God is interested in every minute details of your life

 *PNUR GLOBAL DAY OF FASTING AND PRAYERS* 

Thursday 31 August 2023

 *God is interested in every minute details of your life* 

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. Luke 12:6-7NIV

Many still wonder why some prayers they have placed before God have not received visible response or expressible indication that God is doing something about them. This has led some people to conclude that God does not love them as much as He loves others, and in some cases, they begin to doubt that God actually exist. They imagine that if God really existed, He would have hurried up to solve the problems which they considered needed urgent attention.

There are those who think that they are not important enough for God to act on their cases. They still love God and remain in the church, but they have accepted a status that is not true about their position in Christ. These kind have thrown their fate to the wind, and they move about mournfully

Let us piece up the text here

The God who cares for common sparrows will care for anything. Yes, you are worth more than sparrows and so be assured that God cares for you

Five sparrows are sold for two pennies, which does not make God overlook them.

 God does not need the sparrows to remain God. Rather, it is the sparrows that need God to survive. So God is dealing with the sparrows according to His benevolence, not because of the financial worth of the sparrows

God does not and can not forget us. It is not in His character to just forget. 

This word is coming from the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. The Lord Jesus Christ says that we should accept everything He said as direct from the father because He and the Father are one. Any other spirit that tells you that God has forgotten you is from the enemy of God; the devil. Rather, God is dealing with important details of your life, and He is not focusing on your screaming or complaining. This is expressed in the phrase, “the hairs on your head are numbered”. That means DETAILS. When things are counted without being numbered, there may not be specific information about them. Numbering them means that each of them gets specific attention.

This means that God is dealing with every area of your life, and He is careful that urgent things do not take the place of important things. Yes, this is where we make serious mistake; we often give attention to urgent things because they are screaming and jumping before us. In this way, many people have discovered that only too late that marriage should have waited so they can get a good education.

 There are those who discovered that if they only took more time to get a kind of training, instead of rushing into quick money, they would not have lost their future and children the way they did. God is dealing with us based on the whole picture and vision of what He wants to work out in your life.

The first thing God wants for you is that you secure your place in the book of life. You might have spent the past twenty years praying to go abroad, but God is focused on the fact that if you don’t give your life to Christ, you will end up in eternal doom in hellfire. Unfortunately, you may see things differently, and so you are working hard at other things. He is holding those things back because of the larger picture. You might have been praying for political appointments, but God wants you to grow up spiritually so that you will be able to weather the spiritual challenges associated with politics. But you may think otherwise, and instead of spending much time studying the word of God and sitting down to understand sound bible teachings, you are running from one prophet to another.

One other important thing God wants every believer to have is the in-filling of the Holy Spirit. Yet, many Christians are not focused on that. They are contented with what the prophets will tell them. They are satisfied each time they are given a white handkerchief or bottle of olive to pray with. God lays greater importance on nothing else for the believer in Christ Jesus as He holds for our coming to be filled with the Holy Spirit. A Christian without the in-filling of the Holy Spirit is vulnerable endangered species of a human being. He is not safe! He is not secured!

God wants us to be filled with Himself. Holy Spirit is God indwelling you. He is the key and power to pursue, overtake and recover all. God does not groom thumb lickers as His children. All those thumb-licking generation of Christians that we see everywhere are living at discount of the grace of God.

Isaac and Rebeca spent twenty years praying for fruit of the womb but God knew that they were not ready for children. Yes, that you are ripe in age does not mean that you are ripe in character. After much pestering and pleading, God gave them a pair of twin. It became clear that they were not ready because they turned Esau and Jacob into two rival political parties. The boys parted ways in a painful way and they never were able to trust themselves because of divisive parenting 

Are you praying for life partner?

Are you praying for financial breakthrough?

Are you praying for a job?

Are you praying for social elevation?

Are you praying for contracts?

Whatever you are asking from God, I want you to understand from today that God has no problem with blessing you but He is looking at the whole details of your life.

Pray today that God will fill you with Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit.

Halleluiah!

We can also see that there is no way God will eventually lose us in the crowd. He knows us by our number. Yes, if we are missing the counting will not tally. 

Yes, hold that firmly! No matter who God has blessed, your turn will come.

I believe that this is what the Psalmist sees about God here.

He determines the number of the stars and calls them each by name. Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit Ps 147:4-5 NIV

Hey! If you are serving the same God as I do, then rejoice because that is the God we are talking about. 

