The Family With Highest Number of Bishops In Nigeria
- Like Father, Like Sons; Like Mother, Like Daughters
By Matthew Kuju & Eric Kuju
Just like businesses can be willed down from generation to generation, ministry work can also be willed down. Even the Bible says train up your child where he should go and when he grows up, he would never depart from it.
Naturally many children grow to develop interest and passion towards what their parents do and sometimes they end up doing it even better than their parents.
Many pastors have sons who they might be looking up to continue the work of faith, and of the ministry once their parents retire or called to Glory.
They have carried themselves with so much respect and dignity, living up to their parent’s expectation, and sure some are capable of taking over their father in the ministry work with the help of the holy spirit.
One clear example of a father who falls perfectly into this category is Archbishop Joseph George Masin.
The Joseph George Masin family in Nasarawa State may easily pass as the family with the highest number of Bishops in Nigeria. The patriarch, Joseph George Masin, the immediate past Nasarawa State Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), is the Archbishop and General Overseer, The Word of God Worldwide Gospel City while his two sons, Miracle and Peace Joseph Masin are Bishops.
While the Archbishop sits at the headquarters of the Word of God Worldwide Gospel City, located at Millionaires Quarters, Lafia, Nasarawa State, the two sons are heading their branches of the church. One is at Keffi, while the other is in Lafia, precisely Sabon Pegi Shabu where his church, Word Of God Worldwide Dominion Arena.
Archbishop Joseph George Masin has lived up the biblical injunction in Proverbs 22: 6, that Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. He is a living example of one who saw wisdom in that axiom and has practically carried out that command or instruction. He indeed has trained up his children, and now that they are grown up, they have not departed from it.
Evangelism and soul-winning ostensibly runs through their veins; the children have inherited the genes of working in the Lord’s Vineyard from their parents. In a manner of speaking, if DNA test is done on them (the parents and the children), evangelism, soul-winning and miracle of healing may be detected therein considering the fervour and zeal in them for the work of God, doing exploits for the Kingdom of God here on earth.
Like Mother Like Daughters
Also, just as their mother, Rhoda Masin, who got married to a clergy and rose to become Archbishop, the daughters have taken after their her, they are all married to clergy men. Who knows, the children they give both to may also go into the evangelism ministry.
Theirs is a story for another day!
Eggonnews met with the three of the Masin Bishops separately where they spoke on the calling in the family and how they have been carrying on the Great Commission.
First to speak was the Patriarch of the family, Archbishop Joseph G. Masin. He said:
I am Arch Bishop Joseph George Masin. I have seven children with my beloved wife Rhoda Masin.
We gave birth to these children and although we did not have enough to cater for all their needs, we trained them with the little we had. And the children also understood.
What we did with these children is that we have family fellowship and we began to teach them the way they should go. Because the scriptures say we should teach a child the way he should go so that when he grows up, he will not forget it. That is what we did for these children.
Our female children, all of them married pastors and we were surprised and wondered why pastors came and married them. That was the beginning of the revelation for us; we gave birth to children, trained them and now pastors have come to marry them.
And then coming to the two boys who have taken after me, I sat down with them for many hours telling them the way of life, the way Christ came, how He was a kid like them and He followed the footsteps of God. That opened the doors for the people of the world. And I told them to develop interest in reading the scriptures, praying and asking God to direct them, to tell them what to do.
And definitely I handled them well. The way I handled them, some of them did not even want to stay near me because I did not want them to grow to become wayward. Like Miracle in Keffi, he gave his life to Christ through an ECWA pastor. He did not want to do it with me because he felt his father is too wicked. It was at last that he realized that I am not wicked. I was only trying to bring him up to the standard that his life will be a source of blessing for others.
He came to me one day and said ‘Daddy, I never knew you were training me. It is now my eyes have become open and I know that you were taking me to a place where my life will be a challenge and a blessing to others. I have to thank God for your life and we will not forget what you have done for us.”
Even a few days ago he called me and said the same thing. My daughters in their marital homes have called to say the same thing. “We thank you for training us, for leading us to know the way of life.”
Eggonnews asked: When you were bringing them up, did you have the intention that they should grow to be clergy like you?
His answer: “When I was bringing them up, I had that thought in mind but I asked them whether they want to do the work I am doing. Some of them accepted partially but their mind was to do something else. Like Miracle, he said he wanted to be an engineer. I asked him to go and study Geo-Mining at the university in Minna. For this other one (Peace) wanted politics so he studied administration.
All of them went to different universities and studied. But by the time they started doing this, I didn’t know. But I know I really prayed for them to be better persons for this generation. Every time I prayed, I put their names. That made me to be happy.
“And these children, they listen to me at any moment, any time because I don’t deny them of anything they demand of me. Whether they were in school or at home, whatever they asked of me, I gave it to them. They looked at it and saw that although I didn’t have much, I was supporting them. They now decided to be listening to my instructions.”
When asked if he had piece of advice to parents and children, the Archbishop said:
“I have this piece of advice for ministers like me. They usually say that ministers’ children are always wayward. The reason why it is so is we are not taking care of them. We don’t take time to care for their lives but it is something that we have to deliberately do. We pastors should not be tired of our children. We should not be too lazy to monitor the way they do their things. They don’t know what they are doing. I sat my children down and told them the God who created us, who put them in their mother’s womb, the same one who has been protecting them; He has a reason for all that. The reason is that He wants them to work for Him.
“When I gave them direction, they grew up and began attending some seminars and other trainings. That was how they caught up and saw that is was good for them to serve God like their father. And God took them and God is using them.
“I want to appeal to ministers to take time to take care of their children. You know, when they are growing up especially as teenagers, they will commit all kinds of offence but you should be patient to bring them up. That was what I did and God has helped me and delivered them and saved them. Today they are giving life to thousands of people.
“I want children to have listening ears. Some parents may not understand the way I brought up my children but they may understand in their little way, how to bring up their children in life. So, the children should listen to their parents.
“Have a listening ear for your mother, have a listening ear to your father. Sometimes mothers are better than fathers because they pay attention to the life of the children and give them useful messages. Of course, there are some women that chase their children away.
“But I want the children to continue listening to their parents. When you listen to your parents, whether they are doing you bad or good, it is all training. There are some of us that grew up in families that were idol worshippers. We still obeyed them and today we are doing something better for the society. So, I want these children to respect their parents.
“Somebody may ask me, my father is a drunkard, if he sends me to go and buy drinks should I go? Go! Go and buy the drinks. It doesn’t take anything from you. Respect your father in everything except when he asks you to go and steal. Don’t do it. But when he asks you to do anything for him, do it. When you do that, God is seeing you and God will bless you. That is my advice for the children.
Miracle is running his church; Peace is running his church. By the grace of God, you are here at the headquarters. Are you thinking of handing over the church to them?
They are not running the church outside the parent ministry. They are running the church under the administration of the father. We do not operate this church in a way that every report comes to the headquarters, no. We give every branch pastor some level of autonomy. They can do whatever they want to do but they must regard the headquarters as their headquarters.
So, Miracle’s and Peace’s church are not in isolation to this place. They only have some level of autonomy. They bring reports to the headquarters here. They are working free.
I asked that question because in many churches they have this problem of succession. After you, who next? Because somebody has to preside over the church when you are no more.
After me, God will give somebody. I follow scriptures.
Leaders of the church came and asked me questions, “Baba, you don’t have a deputy, you don’t have a vice, if you are not around now who will succeed you?”
