Voice Of Freedom Christian Ministry Blog

A NEW BOOK BY: REV. DR. ABRAHAM CHIGBUNDU

2009-10-19T11:07:00.000+01:00

TITLE: WEALTH CREATION: UNDERSTANDING THE POWER THAT UNLOCKS PROSPERITY

The insightful and revelational book by Rev Dr Abraham Chigbundu, is one that is sure, not to only enlighten you on Gods divine purpose for wealth creation, but to also give you a practical knowledge on how to explore and create wealth.

The book is loaded with rare but vital insight and information on how to become a wealth creator, with each chapter dealing exclusively with striking and germane issues about wealth creation.

The author unveils how you can take advantage of the powerful tools of ideas and information in creating your own wealth you have long depended on others for.

Do you want to learn how to start with what you have? Do you want to learn how to develop those ideas in you?, Do you want to know how to become a wealth creator and live the victorious life God has called you to?

This book shows you how, it is a collectors delight’’ a must read’’ and a must have’’ for everyone in the body of Christ.

HOW TO SURVIVE IN TIMES OF SCARCITY

2009-03-11T04:53:00.000+01:00

BY REV (DR) ABRAHAM CHIGBUNDU

MAIN TEXT: Gen. 26:1-26; 8:22; Eccl. 11:4-6)

It takes more than prayer to succeed in times of scarcity. It takes practical steps and an unusual faith to succeed in the midst of scarcity. Things can happen positively to a man of great determination even when every physical condition suggests futility of labour. Famine is a situation of extreme Scarcity of Food and material things. A famine is a period when there is scarcity of food and water; a period when rain refuses to fall; a period when, as a result of the draught, crops dry up and die.

This is a time when any natural man would not like to sow seeds because there is no water to get the ground watered. It is a period when every effort of man is geared towards gathering and collecting and preserving the little that remains – a time of survival of the fittest.

It is a time of choice making, a time of decisions and relocations (Gen. 42)

Whatever choice you make at this crucial moment determines what happens during and after the famine.

“And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar. [2] And the Lord appeared unto him, and said, Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of: [3] Sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee, and will bless thee; for unto thee, and unto thy seed, I will give all these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father; [4] And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed;” Genesis 26:1-4

When Isaac was about to relocate, he was asked not to go to Egypt. ‘Stay in this land,’ commanded the Lord. He heard the Voice of the Lord. John 10:27 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:” The Lord’s sheep know His Voice.

This was a strange land where his father’s enemies dwelt, and they had closed up his father’s investments – all wells were closed.

“He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap” Eccles. 11:4

Isaac saw what others could not see; did what they feared to do, and got what they could not get. Instead of eating up his seeds, he sowed on a dry land, and heaven honoured him.

If you can hear Him and obey Him, you will enjoy the fruit of the land. His Voice makes all the difference!

The widow of Zarephath heard the Voice of the prophet and obeyed him. She survived the famine and entered into surpluses in the time of famine.

Isaac sowed when natural, physical evidences and human reasons considered his actions foolish. People around him considered him to be out of touch with realities.

It takes faith to survive in times like this. This is God’s kind of faith – calling those things that be not as though they were. Faith is acting on what God says

If you do what others are afraid to do, you will encounter what they cannot encounter.

In that same year, Isaac reaped 100%, God blessed him, he waxed great (prospered), he went forward, he grew, he became very great and the Philistines envied him

The Philistines were busy discussing and envying Isaac that they forgot to sow; they failed to find out the secret of his success, instead they went about planning how to bring him down. They never prospered because they fought and hated prosperity; hence, it ran from them.

They closed more wells – his ventures. But the more they did that, the more Isaac went about digging more wells because he had all the resources. He waxed very great in the midst of oppositions. “And he removed from thence, and digged another well; and for that they strove not: and he called the name of it Rehoboth; and he said, For now the Lord hath made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land”. Genesis 26:22. They attacked his ventures until God made room for him. They fought what could have brought them out of their predicament. They fought God’s favour in their land.

This is the result of envy. Envy is a destroyer of potentials.

