If you’re in or around Abuja on Sunday, April 1, 2012, I invite you to join me at this meeting. It promises to be life-changing.

You can find the pictures from my recent meetings in Jaji, Kaduna, Nigeria here on my facebook profile. Thanks!

My 2012 Itinerary Updated

Hello, dear friends, I just updated my 2012 speaking itinerary across the country. You can find it here. Feel free to join me at any of these meetings close by to you. It would be a privilege seeing you there. I will keep you updated as we confirm other dates. Much blessings!

WORDS TO LIVE BY

Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege – the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth and supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with him, of perceiving and recognizing and understanding him more fully and clearly. For his sake I lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ, the Anointed One.

(For my determined purpose is) that I may know Him – that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding (the wonders of His person) more strongly and more clearly. And that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection (which it exerts over believers); and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed (in spirit into his likeness even) to his death…”

(Philippians 3:8, 10 Amplified)

MINISTRY REPORT

I just returned from the city of Lagos, the commercial capital and nerve centre of Nigeria where I ministered to the warm and beautiful people of The Redeemed Christian Church of God, House of Grace, Ketu Lagos. A big “God bless you” to Pastor and Mrs. Akinola Odupitan for that wonderful opportunity. It has always been a pleasure ministering for Pastor Odupitan and this was no different. God bless you, sir.

For more pictures, please see this album on my facebook profile or here on flickr.

Thank you, friends and partners for making it possible to carry this life-changing message to the ends of the world. You are blessed!

Praise and Prayer – Great Combo!

“And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God…” (Acts 16:25)

I had always believed and taught that prayer must begin and end in praises. Philippians 4:6 says to, “Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.”

It takes a combination of both (prayer and praise) to break through your midnight hour. Praise is prayer taken a notch higher.

Prayer versus Praise
1. The Prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:16-17) but the Praises of a righteous man availeth God! (Psalm 22:3)
2. God answers Prayers (Psalm 65:1, 5) but He lives inside Praise! (Psalm 22:3)
3. Prayer may be the key but Praise is the answer!
4. Prayer is God’s telephone line but Praise is His house address!
5. You may pray amiss (James 4:3) but you can’t Praise God amiss!
6. Prayer moves mountains (Mark 11:22-24) but Praise moves the mountain-moving God! And like I’ve said earlier, I don’t care about moving mountains, I only care about moving God! When I move God, He’ll move my mountains for me!

PictureSpeak

"He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters." Psalm 23:2 KJV

THOUGHTS TO CHEW ON

Prayer may move mountains but praise moves the mountain-moving God! I don’t want to move mountains, I want to move God! When I move God, He’ll move my mountains for me. He is the Immovable Mover. He is an Awesome God, He is worthy to be praised! – Yomi Olufiade

WHAT WILL BE YOUR LEGACY? – THE S. G. ELTON EXAMPLE

The picture above is of Miss Ruth Elton, 77, the only daughter of Pa S. G. Elton, a missionary statesman who discipled a lot of the men who led and still lead the Pentecostal revival in Nigeria. She’s standing on behalf of her father for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the ECU Reunion Conference 2011.

The ECU is an acronym for the Evangelical Christian Union, one of the foremost and oldest campus fellowships at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. It is a fellowship reputed in it’s almost fifty (50) years of existence to have produced leaders in almost every sphere of human endeavor – ministry, business, education, corporate and public governance, technology, ICT etc. I know because I am privileged to have passed through the same place and have served (and still serve) in leadership at both student and alumni levels.

S. G. Elton influenced those who shaped that fellowship in her early years. He lived a few kilometers away in Ilesha from the Ile-Ife campus where the fellowship is located. And now, he is being honored even in death, because his legacy endures!

Indeed, “The memory of the just is blessed: but the name of the wicked shall rot.” (Proverbs 10:7) I have said before and now again I say; FAME without a NAME is LAME. It does not endure! Solomon, ancient king of Israel put it this way, “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, loving favor rather than silver and gold.” (Proverbs 22:1)

I’m saying this because as leaders, we must not get it wrong! Our mandate is to build an enduring legacy. And the surest way to do that is by pouring our lives in service into other men. Monuments will fall and crumble, wealth and riches will fade but he that lives on in the hearts of other men truly lives! I agree with Edwin Markham, American clergyman of the 19th Century who in effect said that nothing really is worth the making if it does not make the man.

Investing in people is a costly and risky business; in fact it’s plain hard work. But as I have come to know that’s where the real joy and fulfillment in leadership comes from. In the long run, no one will remember you for the number of cars you had or the kind of automobile you drove. They will care less how many countries you visited or the size of your business organization or ministry. Only your deposit in people’s lives is what will endure after all is said and done.

See, “One of the outstanding ironies of history is the utter disregard of ranks and titles in the final judgment men pass on each other,” Samuel Logan Brengle (1860 – 1939) said. “The final estimate of men shows that history cares not an iota for the rank or title a man has borne, or the office he has held, but only the quality of his deeds and the character of his mind and heart,” he concluded.

S. G. Elton had followed in the footsteps of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Paul, the Apostle from Tarsus and many others like them who though may be dead yet their legacies live on through the lives they have touched. They are my heroes and I say, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his!” (Numbers 23:10) Selah!

THOUGHTS TO CHEW ON

I prayed for faith, and thought that someday faith would come down and strike me like lightning. But faith did not seem to come. One day I read in the tenth chapter of Romans, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God”. I had closed my Bible and prayed for faith. I now opened my Bible and began to study, and faith has been growing ever since. – D. L. Moody (founder, Northfield Seminary & Moody Bible Institute)