THANK YOU LORD! THE BATTLE IS OVER

This was Streams of Joy Abuja's mid-year thanksgiving Sunday - captions render it "media/midday thanksgiving" throughout, but the pastor's own framing is "the first half of the year," January through July. Four services ran (7:00, 8:30, 10:15 and 11:45 a.m.), each opening with extended praise, a week-long prophetic declaration for Monday through Saturday, testimonies, and a thanksgiving offering. The running cry of the day was "The battle is over" - declared over sieges, delays, pursuers and swallowed blessings: "There's a difference between a battle that grows quiet and a battle that has ended. When a battle grows quiet, the enemy can come back. But when the Lord ends a battle like He has ended yours, He destroys everything. He closes the chapter."

The first message ran from John 6:1-14, the feeding of the five thousand, resting the whole weight on verse 11 - "and Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks." The congregation read that phrase three times. Pastor Jerry's point: everything that happened before verse 11 was a reason to complain - no bread, no shop, no money, only a boy's five loaves and two fishes - and Jesus gave thanks anyway. So bless God for the season of "nowhere"; thank Him for the five loaves and two fishes you already have; thank Him for the gift of men, including the men who said no, who turned their backs, who never came through, because a sign is not a wonder and God removes atmospheres He will not bless. He warned that "thanksgiving is not a feeling, it is a conviction," that comparison is a thanksgiving thief, that an entitled person can never be thankful, and that unthankfulness is a mark of the last days (2 Timothy 3:2). Only one of the ten lepers came back - and he was the Samaritan, the one outside the circle: "Your circle determines how thankful you can get."

The later services turned to Luke 7:36-50, the woman with the alabaster box, and to Proverbs 23:18 - "For surely there is an end, and thine expectation shall not be cut off." From Proverbs he drew five points: your life is a script written by God; God is not an end but the end (Revelation 1:8, "the beginning and the end"); He never called Himself the middle, which is why the middle is where your faith gets queried; do not settle for an end that does not have God in it; and do not let the first half of the year dry up your expectation - "you are not called a 'believed', you are called a believer."

From the alabaster box he drew the day's tenderest thread. The woman came from behind Jesus, never in front, never acknowledged, while the room gossiped about who she used to be - and she gave thanks anyway. Her thanksgiving was not transactional: "I didn't come to thank you so that my tank can be full. I came to thank you because you are God all by yourself." She came for no legacy, but thanksgiving handed her one - wherever this gospel is preached, what she has done will be told. His charge from it: if God has helped you extravagantly, be loud about it; put it on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter; let them know it was Jesus.

He told his own stories against the same grain: the season God told him to empty his bank account and give away his car, then sent him brand-new cars he had no money to fuel; the morning the Holy Spirit told him not to fly, so he took the staff bus - and the flight he was booked on crashed; the pilot who later told him he had flown them while wanting to "end it all"; the landing that had other pilots holding their heads; and the day his mother beat him for refusing to thank God over garri and groundnut with salt - minutes before Sister Peace knocked with soup ingredients the Holy Spirit had told her to buy. He also recounted the birth of NSPPD in COVID: three staff, early-morning broadcasts before the enforcement teams were out, Pastor George and Pastor Roma arrested and released five minutes to 7 a.m., nights sleeping in the church - and his own on-air question when COVID ended, should we stop? "It didn't come for COVID. It came for such a time as this."

Seven testimonies were heard across the services - an accident survivor, a mother whose newborn came off oxygen, a first-time visitor who closed a ₦100m+ deal within days of one altar declaration, a former Muslim now management-staff head of security, a couple's four-year battle for a child ending in a natural delivery, a car fire quenched by rain, and a baby diagnosed with HIE who is now ahead of every milestone.

