Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Believers’ Convention 2023 (Day 6 - Morning Session)
Date: Friday, 11th August 2023
Minister: Reverend Magaret Okoh
Transcript Excerpt
Unfavourable situations that come our way should not hinder us from following the Lord. If the Lord has called us, we should rest in Him because He will take us through our situations and lead us to the end safely. We have an opportunity to follow the Lord and we should respond quickly because a time will come when the opportunity will not be available.
Jesus endured all the tribulations for our salvation. If He had given up on the cross, the hope of salvation would have been lost forever, and the pleasure of God would have been destroyed. God has been speaking through the prophets, but now He is speaking through His Son (Heb. 1:1-2). He has been appearing to us and will continue to appear in order to deposit His things in us.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16). God loving the world is an appearance of His love. Although we are in a dispensation of the revelation of the word of God, we make the revelation of the word redundant when our lives are not changing in accordance with the revelation we hear. The purpose of revelation is for us to align with what God wants to do in us. Mary Magdalene is a perfect example of one who longed for the appearance of the Lord. When others gave up, she stayed back; this can only be achieved through patience (Jam. 1:4).
We need patience to follow the Lord because we seek a perfection that will only come into reality after many imperfections have been dealt with. We should look up to God for help so that we can attain perfection. This is because it is wrong to remain in our imperfections; we should not be comfortable in our darkness. God’s appearance in different ways encourages our hearts. Jesus appears to take some things from us and deposit substances of Himself in us. However, many times when He comes, we eagerly keep our darkness and point Him in the direction of other things. Nevertheless, He knows us and will lay hold on our darknesses in order to remove and replace them with His own things.
“And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.” (Matthew 17:3). Moses and Elijah appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration to hand over the prophecies and the law to Jesus. They came to hand over the fulfilment of the prophecies to Him as the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world and to strengthen Him to finish the journey. When God comes, He comes to encourage us and correct our errors. The error of sin and death has been deposited in us, and every appearance of God is to delete sin from our members. The process is painful and riddled with tears, but if we stay through, we will reap the benefits. We should allow God to culture us.
“Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” (John 9:3). We should stop pushing blames on our parents or even ourselves. Some of the things we go through are not as a result of sin, but because we are walking against the powers of darkness. Standing with God is a condemnation to evil spirits. Satan lost God and will also derail any man from going to God; he is jealous of any man seeking God.
“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, [12] Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world…” (Titus 2:11-12). The grace of God teaches us how to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. We must follow God. Religion has kept us in a place of complacency so that we do not become like Christ. Our goal should be inheriting Christ. We should not hold the things of this world in high esteem as they shall pass away (1 Jn. 2:17; 1 Corin. 7:31). We should rather seek to inherit God. Every revelation that we receive should make us humble ourselves and desire more of God. We must seek to know the owner of the revelation.
“That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death…” (Philipp. 3:10). Let us not be afraid of the sufferings of God. The end of suffering is God! Because Jesus rose, we should know that He can raise us too. Our lives may not follow the same physical pattern as His, but in following Him, we will be in alignment with His project of salvation patterned for every individual. We should yearn to do God's will (1 Jn. 2:17) and be dead to the things of the kingdom of darkness. We should get to a point where we cannot respond to the things of Satan.
We should rise above our challenges. There are legitimate needs, but our eternal needs are more important; that is what we should place priority on. We should be encouraged to keep pressing into God because many longed to see this age. We should fulfil God's call over our lives and not compare ourselves with ourselves (2 Corin. 10:12). We must say yes to the will of the Lord. We must go through our seasons in obedience and align with the servants God has placed over us. We must despise the persecution now because what is laid ahead of us is glorious; it is an inheritance that is incorruptible and unfading (1 Pet. 1:4).
God will help us to say 'yes' to His will. As Jesus yielded to God (Philipp. 2:5-8), we must also yield to God. Every extremity is a playground for the devil. Jesus is taking us to a place of humility where we can apologise to even a baby. We should entreat the Lord for this wisdom and pay attention to living well in integrity (Amen).
Listen to Audio Here: Embracing the path to the Incorruptible
Blessings!