Hundreds of people encountered the power of God this weekend with many choosing Christ for the first time from Missouri to Pennsylvania during the ongoing “Let Us Worship” revival tour led by worship evangelist Sean Feucht.
Continue reading “Hundreds Encounter Christ during “Let Us Worship” revival tour led”
You will begin to navigate to places you need to be by wasting.
And maybe you have been going through terrible times and you said God has abandoned me!!!
While driving to Lagos in the early hours of today to conduct a naming ceremony for the family of one of our Lagos Pastors, we ran into a blockage at Lagos/Ibadan Toll Gate at the outskirts of Ibadan close to Gurumaraji.
Continue reading “YEARS OF PRAYERS AND PROPHECIES NOT IN VAIN!!!”
Nigerian Bible translators are seeking help after having to suspend translation projects in 30 languages due to the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing terrorist violence throughout the country.
Wycliffe Associates, an Orlando-based nonprofit that works with national Bible translators across the globe on over 700 translation projects, announced that the global pandemic, terrorism and economic collapse in Nigeria have “brought Bible translation to a halt in the most populous nation on the African continent.”
The organization, which was founded in 1967 and partners with the local churches to direct and guard translation work in their communities, partners with an organization called Nigerian Bible Translation Trust. The trust works on several Old and New Testament translation projects in a country where there are over 200 million people and over 500 languages.
However, in 2020, translators have not been able to gather in central locations as they would normally to check each other’s translation work.
Along with the pandemic, Nigeria has been marred by increasing trends of violence carried out in recent years by various actors — including Islamic terrorist groups, radical herdsmen and bandits. It’s estimated that thousands are reportedly killed by systemic acts of violence each year, including many Christians.
“With the pandemic, the issues of terrorist attacks and thievery, and the amount of starvation that is going on in the country, makes people desperate. There is a fear that drives that,” Wycliffe Associates Vice President of Translation Services Tabitha Price told The Christian Post.
“Travel is becoming more difficult. There is a lack of infrastructure already. And then to be concerned about the corruption and violence and terrorism that they are going to face when they try to travel, those challenges have really kept translators from being able to get together.”
Price said that translators working on the same projects often do not live in the same village.
“And the only way they can work together and check each other’s work and continue with the project is to come together in a central location,” she said. “With the pandemic and travel restrictions, besides all the dangers that have intensified, they really haven’t been able to do that.
“It’s varying degrees of the pandemic and violent militant and terrorist groups and kidnappings that have happened. Of course, situations like that are always exacerbated by something like this pandemic so those who are violently opposed to Christianity will take every opportunity to express it.”
Wycliffe has been working with the Nigerian Bible Translation Trust to train translators and provide them with resources. But restrictions on travel have made it difficult to be able to start on projects they planned to begin in 2020.
In the spring, Wycliffe Associates tentatively scheduled a two-week training conference for Nigerian Bible translators for September. But that was scheduled before the organization knew how COVID-19 was going to impact travel in the fall and has since been canceled.
“We knew that we needed to do training and we made plans to schedule it in the fall,” she said. “It was for them to get everything they needed to go work with these other languages that are waiting and training them in the methodology and the whole process. We had to cancel that training event not only because we couldn’t travel but also because of the travel restrictions all across Africa.”
She said the translation partners are “not prepared” to start the new projects they were planning to work on as they themselves have struggled with hunger and finances.
“They haven’t been able to work to save themselves. They don’t have the resources then to take the time and be able to work on the translation,” Price explained. “Wycliffe Associates has an emergency fundraising campaign going and we have had generous donors send finances for us to be able to help situations. We were able to send Nigerian Bible Translation Trust money to not only provide for their immediate needs but also to reach out and help some of the translators in the community.”
For many of the 30 projects that have been halted, Price said that some of the languages haven’t had translations started yet but were “in the queue,” meaning some of the training had been done and are in the process of preparing to begin translation.
