Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: School of the Spirit (SOS)
Date: Thursday, 10th February 2022
Ministering: Pastor Emeka Egwuchukwu
Scriptures are tied to journeys. Certain scriptures will not open to us until we come to a specific point on our journey. People often come into heresy when they are not patient with the journey and try to force scriptures to open. Scripture is living and is one of the greatest miracles that ever happened to mankind; the scripture is not like any other book. There are certain righteous rituals that need to be performed at certain junctions in order to bring out certain levels of breath from the scriptures.
Within the scriptures are locked up conversations that can take a man out of the earth and into God. Your walk of obedience are sacrifices and rituals in the spirit. In the life of Jesus, He got to certain points “that it might be fulfilled which was written” (Luke 4:21, 24:44). He had been trailing scripture by the Spirit, thereby fulfilling obedience that would bring Him to the point of fulfilling scripture. Scriptures would not be unlocked until we fulfil certain measures of obedience. We struggle with scripture because we have not obeyed certain commandments or the leading of the Spirit.
There are things that the Lord, by the Spirit, might require of us to do for scripture to open, including forgiving others and reconciling with those who have ‘ought’ against us (Matthew 5:23-24). We must enquire of the Lord what He would have us do for us to come into the understanding of scriptures and doing of fellowship. We must be diligent with instructions this season and quickly obey them.
You need to agree with scripture for it to be opened. You need to consciously adjust your heart and agree with some doctrines or instructions for these things to open. Sometimes, we might also be required to move away from certain evil thoughts because they corrupt and often hinder us from having entrance into the living scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:33).
Under the Old Testament, loving your neighbour and hating your enemy is recorded in Leviticus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 23:3-6. No one can refute these statements that were made by the Lord in the Old Testament without having a higher light or judgement. It must have been impossible for the Jews to obey the law of charity towards their enemies. It would take the coming of a higher judgement for them to be able to do charity to their enemies; therefore, God did not require this of them.
The commandment they were given was not a commandment from the beginning (Matthew 19:8). The Lord knew their ability and gave them a commandment that they could keep. The Lord would not give us a commandment that He knows we cannot keep. If He gives us commandments, He would make grace available.
On the subject of divorce, Jesus revealed that the bill of divorce was not from the beginning and Peter responded that such commandment was difficult and it was better not to marry (Matthew 19:3-10). This means that if everlasting commandments are brought to many of us, we would not be able to bear them. That is why the Lord, in wisdom, does not begin by making such demands from us but first makes provision for lesser measures of commandments in preparation for the ultimate commandment.
We need to journey to a point where They will show us everlasting standards as it is noted in the scriptures of truth. Moses was a lawgiver and the laws he gave must have come from the counsel of the Lord, but tempered according to the hardness of the heart of the people (Mark 10:5). This implies that there is a measure of sensitivity that a man’s heart must have for him to be given certain levels of commandment. The heart is made sensitive by constant obedience to commandments.
A heart can be hardened when it has not done the required obedience for the level of sensitivity that is required for higher light. The solution to an insensitive heart is for light to work on it. Scripture encourages us to guard our hearts with all diligence (Proverbs 4:23). The issues of life are the issues of light that a heart can hold and respond to (John 1:4). The issues of life will not flow out of a heart that has not held light and judgement. Sensitivity of the heart is achieved by continuous circumcision of the heart. We are the circumcision of them that respond to God who is a Spirit; that is, the Father of light and the One who gives light.
The everlasting commandment from the beginning is that a man does not put away his wife. The New Testament is tough because we are not only accountable for our actions but also for our thoughts. A heart can commit fornication merely by looking lustfully (Matthew 5:28). Your body will only do what you have done and been doing in your heart. Cain killed his brother because his deeds were evil (1 John 3:12). Cain, because of the transactions of his heart, saw his brother as an enemy or a limitation.
Any commandment that is not from the beginning can still be used and overridden by sin. Even after the fall, Adam still had enough spiritual sense to keep his home and thereby keep the beginning commandment. Cain was the first man to marry two wives. Polygamy is synonymous to putting away. When a man cannot be with his wife alone, he has already put her away in his heart. If you put away your wife in your mind gradually, you will soon put her away physically (Malachi 2:16). God hates putting away and sees divorce as violence. He requires that we should not deal treacherously, that is, betray our wives in our hearts.
There are certain things that were not so from the beginning. As everlasting light shines, it will show us things that were not so from the beginning; including some of the things that we have held onto until now. That is what will bring us to the place of being perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. This will be impossible without the light that our heavenly Father is using. We need to see from the perspective of God. The Father hates divorce and anyone who puts away has violated another person’s heart, the everlasting code and the everlasting company. The code that the everlasting company lives by is the love of the brethren.
