From Isaac Job, Uyo
Popular tele evangelist and founder of Solid Rock Kingdom Church Apostle Dr John Okoriko has said that the secret of long life is ability to forgive enemies and sanitize individual minds from hatred and evil .
Delivering his 76th birthday message to mammoth crowd in Uyo on Friday to mark the annual birthday celebration, Okoriko advised the people never to allow hatred to derail them from their vision in life .
Okoriko who was reading from Genesis 41 verse 51 explained that Joseph in the scriptures though hated by his brothers remained focus ,forgive them and later forgot all the atrocities perpetrated by same brothers against him .
He warned Nigerians not to engage in fighting and hatred adding that they should change the way they think about God and themselves.
” Remove Satan and evil spirit from your thoughts in life . Begin to think that all your travails in life can be reversed one day .
” Don’t kill the vision God has given you because of hatred and persecution as trials and temptation are pre requisites for human development.”
Okoriko recalled that Joseph in the scriptures went through all forms of hatred and escaped death in the hands of his brothers but later triumph over them .
” Don’t keep evil done to you because it will shorten your life span.”
Narrating his childhood experiences , Okoriko explained that his mother died when he was younger and his step mother stopped his father from signing scholarship form that he won from the former Eastern Region government to further his education but he rejected advice from friends who wanted him to kill his father .
” Even when I won scholarship which my step mother didn’t allow my father to endorse the form for me , my friends wanted me to kill him but I refused .
” I have received all forms of persecution from even pastors who ganged up against me in the past during my missionary journey .
” I thank God I never fought them . This is the only gospel that will empower you not to revenge.
” If you want to live long forget all the evil that people committed against you.”
Okoriko who received accolades from the people on various social media platforms on his birthday anniversary maintained that people who abide by his preachings will live more than 120 years .
” I embrace fasting and I don’t eat junk food. I eat food cooked fresh within 10 – 20 minutes.
“Don’t revenge your enemies but they will come back and kneel down before you .
” Be happy over what people did to you . I don’t run my church in gossip . We love everybody God gives me in my church to care for.”
He warns Nigerians to change the negative comments made against the nation as the travails , hunger , inflation, insecurity and other problems facing the nation will come to an end .
” Change the way you make comments about Nigeria because the present hardship will not be forever. It will end one day”. He assured .