THE TIMES AND SEASONS OF LIFE ARE IRRECOVERABLE AND IRREVERSIBLE.
PEOPLE ARE STRUGGLING ALL THEIR LIVES, WHAT THEY ARE LOOKING FOR IS IN THEIR BIBLE.
IT CAN’T BE ALRIGHT WITH A BELIEVER SPIRITUALLY AND NOT BE ALRIGHT WITH HIM IN ALL AREAS OF LIFE.
SPIRITUALITY IS SCRIPTURALITY – LIVING ACCORDING TO THE DICTATES OF SCRIPTURES. IT IS NOT BEING PIOUS AND LOOKING LIKE SOMEBODY FROM THE MOON
ANYBODY WHO HAS IT IN MIND THAT THEY ARE SERVING ME IS WASTING THEIR TIME. A SERVANT DOESN’T HAVE SERVANTS.
I CANNOT AFFORD THE LUXURY OF GOING ON VACATIONS. I HAVE NEVER KNOWN HOW TO GO ON BREAKS
WHAT CAN YOU POINT TO IN YOUR LIFE THAT YOU ARE DOING THIS FOR THE GOSPEL’S SAKE?
NOBODY EVER REGRETS A GENUINE PURSUIT AFTER GOD AND THE INTEREST OF HIS KINGDOM.
THAT YOU ARE A PREACHER DOESN’T MEAN YOU ARE IN PURSUIT OF GOD, IT MAY BE YOUR CAREER.
THAT YOU ARE A FOUNDER DOES NOT MAKE YOU ONE THAT PURSUES AFTER GOD, IT MAY BE YOUR BUSINESS TO MAKE A LIVING.
– Bishop David Oyedepo on ENGAGING THE POWER OF PASSION IN STEWARDSHIP 3 at June 2023 Week of Spiritual Emphasis Day 3 || Canaanland
No one like our God, He can cause the dry bones to come back to life. No one like our God. Give Him glory, give Him praise. After three days He will revive us and on the third day, He will change our level. Hosea 6:2. Somebody’s level is changing supernaturally today. When our level changes spiritually, it changes our level everywhere. Church Gist. Romans 8:6. So when our spiritual level changes it impacts on every area of our life. By your Word tonight, Jesus change my spiritual level. Go ahead and pray. Pray like somebody in a revival. Don’t pray drowsy prayer. Don’t pray a non-expectant prayer. Change my spiritual level by your Word tonight.
Heavenly Father we are here in your presence and we are here at your feet. Jesus let your word locate each one of us tonight. Church Gist. When the word of Joseph came through to him, everything turned in his favour. Let everyone’s Word ordained for this hour come through to each one of us and by it, change our spiritual level.
Deuteronomy 28:1-2. People are in need because they don’t know what they need. Just a closer walk with you, precious Saviour, this is my plea. Daily walking close to you. Let it be. People are struggling all their lives, what they are looking for is in their book. Decorative! Pose with it for pictures. It can’t be alright with a believer spiritually and not be alright with him in all areas of life. Church Gist. God hasn’t changed. What is spirituality? Scripturality. Living according to the dictates of scriptures. It is not being pious and looking like somebody from the moon. Scripturality! That is genuine spirituality. When God speaks to you in your privacy, in your devotion, are you complying? Is it reflecting in your thoughts and in actions? John 8:29. It is not for free. Therefore in the name of Jesus, this season of glory will not leave anyone behind.
Procrastination is a trap of the devil. There was a man loaded with potential, they called his name Reuben. Genesis 49:1-4. Procrastination to go or not to go, you just find yourself on the same spot. Let’s see the definition using scriptures to interpret scriptures. Judges 5:15-16. They never have a possession till tomorrow in the Promised Land. They lost it to great searchings of heart. In the previous name of Jesus, I decree the destruction of every spirit of procrastination in our response to instructions from scriptures. Church Gist. Not instructions from pastors, instruction from scriptures. If you don’t have respect for scripture you can’t have respect for any messenger sent because nothing can be truer than the truth. This book, the content here is settled in heaven forever and you don’t have respect for it, no matter the anointing of the anointed it won’t make any meaning to you.
