The SCOAN Sunday Service of March 13, 2016 witnessed an uncommon message from the man of God, Prophet T.B. Joshua. Knowing that, both the physical and spiritual aspects of man work together, the man of God delved into the impact of physical fitness and lifestyle choices on our spiritual lives. In an encouraging word titled YOUR REAL VALUE, the man of God said: “If you are not naturally fit, you cannot be spiritually fit. When you talk of faith, you must be fit naturally to be fit spiritually. If you dodge your responsibility in the natural, it will be difficult for you to believe God in the supernatural.”

Speaking further, the man of God observed that what we sometimes want are those things that are harmful to our wellbeing while those things we don’t want are actually the ones that would help us: “Whatever is sweet to the tongue often causes damage to the system. What we hate, because it’s so bitter, is oftentimes very good for the system.”

In a final admonition, the man of God urged Christians to begin to take things in the natural seriously as it will be difficult to really serve God when the human nature is out of tune: “We keep preaching the Bible everyday but there are some areas we go astray. People need to sit us down and counsel us about life in the natural. You are lost, you need to recover yourself.  When you say someone is lost, it means their real self is gone.”

TESTIMONIES

THIRTY THREE YEAR YOKE OF SMOKING BROKEN

Mr Victor Lucky Odiete smoked cigarettes for 33 years. Even though he knew the health and financial implications that the bad habit was having on his life, he found it difficult to give it up. The Nigerian-Italian resident in the United Kingdom developed the habit in his native Nigeria in the early eighties through the bad influence of friends. For those 33 years, Mr Odiete smoked an average of 20 cigarettes every day. His doctors’ counsels fell on deaf ears. Even the affectionate pleas of his son could not touch his heart.

The story however changed in December 2013 in Birmingham, UK. The man of God, Prophet T.B. Joshua sent some evangelists to Birmingham to carry out a Morning Water Revival. Mr. Odiete was one of the lucky persons that received their deliverance at that event. Just a ‘mere’ ministration of the Morning Water into his mouth changed the negative course of his life that had held him hostage for three decades. After that experience in Birmingham, Mr Odiete tried to return to smoking but could not just explain why a habit which he had kept for that long suddenly became offensive and irritating.

Smiling and radiating so much joy, Mr Odiete stated categorically that since December 2, 2013 till today, he has not smoked a cigarette. Testifying to his freedom from tobacco bondage, he had the following advice for viewers, all over the world, “Cigarettes are dangerous to your health. Young people, it is better not to start smoking than to start and get addicted.”

PREGNANCY COMPLICATIONS OVERCOME BY MORNING WATER

Mr and Mrs Moses Aruwa were expecting a set of twins but their expectation was threatened in the seventh month by complications of severe bleeding in pregnancy. So severe was the affliction that Mrs Aruwa would often wake to find the bed soaked in blood. The couple went from one hospital to the other in search of solution. But all medical efforts to stem the tide of those complications failed even as doctors confirmed that one of the twins had died in the womb. This meant that both the dead and the living foetuses had to be evacuated through an operation. In an attempt to observe the usual protocol concerning surgery, the doctors had asked Mr Aruwa to sign a document permitting the operation to be carried out on his wife.

Armed with his Morning Water, while his wife was being wheeled to the theatre for surgery, Mr Aruwa ran towards the window and ministered the Morning Water into the theatre. In a miraculous chain reaction, not only did his wife deliver successfully without the surgeon’s knife touching her body. Three other women who were also being prepared for surgery went into labour and delivered simultaneously to the glory of God.

After the baby was born, it was placed in an incubator by the doctors who said it was weak and needed special care. But Mr Aruwa feared not. Instead, he ministered the Morning Water on the incubator, asking God to strengthen his son. By the next day, the doctors confirmed that the baby was okay to go home. Mr Aruwa and his wife were full of praise to God for doing a great thing in their lives. They urged people, all over the world to run to God, stressing that impossibility in the sight of man is a possibility before Him.

