In a recent chat with PROVIDENCE, the General Overseer and Senior Pastor of Victory Christian Church (VCC), Ijanikin, Lagos, Rev. (Dr.) Nkechi Anayo-Iloputaife bared her mind on issues affecting the church. Excerpt;
On the present state of the church, Mrs. Anayo-Iloputaife described, the church today as malfunctioning, hugely distracted and disconnected from the ultimate agenda.
She said, “we are more concerned about the blessings, focusing more on ourselves, pursuing wants and neglecting the source; which has made the church a slave and prisoner to her immediate agenda”.
Emphasizing that, there is church everywhere, yet the church is minimal and only surviving by grace. Our present situation and where we are today, with the way things are going, is because God is faithful and not because of our faithfulness. God wants our attention and things may not get better, until the church take her rightful place and position in His glory and not in her glamour.
“God in His mercy, when He conceived this nation, He buried underneath the sand so much wealth that can make every citizen and generations of this nation to be rich. But, the problem we have is mismanagement; issue of choice and capacity, not scarcity”, she said.
Mrs. Iloputaife admonished the church to rise up and take her place, to become the solution and answer to problems of this nation. The value of our interest capital will rise and all the things that structures and militate against our development and progress will be dismantle by the glory of God that will come from the church”, she said.
The church can do better, if the walls of jealousy, competition, envy, doctrines, strife and other things involved can be remove and we collapse our wall of perception and doctrines. The last high priestly prayer of Jesus was, God should make us one by His glory and it will take only the glory of God to make the church one.
Lamenting that, “We are divided by our different interpretations, if you don’t understand the scripture the way I understand it then we can’t flow. We tell ourselves, you are wrong, I am right and that has kept us apart”. “The disunity has reduced our potentials for impact and until we come together as one, allowing the glory to unify us, then, we can’t become the answer to this nation problem. Jesus did not come because of our problems; He came, so that we can have salvation and when the fear of God is lost, the glory diminishes”, she said.
Anayo-Iloputaife advise Nigerian women to encourage their husband to be what God wants them to be by submitting and praying for them, especially in the present situation of the country. “Every man has enormous potential for leadership and ability to lead, if he has gained the credibility and confidence at home.
Under any circumstances, every woman should honour their men as the head and let them lead and be the leader. They should continue to stand in the gap for their husband, so that when he goes to the market place, he can win and be the bread winner at home”.