GIVE UP YOUR “SELF” TO WIN CHRIST!

Hello [subscriber:firstname | default:Beloved],

This week I would like to admonish you on the need to deny yourself in order to win Christ. I was recently on a crusade in Tabou (in the southwest of Côte d’Ivoire, 443 km away from Abidjan). During this crusade, I saw thousands of souls accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour and there was a very high number of healings. Many people who were healed came to testify on the platform. Among them, a lady: “My sister, you see there, has been deaf and dumb for eight years and she was suffering from a goiter. Pastor, while you were praying for the sick, you had a word of knowledge saying that God had just healed a woman who had a goiter and the goiter had disappeared. I was praying with my eyes closed, but I immediately opened my eyes, put my hand on my sister’s neck and saw that she was totally healed of the goiter”.)

At the end of her testimony, I heard the Lord telling me: “This young lady who has just been healed of goiter, are you going to let her go away with this deafness and dumbness? Should she not hear, should she not speak?”. The Holy Spirit had thus just put it in my heart to pray for her. Immediately, my flesh gave me this advice: “Mohammed, if you are clever, you should get her off the platform to go and pray for her in secret, far from the eyes of the crowd, in all discretion. What will people say if you pray for her in front of everyone and she does not recover from this dumbness and deafness”.

Why did the flesh give me such advice? To save me from shame and humiliation. It is my “Self” which spoke to me that way. However, I refused to let this voice take over. It was impossible for me to pray for this woman discreetly, just to save my honor and reputation. Indeed, if I did, it would be more to protect my image than to win Christ.

”But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ”, says the Apostle Paul in Philippians 3:7. So I agreed to carry my cross that day at Tabou, coming to terms with the possibility that she might not be able to hear or speak instantly after prayer. I was ready to be mocked, to lose my honor. I accepted the possibility that I might be called a false pastor or a false prophet. I denied myself, and agreed to kill my “Self”. I stepped forward, blew into her ears and prayed for her. She then began to hear and she uttered her first words “Jesus! “and “Amen”. Hallelujah! Christ is alive! The miracle would not have happened if I had sought to save my reputation instead of focusing on Christ.

Beloved, the Lord declares in His word, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Matthew 16:24). Self-denial is the acceptance of losing something that we have, of ceasing to seek the things that we hold dear, of detaching ourselves from them, in order to give preference to Christ.

Accept to deny yourself, your “ego” in order to win Christ. If your “self” doesn’t die, how do you want to bear fruit? “…Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” the scriptures say (John 12:24).

Yes, Beloved, what are you more attached to than God? Do you want to win Christ? Do you want to see His glory, especially in these difficult times that mankind is going through? Do you want to bear much fruit? Accept to give up your “self”, your habits, your comfort, all those things that you value and that prevent you from manifesting Christ. Know that no one leaves anything or anyone because of Jesus and the Good News without receiving them a hundredfold on this earth and in everlasting life (Matthew 19:29). My prayer is that the Holy Spirit Himself will reveal to you what you need to give up so that you may experience the glory of God in your life.

May God bless you !