GOD CANNOT DO MUCH WITH THE ARROGANT, PEOPLE WHO ARE OVERCONFIDENT OF THEIR RESOURCES AND WORSHIP THEIR POTENTIALS
THERE MUST BE A COLLAPSE OF PRIDE IF THERE MUST BE THE RELEASE OF DIVINE PURPOSE
THERE IS SOMETHING IN OUR LIVES THAT GOD MAY NEED TO BREAK OR TOUCH BEFORE HE CAN MAKE USE OF MAN
WHEN PROPHET ISAIAH CAME TO THE END OF HIMSELF HE WAS AT THE BEGINNING WITH GOD
WHO YOU HEAR AND WHAT YOU HEAR WILL DETERMINE THE OUTCOME OF YOUR LIFE.
WHOSE VOICE ARE YOU HEARING? WHO IS SPEAKING INTO YOUR LIFE? WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT VOICE IN YOUR EARS?
THERE ARE MANY OF US HEARING THE VOICE OF SOCIETY AND TAKING DECISIONS BASED ON SOCIETY.
SOME OF US ARE STILL THRIVING ON YESTERDAY’S INSTRUCTIONS AND WE FAIL TO UNDERSTAND THAT EVERY DAY REQUIRES THE HEARING OF THAT DAY.
IF WE HEARD BEFORE AND WE DON’T HEAR AGAIN WE BECOME PRONE TO ERROR. WE BECOME VICTIMS OF ASSUMPTION.
JESUS CALLED TWELVE AND ONE WAS A JUDAS BUT MANY TIMES WE CALL TWELVE AND ELEVEN ARE JUDASES
LIFE IS SIMPLER THAN WE MAKE IT. THINGS DON’T HAVE TO BE TEDIOUS FOR THEM TO BE GLORIOUS.
IN THE SIMPLICITY OF GOD IS THE PRODUCTIVITY OF MAN.
THERE ARE SOME OF US WHO HAVE GIVEN GIFTS ON WRONG GROUNDS. THERE ARE SO MANY OF US WHO SACRIFICED ON WRONG ALTARS BECAUSE WE NEVER HEARD GOD.
MANY OF US ANOINTED WRONG DEACONS, ANOINTED WRONG ELDERS, ALIGNED WITH WRONG FRIENDS AND WRONG RELATIONSHIPS.
UNTIL YOU KNOW WHO GOD IS, YOU REMAIN UNKNOWN IN YOUR GENERATION
THE CHALLENGE OF OUR GENERATION IS THAT WE KNOW MANY THINGS-WE KNOW FACEBOOK AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA, WE KNOW MAN U AND OTHER CLUBS, WE KNOW BILLIONAIRES, SPORTS AND MOVIE STARS, MUSIC, FASHION, ENTERTAINMENT AND MOVIE TITLES-BUT WE DON’T KNOW WHO WE MUST KNOW
MANY ARE MAKING THEMSELVES KNOWN WITHOUT KNOWING GOD. UNTIL YOU KNOW WHO HE IS, YOU REMAIN UNKNOWN IN YOUR GENERATION.
GOD IS SO DEEP THAT THE MORE YOU KNOW HIM, THE MORE YOU REALIZE HOW MUCH YOU DON’T KNOW HIM. THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IS ADDICTIVE
THOSE WHO BRAG SO MUCH ABOUT THEIR REVELATIONS DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT GOD
THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD IS THE BEGINNING OF STRENGTH AND THE FOUNDATION FOR EXPLOITS
– Dr. Pastor Paul Enenche on “LIGHT FROM HEAVEN 2 – THE PREPARATION OF GOD’S SERVANT” || Glory Conference 2023 || Leeds, England United Kingdom || Day 2 Morning Session || 18th August, 2023
Acts 9:1-5. LIGHT FROM HEAVEN 2 – THE PREPARATION OF GOD’S SERVANT. Our objective is to:
– Understand the process for the preparation of Kingdom vessels.
