If you are happy to be alive, you are happy to be part of this glorious day, can I hear you shout a powerful hallelujah! The Bible says we are what we are today all by His grace, if you are here and you cherish and value the grace that God Almighty has lavished upon you, I want you to shout ‘amen’. Praise the Lord!
Immortal, invisible, the only wise God, we want to say thank You, for giving us life we are grateful, for making us Your children we are grateful, for giving us a hope of a better tomorrow, Lord, we are grateful and for giving us a nation, a country that we can call our own country, we return all the glory back to You, accept our thanks in Jesus name.
Thank You for all that You have done, thank You for what You are doing, thank You for all You continue to do. Lord, we pray that as we reflect on Your goodness this morning and as we count our blessings one by one, we pray oh God that as we in return register our gratitude to You, please Lord, accept us and accept our worship in Jesus name. We pray that what we know about and what we don’t know about will not be strong enough to hinder our blessings today in Jesus name. Bless us with the blessings of heaven in the mighty name of Jesus.
Thank You for January to date, it can only be You; the devil attempted several times to cause chaos and to cause confusion in our lives but thank You because You always are a step ahead, take all glory Father in Jesus name. We pray today for all Your children who have been faithful in the payments of their tithes and the giving of their offerings Lord, that in blessing You will bless them in Jesus name.
And for every one of Your children saying amen, those who are here physically and those who are partaking of this service, this fellowship online, my Lord and my Father, we pray that You will flood their lives with blessings in Jesus name. Help us and guide us as we continue, let only Your name be praised and let the devil be put to shame, in Jesus marvelous name we have prayed.
It is with great joy in my heart that we welcome you to this glorious service, we thank God for your life and thank you for keeping faith with us always, my prayer is that the presence of the Lord will continue to be there for you all in Jesus name. We value your fellowship and I want to say without missing words that you are very critical to our existence and of course to our being and the grace of God will never cease in your life in Jesus name.
So let me say happy new month to every one of you and happy 65th independence anniversary of our nation, the Lord will continue tovbless us, the Lord will continue to keep us and guide us in Jesus name.
Let me before I proceed formally welcome and recognize our new national elder; a new national elder has been posted to Lagos Province 20. This is not his first time in this church but because today he’s fully on ground, the other time he came by half but today he’s complete, so it’s my honor and privilege to formally introduce to you our quintessential national elder, Pastor and Pastor Mrs. Omotayo Gabriel Uwayas, they will be working with us in this province till further notice.
Pastor Uwayas has served as a APICP, he has served as PICP, he served not too long ago as a regional evangelist in the northeast part of the country, and to the praise and glory of God he has been made a national leader, and of course he continues his service with us here at Lagos Province 20. Look at him very well, look at his wife, please accord them the much needed respect, courtesy and support, they are here to compliment our efforts, we are all collaborators, so please give them the respect that they deserve. The Lord will bless you mightily in Jesus name.
And let me also welcome my friends, it’s a pleasure to have you here today, Oga Kuku, thank you very much for keeping faith with us, the Lord bless you, we appreciate you very profoundly.
[Birthday Celebration]
By the grace of God, this month has been declared as our month of divine enablement. Generally, ten represents double grace, but we just decided to do something different, we are unique and peculiar, so we decided to opt for the word ‘divine enablement’. The text is taken from 1 Corinthians 15: 10, it says, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
It is the grace that makes the difference, is the grace that makes us excel, if you are standing today is by the grace, everything that we are is all by His grace, so it’s our month of divine enablement, the grace of God will not abate in your life in the name of Jesus.
Tomorrow we’ll have our usual prayer chain and the theme for tomorrow is the El-Roi the God Who Sees Me. We spoke on something like that sometimes November last year and it’s coming up again but the text is a bit different, so I want to encourage every one of us to be part of it. In the open heaven of today, we learnt about corporate prayers, and of course, here every day we teach ourselves about the importance of prayer, the place of prayers in a believer’s life. And I pray in the name of Jesus that God will continue to answer our prayers and we’ll continue to reap the dividends of praying to God in Jesus name.
Luke 17: 11 – 19, (remember this is just the first course, our esteemed father in the Lord, General Overseer will be coming up shortly to give us the main dish, my prayer is that today we shall all be fully fed). And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. 12And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: 13And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. 14And when he saw them, he said unto them, go show yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. 15And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God.