SIGNS OF ENVY:

1. It makes you to lie against your neighbour

2. It leads you to condemn and criticize what you should have blessed and embraced

3. It will lead you to harbour evil thoughts against your brother

4. It will introduce hatred bitterness and anger in your heart

5. Envy will lead you to kill, either physically like Cain or with your mouth

6. It will lead you to fight God. When you fight a man God has blessed, you
are indirectly fighting God

7. It will lead you to say and do things that will hurt and hunt you throughout your life

8. Envy will destroy your potentials because you will be busy destroying someone’s progress that you will forget that you have what he has. Your potential thus will lie dormant and eventually get destroyed

9. Envy will introduce different demons into your life because it pushes you to create open doors for demons by your actions

10. Envy will hinder your progress and prosperity. The Philistines never prospered; they were so busy destroying Isaac’s wells that they forgot to dig theirs, yet there was no water in the entire land

11. It will make you to hate and drive away your helper in life

12. It will make a thief out of you because you will claim what does not belong to you; you will take your brother’s portion and add to yours

13. Envy will eventually demote and destroy you

OVERCOMING THE TRAPS OF EXCUSES.

2008-06-26T11:13:00.000+01:00

BY
REV (DR) ABRAHAM CHIGBUNDU

“ Then said he unto him, A certain man made a great supper, and bade many: And sent his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for all things are now ready. And they all with one consent began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it; I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them: I pray thee have me excused. And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. So that servant came, and shewed his Lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the lame, and the blind. And the servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room. And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled”. Luke14:16-23(KJV)

Ninety – nine percent of failures come from people who make excuses. The place where achievers find a way is where the failures find an excuse. No wonder, John Mason says: “Excuses are the nails used to build the house of failure”. For you to succeed in life, you must hate failure with a strong passion. One of the characteristics of failure is Complaints. Complaining leads to failure in life.

The greatest killer of men’s destiny is excuses, and wherever you see failure, there is always an excuse. There are excuses to give but you must remember that no amount of excuses can translate failure to success. Failure is failure no matter the genuineness of the excuses. You must avoid the trap of excuses if you must succeed in life. People who are determined to succeed always put aside anything that will hinder their advancement in life. When you are an expert in making excuses it will be difficult for you to progress in anything. Excuses replace progress. In life you are either making progress or making excuses. Which one are you making? Many people blame others for their failure. Really, no one is a failure until he blames someone else. Let’s consider some of the excuses that people give for their failure.

1. I come from a poor background: Almost all the great people come from villages, without a good background, but rose from zero to summit level. Mediocrity becomes a family trade mark when you refuse to launch out for greatness. Our background is not an excuse for not making it.
2. I don’t have connection: the most important connection we need to succeed is God. If heaven can connect you, you are connected, and you can make connection without contamination.
3. The weather is bad: this is one of the excuses of a lazy man. (Prov. 20:4). If this one is part of why you are not succeeding, your suffering is guaranteed. The Scriptures says: “he shall beg in the day of harvest and have nothing”.
4. I don’t have any capital: Vision or dream comes before provision. I encourage you to start with what you have and not what you do not have. If you wait for what you can get, you will never start. You cannot be a star until you start something. There is always a possibility for you to start with some potential that God has put in you.
5. I am not educated: Have you not read (Eccl. 9:11), that says, the race is not to the swift nor battle to the strong, nor riches to the men of wisdom, nor favour to the men of skill, but time and chance happens to them all. God does not need your qualification to prosper you in life. It is not a crime for you not to be educated, but it is crime for you to remain uneducated. You can develop yourself.
6. I do not know how to ….: Information is very important in this area. If you are not informed, you will be deformed. Deformity is the reigning phenomenon in our society today because of ignorance. Power of knowledge is the solution. Seek knowledge – Prov. 2:1-6.
7. I am too small for that: Jeremiah. 1:4-8; 1 Sam. 23:28; 1 Sam. 16:7-12; Gen 37:2-11: God does not consider a man from the outward appearance, but by what he looks like on the inside. God committed great assignments to Jeremiah, David, Joseph, Samuel, and Jehu, in their youthful age. What your parents achieved at 55 years of age, you can achieve at 35 years today.

Get yourself loosed from the traps of excuses through the following:
1. Decision.
2. Set a workable goal (a, b, c, goals).
3. Pray out your excuses.
4. Change your thinking.
5. Develop positive altitudes.
6. Take positive action.
7. Move with achievers.
8. Develop successful skills (reading, study and learning).
9. Seek God’s direction.
10. Do not be discouraged.

GRACE FOR EXPLOITS

2008-06-26T10:47:00.000+01:00

BY
REV (DR) ABRAHAM CHIGBUNDU

“And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.” John 1:16

“But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” 1 Cor. 15:10

Grace is the reason why we are here. It is grace that has brought us to Him. None of us is qualified enough to stand in His presence if not for grace. There was nothing worthy we did to make us His children; He chose us.

GRACE is the unmerited favour of God. In His sovereignty, He looked down into the pit where we were held captives, and reached out with His compassionate hand and took us out of that horrible pit. In our disobedience, He sent His only begotten son to die for us – a disobedient set of people.

