Programme: School of the Spirit (SOS)
Date: Thursday, 29th June 2023
Transcript Excerpt
Hebrews 1:8-12
“But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. [9] Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. [10] And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands: [11] They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; [12] And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.”
This scripture though may sound poetic is a reality in the Spirit. The Son encountered temptations in every way; He suffered contradictions just like us. He passed through the eyes of the storm and controversies. He passed through the Jewish system, which is a moral system that will do everything to protect the morality of the society against anything that comes to challenge it. Jesus lived through these times and God led him through all that to raise Him.
When He started preaching, He was facing the Jews and other institutions of the day. He lived through the times we are now, which are the times of contradiction that we men go through. So He understands what we go through but He, despite all the controversies, lived that God would be glorified. He was able to access something greater than the forces that were militating against Him.
God was using the natural to train Him to handle the things divine, things that are higher than the natural, and He became the Lord of glory. He was able to come into the fullness of the authority of the Godhead so that He could also bring man into that experience. By His obedience, man is able to also journey from the realm of creature to the realm of Godhood. Jesus is speaking from the realm He has also attained now. So He understands when He speaks and says everything will perish. He has a program to get creation to its end so that a new creation will truly emerge.
Everything created shall wax old and perish. Jesus has the ability to close ages because ages are in Him. Jesus is the same and does not speak of the foreverness that man's mind is projecting to. There are different efforts that science is exploring so that man can live a kind of life forever. But this everlasting Being, who dwells in a realm that cannot fail, is not existing in man's realm. He is operating from the realms of God's nature and strength. He is representing an order of life of God's righteousness. From this standpoint, creation is marking time because ultimately it cannot survive beyond a certain time. Jesus, who was never marked by age but dwelled in the realm of the Ancient of Days, came to a realm where days are numbered because of us.
Identifying years that would not fail is not of man. The natural lacks strength to hold God's thoughts and sustain His ways. The natural is not sure to obey God's will. Man does not understand what God is saying and does not have the strength to obey God at His frequency, they can be likened to be leaking vessels and broken cisterns that cannot hold water. No matter the intent of man to hold the reality of God, he is not usually able to capture it. God superimposed and tested His life on Jesus. It is true that the years of Jesus would not fail, and like the years of Jesus will not fail, God wants to raise a people whose years will not fail. It is God’s plan of redemption.
Everlasting life shows God’s involvement with creation to make us know His life. Everlasting life is a realm that is made visible and real in the realm of creation. God, when He steps into the realm of creation is the Everlasting God. Everlasting life is a subset of Eternal Life. His state of being Eternal is beyond Creation. We must labour to understand till we see the reality in our minds. The layer of God's provision of everlasting life is to make up for the program that was cut short in the garden. Man fell in the garden and God started a restoration program. We are going to see God coming a lot more to our realm so that we can understand God more clearly.
We cannot come into the life of God because of any of our works, the Life of God is a reward that is given by mercy not because of what we have done. The rewards to the church are not just emblems, they are blessings and allocation that God alone in His sovereignty would give. The blessings are realities of Eternal salvation that God can seal a people. A people who arrive at a point that they can reach His full thoughts and intents. They would be far from the reach of Satan who threatens the works of God in man. We have our own part to do because we have resources being given to us. There remains a certain allocation of God for us to come into and this should give us a sense that this message is not to make a hype of vocabulary.
There are stratas and arrangements around God's things. We are meant to live according to these things. Everything we are being taught is to make us live in the order of God's life. The reason for the knowledge is not for mental assent alone but for us to embody it and have the experience of God's life. The essence of the Gospel is that the image of God can be inherited. It is for us to know that His person and likeness can be inherited. The Gospel is that God's image would be inherited. The people that have been called to inherit His life must hold His life in value. The heir has a sense of worth of the inheritance.
When Esau despised the inheritance, he did not know what was at stake. Though he sought it later he could not get it. God is waiting at a point where He wants to give and give, and we must do all to reach the line of overcoming. When we get there, the Eternal God would be God and would crown His work with Salvation.
The Gospel is that man can inherit God. Jesus obtaining the oil of Gladness is not based on preference. The oil of Gladness is the nature of the throne. God wants to give His eternal substances to us and we must not use His things with profanity. We must respond to Him as He gives us His things. The blessing of this Gospel is that we would come into incorruption and the strength of sin will be broken because a people would learn and live out His ways. For our years to fail is not just talking about the natural timeline of a man, it speaks of our ignorance of the reality of the life of God. God is committed to training our hearts so that we can follow on to know His reality.
