THE DEVIL HAS NO POWER WITHOUT GOD’S PERMISSION. WHATEVER THE DEVIL DOES, GOD INITIATED IT – Bishop Priscilla Otuya

THE DEVIL HAS NO POWER WITHOUT GOD’S PERMISSION. WHATEVER THE DEVIL DOES, GOD INITIATED IT – Bishop Priscilla Otuya

One unique thing about Bishop Priscilla Otuya is the conviction with which she speaks. She has a great history, taking it root from a challenging background through long years of self-development and self-discovery in Christ. Not many pastors anywhere in the world would close down a flourishing Church, believing that God said so and is leading them to another branch of the ministry where tithes and offerings are not readily given. But she did just that and founded House of Regents, a non-denominational outreach. She also founded KOGA Foundations (Kingdom of God’s Agents). In this interview with E-life, conducted by Bola Adewara in Ajah Lagos Nigeria, Priscilla Otuya takes a look her calling and the inherent messages the world could learn from her experiences.

How were you called into ministry?
I wouldn’t say I stumbled into it. I got married at a very ridiculously young age. I was not even 17 years old. I come from Kwale in Delta State. My father who was working with Nigerian Tobacco Company then had financial challenges. His way of preventing his children wayward life was to give them out in marriage. So, that was how I got married early. Not long after this, my elder sister disappeared; there was no information about her. We were still in this when my younger brother too disappeared; and these two were very close to me. So, I found myself crying everyday and asking God questions. The answer was very strange. God said ‘I allowed it for you to understand peoples pains, and that He wants to put me in a situation where I will be able to minister to people from my heart.’ That was how I started praying for people and counseling them in my house.

To hear God, there must have been some levels of relationship. What was your Christian life like then?
Let me say here that that some people get called for ministry even from their mothers’ wombs, like Jeremiah. So there are some people that were called from their mother’s womb. My parents were Catholics, we were raised in that Church before we joined Redeemed Christian Church of God.

How did your marriage promote your walk with God?
Very good question. I will tell you that my husband is my mentor because our marriage went though turbulent times. But one thing I know is that he grew to love me because when somebody loves you, you will know by the way you are treated. When we had our issues, I would be praying for him. That was where I learned how to pray for women. So, my marriage actually grew me to be the minister that I am today.

Most people who left the Catholic Church for other denominations often give reasons like bowing to statues which they see as idolatry. Did you leave on the same account?  
I did not leave the Church because of that. I was still with my parents when we left for RCCG, this was because we moved from where we lived to a new place that had a parish of Redeemed Church close by. Now, talking about the Catholic Church and other denominations, I have a different take. If you study the Word of God properly, you will see that even the Pentecostals are not doing the right thing, we have a faulty foundation. The Bible says even the devil transforms to angel of light to deceive the children of God. So, if you ask me, I will say the devil and his co-workers collated the work of Christ to form religious Christianity and each time some people get to a point of knowledge, they break out to form another Church. They will keep breaking out until they get to point of the unity of faith. There is no place in the Bible where the word, Pentecostal is mentioned. No place. Remember that Pentecost was the feast of ingathering (the first fruit). The disciples of Christ were His first fruit. He dedicated them to God on that day and the Holy Ghost came as a seal. So, there is no place that the scripture say practice Pentecostalism. That is why we have people going outside to look for powers. Let’s go a little deeper. Why did the early Church gather? The Bible say nobody can come to the Father expect He is drawn by Him. That is why we come together periodically to discuss our welfare, how we are faring, how we are persecuted. That is what they did in the early Church… and to teach our children the way of God. That was why they had deacons. Today, deacons are servants of the pastors.  It is very wrong. In the early Church, deacons were anointed people, men of good reports that could be entrusted with Church money. Today, it is not so because from the beginning it has a wrong foundation. All the Churches, Catholics, Pentecostal, Aladura, all have their challenges, so, we will keep dividing until the remnant emerge.

 What do you say about the genocide going on in Southern Kaduna? Why are Christians going through so many persecutions?
The Bible says, as it was in the begging so it will be again. God has timing. God has purpose. God has agenda. God has a blue print. In Jeremiah 8: 7, God says, everything has it timing. He expects us to be live by His spirit but we are moving with tradition and religion. We are not discerning. God told me that everything that men have build today they will all go down. What am I saying? Any true seed of God will understand that we have entered the season of Gods own change, where God Himself is ordering the uprooting of every system, every kingdom that opposes His righteousness. God told me He has ordered the destruction of the world system, including the religious system leading to the emergence of my true seeds into the positions of power to usher in the kingdom of God. And what is the outcome? Have you ever heard in the history of mankind that the Arabs fought against themselves? God is dethroning thrones and dominions opposing him and He said that judgment was going to start in the house of God.
Now we cry Christians are being killed but the truth is that we are just cutting the thing by the head. We are not going to the root of the matter. Is there anything like Churches in the Bible? They were called Christians in mockery. We all know, as Bible students how they mixed these things together to start Christianity. Do you think God will allow things to continue like that? And remember Jesus said everything that God did not plant will be uprooted. In Ezekiel 8:9, it says summon those that have charge over the city, each man with his destroying weapon, you that have the writers ink on begging to mark the head of those whose heart grimes and once you are done begin to kill and begin from the house of God. Kill the women, the children, the elders and start in my house. And in Jeremiah, He said do not be fooled by saying Bethel, while you continue your idolatry in the house of God, lying and cheating and you expect change? It is not going to happen and it just one aspect. Remember, when God wanted to use Moses, the devil rose up through Pharaoh to start killing all the male children to prevent Moses from coming up. But God had His way. Also in the time of Jesus, the devil did the same thing.
The Bible says that knowledge of the glory of God shall fill this earth as the water cover the sea. Imagine a flood happening! The flood will displace reptile, sand other dangerous animals and after the flood, they will find themselves in houses and start killing the people that live there. Now people don’t know that the glory of the knowledge of God is flooding the earth but we give glory to the devil. The devil has no power without God’s permission. Whatever you see the devil do, God initiated it. So God’s glory is covering the earth and its displacing the temporary occupant of the earth and God has taken power from the devil already, that is why they have come out very aggressively because the power God has given to them have been withdrawn.

