurate interactions and socialising, etc, that take up lumps of your time without control. Make communication with God the first thing in your life.

You may only have time for other such things after you've given full time for what God wants. And if you've given full time to what God wants, there will be no time for wasting. Your life will be trimmed down of all this wasteful, subtle demonic devices. Loads of flesh will be circumcised from you, leaving you free to serve the living God.

Sins, impurities, wrong attitudes, selfishness, desire for worldly things must drop off of you. You must find the love of God. These other worldly things and more which The Holy Spirit will reveal to you will keep you out of the presence of God and out of fellowship and communion with the Spirit.

Communion with the Spirit means, "partnership, moving and doing together" with Him and the Holy Spirit cannot and will not partner in you in such other trashy things. Thus, He simply withdraws, leaving you without a sense of His presence. He cannot be in communion with you in such vanities, frivolities and time wasting, pointless engagements.

Everything you do must be accurate and fruitful, increasing Christ knowledge in you, highlighting the sense of His presence. So be careful how you live, not as fools but as those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity for doing good in this evil days. Don't act thoughtlessly, but try to understand what the Lord wants you to do.

Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Don't participate in the things many other people do."(Ephesians 5).

As you fellowship with God with a goal to encounter Him, He begins to reveal His will as He speaks to you. You may have dreams, see visions, hear voices as you wait. The spirit will speak by inner witness, His voice will be a deep knowing that will penetrate your conscience and make you know that this is the requirement for your life.

It will so affect your conscience that you'll feel guilty when you fall short of it. There will be a deep calling unto your inner being, in the depths of your soul, your consciousness. You will discover His voice.

So, access the divine presence by worshipping in the Spirit through yielding. God will come flooding your life. You will not be distracted, heavily burdened ever again. You will focus, fix your eyes on the Lord. You will maintain focus and enter into divine silence of the Spirit, that holy place where He speaks, reveals, shows, flows and imparts.

You will be established in your communion with the spirit; it becomes habitual. You will be steadfast and continuous, overcoming every resistance, setback, obstacles to continuous communion with the Spirit.

Enter into an unfailing, and unending daily flow with God. I will discuss other factors like 'How to maintain the Oil... How to maintain The Flow' in my next post...

Pastor Chychy Ayodele - The Preacher, Lawyer; Writer; Inspirational and Transformational Minister...

Be Filled With The Holy Spirit

By Pastor M. Isi Eromosele

In Ephesians 5:18, Apostle Paul wrote, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit.”  What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? And, how can we be filled with the Spirit?

Being filled with the Spirit means, basically, having great joy in God. And since the Bible teaches that "the joy of the Lord is our strength" (Nehemiah 8:10), it also means there will be power in this joy for overcoming besetting sins and for boldness in witness.

Basically, it means radiant joy, because the Spirit who fills us is the Spirit of joy that flows between God the Father and God the Son because of the delight they have in each other. Therefore, to be filled with the Spirit means to be caught into the joy that flows among the Holy Trinity and to love God the Father and God the Son with the very love with which they love each other. 

And then, in answer to the second question, the way to be filled with the Spirit is by trusting that the God of hope really reigns; that not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from his will (Matthew 10:29) - and that he runs the world for you and for all who trust His Word. In believing that, you will be filled with the Holy Spirit and with joy.

What Does "Baptize in the Holy Spirit" Mean?

The phrase "baptize in (or with) the Holy Spirit" was apparently coined by John the Baptist. All four of our gospels record that he said, "I have baptized you with water, but He (Jesus) will baptize you with the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33).

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:12, 13:

Just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body - Jews or Greeks, slaves or free - and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

According to this one reference, Paul conceived of Spirit-baptism as the act by which the Spirit made us members of Christ's body. Once we were alienated from God, cut off from Christ (Ephesians 2:12), but then the Holy Spirit swept over us and brought us to life by uniting us to the living Christ and thus to His people in one body. This is a once-for-all event. It is never repeated, and nowhere does Paul ever admonish a Christian to be baptized by the Spirit.

Baptism with the Holy Spirit is an experience you have with God after conversion in which the Holy Spirit falls upon you in such a way that your heart bursts forth in the utterance of tongues (some ecstatic speech or unknown language).

We are sometimes urged to seek a "second blessing" or second experience of the Spirit after our initial conversion experience. Two things need to be said.

First: the blessing of the fullness (or baptism) of the Holy Spirit may occur at the moment of conversion and leave nothing to be sought but its preservation and growth or repetition. Second: even if one does not experience the fullness of the Spirit at conversion, the thing to be sought is not "the second blessing," as if that experience would be the end of our spiritual quest.

What we should seek (and this applies to all Christians) is that God pour his Spirit out upon us so completely that we are filled with joy, victorious over sin and bold to witness.

And the ways he brings us to that fullness are probably as varied as people are. It may come in a tumultuous experience of ecstasy and tongues. It may come through a tumultuous experience of ecstasy and no tongues. It may come through a crisis of suffering when you abandon yourself totally to God. Or it may come gradually through a steady diet of God's Word and prayer and fellowship and worship and service.

However it comes, our first experience of the fullness of the Spirit is only the beginning of a life-long battle to stay filled with the Spirit.

