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Every March, St. John’s Christ Army Church of Nigeria, Lagos celebrates what it calls Abraham’s Blessing to connect with God for both spiritual and material blessings for its congregation. In this interview, Venerable Michael Oghomeh, Bishop-elect of the church, speaks with SEYI JOHN SALAU on the place of Abrahamic covenant in today’s church and what Christians must do to enjoy God’s covenant in the church. Excerpts:
The church is once again celebrating Abraham’s Blessings. What does this signify for the congregation?
The aim is that we want to enter into a new personal covenant with God. We know Abraham is a man of covenant, he is our father and we are emulating him because God works in covenant. As a sign of receiving from God, every member is expected to come to the church and enter into a personal covenant with God and say, ‘God, this is my personal covenant with you.’ Up till now God’s covenant with Abraham is still working; so my covenant with God would be, ‘God, this is what I want for myself, my children and my family. God, do this for me as a covenant between me and you.’ So, it is a sacrificial offering between the church and God.
As Christians it is expected that we benefit from this Abrahamic covenant, but how come the reverse is the case with most Christians?
The church today is still benefitting from that mass covenant as Abraham’s children. The only thing now is how we appropriate it to ourselves through faith. What I have discovered is that his children renewed the covenant: Isaac renewed the covenant, Jacob renewed it, Jacob’s children renewed it, and so you and I need to renew the covenant for it to work in our lives as Abraham’s children. That is the essence of the Abrahamic covenant; it is a sacrificial offering to God. Anytime you enter into the covenant, it is between you and God, just as Easter is the remembrance of what happened between Jesus and His sacrifice as an offering to God to bring salvation to mankind. In death, He resurrected and everything signifies Easter for remembering what happened between the covenants that Abraham made which was a show of things to come with Jesus Christ. Now we come into that spiritual covenant by faith; so, this is part of it and the celebration of Easter for us as a people.
Lenten season is a period of sacrifice for the church; why are Christians not tapping into this?
We cannot say Jesus sacrificed for the church and then we His children will not sacrifice for the church. Salvation is sacrifice; to serve God is sacrifice, and if you are in a church and not donating to move the things of God forward in that church, you are not serving God. We need money in the church to build the church of God for you to enjoy His service. Therefore, we cannot say Jesus made sacrifices for the church while we are not making sacrifices for the church as Christians. Our life as Christians is a life of sacrifice; every day we live is a sacrifice – so anything given to the church is given to God in sacrifice unto Him.
The scripture in the Book of James spoke about the prayer of faith healing the sick; why do we bring items into the church manifesting our lack of faith in the power of prayers?
It depends on how you know your God and how you appropriate your faith through the power of prayers in your life as a Christian. All the sacrifice you make in the church is to God, in God’s name and you are to enjoy it. It is no longer an argument that Christians run after miracles, it is what we see every day in Nigeria. Some pastors now take advantage of people’s desire to seek after God in the church today. Many who seek after miracles and signs are lured into so many things in the name of the church; miracles happen but not according to how they seek them. Experiencing God’s divine miracles means investing so much in prayers, giving and sacrificing to God, by our service to the things of God and seed sowing, rendering help to the needy and to diligently seek after God. People should stop seeking around for miracles, but should exercise their faith in God, and then they will see God move in their situations and the prayer of faith will heal the sick in our churches.
There seem to be people in the church today professing what they are not; how can the church strengthen the bond of faith in Christendom?
The main challenge before us now isthe church needs prayers because of the people how to raise Christians with good Christian practices and make them citizens of the kingdom of God. As we know, there are so many things that are wrong now with the people who go by the label of pastors. We are saying that it is not the robe that makes you a man of God but the way you live your life; what people perceive you to be, what you are doing, what you are saying, everything goes to show that you are a child of God. Sincerely the church needs prayers because of the people operating it. All sorts of people are now operating churches – people without training and people who are not spiritually called as some see churches as business.
What is your view on the planned clampdown on social media by the government?
Nobody can clamp down on social media; it’s not possible – not even where it originated from in the United States. We have a democracy here and we must speak our mind out. In a democracy everyone has the right to speak – that which makes sense, that which is binding us together and not what is dividing us. I think it’s a rumour: nobody can stop me from speaking what is in my mind in my nation, even anywhere in the world, even in autocratic government like Russia. They tried it in China, it did not work, and no amount of technology can make it work. But, people should speak what will glorify God, what will unite and move the nation forward. Unfortunately we see some people, young people, who would speak anyhow or say anything; but then they are speaking their mind, let them speak their mind and let our leaders do that which is right so the nation can move on. No head of state is more criticized than Trump, the president of the world’s largest democracy and strongest nation in the world; they abuse him and criticize him every day, but he keeps doing what he wants to do.
What is your message to Nigerians and the church in general?
The message I have for leaders of the church and Nigerians is that we should go back to God; we should be disciplined and obey His law. When we talk of God’s discipline, its self-sacrifice, contentment; that whatever God has given us, we take it with a heart of appreciation and we should not be greedy. Our leaders have been greedy, self-centred; so we are enjoining leaders to stop this act of greediness, it’s even madness the rate people are embezzling money and how people are looting the treasury of the country. It is out of selfishness and until we go back to God’s discipline, self-sacrifice, contentment, and teach dignity of labour and obedience to the word of God, then it will take time before we come out of this situation. It is not just about preaching or listening to message alone, we should live it out in all we do. So we should go back to God’s discipline and make sure that we live our lives according to the teachings of the kingdom. Once that is done, it will be well with the nation. When we have that fear of God in our lives, when we don’t take what is not ours because we know that God will ask us on the day of reckoning. The energy He has given us, the talent He has given us, the wealth He has given us, the position, the privileges, we will account for everything that God has given us. So if you know that you are going to account for everything given to you by God, then we should live a life of discipline with the fear of God in all we do daily.
