The Jos Crisis, the untold story and global connection

The Jos Crisis, the untold story and global connection
One of my favourite documentary programs on CNN is a documentary program “My City, My Life” – it chronicles the life in a city through the eyes of celebrities who resides in the city and how the city has shaped their lives. They always portray the city in such a way as to make it a much sought destination or for business or pleasure.
Jos City has had great influence on my life and ministry; it provided me a fresh challenge in life and ministry when I believed that I have reached my peek in Lagos in the year 1997; the offer to relocate to Jos in was a welcome relief.
It was love at first sight when I entered Jos City in November 1997; the weather, low traffic and the generally peaceful atmosphere was conducive for what I believe that God has sent me to do in the city.
This atmosphere was however violated in September 2001 when an unprovoked ethno-religious crisis broke out in the City claiming many innocent lives and since that time the city of peace and tourism has known no peace but tension and sustained anxiety.
Jos City woke up to another senseless ethno-religious crisis on Friday 28th November 2008 and it came with wanton destruction of innocent lives and properties.
The question is for how long will our leaders watch and allow this kind of madness to continue?
Nigeria is a nation where those entrusted with the responsibility of governance knows next to nothing about the purpose of governance as it is seen as a means of amassing wealth and worldly comfort and also a means of furthering some selfish agenda – many times ethnic and religious.
A lot of reasons have been adduced as the cause of this mayhem, but many of the reasons have been given in apparent denial of the real truth behind this crisis and until we all put on our sincerity cap and face the issue head on, this ugly thing will repeat itself over and over again.
The truth of the matter is that the Jos crisis which started in 2001and repeated itself this year 2008 is not and has never been a political crisis; it is an ethno-religious crisis which dates back to the vision of a man called Usman dan Fodio.
Usman dan Fodio was an Arab immigrant born in 1754 to a Muslim scholar, he was thoroughly imbued with Islamic culture, and by the age of 20 began to teach, travel, and preach. The final break came in 1804, when Usuman, elected imam (leader) by his followers, declared a jihad, or holy war. Within a few years, aided by his son Muhammad Bello, Usman was in charge of most of Hausa land imposing the Islamic religion on the inhabitants who were hitherto animists and ancestral worshippers; most of these conquests were achieved under the guise of politics which he used to spread the Islamic religion to major parts of Northern Nigeria which largely practised animism as their predominant religion.
Usman dan Fodio was successful in major parts of the north until 1812 when his activities were effectively checked when he turned east towards the Kanem Bornu Empire; he later withdrew from active politics and devoted his last five years to scholarship, leaving a prodigious body of writings. His son Muhammad Bello, also a brilliant scholar, took over from him and expanded his father's empire southward into Yoruba country in South Western Nigeria which resulted in a large section of the area being converted to Islam through force of arms.
This is the truth that political leaders has been denying that this incessant crisis is all part of an age long vision to Islamise the nation which is an offshoot of a global Islamic agenda to spread Islam through Jihad – this is the truth that our leaders are denying.
Jos and its environs was the one section of the country where this Jihad recorded little or no success but the vision of Usman dan Fodio has been kept alive by successive generations; the desire and cause was to Islamise Jos, install an Emir against the wish of the inhabitants who were more receptive to Christian missionaries who came with a lot of developmental projects which are still in the state and flourishing till date.
The Christians in Plateau state Nigeria and all over the world must come to terms with this truth that Islam is out to destroy our faith; if we don’t, we will continue to lose members and properties they might preach tolerance and freedom of religion, it is a BIG LIE.
WE CANNOT SIT AND FOLD OUR ARMS
The political leaders in Plateau state has been toying with the destiny of the state; they have displayed a lack of will either moral or political to take a stand for the yearnings of the citizens of the state which is to have a state where they can practise the religion that they have come to embrace, the religion which has improved their social well being over the years.
The recent mayhem in Jos has absolutely nothing to do with the local government elections; how does one explain Churches and mosques being burnt because of a faulty election – the adherents of Usman dan Fodio vision hid under the cloak of a local election to unleash terror and fear on the polity through a systematic ethnic cleansing.
There is no record of any politician being killed or their houses set ablaze; the three young boys who are on national service in Jos were killed because they are Yoruba Christians period, but our leaders would not want to accept this truth.
There is a grand plan to turn Jos City or the whole plateau state into an Emirate and establish Islam as the official religion; the way this is to be carried out is to cleanse the city of all non Hausa -Fulani citizens or intimidate them so much that they accept the Hausa – Fulani domination.
It is this same vision that terrorists like Osama Bn Laden and his cohorts are pursuing, killing in god’s name; it is this same vision that will make a group of boys sit for three months planning to unleash on innocent westerners in a Mumbai hotel.
Many times I have heard excuses made for terrorism as being a reaction to Western policies, how convenient – is it western policy that is responsible for Churches being burnt in Maiduguri Nigeria because a Belgian reporter published a cartoon depicting Mohammed as a terrorist.
The world need to wake up and called Islam by its name – it is an uncivilised way of getting people to embrace a religion.
Christianity too has the vision of Christianising the world, but it is through the power of love through humanitarian services and education, but Islam does this through force of physical arms.
The world has denied this obvious truth enough and this denial will cause uncivilised miscreants like Ahmedinajad to continue to make such statements claiming some humans do not have a right of existence.
For as long as we avoid this obvious truth, we will continue to experience this kind of senseless destruction of lives and properties.
Islam is not a religion of peace, it is one of VIOLENCE – and it is what is responsible for the incessant crises in Jos and every terrorism attack in the world.

