The founder and General Overseer of Pentecostal Congregation, Bishop Abraham Olaleye on Friday April 25 capped the three-day pastors conference at the New Wine Church, Ikeja Lagos with thought provoking message placing emphasis on the essence of the Church and the Christian faith.
He stated at the start of his message that God preferred agent of change in the world is the Church while urging the Christians to begin to live to this billing.
He noted that the Catholic Church in Rome manipulated the scriptures on Christ’s declaration that, ‘upon this rock I will build my church’ to make it mean ‘Peter was the rock’. But that is not true. Jesus was referring to the very confession of Peter and not Peter himself.’
Reason for error
Many pastors according to him fall into error each time they look for scriptures to align with their own ideology rather than allowing scripture to speak for itself.
Olaleye who spoke on the topic, the theology of place, noted that it is wrong to teach that God can only be experienced in a particular place.
Quoting the Bible he said, ‘the earth is the Lord and the fullness thereof. God owns everything on earth and he is everywhere.
‘We can’t limit him to a place. We should be at liberty to worship him anywhere under the sun.’ He said.
Talking on the prime position of Jesus he said the two most important people in the old testament were Moses and Elijah which according to him represented the Law and the Prophet.
Olaleye said, ‘With the coming of Jesus we are no longer under the Law. Christ has come to redeem us from the curse of the law. The appearance of Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration and their eventual disappearance is a confirmation that Jesus is the only one we are meant to listen to.”
He explained that the essence of the Old Testament is to point us to Christ. ‘
Right from the fall of man, God already made arrangements for the redemption of man. What God did by shedding the blood of lamb to cover the nakedness of Adam was to later play out in the death of His son.
The lamb was to be sacrificed from the onset. It was not an accident.’
Olaleye emphasised that when Jesus said he was going to build his church, he was referring to the Peter’s declaration that Jesus is the Christ the son of the God. By the way Jesus is the rock. We are made to know that in 1Cor 10v4 that Christ is the rock. He is the rock upon which the church is built.’
He explained further that followers of Christ are built as spiritual houses to show to the world the glory of God.’
Bishop Olaleye however noted that many church leaders don’t understand the purpose of the church adding that many relate with God on transactional basis.
‘We are engaged in transactional Christianity if we only look for miracles. We are suppose to relate with God purely on the basis of love and nothing more. It is not a give and take it.
‘It is on the basis of love. Christ loved us first and gave us his life. We are not loving him back because we are looking for miracles. He already loves us and gave himself to us. While we were still sinners he died for us We are not even meant to look for miracles. We are the miracle of God. We are the light of the world. We are the light that cannot be hidden.’
Olaleye urged the Church to purge itself from every transactional tendencies. ‘let us forget our issues in the place of worship and in our relationship with God. While we trust that he will handle our issues, our love for him is not because we want him to fix our problems. We will serve him nonetheless whether our problems are fixed or not.’