Pastor M. Isi Eromosele is a part of the Leadership Pastors at God’s Intervention Center in New York. He is also the Founder and CEO of Oseme Group, a global management consulting company based in New York City.

Rivers Of Living Water

By Pastor M. Isi Eromosele

We have before us one of the most remarkable and challeng­ing statements in the whole of the New Testament. Jesus said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come unto Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water" (John 7:38).

These words were spo­ken by Jesus to people who were spiritually dry, empty and defeated. They are like many people of our day, going through religious ritual and ceremony but finding no real meaning, life and victory.

The Apostle John includes the commentary on the words of Jesus. Verse 39 tells us that Jesus' statement about "rivers of living water" is a reference to the Holy Spirit. When it comes to the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, it is possible to go to extremes.

However, despite our fear of one extreme, we must not go to the other extreme and be devoid of the person and power of the Holy Spirit. Herein lies the power for life and ministry. The Holy Spirit is our power source.

The 21st century church needs to be reminded of the purpose and power of the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. It seems that the modern church has replaced the power of God with the performance of man. Instead of singing, "Holy Spirit breathe on me," we are saying, "Lights…cameras…action."

The setting of our Lord's words amplify their meaning. The occasion was the Feast of Tabernacles, the third in a series of Jewish Feasts. In the Old Testament, the Feast of Tabernacles lasted seven days. In the New Testament the Feast of Tabernacles lasted eight days. It was a Thanksgiving Feast.

The guidelines for the Feast are found in Leviticus 23. The people were required to leave their permanent residences and build booths of willows and palm branch­es. During the Feast of Tabernacles they would live in these booths made of branches as a reminder of their nomadic days in the wilderness.

It was a time of remembering God's wonderful provision. During the Feast of Tabernacles, the city of Jerusalem and the Temple area were filled with booths made from branches.

At the heart of the Feast was a daily pro­cession. Priests carrying Golden Pitchers would lead a parade or procession through the city to the pool of Siloam singing the words of Isa. 12:3, "Therefore with joy you will draw water from the wells of salva­tion."

The great crowd of people would parade back to the Temple and the Priests would pour the water from the pool of Siloam down upon the Altar and the peo­ple would shout and wave palm branches.

This procedure went on for 7 days, but on the last day the procedure was repeated with two significant exceptions. First, when the parade of people returned from the pool of Siloam, the Priests would march around the Altar seven times com­memorating Joshua's victory at Jericho.

Secondly, the Priests would raise the gold­en pitcher over the silver funnels as they had done each day previously, but this time there was no water — only an empty pitch­er. This signified the disobedient genera­tion that died in the Wilderness. Instead of a shout and the waving of palm branches as the people had done each day, they now stood in silence.

It was in the moment of silence — this moment of bewilderment, emptiness and meaninglessness — that Jesus cried out. You must get the picture. Our Lord had been watching the people go through the motions, perfectly following the order of service, but there was no meaning, no power, no life. They found themselves right where they had started. Nothing was any different.

Think of the great crowd of peo­ple who gathered annually for this obser­vation of the Feast of Tabernacles. Think about their lives, their homes, their jobs, their communities and their churches.

Think about what they brought with them to the great Feast: their hopes, their dreams and their expectations. Think about what they took away when they returned to their homes. Were they any different? Or did they just go through the same old motions only to conclude with an empty pitcher?

What happened to that crowd over two thousand years ago still happens to people in our world every Sunday. People go to church filled with hopes and dreams and expectations. And all too often they go away unfulfilled and empty.

Fellow pastors and church leaders: are we sending our people away empty? Do they come to the House of God in search for the Water of Life only to hear the clanging of an empty pitcher? Do they hear the dipper banging against the bottom of your bucket?

The Holy Spirit function comes to the preacher not in the study, but in the closet. It is heaven's distillation in answer to prayer. It is the sweetest exaltation of the Holy Spirit. It impregnates, suffuses, softens, percolates, cuts and soothes.

It carries the Word like dynamite, like salt, like sugar; Makes the Word a soother, an arraigner, a revealer, a searcher; Makes the hearers a culprit or a saint, makes him weep like a child and live like a giant.

Opens his heart and his purse as gently, yet as strongly as spring opens leaves. This function is not a gift of genius. It is not found in the halls of learning. No eloquence can woo it, no industry can win it. No prelatic hands can confer it. It is the gift of God - a signet set to His own messengers…It is given to those who have sought this anointed honor through many an hour of tearful, wrestling prayer."

Jesus said, "If anyone thirsts…" Thirst is a consciousness of an unsatisfied need. Thirst expresses desperation. Thirst will kill faster than hunger. One can go weeks without food, but only days without water.

Are you thirsty?  Are you thirsty for God? God will meet man on the level of his desire, man can have as much of God as he wants."

Eric Alexander, the former pastor of St. George's Tron, Church of Scotland, in Glasgow once said, "We need to learn that the blessing of God is not a cheap com­modity lightly dispensed."

The Psalmist said, "As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God, my soul thirsts for God - for the Living God" (Psalm. 42:1-2).

Do you have an unsatisfied need for God in your heart? Are you thirsty for Him?

"Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water…"

Jesus did not promise a trickle or a stream or a flow…He promised a river. Can you get your mind around this? The Holy Spirit is like a mighty rushing river…a life-giving river. He is like the mighty river found in Ezekiel 47 that produces life wherever it flows.

Pastor M. Isi Eromosele is a part of the Leadership Pastors at God’s Intervention Center in New York. He is also the Founder and CEO of Oseme Group, a global management consulting company based in New York City.

Seeing The Future By Adjusting And Realigning Your Spiritual Present

By Pastor ChyChy Ayodele

It is beyond crucial for you to come to precise and exact knowledge of God's plan and purpose for your life; that is to prophetically access the word of wisdom for your life. This means a clear insight into the future through a revelation of God's intent for your life. "Knowing what the will of The Lord is, try to find out what is pleasing to The Lord". Ephesians 5:10.

Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of any man, what God has in store, reserved, prepared for those that love Him, but it is revealed to us by His Spirit. 1 Corinthians 2.

Beyond the spiritual awakening, the elation and the ecstasy of communion and fellowship with God, there is oneness with God, uniformity, one mind, one heart, one desire, one purpose and union with God.

The exhortation to enter into deep union with Christ, to realise your union with Christ is not just for the sake of praying. The ultimate purpose for fellowship with God is to reveal Him on Earth. 

Fellowship brings your soul into oneness with God, and in this oneness you are Him. In this oneness you fellowship and come into perfect union with the unique Christ dimension you have been designed to express.

You begin to become the revealed purpose of God. You begin to be changed into the dimension of His glory you are permitted to behold. That dimension creates your identity. That dimension creates your new creation identity in the kingdom and describes your unique purpose. It tallies with all your experiences, gifts, talents, preferences, unique style, temperament and personality and suddenly you will know exactly why your whole life has been the way it has been.

You will realise that truly all things (good or bad) have been working out for your good because you are called according to God’s purpose. A purpose whose revelation you enter into in this union with God. In this union with God you know all things because you come into the anointing. Each saint is called to reveal Christ in a unique way, unique to His or her make up, temperament, personality, history and experiences.

Without this revelation of the spirit, your effort in the present may be leading you away from your predestined future. This revelation causes you to see the end from the beginning and to begin to consciously yield to the preparation of the spirit that will produce it.

It makes you accurate in every facet of your life. Thus, you screen off irrelevant and inaccurate relationships that do not align to this purpose. You begin to delete activities that have no bearing upon your destiny. 

You begin to exclude inputs that clog up your life; you begin to cut off everything that is unrelated to your destiny. You begin to prepare, eat the right spiritual food, diet, engage in the accurate spiritual drills, exercises, routines, diet regimens that will produce that future. You are accessing destiny by degrees.

The purpose of your prayer times, spiritual exercises, fasting, praying is for this one reason. Jesus said when He came into the Earth, "I have come to do thy will oh God, as it is written about me in your books!". There's a book written about you in the archives of Heaven. It is your diary filled before you were even born. Ephesians 2:10. 

There's a prescribed life, a predestined manifestation of Christ that you represent.  The greatest investment you can make in your life is to believe God, strive for and enter into that intimacy with Christ that causes you to become that purpose. Your cry should be, "Lord, what would you have me do?" Like Paul cried immediately he encountered Christ on the way to Damascus.

The answer will not come overnight. It will come progressively, ever-increasingly and in finer detail, more precise definition as you access the deeper realm of oneness with Christ. Your imagination, your will, your emotions, your mind, your intellect and consciousness begins to be imparted, infused with a new consciousness, an awareness of your purpose.

You will begin to know and continue to know. This knowledge alone will answer 95 percent of your life questions. "Who am l? Where is my genius? What is my definition of success? What do l commit my whole life to? Who do l marry? Where do I live? What lifestyle do l I live?"

Success is predestined...

Pastor Chychy Ayodele
Preacher and Teacher of the Word; Christian Publisher; Songwriter; Gospel Singer; Inspirational and Motivational Minister and Attorney.

You Are Part Of A Whole: Seek Harmony Proactively

By Pastor ChyChy Ayodele

The whole is the body of Christ on Earth without which, independent of which you cannot exist or function as a saint upon Earth. The body of Christ is comprised of souls from diverse backgrounds, status, experience and temperaments in life. What you are to the body of Christ universally becomes experiential reality in the local assembly as you relate and operate. No saint can exist outside the body of Christ.

Put Positive Emphasis On Love

In church and in even in Christian relationships, if you wait to receive love before you give it you may never do. If you wait for correct response from others you will never do what is right, or do what God requires of you. Love actions are not reactions prompted by conducive atmospheres. Love is not released to the deserving. The unlovable and the loveless need more love.

Every harsh, coarse, hate-filled, wrong attitude, etc, exhibited by any human towards you proceeds from and reveals the deficiency of the divine love in a person's heart. Your response, whether you take offense or not, no matter how unfair and unjust the action toward you is, reveals also the sufficiency or deficiency of divine love in your own heart.

If you are spitefully used and abused by someone, love's response is Jesus' command, "Love those who spitefully use you". If you react in another way, returning spite and hatred, no matter how justified, you have fallen short of love and revealed a deficiency of love in your heart equal to the deficiency of love in the heart of the one who spitefully used you.