I told them I am not going to die in an accident. I have that assurance in my life. If you see me die in an accident, that means I have committed a terrible sin. God promised me that when the time for me to die has reached I will know. Then I will call all the leaders and assure them that this is the man that will lead the church. That is the position I am in currently. I am waiting for when God will call me home so that I can call them and talk to them.
Another thing is that God told me that anyone that will take after me, He will make him to do like me. And if you look generally at all the leaders in the ministry, it is only my children that are doing like me. The rest are doing well but they are not doing the way my children are doing. Not that they don’t have the same anointing. They have the same anointing, they have the same obedience but my children were given special grace to operate.
In that light alone, even if I didn’t point at someone, all of them know that my children will take after me.
They have seen this and many of them are already submitting to Miracle. That shows the direction. I have not opened my mouth to tell them anything but God has already put Miracle up there. In everything, whether administration, healings, miracle like his name, signs and wonders, he is above. And I have seen all of them working with him.
But I still have it in mind that as I have discussed with God and God spoke to me that “when you will sleep, you will call your people and address them before I will take you home.” And I have said this severally.
Are there going to be more Bishops in the church?
Yes, there will be more Bishops in the church. Some will be ordained in October this year. We are trying to see how we will roof this place and then we will ordain them. You cannot ordain them somewhere else. If we don’t roof the place, then it will be shifted to November or December. But some of the Bishops will be ordained in October.
I want many of them to be Bishops. And when many of them are Bishops, I will then shift some of them to be Arch Bishops. That is what I will do. While I am still around, there will be more Arch Bishops. I am only going to be Senior Arch Bishop.
When we talk about ranks in the church, we are not talking about only authority. We are talking about working together, living together, going about the ministry together.
After the ordination of these children in October, then I will think about the first persons I ordained, I will shift them to be Arch Bishop. That is what they will do.
I am not trying to put it in a way that some people look higher and some others look lower. I am their father. And since I am their father, I don’t think they are competing with me. I am bringing them up. We will work together to see to the growth of the ministry. But some ministers don’t know this. When they put somebody in the same position with them, they think that the person will take over from them. But I have put this church in such a way that if you try to take over, God will flog you. God has flogged so many of them and they know it.
God Is Using Us For Signs And Wonders! – Bishop Miracle Masin
In arriving at the story, we did interview him on how he has carried on and now the children are taking after him. We now want to discuss with the children, how they are taking after their father.
We will start by you introducing yourself and how you came into ministry.
My name is Bishop Miracle Joseph Masin. I am the first son of the family of Arch Bishop Joseph Masin. I am his first son. Not his first born though.
My dad being a soldier, we grew up in a very disciplined background. Though the disciplined background didn’t stop us from being rude, however, we grew up from that kind of background where, as busy as my father was then, he still gave time to his children. He could come home and preach in the house. In the morning, everybody must gather and my father will come and preach. If he travelled and he was not at home, whenever he came home, he will pile those things he was supposed to have taught us, bring them together and relate them to us. You must do memory verse; you must cram the Bible. We did not want to do it but he forced us into it. If you didn’t do it, he would flog you and all of that.
But I remember in 1997, personally, I was in Science School Lafia about to finish. A man appeared to me. It was not a dream. Yes, I used to be one of those stubborn children among my siblings. My father was just looking at me and saying he knew what God told him before I was born so he didn’t bother whatever life I chose to live.
But in 1997, I was smoking. I did not have friends that I could do those things with because of the kind of home we grew up in. So, even if we were wrong, we were wrong all by ourselves. I don’t know about my siblings but personally, I did not relate much with friends to go do bad things. I wasn’t saved, I knew I wasn’t saved. I knew I wasn’t born again. I knew I was just going to church to encourage my father’s ministry. We were all there. I was into music – I am still into music. At times because you are the Pastor’s son, they will allow you pray. Automatically you will know how to pray even though you are not saved because this is how he placed us. I was not saved but I was morally sound.
You know, Science School Lafia those days, behind the female hostel was like a thick bush where those rough boys would go to smoke. So, I was there when a man; he didn’t appear. It was a normal human being and he was walking and then he paused and said “Miracle, why are you smoking? Don’t you know you are a pastor?” I said “No, no, no, no I am not a pastor. It is my father that is a pastor.” He then said “No, you are a pastor.” He was still talking to me and his face now changed. The face now came like Brother Wakili. There is this brother that was in Peace House. I don’t know if he is still there. He used to preach to us those days. So, the man’s face now looked like that brother’s own and then he left saying “Miracle is smoking o! Miracle doesn’t know he is a pastor and he is smoking.” That was how he left.
I then took a bike to Wakili’s house to tell him that that is not how to preach. Even if you meet me smoking, you don’t just talk like that. But to my shock, Wakili’s door was still locked. I don’t know where that brother is now, whether he is still alive. I can’t tell where he is right now. I knocked at his door and when he opened, I removed the cigarette. He said “Jesus!” I said “No, I want to continue so you can finish the preaching.”
He now said no, he was not the one. He now asked me why wouldn’t I feel or think that an angel must have appeared to me like a human being and used his face? I wasn’t sleeping. It wasn’t a dream. It was physical.
I now asked him to pray for me. He said no, I should go and meet my father and explain everything to my father. I knew who my father was. I knew that if I had gone, the beating I would have endured that day…
So, I couldn’t go and I went to meet my friend in school and explained my encounter. He said fine, he has a pastor in Akwanga, an ECWA pastor. He said he would take me to the man and I should explain everything to him.
I said I would say I am Miracle Joseph. I won’t put Masin there so that they would not push me back to my father.
So, that man led me to Christ. I had water baptism in 1994 but my genuine experience was after this encounter in 1997 that Reverend Innocent prayed for me. And I was going to Akwanga almost every weekend. He was giving me money at times. He put me through and now I am a preacher.
From that day, in 1998 I started preaching on campuses. Secondary schools were inviting me. People were not surprised because in the first place I wasn’t stubborn. I was stubborn all by myself. I respect people when I see them so when my friends saw me preaching, they called me ‘Preacher Boy’. ‘After all his father is a pastor.’ It came like a joke; SPS Keffi, Federal University of Technology Minna, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Ogbomosho. All my life became gospel.
I had the encounter 1997 and my father didn’t even know. I didn’t tell him. It was in 2002 that my father called me. He said ‘Miracle come. There is something I have observed about you. It is like something has happened to you.’ I know I told him five years ago.
That was when my father sat me down and began to tell me that he had a covenant with God. He said “God, I cannot serve you and you let my children go to hell.” That was the day my father told me. He said God said he shouldn’t tell us that he went into a covenant with Him and said “God, you said if I serve you faithfully, I will be saved with my household. The more I am committed to you, you said you will be committed to my family.”
He now said “Miracle, I am not surprised because God said my family will serve Him.”
I think that is how the experience began.
Even though you have touched on it small but I will still take you back a bit. Growing up, did your father ever express even subtly, his desire for you to join him in ministry?
No. My father never. See, the day I told my father I was not going to work, my father was angry. The day I told him that I want to preach the gospel, he was angry because he suffered. He expected that we should serve God. Not that he was not happy to see us serving God, but now that he has sponsored us – all of us went to school. I went to school and even got a PhD. We all went to school but my younger brother even refused to collect his result.
