I WANT TO SPECIALLY CONGRATULATE OUR MOTHER, ARCHBISHOP MARGARET BENSON IDAHOSA TODAY ON THIS AWESOME GIFT OF LIFE.
WHEN I TOLD MY FRIEND I HAD BOUGHT A GREAT VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE, HE MADE A ‘GOD FORBID’ SIGN
IN ONE DAY I HAVE GIVEN OUT 23 CARS
YOU CAN ASK GOD QUESTIONS BUT DON’T QUESTION HIM
MY CAR WAS USED TO BREAKING DOWN IN THOSE DAYS AND EVEN WHEN THE ENGINE BURNT ME ALL I SAID WAS ‘THANK YOU JESUS’.
THANKSGIVING IS AN ADDICTION THAT ADDS VALUE TO MY LIFE EVERYDAY
THANK GOD FOR THAT FLAT, IT WILL SOON BECOME A MANSION
DON’T SEE THANKSGIVING IN CHURCH AS OFFERING COLLECTION SEASON, WE ARE JUST SHOWING GOD OUR GRATITUDE
WHEN YOU COMPLAIN AND SAY, ‘NOTHING IS WORKING’, IT IS AN INSULT ON GOD.
– Bishop David Oyedepo on WE OWE GOD THANKS AT CGMI MEGACON 2023 || Day 6, Morning Session / Celebration Service of Archbishop Margaret Benson Idahosa’s 80th Birthday || 29th July 2023.
Father, we give you thanks for the opportunity we have to be part of the celebration today. May celebration never cease in everyone’s household. I pray that the goodwill of everyone today will be speaking in their families forever. Thank you Jesus for a very successful MEGACON. Receive our thanks in the name of Jesus. Church Gist. Today is your precious daughter’s birthday. Jesus thank you for the gift of life. Thank you for the grace you have granted her. Thank you for the good hand upon her life. Thank you for everything that speaks of your glory. Take all the praise in Jesus name. Speak to us this morning Jesus, in Jesus’ precious name.
I want to specially congratulate our mother today on this awesome gift of life. Life is not a right, life is a gift. No one did anything to appear here. We landed here all by grace. We came to life all by grace. Nobody played a part to be born. Life is not a right, life is a gift. That is the root of a thankful life. When you know it is all the gift of God. Jeremiah 1:5. It is all a gift. Church Gist. Before the two were born, God made His choice, Jacob I loved, Esau I hated. They haven’t done anything. Life is a gift. That is where the journey begins. Recognizing that we are just an embodiment of God’s grace.
I speak on the subject WE OWE GOD THANKS. It is a debt we owe and a debt we must pay. We owe God thanks. The celebrant of today owes God thanks. All well-wishers who have come to celebrate with us, we owe God thanks.
In the Kingdom of God, success and exploits are not achievements, they are mere engracements. Paul said I am what I am by the grace of God. Behind any great happenings in any life is the grace of God. No one can be any more than the grace of God makes him. We owe God thanks. Church Gist. We owe God thanks and we are here to give God thanks for the life of our mother, Archbishop Margaret Benson-Idahosa who turns eighty today.
What is in thanksgiving? People get weary about thanksgiving because they don’t know what virtues are in it. What virtues are in thanksgiving?
Preservation of God’s blessings.
If you want His blessings preserved, give Him thanks. Malachi 2:1-3. Thankless people hardly sustain God’s blessings. It is not a thing you will have to feel like, it is a thing you must do. It is a thing we must do. Blessings are cheaply reversible when you don’t know how to preserve them. You may have three baskets of tomatoes today, but by next tomorrow you won’t have anything again. It is gone because it was not preserved. Many have seen blessings before but they can’t see it anymore because they are thankless. If you don’t thank God for small, you won’t see big. Church Gist. You don’t thank Him for big, you won’t see bigger. You don’t thank Him for bigger, you won’t see the biggest. It is thanksgiving that multiplies things. Jeremiah 13:16.-17. Behind thanklessness is pride. You see something and you say it is nothing. I shared with you yesterday that I have given testimony of 200 naira in my life. See how God is blessing me. I have given testimony of 500 naira but that is not where I am. We are not here by right, we owe God thanks.
Thanksgiving is a mystery that multiplies God’s blessings in our lives. We saw that in John 6 when Jesus gave thanks for two fishes and five loaves of bread and it multiplied supernaturally. Thanksgivers never go down. They keep enjoying the grace of multiplication in their lives. You know why food finishes in our stores, we are thankless. What about fish? Finished. Water? Finished. Church Gist. You finished it yourself. A family years ago testified about blessing water to eat with thanksgiving for dinner. Parents and children drank water to bed. The following day two bags of rice arrives at their door. Nobody knew how. Thanksgivers never get stranded. Thanksgivers multiply God’s hand in our lives. May we all become addicted to a life of thanksgiving from today.
