Prophet TB Joshua Lives on in Our Hearts

 

Prophet TB Joshua, the Founder of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, would have been 58 years old on June 12, 2021, but has passed away exactly a week earlier. But when someone you know and also love passes away, we are saddened. But because it is TB Joshua we'd never look down to the floor with sadness. Instead, we are keeping our head held high and looking up to Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our Faith for a man we believe have lived an exemplary life. We'd shared the same faith with TB JOSHUA. We prayed, ate, drank, talked, sang, danced, walked and joked together. The fact that we no longer see him isn't enough to take him away from our hearts. I used to say in my mind, especially whenever I sat with TB Joshua, that I drank Arigidi water more than 12 years before TB Joshua came and drank the same community water. But we need to learn how God works and change to God’s way. In God’s order, it is never by power nor by might but by His grace.

Meanwhile the LORD our God has given us a beautiful fellowship and the SCOAN family through our father in the Lord Prophet TB Joshua. He is leaving behind a beautiful biological family and a vibrant Christian Community that will possess the land all the days we may live upon the earth. Soon we shall cross our own River Jordan and the Lord will help us to conquer our enemies and live in peace. After we must have settled we promise never to forget the lessons learned under TB Joshua, his labour of love, his life of prayers and discipline, his strict adherence to the Word of God, his generosity, that the better is not good enough, and all he did to build SCOAN. Life may be different without TB Joshua but we shall not offer sacrifices just anywhere we want to but where the Holy Spirit directs.

Jesus said unto her (Martha), "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"  We know that TB Joshua would have said, “Yes Lord, I believe”. This is one of the bases of our joy amidst our sorrow in the departure of a most beloved one. Prophet TB Joshua lives on in the hearts of those he trained, those who obtained educational scholarships from him, those he fed and housed those who received healing, attention, love, gifts, and those he prayed for. TB Joshua remains alive even in the minds of his adversaries and critics; unfortunately including individuals professing to be Christians with their ministries but still choosing the path of abuse and condemnation. They are just like the Pharisees who were so envious of Jesus that they got Jesus killed, buried with a heavy stone rolled over His tomb. They learnt too late of their errors and sin. It is God’s divine plan that Jesus should die to save humanity and we believe it has been God’s will to take TB Joshua away at His chosen time. TB Joshua was a true man of God and did his best as any man of God of our generation. This is why he is living on in our hearts, not because he was TB Joshua but because of his immense and permanent impacts on world history.

TB Joshua also taught that if our past life consists of unhealed wounds, unforgiving spirit sins not confessed, and so on, that the whole of our life would continue to bleed. Dressing the bleeding with alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sex or stealing in other areas to cover up will only make the bleeding ooze through the bandage and staining the entire life continuously. Hence he advised that we find the strength to open the wounds that are holding us to our past and make peace with them through a complete repentance process. He advised that we should be fully committed to "Complete Repentance" and get out of a life-cycle of "Rise-and-Fall", again and again.

Only the Spirit of Jesus can help us and sustain us through this perilous time. It is our prayer that we find the grace to see Jesus in the light of God's plan today by receiving Jesus into our life. TB Joshua was able to confront individuals who came to him and telling them the root cause of their respective problems. He lives on in the lives of those who came forward to be thus rescued. It has been a mission he was born for and now died for. But as far as we are concerned Prophet TB Joshua lives on in our hearts. God will give His grace to see his disciples in actions living even greater than him just as Elisha had a double portion of anointing from Prophet Elijah. Emanuel

Prof. R. A. Ipinyomi, University of Ilorin, Nigeria