“We say it is halted because we had a plan to move forward with them this year and then with COVID and other emergencies going on in that country and emergencies worldwide. We’re not actually expecting — barring a miracle of God — that we will be able to serve that region the way we expected to before with training. But having said that, we are always looking for ways to continue to grow partnerships. We have team members there in Nigeria that are at the ready when things begin to open back up.”
The organization has discussed the possibility of online training and talked about sending someone over from another country that has opened back up to help them.
“We are strategizing,” Price said. “It’s always hard for me to say it’s halted with no expectation of progress. No, we are still working on something but it is just not what we have planned.”
Despite the halting of the newer projects, Wycliffe spoke with leaders of the Nigerian Bible Translation Trust in July and funded a safe gathering of translators who are already working on some projects so they can focus on completing ones that have already started.
“They had groups that were already trained and could work on translation come together and work,” she said. “We are thankful that God is providing for that kind of thing.”
Wycliffe Associates views Nigeria as a “key region” for translation efforts in Africa.
“There are seminaries and deep roots of Christianity in Nigeria,” she explained. “We started partnership programs with a seminary there and plan to continue growing that so that they can train their own national leaders to support the needs of their own country and expand to other regions of Africa. It’s not necessarily true anymore with the insurgent groups and the corruption in the government, but Nigeria used to be really a politically stabilizing force in central Africa.”
Price said that Nigeria is really a “picture of what is happening in other areas of the world where day laborers can’t work and are starving.”
“People are persecuting the Christians who are starving and trying to do the translation. We have seen those same translators when they get funds from us to buy rice for their translation team, share it with their whole village and their persecutors. It’s an opportunity for the Gospel to really take root.”
Elsewhere in the world, Price said a similar type of situation is taking place for translation efforts in Indonesia in the Pacific.
“Indonesia was so locked down that they couldn’t even travel back and forth between villages,” she explained. “They have to slow down in what they have been able to do. I wouldn’t say that the translation work has halted but maybe it’s been put on pause.”
She also said that Wycliffe Associates had to cancel two training events it had planned for South America as well.
“It’s also been a challenge for some of the projects that we had planned for South America for training people to get started. Without that training, they can’t really start.”
Price called for Christians in the U.S. to pray for translators to be able to keep working and for their health as well as physical needs. She also seeks prayer for translators to find ways to “leverage the lockdown” to be able to share the Gospel with their neighbors.
Charlotte Holmes is on a mission to tell everyone she knows about what she experienced the day she died and went to Heaven.
Paddy Kelly grew up surrounded by music. The tenth child in an American family living in Ireland, he joined his older siblings’ band, the Kelly Family, at a young age. When he was fifteen, he wrote a song that propelled the family to stardom, and the group became a global sensation. With money and fame came great opportunities, such as singing in stadiums to 250,000 screaming fans.
Continue reading “DR. DAVID JEREMIAH: Discovering the ‘Why’ in Our Lives”
Pastor Enoch Adeboye, the general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), has lent his voice to the protest against police brutality that has been going on in the country for over a week.
Prayer that brings results must be based on God’s Word. It contains the answers to prayers we haven’t even prayed yet. Praying those answers from the beginning undergirds our confident expectation that God will do what He has said.
Continue reading “QUESTION OF THE DAY: How can I find scriptural promises to stand on?”
Luke 22:39-40,45-46 KJV
[39] And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.
-Monica Bass
OUR HUNGER FOR GOD’S WORD INDICATES OUR SPIRITUAL HEALTH
I purchased my first goat as a thirteen-year-old fresh out of the city suburbs. I had no idea what I was in for. I named my new pet Sarah Jane, and exactly one day after my purchase, she had four kids. And I had my hands full. Sarah Jane nursed two of the kids, and I bottle fed the other two.
Bottle feeding goat kids is fun. They’re energetic, cute, and always look like they’re up to something. Healthy kids attack a bottle the moment it’s within leap reach. They drain it quickly and use every trick they know to coax for more.
But one morning, when the kids were two weeks old, one of them showed no interest in her bottle. Zero. Her ears drooped, and she made little effort even to be petted. I remember the concern that gripped my heart as I called the farm where I had purchased her mother.
