The Primate of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Most Rev. Nicholas Okoh, has called on Christians in Nigeria to brace up to the present challenges in Nigeria like the biblical Daniel.
Addressing thousands of Christian faithful at this year’s Divine Commonwealth Conference holding at the Christian National Centre in Abuja, Primate Okoh said the theme of the conference: “Dare to be a Daniel,” should be a tonic for the participants to seeing themselves emerging as Daniel to restore hope and sanity to the church and polity.
He declared: ” With the moral decay in the present day society and church, there is need for another Daniel.
“In this generation, when relativism is ravaging the very foundation of the Christian faith from within and diverse persecution from without, who will dare to be a DANIEL”
Okoh said God was searching for a Daniel among christians – young and old, male and female – religious leaders, political leaders and Christians in political leadership.
Okoh said such Daniel would be someone “who will fear none but God, who will rise in the power of His might to challenge the revisionism of the church and corruption in the polity”.
He explained that the biblical Daniel demonstrated how “Godliness with contentment is great gain, preferring to lose everything, but God”.
Okoh said as a result, Daniel “even when they hated him because of his opposition to corruption, his colleagues were unable to find ground for complaint against him, and therefore, no leverage to remove him as an administrator”.
He therefore admonished the Christians that if they were to be like Daniel they should imbibe seven Ps that made Daniel a success story today.
The seven Ps, according to him, were: Persuasion, Purpose, Principle, Purity, Prayer, Perseverance and Power.
The Primate commended the Federal Government for ensuring Abuja “is well secured up to now”.
However, he advised participants to guard against wandering into volatile areas but should ensure they attend all the confab sessions and after go back to their lodges.
This year’s conference, according to the Chairman of the Sub Committee on Publicity, Rt. Rev. Praise Omole, has 6,500 registered participants.
Participants are drawn from all over the country and special guests are attending from outside the country.
The conference started on November 9 and ends on November 12, 2015.