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Miracles, even jaw-dropping ones, are common in the Redeemed Christian Church of God and that should make leaders and members happy. But not everybody is happy about its psychological effects.
A barren woman God has blessed with a baby would naturally worry about testifying on the same stage with another woman God has blessed with triplets after 20 years of marriage. Cheers for the latter is often louder.
But to some people, even that is nothing compared with the miracle of a woman who had no womb but was delivered of a set of twins by shocked doctors in the United Kingdom. 
For yet others, who have witnessed miraculous healing from terminal diseases and miracles people brought back from the dead, childbirth is a smaller miracle.
At the November Holy Ghost Service at the Redemption Camp, a lady testified of how her breasts were about to be removed to save her from cancer, but she was miraculously healed.
It was a very emotional testimony, but how does it compare to testimonies on the same altar of how handkerchiefs anointed by Pastor Adeboye had been used to raise the dead?
That is the problem – the natural human tendency not to be moved by less powerful testimonies than those already known. But that is unacceptable to Pastor Adeboye, who believes God should always be praised properly and with excitement. He often carries a tambourine, ready to praise God.
Why not? He has seen God do many more marvelous things than he can share.
He said: “There are some of my testimonies I don’t share because when I share them, some people look at me as if I must be crazy. I have seen God in action; He can do far more than humans can imagine.”
In the multiplicity of miracles, it is easy to forget that the General Overseer himself is a miracle, who was made to undergo complete conversion to serve God through the miraculous healing of his child.
As Vice President Osinbajo puts it, “The life of Daddy (Pastor Adeboye) in itself is one big miracle! For a man born to financially-challenged parents in the remote village of Ifewara, Osun State, who had no shoes at 18 years old, who was not a Born Again Christian until the time he was a mathematics teacher at the University of Lagos, becoming the leader of a church with a strong presence in over 196 countries, and with over 32,000 parishes in Nigeria alone, is indeed, a miracle worth knowing.”
Born into debilitating poverty, his mother had to beg the principal of his secondary school at the end of every year to allow him drop out to end the pain of paying fees.
Pastor Adeboye told the story during a sermon at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, last week:” I gained admission to Ilesha Grammar School in Osun State, Nigeria and I was to pay a deposit of £2 but my parents could not raise that amount. One way or the other, God provided.
“I got into the school and after the first year almost everything in our house was gone. By the time that I managed to finish the second year, my mother went to beg the principal: ‘Now he has done two years, could you just give him a testimonial so that he can go and teach?’
“But for one reason or the other, the principal said ‘let him do one more year.’
Because in those days, they had what they called the Modern School and I could be given a certificate after that.
“My mother came home, told my father and they sold everything in their cocoa plantation and in the house. I finished the third Year.
“My mother went back to the Principal to say, ‘Now, he has done three years, let him leave.’
“But the Principal said if I could only do one more year, they would give me G4 (Government Certificate 4).
“My mother left the place in anger, got home to discover that there was nothing to sell again to keep me in school. ‘But then God brought somebody. A native of my village came from London and everybody went to meet him.
“While everybody was rejoicing, he just turned in my direction and said, ‘Hello little boy,’ and we began to talk. He said I spoke good English and I said I was a student of the Grammar School.
“When he asked the year I was in, I told him I was supposed to go to Form 4 but there is no money. Luckily, he arranged to pay for the fourth year.
“After the 4th Year, mother went back to the Principal and said now he has done four years let him go.
“The Principal said: ‘What kind of woman are you? Out of five years, we have already done four.
“My mother started weeping and I wept that day like I have never done before. But one way or the other; I finished secondary school because God was determined to bring my family out of the pit of poverty.”
At 77, the Adeboye miracle continues in his rare ability for chain ministrations around the world. After the November Holy Ghost Service, he has been to Abuja, Abonnema and Port Harcourt, River State; University of Ibadan, and Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife to lead long sessions in a month of fasting for the church, which he actively participates in.
If one thought he should be resting after that, the 77-year-old cleric is preparing for this year’s Holy Ghost Congress to hold early December.
So common have miracles become in the church that, a certain degree of complacency may be setting in among some sections of its faithful.
For a church which believes in loud, rapturous praise of God, the response to testimonies is not as loud and spontaneous as required by the tradition of the church.
At the November Holy Ghost Service, Pastor Adeboye expressed his concern over the development. It may just be human nature but he insists that God deserves thunderous praise for all miracles- big or relatively small.
He said, “I have said it again and again and I’m saying it one more time; because God is doing so miraculously in our midst; there may be tendency for us to begin to take all these miracles for granted.
The testimonies for tonight are such that I thought every one of us will be up and shouting and praising God. “Don’t get so much accustomed to miracles that you forget the One who is doing these miracles. Because if just one of these miracles should happen elsewhere; I know how the people will be ecstatic with joy. Because we see these miracles again and again; we are beginning to show less enthusiasm in our response.
“Let me hear somebody shout Hallelujah – Hallelujah.
I know my daddy – He can do anything. I have seen miracles and signs beyond human expectations.”
At the November Holy Ghost Service at the Redemption Camp, the services in Abuja; Abonnema and Port Harcourt; in Ibadan and Ile Ife, attendance was high, with a large harvest of souls.
Also at all the venues, there were miracles and amazing testimonies of the power of the Almighty God over the devil.
As always, the sermons were spiced with prophecies from the Word of Knowledge, while time was allowed for active congregational prayers