When I Told My Dad I Wanted To Preach, He Shed Tears
My younger brother’s own got me bothered too. Because when he met me and told me he is not going to work, that God told him to preach. I said which God? When he told me he had an experience I now remembered my own.
When I told my dad I wanted to preach, my father shed tears. Because he expected that since we have now graduated, he wants to look for work for us so we can work and support the ministry with money.
My father never told us to preach. In fact, when I was pastoring the Lafia church my father gave me suspension. He pushed me out and said “From today, Bishop Miracle is not a pastor.” I believe he knew I am a believer, he knew I am now a pastor but this guy wanted to give me burden. “You’re now a graduate and you are not working. You want to be a pastor. How?”
And I believe it was the same thing for my brother because at times once the person in front sets the pace, other will just follow. I was the one raising others. I was the one now talking to others about my experience. My brother had to pack his things to come and stay in my house, just serving God.
At a point my father was angry about our prayer. He is a pastor but it got him angry that we are doing it too much.
I remember in 2002, the day he discovered I have changed, he made me the National Youth Vice President of the ministry to see what I could do at that point. But God told me not to preach in Word of God yet. I should be going to schools and be preaching. If I come to Word of God, I should serve in choir, serve my dad. Till today, if I go to Lafia where my father is, I don’t sit as a Bishop with him. I respect him so much. You will see me singing or leading worship. I still serve him and I will give him that full honour till tomorrow. Any time there is a conference and my father is seated, I will serve him.
He never asked me to be a pastor. He was rather worried that I accepted to be a pastor. He was looking for a way to know if God actually called me. That was when he stopped me from preaching, stopped me from becoming a leader. After a year, he called me and asked ‘where are you?’ I said I am preaching in Abuja. Where? I said I have started my in-law’s church in Abuja. He said ‘Jesus! Come back home.’
That was what gave my father conviction that I am called. He now decided to begin to entrust me with what God told him. He began to tell me his encounter, the scriptures he was reading before Jesus appeared to him. He started telling me his troubles, his worries and all that.
Today I am happy I am in my 41st year now and I am happy as an adult at 40 preaching the gospel. Accepting to be a pastor is one of the best decisions I have ever made. My father later confirmed that if I had not become the pastor, the ministry’s story would have been zero.
You were talking about you being ahead and others following. Could it be that it is because your younger brother saw you that he also came into ministry? What is the extent of your influence on his life?
In fact, when he was in 200 level, I was already in Keffi. He was staying with me. He had his house but when I was brought to Keffi he left his house to come and stay with me. He also loves music.
So I kept telling him to serve God but be prepared to work. At least let one of us be working. I kept telling him this; I am not going to work but you will work. He said ‘Ok sir.’
You know, he respects me so much. In my family, my younger ones call me ‘daddy’ because I started earlier.
I don’t know if you know Bro Ovye Amos in ERCC Graceland Lafia. Bro Ovye Amos is my childhood friend. I was his bestman when he was getting married last year (2020). People were saying ‘Miracle you are a Bishop!’ I said no, he was my childhood friend, we were praying together. We were going for evangelism from 1999. When he was in Kaduna, I was in Minna. We were still meeting to pray virtually every week.
So, my influence in my brother was just to make sure he is a believer. I wanted him to also go, work so he can be bringing tithes to my ministry. But God disappointed our intention. God disappointed the intention of my dad because my dad wanted us to be working and supporting him. Because God called him. Little did he know that He called his household.
So, the influence on my brother is that I was his example as a believer. But when he came to tell me that God said he should be a pastor… that branch he is doing, he started it by himself. He said God said he should go to where there is no church and start. That is how we would know that God called him. He did it, and we saw it.
I believe apart from the example we laid – like the Bible will say ‘Do not be slothful but be followers of them who through faith and patience obtain the promise.’ So, he might have desired my way of serving God and then from there had his own personal encounter.
We don’t even teach alike. We all have our unique manifestations. But as for his encounter, honestly, I can attest it is genuine.
You were speaking about your sisters before we started the interview. Maybe you may wish to speak about them on record.
Yes. All my elder sisters, they will always tell you they will not marry pastors. ‘God forbid! Me? Pastor? God forbid! I will never!’ At the end, they will end up with pastors. The first born, pastor. The second born, pastor. The third born, pastor.
In fact, my immediate elder sister, when her husband came, she was happy because he was a medical practitioner. She was very happy. But when he became a pastor, she called me on phone and started crying.
But the beautiful thing about the decisions of their husbands is that my sisters will later come and be happy. They will be doing it more than their husbands.
The Bible talks about godly seeds; I believe the prayers of my dad, I still believe there is still something he may not have told us. I believe there is a kind of prayer he prayed to God that he doesn’t know how to present it in words. I strongly believe that he has presented his family to God.
My father can give everything he has to the gospel. Like recently, we were discussing. I was telling him that ‘do you know that if you tell people you don’t have money they won’t believe it.’ My father’s son will be going to school, and the school fees he is supposed to give to his son to go to school, he will do gospel with it first. We will cry but he will say ‘God will provide.’ He led us through the process of faith. We grew up to meet my father in faith.
For my sisters, they are all married to pastors and all of them are pastors. My father ordained all of them. It is the last one that we are waiting for her to grow. And we told her ‘don’t be if you don’t want to be’. But something is telling us that she will be.
They all call me ‘daddy’ including my elder ones because I had an encounter long before them. They were serving God, going to church religiously but my encounter was just something else.
In your introduction, you did not mention your own family.
I got married in 2013. I was 33 years when I got married to Blessing. I went to ERCC No. 2 Bukan Sidi to pick a wife. I have three children. My first daughter is 7, my second daughter is 5 and then my third child – a boy – will be 3 this month.
Considering your background…
Yes. My father told me something, that when I was three years old, he went for a crusade somewhere and that was when he knew I was going to become a pastor. He said that he knew since but he couldn’t tell me. He wanted it to happen.
He said when I was three years old – I want to relate it to my son – he went for a crusade in Angbaku and the people of the land were stoning him. So, my mum held me and according to him, I bit my mum and I came down and stood between him and the people stoning him. It was an open-field crusade. He was standing at the podium and the people were there stoning him. So, I came and I stood between him and the people and I crossed my hand. My father is still alive. He is in Lafia. He was telling me this testimony and I confirmed it from my mum. He said I crossed my hand. And he said the people were still stoning but the stones were going back to them. He said when they stoned, it will get close to me but the stone will now go back and hit them. Until all of them discovered blood everywhere and they knelt down. That was how the gospel entered the land. He said that day he knew that God is going to use me mightily in my generation.
He also said that when I was three years old, I was always with him. I preferred being with him than my mum. Anywhere he was going I will just love to be with him. That if he was praying, I will also love to kneel down beside him and be trying to mimic him like that. Even though as I was coming up as a teenager, as is normal with teenagers, I looked like I was almost derailing. But he never really called me to remind me. He was doing his normal morning devotion, teaching us memory verse, he said he knows the prayers he has prayed for his family and he knows his family will not disappoint him.
Now my son, it was the morning the mother came and picked him. You know we are on 21 days fasting. We are rounding up today. Our fast is usually September. Every September my church in Keffi goes into a fast. For the days I have been sleeping in church, my son has been with me. If wake up in the night to pray, my son will wake up and kneel down with me and pray. Like yesterday, I begged him to sleep but he said no. Almost exactly what my father told me is what my son is doing with me now.
