WHAT IS GOD’S DIVINE TIMING?

a) WHAT IS GOD’S DIVINE TIMING?
There is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven and a time to carry out a particular divine assignment following God’s calendar. Eccl 3:1
b) WHAT IS GOD SAYING TO THE CHURCH NOW?

1) AVAILABILITY: God wants us to be available at our places of service more than ever before. God can postpone his time if his children are not available and this is the reason for the delay we experience though not in all cases. What ever commission has been given to you, it’s time to be more serious and committed than ever (in our churches and at our jobsites).
2) TRUST: we should trust in God with our whole heart, mind and soul. We should not lean on our own understanding Prov.3:3-6 acknowledging Him in everything we do, knowing that what he has promised us must surely come to pass.
3) HOLINESS: (avoid sin) be holy as I am holy. God wants us to shun the wrong and do the right so that He can hear us. Isaiah 59:1-2.
4) RENEWAL OF MIND: we (i.e. the church) must change our mind set. We must not only come to church because we want God to bless us but because we want to know Him. Let us not just study the word to use against the devil or for studying sake, but because it gives life and is able to renew our minds. Let us come to His presence with

• Worship. (Ie worship Him in Spirit and in Truth).

• Thanksgiving. (tithes, offerings, helping the poor …)

• With our Works (function well in our departments).

• And finally let our petition become Matt.6:33

5) LOVE: we need to love God whole heartedly above any other thing so that we can love our neighbours as ourselves. “Love conquers all”.
6) JUDGEMENT: it is the period when God will start dealing with sin in the life of his children. Those who continue to sin will be dealt with accordingly. This will begin but in the house of God. I Peter 1:17-19.
7) FRUIT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT: The church needs this in other to function perfectly. Galatians 5:22-26. Envy will stop in the church, discrimination will cease amongst brethren. Ephesians 4:9
8) EVANGELISM: it is time for soul winning and this should be done everywhere (church, place of work, streets, crusades, correspondence...) and then follow-up to establish the souls that have been won.
9) SACRIFICES: this is a period of sacrifices. We have sown, but we should keep sowing because soon it will be time for the great harvest. We should keep watering our seeds through prayers, giving our substances not withholding because we are waiting for the harvest. “The liberal soul shall grow fat.”

Testimonies

During daddy E.A. Adeboye’s visit, I visited a colleague who came with her sick mother and their seed to sow in to his ministry. The colleague called me and informed me that the mother received her deliverance that night. Secondly, I want to thank God for providing for me during my mission to Ngaoundere and for making my mission a success. I went in to a hotel for one week by faith without money and God surprised me by sending someone to pay the bill at the end of the week

Sister Camilia

I want to thank God for delivering my two brothers whom I prayed for and almost concluded that nothing good can come out of them. God finally made one a manager in an insurance company and the other succeeded in the Bar Association exam and is now a lawyer. I want to encourage all of us not to give up on prayers when we pray and it seems as if nothing is happening.
Sister Joy

I want to thank God with this song “What the Lord has done for me, I can’t tell it all…” I had a cousin who was initiated in the primary school and now at 16, she was asked to provide blood. She wanted to give my junior brother and then sister but yet she failed in her plans. I want to thank God for being there for my mother, brother and sister because my cousin confessed that they could not kill any of them because of our prayers. Equally, I want to thank God for healing me during the Holy Ghost night of pain that I have been having in my leg.
Sister Evelyn Wayne

I thank God for His visitation. I thought that I was abandoned by God after being his child for 20years. But when I talked with the pastor and told him about a vision I had about myself, where I saw a hole on my forehead, I went back home where God’s presence fell upon us mightily as we watched God Channel and prayed.
I thank God for what He showed me and for making me to understand that He has a plan for my life, and that I am not abandoned.

Sister Archly

On Tuesday, the pastor gave a prayer point that we shall meet miracles on our way back home or at home.It so happened that I had changed my smaller Bible that I usually take to church where I my identity card is and I took a bigger one. So, I had to ID card on me.We were stopped on our way back and I prayed and said God, you said we will meet miracles and not trouble. I was asked to pay 3,000 Frs. or to enter the police van. I told my husband to go and bring my card and before he could come back, the police van had taken off with me on board and three other girls. At the station, my husband brought my card and I was allowed to go and the other three girls were locked off. This is also because I had told them I was from church and was not badly dressed.

Sister Margaret Tantoh

The Lord surprised me today. When I left the house this morning, I had no offering and I was just talking to myself that how can I come to the presence of God empty handed? But as I left the house, some few meters away, some one blessed me with an offering that I had never given before.
Sister Manah

I want to thank God for my wife and my kids because we went through the school year without any problem.
Brother Emmanuel M

Divine Quickening

Message delivered by Madame Cormella Etongwe at the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Mount Zion Parish on the occasion of the Women’s Anniversary. (Thursday 5th June 2008)

Theme: HOLY SPIRIT QUICKEN ME
Text: ROMANS 8:11

Introduction: To be able to talk about the topic “Divine quickening”, we have to first of all look at the key words Divine and Quickening.
Divine signifies that which is of God, while quickening means giving life to that which is dead, or activating that which is dormant.
In other words if we say Holy Spirit quicken me, we are asking the Holy Spirit to activate us with His life that is, to pour His life in us so that He will be in control of our lives.
In our text Romans 8:11 which says “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you”, an interesting word there is “Mortal” which has the following meanings subjected to death, having a limited life span, or something that will have an end.
Jesus Christ came to show us an example, He is the head and we are the body. The Bible makes us to understand in Romans 8:11 that the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead will quicken our mortal bodies, by this we understand that, since Christ is the head and we are the body, a different Spirit cannot animate the head and another Spirit the body. If then the same Spirit animates us, then our behavior should be the same as Christ’s and our results should be the same. Indeed, Jesus promised us greater results than His. (John 14:12)
In this study, we are going to examine two outlines; firstly we are going to see how the quickening makes the difference and secondly, we will examine how one can get divinely quickened.