16And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. 17And Jesus answering said, were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. 19And he said unto him, arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.
Last month we spoke on the value of a grateful heart, and of course I took time to define what gratitude is all about; I told us that gratitude is a powerful force in the life of a believer. As a matter of fact, I recall I shared with us that gratitude is by far more than just saying thank you, is a spiritual posture that recognizes God as the source of every good and perfect gift, and of course, we took a deep leap into the account that has just been read to us in the book of Luke 17, and I remember I focused on that day on gratitude as a response of faith, but by the grace of God today, before our father comes on board, I would like to focus on Gratitude Opens the Door to Wholeness.
Brethren, many receive a touch from God but only the grateful receive complete restoration; from our text, we discovered that ten were healed but one was made whole, it says, 19And he said unto him, arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. I pray for someone under the influence of my voice this morning that you will receive the blessing of wholeness in the mighty name of Jesus.
Wholeness implies more than healing; it actually suggests restoration, peace and divine completion. When you talk about peace, peace is a life that is characterized by harmony; when you live a life or in a place where you have comfort, where there is understanding and of course where you enjoy a measure of harmony.
A place can also be defined as peaceful when there is absence of chaos, attack, you can sleep with your two eyes closed, you can eat your food with some measure of comfort and confidence, nothing puts you under pressure.
Two, wholeness implies more than healings, next to that is the fact that thankfulness attracts deeper encounter as we can see in the life of David in Psalm 103: 1 – 5, David said, bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. 3Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases. 4Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercy; 5Who satisfies thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
You know when you talk about confidence, confidence has to do with the knowledge of your identity, when you know who you are then it gives you confidence, if you don’t have confidence, you cannot express yourself, you will even be afraid to stand. I pray in the name of Jesus that from today, nothing takes away your confidence in the name of Jesus.
Brethren, as we bless the Lord we begin to experience the full benefits of salvation, forgiveness, healings, satisfaction, and renewal among others. The Bible says if there’s anyone that says he has never sinned that person is a liar, and in the book of Psalm, it says if the Lord should count iniquity, no man shall be able to stand. What qualifies us, what gives us the confidence to stand today and declare the word of God is the fact that we are in God’s salvation.
The Bible says for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, but thank God for the intervention through our Lord Jesus Christ. And it is that grace that we carry today and this is the reason why we are standing, it is the reason we have this fellowship, the Bible says many were called but few were chosen, but we bless the Almighty God for counting us among the few.
In Matthew 6:33, it says, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all other things will be added; today, grace will be added to you, joy will be added to you, peace will be added to you, harmony will be added to you, prosperity will be added to you, enlargement will be added to you, gift of good health that will make you live above sickness, that will make you live above sorrow, the Lord will grant onto you in the name of Jesus.
Number three, wholeness affects the body, soul and spirit; wholeness walks through the tripartite – the body, the soul, and the spirit. In 1 Thessalonians 5:23, it says, and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly, (not partially); and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What the scripture is telling us here is simply saying that a grateful heart invites God’s sanctified work in every area of his life. When you show gratefulness to God, when you tell God, ‘I am grateful, I appreciate all that You have done for me’, you are by that inviting Him to sanctify, to carry out a sanctify work in every spare of your life. I told you, God is ready to work on your body, He’s ready to work on your soul and He’s ready to work on your spirit, in fact, He said He will preserve us blameless.
When you are blameless then you live above board; when you are blameless, the devil comes and could not find any cause for acquisition in your life. I pray in the name of Jesus that God will keep every one of us blameless in the name of Jesus.
Number four, gratefulness is the key to the supernatural, that is the miraculous. I’ve shared with you times and times again that gratitude means what is not enough to become more than enough, and gratefulness can bring the dead back to life. At the tomb of Lazarus in John 11, the Bible records that Jesus looked up and He said, “Father, I thank You because You always answer me”, that was one of the most powerful prayer I’ve ever seen yet very short, it wasn’t even a prayer request, it was a prayer of thanksgiving. Can you imagine prayer of thanksgiving bringing the living out of the dead?