And my daughters, the way they are doing their things is amazing. I remember one day we were looking for money. I wasn’t having money and I needed to travel. And my daughter said there is money in your suit. I said which one? She said the brown one. Then she was two and I shouldn’t even think she must have put her hands in the pocket because it was hung up there. And to my shock, I put my hand there and there was money there. That is word of knowledge. She may not even know. She spoke it, I did it and I found the money.
She was three years when we were going to Lafia and armed robbers stopped us on the way. She stood up in the car and she said ‘Daddy, move.’ My first daughter. She was three years then while my second daughter was one. She said ‘Daddy, move.’ I said what? She said ‘Daddy, I said move. Come on move!’ I said let me obey her. I moved, they shot, we left.
I am observing that these guys are actually going to be better than us. Because what we are doing now looks better than what our father did. So, they are going to be better. It is like a gospel generation.
Before I was born, my father told me that God told him it is a son that will come. And he told me how the name Miracle was given to me. That is a story for another day. So the day I met my wife, God told me ‘don’t meet her again. She is going to give birth to a child and he is going to be a boy.’ He gave me his name and he gave me the day, the month and the time the boy will be born. I came to church and I stood in church and said wow, I met my wife yesterday and God said she is going to be pregnant and she is going to give birth to a boy and it going to be on so, so day, so, so month, so, so time and it happened like that exactly.
So, the way God does with I think it is a privilege to find ourselves this way. I personally relate with children of other pastors and they want to do the right thing. They want to serve God but they just can’t do that. So, that I find myself doing it, I think my father has done a lot of work because ordinarily we won’t do it. His encounter has influenced us and our encounter is influencing both our younger ones and our children.
This ministry, what is your wish for the ministry going forward?
In 2004 my father made me the Secretary of the Board of Trustees of our ministry. That was when he discovered the dimension which God was taking me. I was just 24 at the time but sitting among the council of the ministry. A lot of people who just see us out there were just thinking look at this small boy. They did not know the impact we were having underground was massive.
In 2008, the name of the ministry used to be Word of God Ministry. We tried to register Word of God Ministry and it wasn’t possible. Then later it was Word of God Church. We tried to register it and it wasn’t possible. We were wondering why it wasn’t entering. When you go, they will say it was already registered. We don’t even know who is using the name. They will just say it is registered.
Until God told my dad that that is not the name He gave him. He asked him to read Revelations 19:13. He read it and it told him the name is supposed to be ‘The Word of God’ and not just ‘Word of God’. You have to be definite. We now said ‘The Word of God Worldwide’ and when we put it, it entered.
But before it entered, God spoke to me and I heard it; ‘remove your name from the Board of Trustees’. I came and met my dad and told him ‘God said I should remove my name from the Board of Trustees. He said why? He said it is not a family matter. I am telling you the truth! God spoke to me to remove my name and none of my brothers or sisters’ name should be included.
My father said since it is God, let us go. And we did it and it worked. The name entered without stress.
God told me ‘You don’t need your name on the certificate before you preach in The Word of God.’ He also told me one time that ‘it looks like you are going to take over. What if you do not take over?’ I said I am just doing my work. You know, a lot of people have said Bishop is handing over the ministry to his children. We know what God is dealing with us. God is actually dealing with us crazily. He uses those available. When my father was looking for who to do the work, it was his children that were available. People don’t know what stress he has gone through but it was his children that were available.
My intention is that God has revealed so much about the ministry to my dad, where and how he wants the ministry to be. My father shared it with us and I discovered that he had not done half of what God had told him.
Yes, I have travelled to many nations to preach the gospel. In 2017 I was in 17 countries within two months. Yes, my father didn’t do that. Within two months I was in 17 countries preaching the gospel until my father begged me to stay in Nigeria. I should allow them to be visiting me to listen to me. I now decided to stay back.
God told me that we will take every of the words He ministered to our father, we will be the ones to carry it into execution. And the ones we are supposed to do, if we fulfil our father’s own and there is still time, we will do our own. If there is no more time, He said there is a generation that will continue from where we stopped.
Like the crusade I had in Lafia, when I told my dad that we are doing a crusade in Lafia he said it is not possible because that venue would not be granted. He said even CAN has applied for the place and Governor gave them a different venue. I said ‘Baba, write again. Put my name. Say Bishop Miracle Masin with the Christian community of Nasarawa State wants to use the place. Baba, try it. God said I should use the place as venue. God spoke to me to use the place.’ And He said what He is going to do in Lafia, in the history of Lafia, that had never happened. God said I should go back to the land of my nativity and open the place for the gospel spiritually. What has happened spiritually is more than what people saw physically. I actually opened the place for the gospel spiritually.
My father confessed and said in his life and in the history of Lafia and the men of God that had been coming to Lafia, nobody had gathered that kind of crowd. Nobody had seen those type of miracles. I was even doing it without stress. Including Muslims were receiving their healing without stress. And some people were doubting saying Bishop Miracle paid some people.
Here now, what God had told my father in 1976 is fulfilled. He thought it was him that the thing would happen through. But that it happened in my life, it means what God had told him is fulfilled. And we want even more. Wherever God has designated the meeting to enter, we want it to enter by the grace of God.
Like me now and my younger brother, people were saying we were the ones eating the money of the church. My father is alive. My father doesn’t give me money. I give my father money. That building my brother built in Sabon Pegi Shabu, 10 kobo from me or my father or the church didn’t enter his hand. We don’t know how he built the place, just like they don’t know how I built this place. The ministry itself is surprised how I built this place. We are the ones giving the church money. The church doesn’t give us money. I am speaking confidently and my father is alive. My colleagues in Word of God who are pastors are alive. The headquarters don’t give me money, I give the headquarters money.
Recently I became the International Coordinator of the ministry. Do you know what it means to be an international coordinator and then there is no money to spend?
So many things have been misinterpreted about my father. People even think he is collecting money from government. If my father is collecting money from government, he would not be in that kind of place he lives. People say it is a lie. He is collecting the money. Can’t you see it in the lives of his children? No, we give our father money. My father doesn’t give us money. He sponsored us in school and wish we should go and work. We told him that God called us. His response was that since God has called you, you are no longer my responsibility. You will take care of yourselves. We said no problem. And that is how it has been till today. We add value to his vision.
I was 29 years old when I was ordained but I was preaching way back before I was ordained a pastor. People were wondering why this small boy was made a pastor. At 29 they were calling me small boy. But when they come close, even the pastors in Word of God attest that this boy is not preaching because his father is a pastor. This boy is preaching because God has called him. Because we have seen people who are preaching because their friend is preaching or their father is preaching. We see less results. But if they are preaching because they are called, they will be so unique.
About my father’s ministry, it will be accomplished. Even places that God revealed to him that he forgot, we will enter there by the grace of God.
What is your advice to the younger ones especially those growing under difficult parents with trainings that they don’t understand? Because your father said at some point you people felt he was wicked.
He disciplined us so much that there was this time, even if you don’t want to pray, when you just hear the sound of his bike you will just start faking it. It is discipline and today we are seeing the reward.
My advice to the young ones is that your father gave birth to you but the destiny of your life is not in the hand of your father. Growing up in that family you were born, understand that the reason you are in that family is to add value to the family whether your father understands or not, whether your father is a pastor or not. Understand that if you are a Christian, you need to be committed to that church your father is going to. And try to know the God your father is serving by yourself.
