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THE MYSTERY OF GROWTH: OUR EXPERIENCE – Pastor Ife Adetona

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Hey Family, as promised we’re back with a new dimension flowing into Our series on The Mystery of Growth. We tagged this part, “OUR EXPERIENCE”. In this set of episodes, we shall be gleaning from the life experiences of Men and women who already experienced spiritual growth to a matured level and whose lives are already blessing our generation. In this first episode, Pastor Ife Adetona will be sharing his growth experience which will also answer questions like, Looking back, what he would say were the situations responsible for his growth in God? Which specific experience changed him completely or which meeting did he attend that made him realize he just had to follow God? Were there difficulties, growing up and how did he overcome them? The answers are right here, Get ready for the Fire Experience!

Prior the time I gave my life to Jesus Christ, I came from a very good Christian home. My mum is a renowned Sunday school teacher, she is a Lady evangelist and my dad is a Christian but more of a moralist that knows what is right and what is wrong.  Children church and Sunday School really played a lot of impact in my spiritual growth because that was where I got a lot of Bible stories we used to do quiz and I do come first but then we just use to go to church; I had not given my life to Jesus Christ then. We also had the  youth arm in my church with vibrant brothers there who took other people up to disciple them and I got wind up by one of them, Bro. Ebenezer Bamidele, we were both in Secondary school then but he was in the senior class. He told me God wanted to use me mightily and all because of that, I fell in love with God.

I gave my life to Christ at the age of eleven. The Holy Spirit used speak to me then I didn’t know it was Him because I kept a lot to myself though  I always read my Bible. When I was thirteen years, I re-dedicated my life to Christ in an encounter that I told him “I want to become somebody in life, will you make me somebody?” “Because I learnt that if you don’t know somebody you can’t become somebody, am a nobody myself and I’m a child of a nobody, but I believe that if I should know God I have known everybody. God, can I know you?” After I said that, I Looked up to the sky expecting to hear Him from the sky but he didn’t speak to me from the sky, He spoke from my heart that “Yes, you can know me” and from that day, I vowed that whatever there is to know about God, I would know it.

It was also the same time I got a call into the ministry. I had God appear to me in my dream calling out the names of people, how they lived their lives, the percentage of the score of their ministerial service. Precisely, there were two names I could remember of out of all the numerous names the angel called; One used to score around 90% but dropped to 87% and the other scored 100%. The man that scored 100% was Apostle Ayodele Babalola and the other man was Kenneth Hagin who I got to remember much later but I remembered Babalola’s name when I woke up and was wondering who he was, so I knew God has called me into the ministry and since people have been telling me also, and  I was already sold out to God since that time.

I remained in the children church as a teacher and I was active in the youth arm too(even in Secondary school). We used to have daily morning cry  where we go to preach God’s word, I was introduced to a lot of prayer, fasting (marathon, dry fasting), infact, I took my first marathon when I was in SS2. I was not too active in the school fellowship; I  was not even aware of an existing school fellowship until it was very late and I joined briefly but couldn’t do much. I didn’t have too good friends in the secondary school because I was a brilliant student and we grouped ourselves based on brilliancy. I was in Art class where it was believed they have the roughest of all students,  I moved with some friends tho I was not too spiritual in school, so to speak. I was just this gentle and nice boy but very good and vibrant in my home church. Yeah I was enticed by youthful lust and girlfriendism from the school angle but God saved me, I didn’t get too much involved, for exam malpractice, I had to do little because I had to help but I restrained myself as the fear of God was in my heart. I finished secondary school and back to my youth church where I was introduced to my Bible, evangelism and fasting and prayers, reading the word every time, there was a point we go to vigils every day and another time I was sleeping on the prayer mountain close to my church in my area.

