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| Pastor Samuel O. Oladele |
By 'Gbenga Bankole
The President of Christ Apostolic Church, Nigeria and Overseas, Pastor Samuel O. Oladele has told Ministers of God to demonstrate maturity when the storms of life blow against them.
He noted that their bitter experience and maltreatment are made for their maturity.
Pastor Oladele stated this while giving the closing charge on the topic "Grow in Grace and Knowledge of our Lord" culled from 2nd Peter 3:18, at the Ministers' Conference 2022 of CAC Anosike Region (Europe) held last week.
According to Pastor Oladele, there will be storms and troubles because the Lord Jesus Christ never promised us a trouble-free life.
Also speaking on preachers who have taken prosperity message to extreme, the President said; "we will continue to attack prosperity messages. We love prosperity and God wants us to prosper, but I take prosperity messages to the extreme if I tell you that you will travel from London to New York without any turbulence in the air."
He said the Acts of Apostles was renamed 'Acts of Holy Spirit' by someone, saying if we have been baptized by the Holy Spirit we should allow Holy Spirit to act through us; adding that enough of talking in the church, let's begin to act and we should act maturely.
While urging Ministers of God on importance of growth, he explained that; "we all know the importance of growth as part of life. When you sow a seed today, you will want to go back there to know how it has grown. Whatever that has life that fails to grow becomes source of concern to everyone. The human life began at conception. When a baby is not growing as expected, you begin to panick about what could be the reason. It is not easy to grow spiritually and that is why we need divine assistance which is grace. Grace is our divine assistance to enable us to do that which naturally we can't do or achieve."
He noted that when we were children, we act like children, we like to play around, we have no deep meditation and that is the problem of many today; adding that the Bible says deep call unto the deep (Psalm 42:7), it is only when you are deep that you can call unto the deep.
Pastor Oladele said that, "When we were young we talk anyhow, dress anyhow, and we were always happy. Every young being is very happy with no time for deep meditation. We can't continue like that otherwise we will become a deep concern to heaven. If we call ourselves Christians and we still behave the way we used to when we were young then heaven is concerned, those who are around us will also be concerned. God wants us to make progress spiritually."
"Those who are crawlers among us should begin to stand. The standers among us should begin to walk. The walkers should beginning to run, the runners to fly and the flyers to soar higher and higher. From the way some people talk, you will know they are not matured Christians. You can occupy any position, but that doesn't translate to maturity. We cannot continue in Grace alone, we should also grow in that grace. Let the grace you carry show growth. We need the grace for growth and the grace for progress. All the advantages that we have today are meant to make us grow in the Spirit, " he further explained.