OH, JUST A DAY IN MY NATION....

OH MAY I LIVE TO SEE THE DAY!!!

Oh, How I long that our nation would instead of all the celebrations they hold from year to year, declare a national day of prayer and fasting for which we repent of the ills in our society and seek God's intervention. 

My heart cry is for a change in our value system as a nation and that corrupt men would be truly shamed instead of celebrated as we see it today.

Oh may I live to see the day in Nigeria, When Political Office holders reject gratification and tow the road of selfless devotion to the well-being of our nation.

Oh May I live to see the day, When Justice in Nigeria is blind to the wealth of the guilty and Judgement do not favor the rich.

Oh May I live to see the day, when the Police are beyond corruption and are respected as men and women who enforce the law without respect of persons.

Oh May I live to see the day, when those convicted of corruption are shamed and do not seek public recognition as no one will regard them.

Oh May I see the day, when contractors are held accountable for the work they do for this nation and not have us settle for substandard infrastructure.

Oh May I see the day, when mediocrity isn't celebrated in our nation and our Civil Service offer excellent Customer Service without any form of gratification being expected.

May I live to see the day, when Nigerians will rise up to take stand against corrupt leaders and demand accountability at all levels of government.

May I live to see the day when our nation does not rely on oil revenue for its survival but can be fed by crops grown within its on borders.

May I live to see the again the days of the groundnut pyramids, the Coco Plantations, the cassava farms and the palm oil exportation.

May I live to see the day, we are not asking for new states for our selfish needs but seeking the improvement of the states we already have.

and Most of all, May I live to see the days, When men are judged based on the moral values and principles the stand for and not based on their ethnic orientation when we are to choose for Public office.

Oh May I live to see this Day in my nation, Nigeria

The Convergence- Hope you can come

THERE IS A PATH(VI)

Text: Romans 6:6

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin”. KJV

In the book of Romans chapter 6 you will find 3 types of knowing. Verse 6 is intellectual knowing. You need to be educated because this event has taken place. Jesus by an act of His authority crucified the old man when you were included with Him on the cross. You were substituted. He was your substitute. It was something He did that becomes effective in your life when you connect with that cross by faith. The old man loses his authority to give you direction. The effect of that crucifixion begins to break in on your inside – and the spirit life, the spirit voice, the spirit power begins to knock harder.

Then when you are faced with the same temptations that Adam was faced with in the Garden of Eden, what will you choose? When you ignore the voice of the soul and embrace life, life may not be as intelligent as the voice of the soul; the voice of the soul comes with graphs, charts and maps. It comes with Blackberry pinging and whatsapp messages. But the voice of the Spirit is gentle and it is not cohesive. It doesn’t force. It is the voice of a King; the voice of a loving God.

There were many things Jesus could have been – a tyrant, a killer but He decided to be a God of love that will stretch forth His hands and bring salvation to all people. It is that God that we serve. Not a God that mutilates and kills and sheds blood. So choose Jesus. And as He rises up within your heart to point the path of spiritual progress; when He says, ’Fast’ He is pointing a path. Will you yield? Everything depends on your obedience.

Now that the cross as put an end to the old man; yes the old man is still there trying to speak from the grave. But the new man is trying to seek a place where he can have authority with you but you will make a choice of what will rule you. Hence, the first law of the spirit realm; whatsoever you yield yourself as servants to obey, servants of the same you shall become.

If you decide to turn away from light and to embrace darkness; you will be dark and your darkness will be blackness. If you choose to face mammon and you make the God of breakthrough your God, mammon will possess your soul. Until you come to a point where the only thing you can think about is gain and money and your estimation of progress and spirituality will be on how much money you have gotten today. And that is why we have many Christians that leaped out of the path of spiritual progress and embraced mammon for so many years. They experience dryness of soul and hunger of spirit because mammon doesn’t come alone. He comes with a veil to cover your eyes and keep you perpetually in bondage. But somebody needs to say today, I WILL ARISE!

We need to make a choice that will open up the vistas of the kingdom. That was how men like John became valiant in the kingdom of God when the Spirit began to beckon upon them. God is willing to open a path for you, but the extent to which you will go is dependent on how much of obedience you subscribe to. He says come up hither and I will show you things that will take place hereafter.

You know you are not used to the spirit life. You will always fall to that terrain that you have used. You trust your mind; you trust your analysis much more than the voice of the Holy Spirit. BUT THE HOLY SPIRIT LURKS IN YOUR HEART. IF YOU CAN GIVE HIM HALF A CHANCE, HE WILL GROW AND BECOME SO ENLARGED THAT YOUR EYES WILL BECOME BLIND TO EVERY OTHER THING EXCEPT HIM.