According to this book, God is the God of times and seasons. Very interestingly, the seasons of your life are irreversible and irrevocable. 1st of June 2023 was yesterday, it will never come again until eternity. There won’t be any 1/6/2023 again. It has gone and gone forever. Now we are in the rainy season here in Nigeria, any farmer that goes asleep during planting season will suffer hunger in harvest. You can’t recover the planting season of last year. It is irrecoverable. Let’s wake up. When the Englishman says “when one’s opportunity is lost, they cannot be regained”. They are quoting scriptures. John 9:4. The times and seasons of life are irrecoverable, they are irreversible. Church Gist. You can’t say I don’t agree, the rainy season must start in December. You will be wasting time, it is according to God’s set order. Ecclesiastes 3:1-3. You miss the planting season, you have lost the harvest for the year. Proverbs 13:4, 10:4-5. We have a responsibility to be awake. The times and seasons of life are irrecoverable and irreversible. Forever now, I cannot be enlisted to train as a commercial pilot. The time for it is past. No matter how much I like it or how much I think of it, the season for it is over. They won’t take you in. I can’t enlist as a professional footballer anymore. The time for it is past and it is irrecoverable forever. Ephesians 5:13.
We are in a wondrous season prophetically in this Commission. There is no prophetic timeline that did not deliver but not in everyone’s life. Luke 1:45. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because they knew not the time of their visitation so their frustration continued. Luke 19:41-44. May every Winner worldwide be spiritually awake this month. When God names it a season of glory, He means the end of shame and reproach. Church Gist. It means a turnaround agenda for whoever believes. It means a new dawn for everyone that will plug in. Sir, you are not serving me. A servant doesn’t have a servant. Do you have a domestic staff that now has a staff to look after him in your house? No! I am a servant, I don’t have any servants. If you ever think you are serving me, you are wasting your time. Church Gist. A servant doesn’t have servants. I am standing before you today, I have never known how to go on break and then you say you are serving me. How? Do you know how many times you have travelled in and out on vacation every weekend, can I afford that luxury? Church Gist. Since the Church was 10, not that we are many. When the church was 4 people I was doing like this. A servant doesn’t have servants. So anybody carrying it in mind that they are serving Bishop is wasting their time. A servant doesn’t have servants. Write it down. You are not serving Papa. Jesus came and He said, “I am in your midst as one that serves”. He sent them to the place where He himself will come. He wasn’t a sender, He was also a goer. He was there. A servant doesn’t have servants. Think straight.
ENGAGING THE POWER OF PASSION IN STEWARDSHIP. I tried to lay that preamble to help you know why it is not only motion you need, timely motion. Timely motion! Because the times and seasons of life are irrecoverable and irreversible. Church Gist. People are just doing church as if they are doing club. Timely motion, spiritual engagement. Genuine engagement.
As mentioned earlier, every passionate believer is an ever self-motivated individual in stewardship. You don’t chase after them. I didn’t have anybody follow me up. Passion won’t let me need it. My passion for religion was just transferred. So all these modern day Christianity, Caution! I became all things to all men, Paul said, so I might win some and this I do for the gospel’s sake. What are you doing for the gospel’s sake? What can you point to in your life that you are doing this for the gospel’s sake? Most people gather to use God. God, I am here again. I thank you because you gave me a car yesterday. Now I need a driver. I need a plot of land in Ikoyi near Aso Rock. Church Gist. I know what you need, I won’t give you what will kill you. Seek ye first my kingdom. I will be giving you what suits you. What you can handle. What will not destroy you. I told my God whatever you will give me that won’t let you reach me again please don’t give me. Keep it. Whatever you will give me that won’t let your hand reach me, please keep it. I will never need it. It is time to make your choice.
