MY BREAKTHROUGH CAMPMEETING NOTES

Campmeeting 2011 winds down today with a Gospel Music Jamz, after a one-day break occasioned by the local government election in Lagos state. The programme will feature apart from CCIC Levites, Raph Femi Daniels, Tim Godfrey of the Xtreme Crew, Vineyard Christian Centre Crew and stand-up comedian, Edo Charles. Patmos Playhouse, gospel drama group of the church and the CCIC Youth Drama team.

Since opening at the Gymnasium Hall of the National Institute for Sports at the National Stadium in Lagos had features three daily sessions with an average of three ministrations per session. Indeed, it has been a four-day word-feast and I thank God for giving me and all of mine the opportunity to be part of the feast. Not even my children away in the United Kingdom were left out, thanks to the live-streaming on the World Wide Web.

Leafing through my notes, a number of nuggets leap at me, some of which I just cannot wait to share with you, my dear faithful readers.

Let’s begin with this.  From ministrations at the convention, one fundamental thing is clear; the season of breakthrough that has come upon us is not a personal thing. It is a season already foretold by the Lord in the Bible for the Church. Or more directly it is a season for citizens of the Kingdom of God on earth. Everybody who is anybody in the church is fully persuaded that these are the endtimes. These are the “those days” of the Bible; when your old men will dream dreams and the young ones will see visions.

 

Now, as Bishop David Oyedepo set it out clearly in his brief but epochal ministration on Tuesday night, the last days are the days of breakthrough when an army of giants will rise from the church to dominate and subsequently take over several sectors of life in the world, Nigeria in particular. In fact, according to the bishop, many such giants will emerge from Christ Chapel International Churches, with this convention as a trigger.

But, it must begin with vision, divinely inspired vision.  It is therefore a vision-driven season.  Vision is central to this season because it is only divine plans that has a guarantee of divine backing.  And, according to the man of God there five ways God guarantee breakthroughs for the plans he inspires.

First he goes ahead of us.  He does for us exactly as he promised in Isaiah 45: “I myself will prepare your way, leveling mountains and hills. I will break down bronze gates and smash their iron bars (GNB, verse 2).

Second, He goes with you. As it was with Jesus in whom He ensured His presence through the Holy Sprit. The Bible puts it this way: “You know about Jesus of Nazareth and how God poured out on him the Holy Spirit and power. He went everywhere, doing good and healing all who were under the power of the Devil, for God was with him (Act 10:38). The same Holy Spirit is with us if we are pursuing a divinely inspired assignment.

Next, he works with us. In Acts 10:38, the Bible records that: “The disciples went and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and proved that their preaching was true by the miracles that were performed. ”It’s absolutely so even now, in these breakthrough season.  Bishop Oyedepo puts it this way:  God with you makes an unbeatable team.

Fourth, in your season of breakthrough, God works in you.  Philippians 2: 13 is very clear about that when it says: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”  This is a truth we need to internalise to enable us break through. It is also important lest we make the mistake of claiming credit for our successes.

Lastly, God works for you! Incredible as this is, it is true, very true. Jesus declared it very clearly in John 14:10: “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works”.  And in 1Thessalonians 5:24 he reiterated it in these words: “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”

The man of god emphasise that we must never confuse ambition with vision because vision, being of god is vastly more superior to ambition, which is often simply carnal desires. Flowing from this therefore, carnality is the greatest single opponent of vision. In order words those who know that they know that they have entered their season of breakthrough must eschew carnality.

Pointing out that most of the visions that have defined his life and ministry did not come to him in the church or during prayer, he declared that to enjoy our breakthrough season, we must be spiritual  24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Pastor Mike Olorogun’s prophetic word earlier in the day has also remained in my heart:  the man of God from CCIC’s London church declared: Your enemies will see your God’s work in your life” Also lingering in my spirit strongly are the declarations of Rev Elekima Ekine, who heads the Western Nigeria region of CCIC. His words, which became something of a slogan, went like this: “My breakthrough; what about it? It’s here and it is now!”  I say a resounding amen to that – on all your behalf.