This is another bold but humbling fact. In personal conflicts between individuals, God never takes sides. He dispenses love to both sides. If you react apart from love, you fall short, too. The only way to be on God's side in any matter is to act or react in love. Love truly covers multitude of sin.

Jesus on the cross released love and multitude of sins and atrocities were covered up. Love truly is the greatest, especially when it is Divine Love.

Give love to humans and expect love from God. You will not be disappointed because God is love and His love is unfailing. God's love is sure. God's love is faithful, unceasing and abundant. He is shedding it daily abroad in our hearts by His Holy Spirit who dwells in us. To expect love from man is to look for heartbreak, disappointment, disaster. God is love and His love is found in those who really walk with Him. Love is found in those who truly know God.

Come into harmony with love for love itself is harmony, love is in harmony. Love is at peace. Love is unperturbed. Love has forgiven and forgotten all offenses. Be a pioneer, an initiator of this love life on Earth.

Be the first to act and keep acting no matter what comes or goes, no matter what adds or takes away. Be fearless and free. Love wins the day. Give love, receive more from God, give it all away, receive more love from God.

Start from the little in your heart now. Give it away. Reach out to some unlovable person. One who has been spiteful toward you before. Plan out an act of love, a gift of love, words of love. You can afford it. Reach out and touch your enemy with God’s love, touch your adversary, your foes, your worst persecutors, your greatest antagonists, touch them with His love.

Though they doubt you, though they wonder what you are up to, touch them again and again. Love never fails. Be steadfast in love, it humbles you. Surrender and yield to divine love. The devil and enemies may resist your faith, but there's no resistance against persistent steadfast divine love.

The walls will be shattered, barriers broken by love. Love is the greatest weapon. Choose to be among the few who will make the difference. Love even the unlovable, as Christ did and still does. Jesus Christ loves us with perfect love. His gift to us is perfect love. Love those ones who are loveless towards you. Mathew 5:43-48, Mathew 5:20, Romans 5:5.

An atmosphere of hate and discord is the crucible in which the life of perfect love will be discovered by those who have understanding... through the Holy Spirit.

Pastor Chychy Ayodele
Preacher and Teacher of The Word of God; Gospel Singer; Christian Publisher and an Attorney.

Let Your Purpose Define You

By Pastor ChyChy Ayodele

The love of God is moving in your heart, overflowing, over-ruling and defeating and destroying the love of all else until you hate the world and its ways and hate all else in comparison with your love for Christ and your desire to please Him.

That desire becomes stronger than anything, for the love of God makes you want to please Him in all things, and this is what makes you relate with all men the right way; with the unconditional love that is willing to lose all things, (tangible and intangible). It is called “I love God more than anything or any person in existence.”

The fear of God must also work in your life. It will destroy all other fears in your heart. The fear of God means you will never act in a way inconsistent with the truth just because you are afraid of anything or anyone. You don't fear what people will think or say. You will also do what is right and not just what is consistent.

No matter what comes or goes, you are who God says you are. But until you allow the spirit light to shine this into your consciousness, you will never be in actual experience of what God says you are. That's why you must take personal responsibility to drive the truth into your soul, into the depth, the core, the heart 
of your being.

You must take the word of God and speak it to yourself consistently and deliberately think of yourself to be what the word of God says you are. You must know that a glorious, holy, peaceful, righteous, patient, loving, sweet, harmless person lives within you. That's the real you. You are indeed full of the love of God.

Turn inwards into the riches of His grace, treasures of heaven, precious things of God's Spirit lying within, deep within you, calling you to prophetic, a place of discovery, at the feet of Christ. Let your spirit, full of divine plans and purposes, secret things of glory break out.

Christ within you is calling you, drawing you to Himself and you must not only begin the journey, but must persist in it until you arrive at your destination, which is union with God and His purposes for your life which reveals your true identity. And that is where your anointing, power and grace is for you.

When you discover His purposes, you discover His power, and the more accurately you walk in His purposes, the more tremendously His power shows up. There's grace overflowing, there's power and glorious anointing in His presence to enable you bring forth His purpose. Obey your thirst!

Your thirst and quest for knowledge must be followed incessantly. Your quest also for true love will be fulfilled and you will receive power to do His will for humanity. But this is found in Christ and this means the anointing. Enter the anointing. To meet Christ you must access the spirit, which is where He exists. He resides in your spirit, which is the deepest part of your being.

The Holy Spirit is in you, the Spirit of Christ.

Pastor Chychy Ayodele
Preacher and Teacher of The Word of God; Gospel Singer; Song Writer; Christian Publisher; Inspirational and Motivational Minister and an Attorney.

Faith In The Lord Jesus Christ

By Pastor M. Isi Eromosele

The first doctrinal principle is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

“Having faith in Christ includes having a firm belief that He is the Only Begotten Son of God and the Savior and Redeemer of the world. Our doctrine teaches that we can return to live with our Heavenly Father only by relying on His Son’s grace and mercy. When we have faith in Christ, we accept and apply His Atonement and His teachings. We trust Him and what He says. We know that He has the power to keep His promises. Heavenly Father blesses those who have faith to obey His Son. …

“We believe in Christ, and we believe that He wants us to keep all His Commandments. We want to show our faith by obeying Him. …

“… Through our faith in Jesus Christ, He can heal us, both physically and spiritually.”

