The Sunday Mail
Ghana’s Apostle Nat Opare Yeboah comes to Zimbabwe regularly. He trained at Zaoga FIF’s AMFCC Bible School. He is founder, overseer and senior pastor of Potters Palace International Ministries in Accra, which has 12 branches internationally. He is also the visionary of the Nat Opare Yeboah Apostolic Ministry, an interdenominational fellowship. He was in Harare recently for the Fundamentals of Prayer teaching series and the Backfire Conference. Tendai Manzvanzvike (TM) spoke with Apostle Yeboah (NY) about these and other issues.
TM: How is the ministry?
NY: Thank you for the opportunity you have accorded me to speak the mind of God. He has been faithful to us in terms of our ministry back home and our global ministry. When we started NOYAM in Zimbabwe, you were the first person who interviewed me at the Anglican Church. By the grace of God, in numbers and everything, we are growing. We had a teaching session on May 12 and 19 at the Dutch Reformed Church where about 400 people attended. So, God has been faithful.
TM: Your title was Prophet, but now you are an Apostle. Clarify?
NY: There is no change at all. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe in titles. The apostolic ministry is a facet of the manifestation of the five-fold ministry recorded in Ephesians 4.
We use our fingers to demonstrate that. The thumb is for the apostolic; the index finger is for the prophetic; the middle one is the evangelistic; the fourth is the pastoral and the fifth finger is the teaching ministry.
The thumb can touch the other four. So, with the apostolic ministry, you are able to prophesy, evangelise, pastor and teach when need arises.
I think that people have seen me do all five and they thought that I am in the apostolic ministry.
TM: What defines your ministry?
NY: NOYAM is the apostolic unction that God gave me to enter nations to teach on the apostolic and the prophetic, and then, to impart the unction over people that have been called into that particular ministry.
Ephesians 2:20 says the Church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.
Let me take it to the next level. When we talk about the apostolic and the prophetic, it does not only mean standing before people calling out their names or prophesying on their phone numbers.
A person can enter into business and still walk in the prophetic and the apostolic, where God will prophetically align them with people they never dreamt doing business with.
The apostolic ministry is also a pioneering anointing where you are able to start something from scratch, grow and nurture it, and it becomes prosperous.
So, we have an anointing for the apostolic that will lead people into business, to become pioneers of their own businesses.
Thus what I see about Zimbabwe and all the crises that have happened is the voice of God telling Zimbabwe that the best that is in them should come out of them – where they will not depend on any individual company to make it.
The Lord is saying Zimbabweans must be wealth creators, instead of job seekers. So, NOYAM is here to also empower people to find God’s agenda for their lives.
TM: How have people responded to the message? Are they positive that Zimbabwe is going to come out of this?
NY: Their response was very positive. And let me say that very soon, there is going to be a supernatural transformation of the Zimbabwean economy because Zimbabwe has come to a place of ownership. And, when you come to a place of ownership, it’s a place of an explosion where you are not limited with anything. Let’s give God and Zimbabwe a few years and you are going to realise that it’s going to be a leading economy and a prosperous nation in Africa.
TM: Now, let’s talk about the “Fundamentals of Prayer” series that you held before the conference.
NY: I taught on the fundamentals of prayer because the vehicles that raise the prophetic word are prayer and the word of God. I have seen a lot of people praying but not getting answers because they think that you can just wake up to pray.
Luke 11 demonstrates that very well. After Jesus had finished praying, His disciples went to Him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples.”
Prayer needs to be taught. In Africa, we pray a lot but we don’t receive maximum results. The reason is because we pray amiss. We don’t pray with knowledge and understanding. Last time I taught about the model of prayer using the Lord’s Prayer. What we call the Lord’s Prayer in the Bible is not. It’s actually a model of prayer.
TM: Like a template?
NY: The Lord’s Prayer is in John 17. This time, I taught on fundamentals of prayer from John 15:7 where Jesus says: “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
Asking is prayer. But before you ask for everything you desire, you need to abide in Him. So, when we talk about fundamentals of prayer, we are talking about abiding in Christ and His word.
The problem facing the Church now is that the Devil has succeeded by trying to make things very easy for us, for example putting the Bible on the phone. But instead of reading the Bible, people enjoy social media.
The devil takes their minds from God. It boils down to what I said before. The first fundamental is abiding in Christ – that is total commitment and dedication to God.
If you are totally dedicated to God, the things of God become your first priority. You cannot barter trade the things of God with the devil or your personal aggrandisement. Make God first in everything.
If you are not doing that, then you are not actually abiding in Christ. And as long as you are not abiding, you will ask everything you desire, but God will not answer. You are off the mark.
The people willing to die for the cause of the Kingdom become prayer champions and not prayer warriors. Everybody can become a prayer warrior, but few people can be prayer champions.
TM: But are warriors also not champions?
NY: It’s not every warrior who is a champion. I have seen a lot of warriors go to the battlefield to die. That you war in prayer does not make you a prayer champion.
John 15: 7 gives the two fundamentals of prayer. Before you pray a successful prayer, you must learn to abide in Christ – total dedication and commitment to God, and total love for God like what we read in Daniel 3. If you are willing to be a prayer champion, abiding in Christ, do not compromise.
Apart from that, are you willing to stay in the word, live the word and talk the word so that the word of God becomes the centre of your life?
TM: It’s a lifestyle then?
NY: Make the word of God your lifestyle. Prayer begins as a lifestyle, before it becomes devotion. A prayer life is the word of God because there is no prayer without the word. If you don’t have the word of God in you, you don’t have a prayer topic.
TM: You also had a conference after this?
NY: We had a four-day prophetic conference where we wrapped up the teaching series and the theme was “Backfire”, drawn from 1 Corinthians 2:8. The Bible says if the devil knew, he wouldn’t have killed the Lord of glory. The devil thought that he was crucifying Christ in order to silence Him.
He never knew that billions of people were going to be saved.
TM: Your final word for Zimbabwe and Africa . . .
NY: I want Zimbabwe to know that the reason why the Lord brought the prophetic wave is to unleash it into a new beginning, because whenever you have an encounter with the prophetic anointing, it is a new chapter for your life.
The prophetic is also for prosperity. When you believe in the prophet, you shall prosper. The reason why the prophetic is not loud now is because Zimbabwe has just entered into a place of its new beginning but it is on its road to prosperity.
But, Zimbabwe should not do anything to limit the flow of God. God is not a tradition. He is Spirit and the Spirit is dynamic, and it must not be confined with tradition and the way of things in Zimbabwe.
And, they should limit their criticism of the doing of God. Sometimes, you can talk yourself out of what God is doing. The interesting thing is that when God is doing something, He doesn’t consult anybody.
If you do not agree, don’t talk against it. As a matter of fact, for something that is higher than you, and you don’t understand it, you stay out of it and don’t criticise it,
Secondly, Zimbabweans must be able to pick their hope back. What is happening in Zimbabwe is not against them. It is for them. God wants them to look inside of them more than outside.
Finally, I want to tell Zimbabwe that it will not be long. Prosperity is coming back to Zimbabwe. And on Africa, the Lord is speaking to me – Africa is rising again.
