Let us honor God! Holy Lord, honor and praise belong only to You! How beautiful is our God – the universe to Him is singing! – All of the Embassy of God glorifies and worships God at the last service of the”Resurrection and Life” conference dedicated to the 23rd Anniversary of the Church.
In honor of the birthday of the church, a rare guest visited us: an opera singer, an Honored Artist of Ukraine, and an associate professor of the Academic and Variety Vocal Department Oksana Petrikova with the song “How can I not love you, my Kyiv?”
And now is the time for the testimonies about God’s greatest love for us.
Sergei: “Today marks the 10th year since I came to this church, or, to be precise, was brought to the church, since I could not come on my own. Here, I got freedom from 12 years of addictions. God began to work miracles in my life: I started attending Pastor Sunday’s home group, and opened a youth organization that works with children who have cerebral palsy. God took an “useless” person like me and turned me into a real personality. Now, I assist a deputy in the sphere of working with youth. Before, if the police met me, they searched me and called me by some nickname, but now they address me politely, by my full name – Sergey Alexandrovich. This is what the Lord has done!”
Nadezhda: “I came from Belarus, my pastor Olga Nikitina and I have been living here in Ukraine for some time. In Belarus, I had a hospital ministry; I paid visits to the sick people in hospitals. My pastor called me on the phone from time to time and to ask if I would continue to serve in hospitals here. But I refused to start the ministry here. However, one day, at 3 am, I started feeling so bad that I understood – this is the last warning for me. The next day I went to the hospital, not minding which one. I was immediately allowed to see the sick. I began to pray for them, and they received healing! Obedience plays a colossal role in our lives.”
Lyudmila: “I am 66 years old, and my husband’s parents treat me as a daughter, despite my age. Pastor Sunday’s ministry taught us about having reverence for our parents. Despite the various situations in life, thanks to the fact that I honored my parents, I received many blessings, including material benefits. Honor your parents, because being doted on as a daughter, at 66 years old, is wonderful!
After this, there was another presentation of one direction of Social Clubs.
Kristina Slobodich made a presentation of the women’s club “Between Us Girls.” This club functions in the capital city of Ukraine, Kiev. Its goal is to support and help women who have problems in their family, or in relationships, and to help every girl find herself.
Anastasia Korolyuk – she is 22 years old and has been in the church of Pastor Christina Slobodich for 4 years. Together with Pastor Christina, she leads the “Between Us Girls” club. “Thanks to the club, we have influenced the lives of more than 300 women. The Kingdom of God is in us, therefore it is necessary to take disciples from the church and together with them carry godly values to society without using formal religious activities or Christian slang. In Sumy, a similar club was opened on the basis of the books of Pastor Sunday. Helping people is life, and it is great! “, says Anastasia.
Following this was is a presentation of a social movement founded by Pastor Natalia Potopaeva: “We will protect our children from the epidemic of drug addiction” by Pastor Nadezhda Stenina,.
The movement’s goal is to work on the problems of drug addiction until it is completely eradicated, to help the relatives of the addicts, and to solve the addicts’ life problems on a legal level. Pastor Nadezhda conducted a master class on how to work with the mothers of addicted children.
Now it is time to invite the apostle, senior pastor, and the founder of the “Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations” Church for the word.
Pastor Sunday Adelaja’s theme was: “The price of heavenly rewards”
“I want to congratulate everyone with a new beginning … everything is just beginning for all of us!” Pastor Sunday said.
“…And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, that in my flesh I shall see God, Whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”(Job 19: 25-27).
There are many theories and versions of why Job went through so many difficulties and trials. The above quotation from the Bible is nice, but there is another one that says: «For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, and what I dreaded has happened to me.”(Job 3:25).
The Christian world does not take into account the first quotation and they explain that all those calamities happened to Job because that was his greatest fear. Indeed, when this situation came upon him, Job said this phrase about experiencing fear. People will often say such things when they are going through difficult and terrible situations. We can say all types of things, especially when it is difficult.
God himself gives us the explanation and the cause of the trials. God allowed it in order to prove to the devil that Job would remain faithful in all cases, that he would never renounce God. God Himself gives this an explanation in the Bible.
Job said that his own eyes would see God, and not another person’s eyes. He also knew that he would have to pay a price for this. Job was a man of dreams, of a vision, of inspiration and of a goal. He had the boldness and faith to dream about what other people did not even think of wishing for themselves – he wanted to see the Lord in person, in the flesh. For every dream and goal there is a price to be paid.
For a heavenly goal you need to pay the heavenly price, and for earthly dream, an earthly price.