My dear friends, take a minute now and concentrate on your own faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as I ask you a few questions:

1. Are you happy with the direction of your life and the depth of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?

2. Do you love God with all of your heart, soul, strength, and mind, as the Lord taught the lawyer in Luke 10:27?

3. Are you doing the simple things in your everyday life?

a. Are you saying your prayers every morning and every night?

b. Are you reading every day from the Holy Scriptures?

c. Are you using appropriate language?

d. Are you being honest?

e. Are you living the Word of Wisdom?

4. Are you being kind and thoughtful of the needs of those around you?

5. Are you following the counsel of the Bible that you must always forgive those who have offended you?

6. Are you living worthy of a temple recommend?

7. Are you actively participating in your Sunday meetings, especially sacrament meeting—partaking of the sacrament worthily and renewing your covenants with the Lord?

8. Are you returned missionaries maintaining the dignity of a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ in your dress and in your personal demeanor?

9. Are you preparing for and actively pursuing finding your eternal companion?

Are you really looking for a companion who loves the Lord and honors His holy name?

10. Those of you who are married, are prayer nights a regular occurrence as you continue to build and strengthen your relationship?

There are other things, of course, that I could add to this list. However, if you are seriously striving to do your best to follow Christ, then you can answer questions like these with a resounding Yes!

As you have thought today about your personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, is there anything in your life now that you know is not what you want it to be? Is there anything that you know in your heart is not consistent with one who has real faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Pastor M. Isi Eromosele is a part of the Leadership Pastors at God’s Intervention Center in New York. He is also the Founder and CEO of Oseme Group, a global management consulting company based in New York City.

Communicating With God Through Prayer

By Pastor M. Isi Eromosele

In Luke 11:1 Jesus' disciples asked, "Lord, teach us to pray." Christians today also need to learn to pray. People who are new in the faith may have never studied about how to pray. Some members do not pray properly so their prayers are not even answered. All of us can improve in this aspect of worship.

We need to learn what to pray about. Should we make requests, be thankful, offer praise, intercede on behalf of others, offer petition? And what power does prayer have? Does God really answer prayer? If so, how should we pray and what conditions must prayer meet in order for God to hear and answer?

What is prayer? Note Acts 4:24,31. Prayer is simply man talking to God, expressing his thoughts to God Rom. 10:1; Matt. 6:9. Hence, it is a form of communication similar in many ways to simply talking to our earthly father, except that we must remember whom we are addressing and must meet conditions of acceptable prayer.

How To Pray To God - What Does The Bible Say?

Jesus shares some tremendous insight regarding how to pray to God in Matthew 6:5-13.

In the above verses, Jesus shares how not to pray.

• Verse 5: We are to pray in secret, not the way people did in His day -- praying out loud publicly, primarily to just be seen and heard.
• Verse 6: Jesus asks us to go to a private place since our Heavenly Father already knows what we are going to pray about.
• Verse 7: Jesus tells us not to ramble on and on, as people of other religions do or be repetitious with words. God, our heavenly Father, would have us be specific about our prayer.
• Verse 8: Jesus reiterates that the believer is not to pray repetitiously like the heathen

Other New Testament writers describe other ways to pray.

Paul, in Philippians 4:6, says that we should pray for everything with thanksgiving. Paul, who wrote several books of the New Testament, often began and ended his letters in prayer for the saints. Specifically, Paul prays for God’s grace, peace, love and faith among believers.

Peter, in 1 Peter 5:7-8, exhorts us to cast all our care upon God, because He cares about us. In verse 8, Peter warns us that Satan seeks to devour the believer.
James 1:5 says we can pray and ask God for wisdom, but this should be done in faith. James 4:1-4 says that when we pray, we often pray or ask out of our own selfish ambition. James 4:15 exhorts that we need to pray for God’s will to be done in our lives.

In the Old Testament, Moses prayed to God almost constantly on behalf of the Israelite for God’s mercy and graciousness in dealing with their sins. Abraham prayed persistently for his relative Lot, who lived in Sodom that God would spare Him. 2 Chronicles 14:11 says Asa cried out to the Lord. Prophet Jeremiah prayed for God’s guidance and correction of the Israelite Jeremiah 10:23-24. David prayed for the peace of Jerusalem in Psalm 122:6.

The protocol on how to pray covers several ways of prayer. The primary focus of prayer is the intent. Does the prayer honor God and exalt His name? What is the purpose behind the prayer? Is it for personal gain or ambition? Do you pray for others to be blessed and encouraged? Are your prayers done in secret and in humility? Are your prayers focused on obtaining godly wisdom, counsel and direction? God is pleased with these prayers and answers them.

How often are we to pray? The Bible says pray without ceasing 1 Thessalonians 5:17. What should we pray for? What if we do not know how to pray? The Bible says the Holy Spirit will help us pray Romans 8:26-27.

