Dr Chris
Okafor, the General Overseer of Mountain of Liberation and Miracle Ministry aka
Liberation City recently marked its 10th anniversary with lots of
achievements recorded so far. In this interview, the Oracle of God as he is
fondly called spoke on the church at 10, the focus of the church and the state
of the nation. Enjoy the interview….
How
has the journey been so far?
In
every task in life, there are challenges but because God has given us the
mandate, we will not fail. When you face obstacles, it as an opportunity to take
you to the next level. Any man that wants to be great without obstacles; it
means the man is not really ready to go far. So obstacle is part of life,
challenges are part of life; even Lion being the king of the jungle, it’s still
having some obstacles. It is the king of the jungle but some flies would still
come around its ears, it would still have to wave them off. No man can
achieve greatness in life without obstacles but the most important thing
is how you are able to turn the obstacles into testimony and this is nothing
but the hand of God and with determination; you will definitely get to where
you are going; that is what we have to do.
Liberation
Mountain will soon do its 10th anniversary, what have been your challenges and
success so far?
As
you can see; we already have a lot of plans on the ground going on now.
The major mandate which God has given me is to add one billion souls to the
kingdom of God and that is the main point in our agenda. Without your
mandate; every other thing you are doing is out of it. The mandate is so taxing,
that is why you see us travelling from one nation to the other, from one city
to the other, in order to make sure we achieve the mandate of one billion souls
and I am proud to tell you that we have gone very far. To God be the glory; we
now have our own television station, Liberation TV, and it is another way of
reaching to millions of people. We usually have our live telecast anytime we
are having service and God is helping us to acquire more property to
accommodate people coming from different parts of the world and from all walks
of life. We are also trying to increase the capacity of the widows, we have over 3000 widows we are catering for now.
We have also included orphans to the list. We are trying to raise a
microfinance bank, the basis of doing this is not for any self interest but for
us to empower the widows, the orphans, the less privileged etc. That is the
only way you can get a crowd, before you talk to a man, telling him to embrace
Christ, you must make sure the person is a little bit alright. You don’t
go and talk to people who are not sure where their first meal would come from.
Like Jesus did when he preached to the people; he gave them something to eat,
so it is part of our mandate to empower the widows. If you teach a woman how to
catch fish, you have automatically save the family and by so doing, they
are now independent by not depending on anybody. So they know what to do to
make money. So if the church can do that; the government should borrow a leaf
from the noble programme.
What
is so special about Liberation City 10th anniversary?
Normally,
it is a celebration of grace and power. We want to celebrate what God has been
doing in this church and what has kept us going. You see
people coming from different places all over the world to join in
celebration at Liberation City, they are not coming because they want to dance,
they are coming here because God is doing something here. This is a place where
the captives are set free and people are given the real meaning to their lives.
During the retreat; there is going to be mighty liberation, people will be
liberated, God will give people direction, sick people will be healed, people
with all kinds of loads, God will take them off from them. It is a celebration
of grace, freedom, and God’s grace upon this great church.
When
we began Liberation TV few months ago, we have been able to acquire some acres of
land, believing that God would facilitate the kick-off of the kindergarten,
primary and secondary schools and God has really done it. In the next four years, we should set up Liberation University
and all registration is in progress right now.
Nigeria
has been described as a failed state politically, what is your take on this?
We
have said it severally, I don’t think it is a reasonable step to keep on saying
that. The bible says the government shall be upon his shoulders, we should
orchestrate the activities of the government from the
spiritual point of view; so we don’t keep on repeating that thing and be expecting a different result. So we
have talked about the revelation God said in 2chronicles 7:14 “if my people
which are called by my name shall humble themselves and pray and repent from
their sins, from heaven will I hear and their prayers will I answer and I will
heal their land. So what Nigeria needs right now is healing, the land needs
healing. It will be stupid or foolish for a farmer to go and begin to till a
barren land to sow seed on it when he knows that the land is barren and
the only time you can sow effectively in such land is only by what they
call fire brigade approach, but as it is right now, what the country needs is
prayer. Instead of praying; they are talking about national dialogue, that is
not what the country needs, what the country needs is nothing but prayers.
Some
Nigerian media have written damaging articles about you and the church, how do
you feel about those reports?
In
life; nobody writes about a mad man, there are two sets of people they don’t
write about. The people in the mortuary and cemetery; until you get to this
stage of life, because the only place silence is observed is in mortuary and
cemetery but as long as you are alive and touching lives; definitely you are
going to step on toes. The bible says “though we walk in the flesh but we don’t
operate by flesh”. If the devil I deal with can arrest some pastors, the
journalists too can do so. Are all journalists Christians? All of them are not
Christians. So if they are not writing about you; it means something is wrong.
You write for the public but the public cannot be deceived. What some
journalists are writing is different from what the public is seeing, you cannot
deceive them all the time. Despite all they have written, has it brought Liberation
City down? Liberation City is a movement and not just a church, the more you
write about Liberation City, the more you are advertising us. Please let them
keep up in advertising Liberation City, we welcome it all.
Despite
your tight schedule, you look fresh, what is the secret?
The
bible says “those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength and they
shall mount up wings like that of eagle” and says ‘unless the Lord builds a city,
those that build laboureth in vain, except the Lord watches over the city, the
sentry(watchman) do so in vain. The then head of state, Abacha, had all the
security but when the spirit of death came, his men were made incapable to stop
it. So that shows it does not come from man but God and when you do the right
thing, the will of God, make sure you don’t oppress anybody. We should think
about that man who has nowhere to sleep, we should think about that widow who
is being oppressed and about the orphans. There is no way you carry all other
people’s load, that God would not carry your own because you are already a tool
in His hands. If satan can empower his own; how much more, the God, the creator
of heaven and the earth? He will always virtually empower His people and the
only way He can do that is when our strength is renewed like that of the eagle.
So when we wait upon Him and do His work, there is no way we are not going
to be renewed. Anytime you see the fish, it is always clean, why? Because the
fish is always in constant touch with water and it stays in water. As long as I
have constant touch with the holy ghost, I would always look renewed and
empowered, that is the anointing of the spirit.
Your advice to the
government?
If
the government wants to succeed in Nigeria, they must listen to what God is
saying. Like America’s motto “in God we trust”, Americans are very appreciative
of God, a state in America is called Turkey, they said many years ago, there were
famine and food scarcity and turkey came from nowhere, and they were eating it,
they set out a day in a year or a week to give thanksgiving and declare that
God you did this for us and our fathers, we are still appreciating you and it
is only natural for them to bring God’s hand upon them; that is why America is
still what it is till tomorrow. We have predicted many things and they have come
to pass. It is God and not by our might.
No comments:
Post a Comment