On this holy day of PNUR GLOBAL DAY OF FASTING AND PRAYERS, come in faith, come trusting and pray with all the confidence you can muster.

Who knows, this may be your turn to celebrate

We have already started to pray for you.

Send your prayer topics in faith.

Join the fast

Enjoy the day in God’s presence, and believe me, God knows you are there.

I have prayed for you

Emma, your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com

What is God’s attitude to moneys given to servants of God?

 

You sent me aid again and again when I was in need. Not that I am looking for a gift, but I am looking for what may be credited to your account. Phil 4:16-17NIV

Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. …. Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God. 2 Cor 9:6, 10-11 NIV

I welcome you to this glorious New Week and I pray the light and favor of God over you in Jesus name.

I want to use this opportunity to appreciate all PNUR Family and Partners for their support during the planning of PNUR International Prayer and Revival Convention – August Special. Thanks to all who sent us financial support and those who took out time to come in person.

Permit me to respond to an important issue. There are a lot of confusion going on in the Body of Christ owing to satan’s direct and indirect attack on the Church. Most of this attack would not have bothered us if they are not coming from people we respect as servants of God. These teachers who spread confusion speak with such boldness that it is difficult for one to observe the errors in their teachings. One of the most recent of these attacks is from Rev. Dr. Abel Damina, who claims that moneys and gifts given to servants of God has no heavenly reward. In his words, “Your tithe and offering to your Pastor does not get you a mansion in heaven but only serves your pastors to grow richer on earth”. By this he meant that giving to servants of God does not have eternal rewards.

Our text scriptures totally disagree with his position. Apostle Paul says that moneys and material things given to him earned some credit in their heaven-account. He urged his audience to give so that they will have something to draw from in their time of need. He said that he was glad that they gave to him as he did the Lord’s work because their gifts was on their credit before God. The phrase, “I am looking for what may be credited to your account’ is in the same sense as when some money has been put into someone’s bank account because of some service or work rendered somewhere. In the same sense, the one to whom such money has been credited will have the right to draw from the amount in the future. The Apostle Paul was not shy to express this and I am among those that is currently drawing from such sacrifices.

In the second scripture, he was bold to say that the amount we gave mattered. He said that if we give sparingly, we will reap according to what we have given. This point is important because there are those who see servants of God as, “poor and needy” and they express this in the manner and amount of their gifts to them. I warn servants of God never to receive any giving that places you on the same level as “less-privileged”.

Yet it is important that giving should not be forced. 

Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver 2 Cor 9:7NIV

Should we receive ministry support from the poor people? 

There is no discrimination in spiritual matters. Bible says that we open doors to receive if we give. Giving is like sowing and if you sow nothing, you cannot reap at the time of harvest. This is one of the principal reasons that the poor get poorer because they have nothing in their heaven-account. Here is an example of some poor people practicing giving and how Apostle Paul responded to it.

And now, brothers, we want you to know about the grace that God has given the Macedonian churches. Out of the most severe trial, their overflowing joy and their extreme poverty welled up in rich generosity. For I testify that they gave as much as they were able, and even beyond their ability. Entirely on their own, they urgently pleaded with us for the privilege of sharing in this service to the saints. And they did not do as we expected, but they gave themselves first to the Lord and then to us in keeping with God's will. 2 Cor 8:1-5NIV

The Lord Jesus Christ supports that the poor should give and He even honors their great sacrifice in the practice of giving.

As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. "I tell you the truth," he said, "this poor widow has put in more than all the others. All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on." Luke 21:1-4NIV

According to the Lord Jesus Christ, a poor person that gave Ten Dollars from his Fifteen Dollars has given more than a rich man that gave One thousand Dollars from his One Hundred Thousand Dollars because of the percentage implication. 

Does God multiply our gifts and bless us accordingly? Yes He does!

Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion

This is what the bible teaches Christians and whoever attacks this position is attacking the God of the bible. The person cannot still claim to be a Christian after he has countered this position.

Does God see our giving from heaven? Yes, He does!

At Caesarea there was a man named Cornelius, a centurion in what was known as the Italian Regiment. He and all his family were devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. One day at about three in the afternoon he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God, who came to him and said, "Cornelius!" Cornelius stared at him in fear. "What is it, Lord?" he asked. The angel answered, "Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God Acts 10:1-4NIV

Is it wrong for a servant of God to quit all his other jobs and depend on gifts from people? 