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Theme and timing

• Mid-year thanksgiving Sunday, 19 July 2026, at Streams of Joy Abuja, run across four services: 7:00 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 10:15 a.m., 11:45 a.m. (plus overflow).
• Day's theme: "Thank You Lord - The Battle Is Over." Deliberately not a prophetic/word service: "I wish I never spoke in a service like this... all I did was just to sit and let the Lord be worshipped."
• 40 Days of Power, Manifestation and Miracles - Week 2 is running, following the just-concluded 14 days of prayer and fasting.
• Week 2 altar line-up: Monday - The door is open: Access, Acceleration, Ascension; Tuesday - Throne Room Verdict; Wednesday - Oh Lord, Show Me Mercy; Thursday - This mountain must be removed - no more stubborn challenges; Friday - The Lord has called me by a new name; Saturday - Capacity, stature and growth; Sunday - When God honours a man.
• Next Sunday's service theme: "When God honours a man", in all four services.
• Monday's altar specifically: a fatter (increase/enlargement) to careers, businesses and ministry; to your family; to new revelations and divine ideas; to your expectations; to the city you live in; to men of great worth; to help and helpers; to ease and speed; and to divine alignment.
• Thursday midweek Word & Fire service continues on the theme "Dominion in all spheres", 6:00 p.m.
• Discipleship and membership class - Monday, church premises, 6:00 p.m.
• Maturity class - Tuesday, church premises, 6:00 p.m. (one service announced Thursday; Tuesday is the figure repeated across services).
• Gems and Jewels (singles, 39 and below) - career development programme with Google Academy, Saturday 25 July, 10:00 a.m., at the Overflow premises. (The last service announced 29 July; 25 July is repeated more often.)
• Fasting: "I am the one fasting. Those of you who want to fast along, that's okay - we will continue till 40 days, but we are not compelling you."
• Prayer scriptures for each day are posted on Pastor Jerry's prayer platform.

Testimonies to send

• Testimony forms at the inquiry desk - fill and submit before the next service to be scheduled to testify in church.

Prayer requests

• Send a list of 40 things you desire of the Lord to birthdayrequest@streamsofjoy.org ("if you cannot make it up to 40, it's okay - whatever you write, just send them").

Offering

• Offerings, tithes and partnership raised as a wave offering in every service, with the specific charge to bring a thanksgiving seed - "I don't want you to give what you used to give in church. Be intentional."
• Church building project ongoing; account details on the screen.
• Devotional books and MP3s of the man of God's messages at the emporium; partnership forms at the inquiry desk outside the auditorium.

First-timers

• Ushers hand out a form; fill it and hand it to an usher or drop it at the inquiry desk before leaving - "we want to get across to you and want to keep you in our prayers."
• Welcome, new-member and out-of-Nigeria visitor prayers were prayed in each service; a visitor who asked for it was given the pastor's mantle.

Travel / locations mentioned

• Called out from the floor and acknowledged: Houston (conference), Manchester, Canada / Toronto, California / LA, Ohio, Kansas City, Saudi Arabia ("it's open now - we will consider it"), Australia / Sydney ("we will come to Australia"), and Kenya - "there's been a pressure in the spirit for us to go to Kenya... we will make that happen."