And there are young ones that their parents don’t even go to church. Take the bull by the horns and say this is the reason I was born in this family. I was born in this family to set a mark that has never existed. I told my young ones that we have to set a mark in our family that has never happened in the history of this family; not just the nuclear family but the extended. We will set a mark. Those that are not going to school will go to school. If they are not serving God, we will serve God. We will set that mark and prove the devil wrong that it is possible for a pastor’s son to be a pastor.
As a young one, you can rise up and set a mark. Check the house you are coming from, look at the various challenges and say ‘I will be different. I will be the reason why the challenge will not exist anymore. I will be the reason why the challenge will go. I will be the reason why my family will be liberated.’ Because if God wants to liberate a family, he does not come on everybody. He will set one. So, try to be that one God will use. So, if you are trying to be that one – and you are four – and everybody wants to be that one, it means the whole family is liberated already.
I am an introvert. I don’t talk much. I only talk when the microphone is given to me. If you come to my house, you won’t like me because I am very quiet. My brother and others talk. But my brother said anytime he looked at me, he always wanted to be like me. I can lock myself in my room and not come out for seven days. I have my bathroom inside and all that.
I was 22 years old when I left my father’s house. My father started crying that I was going to go and be a bad boy. I was still within Lafia, I rented a house and said ‘Baba, I will work and pay for my house rent.’ And I will still leave my house and come to my father’s house and I will wash his car, wash his clothes and go back. I had not graduated when I left my father’s house. If I am going to school, if he tells me he has no money, I will go ahead of him. I will just go, look for what to do and then later the money will follow me. He had not given us enough money to be happy. We knew he doesn’t have. If he has, he will do for us. We were content with such that he gives us. As a General Overseer’s son, I have come to Abuja several times to pack blocks.
Those days I was thinking Baba doesn’t plan his life. During my generation I will have to plan my life. I will have to set this family. The office he is staying now, we are building it for him. Left for him, my father will make under a tree his office. He doesn’t bother so long as souls are being blessed. So, God is now raising us to roof him. God is now raising us to decorate him. I told him he shouldn’t even buy clothes. God is now raising us to do what he couldn’t do for himself.
There are so many young ones out there that God will raise you to do what your father couldn’t do. Your father may not know God but through you, your whole family may be saved. In your family, maybe they said people don’t go to school because nobody to sponsor them. You can take the bull by the horn and go to school. Anyhow, anyhow, you will graduate. And don’t go to school because you are looking for a job. Go to school because there is something you need to do and let God reveal to you exactly what you were born to do. Seek purpose, pursue purpose, seek destiny, pursue destiny and tell yourself you are going to fulfil your purpose and destiny and nothing is going to stop you from fulfilling it.
And above all, honour elders. Whether they are your parents or not, honour elders. Give honour to whomever that is an elder and then you will go far. When an elder tells you thank you, even if he doesn’t pray for you, it is a blessing already. There are elders that have blessed me that I am even better than their children. Their own children despise them but when I see an elder, I see grey hair, even if he does not know anything, I serve them. They know me with that. I love an elder telling me na gode. I love an elder telling me God bless you. I love an elder telling me you will go far. Anybody that is ahead of me, I love hearing him tell me you will go far. And then when he tells me, I will come home and say this elder said I will go far. I will write it down. So, apart from the blessedness of my father, and the way he has put us, I have also learned from other persons that are not necessarily my biological parents but they are living right.
We have irresponsible parents who give less attention to their children. My father gave us all the attention by beating and everything. But in case you come from a family where your father does not care enough about you, look for a father somewhere and serve him and still respect your father. Still honour your own father at home and look for a father that is going to a direction where you feel it will help you. Follow him. And the reason is so you can correct the mistakes of your father. Honour your father even if he is not responsible to raise you responsibly. But there are always fathers you can follow either from afar or close. Have role models. Have people you desire to be like.
Our Father Never Told Us To Become Pastors – Bishop Peace Masin
To start, first introduce yourself and then tell us how you came into the ministry.
Pastor Peace Joseph Masin is my name and by the special grace of God, on the 9th day of October which is next month I will formally be consecrated as a Bishop in this place.
I must be grateful to God that I am one among the glorious children of Arch Bishop Dr. Joseph G Masin the senior. Over the years I grew up as a young man and I found myself in a very wonderful, caring and loving family filled with the Holy Ghost and with the understanding of the things of God. And with that, I grew up in the pattern of the fear of God and moral uprightness, looking at the foundation I came from.
And in everything I was doing at my teenage age at that time, I never for once did a negotiation to become a pastor. Right from when I was in primary school to when I went to secondary school, if you asked me what I wanted to become I will tell you I want to become a lawyer. Later I said I wanted to become a military officer. All through my days in the secondary school then, I was telling people after my university I would go for short service and become a military officer. This had been my passion right from the beginning. I have never for once known that one day I will be a pastor.
Not until one day when I was in the university. Once I got into the university even from my 100 level, I just saw myself doing the things of God. I joined a fellowship and became the fellowship leader. And it was like that till in my 300 level. I will not forget. I was invited as a student leader to go and minister in a conference at Nasarawa Toto. In the hotel they put me, that was where I had my first encounter. I saw God in my room. I saw a bright light appear in my room. I will never forget that encounter. And a voice came out from that wall and said: “Peace, Peace, why are you running away?”
I said running away how? Because my plan was after graduating from school, I wanted to apply for short service to become a military officer.
He said, “why not allow God decide for you. Why are you deciding for yourself?” He said, “let me tell you the truth, every of your plans, if you apply them yourself, you will never succeed until I decide for you. “
I said “What is your decision for me?”
And I heard Him clearly when He said: “Work for me”.
I said, “Work for you how?”
He said, “Work for me and I will prove the call and everybody will know that I have called you.”
It was from that moment that my mind began to change. I had a friend then in school who is currently a colonel – Colonel Arigu. In fact, while we were there in school, it was together we were making arrangement that after our university days we will go for short service. He has gone. But after I finished university, I didn’t even go for NYSC. I collected exemption letter and enrolled myself in school of ministry because that passion for ministry just came to me from the Day One I encountered God. My father never told me to become a pastor. Nobody told me to become a pastor. I saw God.
From that moment, after my school of ministry, I got married. My dad already had some branches of the ministry everywhere across the State. And ideally, as a son to the General Overseer, I should be posted to one of the lively branches that have been established with a building already. But God told me ‘go to a remote place that there is no church.’ And He took me back to that encounter. I told my wife, we are coming to a place called Sabon Pegi Shabu around Azuba Bashayi.
We did not have a church that time. There was no church. This was a plain ground. There was no church, no landed property; there was nothing. So, even as a son to the General Overseer of the ministry that has branches elsewhere, that I would have struggled for them to post me, no, I came to this town with my wife as a university graduate. My wife too came as a learned individual. We came to start up a work in a primary school that has no door, has no window. We were clapping our hands inside primary school. That was how this work started in 2016, 24th November.
We came and started and we were like five or six in number. I started it and every Saturday I will go out on evangelism, telling people that there is a church here. From there, God began to prove that He has actually called me. Because when I go to talk to people, they will start coming in and coming in and before you know it, at the primary school, we grew up to about 15 or 20. I said indeed God really called me.
From that primary school, we now moved out from the school. Before then, while we were still in the primary school, because there was no door or window, sometimes we will come in and discover some wicked people came and shit right inside where we do our service. Thank God for the wife He gave to me who has seen the vision and has been supporting me. She will join me in cleaning the place, we will pack the shit together.
