After forking out the promises of God in the midst of darkness, as churches in Nigeria reopen, Benson Enakhena, a senior pastor of El-Shaddai Salvation Family Ministries (ESFM) follows through with wrenching the hearts of his members with lingering questions using “Who is your God”, as a sword.
In the message obtained by Godfrey Times, the truth-holding servant of God started with enjoining the congregrants to ask their neighbor, Who is your God? Do you know your God? Where is your God?
Enakhena told the congregation my God is everywhere! and began the heart wrenching adventure with describing holiness and righteousness as your love towards your neighbor. Your kindness, your heart towards others.
The message which is very thorough, and very straight forward, is for those who really want to hear.
Here are some excerpts from the message titled: Who is My God?
Do you know you can be going to Church for fifty years and you don’t know who your God is? Do you know you can be working alone and you think God is working with you? Do you know you can think that you are so righteous, so holy but God is angry with you?
This generation we are mistaking one thing, that holiness and righteousness is all about what you do to yourself. It is what you do for others. What you do to others not what you are doing to yourself. God knows you already love yourself. You want the best for yourself. You want good things for yourself. On the day of rapture, if God should open the door to say okay, who will enter first? Do you know that some will abandon their children, abandon their father, some will abandon their mother, some will abandon their loved ones, some will abandon their wives, those who say I don’t pray for myself, I always pray for you alone my husband, will abandon their husbands that day and run into heaven. God already knows you love yourself. But in holiness and righteousness, is your love towards your neighbor. Your kindness, your heart towards others.
Who is your God? What you cherish most, is your God. Let me give you a little example. The first day you handle a car to drive, that night you will not sleep. Do you know what you are going to be thinking about? Continuity. How you are going to drive tomorrow, maybe the first day you drove the car, you did not park the car very well due to your house being tight…am going to do this, go this way, and go forward a bit to the right, you would go on and on till dawn, you will not sleep…you have ended up having a sleepless night. Do you know what? That car has become your God at that moment. That is the relationship God is looking for between me and you. It is not after doing my own, I will now do God’s own. God is not your spare tyre. A child of God considers God first before his or her own.
God showed me a revelation, over seven years ago, when I was in my former church, I was praying over a situation, saying why should tithers be like this? God now showed me: He said you see, they give to me whatever they like, whenever they want to, sometimes they spend all before thinking about me. He said if they put me first, why don’t they remove my own as soon as they receive? You woke up in the morning, you are in a hurry to go to work. On your way, when there’s an obstacle you then remember that there’s Jesus…screaming blood of Jesus!
Ha! the car almost somersaulted. If you had prayed before leaving your house, maybe you won’t have entered that car that somersaulted. I have a God who never fails, yes! but why are you failing God? Why are we failing God? If you know your God, you won’t lie. If you know your God, you won’t backbite. As we are all here this morning, God knows our heart including myself. Before you start, God knows your heart. Before you move, God knows your heart. Is your heart with God? That is the reason why we are asking who is your God?
When some go to church to worship their God, some of us go to church to achieve material things and not to worship God. Not to praise God. And do you know something? God may bless you but God is not your God! Let me ask, who can sell his or her own child for N10M? But we can sell God for N10M. We value that child more than God that gave him or her to us. Then who is your God? I want you to go home, pondering to yourself saying have I actually taken God as my God? Ponder over it tonight. Judge yourself. Do not allow the Angels to judge you. Do not allow God to judge you. Let your conscience speak to you. Ask yourself, have I actually taken God as my God? Inside your heart, think about the things you have been doing, your actions, your decisions, your attitude, think about them tonight and ask yourself, have I actually taken the Almighty God as my God?
John 8:40-44 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.
Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.
Some of us will say Ha! I am a redeemer, the God of Papa is covering me. It is a lie. God of Papa will not cover your sin. I am a Catholic…that does not save you. At a time the jewish said I am of Abraham, the heaven is ours. When I die am going to heaven. The Church you are coming to is just a building…your heart is the major church. The Pharisees and Sadducees are taking themselves as God, they do whatever they like, they behave anyhow, like some of us today, starting from the minister, immediately God gives us a little anointing, we begin to misbehave. We don’t respect even our elders, no more father, no more mother because God has open your ears or eyes a little to hear and see things, you begin to raise your shoulders. The Lord said, humble yourself. And at that moment when you are speaking the truth, even in your family they hate you so much. They look at you as a rebel because you are speaking the truth. What I see about this our generation is, they love the church where they paint the truth and give to them. You are on your own, isn’t that what you want to hear? We have told you. Go on with that. I remember a pastor from Port Harcourt, he said I have preached about tithe for thirty years, I have been preaching prosperity…but a day came, I realised that I have been leading people astray at the Altar. Today I have come to repent, to change my preaching. What about those you have been preaching prosperity to? That have died inside financial prosperity. That have taken prosperity as their God. That have taken the worldly things as their God. Where is their soul?