Over the years, I’ve felt similar concern for young Christians I’ve ministered to. And sometimes for myself.
What do you do when you lose your hunger for the Word of God?
Many Christian women who hear a message on the importance of Bible reading or who are reminded of the impact Scripture can have on their lives respond with either guilt (“I tried to have devotions, but I can’t stay consistent”) or fresh determination (“maybe this time”).
But the picture Scripture paints of a growing Christian’s intake of the Word of God is not a grit-your-teeth-and-do-your-devotions attitude. It is ahunger—a desire—to hear God’s voice and to meditate on His Word.
“…I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.”—Job 23:12
“I opened my mouth, and panted: for I longed for thy commandments.”—Psalm 119:131
“As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby:”—1 Peter 2:2
The cure for the two-week-old goat kid turned out to be thankfully simple, and it included helping to reset her appetite.
How can you do the same spiritually? What do you do when you lose your appetite for God’s Word? When in all honesty you know that it’s not the desire of your heart?
1. FEED THE APPETITE YOU DO HAVE
So maybe your appetite for God’s Word isn’t consuming. Maybe you’re like me and salads. I don’t dislike salads. In fact, if I have a really good one, I’m happy to call that a meal. I’ll even resolve afterward to make salads more often. It’s just that I don’t.
If you are saved, there is some appetite in your heart—however stifled or ignored it may be—for the Word of God. Feed it. Set aside time to read Scripture. Listen to it from an app on your phone. Make deliberate effort to be in church and hear the preaching of God’s Word. Feed the appetite you do have, and it will grow.
2. STARVE COMPETING APPETITES
Just as junk food decreases our appetite for nutritious food, so there are ways we fill our minds and hearts that decrease our appetite for God’s Word. They may not even be sinful, but if they divert our attention and, worse, destroy our appetite for Scripture, they might need to go—at least for a season.
Competing appetites could include excessive amounts of time on Facebook, thriller fiction that dulls your senses for real life (and your own real needs), or the level of busyness that leaves you too exhausted to engage in any level of real thought above Candy Crush.
3. EXAMINE YOUR HEART
If you sense no hunger at all for God’s Word, something is wrong. Period.
It is the newborn babe who desires the sincere milk of the Word. Some never desire it because they’re never newborn, and some lose their desire because they become spiritually sick. Perhaps they’ve allowed the malice, hypocrisy, or envy which 1 Peter 2:1 references to enter their heart. Perhaps in another area they’ve quenched the voice of the Holy Spirit who speaks through His Word.
4. PRACTICE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINE
Is it conflicting advice to on one hand suggest that spending time in God’s Word isn’t to be merely a grit-your-teeth-and-do-it activity, and on the other hand encourage it as a developed discipline? No. Here’s why:
Sometimes we have a hunger, and sometimes we don’t. I wish it wasn’t that way, but it is. Practicing spiritual discipline helps put you in a place for that hunger to return. It’s like eating nutritious food even when you don’t feel well because you know you need the strength. Or more drastically, it’s like using a feeding tube even when you don’t want to eat. Don’t discount the benefit of developing a daily discipline for an intake of God’s Word when you’re combining that with a desire to increase your hunger for it.
5. APPLY TRUTH
Hearing without doing is discouraging and inoculating. It reinforces the lie that God’s Word can’t change your life and that it doesn’t make a difference whether or not you read it.
Applying truth, on the other hand, makes changes that work toward conforming us to the image of Christ and increase our hunger for more. As we allow the Holy Spirit to use His Word to work real transformation in our lives, we are more aware than ever of our need for Him, and we turn with renewed hunger to His promises for help in the process.
6. MAKE SIMPLE ADJUSTMENTS
Maybe what worked for you last year doesn’t now. Maybe you need to change your schedule or your reading plan or get to bed earlier or start a journal or…. Take a step back to identify specific obstacles and make related adjustments accordingly. Ask a friend for help if needed. But don’t be content to say, “It just doesn’t work for me.” Find solutions, and be ready to. make adjustments.