Ps: Usman dan Fodio story adapted from – “Usman dan Fodio” Microsoft Student 2008 (DVD). Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2007

The Todd Bentley Issue: Implications for the Nigerian Church

I just happened on this story this morning while reading Strang's Report in the current edition of the prestigious Charisma magazine.

This is the story of a Church minister in the US allegedly engaged in some unethical ministry practises and now on the verge of divorce with his wife. Please click on this link to read Strang’s and other comments http://www.strangreport.com/2008/08/emperor-has-no-clothes.html

What really caught my attention is not the really the details of what is happening at Lakeland Ministries headed by the Todd Bentley and the issues of his personal life that brought all these ugly incidents out. My attention was actually drawn to the way the Church leaders in the US always respond to issues such as these and how such responses have & I believe will in this same situation bring some restoration of dignity and the much needed fear of God back into the Church.

But I must not fail to express this view here that many more Todd Bentleys are in their cocoon and will soon be revealed unless we urgently do a re-examination of what we call revival. For as long as we validate our ministries by how many people are healed or received some sort of miracles externally and not the Biblical evidence of change in lives, we will always have wounded soldiers on our hands which we will shoot more than care for.

But at least the Church in America as inaccurate as they might be on many fronts, they have something that we can still emulate – they are sincere in dealing with their weaknesses, they do not pretend as if there is no problem.

It is something I believe that the Church leaders or should I call them fathers in our great nation Nigeria should borrow a leaf from.

I was led to a whole comprehensive response of the well respected American preacher Dutch Sheets, who dared to put his integrity and popularity on the line for the sake of the gospel.

The issue here is not the correctness of these responses, but the fact that the Church leadership in America do not ignore issues that affect the well being of the Church in their country.

This attitude is in great need in our nation, the only thing we have on the websites of most of our Nigerian mega Churches is the direction to the nearest parish to you or some Bible stories in the name of a sermon and an invitation to their next healing service.

Our leaders are more concerned about their little ponds than God’s big ocean; they cannot afford to risk their source of livelihood – that is what ministry is to them.

The Church in Nigeria is sick, many of the so called congregations are pastored by unqualified persons parading themselves as men of God and all these are happening in the midst of the Bishop epidemic in the nation.

