He said, “As people plant their seed in 2013, it will be a year of triple-favor harvests!” What you sowed last year will come to a harvest this year. God is going to reschedule a new season for your seed. He’s going to bring new life into that dormant seed you planted before
# 6: This will be a year of great financial anointing. There is a distinct anointing for finances. This anointing is when God anoints your ears, your mind, your decision-making, and your wisdom. This will be a year when you will have supernatural guidance greater than ever, especially in the area of finances. What a wonderful promise He gives us: “I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel” (Isaiah 45:3).The Lord wants to lead you to riches in secret places. He knows where the opportunities are. He knows where the ideas and concepts are. If you will learn to listen to Him, and then respond through your faith, He will show you what you should do, the roads you should take, and the doors you should walk through. He is ready to intensify His leading through 2013! You will experience a constant anointing that will abide! In fact, it is clear that God wants believers to live debt-free. There will be uncommon millionaires birthed so we can bring in the end-time harvest of souls. The most expensive part is not preparing the soil or plantingit’s harvesting. So we need the most support now to bring in the end-time harvest! # 7: This will be a year of total recovery and restoration. The year 2013 will be a year of total recovery and restoration, but it will be more. Like God gave Job double for his trouble (Job 42:10), this will be more than recovery and restoration. Promotion is getting ready to happen throughout the body of Christ. And this will be the year when influential people enter your life. Get ready, for promotion is knocking on your door. You are going to be promoted. When others are missing opportunities, you will have greater opportunities because you are a child of God who is willing to act in faith. You are in covenant with the King of kings and the Lord of lords! God is going to authorize you to have divine recovery and restoration and increase! And I especially want to reemphasize the importance of divine increase. God wants to promote His children. It will be astounding to see what happens next! And this is going to require a swift act of faith. There is such a strong anointing right now for those who receive these prophetic promises and act upon them! And I believe this anointing belongs to you, as a child of God! It is your covenant right to have it every day. Giving releases the treasures of heaven on your life and triggers your triple-favor anointing for prosperity. Greater levels of giving release an even more abundant outpouring. nI release the financial anointing on your life, from the crown of your head to the soles of your feet. I decree triple-favor anointing over your life. But remember, everything begins with a seed! In the beginning God said that as long as the earth remains, there will be seedtime and harvest: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). Sow your seed today. Take a step of faith and move into the seven prophetic promises! Your life will never be the same. For it is “not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts” This unusual anointing will change you story. Expecting your highly esteemed presence with your entire family, friends and relations for things must change for better. Meet you there. Prepare to attend and experience unusual open doors.
Christianity Is Not A Show Off: The Love Of Appearance
A moral and spiritual crisis marks 21st century Nigerian Christianity. It is ironic that with so much knowledge at our fingertips Biblical illiteracy seems to be at an all-time high. People are still easily duped and deceived by the glitter and the gold, the hype and the hoopla, the superficiality and the showmanship that marks so much of Nigerian Christianity today, not to mention the many wolves in sheep’s clothing that stalk our land. The visible church in the mainstream of this great country is gradually becoming a hollow echo even with its million Naira edifices, high tech media, and silver-tongued orators. People are putting their faith in the wisdom of men and their eloquence, their persuasive words, clever phrases, and logical dissertations. The demonstration of the Spirit and power of God operating through humble, broken men is fading. But God has reserved far better for those who possess an intimate knowledge of their God. They will do exploits!
As a compelling example of the hollow echo effect, I was watching a video clip of a short sermon excerpt someone sent to me. The person who sent it to me thought it was hot stuff. In this clip a nationally known television preacher was whooping it up preaching and hollering something about the need for people to press through their tired state. Many in this large congregation were standing up and wagging their heads and waving their hands, but all the while I was sensing grief.
Trying hard not to be critical, I pondered what I was watching. “Why am I sensing this grief, Lord? What is this? It feels so unclean to me.” As I continued to weigh the heaviness in my spirit, here are the words I heard: “It’s just a show you’re sensing the showmanship and the love of appearance that is such a big part of Christianity in the West today. It is as little children playing church. It is a subtle religious form of man-centered entertainment. But because scripture is attached to it people are often deceived by it, and don’t realize that they are receiving another spirit.” More of my own questions raced through my mind: Do you sense His presence at all? Can you relate even a little to these people’s excitement? What do you think will happen to these people? What is at the root of this sort of behavior?