So brethren, there is tremendous power in your saying thank You to God, there is miracle loaded in your saying ‘God I bless You’, recognizing God as the source of your strength, recognizing God as your backbone. Jesus said, “Father, I thank You because You always hear and answer me”; if you go through the Bible, you find out instances where they needed to feed the people and they will just bring the little thing and will say, “Father, I thank You.”
How many times do you say it in a day, when you roll in the toilet, do you remember to say thank You? When you want to do the major and you are able to do it, you want to do the minor you are able to do it, you want to eat you are able to eat, it’s not everyone that has food that can eat.
I remember those days in school, we sang ‘some have food but cannot eat, some can eat but have no food. We have food and we can eat, glory be to You, oh Lord’, how many times have you said thank You that you have people around you? Do you know it’s not everybody that has people around them? You look for someone to greet, nobody in sight, you hit your leg nobody to say sorry, you cook your food nobody wants to eat with you.
One of our uncles in-law, baba is still very much alive, that is by 99; he was praying he said he wants to go, then he was asked why would you want to go? He said people are running away from me, when I cook my food unlike before, people will come and join me to eat my food, but now when I cook my food nobody wants to eat because baba has become a ‘ghost’. You cook, today some of you when you hear a knock at the door you will quickly go and keep your food.
There are people who are looking for people to come and eat with them, some not even on account of old age but nobody. You can freely go to the toilet, you can freely without being carried, you can feed yourself without being assisted, how many times have you said thank You to God after swallowing? It’s not everybody that can swallow, when you learn to say thank you, you open the gates to the miraculous. My prayer for every one of us today is that God will accept our thanks in Jesus name.
As I round up, I pray once again that as we give thanks to God, may the peace of God guide our hearts and open us up to divine provision and protection in the mighty name of Jesus. There’s a story in Luke 7: 47 – 50, wherefore I say unto thee, her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is given, the same loveth little. 48And he said unto her, thy sins are forgiven. 49And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, who is this that forgiveth sins also? 50And he said to the woman, thy faith has saved thee; go in peace.
Here we find the account of the woman with the alabaster box in the Bible who came to show gratitude in worship, and what she got in return was peace and forgiveness. Yoruba has a saying that you can’t come to God with burden, with a troubled heart sincerely in fellowship and in worship and go back home with trouble, God has a way of giving joy, peace and forgiveness to those who engage in genuine worship.
Shall we rise on our feet; if you are here today and you have not given your life to Christ, that story in the book of Luke 7, that account might be of great interest to you. A woman came, the Bible says her sins are many but she never went back home with that load of sin; she brought her best, she deposited her best in that alabaster box and God replaced her multitude of sin with forgiveness and peace.
And let me tell you very clearly that God is more than ready to also replace your many sins, your many troubles, your many rising and falling today if only you open up to Him and give Him your heart. You can’t give God your heart, you can’t give God your everything, your best and God will not relieve you of your sorrow.
So I want us to bow down our heads and talk to God this morning; Father, thank You for this opportunity to be in Your presence once again, nobody comes unto You and is cast away, Lord, help me to give my all today, especially in my heart and of course in terms of my best. Accept me, Lord, today, accept my heart, accept my best in terms of resources, in terms of renewed commitment and genuine sense of dedication to God and to His word. May God hear and answer our prayers in the name of Jesus.
[Altar call]
Father in heaven we thank You, thank You for the entrance of Your word that gives us life, thank You Father once again for reminding us again about the critical assignment of gratitude, Father we pray that You will cause every heart to be receptive to this word and You will give us everything that is required to take the necessary steps in Jesus name.
As we worship You from the depths of our heart today, we ask Lord that our sacrifice of worship and sacrifice of thanksgiving will come unto You as a sweet smelling savor in Jesus name. And Lord Almighty God, we pray that regardless of the many troubles that we might have come to church with today, like that woman with the alabaster box, Lord, may we go back home with peace, may we go back home with joy, may we go back home with a sense of abundance, may we go back home with forgiveness, may we go back home with righteousness, peace and joy of the Holy Ghost in Jesus name.
For Your children that have said ‘yes Lord, we surrender to You today voluntarily’, receive them unto Yourself in Jesus name. Let the gate of mercy never be shut against them in Jesusname, and Lord Almighty, You will accept them and accept their own worship, and by reason of this critical decision they have taken today Lord, Father enlist them for Your heavens. Thank You blessed Savior, in Jesus wonderful name we have prayed.