What we hear on Radio & see on television in the name of Church is scary and a total aberration; it is nothing short of voodoo with the precious name of Jesus put on it. We hear all manner of spiritual prescriptions and formulas that are totally unBiblical which the people receive with eagerness, our African heritage not helping matters.

Our leaders have enlisted in the cult that someone called the “cult of the do not judge” forgetting that the same scripture says that he who is spiritual can judge all things with righteous judgement.

There is an ongoing case of the Pastor of a large Church in Lagos on trial for murder but the Church either under the auspices of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) or the Pentecostal fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) have kept mum.

Pastor Chris Oyakhilome was accused sometimes ago by the media of hypnotising a staff of the Sheraton Hotel to donate huge sums of money to his ministry. The allegation was that a junior staff of this hotel donated millions of Naira to the Church and the said staff was later accused of pilfering company funds which was traced to the Church. Our “Church fathers” kept mum.

For as long as we leave the judgment of the Church to secular media, we will continue to open ourselves up for ridicule and the world which our Master has called us to save will continue to see our irresponsibility.

We seem not to care about any disgrace or insult coming to the precious name by which we are called; we are more concerned about our fake integrity.

I hear many times the way American preachers and Bible teachers eulogise the "Revival" that is currently happening in Nigeria, I have no doubt that there is an ongoing revival in Nigeria, even as I am not too quick to use the word REVIVAL because many times this “revival thing” is often interpreted in terms of big meetings, the big miracles of healing and all the "falling downs" and the big names that spoke in the meeting and not measured in terms of the Biblically correct standard of changed lives which can easily be seen in the rate of social transformation.

If the number of big Churches and big meetings which our nation pride herself in is anything to go by, then Nigeria should be one the most righteous and transformed nations in the world. But a situation where Churches spring up every minute and a sizeable percentage of Radio and TV air time is taken up by Church programs without a corresponding change in the socio-political experience of the nation speak volume about the kind of REVIVAL that we are talking about.

We have all read of the Nashville Revival of Sam Jones, the Welch Revival of Evans Roberts and the rest of them that resulted in pubs closing down & price of alcohol falling due to fall in patronage.

If the Revival does not result in changed lives with a corresponding transformation in the socio-political experience of the nation, then the Revival can be safely called a pseudo-revival. The Americans can be easily carried away by the attendance in our Churches and crusades, but we know what their own attendance which cannot be compared with ours has done in their own nation.

Their own attendance has brought the Church and her views to the forefront of their socio-political life. The Church is not silent on issues that concern life and how to live it. Any politician that ignores the opinion of the Conservative Evangelicals in America does so at his/her political peril.

How many of our mega Churches took the pains to take our political office seekers to task on issues that affects that the Kingdom of God and the opinion of God as Rick Warren of Saddleback Church did with Obama and McCain in the past week.

This interview will no doubt determine the fate of Obama’s ambition to lead America if what happened to George W Bush in 2004 is anything to go by – the Evangelicals has a very loud voice in the American political experience.

One of the many reasons why the Church in Nigeria continue to wallow in insignificance is because we are yet to fathers who will rise up to correct the ills and the unethical, the unBiblical practises going on in those gatherings in the name of Church.

God’s cry through the mouth of Ezekiel is still reverberating in our nation:

Ezek 22:30

30 So I sought for a man among them who would make a wall, and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land, that I should not destroy it; but I found no one.
NKJV

Ps 94:16

Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity? NKJV

The self styled fathers of the Church in our nation are only inward looking, building their own kingdoms and care less about what happens to God’s kingdom and the integrity of the name of His son.

The tale of two Chris’ (Okotie and Oyakhilome) is still very fresh in our memory when one accused the other of practising Shamanism and fraternising with the controversial TB Joshua; this controversy raged for a while; it caused the precious souls untold confusion. But in the midst of all these, nothing was heard from the Adeboyes, the Olukoyas and other leaders of the so called mega Churches and till this present time, the Church leadership has not made any categorical statement about the controversy that surrounds the ministry of our own TB Joshua.

