Counting Up To End Of 2015 On A Note Of Thanksgiving—Part Two

One of the reasons people don’t give heartfelt thanksgiving to God is the hurry to have twenty years damage repaired in twenty minutes! Need driven saints are very unstable and shallow Christians who don’t wait for God to work on them. It’s only Father Christmas who won’t consider people’s spiritual health before giving out gifts, but before you receive from Father Christmas, you must pay his fees! Blessing can become a curse when the personality is not transformed, when the attitude of the receiver remains unregenerated.

It’s written: “You can’t put new wine {blessing} in old wineskin {unrepentant life}” – MT. 9:17; MK. 2:21; LK. 5:37-39. This is because the old wine, the old status repels the hand of God. The cleanliness of your bottle determines your blessings. Commitment to cleaning your bottle makes a difference with God. Readiness and preparedness gave Jotham the blessings of God – 2 CHRO. 27:6. Don’t ever lose the picture of the goodness of God in your life or you will be messed up by the devil. When attacked by sickness, unemployment, weakness, barrenness, homelessness, false accusations, rejection and lack and want, remember the picture of the goodness of God and it will beget His wonderful works in your life. So embrace that picture, keep it alive and don’t let it to elude you.

Whatever unsavory situation that you are going through now is under the control of God and He will stir things in your favour if you acknowledge Him faithfully. In the face of challenges, the children of Israel praised God and He wrought great victory for them – 2 CHRO. 20:20. In thanksgiving, God comes with judgment for His enemies and blessings for His children. One way by which pride can be eliminated is by praising God for His blessings to you. Everything that happens to you should naturally attract thanksgiving to God. Some people come to the house of God with sacrifices, but if it is not presented on the basis of thanksgiving, it won’t be acceptable to God.

Mary introduced blessings to the household of Joseph. Through her, his life made meaning on earth. Deliverance came to him by reason of her unique vocation in righteousness. Mary was blessed among women and when she entered his life, it assumed a new phase. Before Mary became his wife, Joseph never had a dream! – MT. 1:20; LK. 1:28.

Everyone is commanded to give God quality thanksgiving for the following reasons.

1. THANKSGIVING CONNECTS YOU TO GOD. Be in a hurry to appreciate God so that you don’t miss His timing. If you give God a good gift in a bad time, it will not profit you – it becomes a bad gift! Thanksgiving forever keeps you linked to God and no reasonable person forsakes a thanks giver, especially God. Thanksgiving dignifies you, it makes you a talk-about person. A thanks giver is never disconnected from God and it doesn’t require a great effort to say “thank you.”

Thanks givers realise that their connection to God makes things work for them – JN. 15:5; 1 COR. 4:7. Wholehearted thanks givers hardly backslide – they remain on the same wavelength with the Holy Spirit irrespective of uncondusive conditions – PSA. 30:12. Thankless attitudes have destroyed promising lives and relationships that had the tendency to grow for people’s benefit. Every thanks giver stays connected to their source of help. You have become what you have become and should be thankful to God for it. Many times, we don’t know that the God Who gave can take back His blessings – 1 SAM. 13;8-14; 15:10-35; 28:18. Thanksgiving elongates your life.

2. THANKSGIVING RPOVOKES INCREASE – Everything naturally increases in the hands of a thanks giver – JN. 6:23. In the hands of a thanks giver, one thing attracts another. For saying “thank you” for one blessing, God qualifies you for another. When you thank God, He is glorified – MT. 5:14. The church of today has become a Saint Thomas church – they want to see before they can thank God! The ministers in this blessed church thank God in every service for everything He does in our midst including the attendance – JERE. 30:19. God initiates increase on the altar of thanksgiving – JN. 6:11. Murmuring not only leaves you on the same spot, it draws you back! Strength and energy committed to murmuring should be channelled into thanksgiving. Ingrates never increase!

The only way to enter the realm of distribution is to give thanks – to be blessed beyond measure. Therefore, thanksgiving can be a seed. Destruction is the lot of a murmurer. When people take responsibility to give God thanks, their earth will produce, it will yield her increase to them.

3. THANKSGIVING IS THE WILL OF GOD – Because Jehovah commanded thanksgiving for every living being, it becomes His will – 1 TESS. 5:18. God owns everything on earth, for He created them – GEN. 1:1; PSA. 24:1; HAG. 2:8. All things in earth and in heaven belongs to Him. True thanks givers are humbled by this realisation and by the changes seen in their lives.