May no one lead you astray. May nothing on this earth lead you to hell fire.
A man that knows his God, when he wakes up in the morning, before he drinks water, brush his teeth, he will kneel down and pray. Take your God first. That water you about to drink, maybe some power or someone has contaminated it. God cannot be behind you. Take him first. Let him go before you. Father I am going to Benin (the capital of Edo state), access the road, clear the road for me. Father be in Benin before me. Then what will stop that journey? Many of us are speaking in tongues but our heart is far away from God. Many of us can quote the scriptures from Genesis to revelation but our heart is far away from God. Some of us don’t miss the church, some of us spend all our money in the church, but our heart is bitter, our heart is full of hatred. Then who is your God? Ask yourself this day, who is your God?
Somebody will say I am born again, and his father was not born again, today he will say my wife must kneel down to give me food like my father use to demand that my mother should. You are still like your father. You are not born again. Haa when my father was alive, if my Mom does anything she shouldn’t do, he will say five thousand naira fine…so this my wife, I fine you anointing oil of this amount of money. You are still the same as your father. You are only trying to change structure. A foundation of bungalow is a foundation of bungalow. It is not a foundation for duplex. When you give your life to Christ, change your foundation spiritually. And when you say you have changed your foundation, it must be made manifest in your life, in your attitude. You just finished preaching, on your way home you get into a fight with someone. Or you just finished from the church, you are driving home and you find your neighbor in the church is trekking, you just blow your horn and drive away, Who is your God?
You come to the church, the usher directs you to a seat, you say no! You are looking for a seat under the fan that will be blowing you and such people would never contribute to the growth of the kingdom but they are the ones looking for the best in the kingdom. They are the ones looking for mistakes in the church. Then who is your God? God has not given me this, God has not given me that, ooh I have prayed for children for all of my life. He said seek me first. Which means, he is on the run. Look for him! Chase him everywhere! Do you want to know how to seek God? Ha I need this AC but I will not steal it. You are seeking God already. You wake up in the morning, your husband says you are stupid. You say I am sorry. You must not offend somebody before you say you are sorry. Oh I am sorry my husband. You are seeking for God already.
The Lord did not say you will take, He said he will add all other things. Do you know why he said that? Because you don’t know what you want. You don’t know what you need. That’s why he said I will give you all you need not all you want. I want you to know the difference between what you want and what you need. What you want can be what will kill you. What you need is what God wants to give you.
If God is your father, you will love your neighbor. You will love everyone around you. Hatred will depart from you. The day you love God, you love Jesus, your heart has been circumcised. That original hatred, wickedness has been taken away from you. If you give you life to Christ, that ego, that anger, that hatred, that wickedness is still dwelling in you, then you are not in Christ. You are in crisis. It is either you are in Christ or in crisis. Where do you belong? Today it is a matter of purge yourself, check yourself. Some of us are in church this morning saying let pastor do deliverance for me, we are switched off to the message of God but do you know something? This message is your deliverance.
Some of us, we are listening to the word but we are not hearing. And this is because of our mindset. We listen to the word of God but we are not hearing. A man that has heard the word, it penetrates, it pierces and changes him. You cannot drop a black liquid inside water without a notice. Who is your God?
Some of us even in our relationship before we marry, we lust for our spouse, we don’t care whether he or she is a devil. Oh he is so handsome, she is so beautiful. I have said that I will never marry a man that has no car…that man has three cars. You are lust. By the time the trouble starts, you will say this is not what I bargained for…I fasted and prayed…when you fasted and prayed, did you listen to God? It is what you have bargained for, not what God has bargained for you.
Some of us, little money, we have stopped worshipping God. We deviate immediately. A little spiritual gift, no more taking tantrums from anybody in the church. You have become a warlord. You lust immediately with the speed of light. No more respect. Who is that my senior pastor? That doesn’t see all that am seeing? You lust. The day a sheep assumes the position of a Shepherd, it will enter the mouth of a lion. This is the scenario Jesus has come to change. He looked at the Pharisees and Sadducees and said these ones do not know their God. I have come to redeem man from carnal and wicked thinking. Evil thinking.
Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Did it say it is for everybody? To them that do what? And what did Jesus say? He said you cannot claim to love me when you do not love your neighbor. I cannot claim to love God because I am a pastor, when I hate my members. A Shepherd cannot claim to love God when he hates the sheep God has given to him. But those that love God, everything work together for their good. The day you love God, He has started preparing your way for you. But when God loves you, in the beginning it may look very rough. Abraham passed through a rough path when God said leave your father’s house. But everything worked out for his good. Same with Isaac.
When Joseph had a dream that he was great, he did not dream that he was a servant, or he was stolen. But everything worked out for his good. When a storm is about to swallow you, pay no attention to the storm because the one that is your God, is the creator of the storm. He is the owner of the storm. He decides who the storm will swallow and who the storm will not swallow.