I have heard people say that servants of God should also get themselves secular jobs. It is easy to turn this into a doctrine in our narcissistic generation where most people see giving for God’s agenda as a burden. I want my readers to know that if we all do the ministry work like that, we will never have people who preach in mission fronts. We also won’t have people who plan conferences and crusades from country to country. As I write this, we plan to visit three countries before the end of this year. If I sit down in Port Harcourt tied down to some secular business, I will never be able to achieve this. There are different levels and dimensions of ministry and people should not use ministry as escape from working for a living, but everyone cannot combine their ministry with secular enterprise, otherwise the Great Commission will not be achieved in our time.

I want to also use this opportunity to warn my readers and encourage them to read their bible and not to always depend on the interpretation of other people for their conviction. Servants of God deserve our support financially and materially. God has promised to reward those that give to those of His servants who do the work of the ministry.

And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward." Matt 10:42NIV

This is the prayer that Apostle Paul sent to those that supported his ministry and I pray the same for you.

And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:19NIV

Having said that, I pray that the Lord shall reward all that has supported us at PNUR over the years and I pray that God will make you rich in every way so you can continue to be generous in every occasion. 

I wish you a Happy New Week in Jesus Christ.

I love to hear from you.

Emma your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com

Did you say you want the Anointing?

I'm glad to announce the completion of this book. Anyone who has deep hunger for the Anointing for the next level will be richly blessed by reading it

Available now as soft copy PDF

+2349092862555 WhatsApp

pnurnigeria@gmail.com

 

The Right Ways to Interpret Your Dreams

 *You cannot interpret a dream accurately unless you know the origin of the dream* 

A pastor kept dreaming of his wife being the problem in his church; he would see her setting his church building on fire, driving away new members and planting charms in the church premises. He shared this with a respected elderly woman in the church, whom he considered as very committed and dedicated to the wellbeing of his ministry. The woman advised him to stop sharing his plans with his wife. Soon they formed a special prayer team without the knowledge of his wife and the focus of their prayer is that whoever is responsible for the troubles in the church should die. It was not long his wife became sick and died principally because the pastor deliberately refused to give her good medi-care. After her burial the elderly woman recommended that he should marry another dedicated young woman in the church who had been showing loyalty to him.

It was after the marriage, the pastor soon discovered that his new wife was a witch and his wife had been killed by the witchcraft kingdom to which the elderly woman and his new wife belonged. By the time he ran away from his church, he had become sick, sexually impotent and down in abject poverty. He tells the story with tears in his eyes but he has lost a lot

A woman I once ministered to, told how she had been warned in her dream several times that she must avoid me because I was a wizard masquerading as a pastor. Every night she was abused sexually in her dream, there were lacerations on her skin from witchcraft attacks and her husband was suffering emotionally due to hardship and ill health. Anytime she thought of coming to my center, she will hear voices in her dream warning her of the terrible things I will do to her if she dared. One day she resolved to come anyway, after all what harm could I have caused more than the one she was already in? In the course prayers demons began to manifest and she was delivered from those evil spirits. She ran home to bring her husband and two children who were also delivered. They are back to their business and succeeding.

There are more than two origins of dreams and each source have their reason for sending dream signals. I have read several books by dream experts but I cannot remember any author who took time to try to answer this question. Most of them just went on to teach the meaning of dreams and their interpretations. Not a few of these authors failed to make distinction between the sources of the dreams. In some cases, the dream interpreter is talking from occult background and the meanings he teaches come from that end. It is hard doing a good job on dream interpretation if we don’t know the source of the dream. The source of the dream determines the purpose of the dream. God sends dreams to warn, instruct and guide His children. Satan sends dreams to harass, manipulate or torture his enemies. There are dreams that result from thoughts in our mind or some movies we just watched before going to bed. So if we ignore the sources of the dream, it is hard to interpret them accurately

Occult people and other Satanists pass through dreams to pass their own information and cause harm to people. Anybody who have involved in occult and Indian magic will confirm this. There are times that your environment generates dreams because of where you are.

The only proper way to interpret dreams is to first ask the question, “Where is this dream coming?”

When we are sure that a particular dream is from the devil, we should not expect the dream to bring us peace. We should therefore stand in the power in the name of Jesus Christ and cancel it.

From the book The Right Ways to Interpret Your Dreams

How to handle stigmatization because of Osu Caste System

 When village people block marriage processes because of Osu Caste System)

A member of PNUR Family and Partners WhatsApp Platform sent the following to me. -

Good morning sir. I need counseling for an Igbo brother whose marriage proposal is being rejected not by the sister but by the eldest son of the family on the ground that he is an osu.

