Welcome Note

INTRODUCTION TO OUR BIBLE STUDY- LOVE THE WAY TO VICTORY

Study book: Love, the way to victory by Kenneth E. Hagin

Thank you for joining us on today’s edition of our response. Thank you for sharing your digital space with us to serve as an avenue for spreading the message of Jesus. In those days, we will approach families to say, “can we host a cell group or house fellowship in your house?” and some will say yes, others might say no with legitimate reasons. Today, we have asked if we could share the message of Christ in your digital space, and you have responded, “yes.” You have used your electronic device to connect to this broadcast and to listen to God’s Word. We do not take it for granted; we are grateful. Today, I will be giving the introduction to our Bible study session starting this evening at 8 pm Nigeria time. The title of this session’s study is Love, the way to victory. Our study book is by Kenneth E. Hagin titled the same: Love, the way to victory. Someone may wonder, with all that is going on in today’s world, is it love we should be discussing? Someone may say why don’t you let us discuss spiritual warfare or financial breakthrough. These are legitimate thoughts, but I will like to remind us of the scripture that says God is Love (1Jn 4:8). When we study Love, we are studying God; when we understand the workings of Love, we will understand the workings of God. The Bible says in 1Cor 13 that every other thing will fade away, but Love will remain. Love is a weapon because even faith works by Love (Gal 5:6). Faith is like a bulldozer that can move mountains, but the fuel that makes faith to work is Love. 

I will share a conversation I had with God in 2010/11 that changed my mindset forever about God’s Love. Then, I just bought a phone. It cost 38,000 naira. I valued and cherished the phone so very well. One day, I was in the restroom, and a thought came to came to my mind that if this phone drops now and falls into the water closet, will you pick it up or say, “oh! It has dropped into the messy water, bye-bye phone.” Without thinking twice, I replied, “ah! I will pick it up o.” The thought continued and asked, “why,”? I replied, “because I bought it at a high price, I will pick it up from any mess and clean it up.” Then the thought replied, “same here as well.” No matter the mess you fall into, I will always pick you up because I bought you at a high price, my son’s blood. That conversation gave me confidence in God’s Love. It made me see that I am not just a number among the 7 billion plus people on the earth, I am expensive. 

As we dig deeper into this study on the Love of God, please open your heart to receive His Love. For those who have read the book or heard about God’s Love, this is another time of refreshing. We trust God that this session will do these 2 things and more in your life;

1. Help you to understand and receive God’s Love

2. Help you to share and extend God’s Love as a lifestyle

How the study will hold

1. Study sessions will hold on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on mixlr and WhatsApp. On WhatsApp, we will share the PowerPoint slides for the discussion while on mixlr, the facilitator will share their reflection on the book.

2. The book is very thick; I will encourage us to get it from the bookstore. For copyright reasons, we will not be sharing the book on the WhatsApp group. We will be studying one chapter for a week. By a week, I mean Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Each facilitator will share their reflection on the book for one week. For week one, which is starting today at 8 pm Nigeria time, Ife Ologundudu and I will be moderating. We will be reflecting on chapter 1, which is Characteristics of The God-Kind of Love. We hope that you will be blessed. Please join us at 8 pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

3. Reflection questions: we will be sharing some questions with you that we strongly encourage that you reflect on. You are not required to submit your responses to these questions, but we hope that answering them will stir up the love nature in you.

4. Confessions: at the end of each day’s discussions we will be taking our confession of God’s Love

5. Contributions: we strongly encourage contributions. Feel free to text your questions to the moderating admin while the session is ongoing on mixlr, and we will be happy to answer with God’s Word.

6. Invite others: please invite others to join this study. Just as peter called his brother, Andrew, we should call others to come and partake in the blessedness that comes with God’s Word. Feel free to reach out to any of the admins at any time to add your people to the group.

7. Theme song: finally, I am excited to share with you our theme song for this Bible Study. The FBS media has put together a song for this Bible study. They spent the weekend recording the song in the studio, and now we have the first version ready, and I will be playing it shortly. Why a theme song? It is easier to remember a song than to remember plain-text messages. If you ask me to memorize the lyrics of a song without the rhythm, it may take a long time, and I may even forget, but there are songs we sing that their lyrics are so long, yet we sing them because we can remember them in songs. We hope that this song will serve as a reminder of the Love of God. Let’s listen, be blessed, and also share the song with our children. Let our children get the message of God’s Love from a tender age.