You say you want to conquer sin, how much have you turned to Christ? If you turn to Christ and make your body a slave of righteousness –‘that I will only do His will, I will always do right. I was bought with a price. It means I am His property. I cannot do what He will not permit me to do with my body. I am going to stick with Him even though heaven falls, I will stick with Him. Even though hell rages, I will stick with Him’. It is a radical decision. That is why the Bible says, “That the laws were changed from the time of John the Baptist until now”, it will be by radical violence that you will embrace the kingdom of God and every charlatan; every slow paced personality does not have a place when it comes to fighting for the enthronement of spirit life. It will be and must be by war!

You cannot become a successful Christian without being a radical. You will have to fight and rebel against sickness. You will have to fight and rebel against that which wants you to disobey God. You must come to that point where even though they call you names, your story will be that, ‘I am going to walk this path for all my lifetime until the devil becomes convinced that he has lost me’. That is when the grain has fallen to the ground and died. Even the devil himself had lost hope..

May that be our testimony in Jesus' name

THERE IS A PATH(V)

Text: Luke 1:28

“And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women”. KJV

Please follow the series and you are going to see the path. When God came to Mary and said ‘You are blessed and highly favoured’. He didn’t give her a Rolls Royce. He did not open a bank account and wired it with 5Million naira. He did not give her a suit made from San Francisco. Meanwhile, when that salutation came and after it came, she became an outcast. She was to suffer the fate of an outcast among the people. The husband being an honourable man was planning to put her away privately. We need to re-evaluate what we call blessing. It is because there is no teaching again in the body of Christ that is why a charlatan can stand up and say he had a vision and the vision does not reveal Christ. Meanwhile Christ is the subject of scripture according to Luke 24:44-45. How come God says Mary was blessed and highly favoured? She was highly favoured and blessed because of the path she was going to follow. That path was going to subdue everything of flesh for her destiny in spirit life which she cannot perceive even though an angel is bringing it. An angel brought a scroll from the archives of heaven and read it out, ‘you are blessed and highly favoured’. It means in all of time and among women in all ages, to the end of the world you were chosen as a matriarch because it was written concerning you but you cannot see this destiny in the flesh. But I am going to advance you on a path; that path will reveal it. It was that path she was going that she suffered rejection. It was that path that she was going that her husband almost separated from her. You know it is a terrible thing for a woman to be in situation where the husband will separate from her. That was the path, though crooked, that she must walk upon in order for the things that are written concerning her to find expression and that is God’s will for her and because of that; she is blessed and highly favoured. The path ensured that flesh be conquered. God only called people that were on the path of spiritual progress blessed. Suct that no matter the peril you go through, the things written concerning you will come through in time and even while you stumble, He says 'oh, blessed and highly favoured’. Even when you are about to fall; you are about to be cast out; if the angel comes again, he won’t change his mind. Maybe you looked upon your wardrobe and the dry desert wind blew through your window and revealed that your best trouser just had a hole. If only you can hear the angles cry, ‘thou art blessed’. Your condition may affect you but it didn’t affect your destiny. If you live in in the context of the soul life, you will be discouraged by the events, but it is only in the Spirit that you can see through the vistas of God. Sometimes, people reject you in the whole family and you are like an outcast. Meanwhile, you are closer at that point to destiny. God says you are blessed and highly favoured. A man alone with God is majority. If you have never been rejected before, you may never have been on the path. When men go through trouble they don’t forget it. And they will not want to go back to the trouble so they will prefer to walk in the Spirit – it is a burden. God will create and orchestrate a situation that will perpetually keep you on the path of spiritual progress. No human being can come there; no human will desire to stay there except by an act of the sovereignty of God; you are pushed. Every true man that has walked that path cannot tell you the story of how he got there. That is why boasting is excluded. It is altogether an act of His sovereignty; it is altogether by the faith of the Son of God. On the path of spiritual progress, the grain must fall and the husk must die. The life that covers your spirit; that gives you an alternative when the Lord is speaking through your spirit, that life that furnishes that alternative; that life must be subdued so that the accurate passage of spirit life can break forth from one dimension of glory to the other. (Amen) When the grain of wheat falls to the ground and the elements react with the husk; the moisture in the earth will dilute it and react with it and kill it and it begins to rot. Jesus calls that process, ‘blessed and highly favoured’. Many things have come from the pulpit that has engendered babyhood Christianity and the path of spiritual progress has been blocked. But we are going to mount up with wings as eagles. That limitation and restriction must be taken away so that people can come to their true God and people can embrace their Saviour. Amen. And the Lord will help us so to do as we progress in Jesus' name

THERE IS A PATH(IV)

Text: Romans 6:6-9

“Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him”. KJV

In the last study we emphasized that there is a consciousness you have exercised longer than the spirit life that makes the path of spiritual progress difficult to find.