Our hunger for the Word of God is, in fact, a measurement of our spiritual health. Thankfully, we can make changes that will increase our appetite for the “sincere milk of the Word” and by it, grow.
2 Kings 2:9-12 KJV
[9] And it came to pass, when they were gone over, that Elijah said unto Elisha, Ask what I shall do for thee, before I be taken away from thee. And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me.
China has escalated its ban on the printing of religious materials in recent months, inspecting printing houses for possible violations and even prohibiting the copying of hymns, according to a new report.
The Yali Tribe in Papa New Guinea, which used to kill missionaries, practice witchcraft and engage in cannibalism, is now following God and graciously accepting 2,500 Bibles flown to them.
Continue reading “Tribe who formerly practice witchcraft, kill missionaries now accept Christ”
2 Kings 2:10-12 KJV
[10] And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless , if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee; but if not, it shall not be so .
2 Kings 2:11-12 KJV
[11] And it came to pass, as they still went on, and talked, that, behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, and parted them both asunder; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven.
Continue reading ““CLOSING ALL THE GAPS BETWEEN YOU AND HIM””
The second level of familiarity that I want to talk about in this teaching is FAMILIARITY WITH THE SERVANT OF GOD.
This is very common in every generation, and it is as old as the events of the Old Testament.
YOU CANNOT KILL TIME.
KILLING TIME IS SUICIDE
Genesis 1:14-18
“I came by a tweet on social media, just some days ago, by Pastor Reno Omokri and he said “People say ‘time is going’, ‘time is going’, time is going nowhere, time never goes anywhere. You are the one that is going, you met time here and you will leave time and leave this world” and I thought ‘wow what an interesting perspective’.
We say things like ‘time flies, time is going’ No, you are the one that is going you had better get on with whatever it is you need to do before you expire.
Continue reading “DON’T DO THINGS TO KILL TIME -Pastor Sam Adeyemi”
I once read this story from Bishop Francis Wale Oke. It’s a story that inspires really and I believe that it will help and spur someone this morning. Baba wrote:
In the faith walk, one of the greatest lessons you will ever learn is that YOU CAN’T USE FAITH AGAINST DIVINE INSTRUCTIONS.
Inability to master this principle has led to the failure of many of God’s children, and in some extreme cases, some have died prematurely just because of omission in this area.
This idea is a mindset that keeps making people fall especially people of God.
Others are doing it, I can do it.
Isaiah 40:31
But those who wait on the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.
Warriors are fearless beings designed to face any adversity in any territory. Akin to that, in God’s kingdom, warriors are sent in the days of God’s move in a land.
Continue reading “WARRIOR DIMENSIONS IN GOD’S KINGDOM – Apostle Mike Orokpo”
There is still time of life or Appointed time for the fulfillment of every promise of God. So you come across verses like:
Dear Brother or Sister, the fact that someone is a “Christian” does not automatically mean that he or she is “suitable” for you as a marriage partner.
Continue reading “SUITABILITY!!! (Key To Discovering The Right Marriage Partner)”
What do we do with our “Christian Sisters” who dress up provocatively as instruments of demonic set-up against our children and men of God. Topless blouses, tight mini-skirts, transparents gowns, etc. If they were TV channels, we would turn them off.
Pastor Jean Philippe Quetant and his wife Erna Plancher-Quetant were both gunned down in their home while serving as missionaries in Haiti, NBC2 in Fort Myers reports.
Continue reading “Couple Christian Missionaries Killed in Haiti”
Pastor John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday.
Continue reading “Pastor John Hagee Has COVID19, Requests for your Prayer”
Greg Laurie, the senior pastor of the Harvest Christian Fellowship with locations in Riverside and Irvine, California and Maui, Hawaii, has announced he has tested positive for COVID-19.
Kanye West has offered his support to the President and the First Lady after their positive COVID-19 tests, offering prayers for a speedy recovery.
Continue reading “Kanye West offers Prayer for President Trump for Healing”
2 Samuel 11:2-5 NKJV
[2] Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.