Honest responses rose up within me: There is no presence of God here. I sense nothing. It is only emotion. I feel so disconnected from these people’s excitement. Most of them have made a huge idol out of this celebrity preacher, and whatever he says they will take it as God saying it. He is not leading them to you, Lord. I continued to muse within myself: This is the grief I feel. They are being further and further separated from your holy knowledge. Unless they have a rude awakening they will never really know you and your ways will they? What will be their end? They have formed another God according to their own brand of Christianity. It’s almost as if Christianity has been separated from Christ himself. Now that is a very sobering thought that reveals volumes about Christianity in many places.
The curse of Christianity today in much of the West may well be the creation of an image of God that is according to the religious culture people find themselves in. We have the Charismatic culture, the evangelical culture, the new Catholic culture, the Baptist culture, etc. We have the prophetic camp, the word of faith camp, the vineyard camp, the revival camp, and on and on. Infiltrated into many of these cultures and camps is the seeker-friendly philosophy of reaching larger numbers of people, based on a removal or a veiling of Christian theology that is least appealing to the world. But for the most part, in the visible-to-the-eye mainstream of Christianity except perhaps in a few places the Lord Himself is not being glorified because we are so divided. People don’t need a cultural Jesus or a traditional Jesus or a seeker-friendly Jesus. They need a living word that will pierce through the veil of their own hearts and reveal the real Jesus to them. They need an encounter with God.
The love of appearance is killing us spiritually. I’m not talking of having things look honorable and excellent. The root of this stronghold that I call love of appearance is not outward. I’m speaking of something much more deceptive. It’s superficiality, irreverence, a pride and hypocrisy that couldn’t even enter into the early Church. Ananias and Sapphira walked in it and were struck down. They wanted to be recognized for their generosity and having given all, so for the love of appearance they lied, and then they died. It was more spiritual than physical, inward not outward. Except for the Holy Spirit no one knew what was going on in their hearts. The great need of the hour is for more prophets and apostles like Peter, full of the Holy Ghost, who are able to see right through man-made facades, and then preach a burning word that convicts of sin and cuts away motives, attitudes, and things that are dishonoring to God.
The early Church was yet in its infancy. They were still localized in Jerusalem only. If this pride and hypocrisy, rooted in the love of appearance, had been allowed to fester it would’ve marred the purity of Christ’s body and killed the glory. Instead, the glory killed it. Judgment is always equal to the level of glory. During my viewing of the aforementioned video clip I caught another all too familiar glimpse of the self-based nature of the modern gospel and the mainstream word that is preached. Nothing of Christ, the Holy Spirit, or anything bearing his character and nature was mentioned. Like far too many messages today, it was all about us. It was all about us overcoming, us fighting, us getting our blessing, us receiving all that is ours, with no focus or even minor referencing to Jesus and his heart and ways. As I wrote in my upcoming book, The Real Gospel, this all points to an inordinate deification of man that has become the apex of 21st century Christianity in Nigeria whereby millions of people are being deceived.
I believe the only way the glory can be restored in the Church today is through humility and the fear of the Lord. We must fall to our knees and repent of the vanity and futility of our own efforts. Large crowds and man’s approval are not sure proof signs of a move of God, or that preachers even know Him. Much of the ungodliness in present day Nigeria falls on the shoulders of preachers. We’ve led people to us and our visions, ministries, and churches more than to Him. We’ve exalted charisma, talent, attendance, buildings, cash, religious activity, and the love of appearance far more than we have the Holy One. Ananias and Sapphira stood before Peter clutching on to a lie based on a desire to be recognized and esteemed, and rooted in the love of appearance. Unbeknownst to them however, was the fact that they stood not before man, but before the high court of heaven and the majestic glory of Him whom John, when he saw Him, “fell at his feet as dead” (Rev 1:17). Are our corporate gatherings marked with this holy focus and awareness of Him whose glory no flesh can stand? Jesus is walking amidst the lamp stands (churches Rev 2:1). He is not concerned with the government, the economy, or world affairs as He is with his churches. Can we see Him, or is all the smoke from the methods and machinery of men blocking our view?
Dr. Lewis Akpogena
08055059656
E-mail: akpogena@yahoo.com