1. THE DIVINE QUICKENING MAKES THE DIFFERENCE.
When the Holy Spirit quickens you, He gives you supernatural abilities to do things that were impossible for you to do naturally. No one will be able to limit you. In Acts 3:6-7, Peter and John were able to heal the lame man at the beautiful gate because they had just been quickened in Acts 2 at Pentecost. Furthermore, the quickening gives us supernatural understanding of things that cannot be understood with the carnal mind or human reasoning. We see this in I Corinthians 2:12 which say “Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God”. We also see this supernatural understanding in the book of Daniel 5, when the hand writing appeared on the wall during King Belshazzar’s banquet, this perplexed the king and his entourage but the queen mother recounted to the king that Daniel had handled such situations in the past and described him as one who had the spirit of the gods in him, and he alone could decipher the handwriting because of the quickening of the Spirit of God upon his life.
The quickening of the Holy Spirit brings life and hope in dead and hopeless situations. This can be seen in the case of the valley of dry bones, when the hope of Israel was lost, the Lord by His Spirit through the prophet Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37:1-10, quickened the dry bones by bringing order in the arrangement of the bones, they took their proper places, life came into them and they became a great army. Hence in Ezekiel 37:14 the Lord concludes “I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it.” No matter the confusion that may appear to be in any area of our lives, the quickening of the Holy Ghost is able to rearrange it in Jesus name.
The quickening Spirit also brings about boldness. In Acts 4:29-31, after the apostles had healed the lame man in Acts 3 and they had preached to the people, they were threatened by the Sanhedrin and the teachers of he law not to preach anymore in the name of Jesus.The disciples met together and prayed and the place where they were shook and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and were quickened to preach the word of God with boldness. We can equally mention the case of Peter in the Gospels. He was a fearful man so much so that he denied Jesus thrice but after the quickening, at Pentecost, he was able to preach boldly before a crowd and three thousand men gave their lives to the Lord. No matter how timid you may be when it comes to preaching the gospel, depend on God’s Spirit for quickening to be able to overcome that fear and fulfil the great commission.
When the quickening power of God is upon you, no one will be able to limit you; in Judges 14:14, we see that even though Samson’s people tied him up and delivered him to his enemies because they were afraid to be killed, he was able to liberate himself and destroy his enemies because the quickening Spirit of God came upon him. That same Spirit is available for us to make a difference in our lives today be it spiritually, materially, financially, in our businesses, careers, education and in whatsoever we are engaged in. we have the supernatural abilities through the quickening power of the Holy Spirit to make a difference in our day.
The quickening brings about expansion. You will be able to be on top and not at the bottom. You will be able to expand without any limitations because God is not limited and we have His nature. Witches and demonic powers will not be able to put us in a bottle or whatsoever container and keep us there because every wall of limitation will be broken by this quickening power as was the case of the wall of Jericho. The quickening power is needed to bring order when disorder sets in. in Acts 6:3 when discontentment rose among the brethren on how the Greek widows were neglected, Peter and the other leading apostles demanded that men filled with the Holy Spirit be selected to take care of these domestic issues. Hence we see that this situation also applies to us in cases where we are to deal with disorder in our houses/ society, stubborn children, in-laws and even our spouses, the quickening of God will give us the necessary wisdom to handle these things properly.
The quickening brings about obedience. In Ezekiel 36:27 God promises that He will put His Spirit in us and cause us to walk according to His statues. It is impossible to be rebellious when we are quickened. When we read further in Ezekiel 36, we notice that obedience will bring about abundant blessings.
The quickening of the Holy Ghost is able to transform our lives and even our relationships in every area and at all levels so it is an important and fundamental aspect of Christianity we should not neglect.

2. HOW TO GET DIVINELY QUICKENED
In order to enjoy this quickening, we have to fulfil the following conditions these may not be all but they are some of the fundamental conditions.
I. You must be born again. You must be His for Him to be able to quicken you, because the Bible says only those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

II. Yield yourself to the Holy Spirit. The Word of God says in Acts 1:8 that you shall receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon you and then you shall be witnesses. Only the Holy Spirit can quicken, so allow Him to baptize you and seek for constant refilling.

III. Be humble and submit yourself to God according to I Peter 5:6 “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time”. Do not rely on past glories.

IV. Study, meditate and believe the word of God and confess it no matter what you are going through, because the Just shall live by faith and it is written in Hebrews that we should hold fast to our confession for He who has promised is faithful.

V. Walk in complete obedience.

CONCLUSION
God has called us to make a difference in our generation, and also to be the light. This is only possible by the divine quickening. Really, we need divine quickening to be successful in not only spiritual things like prayer, fellowshipping, our ministries etc, but also in personal and societal issues like; businesses, careers, health, finance to name a few, as well as make a tremendous impact in our surroundings (our neighbourhood, offices, homes etc) and enable the will of God to prevail wherever we are.