Speaking from Acts 17:24-28, Pastor Tolu Odukoya-Ijogun, while preaching January 9 second service, talked about God’s all-powerful, all-knowing, and omnipresent attributes.
According to her, God is in total control of Himself and His creation, has complete and maximum knowledge of all matters, motives, spirit, relationships, and events, and He is present everywhere.
“To man, history is what has happened in the past, but with God, His history is our future. He sits at the end of time, and everything to Him is history,” she suggested.
The preacher told the congregation that God is so deliberate about them being His children because anything He does has an intelligent purpose and a definite goal. Having this understanding for believers would make them trust Him no matter what happens to or around them, she noted.
In her words, “It is easy to say you trust God when things are going right, but when things become difficult and sour, that is when you will know whether you trust Him or not. As children of God, some things happen in our lives that make us afraid, but if you know Him, you will run to Him and not from Him.”
While likening believers’ lives to a movie whose writer, producer, and the director is Christ, she stated that irrespective of how the story goes, true believers in God know how it would end because they are of God and have His Spirit in them.
“Sometimes, even when the seeming main character of the movie dies, and you are wondering how the movie will end, there is a writer of the story.
“So, you do not have to worry how it will end, and this movie will end well because we know how the story ends. That is the promise we have in Christ Jesus,” the clergywoman noted.
Using the account of Jesus’ experience in the garden of Gethsemane as recorded in Luke 22:42 as an illustration, Pastor Tolu said that there would be times in a believer’s life that he or she would have to surrender to the will of God irrespective of how seemingly contradicting that God’s will is to their desire.
She noted that even though there is pain in those moments, there is also peace. In her words, “when you are in such a situation, understanding how the story ends gives you the peace to continue watching the movie.”
To encourage worshipers, Pastor Tolu cited Isaiah 46:10 and Psalm 139 and reminded them that God has planned their future and created everything in terms of strengths, potentials, virtues, and abilities to achieve that purpose.
“Before you were born, God knew you and sat in your future. Everything happening to you and around you now is all part of your movie. So do not be afraid to stand and move when God says so. Everything will come together for what God has created you for,” she declared.