The American Church might be accused of washing their dirty lines in public but l believe that they have shown that they are truly a BODY because the body possess the power and ability to heal itself of any disease.

The Nigerian Church need to learn from the way and manner the American Church has dealt and dealing with their own TB and let us deal with our TB in the same manner. Our neglect of the situation has given birth to many other TBs who grace our TV screens daily and show their faces on the many posters that colour our cities.

A lot of the decay in our Churches may be hidden now because of our defective press structure, but I don’t believe it will continue for too long.

It is time for our so called leaders to speak up, add their voices to the likes of Bakares and many others who dare to raise the banner of purity of the gospel.

The time is now for judgement to begin from the household of God.


Pastor Dotun Reju is the Director of Patris Initiative Foundation, a Christian Social Action Group for the promotion of responsible citizenship in Nigeria; he also pastors the Kingdom Citizens’ Pavilion Jos City Nigeria

The PATRIS INITIATIVE - Seed for Socio-Political Transformation in Nigeria

I have carried a burden for our nation Nigeria since my early days as a believer. I remember vividly that the first time I got really emotional in the place of prayer that i shed tears was when praying for Nigeria. I have since then wondered how I can do something about the situation in Nigeria to make an impact for change, but the problem in the nation soared to a height where there is a situation better described in the words of the great prophet, Tunde Bakare of The Latter Rain Assemby, Lagos Nigeria that "Nigerian government officials are not corrupt, but corruption has become official in Nigeria".
The nation's problem seem to have overwhelmed everybody that even the Church seem to have lost hope, prayers for the nation has become just an item on the agenda of our meetings; citizens accept the wrongs in the society and every will to fight for change seem to have failed us.
The problem seem unsurmountable, but it recently dawned on me that God has not given up on Nigeria and that He is waiting for His agency which is the Church in the country to do something about the situation, He is waiting for the Church to give Him a platform to stand upon, regardless of how small. This brought the message of the "Parable of the leaven" home to me.
Our Church, The Kingdom Citizens's Pavilion decided two weeks ago to respond to this by offering God a platform & this gave birth to the PATRIS INITIATIVE.
The Vision, the affirmation & vows of this initiative is what i have decided to share as the Proceeding Word in this edition.
God bless you as you read and I challenge Nigerians reading this to consider being signatories to our Affirmation and Denials on our website: www.thekingdomcitizens.org

