The Founder of the Liberty Christian Church, at # 219 Victoria Street, Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Bishop Moses Obasi, revealed some secrets in Christendom, including his trials and achievements in Ministry to commemorate his 20th anniversary as a Pastor.
In this exclusive interview with Gloria Harry, Bishop Obasi exposed many secrets:
Excerpts:
Question: How did it begin?
Response: we are not actually celebrating the anniversary of our Church; we are celebrating pastoral call to the altar. First of all, when I was small, I started going to church, I was deeply into church till my last year in secondary school.
But before then, my father told me that when I was born, you know in those days, you go to make enquiry about what will this child be? At least to x-ray the child’s destiny, and so, he told me when I was in secondary school that when I was born, the family went to make enquiry and they said a pastor was born in your home and no matter whatever he is going to do in life, he will end up being a pastor.
I saw my father begin to direst my faith towards actualizing this particular prophesy, by making sure that I go to church every time. Consistently! If I don’t go to church l will be punished. So it became like a law. If I go to church, I will eat on Sunday. If you don’t go to church, no food for you! So from there l began to grow in faith but along the line I discovered, towards my class 5 in secondary school, I walked out of faith because I was angry for failing mathematics.
Somebody sat beside me in the exam, and copied from me, when the result came, the person passed and I failed. So when I failed that subject, I was angry with God. How come somebody that copied from me passed and I failed. I refused to go to church. That’s how I backslid. So many pastors were all coming and I was running away from them. Not until after some period of time, I found my feet again, back in faith. Then I had what you’d call impromptu ordination; that was done by prophet Mokunga, the elder brother of Panam Percy Paul and is the founder of Oasis of Love.
So in 1995 precisely, the man called me out and ordained me the first consecration into pastoral ministry and that was the first time the whole thing took off, but actually it began in 1994, from there we took it off. I began my impromptu pastoral ministry, but I went into it deeply in 1996. In 1996, I went deeply on the pastoral mission and from then until this moment we have been doing the work by the grace of God.
I was finally mentored by a Yoruba pastor, who is my father in the Lord, called Olukoya Oluwatosin, he raised me in the ministry and sent me forth. So, we have been doing the work by the grace of God.
Question: In these twenty years, what experiences have you had?
Response: So many! So many experiences!! Man is unreliable. The worst mistake any pastor is going to make in his life is to rely on people. The bible says the arm of flesh shall fail you. If I had relied on people, the ministry would not be standing up till this moment because 70 % of the people, who began this work with me, all walked out. More especially when there is a responsibility. When we came over here and we were trying to raise this building, all of them left.
I turned everywhere and I could not see any one and it taught me one thing. I learnt something that moment that man is unreliable. So any person who is going to succeed in ministry, be a pastor or whatever should learn to trust more on God, than relying on man.
Number two experience is that ministry is not easy. If you look at it and approach it from the physical perspective and from the material perspective, it looks like something that blesses; something that gives you everything you want but I have discovered that more in ministry you lack more than you have. But because of who you are, there are things you don’t tell people because if you tell them, you will discourage their faith so you have to make sure that not everything that happens to you or you see around you that you’d bring to the public. But there is no prosperity in bearing the cross. Bearing the cross is shame, reproach, abandonment and insult. Because we have what is called internal reward.
If we are looking for the reward now, we will miss the point of our calling. Okay, so our internal reward is incoming, we are waiting for it. We are not yet there. But if we work for earthly reward, we cannot do this work.
Question: What is your advice to young minsters?
Response: number one: they should take it easy. There is this competition. God does not know you by the number of people you have in your church. God sees you through the eyes of faithfulness. Ministry is not competition.
Number two: make sure you have a call. Make sure you have a call! So many churches have parked up. You would see pastors fighting in the church. Fighting their fellow church members, beating up people. Some stealing, some killing, some have gone into ritualistic activities. Why? Because they don’t have a call. If they truly have a call, there is no short cut to what they are looking for. So they have to make sure they have a call.
Number three: they should not see ministry as a means of escaping poverty, many people see ministry and use it as a means of escaping from poverty. If you fail out there, you will fail in ministry. Because ministry is about wisdom and wisdom is of the Lord. If you don’t have the wisdom to succeed in earthly ministry, you will not also succeed in the kingdom business.
Number four: it requires tenacity and commitment. If you are going to be successful in ministry, you must understand the place of commitment. You don’t play with the things the Lord has deposited into your hands.
Number five: also whoever that is going into the ministry should count their loss. It is not an easy road. Just like the guest speaker said early this morning that he would never allow any of his children to become a pastor. which is true. I also said that! I have told my children that they can pursue any field you want to pursue, I will give you my maximum support, but telling me you want to be a pastor!! I won’t support i. I will not!!! Except divinity decides to override my own human policy, because the cross is not easy to bear. In ministry I have come to realize that the perception we have or the society has towards churches is that the moment you become a pastor, you have all you want. But no, I discovered that you even lack more, now that you are a pastor than if you are a business man.
Question: what advise do you have for the Christian community? We have seen an upsurge in crime rate, is it that the Christians have failed or the church system has failed?
Response: I won’t say that the church system has failed, but I will say the people in the church system. Because the bible says, my church is marching forward and the gates of hell cannot prevail.