Yesterday we saw that one of the assignments of the light from Heaven that came for Paul the Apostle was the rescue of a straying soul. That light came to rescue Saul who was straying, who was lost. The 5th assignment of the light was that the light came to prepare God’s Servant – Saul for the assignment ahead of him. Church Gist. Saul became Paul after a series of preparation and we are going to look at ,4 things that happened in the journey of turning Saul to Paul. I am aware that there are people seated here today, there is a heavy purpose of God for your life, I am sure that God has a need for someone here. I believe we came all the way from Abuja, Nigeria because there is a Saul that must become a Paul, because there is a Moses that has been lost in the wilderness.
What was the first thing that happened to Saul when the light came? Acts 9:4.
1. He fell to the Earth: God walks with people who can fall before him. People who can bow before him. What does it mean? There must be a collapse of pride if there must be the release of purpose. Man must come to the end of himself, we must come to the end of our strength. There must be the end of human strength, energy. Church Gist. There must be the realization of human helplessness, powerlessness. The Almighty Saul, he could do and undo; he could harass anybody, he could manhandle anybody. When Stephen was being stoned, he was the one who stood and was encouraging the people to stone him. He gathered his clothes. But that Saul came to the point where he had to fall before somebody.
God cannot do much with the arrogant, the proud, the ostentatious, people who are overconfident of their resources, who worship their strength, talent and potentials. Before God could make Jacob to become Israel he had to weaken his strength. Genesis 32:24-28. Church Gist. This muscle of the thigh – the ham’s strings muscle is the most powerful muscle in the body – that is what makes us to walk erect instead of bending over like animals. God had to touch that muscle and the moment he weakened him, he said, “now take power. I give you my power.” There is something in our lives that God may need to break, touch. There is a claim of something that God needs to get before he can make a use of man.
You remember the example of Isaiah – Isaiah was the very prolific prophet who was saying, “woe woe” to everybody until he came into the presence of the Lord and when he came in, he saw his own wretchedness, powerlessness, weakness, nakedness and instead of saying woe to everybody he said, “woe is me…” Isaiah 6:1. Church Gist. When he came to the end of himself he was at the beginning with God.
We must need to come to the end of ourselves if God must begin anything with us. Church Gist. We must come to the point where we are empty of ourselves if God must fill us with Himself. He fell to the earth.
2. He heard a voice.
The voice of God is key to fulfilling the purpose of God for our lives. Acts 9:4-5. The voice of God is key to becoming who God wants us to become in life. Whether it is in ministry or business and endeavour of life. Let me say something and don’t forget it for life: who you hear and what you hear will determine the outcome of your life. I can illustrate this. Eve heard a voice, it was the voice of a serpent, that voice led to the disaster of humanity. Eve opened her ears and heard the voice of the serpent. Who you hear, what you hear determines your outcome in life. Samson heard a voice, it was the voice of Delilah. The voice of a prostitute. That voice led him to his premature death. That voice led him to the abortion of his destiny. That voice made him a pauper in his generation, that voice ended his ministry. He gave his ears to a harlot. Eve heard the serpent, Samson heard Delilah. Amnon, the son of David, heard the voice of his friend, Jonadab. He heard the voice of his friend who gave him disastrous advice. Church Gist. That disastrous counsel led him to the raping of his sister. That rape led him to his own premature death because Absalom the brother of Tamar organized and killed Amnon. It all began with Amnon hearing a voice. The voice of a friend. Eve heard the voice of the serpent. Samson heard the voice of a harlot. Amnon heard the voice of a friend.
Where we are reading now, Saul of Tarsus heard the voice of his boss, the High Priest gave him a letter to go to Damascus and waste people’s lives. All these people heard the voice of one thing or the other. It wasn’t as if the people were necessarily bad people but the voice, what they spoke were bad things and it led to the disaster and destruction of those who heard those voices. There was someone else who heard differently, his name was Peter. Matthew 16:13-17. That voice made Peter the pillar of the Early Church. The question I am asking today is whose voice are you hearing? Who is speaking into your life? What is the most important voice in your ears? When you wake up in the morning what voice are you hearing? There are many of us hearing the voice of society and taking decisions based on society. There are many following the effects of the bandwagon. There are many who are not serving God as they should because they heard the voice of a friend. There are many doing ministry somehow because they heard the voice of a colleague. There are people whose destinies have been aborted because they heard the voice of someone. There are people who relocated from one place to the other when they needed not to relocate at all. Just that they heard a voice. Somebody gave them counsel, they heard a voice and that voice took them out of their destiny permanently. My prayer is that no one will hear the wrong voice.
