A fine line

Episode 23| Happy Sunday!

|Dedicated to God's Masterpiece international Worship Centre, Port Harcourt, Rivers state.|

"Praise the Lord!" Bishop Dave Michael shouted on the podium.

"Hallelujah!" The church chorused.

"No, that shout was for me. That shout could never be for the King of Kings, The Lord of Lords, the sovereign and everlasting God whose kingdom shall never end," he said.

Some members of the church were already on their feet echoing the pastors words, clapping and whooping to the glory of God.

"So we're going to do that again," he lifted his arms up the ceiling and shouted, "Praise the Lord!"

Like a sound of a mighty wave, the entire church chorused, "Hallelujah!"

"Hallelujah!" He shouted pointing at the crowd.

"Praise the Lord!" They answered with a loud sound of applause.

"Oh God!" He clapped his hands together, "It's always a joy to be in the presence of the Lord surrounded by all of you; my brothers and sisters in the faith. Do me a favor, turn to seven people and say; 'Welcome to church this morning and I love you with the love of God.' "

As instructed everyone turned to their sides repeating the pastors words to others, with smiles, warm embraces, handshakes or just by pointing to whosoever they made eye contact with.

"Put your hands together for Jesus as you take your glorious seats and as you seat, lets bow our heads for a word of prayer."

"Heavenly Father we thank you for privilege to be gathered today once again for another wonderful time in your presence," he said, "Your word says where two or three of us are gathered, that you're there in our midst. So we welcome you precious Holy Spirit and we ask that you take full control of today's service, take for control of my lips and use me as your oracle and take control of the hearts of everyone seated in room making them a fertile ground for this word so that it may yield a bountiful harvest in their lives in this year of Infallible proofs, in Jesus name, amen."

"Amen!" The church chorused with another round of applause.

"It's my year of infallible proofs by the Power of the Holy Ghost," he said.

Henrietta smiled as her eyes unconsciously moved to the screen where the responding part of the declaration was displayed. Then in a synchronized voice they all said, "Same is my heritage in Christ and I give thanks!"

"Blessed be God," he said as he opened his IPad, "Today's text is I am destined for Increase."

"I told you last week that the Lord has been sensitizing my heart to dwell on the subject of Increase for the rest of the year. The Lord has visited us and the spirit, the anointing, the wisdom and the favor that brings Increase is in the house. The word increase, formerly known as encrease is coined from the Old French word encreistre and from Latin increscere. Now this compound word increscere, when broken down can be translated as 'in' —which means into—and crescere—which means grow. Now I think if you put those two together you can have a word that means to grow into, right?"

"Yes sir," some folks in the pastors corner replied.

"Okay, now take note of this," he started as he began to read from his iPad, "The word Increase means to become or make greater in size, amount, intensity or degree. It is an instance of growing or making greater. Can I hear somebody say making greater?"

Looking up from their notes they say, "Making greater."

"Alright," he said closing his iPad, "Increase means to become greater and hear this, Increase is not an ambition. You tell someone you want to increase and they say, 'ah he's having an ambition, he's having big eyes'. No! Let no man deceive you. There's nothing wrong is having an ambition and daring to dream, have the 'big eyes' and a 'big heart' also to go for your dream. There are many people in our world that started out wretched but, they had 'the same big eyes' and heart to dare to dream for something more. They went after it and now their story has completely turned around for the better. May you receive the grace to think big in Jesus name."