God may be dealing with us systematically at some point in time, but when we get to a point we can always look back and see that we have tasted that the Lord is gracious. God wants to keep training us because we do not yet have the reality to take what God wants to bring us into which is Eternal Life. For instance, in the Tabernacle, the Levite who has only been concerned with killing and cleaning animals does not have the reality of the High priest that has entered the holy of holies; they have different realities. These are things that represent our journey into God’s day. As we continue in our journey, God will have to address discontinuities and things that make His reality look disjointed to us.
Presently, some realities are being challenged but it does not mean God's Word is obsolete. The devil is also waging war against humanity, He is laboring to make God's word look like a make believe. God is committed to training us. God put us in the center and He has His rays falling on us in specific ways and running His thoughts to us. He raised vessels who can bring knowledge of life to us. We stand in a time where we cannot be laid back, where we should be mesmerized, our hearts must be able to engage and be truly involved so that we can come into His life and covenant.
2 Corinthians 6:16
“And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them ; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
Hebrews 8:10-11
“For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: [11] And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.”
The issue of the covenant is to get us to a point where we do not have to be taught to know the Lord, because the Everlasting life would be so learnt that it can be passed to generations to come. We would have inherited things that can be passed on to other generations. This covenant is a privilege of God to write His laws. If His laws can be fully scripted on us, we would do His laws and His ways.
The system of education has a rigor of learning to configure our hearts to learn. The system beats our mind to process the learning. The knowledge processes the mind and trains the mind to see. For example, a medical doctor possesses a medical mind such that when he is in a situation, he would follow a process because the rigour of his learning has written something around his mind. The system of education is training their workers to have their minds. They want to give their knowledge so that it would sit. When God wants to give us His mind, there is a process we must be subjected to before the writing can take place. The Eternal Spirit would work a process around us to make the knowledge sit. And it is in that process that God cuts covenants in us, and that things within us would guarantee that God can come. God is keen about what He wants to do, and more so we need to be subject to the Father of spirit. The process of being subject is the process to which we can be configured to receive the writings of God's laws. When we are subjected to processes, our hearts are trained. We do not have knowledge until we have gone through a certain experience that would make the knowledge sit. There is so much learning and there is a process around it. Learning is done under the supervision of His Spirit so that we can come to a place where God's life can be truly written.
This reality is one we can transfer, we should not be satisfied with just what we know now. It is good we have zeal, but zeal needs to be transformed into knowledge until it begins to birth hope in our hearts. This hope is what is going to make us continue in the things of God. Knowledge has to keep coming, at some point we are just excited at God's things. When we are in such a phase, we should enjoy it and use it to run well. As we run the race of process would reach us. The reason is that we would get to a point where we would carry more weight. If we have not acquired weight we would not be able to last. When God trains us, the training God gives is such that it would build capacity in us and we would need it in the times ahead. We need to use the zeal and with time the phase is going to change. Then later it would have built a capacity in us to follow God through.
Romans 15:13
“Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
At every level of our walk there is a hope we are walking with. There is a hope that God will be working in us until we get to the point of having joy and peace. Joy and peace are energies of the Spirit. They would help us to continue believing all the way. As long as we have light we must keep believing. God will keep giving light and we must keep believing because God wants to multiply joy and peace so that we can abound in hope.
We need a lot of hope as this Gospel is being painted to us. If there is not enough hope in our system we would get weary. A time came when God's people started asking, ‘where is the Hope of His coming?’. We would not just keep surviving in hope but we would get to a point where Hope would increase, because the God of Peace is involved and hope will multiply. Apostle Paul is a man that multiplied in Hope. As Paul journeyed the Hope was multiplying, if he was not multiplying He would have fainted. More knowledge was coming and despite the afflictions, He was being fortified to learn and love God.
Acts 26:24-29
“And as he thus spake for himself, Festus said with a loud voice, Paul, thou art beside thyself; much learning doth make thee mad. [25] But he said, I am not mad, most noble Festus; but speak forth the words of truth and soberness. [26] For the king knoweth of these things, before whom also I speak freely: for I am persuaded that none of these things are hidden from him; for this thing was not done in a corner. [27] King Agrippa, believest thou the prophets? I know that thou believest. [28] Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian. [29] And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds.”
This is not just zeal, this is hope and a reality. We must journey to a point where we have the hope of eternal life like Paul did and stood before these men. This hope would change the atmosphere around us and pull divine powers around us.