I have his permission to use it for public discourse.

For the sake of clarity on the side for those who may not understand the subject, let me do some explanation first.

Osu Caste system – Before the coming of Western Civilization to Africa, there was an ancient practice in Igbo land and I believe also in other parts of Africa when people dedicated themselves to a particular deity. That means that this person is marked as the property of a particular deity. These deity in most cases is the god of the community. There are a number of reasons that could lead to this.

By general consent. Just like the Lord Jesus Christ said, the community unanimously agree to dedicate this person to the community god for him or her to serve as a priest or priestess before their shrine. This is the same a father will dedicate his child to serve as a pastor. We see this when Hanna dedicated Samuel to serve as a priest under Eli. 1Sam1&2

The person is offered as a living sacrifice on the altar of the said god to appease the god or to seek his favor. In the olden days some of these people could be killed like every other animal as a sacrifice and others are left alive to serve the priest of the altar as bond-slaves for life. This is the background of the word, Outcast. Unfortunately as time progressed, all of them were rated as Outcasts.

A person may willing dedicate himself as a property of the said deity on the altar in the presence of the priest. This often happens when the person has too many enemies and he is afraid that they may kill him and take his land. When he dedicates himself to the shrine, everything he has will belong to the god of that altar and whoever attacked him, should prepare to contend with the deity.

A person who is born from the family of one who was an Osu, automatically becomes one. So this status could be inherited

These people don’t get married outside their circle because they are considered sacred people. If a woman from outside this circle sleeps with or gets married to one of them, she immediately belonged to them. The practice was that her family will not accept dowry or they too will become the property of the deity.

If they lay hands on you or you have any close contact with them, you are automatically one of them unless you carry out a specified sacrifice to redeem yourself. They have their animals and farmlands which people avoided for the sake of incurring the anger of the gods. They served as law enforcement officers to those deities and would cease the properties of defaulters.

In fact, people that are not Osu, took titles like, Osu-Agwu and Nwaosu indicating that they were untouchable or consecrated people. In those days it was considered a special honor to belong to the deity and people avoided them. 

When civilization came, what was considered a special privilege is now vilified and condemned by religious people. Allegiance shifted from those gods to the God of Christians. Those gods were backward but the God of the Christians is progressive. What was considered a special protection is now seen as limitation. There was a shift.

There was another class that is known as “Ohu” which means bond slave. These are people captured during wars and they serve as slaves and they are cursed never to have equal rights with freeborn children. We see something similar to this in Joshua Chapter 9.

You are now under a curse: You will never cease to serve as woodcutters and water carriers for the house of my God." They answered Joshua, "Your servants were clearly told how the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you the whole land and to wipe out all its inhabitants from before you. So we feared for our lives because of you, and that is why we did this. We are now in your hands. Do to us whatever seems good and right to you." So Joshua saved them from the Israelites, and they did not kill them. That day he made the Gibeonites woodcutters and water carriers for the community and for the altar of the Lord at the place the Lord would choose. And that is what they are to this day Josh 9:23-27NIV

They were never to aspire for leadership in all their generations but were sentenced to be servants. There were often stories of heartbreak when a young man fell in love with a girl, only to discover that they were not permitted to marry just because they were separated by this situation. This at times led to suicide and others fled their home land to places where they would be accepted as normal human beings as others.

In most Anambra State and Delta Igbo communities, some of these Osu people were the first to embrace Christianity and even grew up to become priests and pastors in Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church and early Evangelical Churches like ECWA. They were taken abroad by the white men and they returned as educated and important persons. This created a problem because the society still looked at them from the view point of their heathen background. Administrative bottle necks forced people to submit to them. 

When people gave their life to Christ, there was still the struggle on how to relate with them. In one church a family refused to receive the Holy Communion because the priest was an Osu. Pastor began to have problems when two Christian converts were refused marriage rite because the community they came from saw one of them as Osu, or outcast as they have turned out to be called in general.

What should our Christian response be in this matter?

An Osu is dedicated to an idol. A Christian is dedicated to God. We had this situation in the bible.

For they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 1 Thess 1:9NIV

The Thessalonians who turned to believe the gospel were firstly serving idols and that made their repentance outstanding

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God 1 Cor 6:9-11NIV

The bible is clear that among those we now know as the believers to whom Apostle Paul wrote those letters were once idol worshipers. The difference now is that they have embraced Christ as savior.