Until God directed us to a hall called Kursu Garden City in this same Sabon Pegi Shabu. I went and rented the place and we were in the place doing the work when God decided to prove himself. People started coming and before you know, we grew to 50, to 60, to 80, to 100 and even 200. It was not as if a church had been handed over to me. Branches were there but God said He called me and He will prove it.
And before you know, from that place, God opened a door and we came to get this property for the church. Not to say the property has been there. From primary school, we came to get a property that is worth millions of naira without the support of any of the branches or the headquarters or any of the pastors. God really proved that he has called me. We got this property not inside but by the roadside. This was from 2016 to 2020. We bought this place 2020 September.
In that same 2020, in October we laid the foundation for this building. And God told me “Because I called you, you are going to start up the foundation of this place and the foundation will never stop until you finish the work.” It was not really because we had money. We began this work with fifty thousand naira. But I still remembered the encounter in that Nasarawa-Toto where He said He called me and He will back it up.
We started this work with fifty thousand (naira) and this is a work that millions of naira have now entered. There is no external support. There isn’t anybody somewhere sponsoring the work but God has just been using the people coming here to provide. At times some outsiders passing, like there was a certain day that a Muslim woman named Aisha, she was only passing and saw what was going on. She asked in Hausa ‘me ke faruwa a nan?’ When they told her it was a church, she said she was bringing 25 bags of cement. She didn’t do it because I met her somewhere. She had never met me before. She was only passing and she brought 25 bags of cement here and she went her way. This was how God decided to bring helpers and indeed I know God called me.
And before I knew it, the church was completed, the roof was fixed and you could see the glorious cathedral within a short time. I know some persons that have started this work far back before me and some do not even have a landed property. But from 2016 to 2021, God really proved that He has called me.
At times even my father that gave birth to me, when he comes here he will be wondering what is happening here. I told him I don’t know the arrangement that he and God had done before I entered into the work. Because I am very sure there is something he and God arranged before I fell into the trap because I never knew that one day I will carry this gospel like this. I loved God but I never wished to be a pastor. But when God appeared and told me, I will never forget. He told me some years back that I will never succeed out there. I will succeed in here. From that moment I saw the hands of God and anything I touched God backed it up. The same person that we made plans together to join the military, he calls me sometimes for prayer. Just imagine if both of us were there, who will I be calling? Will I be calling my father?
And God said ‘I will not just make you known locally. I will make you international where not only people within the State will know you but also outside the State’. And of course, right now they even know me more outside this State than inside the State. As a matter of fact, people coming to see me from outside the State are even more than people from within. People come from Lagos, Anambra State, Abuja. Like in our service today, the people that came from Abuja are more than 20. Just to come and worship and go back to Abuja. God said I will make you an eye for the people not just within Nigeria but outside Nigeria. Indeed, I have seen the hands of God.
I also want to thank my father. He ordained me as a pastor, he put oil on my head, he prayed for me. And he remains my spiritual father and my biological father. Everything that has to do with my growth and ministry and everything I am seeing in life today I know he is the one. Because I don’t have a root anywhere, I don’t have any pastor anywhere that I run to for help. When I am in any need right now, I run to Archbishop Joseph Masin. Till today he prays for me. Till today he fathers me spiritually and I am seeing my growth and I thank him immensely. May the name of the Lord be glorified.
I see God telling me that this is just the starting point. Because the promise He made to me is that He will make the place I am pastoring a city of attraction where people from far and near will come; a voice from Eggon land that will shoot up. And He said the voice should not be heard from elsewhere, the voice should be heard from here. Because a lot of chances came for me to go and establish this church in Anambra State. A group of people came to try to convince me to leave here and go and start this church in Anambra State. Igbo were even ready to receive me.
I have an Eggon brother by name Pastor Alu. Alu is Wana from Kagbu but he built a very big church in Lagos – Bride Assembly. He is doing very well in Lagos. He is in Lagos now and a lot of people are benefitting from him. Yoruba people are benefitting from Alu but he is an Eggon person.
I also want to say this, that Eggon people here, most times, they don’t even know the value of what they have. Because the truth of the matter is that outsiders have accepted me more than Eggon. The people fighting me here, insulting me and accusing me of witchcraft here are Eggon people. If not because it is God that asked me to, I would have run from this town since to a different State just like how Alu is in Lagos now doing exploits. I would have run and established this church maybe in Anambra or any of the eastern States. Nobody may even know that I am Eggon. But God told me ‘No, I called you for your people.’ And my father even told me not to go anywhere. You can just imagine how God is using me, the things we are doing in this place. Imagine the structure we have raised here; imagine that I went and raised this structure elsewhere and my people from here will be going there to enjoy the way other people are leaving their State to come and enjoy in Eggon land.
So, my advice to my people is that when God has blessed you with a son that is being used, learn how to accept him. I only encouraged myself in the Lord not in my people. My people insult me daily. The church that God has given to me here, Eggon started with me but some other tribes are taking over. Igbo are becoming more than Eggon in this church because they saw something that they value. Eggon don’t value it. They will be asking ‘when did this one come? He just came recently and he wants to take over everywhere.’ Of course, God has given us the property here. We have over 80 by 320 out there, we have 100 by 115. When you add up our properties here it is over 100 by 400, we have here and by the roadside. This is the handiwork of God. It is something that would have gone to do elsewhere. But I did it in this land and now people from Yoruba land are coming here, Igbo are coming here, Igala are coming here to receive blessings. And they will ask, who is this person? They will say it is an Eggon person. ‘Eh! You mean Eggon can also produce somebody like this?’ Can something good come out from Nazareth? Can something good come out from Eggon land? So, I expect such joy from Eggon. ‘Oh! Let’s embrace our own. Let’s celebrate our own. Let’s hold our own.’ But they prefer meeting a different person, praising a different person than praising their own.
So, my advice to the Eggon people is that as God raised Arch Bishop Masin up and now his children spiritually are taken after him, they should see how they will appreciate this wonderful gift of God upon these children and see how Eggon nation at large can be changed. So that people seeing as if nothing good can come out of Eggon land will be proven wrong. Spiritually, Eggon are strong. Educationally, Eggon are strong. Physically, Eggon are strong. Materially, Eggon are strong. One thing I have noticed about Eggon people is that we are not united. We don’t love ourselves, we don’t embrace ourselves, we don’t work with ourselves. That is just the only problem. If this can be addressed, I think Eggon will go very far.
Let’s go back to when you were growing up. What did you notice about your father as you were growing up that perhaps as a child you tried to pick?
I grew up with the mentality that my father is a witch. Right from my tender age; in fact, right from when I could greet him ‘Baba good morning’, I grew up hearing people say Bishop Masin is a witch, even among his brethren. But I tried to take myself closely to him to find out is he truly what people are saying he is? I discovered that it is capitally no. The people calling him witch, he loves them. The people calling him witch, he prays for them. The people calling him witch, he gives them money, he gives them food. He is a loving and caring father that he can even give the outsider insulting him money, more than his own children at home. At times, he will even starve himself at home, just to take care of people outside. Muslims are coming to him, pagans are coming to him. In fact, I grew up to see a loving, caring father that can deny himself to take care of others. How can this be witchcraft?