4. THANKSGIVING ATTRACTS DIVINE INTERVENTION – As a thanks giver, you attract divine security, enjoy heaven’s intervention and protection always – 2 CHRO. 20:20-23. God deals with all issues concerning you because you are a thanks giver. Everyone in the kingdom of God must be a thanks giver. God is attracted to our situation when you give Him thanks. Jehoshaphat and Judah thanked God ahead of the battle for victory, unlike the saints of today. While they were unlocked in thanksgiving, God provoked their enemies into destroying each other. Thanksgiving annulled four days of decadence, decomposition, decay and death – JN. 11:44. On the strength of this thanksgiving, the dead came alive! Thanksgiving disgraces death and thanks givers never die! To escape death and destruction, be thankful to God.

5. THANKSGIVING PRESERVES YOUR BLESSINGS – Because there are forces and powers waiting by day and night to destroy your blessings; God in thanksgiving keeps these enemies at bay – MAL. 2:2-3. Whatever you have asked God for, don’t wait for the solution to come first, but go ahead and thank Him. Thanksgiving preserves, for every thanks giver enjoys preservation from the hands of God. Your blessings may be corrupted if thanks giving don’t ascend from you to God – PROV. 10:22.

6. INGRATITUDE ATTRACTS CURSE FROM GOD – Because He wanted to be God to the Israelites, God gave them angel’s bread and water from the rock. But rather than being grateful to God, they murmured and complained against God. Just after the momentous crossing of the Red Sea and the deserving thanksgiving services at the banks of the Red Sea, the Israelites took up stones to kill Moses. Instead of thanking God for the privilege of eating the food of angels, these “stiff necked people” manifested ingratitude constantly and death became their reward – PSA. 28:5. After praying for an issue again and again and the situation seems unchanged, switch over to thanksgiving and the change you desire will presently come.

NUGGETS FROM THE BANQUET OF STARS,ON NOVEMBER 8 & 15, 2015, AT STARPLACE BIBLE CHURCH, CHILDS FOUNTAIN SCHOOL, OLORUN ADABA BUS STOP, EGBEDA, LAGOS.

MINISTER; PASTOR DAN
COUNSEL OF HEAVEN TO MEN
If you don’t stand by the word of God, He won’t stand by you even though He wants to ---- PASTOR DAN

What things soever that a man sets to receive by faith is reachable for him in God – MK. 11:24. The woman with the issue of blood steadfastly went for and touched the hem of the garment of the Lord Jesus by faith and she was made whole ---- PASTOR DAN

Apart from being a faith booster, prayer is the way of escape from every form of danger ---- PASTOR DAN


TESTIMONIES OF GOD’S DOINGS IN STARPLACE BIBLE CHURCH

In 2010, my maternal cousin Emmanuel Chucks Molokwu invited me to a prayer fellowship organised by a pastor friend of his who just left a church where he served for about eleven years. Convinced that many hirelings were running away from their masters out of unbridled, unholy ambition, I resolved to attend the fellowship for two or three times just to make my cousin happy! However, it was seriously impressed in my spirit after the first meeting I attended that the call of God was on the life of the young man directing the fellowship under the Holy Spirit. By the fourth attendance, I informed my group leader in my former mega church that a new move by God was in my life. Sceptically, he advised caution and prayers.

And faithfully, I heeded his warning because he had in three years as my leader, proved to be a true shepherd and an insightful Christian leader. In the end, I was convinced by an inward leading that God had planted me in the fellowship to be blessed. My leader also heard from the Holy Spirit to the same end. Preparatory to the fellowship transforming into the church phase of the ministry at the command of God, Pastor Dan later nominated me to commence a rigorous pastoral training, a privilege that has changed my life forever! Of the many materials that looked suitable for this holy calling, only three of us were approved by God in the end and were ordained on March 1, 2010.

Today, I am blessed to have Rev. Dan {yes, he was ordained into that office though he’s widely known and called Pastor Dan by choice!} as my pastor, teaching priest, leader, shepherd and prophet. My pastor is a man that pursues excellence without apologies; a consumer of the written word and is dedicated to holy living within and without. The best part of the office of a pastor for me is the opportunity to serve the Lord and the continual training it exposes me to and the grace to know my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ daily and intimately ----- PASTOR EMEKA

I thank Gog for His intervention in my family, and for His gracious mercies to my family at home and abroad -----PASTOR LANRE

SPECIAL INVITATION TO ALL MEN AND WOMEN!!!!!!!!!

TO CAP OUR APPRECIATION OF GOD’S BLESSINGS TO US THIS YEAR WHICH FORMALLY STARTED FROM NOVEMBER 1, 2015, STARPLACE BIBLE CHURCH WILL HOLD A SPECIAL THANKSGIVNG BANQUET ON DECEMBER 20, 2015. VENUE: STARPLACE BIBLE CHURCH, CHILD’S FONTAIN SCHOOLS, OLORN ADABA BUS STOP, BY GOWON ESTATE, EGBEDA, LAGOS. YOU WILL BE BLESSED AS YOU COME.

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Articles by Emeka Anumbor