The grand opening of an event – the 23rd Anniversary of the “Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God church in Ukraine”- took place in the city of Kiev, with the title of “Resurrection and Life”!
Approaching our 23rd year with God’s help!
23 years of God’s guidance!
23 years of God’s mercy and love!
23 years of God Almightiness!
The Lord reigns!
The celebration opened in a Ukrainian style! The whole church, united, glorifies God, the Creator of the Universe! After worshiping God through songs, we all listen to miraculous testimonies of the miracles of God in people’s lives.
One sister, thanks to the inspiration of her leader, received a specialty as a designer with an honor at the International University of Human Development in Ukraine.
Another sister, a social pastor, Zinaida Andreevna was diagnosed with cancer in 2015. But she trusted in God’s support and continued praying with her home group. And God did support her! The money needed for surgery was found and today she is totally healed of this terrible disease!
Now it’s time for the presentation of social projects and master classes:
Charity dinners in Kiev and Dnepr – volunteers feed homeless and low-income people, help solve their problems, lead them to repentance and establish them in God. Some of those rescued are now pastors for more than 6 years, although before that they were alcohol-dependent and without a place of residence. Our God is good and omnipotent!
Cook-club “Extending youthfulness” from Kassel (Germany) was presented by pastor Vera Ogneva: they invite people to their culinary club, where they cook different dishes that do not even require a stove to cook, they communicate with the people, sharing the values of the Kingdom of God with them. They also invite people to perform body cleansing according to Grigory Poloz’s system. The motto of the club is “We cook together, eat together and dance.”
Pastor Lyudmila G. Storozhenko represents the Health Club “Be Healthy” of the Institute of Pensioners, Kyiv. She shared the principles of full health restoration with the help of air, water, sun, exercise, proper nutrition, rest, fasting and peace with God.
Our wonderful moderators Mikhail Korolevsky and Natalya Shebaldayeva invited to the stage the Director of the Missionary Center of the Embassy of God, Pastor Yuri Kantsura. The pastor prayed for those present at the Anniversary of the Embassy of God and began preaching.
Theme: “Why did Lazarus resurrect?”
In the Gospel of John, 1st chapter, the story of the resurrection of Lazarus is told.
“Having said this, he tells them later: Lazarus, our friend, fell asleep; But I’m going to wake him…
Then Martha said to Jesus: Lord! If You were here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that what You ask of God, God will give you. Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise up. Martha said to Him: I know that He will rise on the resurrection, on the last day. Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; He that believeth in me, though he were dead, will live. “
Lazarus lived in Bethany, he and his sisters were friends with Jesus. It so happened that Lazarus died, but Jesus was in Galilee then (A 3 day journey to Bethany). When Jesus came to him, he had already been dead in the grave for 4 days! But death cannot overcome God – Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead!
The testimony of P. Yuriy Kantsura from his life experience, about the third pregnancy of his wife Alla: For 7 after pastor Yuri Kantsur and Alla were married, they could not have children. They prayed for a long time, and God gave them two daughters. Then they decided to ask God for a boy, Alla especially fervently asked the Lord. And then Alla became pregnant with a boy. When it was time to give birth, pastor Yuri took his wife to the maternity hospital in the city of Dnepr in the morning. But in the evening he received a call from the hospital and was told that he should come urgently – his wife was suffering from severe bleeding. The pastor began to pray to God, and walked around the hospital, like the Israelites walked around Jericho. Only in the morning an ambulance arrived to transfer Alla from the hospital to the intensive care unit of another hospital. When she was taken out from the hospital on a stretcher in order to be transferred, he saw her very blue, almost lifeless – she lost 80% of her blood! The husband called to Jesus: “Jesus, You are my Friend. I’m going through a hard time now, help me, do not let my wife die! “. Alla has a rare blood group, IV negative, so blood was searched for her from all the blood banks of the city of Dnepro. And Jesus helped – Alla recovered and left the resuscitation healthy without any bad side effects.
But after a period of time, she began to have pains in her head, and the doctors found many small tumors throughout her brain. Doctors refused to do surgery on her, because her whole brain needed to be operated on, on all sides. It was simply impossible! Pastor Yuri again cried out to God: “Jesus, You did not heal my wife not for her to fall ill and die again. Please help me! “. They went for another medical examination of the brain and a miracle occured – all the tumors disappeared from Alla’s brain!
Dear friend, if in your life something has died, and you are a friend of Jesus then Jesus will come and save you, just like he saved Lazarus, who was in the grave for 4 days! It is important to be a friend of Jesus.
How to be friends with Jesus? Friends are different: there are just friends and close friends. To be friends is to know everything about a person, to know secret innermost things about him. Jesus wants all people to be saved and to remain with God. It is hard for believers to be friends with unbelievers – they either go with them to the church, or quarrel with them. But Jesus was friends with sinners. The Pharisees (who were believers) did not follow him. Jesus wants us to be friends with sinners and to accept them as they are. God through us wants to be friends with sinners, that they will be saved through friendship!
2 Cor. 11: 23-29 – The testimony of the Apostle Paul, that he suffered for the salvation and affirmation of as many as possible pagans (unbelievers):
23 Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft.
24 Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.
25 Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;
26 In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;
27 In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness.
28 Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.
29 Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?
Dear brother and sister, believe that through you your unbelieving neighbors, friends, and acquaintances will be saved, and be friends with them, like Jesus, and the Apostle Paul!
The story of a bed-ridden woman named Vera from the Dnieper: she was already bed-ridden, but her heart continued to burn for God. She took the telephone directory of the city and began to call everyone in turn, in alphabetical order, offering to pray for them. Now, she is already in heaven, glorified with Jesus!
God bless and help you to be friends with unbelievers for their salvation and establishment in God! Let us remember that Jesus is the Resurrection and Life, and he can bring life to where it is needed. Be blessed!
From the 23rd Anniversary of the Embassy of God
March 30, 2017, Kiev
Press center of the Embassy of God church
