By Sam Eyoboka & Olayinka Latona

THE weeklong  celebrations  marking the 30th  anniversary of the Living Faith Church also known as Winners Chapel which began on Monday, comes to an end today at the Faith Taber-nacle, at the sprawling Canaanland in Ota, Ogun State.

Declaring the event open on Monday, the presiding bishop of Winners Chapel, Dr. David Oyed-epo distanced himself from any achievers mentality, giving all the glory to God Almighty for the awesome acts in the commission.

According to him, the 30th anniversary celebration has been decentralised to give every church in the network the freedom to enjoy the season as they deem fit, unlike the previous ones where everyone converged in Canaanland.

It was an evening of joy and laughter as Emcee AJELE ‘converted’ the most spiritual people into his rib-cracking ministry after gospel artiste, Ayewa and his band had watered the ground. The Joel Company also took the congregation down memory lane with a pictorial x-ray of three decades of “grace and glory” as captured by the theme of the anniversary.

Diverse encounters were garnered as over 30 peo-ple gave instant testimonies. The Lord freed His people from various age-long afflictions in the course of the opening service. There was a praise hour between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. while the celebration continued with a liberation night on Friday from 10:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. The leadership of the church including the president, Bishop Oyedepo, executive vice president of the ministry, Bishop David Abioye and vice president, Foreign Mission, Bishop Thomas Aremu among other sons and friends of the ministry were in attendance.

The mystery of gratitude
Speaking at the opening praise service of the 30th anniversary of receiving the liberation mandate and his call into ministry, Bishop Oyedepo said “it is grace that makes great. No one will ever be greater than the grace available to him. We are here today by his unmatchable grace. It has been 30 years of impact, ever-increasing growth, and undeniable testimo-nies; of begging-free adventure and absolute dependency on God who has never begged any-body.”

Continuing, the man often described as a liberation prophet espo-used on the mystery of gratitude as a covenant key behind 30 years of scaling altitude in mini-stry.

Taking his bearing from Psalms 92:1-3, 10-15; the bishop schooled the congregation on the accomplices of gratitude which include; super-natural strength Psalm 84:7 (physically, emotion-ally and spiritually), access to divine presence where revelation flows (Daniel 11:32), access to fresh anointing (Psalm 92:10), victory over ene-mies (Psalm 92:11), supernatural flourishing that culminate into fearful blessings (Psalm 92:12), access to supernatural lifting and fruitfulness (Psalm 92:13-14) that command results even at old age.

In conclusion, he assert-ed that “you don’t beg God for anything that will give him glory.”

Thanksgiving power: Grateful or great fool?
Thousands of worshipers from different parts of the world who attended the 30th anniversary were warned of the dangers associated with ingratitude.

According to the church president who anchored his teaching on Isaiah 42:22-25, lack of heartfelt thanksgiving incurs God’s anger which has devastating effects. “And now o ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings: yea, I have cursed them al-ready, because ye do not lay it to heart.” (Malachi 2:1-2).

Bishop Oyedepo expl-ained that when God’s people complained, it displeased Him: “And the Lord heard it; and His anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burnt among them and cons-umed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.” Numbers 11:1. The man of God added that thanklessness kills. He argued that a life of thanksgiving helps any believer to continually scale new heights, a view that was shared by Bishop Thomas Aremu in an earlier submission: “enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful to Him, and bless his name.” (Psalm 100:4).

Bishop Aremu took his audience into the nitty-gritty of thanksgiving as a seed of destiny, urging all and sundry to imbibe the lifestyle of thankful-ness, a platform which always delivers super-natural returns. On his part, Bishop David Abio-ye, the executive vice president of the mission, delved into the attitude of gratitude, saying that those who give thanks to God in everything will soon give thanks to God for everything.

Abioye offered a recipe to maintain the attitude of gratitude as always confronting every situation with thanksgiving: “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concern-ing you,” I Thessalonians 5:1. According to him, not being grateful, is to be a great fool.

It is harvest time Senior Pastor of London-based Kingsway Intern-ational Christian Centre, Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo charged Winners to be prepared for a new phase of harvests after the celebrations. Acrivities marking the anniversary moved to a crescendo during  the second night when Pastor Ashimolowo preached on; “It’s Harvest Time.” The world renowned televan-gelist and motivational speaker said God was set to pour out a new anoint-ing on the Body of Christ and that a great harvest awaited Winners the years ahead. Invariably, he said what lied ahead for Winners was by far greater than the three decades of ‘Grace and Glory’, which the commission is currently celebrating.

He explained that pers-onalities like Joseph, King David and the Lord Jesus Christ entered into glory at the age of 30 years, adding that mem-bers of the Winners Chapel should get ready to assume positions of power, influence and prosperity at the global stage. The London-based preacher argued that if God could prophetically empower an unbeliever called Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1-3) 100 years before his birth and see to the fulfillment of such utter-ance, God was more than disposed to committing His divine agenda into the able hands of sons and daughters of the commission.

Ashimolowo therefore tasked believers to be alive to their God-given portion as only a com-plete take-over will guarantee the long await-ed change in various fields such as finance, education, finance and the likes. He revealed a seven-fold anointing for the end time believer namely: a release of fresh grace for the fulfillment of a divine mandate; power to subdue nations and the power to smash all opposition.

Others include anointing to open double doors, grace to tear down gates of influence and massive wealth transfer.

It was a real harvest of spiritual acts as popular gospel artiste, Asu Ekiye, Folake Umosen and rave of the moment, Praise Channel charged the already electrified atmosphere.

Notable men of God such as Bishop John Grace Daniel, Bishop John Osawumen, Pastor Sam Olubiyo, Apostle Mungare, his wife and a host of pastors from Tanzania graced the occasion.