Patris Initiative
The Vision, The Affirmation, The Denials & The Vow

Patris Initiative is a ministry of The Kingdom Citizens’ Pavilion with a mandate to restore the values of responsible citizenship in the national consciousness of Nigeria.
The Word “PATRIS” is a Greek word which means FATHERLAND and it is the root word for PATRIOT which means one who supports his own fatherland, a proud supporter and defender of his own country and its way of life.
This definition especially the part that has to do with defending “its way of life” poses a great challenge as the current way of life in Nigeria needs a confrontation rather than a defence, hence this action initiative.
PATRIS INITIATIVE (PI) is a Christian Action Initiative which is borne out of the belief that the Church stands as the only hope of National well being for both the government and the governed.
We desire to restore PATRIOTISM, (a passionate love for our fatherland) as a core value in our national life through the application of Biblical principles and God revealed strategies.
In the words of Martin Luther, the great reformer “If our speaking fails to address the precise point at which the world of our time aches, we are not really preaching the Word”.
This aptly portrays the experience of our nation Nigeria where Churches dot every corner of our towns and cities; a large percentage of TV viewing time is given to all forms of religious programs but this trend has not in any way impacted the nation in any meaningful way; it has no effect whatsoever on our national life. It is as if the upsurge of Churches and the increase in social, economic and political degradation are somehow related.
This situation has remained the way it is because Christians have lost sight of the purpose of the Church as Jesus intended it in His words in His first mention of the Word Church – “I will build my Church and gates of hell shall not prevail against it”.
This very statement reveals that the Church will engage some hostile powers and will definitely overcome them.
These words played out in the experience of the early Church in the book of Acts and down through the ages, the Church has always been an agent of social change by serving as leaven permeating and transforming the social order.
This position may conjure up the historical images of the dark age of the Inquisition, the violent militance of the Crusades and the Western Protestant Empires; it is so because recent experiences have revealed the Church as a docile and moribund institution whose major duty is singing hymns and printing posters to advertise some unrealistic healing and miracle meetings without any societal relevance.
Patris Initiative is a humble attempt of our ministry to respond to God’s desire to return His Church to that leaven that permeates society, we firmly agree with the words of the Pilipino author who played a formidable role in the fight for social justice under the totalitarian government in the Philippines – she wrote:
“The Church seems such a straggling minority to take upon itself the task of changing society. This overlooks the fact that the powers of the kingdom are already present. The Kingdom is not entirely future...It is here, leavening history in a powerful way”
Melba Padilla Maggay, (Transforming Society- Reflections of Kingdom and Politics 2004)
PI agrees with T.S. Eliot when he argues that “The Church’s message to the world must be expanded to mean ‘the Church’s business to interfere with the world”’.
The gospel when faithfully and accurately preached will turn the world upside down. To speak of Jesus as Lord is to demand subjection of personal and social life under His kingly rule. To call for repentance is to ask people to turn away, not simply from their individual vices, but from participation in the collective guilt of organised injustice. To invite people to come in faith is to challenge them to walk in trusting obedience, to God in the agony of commitment and concrete engagement in the life of the world.
The Gospel is more than a set of things to believe about Christ, it is a radical call to come under the discipline of the Kingdom – rich selling all they have and giving them to the poor and the corrupt Inland Revenue official to repay what he has stolen.
The Church in its present state especially in Nigeria with all its wealth and size is proving to the world that in spite of its physical presence and millions on its roll call, it is still “a straggling minority to take upon itself the task of changing society”; the reason is that the Gospel has been limited to the salvation of the soul as a means of going to heaven and avoiding hell even if it means living in hell in the earth.
Our mandate in Patris Initiative is to wake up this sleeping giant to begin to take its God given role as world changers.
Patris Initiative strives to wake up the Nigerian Nation from the slumber of “Shuffering & Shmiling” to borrow the words of the late musician, Fela’s words.
The nation has gotten used to dead infrastructures and unrighteous governments only to be contented with complaints and talk. We have lost all juice to sustain any struggle; it is almost impossible for any civil society in Nigeria to sustain a struggle for more than few days without breaking ranks.
It is to these trends that Patris Initiative is saying NO.
We believe that it is only the Church that can take on the fight for social justice and righteousness and it will still be correct because it will be done through the Biblical injunction of the expansion of the Kingdom beginning from within us.
There is something about the faith that Jesus Christ left for us as a legacy that has the power to turn the world upside down.
Patris Initiative firmly believes that there is a relationship between real evangelism and social action.
When the Church begins to preach the “Authentic Gospel” TM, that is, the gospel that Jesus Christ preached and bequeathed to His disciples to preach – Matthew 10:7-8:
Matt 10:7-8
7 And as you go, preach, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven is at hand.' 8 "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. NKJV
The gospel is that the long awaited kingdom, its reign of peace, justice and righteousness has finally come and it has come in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ present here on earth.
It is a sin for a believer to abstain from the politics of his day because the Kingdom as Jesus preached it is a political term, it has more to do than just the saving of souls.
The idea that Jesus proclaimed Himself as King reveals the political content of His mission; His kingdom was not just a spiritual kingdom, scripture reveals that He is not just king over the human heart, he is also the ‘King of the Jews’ (Matthew 27:11). He never said that His Kingdom was not in the world; it was simply not of the world.
It is on this premise that PATRIS INITIATIVE stands – to use the timeless spiritual Biblical principles of social action to influence our present national experience to establish responsible citizenship and good governance.
We believe that the God of Creation will direct our noble cause.