Acts 28:20
“For this cause therefore have I called for you, to see you , and to speak with you : because that for the hope of Israel I am bound with this chain.”
Paul could see the reality of this Hope from where He was standing. His other people forsook the true righteousness and started pursuing their own righteousness. Paul lamented that they could not really follow the true hope, because they could not see it.
At the instance where the woman broke the alabaster, there were many controversial statements. It is righteous to make an allocation for the poor. The people were angry at the woman and called it a waste, Jesus said No, it was done for His burial. God does not want us to remain in our realm but to come to His realm of vision. Otherwise we would stink with our own righteousness where God has moved past. Based on journeying God wants to move us to a higher level of fellowship of His life; when we cannot fulfill the demand of righteousness, we will not come in. The call to Everlasting life is a call to a separated life. We cannot come in by our existing righteousness. We have to be trained and cultured so that we can respond in obedience and function in God’s realm. They will give us the knowledge of that realm so that it can be our home. The knowledge of that realm will make scriptures open to us and when we walk the face of the earth, we would do so as new personalities.
Jesus did not just journey by zeal, He received knowledge and He lived by that life. The knowledge of the everlasting realm can be learnt and known. As we begin to learn, we would see different facets. We would be engaged in learning and God's thoughts would become clearer. When these things come from God's realm it comes with a lot of power. Despite our different leanings of culture, academics, background, God would break through and make us understand His thoughts. Sometimes our previous leadings can be a hindrance but God through different platforms would make His reality known to us. One of the things that having a traditional Christian background does is that it gives us gravity at heart to be able to receive the present emphases.
We might be at a point where things are not so clear, but we must wait and follow the Light shining in our hearts through the Spirit and as time goes on, things will add up. This learning is different from our academic learning in schools. At some stages, some things are difficult to learn, but as we grow we can relate with them. As we follow in Faith we would come to a point where we would come into full understanding. God would close gaps in our understanding with His life. We must not cast this Hope away, we must let the Hope increase. God needs to become a God of Hope to us and we must abound in Hope. We must abound so that the knowledge of God would be a tangible reality in our hearts. And by the time we wake up we would wake up into His loving kindness. We would come into a level of believing that would be an anchor. We are at different levels of believing, but if we can keep on we would come to a point where knowledge would become wholesome. We would contend for the Faith from a place of reality that has been dawning in our hearts. It is not merely casual learning.
At some points Hope is zeal, at another point it would work out truth and soberness. Soberness is the sobriety and gravity of the soul so that we would be able to fellowship with Truth. At some other point, hope would be red hot, persuasive, potent, inspiring and it would bring the heavens atmosphere down. This hope can be learned and it can be followed. This hope would break on us and it would break like the giving of the Day. The hope will not just be thoughts that cannot survive the pressure of another season of our lives, rather it would be a hope that can make us go beyond the veil. This hope would give the energy of God's life. It would be the energy running our systems. It would change phase from knowledge to build a capacity of an energy of life that would become a character. We might be criticized that we do not have life and character and are only gathering knowledge but we must not be discouraged, we should keep hearing revelation, revelation will turn into Life.
All of these things are a process of God giving us Salvation. The kind of man that God is painting to us is a man that has inherited the incorruptible life and who has come into Salvation. As we respond to God, our hope and connectedness to what God is doing in the Spirit, would begin to increase the activities of salvation around us and in us. It would begin to activate the giving of eternal salvation which is according to God's sovereignty. God will be on the endpoint of giving reward. Satan is afraid because God is looking forward to that day. We can respond in Faith and trust that this giving of the incorruptible which is the Hallmark of God giving us His salvation, that we would take it and embody it till it becomes our life and we would run into the day.
Titus 1:2
“In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began…”
The substance of this hope is being given in these times and God is waiting and dissipating because He has promised. This promise is the substance that will build our hope. When these words come, we must be connected and let this hope multiply because God who cannot lie has promised. This is the gospel: that God has promised. A new kind of men are going to walk upon the face of the earth. God would fold the earth like a vesture but our King stands in a place where He remains Salvation personified. He is not just standing to conquer creation as a show of strength but to conquer sin and death, and to raise a new breed of men who will walk on the earth and live out His righteousness. These are the kind of people that God is looking for.
We have been given a seed to that world and this world is calling for our response so that we can work with the strength of that hope throughout our lifetime. God has promised but we need to fulfill our part in obedience. We need to race into that world where He will show up, where He is waiting for us. We must come to that place where men will operate in the salvation of the Lord and it will be inscribed, ‘the Lord our Salvation will be known’.
Blessings!