Testimonies played / recapped

1. Road accident, the day before. Caught in a hold-up when a car struck the vehicle she was in; she was the only one thrown to the ground in the middle of the road and thought her leg was gone. She stood up unbroken and came to church: "my bones cannot be broken... the 7 a.m. prayer works for us."
2. Newborn off oxygen. 41 weeks with no sign of labour; booked for CS after antenatal on 22 June, delivered by CS on 23 June. The baby could not breathe unaided and went on oxygen, was referred from hospital to hospital (FMC and others - "no space"), ran out of oxygen on the road, and was finally admitted after a deposit. She prayed the altar's "Oh Lord show me mercy" prayers online from her bed and from behind the neonatal glass. He came off oxygen last Saturday, she breastfed him directly on Thursday, and they were discharged yesterday. His kidney - which the pastor had named from the altar the previous week - tested completely normal.
3. ₦100m+ property deal. A man on his way elsewhere saw the Streams of Joy signboard and the MM Event Centre venue and walked in out of curiosity, while believing God for financial restoration (he could not fund a trip to visit partners in Germany). He caught the altar declaration "you are believing God for restoration - you are restored now", and placed a demand on the altar for a testimony he could bring back. Within days a buyer called and insisted on viewing that Saturday, inspected a property worth over ₦100 million and paid. "For the past five years I have never seen that kind of breakthrough... the money landed" - and for the first time he closed a deal without struggle.
4. From the gate to management. A former Muslim - once taken to a studio to preach against Christianity - who became born again in 2000 after graduating from the University of Nigeria. The Lord told her to start her career "at the gate" of a leading West African LNG company despite good grades; five years on she moved up, worked security on a $40bn project as a contract employee, then in Abuja worked directly with an IOC's MD, who made her permanent head of the security department despite an employment embargo. She joined this altar last year, pays her offering two weeks ahead, and received the word "you will be preferred and chosen" on 11 September; the next day she applied for a management position she had felt unqualified for - and got it.
5. Dinim Tiffany. Married 2021; an immediate pregnancy lost to miscarriage at 12 weeks, then four years of negatives, a PCOS diagnosis, no ovulation, and periods that had to be started and stopped with medication. She stayed on the fire altar daily; her mother, also a member, kept sending her testimony links. At the pastor's birthday service in August 2024 she wept and was prayed for. Strip and blood pregnancy tests in November came back negative; on 30 December 2024 a scan she went in for expecting bad news found a heartbeat - 9 weeks, 1 day. The pregnancy was called high-risk (high blood pressure, insulin resistance), a controlled CS was scheduled, and the fear of dying in delivery lifted after the pastor's June 2025 prayer for pregnant women. Her water broke on 16 July 2025; she was 7cm on arrival and delivered naturally just after midnight on 17 July. The paediatrician who was to manage predicted complications and delayed milestones; the baby was handed straight back - "this your child does not want to stay with us" - walked at nine months, beat every milestone, and turned one two days ago.
6. Car fire on 9 July. During the 14-day fast she could not sleep the night of the 8th for singing and worship, and sang all through the next day at her shop without knowing why. Closing early on the 9th - the "Rain of Answers" day - she smelled burning as she started the ignition; smoke came from the central-lock control, then flames when the car was restarted for a mechanic. The battery was disconnected and the fire kept burning; the driver's door panel was forced off and the fire was finally put out with rainwater scooped by hand. "The devil was angry because of the praises... He saw what was going to happen ahead, that was why He put the praise ahead."
7. HIE baby, testifying from America. Her son was born with HIE - low oxygen at birth - expected to develop cerebral palsy and seizures, with the right side of his heart enlarged. Three days of cooling therapy and ECG monitoring; doctors said 99% of such babies seize. She refused her blood-pressure medication in order to fast, and joined NSPPD at 1:00 a.m. her time / 7:00 a.m. Nigeria, at one point kneeling in the NICU with the broadcast playing beside his cot for a full hour, praying for every other baby there as well. He was moved from level-three to level-two NICU after five days and discharged in nine days instead of two weeks; the heart scan was normalising by day two; no seizures; MRI clear; the cardiologist asked why she had even come. He was talking and moving at three months. She also testified that five years earlier a seizure stopped her heart for five minutes - declared dead in the middle of a club - and God brought her back: "You didn't bring me back to life to lose my son."

Words of knowledge / healing declarations

Spoken over the congregation during the opening prayer session:

• Every migraine reversed; every enlarged heart reversed.
• The pattern where "only one person will be the light in your family" - reversed.
• The pattern where "when it looks like it is working, suddenly something will go wrong" - reversed.
• Evil projections broken; the power and spirit of confinement broken; whatever is stuck, delayed or tied down, released.
• "May the Lord give you three evidences that will bring 15 years in one day."
• Names cancelled from four lists for this year: those who will die, those who will end up disappointed, those with emptiness in their lives, those who will meet evil emergency.
• Family members outstanding in health, marriage, career or business - receiving their divine settlement.
• "That testimony you are waiting to give - you will give it in July"; that one prayer request, answered "in less than four weeks."
• A week of announcements in your favour - promotion and goodwill; and safe return from wherever you are travelling.

