Apostle Dr. Emmanuel Igiehon is the Senior Pastor at Banner of Solution Christian Assembly, BOSCA. In this interview with TREND REPORTERS, the Christian cleric speaks on the essence of Easter.
He maintained that celebrating Easter, without having the knowledge of Jesus Christ is meaningless. He equally called on those in the positions of authority to live up to expectations by providing for the welfare of the people they govern. To know more about his ministry, you can listen to him or follow him on Facebook and YouTube.
Excerpt:
Question: As Christians what do we need to do differently, so that the essence of Easter can manifest in our lives.
Answer: Christ came to this world to save us from our sins and also to destroy the works of the devil in our lives. And by accepting Him as our Lord and personal savior, that is the only way the benefits of his death, will be real in our lives.
Those who don’t know him and they are celebrating him, it is of no use.
When you celebrate what you are not having knowledge of, when you don’t recognize Christ, your celebration; eating rice, killing Goats, killing chicken is of no effect, it is in vain. But when you know Christ, and you are celebrating, He become real in you. Before celebration you must know who to celebrate.
Christ is the reason for the celebration, the Paramount reason he was born, was to die for mankind and that is what Easter entails, where the finished work of Christ was exhibited.
Man was far from God, but the arrival of Christ brought man back to God. Make man come near to God and anyone who receives Jesus as his Lord and personal savior, God sees not that man, He sees Christ in that man, because no man is qualified to stand before God. No man is righteous to stand before God. If you though your own righteousness can save you it is not true, because your righteousness cannot save you. The righteousness of Christ is the one that makes us to have a right standing with God.
Anytime God sees man, He no longer sees man, He sees Christ in man. That is why if Man say he want to pray to God, God cannot hear his prayer, but we pray through Christ. And that is why Jesus said, I am the way the truth and the life, I am the intermediary between man and God and Christ came for that purpose to reconcile man back to God. That is the reason why He came.
He didn’t come on his own, he came for a purpose. He came for a mission. And when that mission was fulfilled, His assignment ended. And that’s the essence why man is in existence. That is the reason why man lives; we live by Him, we move by Him and we have our wellbeing by Him.
When you accept him you will not die you will live. And Christ in you is your hope of your eternal life and that is the essence why Christ came and that is why if you are celebrating, drinking and winning, going to Club outside the knowledge of Christ, you are just doing that for self aggrandizement. You’re just doing that for self worth, it does not mean anything. It does not produce results in your life. But when you know Christ and you are celebrating, the proof of what he did on the cross of Calvary will be real in you.
Question: For those who may not really understand what it means to accept Jesus Christ as there Lord and Saviour, could you please make simpler for them to understand.
Jesus came to die for mankind, to save man from condemnation. And He said, whosoever confess me with his mouth and believe in his heart, That He is the Lord of his life, automatically salvation has come.
It’s not any other thing that leads to Salvation. That is the only thing that makes one to know God. If you say it is because of the good you are doing, those in the Judaism, they do good and there good will not make them to gain eternal life. The only way to eternal life, the only way to have a reconciliation with God, your maker, is knowing His begotten son, whom he has sent. And when you believe in Him and believe on what he came to do, by accepting what he came to do, then what He came to do will be real in you. And that is the only way to salvation. That is the only way to eternal life.
The Muslims, they call on God, they do good. They pray five times a day, that does not lead to eternal life, but that which will lead to eternal life is to accept Jesus as your lord and personal saviour, there is no any other way about it. You don’t kill goat, you don’t kill ram, you don’t do any other thing to make you have a right standing with God, but the only thing that will make you to have right standing with God is to confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is the Lord of your life.
Question: As long as Christians are here in the world, the policies and programs of government would continue to affect them. Looking at the hardship in the nation, what would be your message to political office holders.
Answer: God gave us the air we breathe, He gave us good weather we are living on. He gave us good atmosphere that we are enjoying and God gave us leaders. Every leader is a custodian of God, whosoever is a leader is representing God.
A president is representing the assignment of God. And if a president knows that he is representing the assignment of God and that which God makes him to take care of and is using it to suffer the people, he will never go unpunished, because God will ask him on the last day, I made you a president so that you will alleviate the sufferings of people, so that what I use in endowing men, so that you can be able to manage it, so that it will be for the benefit and for the consumption of men, but you amass all these things for your own personal aggrandizement, for your own selfish purpose, therefore you will suffer for it.
Those who think that they are in the helms of Affair, they are are in the positions of authority, they are not there by their own making they are there by the will of God and God placed them there, so that they will use their office to affect the common man. But if they now get there and they are subjecting the same man that has the same breath that they have, that have the same body that they have, that they have everything that they have and they are enslaving those men with the natural resources God has given to them, it simply means they will suffer for it.
The same enslavement they gave to them, is what they will also face in the last day. They will still suffer for it not maybe when God comes to judge the world, before the judgment they can suffer for it.
The government should ensure that any resource they are getting, they manage it well, to create good roads for people, to create a good welfare, to create good healthcare for people, to create good education for people, to create jobs for those who are willing to work.