The caliber of people, the kind of people we have in the system has portrayed Christianity in a very bad light. Honestly, you see a lot of things going on in the body of Christ which is supposed not to be.
Number one: Christians don’t love themselves. I have been born again for over twenty years and I have been on the altar for 20 years. I have discovered that you would see more hatred in the body of Christ than in the social circle. In the social circle, you would see them love themselves. We talk about the various kinds of love, the eros love, the agape love and the philia love.
What is eros love? Hey, Gloria, I love you because you give me money, and the moment you stop giving me money, my love for you dies. That is what is called eros love.
But agape love is unconditional. I love you whether you have it or you don’t have it. I love you whether you are there. Whether you minister to me or not I love you for who you are. But that is not obtainable in the church. That is why you see church migration. Consistently, what we call church growth is not church growth rather it is called church migration.
The moment you go to some place and you feel that what you are expecting is not coming your way, you go to another church. We don’t have love in the body of Christ. Too much hatred is in the body of Christ.
Number two: the church is also losing focus. The church has become earthly centered and heavenly absent. Jesus said, I am going to prepare a place. Our focus should be on eternity and not acquisition of wealth. Because of the craziness for acquisition of wealth, the place of charity is lacking in the church. You don’t see people talk about charity anymore, taking care of the widows and orphans.
Instead what you get today in the church, I use this word, ‘obtain by tricks’. There are too many poor people in the church. For instance, I set up a school now and I know that the setting up of the school came from free will offering of the church members and I go and build up a school and I place the school fees at one million naira. How can my church members afford the fees to enable their children attend the school? And the money is coming from the church. Their offering and tithe. I set up a school which they contributed towards erecting with tithe and offering, free will donation and that school is directed towards the rich and the poor who contributed towards the building of the school don’t have access to quality education. Why? I call it obtaining by tricks. The pastor wants to enrich himself. No, that is not the ministry that Jesus handed over to us. The ministry that Jesus handed over to us said we should care about the less privilege. But you see that is not obtainable today in the body of Christ.
What do we see again in the body of Christ? Hypocrisy! Too many hypocrites People tell you what they are not. I have discovered that. I have seen a lot during these 20 years and that has taught me a lot to be cautious. I don’t easily mingle with people these days. I choose people I mingle with. And it has taught me a very big lesson. You don’t choose me as a friend; l’ll choose you, because of what I have seen in the body of Christ. I have seen people some time ago come to solicit that I should join them in their so called prophetic cult and if I join, in the next three months, I was going to have more than five plots of land and I am going to build whatever I want in Port Harcourt. They will connect me to people. But there is a way that seemeth good unto a man, but the end is destruction. So a lot of hypocrisy. And you will see them there parading themselves as ministers of God. No!. The bible calls them agents of darkness. I have seen so much in the body of Christ that time cannot permit me to tell you all, but I also want to say this. In the body of Christ, you will see that most of our leaders, PFN and CAN, all of them are hypocrites, they are liars. They will go to the government house and collect Ten million naira on behalf of the Christian body and they will share it amongst themselves.
And these monies are meant for whom? For the church body! When you come to Port Harcourt today, you can’t see secretariats for Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) or Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN). No! You can’t find these secretariats. But during the time of Odili, Odili was giving millions to PFN. How did these monies vanish? They will go within themselves and share it and come to the altar and tell you the Lord is good. No, too many hypocrites on the platform of the altar of God. And that is why I disassociate myself from most of them, I took my wife to one of the so-called leaders, I don’t want to mention his name, well-known figure. I thought I was going to a father, after I got married and introduced my wife to him, only for him to take my wife’s number and call my wife to forget about me and let him take care of my wife. That I don’t have anything, that he would place my wife on monthly salary. And the monthly salary you want to place my wife; let me put it in this perspective, what if my wife is not a Christian? So if my wife is an unbeliever. So at the end of every month, you would gather church tithe and offering and go and give it to your girlfriend. You would place your girlfriend on salary every month, and the money is coming from the altar, from the church and these monies are given by people who don’t even have enough to eat.
That is why I said so many of them are hypocrites and we have to be very careful and cautious of how we associate with them. But there are also the good ones. There are also the fathers who are still good. I am not trying to use generalization term here; there are also still the good ones. What have I learnt these years about the body of Christ? The body of Christ, there is a deviation from the original gospel that Jesus has instructed us. If you watch your television, hardly will you see pastors ask listeners to repent. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. That was the message John the Baptist brought to us. That was the first chapter of the introduction of the Pentecostal movement. Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. What do you see today? Turn on your television channels on Sundays and Saturdays,
Ten steps to what? Wealth creation! 40 steps on how to get a stable marriage!! Is that what we are called for? Repent for the kingdom of God is at hand. Nobody is preaching the message of salvation. He said broad is the way that leads to destruction. Broad is the way that leads to destruction but narrow is the way that leads to eternity. God does not know the success of a ministry by the multitude of the people because the bible says broad is the way.
For the fact that you can gather Ten million people does not mean your church is recognized in heaven. You can be recognized on earth but despised in heaven and one common church with five members who follow the principles of God is greater than you in heaven.#
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