Passion is what fuels our steadfastness and timelessness in stewardship. We can’t do it with the energy of the flesh. We need a genuine passion for God so His grace can keep us going in season and out of season. Philippians 3:7-8. Amazing things will happen this time. When God becomes your genuine focus and the interests of His kingdom. Somebody asked me one time. What do you do between when you give and when you receive? I said I have not thought about it till you are saying it now. I am not banking with God. I am not trying Him out. He is my father. I am just walking in line with His covenant and leave Him to do what pertains to me as He deems fit. Until you are due, you are not due. When you are due, you are not the one that determines it. Church Gist. It is when you are due in His appraisal that you are due. You can work for 50 years and not be due. Until your cloud is full, your rain cannot fall. You cannot command the rain, there is a process. Until your cloud is full, your rain cannot fall. May someone catch the fire that will keep him going with Jesus tonight. Nobody ever regrets a genuine pursuit after God and the interest of His kingdom. Nobody ever regrets it. That you are a preacher doesn’t mean you are in pursuit of God, It may be your career. That you are a founder does not make you one that pursues after God, It may be your business to make a living. You better wake up. Matthew 6:33. Seek ye first the advancement, enlargement of my kingdom in all righteousness and leave me to the remaining. I take responsibility. This is what to do, leave me with the rest. Don’t do my own, do your own. I am more faithful than you. So you be faithful to doing what I am asking you to do and leave the rest. You are going to see wonders because it is your turn to be wondered at.
I heard a word from the Lord that I want to change my people from just sharing testimonies to becoming testimonials. That they see you and say Praise the Lord for him. They see you going on the streets and they say Thank God for him. Church Gist. You need to see what this man was before and what he is now. That is what God wants to make of you and me. We will get there, by your choice and genuine decision you will get there.
As mentioned earlier, passion is a decision made based on one’s value for any given task. God never lays necessity on anybody. If you check all through scriptures, “If thou will…” God can’t will for you. He can’t will for me. God so loved the world, IF any man believe he shall have everlasting life. So it is an if issue. Church Gist. God won’t make a choice for you, He won’t make a choice for me. Deuteronomy 30:19. Elijah said I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts. You can’t be passionate for God and not know. 1 Kings 19:14. If you can get men and women who will be as jealous as Elijah we would chase the devil out of the streets completely.
There are things we must do for our stewardship to be profitable. Luke 6:46. John 2:5. There are things we must do for God to move. There are things we must do for His Word to come true. Passion for God is fundamental for steadfastness and tirelessness in stewardship. So it takes passion to keep doing what we must do steadfastly and without being tired. It takes passion. Church Gist. We saw that demonstrated in the life of Paul in every way. Romans 1:16. He just went wild with God and you see the impact still speaking thousands of years after. There are people here today, your children’s children in their generation if Jesus tarries will be talking about the God their mother served. They will be praying to the God you served and He will be answering them because your service is acceptable to God.
So in examining demands for profitable stewardship, we have 10 of them here before we close in this service.
For profitable stewardship, One must be committed to serving God:
1. Righteously (Hebrews 12:28).
Until our service is acceptable it cannot be profitable. It must be acceptable first before it is profitable and that demands that serve God with reverence and godly fear. 2 Timothy 2:19-21. Vessels means stewards. So sanctification is a requirement for profitable stewardship. No one will end his journey as dust and as wood. There is a place for you and me to end up as gold or at worst silver. Church Gist. In the precious name of Jesus, every defilement clamouring and holding any destiny hostage, I curse them tonight in the name of Jesus. Matthew 7:22-23. They lost their reward to iniquity. Zero! Service burnt! No return!