How do we pray to God? Prayer is essentially putting your request, concern or issue before the Lord and trusting Him to answer them. Matthew 18:3 says we need to pray with the heart of little children, simple, reverent, specific, and trusting.

Why Should We Pray – To Whom Do We Pray?

Before we can answer, “why should we pray,” we must know to whom we pray.

There is only one Supreme Creator and Sovereign God. There is only one way to Him and that is through His only Son, Jesus Christ. God, our Heavenly Father, is the only one we can be assured of who hears and answers our prayers. He is the God of amazing love, mercy and forgiveness. 

• By Him, all things are possible. Jesus says in Mark 10:27, "Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God."
• Daniel 9:18 tells us: “We do not ask because we deserve help, but because you are so merciful.” (Mercy means showing favor, compassion and kindness.)
• God’s ultimate demonstration of love is forgiveness of the sins each of us have committed. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God did not send his Son into the world to condemn it, but to save it” John 3:16-17.

He is the only God who has done this and is the only God able to do so. But His enemy, Satan, has sent many false gods to deceive mankind. Do not be deceived nor allow anything or anyone to take priority over the only true and living God.

Why Should We Pray - For What Do We Pray?

Prayer is the key to the heart of God. Prayer is the only way to a real and personal relationship with God.

• Pray acknowledging He is God, and that you accept His gracious gift, Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior Genesis 17:1, Romans 6:16-18.
• Pray confessing your sins and accepting His forgiveness Romans 3:23-26.
• Pray that His will be done in our lives, that His Holy Spirit guide us, and that we be filled with the fullness of all God has for us.
• Pray for spiritual understanding and wisdom Proverbs 2:6-8, 3:5.
• Pray with thanksgiving for all the ways He blesses us Philippians 4:6. Pray when we are ill, lonely, going through trials or interceding for others James 5:14-16, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.
• Pray to worship Him Psalm 95:6-7.

There is nothing we can’t pray about. There are abundant references to prayer in the Bible. The Bible tells us to “pray without ceasing” and “in everything give thanks to the Lord.” When we choose to have a positive attitude, we realize we have received many blessings for which to give God praise. 

We find intimacy with God through communicating with Him in prayer. We go to Him in faith, knowing that He hears and answers all our prayers 1 John 5:14. Be confident that God knows and wants what is best for you; so ask that His will be done in all you seek from Him. Then, thank Him for it, even though it hasn’t happened yet.

Pastor M. Isi Eromosele is a part of the Leadership Pastors at God’s Intervention Center in New York. He is also the Founder and CEO of Oseme Group, a global management consulting company based in New York City.

Rooted And Grounded In Love

By Pastor ChyChy Ayodele

"That Christ may dwell in your heart by faith that ye being rooted and grounded in love...

And to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God."

Rooted and grounded in love! Can you imagine the quality of such a life... "that you might be filled with all the fullness of God!"

This life of love is one few pursue. But we are part of that few who will pursue and come to the depth, breadth, height and width of it; we will plumb these depths.

To construct such a lifestyle, we must study, understand, apply, engrave and imbibe the word of God deliberately.

There's nothing more beautiful than this life of love. It is a wonder to behold, awesome in glory. It is the very wonder and mystique about the man Jesus who could not be offended. Psalm 119:65 states: “Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O Lord, according unto thy word.

Great peace have them that love the law, nothing shall offend them. It is a life of total harmony with God and all His creation. Anyone living such a life cannot be harmed, he is above hurt.

Love is a shield, a miraculous realm of defense around a believer. He lives above the pettiness of human strife, conflict and contentions and far beyond the low-life of quarrelling, fighting, insulting, strike back, cursing, hating, etc.

Be filled and overflowing with love. Let nothing and no one get you down. Think good thoughts towards all men and you shall have harmony and balance. Love is the fruit of ZOE. Love is the outflow of eternal life. Love is the inevitable consequence of the new creation spirit.

God lives here, He touches men from here. God moves completely outward from any life filled with love. No selfishness, no self centeredness, let everything you do, think or say be to better another person, to advance and bless others.

Seeing Christ Regardless Of The Human Veil

We're all imperfect. As long as we keep looking at and thus seeing each other's imperfections, it will constitute a stumbling block for us all. Our imperfections are stumbling blocks, obstacles to seeing Christ and as long as we focus on them we'd never see Christ in ourselves; thus never be changed into His image through our fellowship with one another.

We must learn to look beyond our imperfections. Your imperfections pose as much irritation to your brother/sister in Christ as theirs pose to you, maybe worse. And our reactions to each others' imperfections vary.

Tolerance, patience, endurance and forbearance of each other is the stitch the Lord uses to keep us together. Maturity is characterised above other things by tolerance, forbearance, patience, all these are marks of humility. Judge others with mercy as you would judge yourself. Intolerance is immaturity.

And this is His commandment; that we should believe in the name of His son Jesus Christ and love one another. And he that keeps His commandments dwells in God and God dwells in him. And this is how we know that He abides in us by the spirit which He has given us.

A Kingdom Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

This is what Satan, the adversary, the devil wants. Every division, strife, quarrels, conflict among believers is inspired by the devil. This is satanic strategy!
We can remain united and the key is forbearance, tolerance, endurance.