In order for God to help us out, He did something significant; that is where the core of our study begins in Romans 6 – Our inclusion with Christ; the elements of the Christian faith or syllabus of the Christian life. Our goal is that at the end of this study you will be able to judge prophecies, utterances and even certain actions, whether they are from the soul or the Spirit. The consciousness will reveal it.

In Romans 6, there are three times that we are admonished to know things, verses 6, 9 and 19.
The words used in Romans 6:6 and Romans 6:9 are different.

Romans 6:6 says “knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin”. KJV

Romans 6:9 says, “Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him”. KJV

Verse 6 talks about knowing through your senses, teaching, instruction, and education. That is natural knowing.
Verse 9 talks about a knowing that is deeper than that which you get from the lecture room. This knowing is a function of the operation of the SPIRIT OF WISDOM AND REVELATION.

If we don’t go through this path, it will be difficult for you to understand your Christian life. So we are going to the root of Christianity to draw up a process.

The first step on the path of spiritual progress is called the KNOWING OF REVELATION. It is the sign of spiritual health. If the experience of the knowing of revelation is not something that is sustained in your life, you may not be able to maintain a consistent walk on the path of spiritual progress.

In Romans 6:6, the bible says, “knowing this” – This is a knowing you can acquire when you are taught.
Paul is saying in order for us to advance in our spiritual life there is a knowledge that we must receive. First, the Bible says we must be empowered with the knowledge that our old man was crucified. Why was our old man crucified? It was so that the body of sin might be destroyed.
Before we proceed, it is important we understand what it means for the old man to be crucified. The easier theological name for old man is the soul life. It is operating in that soul life that makes one operate like Adam. As long as a man operate from the consciousness that comes because of the life in the soul; taking decisions from there; and options that comes out of the intellect. He said as long as one functions that way he is functioning like Adam.
Meanwhile in the book of Romans, especially Romans chapter 5 & 6, you will see two men, two things they did and two consequences. The two men are Adam and Christ. The two things: Adam rebelled against God and Christ submitted to God. And Christ’s submission to God was unto the ultimate demand of submission which was submission to the point of death. Adam created a race out of his disobedience and Christ also created a race out of his obedience.
So you are either of Adam or of Christ. You can be born again and still be of Adam. It means you are born again but you don’t function from Christ, you function from Adam and the results you are going to get are the results that Adam got which is separation from God.

Separation from God is not just physical death, which will happen eventually. There is a separation from the anointing of God because such a person functions from the soul life. So he is not in touch with the resources that God has made available in his spirit with which God intends to accomplish His agenda on his life.

In order for us to be spared from that possibility, God did something that we could not do. He crucified the old man. Our soul life was nailed to the cross. The reason why that soul life had to be crucified, brought into death, is to give the Spirit life the advantage to grow, so the path of spiritual progress can be in view. As long as you function from the technology of your soul, access into spirit life is not in view.

Jesus said in John 12:24 that “except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone…"
When you harvest wheat or rice, it has protecting the seed. Jesus used that to illustrate the spirit life that except a corn of wheat fall to the ground and dies, the grain experiences what we call the abiding alone syndrome.

Jesus did not promise us just life; He promised us abundant life (John 10:10). If you are not operating from the realm of abundant life, you are living short of what Jesus promised.

This illustration that Jesus gave is to give us insight into the soul and the spirit. The husk is the soul and the grain is the spirit. And so Jesus said except we release this grain and it falls to the ground so that the moisture in the earth and the minerals in the earth can react with the husk and kill it, the grain can never spring forth with life.

There is a battle here; the battle for the death of the grain. That is why God said the old man or the soul life was crucified to give a passage way for the spirit life to germinate so that you can be delivered from the abiding alone syndrome.

The challenge is this, the soul covers the spirit totally because you are used to operating by the soul. If the soul life is still held in place, it will hinder any expression of spirit life. Have you not seen some people that are born again but there is no evidence of it and their character does not reveal it? Why? It is because the soul covers the reality that the spirit has captured and it does not allow it any form of expression. And so Jesus said except the corn of wheat falls to the ground and dies, the abiding alone syndrome occurs. It means Christ cannot move from that person’s life to shed His glory through that life on another life; he abides alone. He can’t go beyond himself because the self-principle is still intact in that life. So that life cannot manifest the glory of God because that life will only manifest the glory of self.

