Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Writing the Vision Prayer Meeting - Day 3
Date: Wednesday, 12th October 2022
Every promise of God is based on some conditions being fulfilled. We cannot come into any of His promises if we do not obey His commandments. Jesus demonstrated all His life that He was a Being of obedience. Conversation is key; it is for us to please God but also to our advantage. We cannot become anything meaningful in the sight of God if we do not do what pleases God. Our relevance in the Kingdom is based on our ability to hearken to the commandments of God.
Everything Jesus says are the things His Father taught Him (John 8:25-28). He only came to say what His Father taught Him. Jesus was a teachable person; He was humble enough to be taught of the Father. Many times, we have the attitude and presumption that we know what our teachers know or even better than them but Jesus was humble enough to say He only said things He was taught by the Father.
Jesus was taught by the Father by a revelation of things in Him. Correction, rebuke and instruction are part of teaching. Jesus was not born perfect but He was made perfect (Heb. 5:9). There were things inside Him that were not perfect, so He was subject to His Father's teachings, rebukes and corrections. The process of teaching involves communication and some arrangements showing how to react in situations.
“For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.” (Heb. 12:6). We see the kind of son that the Father would receive. The Father loves the Son and commits judgement to Him (John 5:22). In committing judgement, the Father chastens Him. It is not everyone that can be corrected, and this is not a good state. It is good to have a person that one can honour, respect and who can call one to order.
Many times, it might take a long time for God to arrest us Himself. Therefore, it is good to have a person that one is answerable to. We must have someone who can stop us in our tracks and turn us in the right direction. It is the place of the Father to correct, chastise and rebuke. Some are not rebukable and that is not good because such a one would continue in his folly for a long time.
Chastening is part of teaching (Heb. 12:6-7). There is a way chastening would make a teaching register and not be easily forgotten, but this is only possible if we are meek enough. Some may get angry at being chastened, causing such a person to lose the benefit of chastening. This realm of everlasting life is one where we should not despise chastening.
“Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, And teachest him out of thy law…” (Psalms 94:12). Chastening and teaching go hand in hand. Jesus had to go through the process of being chastened to be received as a Son.
Without chastening, we cannot be sons (Heb. 12:8), for it is only when we are chastened that we are sons. The scripture above speaks not of Christ but of everlasting life. At every level, there is teaching. Truth is communicated to us by teaching. There is a truth in Jesus (Eph. 4:20-21) that would be taught to us and there is the truth in the everlasting Father which must be communicated to us through teaching. The truths that are taught make up the commandments that we obey. We do not become perfect in obeying upon our first hearing.
There are things the Lord would command us to do that would be painful to our flesh. For example, in the place of our relationship, God wants us to relate well with one another. Chastisement would come to us when we choose not to obey. When God is dealing with us, we should be quick to obey. The commandments are the commandments of life. God is determined to give us life. There are no shortcuts to getting life – we must do obedience when they are measured out to us.
When we have not been dealt with, we would treat commandments trivially, but it must not be so. Chastenings are not joyous, rather they are grievous at the time but we must endure (Heb. 12:11).
“But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” (Hebrews 12:8). Bastards are those that do not carry the gene and nature of the Father. The reason for chastisement, scourging and correction is for life. A lot of times, God does not need to come directly to correct us, for correction can come through the mouth of our brethren, pastors or however He chooses, for the purpose of life.
We must not focus on the medium through which He corrects us, rather, we must take the correction and make amends. It takes humility and meekness to be able to take corrections from our brethren. God puts us together for the purpose of perfection. A lot of corrections come as a result of our dwelling together.
God knows how to save; He is competent and He knows the best arrangements for our souls. God knows how to place us where our darkness would be exposed. Satan hides in deep places and is surrounded by many justifications for darkness, but it takes God and our brethren to expose darkness and address it by the light that God shines.
The Lord would use our arrangements to deal with us. We must go through these arrangements well and be corrected. Many times, we do not like how God intends to save us from death. We could be more comfortable with relating with elders and treating them with honour but we should also be meek and die to our age in relating with those younger. When we are meek and little, we cannot feel insulted. We must be so little that we do not and cannot take note of insults.
Many of us do not like disrespect. We are hurt by embarrassment. We would be commanded out of our self-righteousness and darknesses. The normal reaction without knowledge of life is to put disrespectful people far off but the knowledge of light would teach us to react otherwise. Naturally, people put a disrespectful person far away because such is not courteous and is ill-mannered, but a higher judgement is that such should not be put away but rather, that one should come lower. This is a good treatment for our souls because of the purpose of inheriting life.
