Completing the Circle of Life By Obedience (Singlz’ Summit Day 2, Evening Session)
The epistles have an apostolic power to cause a soul to enter into the dominion of God’s life. The New Testament epistles are epistles of wisdom; they are instructions for our reigning. One who has not been instructed in righteousness cannot reign. The old man is a product of a perverted (twisted) throne in unrighteousness.
We cannot break covenant with the old man without being instructed in the wisdom of God. We cannot break the dominion of darkness without another greater force of dominion at work. What powers our life is a dominion. Thus, we cannot merely wish to change from our old ways – we need an infusion of a greater life to enable us change. The old man is a product of the training of a perverted wisdom that is stronger than man. We need a greater power to break attachments to the things that have held us down against doing the will of God.
Solomon was able to bring a kind of wisdom to Israel (1 Kings 4:29-34). Jesus is in fact the true Solomon and as such, He is greater than Solomon. Jesus is the being of wisdom as His life is the symbolism of wisdom which is pressed out in the epistles for us to follow.The whole economy of the New Testament is an economy of grace. Grace is demonstrated as wisdom for living and when grace is being manifested, it teaches us how to live (Titus 2:11-12).
The New Testament cannot be taught outside of grace. Faith and love which are key components of the New Testament are elements of grace. Grace teaches us how to live. Our major challenge as Christians is knowing how to live. Grace is the force of righteousness and when we are taught by grace, we know how to live against the powers of darkness. Grace is evident in the way we live.
The first power of grace made manifest is to teach us how to deny ungodliness (Titus 2:11). Grace teaches us to deny our lives. Ungodliness and worldly lusts are works that the enemy wrath in us; they are ways given to us by evil spirits to live by. Jesus is grace personified (John 1:14) and He empowers us to live against what we call our life. We cannot express the life of Christ except we deny our lives (Titus 2:12).
When we are instructed by grace, we demonstrate God’s wisdom. Any wisdom that does not crucify the old man is not a wisdom that comes from above (James 3:17-18). The authenticity of wisdom in a man’s life is known in his ability to crucify the old man (Colossians 3:5). The old man was constructed by laws, so prayers do not end the old man. This is not to downplay the role of prayer, but prayer in itself is not sufficient to deal with the old man. This is because the old man can also exercise itself in prayer. What liberates a man from the dominion of the old man is wisdom, which comes by the revelation of grace. As such, we have to receive an abundance of grace to reign.
“For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.” (Romans 5:17). When grace teaches us, it instructs us in righteousness. Grace is the teacher of righteousness, which is truth. Truth does not have many standards as the world makes it seem. Truth is consistent, eternal and holds the same strength regardless of race, tribe or tongue; it is what God has put forth as the manual for man to live by.
What is happening to man is an abuse of his person, so he is being used wrongly against the purpose for which he was made. Truth is the manual that is meant to run man’s life and the purpose of walking by the standards of truth is so that we might live. Change brought by truth is real and very practical.
“If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36). Truth is progressive in nature but many times, Christians are not patient enough to follow on to the climax of truth. Many would take prayers as an excuse to follow on to know the truth, but prayer and truth are not alternatives to each other. Prayer should be with understanding and it is meant to strengthen our obedience in truth. One of the major reasons for prayer is to enhance our swiftness in obeying righteousness.
“And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.” (1 Timothy 1:14). We must obey truth from faith to love to complete the full cycle of obedience and when we do this, we cut covenant with life. Cutting covenant with life is a very intentional decision every man must make. All the names of the Godhead we are to be baptized into are layers of righteousness.When we obey the righteousness of the names of the Godhead, we come into the inheritance that these names custode. To receive the full life in the allocation of these names, we must fulfil the obedience of the full cycle of righteousness in these names.
Anytime a man is obeying righteousness, a dimension of grace is made available for him to move onward from faith into love. This is the way a man inherits the fullness of a name. A man cannot be said to be reigning in a dimension of a life if his obedience has not climaxed into the love of that name. We enter into the dominion of righteousness by our walk and until we bear the fruits of a life, we have not reigned according to that life.
What we see in Abraham was a faith process that climaxed into love. Abraham cut an everlasting covenant with the Almighty God. Our spirits are raised from the dead at New Birth, but our soul must be made by our walk in the spirit.
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4). Peace is a dominion in the Kingdom of God (Romans 14:17). This scripture speaks of how a soul will come into the dominion of peace. To be in peace is to reign in the jurisdiction of the new earth; it is how a soul gets into the dominion of the new earth.
“Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” (Galatians 2:16). Faith has different mannerisms and every level of grace has a measure of faith. When we are growing in God, the mannerism of His dealings towards us changes. Faith at different levels expresses itself differently. Faith mannerisms change with spiritual growth.
Faith is always a substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1). When hope changes, the faith mannerism changes as well. All the mysteries of the kingdom of God are given as hope before they become life. The mysteries exist as life in God but they are given to us as hope. Faith is what delivers life to us, not just as hope but as a tangible reality. We need to believe first before we are saved (Romans 10:9-10). The epistle of Paul to the Galatians focuses majorly on Christ. For example, the faith spoken about in Galatians 2:20 is to clothe a man with the person of Christ.
“Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.” (Romans 6:4). This baptism is not for the spirit but for the soul. The end of faith is to put on Christ. What the soul obeys after the spirit is raised from the dead is justification by faith (Romans 5:1). The embodiment of the life of the faith of the Son is not automatic; it comes by personal obedience.