We must endeavour at all cost to live in peace no matter what. We must refuse to be divided, separated, strifed. If it is possible, as much as it lies in you, live peaceably with all men. And remember all things are possible to them that believe Mark 9:23.

Pastor ChyChy Ayodele is the President and Senior Pastor of Supernatural Life Ministries Global in Abuja, Nigeria. She is also a Lawyer, a Gospel Singer, an accomplished Writer and a Motivational Speaker.

The Divine Perspective - Seeing Things Differently

By Pastor ChyChy Ayodele

Prophets see the invisible. They are divinely given insight into the true nature of things. But this insight is not given to them for their personal benefits but for God's people to profit withal and fulfill accurately God's purposes.

So when Prophets prophesy out of Divine Insight, they bring forth divine counsel and secret wisdom which contradicts natural reasoning and logic that minds must be shattered, for the word of The Lord to be accepted. God's wisdom is foolishness to the natural mind 1Corinthians 1:18-31. You must allow your natural mind to be shattered to accept the wisdom of God.

This is why unfortunately, the word of The Lord and of His Prophets is most often scorned, denied, rejected seemingly because they are illogical, unreasonable, unintelligent and unarguable with human mind, schooled, polished and refined by the wisdom of the fallen age which is fallen.

Paul said: “The princes of this world do not know the wisdom of God, for if they knew they would not have crucified the King of glory.” Yet he said that the intent of God for the church is for the church to manifest the manifold wisdom of God to teach the principalities and powers 1Corinthians 2: 6-8.

The divine mind and thought is as far away from men as heaven is from the Earth Isaiah5: 5; this means if you're looking for the mind of God in a matter, get ready to lay aside your natural mind and be shocked as God shatters it with divine wisdom.

Human wisdom and divine wisdom contradict each other at all points. If you fail to grasp this point, you'll never walk with God, for walking with God means going His way, not your way and His way means foolishness in the sight of men.

The one who walks in and by the spirit and lives by faith in this God, whose wisdom is foolishness to the natural mind, always confuses the natural man for the natural man cannot ever understand Him. "As the wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it but you cannot tell where its going or from where it is coming, so is he that is born of the Spirit." John3: 8.

Prophets See Things Differently

They have been given divine perspective. So they tackle issues differently. They see the future and make today's decisions and choices based on what they see of the future. They see the end of the matter and live out their lives today from that standpoint, encouraging the Body of Christ to do the same, to believe in the Revelation of the future and align.

The Future Is More Real To The Prophet

He lives in the future; a future advanced in time-frame, ahead of his generation and speaks of the future constantly, giving hope and direction. He encounters issues in the future and by his divinely given ability to transcend time through the realm of the Spirit, he can actually enter into the future battles of the Church, engage in such battles and win victories in the Spirit for the Church before they arrive at the time frame.

This is done in spiritual warfare at a higher level. This is what Jesus did when He told Peter, "Satan has desired to sift your soul as wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith fail not." He projected into Peter's future battles and won the victory. The path was thus cleared in the Spirit for Peter.

When prophets intercede by the Spirit for the Church, corporate or individual, this is what they do. God’s preferred future for His people is such so they can enter into Divinely Destined things rather than Satan’s ordained, orchestrated future.

For Satan have a plan and a purpose for every individual on Earth. His warped, twisted mind tells him he owns the planet and its inhabitants and he writes his own scripts for humans to come and play in this drama of life on the world-stage. But God thwarts it when He breaks through into anyone’s life. Don't try to always understand the Prophet, just follow!

Prophetic Activation

This is a core practice of the Prophets. The principle behind this is the activation of the prophetic dimension, gifts, faculties within each believer into full function so that these resources become powerful spiritual equipment for living out their normal everyday lives in all they do.

The prophetic dimension, gifts and faculties must be activated in God's people so that they will begin to see and hear into the supernatural invisible realm of God, His plans and purposes for their lives so they can execute Divine purposes and fulfill Divine Destinies.

This principle of activation has always been in the church and is the core of the five-fold ministry. The gift or dimension of eternal life was activated in the born again experience. The gift of tongues was activated in the Pentecostal experience. These are evangelistic dimensions fulfilling within the scope of the evangelistic office.

The Preemptive Benefits

Divine health, righteousness, gift of the spirit ministries, divine provision, answers to prayers, divine protection, prosperity, etc, were activated in the word of faith experience by knowledge, confession and faith through Pastors and teachers. The prophetic dimension and all it entails will be activated in the saints by the Prophets and so will the Apostles come to do.

Saul came to capture Samuel when he was having a prophetic activation session. The spirit came upon him and he too began to prophesy and he did overnight! The activation function was so pungent he became prophetic at once.

This is what God wants. Prophets are tools by which He makes His church prophetic. God works through the Prophets to bring His people to a point where they become so prophetic that they no longer need the Prophets; they get connected directly to God!

Exercising Your Spiritual Senses

There are real life situations around you daily that you can take advantage of to develop yourself in God and they are often negative.

Practice hearing the voice using the daily real life challenges in your life right now. Take up serious issues and tarry before God to speak to you, to give you His answer, His voice clearly stated. Check and double check. Fine tune your receptive potentials, sharpen your discernment, your ability to hear. Practice hearing the voice of God and bring accuracy and stability into your life!

