In so many parts of the world, especially in African societies, pastors often lead their Church members in prayers against their perceived enemies. To
In so many parts of the world, especially in African societies, pastors often lead their Church members in prayers against their perceived enemies. To them, Jesus was not serious when He said ‘Pray for your enemies.’ They believe Jesus did not take cognizance of the wickedness of the witches and wizards of these modern days, so His commandments to us to pray for our enemies is not applicable now. In this interview, Pastor Wale Adefarasin, presiding pastor of Guiding Light Assembly, disagrees with that position. He said Jesus really meant it when he said we should pray for our enemies. If you don’t pray for your enemies, you will end up in bitterness, and you are offending God when you contradict His commandments. Adefarasin also 
explains why Africans attach objects like candles, bottle of oil, sachet of water, etc to prayers, shedding light on the contents and imports of the Lord’s Prayer and concludes that the pattern set by Jesus in the prayer is enough to guide our prayers on daily basis. Excerpts from the interview conducted by Bola Adewara.
Jesus says we should love our enemies and bless them. Some Christians feel Jesus was speaking figuratively. How could you love your enemies and bless them?
Jesus would not have said it if He didn’t mean it. I think we need to get to a point of maturity because from the moment you give your life to Christ, it’s a journey in maturity. You get to a point in maturity where you see beyond what mere mortals do to you, that you are able to pray as Jesus did when He said … forgive them for they know not what they do. It was a prayer for His enemies while He was on the cross. So, I believe we do need to pray for our enemies. If you don’t pray for your enemies, you will end up with bitterness, doing something that is offensive to God. So, Jesus was very serious when He said pray for your enemies, bless them that spitefully use you.
So many Christians still pray against enemies, praying they fall and die…
I think it’s the African culture in us. Let’s go back to African deities. These deities were ruthless. When you offend them, they will deal with such a person unlike the concept of love which Jesus brought. Jesus Himself is love and that is very difficult for people to comprehend. However, there are certain things you can say in prayers… like the people who have set traps for you should fall into the traps. That is not a curse. Its saying let Mr. A be the very person that will be ensnared by his own trap. We all have one enemy and that is the devil and its cohorts. He influences humans to come against us as enemies. That is why Paul said… we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. So, it’s important for us to love and not allow what a man has done to affect our eternal destiny.
Kindly explain the verse that says the prayer of a sinner is an irritation to God.
Let me first of all say it is not every sinner. Jesus came for sinners. So, if a person who is still in sin prays, God is prepared to open the door of forgiveness for him, if he is prepared to turn from his ways. The principal sin is rejecting Jesus. But for a Christian who regards sin in his heart, an unrepentant person that is when prayer becomes an irritation to God. When you know this is a sin and you willfully continue to do it. It becomes an irritation to God.
Jesus did when He said … forgive them for they know not what they do. It was a prayer for His enemies while He was on the cross. So, I believe we do need to pray for our enemies. If you don’t pray for your enemies, you will end up with bitterness, doing something that is offensive to God.
Some people say that the Lord’s Prayer is not enough to take care of us and our needs and petitions. Do you agree with that?
Let us go through the Lord’s Prayer together: Our Father who art in heaven… just calling God your Father in those days of Jesus was strange and it was a major difference to them because they saw God as the Almighty God. But Jesus is telling them to see God as their Father, not as a deity that can’t be approached.
Hallowed be thy name… We come in worship, we come with praise … and then…
Thy Kingdom come… That is the principal purpose of being on earth, to establish His kingdom. His kingdom is not a geographical location but wherever His principles are established and He reigns. Our job is to bring His kingdom. So, when we pray, we are saying let Your kingdom come upon my family, let Your kingdom come upon my job, upon my nation. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven… Because we all have our own will but we are now asking that He will superimpose His will over our will.
Give us this day our daily bread… acknowledges that man shall not live by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. In other words, we need the word every day. He didn’t say give us our weekly bread and the children of Israel gathered manna daily. We should ask what is the word that You will give me for today.
Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive those that trespass against me… I must be able to forgive. The Lord you said we should forgive not just seven times but 70 times seven times. In other words, the same offender and the same offence 70 X 7 times every day? It sounds impossible but the truth is that it helps me to have an attitude of forgiveness. I can ask God where have I missed it? Show me and let me make necessary corrections.
And lead us not into temptation but deliver me from the evil one… here, you pray for whatever evil is planted for you.
For thine is the Kingdom and power… I believe that this is the pattern for regular prayer but everybody will go through situation where they will have different needs and so they are going to fall back on the Scripture to find out how God will have them pray about that challenge or need that they have at that particular time. So, it may not be sufficient for all prayers but it is a foundational prayer that should be good enough for Christians to pray every day.
Is there any biblical support for using candles, incense, perfumes, etc to pray?
Again, it’s the African tradition. The African man wants to hold something. If he goes to the priest and he doesn’t give you something to hold or tie on your body, to eat or to drink, you feel he hasn’t done anything. So, a lot of people now say pray with this candle, pray with this water. But the truth is that we can approach the throne of God’s grace with boldness by the blood of Jesus Christ and without looking for the blood of goat or ram. The blood of Jesus has been sprinkled for us. We don’t need all those things.
One of my late uncles was a radiologist. So many top personalities came to his clinic for x-rays. When they take off their clothes, many of them retain the stuff they tied round their waists. He would tell them to remove the stuff because it would complicate the result. They will refuse to take it off because they are so tied to these things. The same thing our people tie to oil in the bottle called anointing oil, water, etc. Anointing is good and symbolic but to believe that you cannot survive without a bottle of oil or unless somebody anoints you is to say God is not powerful.