I was enticed by youthful lust and girlfriendism from the school angle but God saved me, I didn’t get too much involved

Pastor Ife Adetona

Though, I grew up in Ibadan my family later moved to Osogbo, I couldn’t have my quiet time again there my spiritual life was going down until I came across Benny Hinn’s book in a bookshop where I was working then; an upholstery store, I just collected my salary and I got the book “Good Morning Holy Spirit” and that was another turning point in my spiritual life. I learnt about The Holy Spirit and I realized he was the one who had been speaking to me all this while. Then I got admission and joined Baptist Student Fellowship because My Dad was a Baptist though My mum is a CAC member, so my dad asked us to join Baptist. He doesn’t force decision on us though but God had shown me in a vision that I would be changing my church (He showed me in a way that I would be changing the food I had been eating (doctrine). It was in the CAC Church I had learnt to pray, fast and see visions.

My spiritual life was going down until I came across Benny Hinn’s book in a bookshop where I was working then; an upholstery store, I just collected my salary and I got the book “Good Morning Holy Spirit” and that was another turning point in my spiritual life.

Pastor Ife Adetona

I got baptized in the Holy Ghost at the age of fourteen, precisely by the brother that led me up but I was thinking I was saying rubbish or what he was saying too. It was when I got to school that I dreamt that I was speaking in tongues in my dream which made me believe in the tongues and made me start speaking it. In the NCE, I had a good fellowship where we pray, listen to the word, but something that  attracted me most in the fellowship was discipleship and the way the word was been taught. I got so attracted that I was not seeing visions again. I was all about breaking the word of God and discipling souls. That was where my passion for discipleship started, my spiritual life took a new turn indeed because discipleship helped me a lot, so I was among the working force in the fellowship, in my first year I was the Bible Coordinator and coming from a praying church really balanced my life, then in my final year, I was made the Prayer coordinator which took me back to where I was coming from. By God’s grace, we turned the fellowship around, became prayer athletes, we go to the mountains again to pray and I enjoyed the two parts of me and the discipleship too.

In the NCE, I had a good fellowship where we pray, listen to the word, but something that attracted me most in the fellowship was discipleship and the way the word was been taught.

Pastor Ife Adetona

It was in school I was introduced to quiet time too. I joined Scripture Union (SU), Missions arm and some other fellowships which helped and kept me in shape because if you are not busy with God, you will be busy with something else. My busyness in God didn’t not allow me get involved in what many of my colleagues got involved in like fornication, boy/girlfriend relationship and so on. I also joined the drama unit and before I left school I got an employment with SU as a missionary in 2011 which also improved my discipleship ability. I began to groom and teach people and it helped me and by then I had become a good friend of books.

So the things that actually contributed to my spiritual life are these:

  • Prayer
  • Reading of the Bible
  • The Communion of the Holy Spirit.
  • Discipleship
  • Books.

If you are not busy with God, you will be busy with something else.

Pastor Ife Adetona

And from the precept of my spiritual journey, you will see all these that contributed and I began to manifest things along the way and up till this moment. The passion for discipleship resulted into Sons and Daughters of Zion (SADOZ, GHM). I realize that when people hear the word from the altar, they don’t really understand or things passing to them are not been treated well, that is why I started SADOZ and introduce them to SU because I love SU and till God called me out of SU. Along the line, I developed another  passion of bringing people into Communing with the Holy Spirit because no matter how I disciple them it doesn’t work, so  I had to introduce the Holy Spirit, Baptism in the Holy Spirit, Speaking in tongues, Manifestation of gifts etc. that’s the passion behind SADOZ. We started put those things in place and teach the balance word of GOD. So, what I do today that helped my spiritual life is that I gave out more and more, so the pressure to give out always put a demand on me, wait on God in prayer, read my bible, to read  books and of course, to Commune with the Holy Spirit. Thank you.

Pastor Ifedamola Adetona is the President of The Sons and Daughters of Zion Global Harvest Ministry (SADOZ), an interdenominational and worldwide movement that aims to disciple believers into the full stature of Christ both in character and in the demonstration of power. He is also the President of the Koinonia Bible Institute (KBI) which is a training arm of the ministry. As a Christian author, he has written more than five books. He is married to Mrs. Elizabeth Ife-Adetona and their union is blessed with godly seeds.

Thanks for choosing The Fire Place, we hope you’ve been blessed immensely through this episode. We want to hear back from you, drop your comments below and ensure you’re following the blog by dropping your email address so you can be notified once we drop a new post. Get ready for our next guest on Friday. God bless you!

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