Many times, we cannot endure people because of our age but Jesus endured the slander of men He created. Jesus was well trained by the Father that insults from those He created could not deter salvation. The breakings God puts us through are not because He hates us but because He loves us and wants us to inherit salvation.
“But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” (1 Cor. 11:31-32). The Lord corrects us so that we are not condemned by the world. The judgement God gives us would give us life so that we are not condemned by the world. It is not good to delay in obedience.
The teachings of Christ take a long time because we are coming from carnality. As a result, it takes a long time to change our mindset, values, thought patterns and nature to become Christ–spiritual. We need to be taught to become spiritual. When a man becomes spiritual, the Father takes such and teaches him again in order to bring him into life.
God is tougher on ministers because they would teach others what they have been taught. God would only require that we teach what He has taught us.
Obedience to the commandments of God brings Him into the midst of a people. The people who shall have God dwelling in their midst are those who have kept His revelation. The coming of the Father to the midst of a people is first to teach them the things that would enable them to become a permanent abode for God. The Father must first be manifested to a people because there are things about God that must first be known, and these things are what sum up the commandments of the Father; after which, the Son of God will manifest Himself, and then both the Father and the Son will make their abode with such people who have kept commandments as was revealed to them.
The things of the beginning that have been seen and heard are commandments of Eternal Life. Eternal Life is the life of the beginning. Eternal Life consists of things that can be learned when revealed. When the things that make up Eternal Life are being declared, it is so that they can be learned by obedience, which would then bring a people into fellowship with God.
This fellowship is not that which a babe in Christ engages in with the Holy Ghost, because such does not reveal things of the beginning. Although one encounters God when they fellowship with the Holy Ghost in this measure, God desires to bring a people into the fellowship of the Father and the Son. One comes into fellowship with the Father and the Son as they engage in things which are from the beginning.
A man who does what pleases God always can ask God for anything and it would be granted. God becomes the reality of a man whose obedience brings pleasure to Him. The things that are pleasing to God will be made known when they are revealed. One key to receiving answers to prayers is obedience to commandments. This is so because in keeping commandments, God is being pleased. God desires to reveal the things which bring Him pleasure.
“And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.” (1 John 3:23). To believe on the name of the Son is to believe on the things that are being revealed about the Son; it is to believe on the things that make the Son up. There are laws that framed up the Son, which when being revealed, one must believe on them. The Son of God is the commandment of God to man. When God is revealed to a person, God has commanded such a person. The Son of God will not be revealed to anyone who has not prospered with the doctrine or commandments of Christ.
The revelation of the Son of God is a commandment to love, and as one responds to this commandment, one brings honour to God. The commandment of God is not one that is given to a person; it is a law that makes Him up. Love is the commandment of God; it is what constitutes His being. We will come into a realm of high love where we will love each other in spite of our shortcomings. In this realm, Satan sits and waits to attack the people who will come in. However, they will overcome and prevail. Obedience to the commandment of love is about God and not the person whom the commandment is for. It is His commandment and man ought to keep it.
The message of the beginning is that love ought to abound one towards another. The conversation of Eternal Life, which is from the beginning, is love. God will teach a people this commandment as He taught Jesus (1 Thess. 4:9). The summation of all that God teaches is love. What would bring a man into glory is love; the obedience to the commandment of love is what would carry a man into glory.
A man learns hatred from the wicked one; all that stems from hatred – bitterness, anger, and malice are from the wicked one. One might find justifying reasons to stay on the course of hatred; however, one must seek to obey the commandment of God and walk in love. Although Cain, who was taught hatred by the wicked one, physically slayed his brother unto death, many do not physically slay their brothers. Rather, they slay their brother from their hearts and with the words of their mouth.
The things that have been heard and seen from the beginning would only abide if the commandments that are revealed from them are obeyed. The commandment from the beginning can easily slip from one’s hold if such a person does not take heed (Heb. 2:1).
The Son is our commandment and the only commandment of the Son is love. In milk, there is so much emphasis on love. When the emphasis is on love, we want our faith to always work, and not loving would hinder our faith. To walk in healing, we must not be bitter against our brethren. The solution to ailments and health issues is majorly not in hospitals but in our love walk. We must learn to encourage and comfort, and not condemn.
If we cannot comfort our brethren, we should keep quiet. We also have to cleanse our hearts of bitterness and be able to forgive. From milk to Christ to everlasting life, there is only one commandment – love. God is going to help us so that all our bitterness will be gone. It is very easy to be bitter against our brethren, but we must always bear in mind that they are not perfect.
