ICGC Special Offering: My Take

To the unsaved world, walking in faith and accepting the commands of God's prophets is illogical if not irrational.

To them giving offerings at the instruction of a heavenly ordained man of God is a complete different way of life.

Beloved, we serve a living God who delights in making covenants with his children through offering. The whole Bible is a story of God's covenant with his people.

Too many Christians are unaware of God's desire to covenant with his people and thus are not alert to hearing the holy spirit's guidance when God does want to make an everlasting covenant with them through special offerings.

Child of God, remember to be a Christian means to be involved in a conflict. Christianity is a spiritual war between God's kingdom and the kingdom of darkness.

This war is raging in both towns and villages across the land. The devil has dispatched destructive and disrupted forces into God's church. The battle is no more restricted to the devil's playgrounds like naked beaches, night clubs, brothels etc.

The devil and his cohorts are ripping members of God's congregation apart and knocking kingpins in the kingdom of God right off the platform.

But I thank God for his grace and unsearchable wisdom. God is birthing his divine plans among his people and raising army Generals to battle the devil and his agents in this end time.

God's church is filled with his glory and there is a great desire to win souls for God by his zealous children.

The kingdom of God is prevailing as the end of the age quickly approaches the final showdown when the saints of God will deliver the final blow to the enemy and deliver the kingdom of this world to our Father in heaven.

As a believer, remember your offering determines your love for God. Those who usually nag and find it difficult to give offerings are those who have not fully surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ.

If you can trust God with your life, why can't you trust God with your money?

John Wesley once said, if you give your life to Christ, you must give your purse to him as well.

The hardship you are going through must not stop you from giving offerings to God. We are told in 2nd Corinthians 8 that, the Macedonian church gave mightily to God even in their deep poverty and affliction.

Again, Scripture tells us in Mark 12:41-44 that, Jesus sits right opposite the offering bowl whenever he enters the temple. This is the more reason why Jesus told his disciples that the widow's offering was the best because she gave all that she had to God.

Until we stop giving traditional offerings , it will be very difficult for us to move to greater heights in life.

Our offering must not be determined by economic hardship but rather our love for God must lead us to give abundantly to support his work.

When pharaoh finally agreed to let the Israelites leave Egypt and he asked them to leave their sheep, cattle etc behind, Moses disagreed on the grounds that they would use the animals as burnt offering to God.

Beloved, you can never reach the promised land if you cannot give offerings to God.

Beloved, if you understand the importance of offering, you won't allow anybody to brainwash you and discourage you from giving.

The Bible tells us how God caused brimstones and thunder to strike and kill the Philistines (archenemies of the Israelites) when Samuel sacrificed a burnt offering to God at Mizpah in 1st Samuel 7:10-12.

Again, When God directed prophet Elijah to go to Zarephath and help the widow, there was a condition.

Elijah added a *specific promise* to his request of the jar of flour and the jug of olive oil from the widow.

Prophet Elijah gave this promise to the widow (1st Kings 17- 14)

"For this is what the Lord the God of Israel says, the jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land".

What is the difference between what Elijah did and what Bishop Ashimolow did?

Is it because Bishop Ashimolow's name is not in the Bible?

I can say on authority that the widow's offering to Prophet Elijah was more expensive than what Pastor Ashimolow demanded from the congregation.

The handful jar of flour and jug of oil was all that she had. In fact she was going to prepare a tiny loaf of bread with it , eat it with her child and die!

It was her moment of despair.
Beloved, any offering that you give to God that you don't feel the pains in your bones is not an offering.

You can never touch God's throne of grace if you keep offering 1 cedi to God each Sunday whilst you spend 20 cedis weekly on recharge cards and 48 cedis on pizza every Tuesday. Where lies your priority as a child of God?

Abraham became God's friend because of his obedience, faith and numerous offerings to God.

Again, David became a man after God's own heart because of his numerous covenants with God through offering.

In 2nd chronicles chapter 20 verse 20, the Bible admonishes Believers to believe in God and get established and also believe in his prophets and get prosperous.

We lose the argument from the scratch when we begin to calculate the different kinds of dishes a man of God is going to prepare with our offerings.

Your offering is a covenant between you and God. The man of God standing before you is a mere vessel been used by God to direct your path.

The church of God is heaven's official agency in the earth realm and its responsible for carrying out the foreign policies of its heavenly kingdom through methodologies and strategies.

Throughout the Bible, we have different kinds of anointing that gives wealth and prosperity to the glory of God.

We have Abrahamaic anointing(Gen.12:1-3),
Isaac anointing(Gen.26:1-14)
Jacobian anointing (Gen.28:1, 30:43), Joseph anointing (Psalm 105:21)

Solomaic anointing (1chron.29, 2 chronic.9)
Joshua anointing (Joshua 6:1-3) etc and all these kinds of anointing comes with specific principles and strategies.

Don't be a double minded Christian. As a believer, you need to know what and why you believe.

If you get taunted and tempted by the devil anytime you try to give to God, do what Jesus did. Rebuke Satan with the word of God .(Matt 4:10).

Never try to defend God by entering a conversation with the devil .Eve tried this and she failed. Never take a lip from the devil.