Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Believers’ Convention 2023 (Day 6 - Morning Session)
Date: Friday, 11th August 2023
Minister: Reverend Ken Igbinedion
Transcript Excerpt
Thoughts are expressions of kingdoms. Kingdoms and doctrines are birthed through thoughts. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. [9]For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa. 55:8-9). God’s thoughts are high thoughts; that is why His ways are also high. When Satan conquered man, the first thing he did was to set a thought in the heart of man; this is so that man can begin to express a kingdom through thoughts. The thoughts that thereby unfold speak about a king who is a worker. There is a king who is ruling in the air to make people craft a kind of thought that is in line with his kingdom.
Satan tempted Jesus by bombarding Him with thoughts (Matt. 4:3). Satan believed he could draw Jesus away with thoughts, but he was not able to do so. People are drawn into other kingdoms through thoughts. Thoughts craft ways. The civilisations on earth are a product of thoughts, which forms the technologies that inform the patterns of life we live by. Hence, we must be careful about our thoughts.
The thoughts of the kingdom of God must become implanted in our hearts for the Kingdom to come. These thoughts can develop us to be men who no longer get angry when insulted; they will help us to become dead to the world, having trapped a life in God.
"And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your sons cast them out? therefore shall they be your judges. [20] But if I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you." (Luke 11:19-20). That the Kingdom has come upon one does not mean one has entered into it. Some men who desire to enter the Kingdom do not believe in the salvation of the soul message. Satan sowed thoughts of unbelief in the heart of such men to propagate his kingdom. It is such men that join forces with the enemy unknowingly, like the Jews who fought against God and killed Jesus.
Satan killed man by selling thoughts to him. His interaction with Eve in the garden of Eden was a play of words and the telling of lies. The instruction God gave to Adam and Eve meant something different than what Satan presented it to be. Satan crafted the thoughts that derailed Eve. When Jesus instructed, “Take no thought” (Matt. 6:34), it means do not expose yourself to Satan. There are birds of the air (evil spirits) waiting to prey on the souls of men. The same way God comes to your mind through thoughts is the same way Satan comes to it, so we must be careful of the thoughts we take.
When we think of a kingdom, we should first think of it as a dominion, a hold, or a power. The environment one lives in determines the shade of evil spirits that orchestrate kingdom powers there. One of the things salvation will accomplish is to deliver us from the hold of the devil.
The kingdom of God is different from the Church. God raised the Church so that the saints can learn the Kingdom. A church that will prevail against the gates of hell must have been prevailed upon by the kingdom of God (Matt. 16:18). Such a church has to be raised by divine thoughts. The Church is not meant to dominate the nations (or world) but to evangelize men out of the world into the Kingdom. The Church should be the place where God can unveil His Kingdom and it would not be revolted against.LL
God brings us into the dominion of the Holy Ghost to administer Christ before we come into the larger dominion of the Father. The Holy Ghost knows how to accommodate us in our sins till we become better but the Father cannot accommodate sin in any form. The Holy Ghost, through Christ Jesus, is meant to redeem us. This is why we need to learn the faith in Christ. When Scripture says “The just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17), the aim is to conquer the way we live so that we can attain the nature of Christ in our souls. A man is under God's dominion when the way or manner in which he lives has been conquered by God.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: [24] And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps. 139:23-24). When we are set on "the way everlasting", God would deal with wrong thoughts that will eventually erase our wrong ways. When God's thoughts are planted, all wrong ways will be done away with. Man is a custodian of ways. Satan, through his fallen spirits in the air, knows how to send rays of certain thoughts to our minds so that we can be cultured in a certain way. These spirits are supervisors of certain kinds of thoughts that will make us live in a certain way designed by Satan. We can imagine those thoughts as a cluster of balloons hanging over our minds. When we come to meetings such as this Convention, those thoughts are hacked down as ministers preach. However, when we leave the meeting and return home, situations show up to test the work that has been wrought in us.
“And he said, That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. [21] For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, [22] Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: [23] All these evil things come from within, and defile the man.” (Mk. 7:20-23). The things listed above are not so strong in themselves; they are strong because of external influences that act upon the heart of men. Evil spirits hold men down through thoughts. When a man gets born again, he enters into the dominion of the Holy Ghost through which Christ would eventually be administered to his soul.
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." (Rom. 5:1-2). The peace we have with God presently is fragile; that is, the real issue of sin has not yet been dealt with. However, we have been reconciled to God. This first level of reconciliation is necessary so that we can have peace with God for true reconciliation to begin. This is why every man is invited to come to God just as he is, but some men still want to remain in their state. The Holy Ghost is a mother who can accommodate our excesses, and at the same time make sure we get better gradually. But after the first level of reconciliation, God migrates a believer into another reconciliation.
To have “peace with God” is not the same as having the “peace of God” – the kind Jesus spoke of in John 14:27. The initial peace (with God) can still accommodate certain excesses of our sinful nature, while the latter peace (of God) has to do with salvation – a place where our sinful nature has been dealt with.
Salvation is deliverance; it is the total wellness of our souls. God is a complete Being; this is why He wants to make a man complete. God is Salvation (Isa. 12:2-3; Ps. 27:1). Those who know their God will be strong and do exploits (Dan. 11:32). This implies that those who do not know their God will be weak and exploited (by fallen spirits).
When Jesus was on earth, He grew into a formation by acquiring the things of Christ and the Father. When He asked His disciples to know if they saw the formation, Peter responded, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”. Jesus immediately knew that it was the Father who revealed it to Peter (Matt. 16:13-17). Jesus grew until He became a finished product that can do exploits (Matt. 3:17). Jesus' exploit was to make sure men also tasted of what God did in Him. He became a carrier of the Kingdom in order to also deliver it to man. Salvation is not just a message; it is the making of the person of Jesus in a man. After the spirit of a man is raised at new birth, God progresses further to the salvation of his soul. God aims to save our entire being – spirit, soul and body (1 Thess. 5:23).
The things God is shipping down to us, through His ministers, are good tidings and the good tidings of good (Isa. 52:7). God is good (Mk. 10:18). He also made Jesus the High Priest of good things to come (Heb. 9:11). This means Jesus has the gospel of good things, which is able to alter and save the soul. The soul will be written (ingrained) upon by this gospel in such a manner that when the process is done, what will be seen in such a soul is the life of Jesus.
Learning what God wants us to learn involves unlearning previous knowledge. This means as we are learning God’s thoughts, we must also unlearn our thoughts and mindsets. Jesus told the rich man to sell all he had and follow Him so that He could write afresh on his soul (Matt. 19:21-24). In our process of unlearning, some wrong things will be chiseled out of our souls. The process will involve some thorough purging so that the sheet of the soul can be clean, ready to be written upon by the Lord.
Listen to Audio Here: Being ruled by the thought of God's Kingdom
Blessings!
Akinsola Adebayo - 8 months ago