Be His prisoner

By Pastor Andrew Love

For me and my family going to Ghana was a reminder of what our Christian walk is really about. It refocused our attention on what God is doing. It has challenged all of us, including me, about the focus of our lives. So that song was appropriate because our lives are about being consumed with Jesus Christ. Our challenge is our daily walk with Him, with our focus solely on Him. When that happens so many things get put into the right perspective, and so many things that seem so problematic no longer are. When you are focused on what He wants and you align yourself on His work you begin to see things as He sees, and feel as He sees; that is a different way of living but I think it is the call on everyone of our lives, to turn our eyes upon Jesus. In that moment everything else fades into insignificance.

The challenge that I felt in Ghana was really inspired by God, and came through the life of another man. I met a man whose life is focused on Jesus Christ and for whom that chorus is a daily living reality. I know trying to pump his ego but there are brothers in the faith who are examples to us and, in the short time we were there, I learnt from the example of this man. I didn’t expect that within only a few weeks he would be sitting here, it has all come about very unexpectedly. But I delighted that he is here and I am looking forward to seeing what he is going to say.

Pastor Francis Odia

If this clapping is to me can you please direct it instead to Christ Jesus instead. I bring great things from Ghana here today and it is my prayer that the Lord will use me and His word to challenge and encourage you today.

Today I want to share my testimony with you and also what I do as a pastor in Ghana. I call myself a pastor missionary to my people, which is what I have been doing for the past thirteen years. My ministries began Sept 1996 and since then we have established 90 churches, but I am pastor of 74 churches with 104 pastors working with me.

I am not a typical pastor that stays in a church every week. My life has been reaching out to the unreached and I believe this is what Jesus will do.

Ephesians 4: 1-3

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

I consider myself not just a Christian, but a prisoner of the Lord, so that my life on earth will be for Him. Many are called and we must understand that each one of us is being called by God. As you see yourself in His hands so your life will be, but as for me, I see myself as a prisoner to Him, so that I will not be on my own. I want to be someone who pleases Him that has called me. Paul beseeches each one of us to bear with one another in love.

I was born 48 years ago to a father who had 27 children. I happened to be number 14 out of the 27. My father had eight wives. When I was growing up I saw four mothers in the house, including my mother. My father died with four mothers in the house. If you look to my background there is no Christianity there. When he was 60 years old he began attending the Presbyterian Church but I only believe he went so that he could be buried in the Presbyterian cemetery. That is the kind of family I was born into. Out of all my brothers and sisters no one attended university, apart from one who tried incredibly hard and managed it. Out of the 27 only one bought a car. But I can see that, though the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, my life as a Christian among my brothers looked quite different. I can own this to the faithfulness of God. I didn’t see anybody in my family become a pastor. Therefore I can claim that out of both my mother’s and father’s side I am the only pastor. This is the work of God’s grace.
When I realised that God wanted to use me because of where I came from I knew that I could not depend on myself, I had to depend on God for everything. So I chose a life of prayer and fasting. I cannot depend on myself or my education to succeed as a servant of God. I must instead depend on the grace of God and His faithfulness to me. God is alive and what He has allowed me to experience shows that the book we have is alive; every word in it is inspired by God. My experience as a pastor is not theory, it is very practical.

My first church is called Living Word Assemblies. That church happened to be founded by me. It was founded through zeal and not call. I didn’t know I was called to pastor a church but about eight of us came together and we began to pray and God started to show us why we were praying; it then became a church. From that beginning the church has grown to the point where now we have two services a week.

In 1984 I realised that God wanted me to be a full-time pastor. I didn’t know what to do so I told the leadership that I believed God was calling me. By 1955 I realised God wanted to pick me out of a successful church – by then the church was so successful that it was in the top five most successful churches in that land. God said to me in a dream to move out to another town, the history of which was that no church above 150 people had ever been planted there. So I shared this with my wife and she wondered why we needed to start another church when we already had a successful church. But I knew what God had told me so I decided to pray until God spoke to my wife. I did a thirty day all-night vigil. I spent those days seeking God’s direction in this new place. Four dreams came to the church members, but none to my wife. But I needed her consent and so by December 1956 I decided to fast on water and honey for forty days. I wanted God’s guidance of where to plant the church and I also wanted Him to speak to my wife. God answered in a very strange way.

My wife and my children then moved to this town. It was a very challenging work at first because no pastor had ever succeeded in planting a church there. My old brothers at the church asked me why I had gone there. I told them that in the Olympic games people went to break records; I was going to this town now to break a record by setting up a church. That place now has seen not only my church grow, but other churches have been established there too.