There was a time the believers faced such questions and this is what the bible has to say, 

So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 2 Cor 5:16-17NIV

Unfortunately, in some Christian circles these people who have turned to Christ are stigmatized and denied marriage rites. Anyone who understands that once someone gives his life to Christ, he is no longer a slave or property of any other God, but of Christ Jesus will not stigmatize these people.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. 1 Cor 6:19-20NIV

Our redemption is not only from sin but from any other kind of legal transaction that dedicated us to satan or any other idols. So when an Osu, Umeh, Diala or whatever name it is called in your community, comes to Christ, you must no longer regard him as devil’s property, but a property of Jesus Christ.

The angle of covenants

There is another angle to this; even though this person has denied the devil and his kingdom, satan does not just walk away but will put forth a fight. The evil spirits from these altars attack people as masquerades in the dream. They make appearances to people in faraway countries and can strike their victims with madness, cause failure at every point of endeavor, loss of memory, accidents and many other kinds of infirmities just to regain their loyalty. They are among what some people regard as spirit spouses. I discussed this in one of my books on this subject. The reason people call them spirit spouse is because they block marriages of their targets. The fact is that by the terms of the covenants of some of them, these humans were supposed to live single without marriages all their life and to serve on their altars.

Unfortunately these covenantal terms are not written down and so the people don’t even know where their problem is coming from. 

When some these people come to church for the first time, they are accepted like every other person. This is principally because many pastors don’t understand the principles of covenants, curses and deliverance. The processes the pastors and priests know is just to add people to church membership and very little about spiritual terms of covenants.

That is why we at Door of Hope Christian Center and School for Deliverance and Spiritual advocate proper deliverance and liberation processes for believers in Christ Jesus. One of such is Baptism by immersion.

Baptism is actually an initiation process into Christ, hence,

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ Gal 3:27NIV

Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Rom 6:3-4NIV

That is also why we encourage people to follow due process to destroy family altars and terminate the ancient covenants that bound them and those demons from their generations. Many Christians in the city still have unresolved issues with the heathen altars from their home towns. The bible instructs that we should do our best to destroy those altars and erect a proper one to the Lord.

Unfortunately most churches don’t know about this and the result is that most of these people are involved in endless battle with those demons. The worse side of it is that they don’t know where the battle is coming from because they were not part of those that established those idolatrous covenants and there is no written documents to address them. If due process is followed, every hidden covenants can be addressed and cancelled. 

Some people out of frustration have decided to take actions contrary to these issues outside due process and the result is what we read in 2Samuel 21:1-16. Three years of famine and unexplained hardship.

What should be our attitude when traditional people persecute or try to stand on our way in marriage matters because of our belief as Christians?

The funny thing I noticed is that these communities don’t complain when people get involved in premarital sex with whomever. They only stand up when they want to settle down in a legal marriage. Some of these people that will oppose this marriage do every day businesses with the supposedly Osu people. They even attend the same village meeting, church and market with them. It is only ignorance that makes them to believe that it is only in legal marriage that they are in danger. In fact, some are currently suffering from the consequences of broken hidden covenants and they don’t know it.

With regard to the matter before us currently, I have these to say -

I will suggest that the Church should first follow the path of dialogue and try to explain to the family the truth. Once this has been done and they are still proving difficult, then do the following.

The Church must stand on the ground of truth and support these people and do everything within legal power that these people are not frustrated beyond their strength. Some ladies have grown old without marriage because of this wickedness. 

Don’t rule out legal action. The Osu Caste system is officially banned in most parts of the world and Nigeria is included. It is a punishable offense by the law to discriminate against someone because you believe he is an outcast. In an extreme case, sue the person constituting the threat and claim damages. This is can open their eyes to the implication of their actions

Go ahead and contract the marriage. The law permits any person 18 years and above to take decisions about his/her life without consulting parents, if need be. That means that the man and the woman can proceed with their marriage if the family of either side raises Osu Caste as ground why they will not endorse the marriage

Secure court marriage. They can proceed to court marriage and the court marriage is legal marriage any time or any day.

Pronounce matrimonial blessings on the couple. The Pastor of any church have the legal right to pronounce matrimonial blessings on the couple because they are backed by the law to do so.

In the case which our brother brought before us, it is even less serious. The person that is not comfortable with the marriage should be ignored and another person should pay his part.

Let me sound a note of warning here.

