SOMEONE CHALLENGED ME BEFORE “WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS FASTING IN RCCG, DO YOU WANT TO KILL YOUR PEOPLE WITH FASTING?”_ Pst Ea Adeboye

 



I REPLIED “EVERY ONE IN CHRIST IS CALLED TO BE A SOILDER. WE FAST OFTEN BECAUSE WE DON’T WANT TO BE JUST ORDINARY SOLDIERS BUT COMMANDOS”. 


GOD IS LOOKING FOR JUST ONE MAN WHO WILL BE WILLING TO PAY THE PRICE, IT WILL COST SOMETHING FOR GOD TO WORK SPECIAL MIRACLES THROUGH YOUR LIFE. 


- Pastor E.A. Adeboye at RCCG Special Service, GOING HIGHER PART 36

🎶 We bless you oh Lord of Heaven and earth, we bless you Lord of heaven and earth. Heaven and earth, Oh Heaven and Earth. We love you oh Lord of Heaven and earth, we love you Lord of heaven and earth. Heaven and earth, Oh Heaven and Earth.


Father of Heaven and Earth, we love you. King of Kings we appreciate you, thank you for the mercy that has preserved us. Thank you for the mercy that has kept us going. Thank you for the mercy that will stand by our side till the very end. Please accept our Thanks in Jesus name. Lord as we continue in your word, we pray that your word will continue with us, in Jesus name. 


We will continue in our series GOING HIGHER and today we will be looking at part 36. Our text will remain 1 Kings 18:41. 


We have learnt in the past few weeks that when you get to certain levels in your growth, you are no longer going to be glossing over stories. You will want to sit down and dig deep to find out what are the hidden treasures in every verse. So that you can benefit thereby. I am sure many of us would not have know that so must insight can be gotten from just one verse, We will continue to learn more even from this verse. Church Gist. Only Elijah heard the sound of abundance of rain, the rest didn’t hear. I am sure Ahab didn’t hear. Is there any lesson in that for us? We have learnt about God opening ears and giving us ability to hear from him but here we find out only Elijah heard. 


The first lesson we can learn is that, it takes only a man. All that God is interested in is a man. Just one individual. Our God is a God of individuals, He made us one by one. The Bible made it clear that when we are going to stand before the Judgment Throne we will stand one by one. 


Ezekiel 22:30-31 

Do you know that if God can find one right man, He can deliver your nation. It will be very interesting when you read Exodus 3:1-15, God told Moses He had heard the cry of His people and had come to deliver them, Moses said “Glory be to God” and God turned to Moses and said “You go and bring them out”. I am sure Moses must have said “Me?”. In fact, He gave God several excuses why it shouldn’t be him but God said “you are the one I am looking for, I have found a right man”. Maybe you are the one God is looking for to solve all the problems of your people. 


When Moses died in Joshua 1:1-8, God said to Joshua “Joshua now Moses is dead you are the one to take over.”. We know by studying the story of the children of Israel as they travelled to the Promised Land that there were two young boys who distinguished themselves, Joshua and Caleb. I am sure you must have wondered while God didn’t say “Now Moses is dead, Joshua and Caleb I want you to join forces together and complete the job”. No, God is a God of individuals. Remember He said in Revelation 3:20, Behold I stand at the door of your heart and knock, if any man hears my voice…”.He is still talking to individuals today. 


Hosea 12:13 


Maybe as you are listening to me today, God might be saying you are the one I am looking for. In 1 Samuel 3:1-21, when everything was getting rotten in Israel, the children of Eli were not following his footsteps and it looked like God was no longer talking to the people anymore. The solution was that God found a man, a young boy by the name of Samuel before the light went out. Church Gist. Whether we believe it or not, there is hope for the Body of Christ. There is always a man somewhere and God will find that man to keep the fire burning. He found Samuel. In Acts 13:21-23, God said I have found David a man after my own heart. You know Jesse had 8 boys, God could have chosen all eight of them but He only needed just one. When you read 1 Kings 19:15-21, when Elijah was drawing to the end of his ministry here on earth God found a man, Elisha who will take on the anointing, as a matter of fact Elisha ended up with a double portion of the anointing. 


God is looking for just one man. In Isaiah 6:1-8, after He has purified Isaiah, He asked a big question “who shall I send? Who will go for me?”. Thank God the answer came from purified Isaiah ”Lord, here am I. Send me”. The message this morning or afternoon seems to be focusing on you. If God were to ask you today, who will I send, who will go for me? May God give you the grace to answer correctly.  Church Gist. Only Elijah heard because it takes only one man and of course it could be a woman. It could be Deborah, it could be Esther, it could be Mary. Just one person who will be special in a particular way. Someone who will be willing to pay the price because it costs something to be special, it costs something to be outstanding. It costs something to be the one God will choose. In Acts 19:11-12, the Bible says God performs special miracles through the life of Paul so that his handkerchiefs and aprons could be taken to heal the sick and cast out devils. There were Apostles and there were Apostles. There were others who were also performing miracles but in the case of Paul, the miracles were special, so special that they were recorded in scriptures. 


Would you like to be the one that God would use to perform special miracles? Would you like to be the God would use to open blind eyes, open deaf ears, make the lame walk again, raise the dead, make the barren fruitful. Would you want to be the one whose handkerchief would perform special miracles, you have to know it will cost something. The same Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, don’t you know that many people run the race but only one will win. He went on to say “I want to be the one who would win so I put my body under. Church Gist. I apply strict discipline on my body”. Remember in the text, we are deliberately not speaking about Ahab but what Elijah said to Ahab was “go, eat and drink”. The man that God would use must be a man of regular fasting. A man who would be ready to fast while others are feasting. Someone has challenged us before “Why are you always fasting in the Redeemed Christian Church of God? Do you want to kill your people with fasting?”. No! we are no fasting to be saved, salvation is free. But the Apostle of Grace himself, the Apostle Paul said I fast often”. Anyone who is in Christ is called to be a soldier but we don’t want to be ordinary soldiers, we want to be Commandos so we fast often. 