SHATTERED BONES COULD NOT SHATTER GOD’S PLAN

After a terrible motor accident, Miss Tossou Francoise, a Cameroonian resident in Germany, suffered the worst injury of all who travelled in the doomed bus. Her leg was completely broken and the bone completely shattered. She was bed-ridden for two months and was in severe pain. Doctors who attended to her concluded that amputation would be the only option due to the severity of the damage. Back home in Cameroon, her family had thought she was dead, having not heard from her for months. It took the concern of her closest friend to discover that she was bed-ridden due to injury.

It was the arrival of her friend in the hospital that inspired the release of God’s power onto the scene. As her friend prayed and ministered the Morning Water to her in the hospital, Mrs Francoise felt heat all over her body and insisted she wanted to stand up to go to the bathroom, much to the surprise of all present. But determined, Mrs Francoise took the crutches and walked to the bathroom and back to her bed by herself. The next time her friend would visit her, she met a completely free and healed Tossou Francoise, bubbling with the zest of sound health and was released home without any crutches or apparatus. Demonstrating her fitness before the congregation, the soft-spoken lady advised people all over the world to believe that the Morning Water is the blood of Jesus Christ; it is more than ordinary water!

FROM JAMB APPLICANT TO INTERNATIONAL GRADUATE

Mr Kure Aninga encountered so much difficulty as he tried to get admission into one of the Nigerian higher institutions. For inexplicable reasons, he was unable to get admission as all his applications were turned down despite his getting good grades. As he battled with the situation he had found himself in, his father introduced him to Emmanuel TV and urged him to continue believing God for a miracle. His father, being an ardent visitor to The SCOAN, knew that sooner rather than later, his son’s heart’s desire would come to fruition in Jesus’ name.

As the lad continued watching the faith-moving miracles that happen at The SCOAN via Emmanuel TV, he also received the Morning Water and ministered it amidst fervent prayers. Suddenly, an international opportunity came up. A university in Ukraine had openings for international students and he applied. Initially, he had tried to doubt his capacity for the foreign admission, thinking that it would be more difficult gaining an international admission for him since he couldn’t get one in his own country, Nigeria. But subsequent events soon corrected his impression. He would later discover the unpredictability of God’s wondrous ways. Against all odds, his application to study Aeronautical Engineering in Ukraine was granted.

When he eventually resumed his studies in far way Ukraine, another challenge reared its ugly head. He could not understand what he was being taught as his courses were delivered in the native Ukranian language. Through the ministration of the Morning Water, he was able to win the cooperation of his Ukranian colleagues and some lecturers who took time out after lectures to put him through the language barrier. By the grace of God, he was able to see himself through to his final year. The defence of his project became the next big challenge he had to scale through. That challenge was worsened by the fact that a member of the panel he would face was a professor who always took delight in asking him tough questions outside the confines of his coursework.

Knowing that the particular professor was part of the project defence panel, rather than be unnerved, he became spiritually creative. Armed with his Morning Water, he went to the auditorium where the project defence was to take place and ministered it round the whole place, including the eight seats meant for the members of the panel. Interestingly, immediately before his defence began, the ‘tough’ professor stood up abruptly and left the auditorium much to the delight of the young Nigerian. In the professor’s absence, Mr Kure Aninga defended his project valiantly as most of the questions thrown at him by other members of the panel were things he knew much about. He was told to take a bow and as he was about to go celebrating his successful defence, the same professor came back to the auditorium. But it was too late. The child of God had since ‘crossed the red sea!’ Today, Mr Kure Aninga holds a bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering and is also preparing for his master’s. He is now referred to as Engineer Kure Aninga. Thanking God in company of his supportive father, the young man advised people all over the world, especially the youth to believe that God is still alive.

A BETTER JOB AND A BRIGHTER FUTURE… THE BEST IS YET TO COME!

Mrs Yetunde Oladeji was hard-hit by a pair of problems in 2003. The problems’ aim was to destabilise her family life. The Nigerian resident in the United States had lost her job and had also witnessed her marriage crash that same year. With three big boys to cater for, she had to take up a job in teaching, a job she was overqualified for, in order to make ends meet. In spite of the fact that she humbly came down from her previous job of 75, 000 dollars yearly to a teaching job of 32, 000 dollars, she tried to make sure that her children were provided for. She even embraced the idea of acquiring more education to develop herself in this field.