One of my sons was reminding me that in 1989, I was giving testimonies in our pastor’s meeting that can’t they see the way God is blessing me? I get blessings of a thousand naira every week. Isn’t that wonderful and amazing? Church Gist. I wasn’t nagging or flattering God, I was celebrating Him. Is that where I am today? If you don’t want to stay there for too long give God thanks for where you are. Give God thanks intentionally, it is a vital mystery of the Kingdom.
Thanksgiving brings perfection of God’s blessings.
That leper returned and Jesus said “Were there not ten cleansed?” God is counting those who return. When you don’t return with thanks for what He does. You have asked Him to stay His hand. The one that returned was made whole. Church Gist. In thanksgiving lies the perfection of God’s blessings for our lives. The Lord wants to perfect all things that concern us. How will He perfect them? Through the mystery of thanksgiving as a way of life.
The first time my wife came to our Church because our Church Ministry began in Kaduna, she couldn’t believe Service was over. We were 21 that day, it was a great Service. She couldn’t marry the way I used to return back home after every weekend meeting. What? And God blessed us that day, we were two above the previous Sunday – We were 19 the previous Sunday, she added to it making 20 and somebody came making 21. Thanksgiving!!! Thanksgiving it went to 50, thanksgiving to 100, thanksgiving to 200, thanksgiving to 500. Sir, don’t let God turn His God on you, acknowledge Him! Church Gist. Somebody asked me many years ago, ‘I learned that you got a car Bro David’, I said: ‘Yes, God gave me a fantastic car’. Did I hear it’s Volkswagen Beetle’? I said: ‘Yes’. And he did like this (God forbid). ‘If riding a Volkswagen is riding a car, God forbid’. It was fantastic to me oo! Fantastic! The gift of God! But one day, this short man gave out 23 cars as gifts. From one rickety Volkswagen Beetle that people even preach against. They said: ‘Why won’t they preach prosperity, they need to ride a car, they need to ride a good car’. One day, the same short boy with one rickety Volkswagen Beetle gave out 23 cars at a go!
-Jesus will change your story! Allow Him to do it.
Now watch, it’s a good thing to give thanks Psalms 92:1-2 and 10. There is a fresh oil mystery in thanksgiving, the more thankful a believer, the fresher the oil on his life. Don’t let the oil on your life go stale, you complain about everything!!!! You even come to say: ‘Nothing is working’! What? And you are talking? Your mouth is working? Your brain is working? Your heart is working? Your lungs are working? He says: ‘Nothing is working’. It’s an insult on God! ‘Let everything that has breath, praise the Lord’. Church Gist. You mean God who kept you night and day, He never slept and you say: ‘Nothing is working’! ‘God, I don’t believe you are keeping anybody, no, no nothing is working’. What is happening? ‘It’s tyre God, I mean I had a flat tyre, nothing is working’. What happened? ‘His car broke down, nothing is working’. Who dash monkey banana? Were you born with a car? Let’s wake up!! Don’t let the oil on your head go down, be thankful! Be thankful, it’s the way out! In everything! Give thanks! They may not look like what you are looking for but give thanks if they must look like it at all. Give thanks to make them become what you are looking for, if you don’t give thanks they can’t become it 1 Thessalonians 5:18, Hebrews 10:36. So we give thanks to God in all things.
We were going to Kaduna one time and my car broke down, it is used to breaking down! Because it was its silencer that came out, I went under to see if I could get something to tie it then my hand touched the hot silencer. Oh! The first thing that came was: ‘Thank you Jesus’!! Not, what is this? Church Gist. Never ask God why oo on any issue! You will stay long! Job was asking why? He stayed long! You can ask God questions but don’t question God. Don’t ever question God, it will drain your thanksgiving attitude! Don’t ever question God, He is always working in your favour and my favour whether we know it or not! He’s still working, He’s on duty! The reason why we are alive! Fresh oil is in thanksgiving!
God said concerning David, ‘I’ve found my son David, with my holy oil have I anointed him…’. Fresh oil pertains to thanksgivers Psalms 89:20. You want the oil on your head to be fresh? Get out of the company of murmurers, get out of their company they will drain you complete! Life in the Kingdom and in this side of Jordan they are not the same oo. Church Gist. If you cross over to Benin Republic today you come under that constitution immediately, the Nigerian Police cannot arrest you there because you are off our territory. When you leave this natural kingdom to the Kingdom of God there are rules that guide it. Those that murmured in the Wilderness were destroyed, they were not assisted, the oil on them went dry so the enemy could afflict them 1 Corinthians 10:10 and in Numbers 21, the people complained and God heard it – It displeased God and He sent plagues into the camp.
