By Godfred A. Polkuu
Bolgatanga, Oct. 7, GNA – Pastor Mensa Otabil, the Founder and General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), says God is not involved in the business of choosing leaders for countries.
“I don’t believe God chooses leaders for countries. If God is the one who chooses leaders, then He has been making a lot of mistakes, especially on our Continent,” he said.
Pastor Otabil said this when he delivered a sermon on the theme; “A way in the wilderness”, at a programme dubbed “Charisma”, at Desert Pastures, a branch of Church of Fountain Gate Chapel (FGC) in Bolgatanga, Upper East Region.
The week-long programme, hosted by Reverend Eastwood Anaba, the Founder of FGC and President of the Eastwood Anaba Ministries, was intended for Christians to “Know the spirit, follow the spirit, live by the spirit and minister by the spirit.”
Pastor Otabil, a Guest Speaker at the programme, said God was not in the leadership choosing process and that it was a lazy way of thinking, “It is a way of abdicating your responsibility and hoping that whatever comes, it is God’s will, no it is our will, it is the will of the people.
“If you are foolish, you make a foolish choice. God doesn’t choose leaders. Go and vote. You are choosing the leader. You can pray and say God guide me, but that is up to you,” he told the congregation.
Pastor Otabil led the congregation to pray to God to direct the Continent of Africa to overcome limitations, poverty, underdevelopment, destruction and to become responsible citizens and make good choices.
According to the Pastor, everything about Africa showed that “God has visited us. Everything spiritual that we see just shows that there is a divine visitation. God is moving, but somethings must move from the people for this move of God to be real.”
He further noted that the root of Africa’s problem was mental and cultural in nature, and prayed for the mental and cultural transformation of Africa.
“Help us Lord and raise an army of change makers on our Continent and in our country Ghana,” Pastor Otabil said.
Touching on the need for Christians to work hard, the Founder and General Overseer, said pain, hard work and affliction were integral to the Christian faith.
He said a Christian was born to work hard and sweat to overcome difficulties, insisting that laziness would never prepare the way for Christians to succeed, except hard work.
Even though Pastor Otabil acknowledged that it was good to pray in tongues and worship, he, however, stressed that prayer could not be substitute for work.
He observed that Christians, especially Charismatics had a dichotomy in their thinking, as some thought that with faith, they did not need to work, and that to work was not of faith.
According to him, if Christians wanted God’s healing and blessings, they needed to do the works that led to healing and blessings, adding that the actions of Christians must be consistent with what they wanted to achieve.
Pastor Otabil, who is the Chancellor of the Central University College in Accra, stated for instance, that if Christians believed that God had given them health, then they must take care of themselves to be healthy.
He said there was a dissonance in the theological reasoning of some Christians.
“There are a lot of Christians, they wouldn’t take medicine because they believe God will heal them. Yes, He is healing you, take the medicine. If you are healed, will you say the devil healed you,” he questioned.
GNA