General News of Sunday, 20 March 2005

Source: GYE NYAME CONCORD

Rev Otabil Raps Women

WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!

THE HEAD PASTOR of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), the Rev. Dr. Mensah Otabil, has charged Ghanaian women to wake up and break the barriers of gender limitation.

He said the times when women and other gender advocates would fight for women?s rights must be relegated to the backburner.

He made this admonition last Sunday when he delivered a sermon title ?Going Beyond our Limitation? at the Christ Temple, Abossey Okai, in Accra.

Rev. Otabil said society has its own measuring line as to where women should be placed and where they must fit in the society.

He spoke against negative gender limitations on women and other restrictictions aimed at their advancement, saying nothing in this world is the preserve of men.

According to him such limitations should energise women to stay away from destruction, adding that negativities can only seek to prevent one from advancing in life.

Quoting from Ecclesiastes 10:8 and Zachariah 2:2-5, he charged the congregation to reject negative limitations and break their barriers from such influences.

?God said that the children of Israel should inhabit the city of Jerusalem without wall. It means occupying without limitation. In life people would measure you and find out which space you can occupy in their opinion?, he stressed.

He said many people have in their mind?s eye their own pictures of what success and achievements mean. ?We determine by what the persons wears, the tone of his voice and his physical status?, he said, calling on Ghanaians to learn to run their own race as categorised in the Good book.

Limitation is a barrier, Dr. Otabil reiterated to a rapturous applause, adding that it is a drawn line that has been placed by society to restrict the advancement of women.

?Nobody has the power and authority to define our limits. You can do all things through Christ who strengthens you? he noted.

The respected minister of the Gospel also admonished husbands not to limit their wives from advancing in life. ?We must feel normal when women advance high up the ladder,? he advised.