-May everything complaining in anyone here come to an end here today.
-May you go back with a baptism of the Spirit of thanksgiving.
-May thanksgiving become your way of life from now.
Now, finally, what is in thanksgiving?
Divine presence
The greatest asset of any believer. We enter into His gate with thanksgiving that is the protocol of access to God’s presence. And we get through to His presence in the innermost court with thanksgiving and worship Psalms 100:4. Our access through His gate is thanksgiving! You’re murmuring get off! You’re complaining, go somewhere else! You can’t pass through His gate without thanksgiving.
🎶 O seun!! Baba! O seun!! Baba… 🎶
And you enter into His presence thanking and blessing God. So thanksgiving to begin, thanksgiving to access the utmost Presence of God. There is no murmurer who can carry His presence, there is no complainer who can carry His presence.
I returned from a trip years ago and I learnt that my car was taken away by some unknown fellows and I said, “I hope the security men are okay?” They said, “yes, they are okay. In fact, one of them went with them”, that means they arranged. I said, “Thank you Jesus”. Church Gist. Now, somebody sitting in front of the car had no idea that anything went off. So, he was now trying to talk to me when we were about getting home about the car, I said, “No, no, I’ve heard about it”. Church Gist. It stunned him till tomorrow that there was no noise, no yelling, it ended there. “Thank you Lord”.
– Praise God!
Relax! You don’t want to put God off because when God gets off your back, nothing works. When God takes His hands off our lives, nothing works. Church Gist. So, we owe God thanks. You wake up in the morning, “I slept and I woke because the Lord sustained me. Father, I thank you”. You know how to fight when you’re awake, what of when you’re asleep? Who is fighting your battle? Mama, for 80 years, you slept and woke up, we owe God thanks on your behalf and you owe God thanks as a person which you do always. Church Gist. Please, let this become what accompanies our spiritual life – thanksgiving.
I drove with a friend of mine, Mike Murdock and he said to me, he said, “between the town and the campus, you have said ‘praise the Lord, thank you Jesus’ 72 times”. Church Gist. You know, he has a way of counting things. He said, “I was wondering whether you were even following what we were discussing or not”. 72 times, it’s an addiction and it’s adding value to my life everyday. Please, take it on, be thankful. At that time, Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, “I thank you Father Lord, God of Heaven. I thank you”. Church Gist. Jesus never ran short in Thanksgiving addiction and He’s our example. Thank God for that room, it will soon become two. Thank God for that room and parlour, it will soon become a flat. Thank God for that flat, it will soon become a mansion. You’re going somewhere, if you know how to get there and you decide to go by it, you will get there in no time. Church Gist. We owe God thanks on a daily basis, particularly, as we celebrate birthdays that He kept us between the year before and the new year, we owe God thanks.
So, don’t see thanksgiving in Church as offering collection season, we are just showing God our gratitude. Church Gist. It shouldn’t be end of the year, it should be every time. Thanking God for His acts and having a schedule of Thanksgiving is not anything absurd, it’s normal. So that all the people that have bad days during that month and others, they become conscious, I need to thank God who has kept me till now. Church Gist. You got a job, how? Everybody that went to school with you, did they all come out? How many of them are alive now? You owe God thanks. Church Gist. Those who are smarter than you, did they get a job to do? Yet, Jesus chose to honour. Please, let’s be thankful.
For the celebrant of today, we are all thankful on your behalf that grace has led you to this point. Church Gist. We are thankful that your eyes are seeing these things today. We are thankful that the will of the enemy did not succeed in your life. We are thankful that He has kept you healthy and agile and you’re moving. We are thankful that you’re protected and your entire family. Church Gist. We are thankful that the Church of God is still growing and moving and advancing. We are thankful to God that the Word of life has not failed in your mouth. We are thankful that you’re still standing strong in the Faith. We are thankful that you still have all of us around you at this time. We are thankful that you’re never alone for once in your life. We are thankful for all the leadership of the Church that has been standing firm. Church Gist. We are thankful for all the ones who are adding value to this ministry. We are thankful. I pray that today would be a day that each of us here in this assembly will remember that you owe God thanks.
– Can I hear you say with me, “I owe God thanks and I know why I owe God thanks. I don’t want to miss these virtues, so help me Jesus to remain ever thankful even when things appear not to be working. If I must see them work, I must give you thanks. Thank you Jesus!”
Now, I’m going to close with one verse of Scripture. Habakkuk 3:17-19. That’s where we are going.
—PRAYERS
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