Justification by faith is by crucifying the old man. Christ lives in us when we obey faith. This faith is not to be confessed but to be obeyed. The only way we can become anything in God is by obeying life. The end of each obedience of faith is to be rooted in love. Justification by faith is how the soul is crucified to the old man. All these are within the parameters of grace.
Grace makes all the inheritance in God available to us but faith makes them accessible. All grace are all things of God embodied in the Son, and are broken into stratas of mysteries. Man was created as God’s workmanship (Ephesians 2:10). However, Satan introduced a law that made man his own workmanship and we began to work according to his laws. However, when we got born again, the Lord began to reprogram us.
The works of faith are programs of life in God but God himself is a work. God has works inside Him and His plan is to put inside man, laws that would make him a work of His essence. We are made to become a work of God and this work in us is translated into an enterprise for us to trade with. The wickedness Satan did to man is to make mankind trade with his things. Thus, man now prides in how much he has the things of Satan.
Works are commandments of truths unto righteousness. Christ, the new man is the first work in the Kingdom and He is first preached to us as a promise, before we receive His promise.
“By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.” (Romans 5:2). There is a grace that makes us stand and rejoice in the glory of God. The tabernacle is a pattern of the walk God ordained for us. The Outer Court and Holy Place are measurements of the doctrine of Christ while the Most Holy Place exemplifies the doctrine of God. Every veil in the tabernacle is a holiness. When the angels shout “holy, holy, holy”, it is because God is thrice holy (Isaiah 6:3).
“Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.” (Isaiah 52:1). There are two awakenings in Christ. To get to the point of putting on Christ, a man must have been awakened twice. Charity is a strength, without which, we cannot pursue the hope of the glory of God. After we have put on our strength (charity), we will then be able to put on the beautiful garment (everlasting garment). We need two awakenings to be awoken from death because we died by sin.
We cannot work except we see; we need to see the things that we are hearing to be able to walk by them. When we see, we can walk but some of us have not heard enough to see. We need to be patient to get to this point. Christ can only be raised in a settled environment; we need daily teachings for Christ to be raised in us but it takes time to raise a disciple. The soul must be taught continuously to become a disciple of Christ.
There is the need to teach the flock, doctrine of the milk, doctrine of Christ and doctrine of the Father per time because different people have different needs. Thus, we need to keep teaching and walking as this is how we take their focus away from their needs.
The local church is important for discipling people. The wisdom of God for the local church is that when the soul has been discipled in a local church, such should also attain the stature of being able to disciple others. The order is for discipleship to to be passed on through the local church unto the fourth generation. In 2 Timothy 2:2, Paul was the first generation, Timothy, the second generation, faithful men were the third generation and others were the fourth generation. In every church, there are four generations and we must be intentional about the preservation of doctrine and walking in light.
“Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.” (Acts 6:3). When the brethren in the local church were asked to choose from among them faithful men who will be made deacons, there was no politics in their selection, neither was there a screening process for the seven to be chosen. Within a local assembly, discipleship is important because that is how the life of the doctrine will be passed down.
One of the most evident contexts of discipleship is seen in submission to spiritual authority. This submission is seen in the choices people make, for example, in the area of marriage. A person should not marry the “who” but the “what”. You must always seek to know the content (“the what”) of a person before you agree to get married.
Discipleship is not easy work. The soul must obey righteousness to be separated. Righteousness are like steps on the earth; Jesus walked on the earth and left footprints for us to pattern our walk by. Doctrine is more than knowledge, they are steps (lines) (Isaiah 28:10). The purpose of an example is for us to do the same. As such, if Christ who is our example suffered to enter into His rest (1 Peter 4:1), it is of necessity that we follow the same path of suffering to enter into glory (2 Timothy 2:12). We walk through the Outer Court into the Holy Place to stand. Afterwards, we proceed onward to sit in the Most Holy Place.
At every level of the doctrine, hope is rekindled. Hope is no longer hope when it has been embodied. Christ is preached to us first as hope before we receive Him as a tangible promise to lay hold on. The more we work in faith, the more our hope is renewed and our joy increases. Patience is the character required to keep doing righteousness until we lay hold on life. Many believers do not have patience to get to the climax of faith, which is love (1 Corinthians 13:13).
Spirits are afraid of us becoming works of love and they will stop at nothing to prevent us from becoming God’s workmanship. Our warfare against these spirits is accomplished through tribulation, for it is by tribulation, we will enter into the Kingdom (Acts 14:22). The way we break the jugular of Satan is by glorying in tribulation (Romans 5:3).
“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience…” (Romans 5:3). Most people do not glory in tribulation. A man who is looking for God should pray for tribulations because it is in our tribulation that we find God. Without tribulations, we cannot reign (Acts 14:22). Tribulation is a process of separating us from the things we do not need, hence, we ought to glory in them. Tribulations that were meant by the devil to defeat us can be used for our entrance into the Kingdom when we rejoice in them.
“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; [4] And patience, experience; and experience, hope: [5] And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.” (Romans 5:3-5). Wisdom knows the exact faith process to deal with the old man in us. When we hold onto the hope of Christ, we can never be ashamed. Our journey of faith must end in love. This is the putting on of Christ, meaning that we have been rooted and grounded in love (Ephesians 3:17). Everyday is an opportunity for us to walk in truth and we will know we have mastered this life when we walk in truth.
Round off by Pst Emeka Egwuchukwu
A man is not yet reigning when he has not been made a king. The reign of life is not a reign over people, neither is it about pastoring people. There is a grace given to us to work and there is another measure of the grace given to us to finish the work. There is a grace that would be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:13). This is the season of the appearance of the grace to reign.
Message Ends