The Authentic Gospel

Hi there,

My book "The Authentic Gospel" is at the concluding stage of its release.

I thought to share the opening chapter with you.

God bless as you read.

Foreword

Since the death and resurrection of Christ 2000 years ago, countless doctrines and gospels have emerged, every one of them claiming superiority. For this reason, it has become increasingly hard for Christians; especially baby Christians to tell the true Gospel of Christ from the false Gospels. More importantly is the fulfilment of the Biblical prophesy of men having itchy ears such that they yearn only for that which they want to hear and not what they should or need to hear.

We are living in the days of the fulfilment of Prophecies that are being fulfilled at a very fast pace because the heavens are eager to release the Spirit of the Son (see Acts 3:21) on willing and true saints.

The increasing rate of false doctrines and gospels are not only alarming but also devastating. The falsification, misinterpretation, misapplication, adulteration, denial, corruption of the scriptures and its gospel is more than ever pervasive; as people preach about “another Jesus”, they yield to the Jesus they preach, receiving a “different spirit” and embracing a “different gospel”. This gospel, which they receive, proclaim, and even die for, is symbolic of the life they yearn to live without God, outside God, or identifying with Him but partially or completely denying the power of his word, or ignoring His divine principles.

The purpose of this book is not to dwell on what has gone wrong with the gospel; neither is it aimed at adding to existing volumes of opinions on its perversion, rather it is a voice for The Authentic Gospel, aimed at raising its standard and restoring it to its original place.

The authentic gospel as presented or represented in this book is an expression of truth -- the truth of its genuineness and the attempt of men over the years to falsify it, not my personal opinion. My opinion serves as a medium of conveying the truth of the gospel, while allowing the gospel to reveal itself, so that the counterfeit will be exposed in its true colour. The best way to know the counterfeit is not to study it but to study the genuine and that is the background upon which I have written this book.

Just as there is no sin without law, so also is there no any counterfeit without the genuine. The classification of a thing or product as counterfeit is possible only because it is measured by a standard that is considered as the genuine. The value of the gospel has been cascading into near meaninglessness in the past decade; many preachers or pastors have reduced it to a means of wealth acquisition and dragged it into unsavoury reputation. For the laity, Jesus is to them a servant at their beck and call to meet their needs. This largely explains the upsurge of ministries and Churches across the nations of the world, without tangible transformation of lives, and reformation in governments and corporations.

Paul captured the situation appropriately in his second letter to the Mega Church in Corinth, that their lack of effectiveness, in spite of their size is traceable to the embrace of “another Jesus”, a “different spirit” and a “different gospel”. (2 Cor 11:1-6)

It is an anomaly to see the prevalence of evil and perversions in the midst of the seemingly endless upsurge of Churches in our societies, claiming to preach the gospel. We must begin to ask questions why we are not seeing the same results as seen in the early Church. The Bible declared that the disciples of old turned their world upside down. And this was accomplished in an environment without telephones (cell, land or fixed wireless), computers, and the Internet. None of the sophistication of communication technology of this day and time was available at the time. Yet, their accomplishments remain unprecedented. Is there not something they possessed that we lack?

I believe there is an ancient wisdom and power of the gospel that is today missing, but still relevant. And until we not only discover but also tap into them, the power of the cross will continue to elude in the church. The Church must return to the authentic gospel, with alacrity, reposition itself, and collectively key into the power of the gospel.