The pastor should be sure that these people wanting to get married are born again according to bible standards. Place them in prayer as they go through the process. Some people have employed diabolic means to harm them just to create the impression that their gods is punishing them. 

These matters are discussed in details in my books,  

COVENANTS: How THEY AFFECT PEOPLE

CHALLENGES ASSOCIATED TO THE FAMILY TREE

HOW TO OVERCOME SPIRIT HUSBAND AND WIFE PROBLEMS

There are all available as soft copy PDF on our bookshop

www.bookshop.pnurnigeria.org pnurnigeria@gmail.com, +2349092862555 

Let me have your reactions

👇👇👇

Pastor Emma N J Nwosu is the international President of Prayer Network for Universal Revival PNUR. He is also the founding Rector of School for Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare. He has authored more than thirty books on the subject of Deliverance and Spiritual Warfare

He is international acclaimed speaker in conferences. He is the chief host of PNUR International Prayer and Revival Conference and has traveled to marry countries spreading revival fire.

He and his wife Joy Emmanuel pasture Door of Hope Christian Center Port Harcourt Nigeria. They are blessed with four God loving children.

Peace Emmanuel and Kassey Emmanuel are currently in active ministrry

Contact him on WhatsApp +2348035724526 pnurnigeria@gmail.com

Emma your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com

Destructive Engineering and Destructive Preaching*

Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers. 1 Tim 4:16NIV

Kassey is my first son but second of my children. Like all my other children I send them to learn skills at an early age. So he chose computer hardware repair and maintenance. I did not know what I got myself into until I came home one day to see my laptop in pieces. He told me not to worry that he will couple them later. Well, it is now more than five years but I had to get another laptop. It was from there my family coined the word, Destruction Engineering. He has since improved but my laptop had to pay the price for what he has come to learn

Recently some kind of preaching and teaching have become popular in the Christian circles.. It has to be in the Christian circles because they can’t try that in Islam. Many preachers are aware of many things going wrong among Muslims and some such things very harmful to the Christian faith but they know enough to keep quiet, otherwise they will pay with their lives. So they concentrate on Christian doctrines.

Some of those teachings have some semblance of sound reason but a close look at them will show that they are borne out of vain glory or pride. Those teachers just want to prove how deep they have gone in revelation or how vast their knowledge of the bible has come.

One day a preacher said, what the bible said in Genesis Chapter one is In the beginning the earth became void, not that it was void. One will begin to wonder of what use that revelation to his audience is. He quotes some historic books and states how it is written in Greek and Hebrews. Some people jump up and applaud him. This is even less harmful than the ones who begin to launch direct attack on the basic tenets of the Christian faith.

The other day two bloggers, Reno Omokiri and the notorious Daddy Freeze came online to say that Jesus Christ is not God. They picked on some passages of scripture to push their point. Again I wonder why that should be a subject for Social Media discussion in the place many souls are being lost and we are fighting to winning them over? Has the Father complained to any of us that Jesus Christ is going by His name and that He is not happy about that? Has anyone heard that there is another war in heaven between the Father and His son on account of who gets what honor or respect?

The same group attack tithing and offering to servants of God. Nobody has forced them to give and those who give are not complaining. So one wonders why these men are obsessed with what does not concern them. Yet comedians, footballers, nightclubs and betting centers are among the wasteful channels people lose their money. In one program hosted by comedians, people pay as much three million Naira to sit down and laugh. Our teachers will say nothing about this but will quickly condemn those who give less to God’s business. You can now understand who is in charge of this attacks; the devil.

The most offensive of these are those who are trying to reverse all the things the Lord Jesus Christ taught His disciples.

Baptism – they condemn baptism for modern day believers. Jesus Christ himself submitted to baptism, instructed His disciples to baptize people and the forerunners of the Christian faith were baptized and baptized others. These teachers insist that those who sat with the Lord Jesus Christ were in error and that the Holy Spirit did not do His work in guiding the early Church

The Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion – Even though it is clearly stated in the bible that the Lord Jesus Christ initiated and established that Christian sacrament and commanded His followers to continue to repeat it, these men insist that we are wrong. They insist that we should not use the material bread that Jesus Christ and His disciples used for the exercise.

There is no end to the things that they attack. 

My concern however is the negative effect that this is having on the society. Unstable Christians and our enemies both at home and abroad are catching in on this. 

Our text says that preaching well should not bother us as much as what the effect of our messages will have on our audiences. There are two things that Apostle Paul asked Timothy to watch; his life and his doctrine.

