By Cyriacus Nnaji
Rhema Deliverance Mission International Lagos, on Sunday, December 3, 2023 marked her 23rd Anniversary in grand style; venue was the International Headquarters of the church at Iba.
No doubt, the service laced with lots of melodious musical exravaganza, was not only a celebration of number of years in God’s vineyard, but it was actually first, spiritually edifying, the blind saw, the deaf heard and the dumb spoke at the instance of the man of God, Oracle 1, Prophet (Bishop) Anene Nwachukwu, a man anointed for signs and wonders, a man who believes that a church must be known for deliverance, healing, and miracle.
Coming from a family of priests, Prophet Anene is such a grateful man of God who obviously owes all his successes to God and the foundation laid for the family by his late father, the patriarch, Bishop Arthur Nwachukwu whose Rhema Church located in Onitsha, Anambra State, was the springboard on which his children rose to enviable national and international limelight.
Members of the church all dressed in gorgeous attires in sync with the mood of the day, while the band thoroughly electrified the auditorium with songs that melt the soul, catapults it to that realm where it is now one with God, and God is ready to bless it with healings, deliverances and miracles.
All that attended the anniversary testified of God’s faithfulness to the church and its members over the past 23 years. More than 40 cows, uncountable bags of rice, among others, came to the church as article of thanksgiving. However; all the things brought to the church for thanksgiving would definitely be given out to the poor in keeping with the philanthropic mantra of the church. The widows, the less-privileged, the abjectly poor, the employed, are among the categories that would benefit from these gestures.
High point of the event was the cutting of the anniversary cake.
Flashing his mind back to the early part of the church; the bold but humble Oracle of God while interacting with the media said his ministry has helped to decongest the kingdom of darkness. “Well I am very grateful to God who has brought us thus far to where we are today. To the glory of God our ministry in Lagos turned 23 and at 23 we can boast that God has used us to decongest hell, meeting people at the point of their needs, salvation to sinners, fruitfulness to the barren and marriage for the unmarried, babies have been dedicated, and God has been so faithful to us.”
Seeing toddlers who were dedicated in the church now grown up and are being joined in marriage by him, he said that he felt fulfilled, adding that a healthy church is where you see the parents and children worshipping together. “I feel excited, many of the people who came to this church as toddlers are married here, they have their children here and their parents are still here. You know a healthy church is where you see father, mother, children, that is what you have here. There are some churches you go to, you see only youths, and all those youths are ye men, ye men. But here, you see father, mother, children, worshipping here, to the glory of God. We have not gotten to where we are going, but we are no longer where we used to be.”
Anene also spoke on what makes his church different from other churches, saying they are maturing every day. “Our ministration is something that I see with my very eyes changing day by day. The way I preached yesterday is no longer the way I preach today. We are getting mature in the lord. The bible says that those that do know their God shall be strong and they will do exploits. We keep on knowing him every day and we are changing of our ways and the way we have been doing things.”
He added that the secret of his success is being faithful to the calling and the prophecies. “The secret is relying on his prophecies and being faithful to your calling.”
Other achievements by the Rhema Church in over its 23 years of existence include seeing barren women conceive, and his church members succeed. “Number one, so many barren women in the church have conceived, and they have been able to perform because of our prayers. We have dedicated triplet here in the church. One of our members who was a General Manager in the Sun Newspapers dedicated triplet, three boys as I prophesied. We still have another woman for 24 years, no child, she is going to deliver by next month; she has the scanned result. We have people who came as nobody here, like the chairman of my men’s fellowship, Dr Keneth Obasi, he came here as a Corper, serving. After service he wanted to relocate to the east and I told him God said you should not go back to the east, you should be in Lagos, I see you as a millionaire in the next four years, and today he is a millionaire, importing Pharmaceutical products; a doctor, doing perfectly well.
“Today some of them came with two cows, some came with three. You saw somebody that came with five cows. These are the people; we have over 40 cows here as a result of result. We thank God. You see, when you give a cow good grass and it eats well, it will excrete out manures for your cultivations. The cow you did not feed well would not give you manure.
Bishop Anene also spoke on critical national issues including the issue of N160 million worth of SUV for each National Assembly member and other expenditure rascality being witnessed under the administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. “Nigerian politicians always think about the next election, but great leaders think about the next generation. We don’t have leaders in this country, what we have are politicians. Politicians are greedy, they are self-centered, they are wicked and they are jealous. Unlike the country we are borrowing from on daily basis, we are here living like kings, having big SUVs, when they are supposed to be living like people owing people. So these are things that are not normal. But we are praying that God will sanitize our nation. It is not right to buy the SUVs.
The media also sought his position on the opinion expressed by people that the country is in a state of judicial, economic and political confusion. “Well in our country today, you can see that inflation is high, but we believe God that, no matter what, God will still do something. Nigeria is a country where people do things anyhow and get away with it, we believe God that things will surely change for good. Our country will rise again and our people shall be great again.
On issue of Nigerians migrating to other climes in the name of ‘japa’, he said “You see the economy is not good, things are not well, so anyone that sees a way for greener pastures, can move. When you look, here there is lawlessness, there is impunity, and some people cannot continue to fathom what is going on, so they have to find their way. I don’t blame those that chose to run away from Nigeria, but me, we shall be here and salvage it together.
Prophet Anene Nwachukwu cautioned and also advised Nigerians to ignore the role played by the electoral body in the 2023 elections and its aftermath in the court, to continue to exercise their franchise in elections in Nigeria. “They say that the judiciary is the last hope of the common man, but today you will agree with me that the judiciary is the lost hope of the common man. Our judiciary needs to be reformed, and when you look at the judgements in our courts today, you would see that some of them are miscarriage of justice. Look at Kano incident, if NNPP got one million votes in the governorship election, a landslide and you go to the court to nullify it, what does it show? So it means that it is a miscarriage of justice. The Governor of Kano State currently is under NNPP, and that state is being governed by Kwankwaso, spiritually and physically he is the one in charge of that place, but if you look at the current situation in that state, you would see that the court is trying to truncate democracy. Some of them who voted and they see the judgement going to the opposition, are not happy, that is the truth. So I encourage people, no matter the frustration brought about by INEC, people should not be discouraged from going out to vote.
He advised his members to be steadfast “Let me start by saying that I want to thank God for my father, Bishop Arthur Nwachukwu, who led solid foundation that we are enjoying today. Our father is a living saint, everything that we are doing emanated from him. So I want to encourage my members to always look up to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. Whatever that we are doing here is for the glory of God, and anyone that is part of us must see that we put God first in anything we do.