Since 1966 God has allowed me to fast on honey and water seven times for forty days. When you take fasting and praying out of my life I will be empty. From fasting and praying I have seen so many miracles: healing miracles, deliverance miracles. At one point I travelled to a village that was totally dedicated to idol worship as are all the other villages on the island where that village was situated. There is not a single church on that island. I say this to the glory of God. This year I completed another forty day fasting. God told me to go there for a crusade. One night a family surrendered there lives to Jesus and one particular man among them came to me the following morning and told me that he had slept very well the previous night when for three years he had not been able to sleep well. He told me that when he had got home he had felt a burning sensation all over him and he had come back to me to ask for me to pray that the rest of the burning sensation would go. I asked him what work he did. He said he was a fisherman, a farmer and a voodoo priest. I told him that the idols had to be burnt but he protested because the idols had been passed down from generation to generation in his family. I asked him if he wanted to die and if he wanted to remain sick because he would only be made completely whole if the idols were burned. Then the man told me that I didn’t know what I was asking because they belief that if you look at some of the idols you will die. So I told him that if any his gods killed me after I had burnt them, none of his families should believe the Bible or Jesus. You see you cannot go to these areas in your own strength, only in the strength of Jesus because in Him alone can we have security. The name of Jesus has power and in that name everything must bow. So we decided to burn the idols the following day.

In the morning we had to cross two rivers. If you have been faced with the challenge of a real confrontation you will know that Jesus is alive and the every power must confess that He is the Lord. I told the man that we were going. So we walked about five miles and then took a canoe, walked a few more miles and then got another canoe. When we arrived at the village, the villagers had gathered together because they knew that something that had never happened before was about to happen. Here was a Christian preacher coming to a village sold to Satan, to burn the idols. The people were saying that if we left the village alive, they would know that the gods of their land were not powerful. I said that if we did leave alive, God would stay in this village permanently. See, anywhere a child of God goes you must carry Jesus with you, and when you get there you must establish the flag of heaven. Whether you are a preacher or a missionary you carry heaven in your body. I said, as long as I am in this village, Jesus is staying permanently.

When we got to the village there was a confrontation between one of the villagers and a member of my team. One of their people got possessed. When someone gets possessed there, they believe it takes seven days before the demon will leave them. During this time they are not allowed to drink blood and they are only allowed to eat meat that they have slaughtered using their own teeth. I told the villagers to bring me this demon-possessed man. Anyone that has not experienced the power of Jesus Christ, I want you to know that He is alive. When I met this person I said in Jesus name, the Jesus that died and rose again, you are going to be delivered and baptised in Jesus name. In less than one hour this demon-possessed man was free, even though they thought it was meant to take seven days.

Anywhere God sends you you carry God with you and every power must be silenced because you are an ambassador of Jesus Christ. It is time that Islam is taken out of Asia and Africa and America. The materialistic nature of people in Western countries can be defeated by preaching this Gospel aggressively and powerfully.

Let me tell you something, if Nigeria over the past forty years can change from less than 10% of the population being Christian to over 65% by the power of the Gospel, prayer and fasting, so can Western countries. When Idia Ming was the president of Uganda, the population was 90% Islamic, it is now less than 10%. In Ghana I have seen two villages turn from Islam to Christianity. I have seen that a voodoo village can have a Christian church in it.

The Jesus of this book is real; He is alive. He is my Saviour, my King and my Redeemer. Since I gave my life to Him I can say to you today that the Lord is at work in these last days. I will tell you one quick story. In Africa somebody can sell you a piece of land even if it is not there land. So you can end up buying a piece of land from two to three owners. We bought a piece of and set up a tent on it. But another family saw that we had set the tent up and claimed that the land belonged to them. This family then took my church to court and according to the laws of the land there should be no noisemaking after 10pm. When they took us to court the judge told us that from now on two nights we could have all-night vigil. In my church every Friday night we pray from 9 until 4 in the morning. We don’t believe in short prayer.

The world tries to sort problems out by making pistols and missiles, but you can’t change Sadam Hussein with weapons. There are some territorial powers that you can defeat by long powers. Why do people not settle with pistols and knives but continue making bigger bombs? It’s because they know that pistols cannot handle the whole job. So in the spiritual world there are some problems that small prayers can handle. I come from a tradition of fasting and praying. Long prayers work.

When the community took us to court the judge gave us two days to have meetings all night and two days just during the day, which has not worked well the church. Along the line, they hired a lawyer so that they could uproot our church. We began to pray and God gave us the victory. We didn’t know that the judge of our case was in marriage problems because they could not have children. God will always use a situation to advance His cause. The devil will behave as if it is working against you, but at then end, after you have prayed, all things will work together for you good.

One night, after I had done an all-night vigil in a radio station, the judge called me and told me about her marriage problems. I asked her what I could do about it and she asked me to pray with her that her marriage situation would improve. That night we prayed on the phone for about 25 minutes and in exactly 10 months a baby girl was given to her.

I pray long because I see God working when I do. I pray that God will move in this church more than any other year. The Lord says that if His people will seek Him and will humble themselves and turn away from their wicked ways, then he will heal the land.

In conclusion, if God has called me in Africa and has used my life to establish growing village churches, why can God not use your life here? I pray that after you have heard my testimony you will rededicate your life unto God. I pray you will tell Him that you want to be His prisoner.