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‘Politicians should work to touch lives’

By Chris Irekamba
02 January 2018   |   2:09 am
Pastor Lazarus Muoka is the Founder and General Overseer of The Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Revival Ministries. As the church begins its Mgbidi crusade this week, the man of God in this interview with CHRIS IREKAMBA, spoke about the crusade, the 15th anniversary of the church and what politicians must do to succeed in 2019. Every…

Pastor Lazarus Muoka is the Founder and General Overseer of The Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Revival Ministries. As the church begins its Mgbidi crusade this week, the man of God in this interview with CHRIS IREKAMBA, spoke about the crusade, the 15th anniversary of the church and what politicians must do to succeed in 2019.

Every January, members of the church and non-members look forward to Mgbidi crusade. What should they expect this year?
OUR Mgbidi programme this year is themed, What God has determined shall be done. As the theme connotes, if God has determined that in 2018, Christ is coming to take His church away, it must happen. If God has determined that in 2018, Mr. A will live, while Mr. B will not; whatever God has determined in the New Year, if that will draw souls to Him, it will happen.

We encourage the people to depend on God and to know that He is God. He is reliable, trustworthy and can bring to pass that which He has purposed to do in the lives His people. Mgbidi crusade starts on January 4 and venue as usual is Chosen International Secondary School, Mgbidi, Imo State. We shall be there till Sunday, January, 7.

The assurance I give to people is that, God of Chosen has power. If you take a step of faith and you honour this invitation to be there, God will make you a happy man or woman all through the year. Besides God has promised to take away every sickness such as HIV, cancer, diabetes, any affliction the devil might have placed on the people of God will give away. I believe in that programme that the Lord will do wonders. So people should endeavour to come to the programme because God is going to give us bread from heaven because miracles are children’s bread.

What informed church’s decision to extend the event to four days instead of the normal three and why is the theme same this year?
When there is a demand for something, I think you have to satisfy those demands in order to make people happy. So, there was a demand to that effect and the topic is same because God is still same, He is unchangeable God. He’s same yesterday, today and forever.

What should Nigerians expect to see in the New Year?
First of all, we need to pray and draw closer to God and ensure that we keep to purity and righteousness. Every year brings one closer to the rapture of the saints and anybody telling you it will get better is not telling you the truth. Anybody telling you that 2018 will be bed of roses or that things will be fine that person doesn’t know God’s word.

Every day that prophecy of God must be fulfilled and I’m not talking about Nigeria only but all over the world. So people should stop disturbing themselves about election and things like rather they should pray and make sure that their relationship with God is sound. God will sustain His people, after all, He sustain the children of Israel for 40 years. The issue is that the world will continue to strive, but it can’t be better because the prophecy must be fulfilled.

For the government, we will continue to pray for them so that they will rule in the fear of God and achieve their agenda for the people.

For me, if you give me N50 Billion I will not accept to be president of Nigeria even if you have to pay me that N50billion every month. I will not accept to be president of Nigeria or even become governor of any state. I will not. What I am doing for God is far better. So, there’s no amount of money that will make me to change my mind even if Nigerians gather together to persuade me to become their president. I will not accept, because the system of the world is not same system in God’s kingdom.

So, we that are in the kingdom of God should not envy those that are in the world. Our responsibility is to pray for them to be saved no matter what they have; they have nothing. We are to face what we are doing and pray for the world to be saved.

The Lord’s Chosen just clocked 15 years; what are you thanking God for?
In spite of all the oppositions, trials and persecutions, we believe that God has advanced us to such a level that, whenever you mention this church, people know what we are standing for. For example, somebody visited a particular country and in that embassy, he said: ‘I want to know, which church is standing for the truth in this country and I want to worship God there.’ He was told to go to The Lord’s Chosen.

By God’s grace we are making impact, people have known that we stand for the truth, righteousness and holiness. We are known for evangelism. When the church started it was like forget them, because they are too radical and things like that but just like what the Bible said: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes’

Today, a lot of churches are copying what we are doing consciously or unconsciously and we like it because that is in conformity with our vision. So, these 15 years God has done great things for us, He has advanced us, both spiritually, numerically and in other areas. How we measure progress is not in the area of finance and material possession, but what God has done in the lives of our pastors, workers and members of the church. They are born again, radical for Christ and are ready to die for Christ. So, they are happy serving God with their hearts. By God’s grace, we are in all nations of the world.

You and I know that there’s no true church without challenges, even our Lord Jesus Christ had challenges. So when there is a rejection then you should expect a battle in same way, any church that is an offspring of Jesus Christ must face challenges. That church must be opposed by the world.

Ours is like fighting the world war what I meant by that is that before the emergence of this church, unrighteousness was everywhere in the country, adultery, fornication, sugar daddy/sugar mummy, brothels/social clubs; women dressing like jezebel with their trousers. The faith of many Christians became questionable and many Christians became confused to the extent of dropping their Bible and joining the world.

This was the spiritual condition then but we firmly stood on the truth, we preached it, and practised it as well. We would tell you we don’t drink, we don’t smoke, we don’t work where they are producing it; we don’t wear jewelry, we don’t bleach, our women don’t wear trousers and we told our men they should behave like Christians. We don’t take bribe and we don’t extort money from people. Unfortunately, people had seen these things as a way of life, but we said this was contrary to the truth.

So this is a world war. And God, who called us confirmed it with signs and wonders. People who came to our church with various ailments such as HIV got healed, we preached against embracing homosexuality and lesbianism and people that practiced it came here, we prayed for them they became normal. It was popular in 2012, and every country I went to, we spoke against it. We told them, they were not born that way, that it is a demon. It was after we spoke against it that other churches came up to say, ‘this is our stand on this?’ Now other people have seen what we said then as the truth. We spoke against occultism, 419, and kidnapping; because these were the things that filled the world. We tackled these things not only in Nigeria, but all over the world. So looking at all these we can say we fought world war. We faced a lot of oppositions based on this truth.

But if God gave it to you nobody can stop it. Afterall, the apostles fulfilled their ministry and Jesus Christ also fulfilled His ministry, same way, the Lord’s Chosen will fulfill its ministry because it is God’s church. So when you preach this truth, the devil will make people to hate you.

Some churches rejoice when you are passing through trials and persecutions. Just like in 2013 when a lady from a particular church, came here, fought the church and painted us black. Those who sent her to tarnish our image helped her to distribute those CDs just to tarnish our image, but they were ignorant of the Bible, because Jesus said, ‘I would build my church and the gate of hell shall not prevail against it.’ So every conspiracy and unrighteousness cannot prevail against His church. Jesus Christ is the greatest teacher, and He encouraged us not to return evil for evil, rather, we should do good so that you can get good things in return.

The church I led for years is still praying evil prayers against me. What I’m saying is that churches fight and pray against one another and they rejoice when you have persecution and trials.

2018 is critical for politicians; what advice do you have for them?
What I need to do is to pray for everybody, the nation and the president. Politicians should start now to work by touching the lives of people, who are suffering. So any politician, who knows his onions, and wants to contest in 2019 should do something meaningful for Nigerians by showing good example that when he gets there he will not forget the downtrodden.

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