GBI senior pastor Dr. Niko Njotorahardjo encourages City Harvest Church with an inspiring message of hope and encouragement two weekends ago.
Contributed By Annabelle Low
CN PHOTO : GARY SIM. Njotorahardjo has written over 100 songs that have been sung all over the world.
Wherever Dr. Niko Njotorahardjo goes, he brings with him the urgent message in Revelations 3:11 that Jesus is coming soon. Over the past four years, the senior pastor of GBI (Gereja Bethel Indonesia) JI Gatot Subroto, Indonesia, has held 158 crusades all over Indonesia.
To date, GBI has more than 250,000 congregation members in over 800 churches in Indonesia and abroad, and it is no wonder since he makes prayer, praise and worship the cornerstones of his ministry.
Njotorahardjo is also a prolific songwriter who has written over 100 songs that have blessed the hearts of many believers in Asia, including those at City Harvest Church. Njotorahardjo believes that songs help people to voice out their faith. Incidentally, Njotorahardjo was the composer for Indonesian Idol winner Mike Mohede’s “Kasih Setia Mu” (“Your Faithful Love”), which recently won an award for Best Radio Play at the 2010 Indonesia Gospel Music Awards.
Multiplication And Promotion
During the four services at CHC on Jan. 29 and 30, Njotorahardjo was accompanied by the GBI band, which consists of senior pastors, Welyar Kauntu and Andy Tjokro, who took time out from their schedules to travel with him. The GBI band had the congregation praising and worshiping the Lord in song and dance, just like in the Bible.
The message delivered was one of guidance for the year 2011. Njotorahardjo drew his message from Isaiah 48:17-19: “This is what the LORD says—your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: ‘I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to My commands, your peace would have been like a river, your well-being like the waves of the sea. Your descendants would have been like the sand, your children like its numberless grains; their name would never be blotted out nor destroyed from before Me.’”
While Njotorahardjo declared that 2010 was a year of restoration and abundance, he proclaimed 2011 to be one of multiplication and promotion. He emphasized that the key to multiplication and promotion lay in paying attention to God’s commandments. He posits that there are three things that will add to a church to make it more alive in atmosphere—listening to the voice of the Lord, miracles, and new converts coming to church. The first and third are common, he says, and the second will happen increasingly in the days to come.
“Jesus is good in spite of everything that has happened, and God will cause you to have more impact than before,” preached Njotorahardjo. He stressed that prayer, praise and worship, anointed sermons and close fellowship (unity among the people) cause the church to come alive. “Everything you have experienced is allowed so that the church will enter a new dimension and experience a new level of aliveness,” he added.
Renewing Our First love
On the Second Coming of Jesus, Njotorahardjo shared that he never gets tired of the message in Revelations 3:11. “I don’t care if people get tired of the message as long as God is never tired of the message,” he reiterated.
In mid 2009, God told Njotorahardjo that He was going to pour out His Spirit over the people. The three signs that the Holy Spirit is being poured out can be found in Joel 2:28, which says: “And afterward, I will pour out My Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.”
Njotorahardjo encouraged the congregation by reminding them that everything they have been through is to bring them back to their first love with Jesus. “In order to be able to listen to what God is saying and to know His guidance, we need to have a zeal for the Lord and an intimacy with Him,” he said.
The altar call at the end of the service saw many from the congregation, including the church leadership, renewing their first love for God.
