8 BOCNEWS.com NOVEMBER 2018 Calling Fire Down from the Heavens – part ii As you are walking out your life make sure you don’t fill your life with too much doing that you have no time to be alone in the presence of God. You cannot be doing the same thing the same way and expect different results. You must be able to find a time of solitude, a time of aloneness with God. The choice to pull away is the choice to pull away from distractions, pull away from those that massage your ego, that make you look as if you are great. I love it when God says to me, “you don’t know nothing boy.” I say, “yes sir. I know nothing.” Because it is that place that he begins to prepare you on your journey to call fire down when you get to your own Mt. Carmel experience. Sometimes God will come to you and he will say, “Let those ambitions go. Let those lifestyles change. I know you have this dream, what about this? Have you ever thought about this? This is what I have for you.” If anybody would ever tell me that I would be a preacher, I would say no. Maybe after I became the Chief Justice of Nigeria. I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to be a lawyer so badly that my primary school teacher called me “My lawyer.” My Daddy wanted me to be a Doctor, so we had this conflict and God settled for the middle. He made me a preacher. I stand on behalf of sinners in the pres- ence of God and I pray for the sick. So, I do both jobs together. God is always right. So, the first place when God says, get away. He won’t say get away without taking you to something. God never says leave…where? Nowhere? The first place God called him was a brook called Cherith. And interestingly, the word Cherith comes from a root word, a Hebrew word called carat. And that word carat means to cut, to separate, to create imagine, to create a gap. God calls Elijah from the midst of ministry so to say. A man that said let there be no rain and there wasn’t. And God said get out from where you’ve had a suc- cessful ministry. I want you to come to a place called cut. A place called move away. A place where you are all alone. It means Elijah I have a bigger purpose for you and the first thing I want you to learn is to cut some people off your life, some places off your life, some partnerships off your life and separate yourself unto me so that I can prepare you for what is ahead. Elijah must be willing to yield if that is going to happen. Are you ready to yield? That is the first question. When you have a sentence, in every sentence you will find it comprised of a noun and a verb. When you put it together it forms a complete sentence. The noun is the who, the verb is the what. It doesn’t make a full sentence until there is a who and there is a what. The what is a process, the who is made by God. But you must pass through the process in order to arrive where God wants you to get to. Most of us we don’t want to go through the process. If it is possible we want to skip the process. Now, God is not an elevator God. You know in an elevator you press the button, the door opens, and you stand. People have never been more seri- ous than when you meet them in the elevator. Have you meet people in the elevator and you are facing each other, you don’t know each other, and you look so mean to one another as if you’ve been fighting? How many of you have tried to smile and you are smiling, and they are not smiling back? And then as soon as the door opens its as if everybody wants to get out at the same time. God wants you to get away. God is not an elevator God where you just stand there and press the button - in the name of Jesus or the button is forty days prayer and fasting. No, it’s not like that. God does not skip steps. God is a God that will provide a ladder. He doesn’t provide an elevator. So, elevator mentality always wants to stand in one place and give the rest of the process to God. In fact, elevator process does not require you to drop any baggage, you can have all your baggage with you and the elevator will still lift you. That’s not the way God works. God wants you to yank all that baggage, because when you get to the escalator you will fall. You have to take it one at a time, sometimes shaking and finally you will get there. And if you miss that process nobody’s going to do it. God will keep encouraging you, you can do it. And as he is clapping for you he is giving you strength. So, he said to Elijah. “I want you to come to the place called Cherith.” A place where you have to cut certain things. Some ambition, some strong headedness, it is either my way or the highway. You need to cut those away, so I can show you some things. That word Cherith is also the word that was used in a covenant term like in Genesis chapter 15 when God spoke to Abraham. In Genesis 12 God said to Abram, get out of your country, get out of your people. Genesis 12:1 Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. He has not even given him the place yet. He didn’t say get out of here I’m taking you to Canada. At least you would know where you are going. He just said get out. So, your family is asking you where are we going? We are just going out first. He’s a God of steps, if you obey the first step it opens the next door for the next step. It opens another door for the next step. The same thing on the way to your spiritual growth it’s a little here a little there. Some of us con- tinue to starve our own spirit. And we complain we are not growing. In fact, we don’t even complain, it is only situations and circumstances that reveal to us we are not grow- ing. At the place called Cherith is the place of cutting. God said to Abraham, leave your country and go to the place I’m going to show you. Abraham went and after a while they were still roaming around. So, now come to Genesis chapter 15 God now said to Abraham, “I am your shield and your exceedingly great reward.” Abraham said, “Hey, hey, hey slow the roll.” Gen 15:1  After these things the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, [a]your exceedingly great reward.” Abraham said, “Many years ago I left everywhere and see I’m here, but Lord what will you give me seeing I go childless? I don’t have a child. You are telling me you will make me a great nation. You said that ten years ago. Now you are saying you are my shield and my reward. I’m still waiting.” Anybody been there? God gives you a word and it seems as if after God gave you the promise he just deletes your name from the phone. “What will you give me?” Now this is the Father of faith. “What will you give me seeing as I go childless and the only one I have in my house is Eliezer of Damascus. Is this the one? You give me no offspring. Indeed, one born in my house is my heir. This boy was born here but his parents were my slaves. Is that the one that will be my heir?” And God said to him, “Abraham relax this one shall not be your heir. This is not the one they will know you for. The one that they will know you for will come from your own body. That will be your heir.” And God then said, “look into the heavens and count. Can you count the stars?” Abraham started to count and said, “I ran out of words.” And God Ade Ajala By Bishop Israel Ade Ajala SERMON Continued on Page 13