For example, Abraham had a great dream – a dream of a city that was not built by the hands of men, but about a heavenly Jerusalem. For this, he had to pay a heaven’s price, because this dream was heavenly. Paul was also a man of great dreams who was quite successful on earth, but for him this was not satisfactorily, he dreamed of a heavenly goal, and this dream caused him to pay a heavenly price. Jesus is a brilliant and perfect example of having an unearthly dream, and what it means to pay a heavenly price for it.
What is your dream today? It is either you have an earthly goal that will disappear and depart with you, or you have a lasting heavenly dream, for which you will have to pay a heavenly price.
“And in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:26), i.e. “I shall see Him myself, with my own eyes, it is not the eyes of another who will behold Him.” Job had an intuition, a kind of perception of the price at which this dream would be achieved. He understood that he would have to flay his skin, to go through great trials, in order to achieve what he wanted – to see the Lord in the flesh, to see Him with his own eyes. So the skin must be destroyed, shed. But if a person loses his skin, he most certainly dies, but Job was certain that he would see God live, in person, in his own flesh. The destroyed skin is a symbol of the earthly, of the things we are attached to, and Jobs claimed that until he destroyed his earthly things and his earthly affections, he would not be able to achieve this goal. This is a spiritual understanding of the fact that the flesh must be destroyed in order to pass the test and see the Lord.
But he is not talking about death here, Job knew he would not die. That is, on one hand: if the skin is be ripped off and the body is crushed, then the person must die, but here Job is not dying; he says ,that while still in the body, he would see God. The skin personifies something earthly that burdens us, holds us down, connecting us to the world. It symbolizes the something with which we identify ourselves and all our desires.
What is the heavenly goal? The heavenly goal is that all of our dreams, all our desires, goals and motivations are in complete accordance to God’s purposes, desires, and dreams. And God does not want carnal, earthly things. He holds solely spiritual desires.
“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Phil. 3: 8-12.(NIV)
Paul says that he is willing to be a participant in human suffering in order to take hold of a heavenly reward. He was willing to pay the heavenly price for it.
“But I subdue and enslave my body, that, preaching to others, I myself should not remain unworthy” (1 Corinthians 9:27). Here Paul says that he dies every day, crucifying himself, and that he is ready to crush himself, to humble himself in order to achieve his heavenly goal, paying heavenly price for it.
So, if you are really paying an incredible, heavenly price, and are denying yourself, then you will certainly receive this heavenly reward. We see that Job’s suffering ceased, but this was not his only reward.
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.” (Job 42: 5).
Job wanted to know God, but not by means of stories, Job wanted God to also be his God, and not just the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Job’s wish was fulfilled. To come to know God personally, you have to pay the heavenly price.
How can people with earthly dreams and purposes understand those who are willing to pay a heavenly price for heavenly reward? Job’s closest friends did not understand him. So, do not worry about what people will say when they see your trials – you have your goals, you have your focus. Job knew that after his skin was destroyed, he would receive a heavenly reward – he himself, with his own eyes, would see the Lord God. And this is God’s dream for us: to live close to Him, to live His dreams.
What purpose do you live for today? What is your heavenly goal? If it is truly a heavenly goal, then be prepared to pay the price and do not try to avoid it, and then you will receive a heavenly reward. So, a heavenly goal requires a heavenly price, and an earthly one requires an earthly price. The price and the goal correspond.
“And the LORD returned the loss of Job, when he prayed for his friends; And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before “(Job 42:10).
Your focus should not be on small and ephemeral earthly dreams. Your dream should be one that God wants in your life, so that God, in everything, becomes your personal God. Your second focus- after God – should be the willingness to pay any price.
The pastor warned the audience about one thing: “remember the other people who communicated with Job, when he was passing through all his difficulties, and did not understand why he had to go through all that. You are not allowed not to love such people, or hate them, to blame them, or to think badly about them. Only God knows what you are going through and only He knows your agreement with Him. But people will always be people. In order to receive a bonus from God for the path that you have passed, you need to have an all-forgiving heart, it must be freed from resentment and bitterness. The proof that Job possessed this heart is his prayer for his enemies, for his mocking offenders. Is your heart that free from offense and bitterness?
What is your personal heavenly dream? Talk to God and find your personal dream with Him. I urge you to tear yourself away from all earthly things and to tell God that you are willing to pay a heavenly price for a heavenly reward, and that you will not be afraid to go all the way with God!”
Be blessed!
From the 23rd Anniversary of the “Embassy of God” Church
April 2, 2017, Kiev,
Press Center of the Embassy of God Church