When that soul life dies, that coat dies, that covering dies; loses its ability to influence; loses its ability to manipulate your decision making processes, you come to a point where spirit life can now find a room; ventilation sufficient for it to begin to sprout out.

At this point you know you are set on the path of spiritual progress.

We shall continue from here next time. Rem

THERE IS A PATH (III)

 

Text: Job 28:7-8

“There is a path which no fowl knoweth, and which the vulture’s eye hath not seen. The lion’s whelps have not trodden it, not the fierce lion passed by it” KJV

It is needful for us to understand this path.
Now, we have given our lives to Christ, and because we have given our lives to Christ the consciousness of Spirit things has come through the Spirit of God that is in our spirit. But we have a challenge; the challenge is your dependence on the soul for as many years as you lived before you gave your life to Christ is going to obstruct the perspective of this new consciousness.
Hence, the path of spiritual progress is the path that the fowl does not know because it is clustered and cumbered; a place that the vulture’s eyes have not seen because it is shelved in by an oversized soul that you are so used to living by.
It is difficult to access and function from that path consistently. Even the pastor knows that is why he decided to reduce the scope of his teaching to what will embolden the soul so that the people will be comfortable with his message because he knows that if he is going to preach in such a way as to bring the people to the path of spiritual progress it is going to be quite some challenge for them. They will have to make decisions. They have to come to that point where Christ becomes the centre and circumference of their being and that is a radical decision to make. And he knows that the average Christian that has not seen the glory and the Excellency of the knowledge and the personality of Christ will not want to embark on such a journey. So he is likely to lose members and lose involved participation so he now changes his posture and decides to give men ‘false hope’.

When God promised Abraham a son, how many years did it take for the son to find expression? How many times did he make mistakes? He went into his maid and produced a strange child that is a burden to us even at this time. Why? Because you cannot locate the path of spiritual progress even if you take deliberate intention to locate it. The pride of a lion doesn’t give him access to that path. So your pride and the exertion of your ‘will’ will by no means reveal that path. It is a path that you cannot study into, you cannot be taught about. It is a path that must be REVEALED to you.
It only takes the transport that is initiated by the Spirit of God to bring you into that path.

It is easier for a pastor to say it is time for breakthrough especially because it is not contradicting the word of God. God speaks about increasing you, multiplying you. True! But we need to understand that when God administers His counsel in the life of mortal men as examples, IT TOOK A PATH. But we don’t like that, the pastor is in a better position to ignore that there is a path.

God promised Abraham a child and it took 25 years before the child came. Why did it take so long? Meanwhile, before the 25years he produced a child that was not part of the prophecy. Because every time he exerted his will he produced something else but the path was still there. It doesn’t matter how many years of religion you do. Those days we used to wear short trousers that were suspended. We thought by exerting ourselves we will find the path. Lions have been denied access.

The average Christian for example has embraced religion and thinks that was the witness that was borne by our first fathers. There is darkness in the land and we need to see it. In a city like Lagos for example, people preach in the bus and say things like, “If you wear trousers you will go to hell”. Who taught this people? That is not an evangelical message. An evangelical message is the example Peter gave us on the day of Pentecost – It is presenting Christ. And the man believes because his preaching is sanctimonious and pious that he is on the rock. That is a delusion. Jesus must be returned to the altar. There is a path!

When Adam declared independence instead of him to function by the divine life, he began to function by the life of the soul.
Jesus made a lot of strange statements and most people that heard him did not understand what he was saying. They felt He was not of this world. For instance, Jesus said,
“He that loveth his life shall lose it …“(John 12:25).
He used words like ‘he that loveth the life of his soul’. The life of his soul talks about the consciousness that comes from the soul.
There is a consciousness that comes from the soul; it furnishes knowledge of me. He is self-centered and self-seeking. He builds weapons of self-defense; entertainment for self-adornment, work for self-sustenance, and everything that he thinks about is that which will give nourishment to self.
You can decide to build your world on it. But Jesus knows that if that consciousness is kept unchecked, you will never grow in the life that brings the consciousness of the kingdom of heaven. And so He needs to do something about that consciousness if you are going to grow in kingdom consciousness.
There is always a choice for you to make even if God speaks to you; there is contention that comes because there is a consciousness you have exercised longer than the spirit life. That is why the path of spiritual progress is difficult to find. Because the average man that comes to Christ is not willing to give up the perspective of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that speaks through his consciousness of the soul.
The Lord will help us in the name of Jesus Christ.