What about going to the beach, mountains for prayer?
That is what is called religion. The truth is that Jesus went to a solitary place to pray and in this case, a mountain. He went there so He would not be distracted in His concentration on God. He didn’t go there because it’s a sacred mountain. Wherever God is, that place becomes sacred. When God appeared to Moses in a burning bush, it could have been any burning bush. We cannot take that place and say this is a shrine or wherever He appeared that’s a sacred place. So, no mountain or beach is sacred. Paul was in prison, he prayed and God sent angels to take him out. Shall we now say the prison is sacred?
Some Christians also believe that a speedy response to prayers is guaranteed when you pray nakedly…
Of course not. If you want your prayers to be more powerful, then know God and pray with sincere heart. Pray according to His will. John said if we pray according to His will, He hears us. He will give us our answers. Those are the guarantees of answered prayer, not praying naked.
If you don’t speak or pray in tongue, does that mean you are not yet a mature Christian?
Well, yes and no. Yes in the sense that it will help you to grow faster in Christ, because you can pray about things that are b e yon d your understanding. No in the sense that if you can’t pray in tongues, it doesn’t mean that you are not a mature Christian. It just means that maybe there are some obstacles in your mind that you need to address. But I know if you can pray in tongues regularly, you will allow yourself to be led by the Holy Spirit.
Using candles, incense, perfumes, etc to pray…Again, it’s the African tradition. The African man wants to hold something. If he goes to the priest and he doesn’t give you something to hold or tie on your body, to eat or to drink, you feel he hasn’t done anything.
How does one receive the gift of tongues?
The only way to receive anything from God is by faith, by believing. So, if your faith is not there you will not receive anything from Him. If you go to the Bible, you see the apostles preaching to people and they received the gift of tongues. They laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues.
Can all problems be solved through prayers?
I think we need to take everything to God in prayer, whatever we are facing and then listen to Him for answers. There are some problems that God will answer by saying do this and that. For instance, if you are financially challenged and you don’t have a job, God can show you how to get a job. So, there are certain things that after praying, you will know that I need to do something about it.
What is Prayer?
Prayer is not a monologue; it is a dialogue between man and God. It is not just about talking to God or demanding from Him, it’s about hearing from Him as well. The most important thing for me about praye
rs is the prayer our Lord taught us. He started by saying… “Our Father who is in Heaven …” This is a pattern for prayer, you come to the place of prayer, saying “Our Father, hallowed be Thy name…” In other words, we come to God in worship and adoration regarding what we talked about. Then He said… “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven..” That gives us the responsibility of knowing what is happening in heaven. To be able to do that, you must have a spirit that is sensitive to what God is showing because the only way we can know what obtains in heaven is by His spirit and the revelation of scripture. It seems the most important thing to Jesus is the will of God that we follow His blueprint in heaven on earth. But a lot of people tend to deviate from this.
So many people don’t understand the dialogue essence of prayer. To them, prayer is all about petition, demand. How come we miss it?
We are Africans. Traditionally, Africans have deities that can’t see, hear or talk but they will take sacrifices before these deities. We are used to gods that only answer back through their priests. So, I think that generally contributes to our attitude to prayer.. Prayer is a dialogue. We should be able to talk to God and hear from Him.
Who should pray? Who is qualified to speak to God?
Every person that is a child of God has not only the right but the responsibility
to commune with God. Prayer helps you mature and grow in the things of God. So, it’s like a child that must learn from his father, to do that he must be close to the father, watch the father, ask the father questions. It’s not different from a person who wants to grow in Christ. He has to have a prayer life. Without a prayer life, he is not going to mature.
When you are praying to God in the sense of dialogue, how do you hear from God?
Let me give you an example: I have two brothers. If any of them called me through an unknown number, I will know because I know their voices. The thing about God is that you will know His voice because you are familiar with Him. Jesus said, My sheep hear my voice and they know Me when I call. So, you can distinguish Him from anybody else. To know that God is speaking to you, you must have a reference point. If you hear anything that contradicts the Scriptures, it is not God. It is as simple as that. So, you need to know the Scripture so that you don’t have to be asking was that God that spoke or not? Then, everything God says, He confirms. He says out of the mouth of two or three people the truth is established. So, most times when God speaks to you, you just come across somebody that does not know about the matter that will confirm what you just heard. I always approach the Bible with this attitude. I always ask the Holy Spirit for illumination, so that as I read, He will illuminate the Scripture to me.
I remember the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch; the man was reading the Scripture but he couldn’t understand what he was reading and Philip approached him and said what are you reading? Do you understand what you read and the man said no. Philip began to expound the Scripture to the man so when he understood, he asked if he could give his life to Jesus and he was baptized there.
Is it right to approach pastors, prophets, etc for prayer? Some of them have become prayer contractors…
It depends on how one does it. Some people contract their prayer life out to the pastor, prophet by asking them to pray for them while they are not even praying for themselves, the pastor and prophets become some kinds of prayer contractors. The pastor or prophet may intercede for you, they may counsel you on the area you should be praying. The priest stands between the altar and the people; he can be an intermediary between you and God. So, it’s not illegitimate to go to pastors for prayers but don’t contract out yourself for prayer. The assumption is that you yourself should be prayerful. Going to them occurs when you reach a point where you don’t know what to pray about and you need direction, like the widow that lost her prophet husband and she didn’t know what to do, so she went to Elisha
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