The gospel our Master Jesus Christ preached while on earth was a gospel of power, efficacy, and purpose, a penetrating gospel that consistently revealed the ills of the society in which it was declared, exposing falsehood for what it was. He also called every evil by its name, confronting evil and immoral men and women with their sins, regardless of their status, and letting people know his stand, his purpose and mission, a gospel that declared God’s kingdom principles on earth. He did not only teach men these principles, but lived by them as well.

It was a gospel that could not be ignored by the powers that be; its force, consistency, and integrity were so efficacious that like magnet it drew multitudes to itself amidst opposition and persecution of the kind that Modern day Christians may not have experienced. But that was not what validated it; the distinctiveness and authenticity of the gospel did. The authentic gospel was the one the early apostles preached. It created so much fear in the minds of the people that they were afraid to join the Church.

The message in this book is for as many ministries today who validate their calling by the size of their Churches. You need to ask why people find it easy to come to your Church, and it might be because it is “user-friendly”. What attracts men might not necessarily attract God, but if it attracts God, then it will attract only men who are sincerely seeking God.

If your Church is user-friendly, I have come to tell you that it falls short of the standard of the Bible – it was not easy following Jesus, the message of John the Baptist was not the attractive type. Paul did not preach a too attractive message either – if yours is attractive, you need to check the source of that message, it does not represent the message our Master (Jesus Christ) preached, which He handed down to the apostles.

If we are to appraise Jesus’ ministry by the standards of today, He will be considered an ineffective minister – one who preached a sermon that reduced His Church by almost 95% - we will begin to check His credentials or who His mentor- we will wonder if He has a good “covering”.

A prophet of God in my nation Nigeria, who I believe God, has commissioned to preach the authentic message of Jesus was once asked by some journalists why he was the only one being arrested all the time by the government. His response was revealing. “The question you should be asking is why are the others not being arrested?” This man represents a departure from the norm, the consequence of telling the gospel as it is. As you read, may the truth in this book cause a mighty turn around in your life and ministry.

You may wish to place an advance order by e-mailing theauthenticgospel@thekingdomcitizens.org or call Gbenga on 234-806-0542-949

GOD IS SEARCHING

I am sorry for the long silence, I have been busy preaching this message in our Wednesday services that leaves me with no time to share it with the wider audience and i believe it is not too late to say Happy New Year or like we greeted ourselves in KCP at the dawn of the new year Happy New You.

God opened the year with us here in KCP with the words of Prophet Hanani to King Asa in 2 Chronicles Chapter 16 verse 9:

For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him...NKJV

The Prophetic Word that is making rounds in the Church is that this year 2008 will be a year of new beginnings; I have the same witness but I believe this should not be received in the isolated form that it is being received in many quarters. Many see this only from the stand point of blessings, yes God will bless and He is blessing ( I am a witness) I believe that God is set to do a new thing but the “new things” will come by doing away with that which is old – old in thought, mentality, structure and pattern.Whatsoever does not meet divine standard will be done away with for this new day to dawn; just as Jesus invaded the temple to drive out those who turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves, God is invading the His temple which is hearts of men to do a purging, He is checking our motives why we do and say the things that we do and say. God is doing this because He desires for His true nature to be revealed to earth.The words of Prophet Hanani to King Asa is re-echoing throughout the whole Church today; His eyes are searching to and fro the whole earth looking for those whose hearts are fully committed to Him so that he might show Himself strong on their behalf.Some tables are going to be overturned this year. Don’t be dismayed when you see this happen. It is the hand of the Lord. God is refining the inward motives of the heart. Any work done with a selfish, self-seeking motive will not survive the refining fire.I believe that it is not just about Him doing a “new thing” but He desires people who will offer themselves to Him to work on and then through so that they can be “the new thing”.This is the Proceeding Word that we must live by in this new day.

(The full text of this message can be obtained from the Fresh Manna Ministries of The Kingdom Citizens’ Pavilion Jos Nigeria or by calling Jonathan on 234-803 718 3160)

The PowerPoint Presentation of the message can be downloaded free from our website www.thekingdomcitizens.org