We shall continue from here next time. Remain in His grace.

THERE IS A PATH (II)

copied from Remnant Christian Network

 

Text: Genesis 2:7

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” KJV

We have embraced and romanced religion for too long. Now let us find out the original path that the apostles walked on. What could change a common fisherman to become one that speaks about a kingdom that is not visible?
Some of us have done religious things before that were empty of God. We came out from grace and were living by laws. And all the insufficiencies of our humanity showed up again.
You will notice that as prophetic as the birth of Jesus Christ was, it had nothing to do directly with your redemption. His birth was prophetic but there is no direct connection of His birth with anything in your life. Where the connection began from is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. That is the high point of His operation. It is on the basis of those three things that we are included with Him. So when the story of a Christian is told, his life and everything about him is back dated to the cross at the point of salvation.
So our point of inclusion with Christ is the cross because the cross is the point of substitution. And the reason why God had to include us (the believers) with Christ was because God’s estimation of the old creation was that the old creation could not serve the purpose of God. And everything that was of the old creation will have to be subjected to the death test. The old creation can neither be modified nor upgraded. Everything that is part of the old creation comes under the judgment of death because of the cross. THE CROSS ONLY SPEAKS DEATH AS ITS PRONOUNCEMENT OF JUDGEMENT ON THE OLD CREATION.
In case you are confused as to what the old creation is, let us go a-back and gain a little insight.
In the book of Genesis, man declared independence because God wanted man to be a creature that was created in the image of God. All other creatures were made after their own image. But the design pattern for man was that man was to be a being that will function after the image of another. So the creation of man is not accomplished according to God’s specification if the product that results is not a being that sustains the image of God. God’s idea for man is that man will be a being that function the way God functions because he thinks the way God thinks, he understands the principles of God, he functions the way of God. That is man’s calling. That is man’s ordination by destiny.
God Created Man (Gen. 1:27) - The aspect of man God created was immaterial. That part is his spirit.
God formed man (Genesis 2:7)- The aspect of man God formed is the physical part. For He formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul.
The implication of that statement is that man sustained consciousness in his soul. So the most conscious part of man was his soul.
Man according to Genesis chapter 2 became a living soul. So if he wants to make a decision, it is the awareness that comes from his soul that he uses as the basis of his evaluation and the basis of his decision making. For instance, when he wanted to make a choice of whether or not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in his consultation processes, he said that the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes and desirous to make one wise which were all analytical (Genesis 3:1-8). In order words, consciousness was in the soul. The soul became the strongest point of his consciousness. That being that has his consciousness in the soul was not man by God’s design.

At that point in the creation process, Adam was man in the image of man. So man in the image of man has his strongest consciousness in his soul. What the consciousness in the soul does is that it gives you a consciousness of you.

If man had been in the image of God, he would have had to eat of the tree of life and the implication of eating of the tree of life is that the Spirit of God would have tabernacle from henceforth in his spirit providing a different line of consciousness; and the consciousness he would have had is that he would have been a Being that is conscious of the realm of God.

Notice: Jesus said if a man be born again, he will have the capacity to perceive the kingdom of God (John 3:3) – that means a new consciousness is born and the proof of life is consciousness.
So the Adam in the Garden of Eden is the Adam that was man in the image of man. God wanted him to choose which line of development he wanted in his existence – if he wanted the spirit life to develop or if he wanted his soulish human life to develop.
On the strength of his choice; he chose that his soul-life should be the line of development. That means his destiny and the result of such a choice is something different from what God originally intended. His destination, his endpoint was going to be different from what God intended. He was not that man that was consistent with the design of God. He became a different creature that does not have the capacity to fulfill God’s will and God’s purpose and could not by any means attain to God’s end. That was the day Adam declared independence meaning that with the faculties of the soul that has developed he can take decisions for himself. He can do what he wants; he is conscious of himself. This is the summary of what the old creation represents.
Meanwhile, if he were in the image of God, he would have been conscious of God; conscious of the ways of God. That consciousness was going to rule his entire being and pedestal him as a creature that can access the dimensions of God in the heavens and bring that template into manifestation upon the face of the earth. But since Adam chose a different form of consciousness he was going to live thereby from the soul which is a diminished state of existence compared to what God was offering us.
We shall continue from here next time. Remain in His grace.