I also grew up to understand that this is a man that has done tremendous things. At times you see him praying for sick people and they are recovering. A dead person came back to life before my very eyes. This is a man that since I grew up, I have never seen him admitted in the hospital. I have never seen where he was taking drugs since I grew up and now I am about 38 years now. I have never for once gone to greet him that he was sick. God has been helping this man. He is now over 80 years and he is still reading without using eyeglass. He still drives himself without a driver. This can only be God.
I noticed that God is with this man. And even as I became so close to God and He started talking through me too, I wanted to know the mystery and the secret behind this man that apart from this Bible, does he have another secret we don’t know about? When I began to do my own findings even as a son, I discovered that the Bible was the secret of his life. And the same Bible is what is also fighting for us.
I have now discovered that the same name I grew up hearing them calling my father is the same name I am being called. Witchcraft. Embaga. It is the same thing I am seeing now. I also have a son now who is about five years old who is also growing up hearing ‘my father is a witch’. That is me now. It was the same thing I heard but I did my findings and I discovered he is the best father ever. I would have missed a father if I didn’t come out from the lineage of Masin because I didn’t labour for anything. I only saw myself moving on the platform of the supernatural. I opened my heart and I am harvesting. So, he is the best father so far because despite the criticism I saw love, I saw caring in him. That is my prayer to God for myself that I should have a heart after my own father that despite the rejection, I should also receive them.
Do you think coming from the family of Arch Bishop Masin prepared you for what you are today?
Yes. In fact, I don’t study the Bible for more than one hour but I can preach for 10 hours. I asked my father, the way I understand the Bible, I don’t think I have studied it to that extent. I can carry the Bible and look at it for 10 minutes and I can preach a message for up to 10 hours. How? He said he has spent time to pray for his children even before he married. And when he married, even before our mother became pregnant, he said he has touched her womb and said any child that will come out from her womb, this is how he wants God to use them. I said no wonder I don’t struggle. Even my elder brother does not struggle. We just see ourselves in the supernatural harvesting from where we did not sow – permit me to put it that way. He has sown some certain seeds and we are only harvesting. And we are harvesting very much.
And for people talking now, you won’t understand. Our father has planted so much. We are only harvesting so much. I would have missed. There was a pastor that came and asked, what is the secret of your growth? I said, go and ask Arch Bishop Masin because even me, I don’t know. I just know that he has done something for me go this way. There is something he has planted spiritually, there are certain sacrifices he has made and we are harvesting from what he has done. And that is why he keeps encouraging us that he has done his own, we should also do our own so that our children too can harvest what we have sown.
So, in the course of growing up, did he ever express that wish that you people should take over from him? Did he ever say to you ‘why don’t you people do as I am doing’? Did he ever tell you or encourage you people to do like him even before your encounter?
Before the encounter our father has never told us to become pastors. He only trained us to love God. He always beat us whenever we didn’t go to church. And whenever we were doing something that was not very okay, he always corrected us. But saying we must become pastors, he has never for once. Or saying we must become like him, he has never for once. But we must go to church, we must study our Bible, we must do morning devotion. There is this moral upbringing, this religious discipline that we grew up with. But saying that we must become like him? He has never done that. We all had personal encounters to become who God wants us to become. And we know it is the agreement he had with God. We could not dodge it.
We could see the training from our childhood. I have spent years in Lafia, I have a good name. It is said that a good name is better than riches. There is no place in Lafia that they will say they saw Peace in this hotel or that we saw him in this club smoking or drinking. I can confidently say it here. I grew up as a decent young man. And there is no person in Lafia that can say Bishop Peace has impregnated me or I have a child for him. We grew up under moral and decent upbringing. And I am grateful to God for coming out in this family. And that has given me confidence to preach boldly among my people because I know the family I came out from.
When we were interviewing him, he said at a point you people saw him and thought of him as a wicked father.
Yes, because he beat us. At times he is coming and we will run away because he will ask ‘did you study the Bible today?’ If you say no, duka kenan. We were now wondering, is it by force to study the Bible? So, we saw him as a wicked father. All of us saw him that way.
It was to the extent that if we were watching film in the parlour and we see him coming, we will run to hide because we know it is beating. You dare not watch film. He wants to see us with the Bible 24 hours. So, we shouldn’t even watch film?
So, we thought he was a wicked father because of what he was doing. We never knew he was trying to give us the sound doctrine and moral upbringing. We never saw the importance of those things. It is now we are seeing it. No wonder we don’t struggle to catch revelation from the scriptures now because of the training he actually gave us.
He can beat us when it comes to the things of God. We were looking at it as ‘this man is very wicked’. But we never knew he was helping us. It is now we know it is help and not wickedness.
The day you went and told your father the encounter you had and your decision to go into the ministry, how did he feel?
He was very happy. He said he knew this will come to pass. I said how? And he was just laughing. He was very happy because he said he prayed to God that he wants all his children to be in the pastor’s generation. But he said he would not force any of them but let the same encounter fall on them. So, he was so excited the day I told him I also want to be a pastor. He said ‘you are welcome’.
And all my sisters married pastors. I and my brother are pastors. The pastors my sisters married are not in this ministry. They have their churches in various ministries. We are pastors under our father’s ministry.
So, like father, like son, how does it feel?
Lovely! He came here one day and when he saw me praying for people, he said Eh! So, he too can sit down and watch his son doing deliverance. He said the things I am doing now, these are things he did many years ago. At times he refers people to come to me for prayer here. He doesn’t pray much now because of his old age. He has the zeal to do but age is catching up with him now. He will say ‘I have a son. Go and meet him. By the time you meet him, I believe the problem will be solved.’
So, he feels very happy now. He will say ‘O, I did not die and I am seeing my children doing what I have done.’ In fact, there are some certain things we will even do that during his time he has not done them. Like what I have built now, during his time he did not build something like this. The things I am having now, during his time he didn’t have them. So, whenever he comes here, he is very happy and excited. He said in fact, if he dies now, his joy is fulfilled.
And I am also happy seeing that I am preaching and my father is hearing. I am very, very happy. We were in convention one day and I was the one preaching and he sat down very happy. I said wow! Like father, like son. Like son, like father.
What is your wish for this ministry in the years ahead? What do you expect that God will do, using this ministry in your life?
God told me that this ministry will touch the lives of so many people. It is not pride but there is no church in Lafia here, that could have Muslims coming to church in numbers up to hundred. They come wearing hijab, bearing names such as Abdullahi, Hassan, Fatima, Kabiru. They will come and attend service and even drink communion and they are Muslims. We have had them uncountable where you will see Muslims and pagans coming to attend service, giving their lives to God and talking about Jesus confidently. This is the first in Lafia here.
And this ministry so far, has been a blessing to hundreds of widows, hundreds of orphans already even though we are still small. There are some orphans that are already going through scholarship as small as we are in the ministry here.
And God told me that a year will come and it is in no distant time, where this ministry will even build houses and give to people that have no house. We will give people cars. What we are watching on the television from afar, we will see it happening here. God told me that.
So, there is a very big vision for this place. I saw a school in this place. I saw an event centre in this place. I saw a place like Lafia City Mall in this place. I saw a place like a guest house where people will come and lodge and sleep in this place. So it is a very big vision and God told me in no distant time this will come to pass where it will attract both national and international. They will come here and see for themselves what is happening in this place. This is the projection God showed to me. I saw and He said in no distant time, it will come to pass. He said if I can do this thing within a short time without the support of any man that will take the glory, in no distant time I will make the name of God in the city of Lafia and in the land of Eggon.