2. We must serve Him willingly.
Don’t be forced to, let your engagement be Word motivated. Let it be by your willingness to respond. 1 Corinthians 9:17. 2 Corinthians 8:12 concerning giving. God doesn’t need what you and I have, it came from Him in the first instance. So when you are giving, give willingly to the needy. Do it willingly. When God called the first offering in Exodus 35:4-5, God doesn’t beg, all the begging that we have today is not scriptural. Exodus 35:20-21. God doesn’t force His way and will on people. You are not willing, you are not willing. Just settle down and know you are not there. God cannot be eyeing what He gave you. What have you and I have we have not received from Him? So how can God who gave us be eyeing what He gave us? No! I was in Jos sometime, one of our daughters was there and somebody came. I needed to give him something. I said can I get #200 there? Church Gist. She gave me and I gave her back #500. So anytime she will ask ‘Do you need anything?’ She has no problem because she knows I will give her and I will give her more than what she gave me. Don’t be under stress, don’t be under duress God is not in need. If you don’t serve Him, seven stones will rise. So why are you going about with a mournful face as if God is punishing you? Cheer up! It is an opportunity. Exodus 35:22. They are doing it willingly, nobody is coercing them. As a covenant practitioner, I have never seen giving as a burden. No wonder my giving is always profitable. Don’t be forced, God is not in need. Don’t be forced to serve Him. Joshua 24:15.
3. We must serve Him cheerfully
For our stewardship to be profitable, it must be done cheerfully. Deuteronomy 28:47-48. Serve Him joyfully. Church Gist. Don’t ever go to witness to anybody carrying a long face, they will distance themselves from you because they already have enough problems, you now came as another problem carrier. They will move away from you. Genuine love smiles. 2 Corinthians 9:6-7.
4. We must serve Him faithfully.
1 Corinthians 4:2. Don’t pose to be doing what you are not doing. That is not faithfulness. What is it again, the midst of the year? You are not forced. The Lord spoke to me whether they will hear or they will forebear, whatever I tell you be saying it to them so I can be free from everywhere. Church Gist. Did I create the midst of the year? Am I on the editorial board of the Bible? You and I met it. Haggai 1:1 and 2:1, I didn’t contribute to it. So why are you now harassing me? He named it the midst of the year. It is a revival season in God’s agenda. Habakkuk 3:2. Let’s do it faithfully. A faithful man who can find? Proverbs 28:20.
5. We must do it diligently.
Proverbs 14:23. God is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Hebrews 11:6. Proverbs 22:29. Where we find ourselves tomorrow is a function of our input today. Thank God for every kind of service but there is none that comes near in value to returns from spiritual stewardship. Galatians 6:7-8. Church Gist. You sow to the flesh, you reap corruption, you sow to the spirit you reap life everlasting. What you get from every other service is a waste asset. It keeps going down and down but you reap life everlasting. Spiritual diligence is what qualifies a believer for everlasting reward.
6. We must serve Him unashamedly.
Psalms 119:46. Don’t be ashamed in your office, don’t be ashamed in your neighbourhood. Let everybody know you are a believer. Church Gist. It will help you also behave. Romans 1:16. Let’s identify with Jesus openly and unashamedly, He will keep rewarding us openly in return.
We have two very interesting cases here in terms of testimonies. There is this my daughter, every time after Sunday service she goes into their neighbourhood to preach. Some people that don’t know God are always angry. When Light comes, darkness must be fidgeting. One of them called the senior sister of this lady to warn her younger sister from disturbing them with her gospel. The sister called her to be going home after service, what are you going about doing? If your God is so good why has He not given you children? The senior sister said that to a junior sister. Harassing her God. She said Jesus you are the one they are talking about. Church Gist. The following Sunday she went and the next Sunday she kept going. She became pregnant in that season. That same season not the following season because she was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. We have a Yoruba woman here in the Yoruba Church. She doesn’t speak one word of English and we didn’t have Yoruba fliers. She was going around telling people in Yoruba. Some women in the neighbourhood started to mock her. The reason why you are going about is that you don’t have a child. Can anybody who has a child be going about like this? In that season she became pregnant. She brought forth her first child at 52. In this Church. So these are not theoretical. Thank God there were no videos in our time, you will see the kind of insult that we enjoyed. Insults of all kinds. If you don’t know where you are going, you will bang it from there. You say be saved, did I tell you I was lost? People just don’t think. Be born again, to where? Somebody’s blood washed away your sins, where is it? They said He shed it 2000 years ago and it is still there.
7. We must serve Him as a privilege not as a burden.
He reacts sharply against anyone making Him look like a taskmaster. It is a privilege. Church Gist. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. So we are among the people that are not, to make something out of us. Jeremiah 23:33-40.