Convinced that the best for her life was yet to come, she visited The SCOAN in 2015 and received the Morning Water as well as The Mirror signed by Prophet T.B. Joshua. When she returned to The States, she put all her documents inside the anointed book given to her by the man of God and continued to minister the Morning Water over them. After a while, she received divine help. A new job with a six-digit salary erupted into her life with a transformative flow of peace and provision. With her new job as a Senior Clinical Research Associate, she enjoys a lot of travelling privileges and allowances. Her family is now happy. She is currently in line for a service award as well as a second salary increment, putting an end to twelve years of lack and financial hardship. Thanking God in company of one of her sons, Mrs Oladeji urged people all over the world to continue watching Emmanuel TV and praying with the man of God, whenever the problems of life tried to get them down.

I CAME TO CHALLENGE PROPHET T.B. JOSHUA

Mr Emmanuel Dickson grew up in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. His upbringing was somehow problematic in the sense that his father and mother lived almost apart from each other. The inadequacies in his parents’ relationship opened his life up to the danger that would later follow. One day while his mother had gone fishing, an older lady came calling with evil intentions. She cajoled the teenager into a sexual affair. After that episode, the young man would dream of himself swimming in oceans and seeing pythons all around him. At a point, he received a ghastly visitation – a mighty python slithered past him physically while he lay awake on his bed, scared stiff.

With those strange experiences, his life took a precarious course as he could no longer control his sexual urge. He became lustful of women and would sleep with anyone that came his way. Hardly did a day pass by without him sleeping with a woman. When he had the opportunity to travel to South Africa for studies, he diverted his attention to pornography and occultism. He would explore literatures on infamous occult groups, in order to further furnish his already warped senses with corruptible knowledge.

His indiscriminate sexual escapades would later result in him having two children from two different women out of wedlock. Living dangerously without focus, he seemed destined for perdition by the evil forces that tossed him about like a kite in a turbulent wind. A visit to The SCOAN penultimate Sunday delivered his soul from the total destruction which had lay in wait. As the man of God ministered prayer around the congregation, the spirit in him had tried to prove stubborn but fell silenced in defeat by the anointing in the man of God, Prophet T.B. Joshua.

Speaking through him, the demon tormenting his life cried out, “I am his wife… I want to kill this boy… I am a spirit of snake… I came to see the powers of this man of God. I came to challenge him. I am the snake; the great python.” Crawling on the ground in serpentine style, towards the man of God, Mr Dickson, visibly controlled by the demon received a liberating blast of God’s power and the enemy bowed to the anointing that breaks every yoke in the name of Jesus Christ. Testifying and thanking God for his deliverance and freedom from the spirit wife and marine world, he confessed his new-found peace of mind in Christ Jesus even as he urged people, especially youths, to be wary of the internet which he said can be used for good but had equal scope for evil and destruction.

A DESTINY-SAVING RECONCILIATION

Mr Chris Chibuzor Okwonkwo from Anambra, Nigeria, had impregnated a girl out of wedlock and had denied the pregnancy. For over 2 years, he avoided the lady and refused to have anything to do with the child. But during a Sunday service, the man of God, through prophetic insight made the following revelation: “There is a man here, you have a child. The woman was not your wife but you went out with her two to three times. She is pregnant and she has a child for you. You say you are not aware, you are not interested. But this child is yours. You have seen the child in a picture and he looks like you.”

Coming forward in the auditorium, the young man confessed his misdeeds and agreed totally with the prophecy of the man of God. In line with his divine mandate to bring salvation, hope and repentance to the world, Prophet T.B. Joshua arranged a reconciliatory meeting for the lady, her parents and the father of her child. According to the man of God while counselling Mr Okonkwo, the reconciliation became necessary in order to avoid blocking his own future progress with a silly mistake of the past. After reconciling the interested parties, the man of God admonished young people to be of good behaviour and to honour their parents. As you continue to make God’s Word the standard for your life, may you recover your real value in Christ Jesus, in Jesus’ name. Emmanuel!