His life - No matter what wonderful messages you present, it will have little or no results if your life is not preaching too. There are many who preach today but their life is directly opposite to what they preach. They preach humility but are pompous. They preach love but live in hatred and malice against their neighbor. They teach giving and sacrifice but rarely are willing to give anything to those around them. They are experts in teaching prayer and fasting but they are guilty of neglect of the same.

Apostle Paul told Timothy that preaching is good but his life should be the first flashpoint of his messages

His doctrine – There are those who claim that we should not bother about teaching doctrines but the bible does not accept such position.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer Acts 2:42NIV

Without sound teaching of Christian doctrine, how then can we inculcate into our converts the understanding of the faith they profess? Unfortunately it is at this point that some have taken on to teach doctrines that only serve to confuse the mind of believers. The bible says that we should be careful about what we teach as doctrine because we could destroy our self through such doctrines and destroy our audience.

My attention in this writing is not really to those false teachers but to those who ignorantly follow such teachings. The Social Media have served to spread information at cheaper and faster rate. But lies have also spread at a faster rate than truth and the devil have exploited these lies against the Church of Jesus Christ. So there are genuine servants of God who read these things and join in sharing it, ignorant of the fact that they are doing more harm than good. Recent converts who are hungry for revelation are diverted by these lies.

Apostle Paul referred to these lies as gangrene; 

Their teaching will spread like gangrene. Among them are Hymenaeus and Philetus, who have wandered away from the truth. They say that the resurrection has already taken place, and they destroy the faith of some 2 Tim 2:17-18NIV

Gangrene is a disease condition that results in the death of any cell it touches. So is the teaching of these people; anyone that submits to their teachings will hardly recover from it. They are loud mouthed and speak with such emphasis that it is hard to doubt them. It is then clear why the bible says that they destroy the faith of some. They pull believers out of the things that will strengthen them. They psyche their soulish nature and by that disconnect them from the Spirit of God. 

The first question in the bible was asked by the devil and these men exploit the instrumentality of raising questions that breed doubt to destroy the faith of some.

This is also a wakeup call to pastors and other Christian ministers to rise to the challenge of teaching sound doctrine to their members.

This is not a time to defend our denominations or local church dogmas but to open up our minds to the Holy Spirit and study again the things we teach. Of a truth there are many teachings going on in the Church which need to be revisited. We should use this opportunity to revisit such

Finally, we should go to the realm of real power ministry. Most of these teachers are experts at words. They are too worldly to even venture into the area of power ministry. So they make up for their poverty of the spirit with eloquence. If the Church will return to power preaching, they will be silenced. 

This is how Apostle Paul dealt with these kind of people

When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power. 1 Cor 2:1-5NIV

The things that mark an apostle — signs, wonders and miracles — were done among you with great perseverance. 2 Cor 12:12NIV

There is this account of how the eagles fight and overcome snakes. This earth is the ground and strength of the snake. The eagle does not fight the snake here. She picks it up and moves into the air. The snake is powerful in the air. In the same these talkers will be powerless if they come into the realm of signs and wonders and miracles.

Please let me hear from you

Emma your brother pnurnigeria@gmail.com

Lessons that Christians can learn from Muslims

 *A strong message from the “Aboki” in my neighborhood* 

The word “Aboki” means “My friend”. I don’t know if it is Arabic or Hausa language but it is a general way we addressed Muslims from Northern Nigeria. Only recently I discovered that some of them were actually from outside Nigeria; Mali or Niger.

They often work as security men or water carriers. They don’t pay house rent but are instead paid by those who employ them as security men. In the place they do security jobs they will open a stall or shop attached to the gate house of the main building. You will likely think that they are poor until you stumble into them counting plenty of money. The secret to their wealth is mainly because they don’t spend their money on the things that absorb the money of a typical Southern Nigeria. They don’t take alcohol, they don’t smoke, they don’t go to night clubs and their choice of women are either their tribal women who visit only once in a while or they pick cheap girls around but they don’t keep any attachment with them.

Their religion is very important to them. Once it is time for their prayer, they shut down everything to pray. If you came with all the money in the world they will never give you attention until they finished praying. Their day of general worship as we have Sunday among Christians is Friday and every business of theirs are closed down until they return. If you are unfortunate to have serious need of something that only “Aboki” sells, you just must wait until they return. Those who have visited Dubai and Egypt say that it is same thing over those Islamic countries.