8. We must engage sacrificially.
Come out of your comfort zone. To see what you have never seen step out to do what you have never done. Psalm 126:1-2. Their story turned at the altar of sacrifice not by waiting and wishing. Now we have this glorious month and this midst of the year, you better wake up. There is nothing extraordinary on its own. Church Gist. It is extraordinary input that makes it so. If you want to see what you have never seen then engage at the level you have never engaged before. If you are as casual as before it will still be the same result. Psalm 50:5. There is always a declaration of transformation in response to our genuine sacrifice for the course of His kingdom.
9. We serve Him tirelessly.
We have just finished nine weeks. Yes! There are 52 weeks in a year. Some fellows just need two more souls to step into their new realm. Some need three more to step into a new level. Another opportunity is here to move you from the street corners to the highways of life. It is just an opportunity after opportunity after opportunity. You won’t miss this one. You are not serving the Church. You are not serving your Papa. You are serving Christ and He is recording your input for reward. Hebrews 6:10. God is not unrighteous to forget. Some will not go and they won’t let others go. ‘Another harvest is here and you are going. What did the last harvest do in your life?’ Don’t partner with people that are going nowhere. Proverbs 13:20. People who despise God should not be around your life. They will drag you down. It is easier for someone that is on the floor to pull me down and than for me to drag him up. Stay clear of him, you are running a risk hanging around people that don’t have any reverence for God. They will run you down and start laughing at you. Before you know it, they just put a hook in your nose and drag you to where they drink, from drinking to smoking, from smoking to cocaine. I prayed all night, Lord make my ears deaf to things that do not edify. Church Gist. Make my eyes blind to things that do not build up. One all night before the Lord. He answered me. He will answer you too. There are people around your life that won’t let you go forward. When will you have your life? What I am having now is it death? Where I will never be in my life they are hearing me. Is that life or death? Let’s wake up.
10. Above all, our stewardship must be love motivated to be highly profitable.
1 Corinthians 13:3. Love motivated stewardship is the most profitable stewardship. Let our love for God be the motivation behind our input and we will be glad we did. Church Gist. My prayer is that everybody will experience a new dawn in his or her spiritual life.
Give God thanks.
Jesus never hung around hypocrites. Jesus prayed all night to get the right company to keep. It is time to pray to locate the right company to keep. Most youths are off their course today through peer pressure. Who brought you under pressure? You did. By going among vain persons you become vain. Jesus was a time conscious saviour, He said my time is not yet. Your time is always there, you don’t even know your timing. There were the sons of Issachar who knew what Israel ought to do per time. Church Gist. It appears to be a prophetic family. 1 Chronicles 12:32. This is what to do for this hour, reposition for a personal revival that will impact your spiritual life and the lives of those around you. You won’t miss this time. Jesus will not weep over any of us. This season of glory will not pass any one of us by.
We can’t treat His commandments with levity and expect Him to treat us with dignity, it doesn’t work. He that honours me, I will honour. When God honours a man no devil can dishonour Him. May you win the honour of your heavenly Father this time by giving Him the honour due to Him. Come means come not ‘I have a lot of things to do’ and the lots of things is to watch television. Church Gist. My mentor said ‘Meet me in Makurdi’ and I did. When I got there, he said “so you came? I said Yes Sir. Kneel down, from today I impart to you the gift of on time. Before the need arises, the supply will be there. Can money buy that? All these people pulling shoulders is not the way to go.
I have served under my own convert before. So if you say somebody is your father and he said you should come, you are asking what he will say. Church Gist. You don’t belong there. My appeal to you is that this is not a club, it is a family. There is order in every home.
On Sunday, please ignore the devil. God wants to break invisible barriers on your path then they said fuel is scarce. Where there is a will there must be a way. Church Gist. Find your way there. You can’t see those barriers but they are stirring you, holding you back. It is your turn at last.
– In the name of Jesus, you will be wondered at this year.
– Before these eight weeks are over you have become a testimonial.
– God will surprise you and your household this season.
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