Without GRACE, we are nothing and we are nowhere. All that you are and have is the manifestation of His grace.

“So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.” Romans 9:16. This is grace in action.

Zech. 4:6 – Not by might, not by power; but by My Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.

Eccl. 9:11 – I returned and saw under the sun, the RACE is not to the swift, nor the BATTLE to the strong, neither yet BREAD to the wise, nor yet RICHES to men of understanding, nor yet FAVOUR to men of skill, but time and chance happeneth to them all.

This is the work of grace. Success and victory in life do not depend on your academic excellence, acquisition of knowledge or who you know or who you are connected to but it is principally the work of God’s grace.

Paul says, By the grace of God, I AM WHAT I AM: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than them all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me (1 Cor. 15:10)
When God’s grace is upon you, you can cross over to the other side of your life. It was grace at work that brought the Israelites out from Egypt with silver and gold. They found grace in the sight of their slave masters.

When grace is on you, your enemies will favour you beyond measure. Grace brings you back to the place where you failed and delivers success into your hand. Grace is the secret of victory. Grace will move you from where you are to where He has destined you to be. It was grace that located you where you were held captive and brought you out to freedom.

Friends, let us consider the case of the lepers as recorded in II Kings. 7:1-20

1. Prophetic word came. God said He would change their sorrows into joy; crossing them from lack and want to prosperity.
2. Nothing happens when you fail to do something. When God has spoken, you have to act.
3. By this time tomorrow. Within the available 24 hours, your own minute, hour and day is there in Jesus’ name.
4. The lepers were rejected, abandoned men, people not reckoned with. Situations of life had forced them out of the city, segregated and ostracized them from the entire country and kept them in a solitary place.
5. They sat down outside the city. They sat down to think and they said one to another ‘Why sit we here until we die?’
6. There is a place of thinking in reaching your goal in life e.g. Jacob (Gen. 32:24). He was alone with God; he sent his family to go ahead of him.
· He was alone with God and a man came to wrestle with him until morning. He told him, ‘Let me go because it is morning,’ but Jacob replied, ‘I will not let you go until you bless me.’
· The man dislocated him. He asked him, ‘What is your name?’ He replied, ‘Jacob’ and he said to him, ‘Your name shall no more be called Jacob, but ISRAEL.’
· As a prince thou hast power with God and with men, and hast prevailed.
· In the morning, people saw him different. God will give you physical evidence that your family, friends, folks and neighbours will see and acknowledge that you have had an encounter with God.
7. The lepers engaged their thinking abilities. At this point, grace came in. They were not in the meeting where the prophetic word was released, but their actions bestowed Grace upon them to fulfill God’s prophetic word.

JOSEPH was another man under grace - Genesis 41:14, 38-45. Joseph was sold into slavery by his own brethren but within a day his story changed. He was made a Governor or Prime Minister of Egypt without any campaign or even an election?

God, who moves in a mysterious way, had done it again. This was grace in action. Joseph’s story changed in one day: he crossed over from prison to palace, from the dreamer to a dream interpreter and from slavery to govern even his former masters!

THE 8 BLESSINGS JOSEPH EXPERIENCED IN ONE DAY

· Vs. 38 – He was taken out of prison hastily – in a hurry.
· Vs. 40 – He was made a Governor-general of Egypt.
· Vs. 42 – Pharaoh took off his signet of authority – a gold ring – and put it in Joseph’s finger
· A new garment – a Governor’s robe – was put on Joseph
· A golden chain was put around his neck
· Vs. 43 – A Limousine – the 2nd of Pharaoh’s chariot – was given to him. He never owned a car before now, but he began with a limousine.
· Those who imprisoned him – including Potiphar’s wife – bowed their knees before the one-time slave boy and prisoner who had come to be Governor. This is coronation!
· Vs. 45 – Joseph, from prison to palace, got married on the same day. This is grace (unmerited favour). Not qualified, yet, he was honoured.

IT IS YOUR TURN TO SHINE!

WEALTH CREATION -

2008-04-30T19:06:00.000+01:00

BY REV (DR) ABRAHAM CHIGBUNDU

“But thou shalt remember the Lord thy God: for it is He that giveth thee power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He sware unto thy fathers, as it is this day” Deut. 8:18

The power to get wealth comes from God. Poverty is not a product of any covenant. God’s covenant with man is linked to prosperity. God is interested in the prosperity of His servants.

“The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto; and He shall bless thee in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.” Duet. 28:8.

“Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.” Psalms 35: 27

Why are you not yet wealthy? That is the question most believers still ask today. The simple reasons why you are not wealthy yet are associated with the chain of excuses that you have fallen in love with. All it takes and involves to make wealth are created on the inside of you.

WHAT IS WEALTH: wealth is an abundance of valuable materials or resources. The state of being rich, affluent in greater quantity and having plenty supply of material goods, money and resources. Wealth is also associated with acquisition of property that has economic value as well as utilities that has monetary value. Wealth is the combination of both tangible and intangible resources. Wealth is having enough or having in abundance all essentials of life, which include love, family, friends, spirituality, peace, money investment, and properties.

MONEY is the measure of the value that people place on goods and services while goods and services are what you produce, sell, buy, or what you do. So the value of what you produce is referred to as money.

HOW TO CREATE WEALTH

1. wealthy thinking: Prov. 23:7: until you change your thinking, you can’t change what is happening around you. The first thing you need to do is to change your mentality and ways of reasoning.
Money will always locate a person who has plans for money. If you don’t plan for money, money will plan for itself. It takes money to make money.

2. SAVINGS HABIT: Develop an understanding of small or big savings. The 80/20 rule says that: - 10% of your income should go to God, and then 10% for saving. Those who create wealth don’t have time for momentary enjoyment, for they have a goal. Save for a purpose, and save to produce money. Job. 8:7

3. IDEAS
Text: Deut. 8:18, 28:1

The first thing you need to do in order to become wealthy is to change your thinking. Ideas create wealth. An idea is something you cannot touch, something you cannot quantify until someone place value on it. Ideas rule the world. Money is a function and product of ideas, if money is a function and product of ideas, then don’t look for money rather look for ideas. It’s your ideas that are translated into goods and services that people pay for.

God create only raw materials, but your ideas will create something from the raw materials into something useful that people will desire to have and pay for. There are three basic scopes of creations which are:

1. God creates the raw materials
2. Our mind creates or forms the ideas.
3. Our ideas create the goods and services.

When you are at the level of consuming, and you are not producing anything, then you are at the level of poverty. Every thing created is a product of ideas. God created the raw materials and leave the details of translating this raw materials to man. The value people place on your ideas will determine the amount of money they will part with for that particular idea.

A man that is constantly at the consuming level is like a boxer in the ring that is at the receiving end of torrential blows without been creative, will end up been knock-out and a lot of believers have been knock-out in the battle of life. You must stand tall today and take your place in destiny by constantly asking God for fresh insight into whatever that you are doing at the moment. There is always a better way of doing that particular thing and when you discover a better way of doing it, then you are on the way of crossing the poverty line and when you perfect your ideas by been in constant contact with the source of ideas, you will forever live above poverty.

KEY PRINCIPLES OF SUCCESS.

2008-02-18T15:22:00.000+01:00

BY
REV (DR) ABRAHAM CHIGBUNDU

Success in life does not come automatically. Life will give you back what you have given to it. Natural abilities or potentials were planted in you when you came to planet earth. God gives you gifts according to your ability. There are God-given principles when diligently applied; the end result is always success. God created you with the sole purpose of success in all your life endeavours. The bible recorded in Matthew 25:14 – 30, the story of the parable of talents. This parable is a story that speaks about how many people have succeeded and while others have also failed in life.

The following points are very essential to living a successful and a victorious life.

1. The initial deposit in your life was given to you and you have no control of it. He who gave you knows why he gave you.

2. Your initial deposit is not the conclusion of your destiny. The conclusion of your life depends on what you do with your initial deposit. Many born into wealth always end up squandering wealth because they don’t know how wealth came about.

3. You must start with what you have and where you are. The future that you dream about begins today. Opportunities always abound. They are either coming to you or they are passing by. Anywhere is a good beginning point to start. It is the move that you make from where you are that determines where you will get to.

4. It is not where life deposited you that determines your final end. Where you were born is not the determinant factor of your success.

5. Don’t be discouraged by the quantity or quality of other peoples’ initial deposit. Others may be living higher that you but don’t be envious.

6. It is not how far you are from the opportunity that matters but it is your determination to get there that matters.

7. Your reward is not based on the initial deposit.

SUCCESS NUGGETS

Persistence can be a bitter plant but it bears pleasant fruits.
A persistent person begins their success where others quit.
Success consists of hanging on a minute longer.
Persistence prevails when others fail.
What you picture in your mind is what your mind will go for. If you change your picture, you change your future.
Excuse is the foundation on which you build the house of failure.
No human being came by accident, everyone has a purpose to achieve in life.