There are those whose ears are deaf, who are bankrupt of direction. One of the things that God will do in this conference is that he will cause your ears to open. There are those who have never heard God before who will be hearing God for the first time. Listen to this my brothers and sisters, there are some of us who heard God before but we came to the point in our lives where we don’t hear again. We heard before. What we heard took us into ministry, what we heard maybe brought us into the U.K. What we heard made us invest in a particular business but we are still living on old revelations, we are still celebrating past instructions. We are still thriving on yesterday’s hearing and we fail to understand that every day requires the hearing of that day. Church Gist. Day unto day utters speech. Night unto night sheweth knowledge. Psalm 19:1-2. We fail to realize that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God. If we heard before and we don’t hear again we become prone to error. We become victims of assumption. Assumption is the platform for frustration.
Let me give you the danger of hearing and not hearing again. You heard before clearly but you are not hearing again, you are out of touch.
Example One is Abraham. When God told him in Genesis 22:1 to take his son and offer him as a burnt offering. Church Gist. Genesis 22:1-4. God told him to take his son to one of the mountains He will them him. On the third day as he lifted up his eyes, God showed him that the mountain you are seeing there is the one. So he heard and he continued hearing. If Abraham had not continued hearing, he would have gone to the wrong mountain. God said one of the mountains which I will tell you. I am the one telling you to offer the sacrifice but it is not on every mountain. There are some of us who have given gifts on wrong grounds. There are so many of us who sacrificed on wrong altars because we never heard God. Not all that glitters is gold. What I am telling you now God showed it to me overnight. You release your giving, your effort, your labour on the wrong altar. Church Gist. Some people… A woman came to me many years ago and told me how she went somewhere to give an offering. The person accepting the offering said God said she should give an offering, she said okay and was giving a certain amount and the person said God said it is not enough, you should increase the offering. She said this is what I have. Long story made short, she gave and then things dried. God said to Abraham there are many mountains but it is not all the mountains. I will show you the particular mountain.
When he came to that mountain, he carried his sword to kill his son. If it was many of us Isaac was dead but by virtue of the fact that he continued hearing, he heard another instruction. “I am the one who told you to kill the boy but I can confirm from your heart that you are willing to do it, don’t do it again”. Church Gist. By hearing God error was eliminated, assumption was cancelled and Abraham was able to fulfill divine purpose. Many of us killed many Isaacs that didn’t need to die. Because the last thing we heard from God was to kill Isaac and after we heard from God the first one, we didn’t hear the last one.
Another example is when God asked Samuel to go to the house of Jesse in 1 Samuel 16. 1 Samuel 16:1-7. What an error! Samuel suffered for nothing, causing seven of the children to pass, Shammah, Eliab, Abinadab, all of them passed and still God said I have chosen none of them. This was a waste of time and a literal waste of life that was not needed. God said when you arrive at the house of Jesse ask me who is the one. I will name him for you. You will anoint who I will name. All that is needed is ‘Lord, I am in the house of Jesse. Who is it?’ and God will say his name is David. Then he will ask Jesse who is David among your sons? Then he will say David is not at home, he is in the bush. Alright go and bring David. Can you see how many times we suffered unnecessarily? Church Gist. Wasted unnecessary time and energy, Wasted time and labour because we fail to hear working hard without results? If not for God he would have anointed the wrong head. Many of us anointed wrong deacons, anointed wrong elders, aligned with wrong friends and wrong relationships. Jesus called twelve and one was a Judas. Many times we call twelve and eleven are Judases. Church Gist. I announce to somebody here this morning, your ears shall be opened and you shall hear the next thing God wants you to do. You shall receive the next instruction.
Prayers: lift your hand and say Father, I cannot afford to gamble with my life, with my destiny, with my assignment. Help me Lord to hear you consistently.
If this is the only reason why God brought us for this meeting. Life is more simple than we make it. Things don’t have to be tedious for it to be glorious. They don’t have to be so tedious. In the simplicity of God is the productivity of man. Church Gist. I will name him, just ask me who he is. He now went all over and till the end of the day, you failed seven times. You will not fail another time. You will hear the voice of God.