Pastor ChyChy Ayodele is the President and Senior Pastor of Supernatural Life Ministries Global in Abuja, Nigeria. She is also a Lawyer, a Gospel Singer, an accomplished Writer and a Motivational Speaker.

What Does It Take To Be A Disciple Of Jesus?

By Pastor M. Isi Eromosele

The short answer to the above question is, “It takes all of you!” This is probably the reason why our Lord Jesus often times cooled off the enthusiasm of potential candidates for discipleship by urging them to consider its costs (Matthew 19:16-22, Luke 9:57-62).”  

If one truly desires to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, it is imperative that he/she first heeds the words of our Lord and counts the cost of discipleship. A church that does not teach the principles of discipleship is doomed to lose her spiritual influence in society and to become a spiritual nursery filled with immature Christians.

Jesus Christ took time and clearly explained to His disciples what it takes to become one of His disciples. To be a disciple of our Lord demands that Jesus becomes the most important thing in your life.

The disciple of Jesus Christ must be a new spiritual creature and a citizen of God’s Kingdom. 

The first condition of discipleship is that one has already become the recipient of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. There is no discipleship without salvation. Jesus metaphorically explained this: “No one sews a patch of un-shrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.

Neither do men pour new wine into old wine skins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wine-skins, and both are preserved” (Matthew 9:16-17). Without the miracle of the new birth, no one can completely devote him/herself to Christ.

The disciple of Jesus Christ must daily crucify his/her own self. 

Informing His disciples about the events leading Him to the Cross, Jesus emphatically told them that every true disciple must also bear a cross. “And He was saying to them all, ‘If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).

Taking up our Cross daily describes our willingness to lay aside all self-seeking and ego-centric ambitions: It means that our utmost desire and ambition is not to satisfy ourselves, but to please our Savior and Lord. It means that Jesus, not ourselves or anyone else in this universe is the object of our supreme worship and affection.

Pleasing Him is the driving motivation of our lives, of our activities, and of our choices. Jesus didn’t mince words: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).

The disciple of Jesus Christ must pursue the teachings of the Kingdom of God as taught by Christ. 

By definition, a disciple is a student and a follower of his master. A disciple of Christ must strive to learn, understand and apply the principles of the Kingdom.

We can only live according to what we know: the more we know Christ’s teaching and character, the more we can emulate His lifestyle and character. Philippians 2:5 exhorts us to “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.”

A disciple is called to embrace the mind, the attitudes, the purposes and the destiny of his/her Master, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The disciple of Jesus Christ must place Jesus above those dearest to him/her. 

The fourth requirement Jesus underscored is that our love for Him must have priority over any other human being: “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).

This verse doesn’t mean that we, as disciples of Christ, cannot love God and our family at the same time. The Bible clearly teaches our obligations to our husbands, wives and children (see Ephesians 5:22-25; 1 Timothy 4:8). What Jesus means is that our love for Him must have primacy over any other affection and our bond to Him more inseparable than to anything else.

Our relationship to Christ must have priority not only over family members; our union with Him must take priority over all forms of human relationship. Being a true disciple of Jesus Christ will often times lead to enmity with the surrounding world.

Jesus did not hide this reality: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you” (John 15:18-19).

The disciple of Jesus Christ must place his/her devotion to Christ above material possessions. 

After Jesus taught about the true riches, He declared, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24).

Rich and affluent people of the world clearly have a problem with this condition of discipleship, but so do most of us that are the citizens of the most affluent nation in the world, The United States of America, especially when Jesus adds, “So therefore, no one of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions”(Luke 14:33).

This simply means Christ’s disciples must love God more than they love money and what it can buy. However, this doesn’t mean that the Bible teaches that one can become a Christian only after disposing of all his or her material possessions; most likely it refers to the attitude towards material possessions:

“Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God!” (Mark 10:24). Paul explains: “The love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith, and pierced themselves with many a pang” (1 Timothy 6:10).

He continued to instruct those who were rich in material things to be rich in good works, and not to trust in the uncertainty of riches (1 Timothy 6:17-19). In the life of a disciple of Christ nothing must compete with his/her devotion to and dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

A disciple of Jesus Christ must be fruitful and multiply him/herself. 

Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:24-25).

Like our Master, who died and through His resurrection reproduced His life in us, we also must reproduce ourselves in others and produce disciples of Christ. This is the heart of the Great Commission: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). Only a disciple who died to himself and to this world is capacitated to reproduce himself in others!

What does it take to be a disciple of Lord Jesus Christ? 

A “disciple of Christ” is someone who has been called first to intimately know Christ and His salvation, then to daily pick up his cross and follow Him by placing his devotion to Christ above any other human, above any material possession, and any other philosophy.

Following his Master, the disciple is becoming more and more like Him, emulating Christ’s thinking, feeling, and living. In obedience, Christ’s disciple embraces the goal to disciple others, from every nation, understanding that the Great Commission is Christ’s commandment, not suggestion!

Pastor M. Isi Eromosele is a part of the Leadership Pastors at God’s Intervention Center in New York. He is also the Founder and CEO of Oseme Group, a global management consulting company based in New York City.