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1. Thanksgiving is a conviction, not a feeling. "My thanksgiving is not because of what you have done or what you have not done - when I look at you, I'm convinced you cannot lie to me." You can make the sound of praise without the posture of it, and the sound cancels out.
2. Thanksgiving begins with who He is, not what He has done. "If you did nothing else for me, you have done enough." If God never did another thing, He remains God - and you were created for His pleasure, not to make Him perform for you.
3. Give thanks from the five loaves and two fishes. Everything before John 6:11 was a reason to complain. Thank Him for the small doors, the kind word, the money that wasn't the money you needed, the fact that you have not yet been put to shame. "For the little you have seen already - thank Him."
4. Bless God for the season of "nowhere." Jesus' first question was where shall we buy bread, and the answer was nowhere. "He's not a God of abandoned projects."
5. Thank Him for the gift of men - including the ones who failed you. For those who said no, who turned their backs, who went quiet: their no kept you focused, their absence removed an atmosphere God would not bless, and their pressure sent you to Shiloh. "While you're thanking God for Samuel, thank God for Peninnah." And know the difference between a sign and a wonder - don't turn the person pointing you to your destination into the destination.
6. Thank Him for what did not work, because it worked for you. "We are not thanking God about what worked." The disappointment was a deliverance - like pulling a child's hand out of the fire; the child screams, but where they were running looked nice and would have burned them.
7. Understanding shapes thanksgiving; prayerlessness kills it. Without wisdom you will whine about the very thing you should be thanking God for. And an entitled person can never be thankful.
8. Unthankfulness is a spirit of the end time, and your circle carries it. Nine lepers stayed in one band and none returned; only the Samaritan, the outsider they wouldn't associate with, came back. "Your circle determines how thankful you can get."
9. Never compare yourself to anyone - comparison is a thanksgiving thief. You have no destiny mate; God can do in one month what makes another's ten years look like nothing.
10. Thanksgiving is a weapon and an act of faith. It is a confrontation at the gates of hell, the icing on your prayer, and a declaration over a battle still in progress that it is already over. We are "thankful by revelation, not by evidence."
11. After thanksgiving, sit down. "Make the men sit down" - the post-thanksgiving posture is rest. If you have thanked God about it, relax.
12. Your life is a script written by God, and He is not the middle. He is the beginning and the end - never an end, always the end. The middle is where your faith is queried and every word you received comes under attack; keep your eyes on how it will end. And do not accept an end that does not have God in it: "If it is not by your hand, don't let me have it."
13. Do not let anything dry up your expectation. "You are not called a 'believed'. You are called a believer" - faith must have something to believe. Refusing to expect, so as not to be disappointed, is not Christianity.
14. Thanksgiving does not ignore human vessels. Gratitude to God is what makes you grateful to people. When someone helps you and waves it off - "it's nothing" - that is a scam: it is nothing to them, it is everything to you. And stop taking the people who love you for granted while campaigning for attention from those who never see you.
15. Come from behind, and come without a transaction. The woman never saw Jesus' face; He was still talking to Simon. She gave thanks anyway, while the room gossiped about who she used to be. "I didn't come to thank you so that my tank can be full. I came to thank you because you are God all by yourself."
16. Thanksgiving writes a legacy you never came for. She came for nothing and left with "wherever this gospel is preached, what she has done will be told." Those who thank God leave with legacies of His wonders.
17. The battle has not merely gone quiet - it has ended. Exodus 14:13: the Egyptians you saw, you will see no more, forever. Job 20:15: what was swallowed is being forcibly vomited up. Nahum 1:9: affliction shall not rise a second time.

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Today / this season

• Bring an intentional thanksgiving seed - offering, tithe and partnership raised as a wave offering; not the amount you normally give.
• Recount the first half deliberately - bless God month by month, January through July, for the battles you knew about and the ones you never did.
• Thank Him for what did not work - the nos, the rejections, the shut doors, the people who went silent - and be able, by December, to go back to some of them and say thank you without bitterness.
• Never compare yourself with anyone; guard your circle; refuse entitlement.
• Call the people who matter. Call your mother, your father, your brother, anyone whose words shaped you, and tell them so. Back the words with something concrete - for your wife, your husband, whoever God used.
• Be loud and public about Jesus. If God helped you extravagantly, say so - on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, wherever. "Stop hiding who has led you this far."
• Keep your expectation alive, and keep your eyes on how it will end rather than on the middle.
• Declare, hands lifted: "I am dwelling in the secret place of the most High... In him will I trust" - then walk up to 14 people and shout hallelujah (5 or 10 neighbours in some services).
• First-timers: fill the usher's form and hand it in or drop it at the inquiry desk. Pick up a testimony form from the inquiry desk and submit it before the next service if you have a testimony.

Tomorrow / upcoming

• Monday on the altar - Week 2 of the 40 Days: The door is open - Access, Acceleration, Ascension. "If there is a day not to joke with, it's tomorrow. Come prepared."
• Send your list of 40 things you desire of the Lord to birthdayrequest@streamsofjoy.org, and invite friends and family. Whatever you can write, send it.
• Follow the whole 40 days with the daily scriptures on the prayer platform. Fasting alongside him is optional.
• Monday 6 p.m. - discipleship and membership class. Tuesday 6 p.m. - maturity class. Thursday 6 p.m. - Word & Fire midweek, Dominion in all spheres. Saturday 25 July, 10 a.m. - Gems and Jewels career development with Google Academy. Next Sunday - When God honours a man, all four services.
• Take part in the church building project (account details on the screen).

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