3. He realized who God was.
Acts 9:5. The day God introduces Himself to you that day you can be introduced to your World. That is the beginning of your introduction to your generation – the introduction of God to a man. If God will introduce Himself to you, then you can begin to be introduced to your world. Church Gist. He did the same for Moses in Exodus 3. Who will I say sent me? He said, “I AM THAT I AM”. As you are getting to know who I am now, your generation will get to know who you are.
Many are making themselves known without knowing God. Many are struggling to be known and they do not know the one that must be known. Until you know who he is, you remain unknown in your generation. Daniel 11:32. The knowledge of God is the beginning of strength, the foundation for exploits. Church Gist. If you’re trusting God for supernatural strength you must come to the point where you will cry like Paul the Apostle, “that I may know him…” Philippians 3:10. The knowledge of God is the foundation for outstanding manifestations. He said to Saul, “I am Jesus Christ” – being introduced to your world is a function of God introducing himself to you.
Jeremiah 9:23-24. Don’t boast that you have money, qualification is good but don’t let that be your boast, don’t boast that you are powerful. Let your boasting be a function of the degree of your knowledge of me. To what extent do you know Jehovah? To what extent do you know the one who passes through Red Sea without being wet? Church Gist. To what extent do you know the one who slays, who buries his enemies without a sight of their burial ground? To what extent do you know the one who does not sleep and does not slumber and is not tired or sleepy? To what extent do you know the one who says every Christian in the world, we are the apple of his eyes? Then how big is the eye? How big is the head that carries the eye? How big is the body that carries the head? The one who says, “I sit in the Heaven and the Earth is my footstool”?
We need to know the God. One day, I saw the Scripture in Revelation 18:1 that an angel stood with one leg in the Sea and another leg in the River. How big is that God? I believe that the Lord is calling us to a new dimension of the knowledge of him. The truth of the matter is: God is so deep that the more you know him, the more you realize how much you don’t know him. The knowledge of God is addictive. You get hooked on God. So whenever you see anybody bragging about his knowledge of God, know that he doesn’t know God – he’s an ignorant person. Church Gist. I’ve seen a lot of people, they brag so much about how they saw this and saw that and God took them here… They don’t know anything; they don’t know nothing about God. There are things that we have seen and heard that are too sacred to be shared. When you see people sharing secret things carelessly, they have no knowledge of God.
The challenge of our generation is that we know many things. We know the internet, Facebook, YouTube, Tiktok, social media. We know the sports, the games, especially in England. We know Arsenal, Chelsea, Man U, we know all of them. Church Gist. We know the movie stars, the sports stars, the music stars, we know the world billionaires and their worth. We know various movie titles, fashion, entertainment, we know many many things. We can be praised for knowing many things; our challenge is that what we must know we don’t know. Who we must know we don’t know.
If after 33 years Paul the Apostle said, “that I may know him…” after the handkerchief had healed the sick, after Paul had been to heaven many many times. Church Gist. After Moses who used the rod to tear apart the Red Sea, who used the rod to bring water from the rock, who lifted up his hand and Pharaoh was buried In the Red Sea, if after such exploits Moses said, show me your glory, then what do we know?
Many many years ago I told God and said, ‘I don’t want to be a stranger to you trying to introduce people to you.’ I don’t want to behave like I know you so much when I know that I need to know you more than I do. Church Gist. Beloved brothers and sisters, this was what happened to Paul. God introduced himself and he wanted to know, “who are you?”
– Somebody here today, before this Conference is over, Father introduce yourself to me. It’s not just that I want to be known but I want to know you.
One day I was preaching, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth and I was about to preach from Genesis 1. Early in the morning before that preaching service I was in a revelation – “Lord, before you stepped into the beginning how was the Earth before you said, let there be light?” Church Gist. I can’t describe what I saw. What the Hebrew call, Tohu wa-bohu, emptiness multiplied by darkness.
One day my wife came to my study room and she met me weeping profusely. Church Gist. I was worshipping and asking him to let me know him.
#DrPaulEnenche
#DrBeckyEnenche
#TheGloryIsRisen
#LightHasCome
#DIGC
#GloryConference2023
#GloryDome
#18August2023
#ChurchGist