We must be able to make all manner of excuses for our brethren when their actions offend us. That is a death that we must pass through! We must be skillful in keeping our hearts. We are in a season where we have to walk highly in love because Satan is waiting to stop us.
The enemy hates us. The more judgment we come into, the better we can love. Paul prayed for the Philippian church that their love may abound more and more in knowledge and judgement (Philipp. 1:9). God is going to teach us how to love.
Love is an uphill task. One can reject everlasting life by preferring to hold on to the pain of an offence, but it is actually easy to love. It is not as difficult as the devil has painted it. All we really need is more knowledge and judgement because this is what makes love abound. When a saint displays knowledge without backing it with love, it means that knowledge is not yet owned by the saint.
Jesus did not lay His life for the brethren, rather, He died for the ungodly (Romans 5:6). We have to believe in the Son and that is why He is being revealed to us at this time. Love does not consider people’s infirmities, instead, it overlooks shortcomings.
The person of Jesus is weaved with love. At every level of our walk with God, we must love. The love in Eternal life is congealed love and that is who God is. Therefore, we must deal with our bitterness, hatred and unforgiveness because God is set to give us life. A person who forgives and forgets wrongdoings is wise.
Satan makes us foolish by always bringing people’s wrongdoings to our remembrance, for he knows that love is the key commandment and he wants to stop us. If he cannot get us to hell, his alternative is to make us go to eternity with regret. Satan knows that forgiveness matters. That is why he wants to perpetually keep us in the state of unforgiveness. In the beginning, men did not keep records of wrongs.
The Father was always with Jesus because He continually did things that were pleasing. Believing on the name of the Son Jesus is part of things that are pleasing to God.
“And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16). The conclusion of the whole matter is that we all must love. These teachings will bring grace upon us. We cannot do them by ourselves; it takes judgment and knowledge. We will come into so much knowledge that we would see bitterness as stupidity and unforgiveness as foolishness. We will see rancour and quarrels as childish because we would have been higher than that realm. We should be okay with losing arguments or admitting to being wrong so that we can enter life.
We are entering a death zone where there will be a temptation not to walk in love, but we shall escape by understanding the laws of God (Psalms 119:98). The laws of God come to us by understanding and revelation; they make us wiser so we can escape Satan’s traps of hatred, bitterness and unforgiveness.
God will raise our judgments and increase our knowledge so that we can escape darkness. God is waiting for us at a particular realm and the adversary is also waiting, but we will neither be foolish nor fall into his traps. God will make us wiser than our enemy. We have an adversary but the wisdom of God can make us escape his traps.
Blessings!
Summary
1. Conversation is key to pleasing God. We cannot become anything meaningful in the sight of God if we do not obey what pleases God. Our relevance in the Kingdom is based on our ability to hearken to the commandments of God.
2. It is good to have a person that one is answerable to. We must have someone who can stop us in our tracks of flesh and turn us in the right direction. Some men are not rebukable and that is not good because such a person would continue in his folly for a long time.
3. Jesus was well trained by the Father that insults from those He created could not deter salvation. The breakings God puts us through are not because God hates us but because He loves us and wants us to inherit salvation.
4. Obedience to the commandments of God brings Him to the midst of a people. The coming of the Father to the midst of a people is first to teach them the things that would enable them to become a permanent abode for God.
5. 1 John 1:1. The things of the beginning that have been seen and heard are commandments of Eternal Life. Eternal Life consists of things that can be learned when revealed. When the things that make up Eternal Life are declared, it is so that they can be learned by obedience, which would then bring a people into the fellowship of the Godhead (1 John 1:3).
6. The things that are pleasing to God will be made known when they are revealed. One key to receiving answers to prayers is obedience to commandments. This is so because in keeping commandments, God is being pleased.
7. The revelation of the Son of God is a commandment to love (John 15:12), and as one responds to this commandment, one brings honour to God. Love is what constitutes God’s person (1 John 4:16). We will come into a realm of high love, where we will love each other despite our shortcomings.
8. The message of the beginning is that love ought to abound one towards another. The conversation of Eternal Life – which is from the beginning – is love. The summation of all that God teaches is love. What would bring a man into glory is love.
9. The person of Jesus is weaved with love. At every level of our walk with God, we must love. The love in Eternal life is a congealed love and that is who God is. Therefore, we must deal with bitterness, hatred and unforgiveness in our hearts because God is set to give us life.
10. We are entering a death zone where there will be temptations not to walk in love, but we shall escape by understanding the laws of God (Ps. 119:98). The laws of God come to us by understanding and revelation; they make us wiser so we can escape Satan’s traps of hatred, bitterness and unforgiveness.