Given the way your father trained you and here you are, how are you training your son? Are you wishing that just as you are inheriting your father, that he should also inherit you?
I wish my son becomes more than me. But the spirit that tormented me and followed me when I was very small, I have seen it exactly in my son. Even last week, I asked him. I told him he was coming to conduct deliverance in church and he said he would not do it. I asked him why. He said he doesn’t want to be a pastor. When I asked what he wants to become, he said he wants to become a soldier. Why do you want to become a soldier? He said because he doesn’t want police to catch him. I said what makes you think if you become a pastor police will catch you?
So, I could see that the same thing I wished for myself, is what my son is already saying. But already I have prayed to God saying, the way God arrested me, I cannot force him. You want to become a soldier? Don’t worry, go to school, become a soldier. But I believe the same way God arrested me, so long as I am praying for him, he will also end in this chamber. He will not escape it.
But if God wants him to become a soldier, why not? I will not say no to it. But I believe the prayer my father prayed for me that I ended up arrested, I believe he too will not escape from it. I am praying already and he has already conducted deliverance two times. He is just about five years of age. He laid hands on a woman here and she fell down under anointing. He was even afraid. As he touched her, she fell on the ground and he was also afraid, his hands were shaking because he didn’t think he can do something like that.
So, from his childhood I am already training him. We do morning prayer at home and sometimes I ask him to lead and he leads. From his childhood, I am already giving him the discipline and training. And I have warned him that if he doesn’t pray, he won’t go out. I also shout at him and rebuke him when it comes to spiritual matters. He is too small to receive beating not but I believe a time will come when he will receive serious beating when it comes to the things of God just like the way I received from my father. I will never joke with him when it comes to spiritual things.
But if God wants him to become like me, I know that automatically he will do it. But if God wants him to become a soldier as he wants, if God wants him to go there and change the military of Nigeria, take over Sambisa Forest, I cannot say no to it. But I believe the purpose of God for his life will come to pass. That is my wish.
Maybe this will be the final question I will throw to you. I asked the Arch Bishop, given how he has done with his children and given how fathers treat their children, I asked him to advise fathers and also advise children. Given what you have become today, what is your advice to parents generally? And also, to the children growing under their parents, what is your advice to them?
Proverbs 22:6 said something. “Parents train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old…” Meaning a time will come – that is the old age here. When you train a child, when he is old, he will not depart from the training. We are not talking of physical old age. The old age means that he will come to a time when he will start taking decisions on his own. That time, it is the training that you gave your child that will reflect on the decisions he is taking, whether negative or positive.
No matter how busy you are in your place of work or your office, no matter how busy you are in the place of your assignment to get resources for the family, it will be vanity upon vanity if you cannot have time to develop your children in the fear of God. What shall it profit a man if you have everything on earth and you lose your soul? Losing your soul is seeing your children become wayward. Some parents even lost their lives before their time because their children did not become what they ever wished for.
Have you ever had time to train your child? You have time to go to many places and do many things but you don’t have time for your children. Do you know some parents don’t do morning prayers with their children? They will say ‘pray your prayer while we will pray our prayer’. It is wrong. The best training you can ever give a child is now because their brain is still very soft. Anything you put there, it enters and it is stored there. But when your child has grown to a certain level, information cannot enter again because the brain is hard. We call it hardware. But when it was soft, if you send information it will be storing. And it will get to a certain level when the information you have stored will begin to be useful for him.
Any parent that wants to enjoy the future, it is from the investment you have made in your children today that will guarantee the future you will enjoy. Our father is proud of us wherever he goes today. He has said that no matter how men of God will insult him in Lafia here today, they should insult him. How many of them could hit their hands on their chest and mention the name of their children? He is proud because he said “I have invested in my children and I am seeing them even doing more than what I did during my time.” It is a thing of pride to him because he beat us and store some things in us and now he is harvesting that which he has planted. And the truth is that you cannot harvest from where you did not plant. You did not plant good in your children, don’t expect to harvest good.
Naturally, if you are born in this world, you are born in wahala. And that is why you must create time to train your children because we are born into a sinful world where a child will grow to see a lot of mess happening. Whether you show your child blue film or not, he will still go out there and watch it. The world has spoilt. The world is corrupt.
The best pastor is the father and mother. You only come and spend some time with your pastor in church on Sunday and maybe once in a week. But for 24 hours you are with your children at home so you are the best pastor. So, you must give your children the best to train your children so when they get old, they will not depart from the training.
My father told me something many years back. He said ‘Son, there are some things I am telling you now that you may not see their effect. But a time is coming when you will tell me thank you.’ Already I am telling him thank you because a lot of things he showed me and taught me while I was still young and upcoming, now that though I am not old physically but I am old spiritually since some old men here are calling me spiritual father. They call me daddy not because I am older than them physically but because God gave me wisdom and they saw the wisdom and they are calling me father. There are certain things he has trained me to do that now I am happy because they are helping and he is harvesting. He is so excited.
How many parents can boast that they are harvesting from their children? Some are regretting. Some have even died before their time. It is not the fault of the children; it is the fault of the parents. We don’t have time for our children. If only you can train your child in the way he should go. I know the devil is there to fight them but your training will go a long way to counteract some certain ills that are going on in the society.
I want to encourage every father and every mother to create time to train their children. And when they get old, they will be happy seeing their children going after their prayer. Spent time on your knees praying for your children, fast for your children, study the Bible together with your children.
In Ephesians 6, the Bible said Children, obey your parents. In as much as your parents are training you, your duty as a child is to obey them. It says obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. But the second part said honour your father and mother – this is talking about biological parents – that your days on earth might be long. So as a child, if you want to live long on earth, listen to what your father and mother are telling. There is a saying that what your father can see while seating, you as a child, even if you climb an Iroko tree, you will not see it. When you obey your father, your days on earth – not in heaven – will be long. It is your ability as a child to obey the instructions you are receiving that will make your days in life to be long.
We the children have a role to play just as the parents have their role. It is one thing for the parents to teach us and it is another for us to be obedient. Because for some, their parents tried but they wouldn’t listen to their parents. So, I want to encourage children, from wherever they may be listening to me that whenever your parents are teaching you anything, learn how to obey them. Listen to them so that your days on earth will be long and you will bring for them the desired fulfilment.
Wealth in life is not the physical and material things we gather. Wealth in life is the investment you make in your children. A man can say he has gathered everything on earth here, but if you don’t have a good child that will take care of that thing, that is nonsense.
There is a prominent politician that came to meet me in this State. I will not call his name of security purpose. He said he has everything in life but there is one thing he doesn’t have and he doesn’t know what he has done to God. And when I asked him what, he said a child. That God only gave him one male child. He said “I have houses everywhere. I am even afraid to die because I know if I die, those things are nonsense. He is a smoker. He is a drunkard. He is a cultist.”
He said whenever he looks at his properties and then looks at his child, he wonders what is the meaning of all these things with this kind of child. He laments every day and he said “Please Pastor, if you can help me and let this your God change this my child. Anywhere my soul is resting, I will not forget you as a pastor.”
That is the prayer we are praying now. He has gathered all the wealth but one of the biggest investments is the investment on his child. He did not take the time to invest on that child and now he is regretting.
The first material thing that God has given to you is your child. Invest in your child so you can reap and harvest tomorrow. God bless you.