As I keep telling my children, this year you are asked to fast for 63 days and nights, Congratulations, a year might even come when you will fast from January to December. “If you do that your people will run away”, no! There are those who want to be special. They will even ask for more. This man who God used to perform special miracles, Said He fasts often, He watches often. Church Gist. You know what watching often means here; night vigils. While others are sleeping the one that God would use will be watching. In Joshua 5:13-15, While others were sleeping Joshua was watching that is why He saw that Angel by the wall of Jericho. Others were sleeping but He went to survey the wall and the angel appeared to him and gave him instructions on what to do so as to win the next battle. 


In Habakkuk 2:1 the Prophet said, I will stand on my watch and see what the Lord will say to make, you hear quite a lot when others are sleeping, it becomes easy to hear the small still voice. God is looking for a man who will be willing to spend and be spent ( 2 Corinthians 12:15). If God is going to get one man, He is not going to get somebody who has come to him for bread and butter. He is going to get somebody who is willing to pay the price. In Philippians 1:20-21, Paul said “whether in living or in dying Christ must be magnified in my body, for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”. I am trying to tell you the qualification of who God will use. Elijah said to Ahab “Go, eat and drink” but yet 1 Corinthians 6:13 said “meat for the belly and the belly for meat but both of them shall be destroyed”. Which leads me straight to one major question that you should ask yourself today - what is your meat, what is that thing which you enjoy doing? By the way, there were people who were offered the kind of meat the King would eat and other were people who said “Please Sir, keep your food, we don’t want to eat the king’s meat. We don’t want to drink the kings wine” Daniel was one of them. Church Gist. In John 4:31-34, Jesus Christ said “my meat is to do the will of Him that has sent me and to do His work”. There is something that I love more than food and that is to do the will of Him that has sent me. 


In Mathew 4:1-4, Jesus said “man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”. What is your food? 1 Peter 2:2 “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby”. If you want to be specially used of God, the word of God must mean much to you.  (Jeremiah 15:16). I remember an incident that happened in 1976, there was a Word Conference of Pentecostals in Kenya and some of us went from Nigeria, Bro Kumuyi, myself and so many others. In those days, a Christian is supposed to carry a pocket Bible with him wherever He goes. When we arrived there were all manner of people. So we woke up early one morning and as usual all the people there were talking and chatting and I wanted to do my morning devotion, I wanted to study the word of God so I took my pocket Bible and I disappeared to the toilet, we were staying in a students hostel so there were many toilets. Church Gist. I didn’t know how long I was there but I didn’t know there was also somebody there with his own pocket Bible. We flushed the toilet at the same time, came out, i looked at him, He looked at me with his pocket Bible in His hand and in my hand was my pocket Bible and two of us began to laugh. That fellow was Brother Kumuyi. We went to hide so we can eat the Word of God. What is your meat? 


Everybody knows that food is for strength, Acts 9:10-19 the Bible tells us that when Saul of Tarsus was converted and was fasting for three days, God sent Ananias to him to go and lay hands on him. He went, He laid hands on him and his eyes were opened, He was given food and He became strong. We all know food makes you strong, which brings us to the next question – How do you get your strength?


Nehemiah 8:10 

Why do we eat again and again? to renew our strength.( Isaiah 40:31 ). A couple of years ago, one of my sons decided to travel with me. We were visiting several nations, several cities in the various nations. We will finish the crusade by 10pm, get to the Hotel by 11pm, finished eating just before midnight and then I will tell my children “Make sure you take your bath before you sleep because tomorrow we will be on our way before 5am”. One of the children after we had travelled and travelled and finally returned said “I will never travel with you again”. He wasn’t the one preaching, all He was doing was just sitting down and  coming down from the plane, He said “how do you get your strength?”. They that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. 


Which brings me to one more question before we close – what is your drink? What is it that gives you satisfaction? Is it sex? All you need to do is read 1 Kings 11:1-3, you will discover from the experience of Solomon, sex does not satisfy. Church Gist. This man had seven hundred wives and He wasn’t satisfies so He added three hundred concubines. Yet no satisfaction. If it is money that gives you satisfaction? – Ecclesiastes 5:10, if you want riches you will never be satisfied with abundance, the day you find somebody who has more money than you, your joy is gone. (Proverbs 23:5). Is it alcohol? – Ephesians 5:18. Your satisfaction should come from the Holy Spirit. Only one man is required who can pay the price, would you be that man? 


Mathew 5:16 


You want to be satisfied, you want to be the one that God would use, the first thing is to give your life to Jesus Christ and then you can take it off from there. If you are reading this and you have not given your life to Jesus Christ please do so quickly, you might be the one that God is looking for. Saul of Tarsus was a great sinner before God found him and He turned him round from being a chief sinner to being the chief Apostle. If you want to give your life to Jesus bow your head where you and cry to Him for salvation then I will pray for you. 


Ancient of Days, I want to thank you for your word. I want to thank you for that particular person you have been talking to since I started preaching. The one who is going to be a choice vessel unto honour in your hands. I am asking you that among this people who are surrendering their lives today, you will find such a person. Church Gist. You will save their souls and you will wipe away their sins by your blood and you will give them a brand new beginning, write their names into the nook of life and they will become vessels unto honour in your hands. As for the rest of us who are saying Lord are you looking for someone to send, are you looking for someone who would be a special vessel in your hands? I am here Lord, please Lord don’t pass us by, help us Lord and let your name be glorified. 


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