Once you employ one “Aboki” be ready to host ten or more of them. They will not bother you with request for more space for accommodation but will peacefully accommodate themselves. Once in a while you will hear them playing their kind of music. They will chatter and laugh as they cluster together. I have never met them quarrel but some say that their misunderstanding is resolved by an elder. Whatever the elder said was the end of the matter. At times an “Alhaji” will bring in truck loads of yam or other food items. They will distribute it among themselves, sell, return the money and they are content with their share of the profit. I have never heard that “Aboki” stole his brother’s money

With all these businesses and employment, one will wonder what they do with their money. If you have lived near an “Aboki” you would have also been shocked to find a stranger in his stall or gate house, selling the same items, living in the same house and doing the same job. What happened? The “Aboki” you knew had handed over the shop to his brother along with the whole business. He may never return again.

 *What do they do with all the money?* 

One of them told me in confidence, “to sponsor the course of Allah given to Prophet Mohamed. The money they made are mainly sent to Islamic organizations that sponsor Jihad. Jihad is same as what we call Crusade. They both mean Holy War. The difference is that the one of Christians are mainly spiritual but Muslims can employ violence to achieve their end.

Every Muslim was taught from infancy to live on earth as a stranger. They have it in their mind that their principal agenda on earth is to spread their kind of the gospel - Islam. They don’t organize expensive burials or costly naming ceremonies. The rich ones among them make their money available to those who have dedicated their entire life to the Islamic course. That is why it is impossible to stop Islamic extremism. Their entire life is dedicated to it and no matter how close you are to them, they are willing to kill you if you represent something opposed to their Allah

 *How does this compare with our activities as Christians?* 

Yes, we that claim that we worship the true God and have the bible as our manual; how do we compare with the people we call foolish and ignorant?

Every now and then, I keep begging for money to be sent to my missionaries. When some believers give, they treat me as a beggar. A brother once took me along to buy evening snacks of fifteen thousand Naira for his children and later gave me five thousand Naira for PNUR International Prayer and Revival Conference that will run for five days. I was to also spend from their for my transport home

A Pastor called me today to say that his landlord is embarrassing him because of forty two thousand Naira for the annual rent of his worship center. A Sister in full time mission was giving testimony because I could give her recharge card. Another Pastor and his wife resigned their jobs to work as missionary at Esuk Aye; as I write now I don’t know how to get fund for his monthly allowance

I am sorry to say this, but I am ashamed to worship the same God as most so-called Christians. Many Christians complain that many churches are centered in the cities but they do nothing to support pastors and missionaries in the rural areas.

One time Nigerian Christians were crying that Nigeria government was working at Islamizing Nigeria but they do very little to spread the true gospel. Most of the places that you hear that Muslims took over in Northern Nigeria don’t have the presence of any church. When anyone ventures into that area as a missionary, hunger will drive him back. 

Why should the missionary’s daughter be deprived of basic education just because his father is serving the same God as my neighbor who works in an oil servicing firm whose son schools in one of the best schools in Europe? Why should the missionary's son suffer deprivation even though my neighbor has three cars packed in his garage?

 As I write this, my eyes are soaked in tears. We have been calling for vehicles to assist us but those in whose power it is to provide it, tell me to pray to God for it

PNUR plans a program annually, AUGUST SPECIAL; The Making of a Man of God. We intend to bring in pastors, missionaries and church workers from interior areas to the city of Port Harcourt. Our intention is to treat them like kings. Refire them through sound teaching of the word of God, provide clothing where we can and send them back happily. In this way we encourage them to work harder.

As I write, I have been literally treated like a beggar as I solicit for financial support. Some don’t even pick my calls anymore. Yet, we claim we want the gospel to spread. To placate our conscience, we litter our cities with billboards in the name of gospel programs.

Chai! Christian wake up from your slumber

If you have read thus far, I plead with you to support PNUR projects. 

Give your freewill support for AUGUST SPECIAL 2021

 *International Prayer and Revival Conference, United Bank for Africa, 10211831299* 

Send support for a missionary to come for this program

 *Door of Hope Compassion Outreach, Polaris Bank Nigeria, 4091257915* 

International money transfer should be addressed to *Emmanuel Nwosu, Port Harcourt, Nigeria* 

Please, don’t ignore this plea, and God will bless you

You can contact me personally +2348035724526 WhatsApp, pnurnigeria@gmail.com

 *Pastor Emma N J NWOSU* is the International President of *Prayer Network for Universal Revival* PNUR

A ministrry praying and working for revival in Today's Church www.pnurnigeria.org