If you have the opportunity of speaking with Muhammadu Buhari, what will you will tell him?
I will tell him to fear God. He may know Him as Allah or anything, but the truth is that He is the sovereign God. Nobody can control or counsel Him. My advice to Buhari today is that he should do whatever he does with the fear of God, and that one day, we will all die and everything we have been told by our religion will fail. We will meet the Master one on one. Buhari should be leader for everybody and allow God’s will to be done for the nations.

Your message to Nigerian pastors…
Well, they should start going back and start making research because Christ said count the cost. We have been sold a dummy; those that founded religious Christianity did it for their own selfish interest. Nigerian pastors are favoured by God. Let me give you are shocker. God told me that the kind of wealth that is going to Africa is such that the worlds have not seen before and they know it. Think about it, despite all that is being said about Africa, about Nigeria, they still want to get your visa. They still want to by your land, the North Korean leader said we should allow them to colonize us. So what is coming to Africa is huge and the whole world knows it and the Nigerian pastors have a stake in it. So, we should go back to God and search for the real faith in Christ, connect with Him and see His bless us beyond our offering and tithes.

As a mother, I want you to speak to the girl child, especially the teenagers, those in the tertiary institutions and the singles who are easily deceived with luxuries of life.
Like I said before, I married very early so I did not know my left from my right but I went into a lot of self discovery. Today, I have a girls’ outreach where I make them understand that God gave everybody a gift as they come to this world and the gift is wrapped with a special wrapper and the gift is your talent. Discover yourself!
Like my second daughter Pricilla, when she was a 200 level in the University of Lagos, I noticed that she loved photography a lot. She was doing well in the university but I pulled her out to Harvard Extension School to study journalism because that is her passion and she did well.
God told me that we parents are the major problem of our children and I asked how? God said in the Bible days, parent consult oracles to know the future of their children and if the oracle say she will be a trader, they ensure that she is brought up in that trade. The Bible says, train up a child in the way he should go, when he grows up, he will not depart from it. If you as a girl child find yourself in a situation where you parent are forcing you to do a particular career that you do not like, obey them and do it but follow your passion. And as for being deceived with luxuries like phones, an IPhone goes for about N200, 000. Look, if you are serious, you can use that money for something more profitable and connect with God. When I say connect with God, am not talking about going to Church. Jesus did not come to give us religion. If you are keyed in Christ, He will wake you up every morning and tell you what to do and how to do it.
Let me use my daughter as an example. She came back from USA after school and God told her to decorate Teddy Bears and sell and she did and orders kept coming and she was making a lot of money. So, get an idea and make it to reality. As the saying goes, ideas rule the world. As a child of God, ideas are God’s Inspiration.

What is your ministry like? What are you doing?
I closed Church five years ago because the Lord told me I did not call you to do Church, but go and help my servants. So, we are going back to what is supposed to be. A pastor needs a genuine support that will watch your back. I do well as a number two person. I support very well. And if you understand that, your blessing comes from God even if you are the fourth or fifth person in the hierarchy. So, my mission in the body of Christ today is to mobilize servant of servants like the Bible says in Acts of Apostle, let us focus on the ministry of the Word and you serve tables. You can also be a minister serving tables. My real call is an Apostle, but I don’t answer it because it’s a very big one!

You got married at a very young age to a husband 13 years older than you. How were you able to cope with your little knowledge of submission as a wife? How did you escape marital failure?
I will still take it back to God. Let me tell whoever cares to listen that we are all not the same. I had a pre whatever from God and my mother was a very respectful wife so, I got that from her. We were not the rebellious kind of family even though we are from Delta, a Nigerian environment that so many see as stubborn. Also, God assisted me by telling me to me look at this man as your master… and I made up my mind that whatever he does will not get to me. I used to work with a boss that paid me monthly. I saw my husband in that light too. Also, the first thing that God told me when I entered the ministry was that the man is your head, you must honour him. If I honour Him God, I should honour my husband too. That I am like his bodyguard and just like the government will employ a body guard for the president and the president does not pay the bodyguard but the government. You too should do you work and come to me for your pay.