A stranger is one who has picked up a different conversation–one that is strange to this world. By picking up everlasting commandments, we become strangers. What makes us strangers is the light we are using, including the commandments of everlasting life. Those who live by the commandments of everlasting life are brethren who are separated by the light.
The Israelites were supposed to love those who were hostile to them on their journey of Christ and who, instead of helping them, hired Balaam to curse and limit them (Matthew 5:44). In the days of doing Christ, which is the wilderness, we would be attacked and hindered. However, the Father requires that when we get into the promised land, we behave differently. What would make us behave differently is the light that is governing the promised land, which requires that we love and do good to the Amorites and the Moabites.
The epistles teach us to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). The normal response to evil is to recompense evil but this is not so with love. Charity will cover a multitude of sins because it will not harm, work ill or think evil even to those who are thinking evil against us because we are strangers.
Those who have cursed, limited and hurt us in the season of Christ, including those who have not stopped or repented of persecuting us because of what we believe, are meant to be loved. We are supposed to love and pray for them. If we have an opportunity to help them, we must also help them and do good to them. We must not do evil. Evil that is responded with evil only multiplies, whereas, evil that receives love is depleted. The strength of evil is depleted when love is the response.
Charity has strength to swallow and overcome evil. We must not receive wrong counsels that want to discourage us from doing good as against evil. We must be ready to be misunderstood in this season. In the days of everlasting commandments, we will become strangers and pilgrims because we are going towards Eternal life. Even when everyone around us might think of us as strange, we must not relent in obedience. It is strange to love your enemy, do good to them that hate you, and to pray for them that despitefully use you and constantly persecute you. It is a high commandment.
Some of us conclude perfection as something we will receive when we get to heaven and not attainable on earth. According to the scriptures, anyone who is able to imbibe the conversation in Matthew 5:44 is perfect. Anyone who can do this commandment, can do every other thing that is required of a perfect man (Matthew 5:48). Therefore, we need to journey to be able to obey this commandment.
There is a perfection that is in Christ, and there is another perfection that is in the Father. The perfection referred to in Matthew 5:48 is the perfection of the Father, not the perfection of Christ. The instruction to be perfect like the heavenly Father requires the everlasting light. This is why we can infer that Christ, in the days of His flesh, did not teach Christ but everlasting life. In Him was everlasting life and the life was everlasting light, which men ought to learn (John 1:4).
Jesus taught the perfection of the heavenly Father in Matthew 5:48. Luke refers to this perfection as being merciful (Luke 6:36). We are meant to journey to the point where we are merciful. This explains why mercy is regarded as one of the weightier matters of the law (Matthew 23:23).
Charity defines the stature of a man who has fully attained Christ and it is that kind of man that will be taught the commandments of the Father. Charity, the bond of perfectness, is similar to a crown or accord of a perfect man who has come to a place where he is full and sealed (Colossians 3:14). That bond is actually mercy (Matthew 5:7). If you are not merciful, you can not keep yourselves in the love of God. You need to find love commandments according to everlasting life and keep yourself there in order to find the mercy that is unto Eternal Life (Jude 1:21).
The commandment of mercy is the commandment of love. While charity is the peak of the commandments of Christ (1 Timothy 1:5), the peak of the commandment of everlasting life is mercy. In other words, the bond of perfection in the Father is actually mercy because mercy is a higher judgement (James 2:13). Mercy gives you a high judgement that will make you constantly triumph or overcome.
Charity is an ‘above’ commandment (Colossians 3:14, 1 Peter 4:8), that is, it is Their commandment. ‘Above’ refers to someone–the One who is above and who is above all (John 3:31). The commandment of charity is one that will take a man and bring him above, that is, make him overcome. To be above is to overcome or triumph.
Charity at the level of everlasting life is called mercy. God is referred to as the God of all mercy; that is His Father dimension (2 Corinthians 1:3). God is merciful even unto those who hate Him and break His laws. He allows the sun to shine both on those who acknowledge Him and those who do not. Because of the work that Satan has wrought in man, we often find it difficult to show mercy or kindness to someone who has done us wrong. Anyone who hates his brother has an occasion to stumble in him (1 John 2:9-10). That attitude of refraining from doing good to a brother who has offended you is an occasion of stumbling, which has to be removed.
The Lord will always ask you about ‘your’ brother’ the way He did to Cain, the. Some of us need to be healed of the infirmity of flying solo. Your heart should always have space for your brother. Anybody should be able to fit into that ‘brother’ space in your heart, including those who do not fit our preferences. That space would be enlarged by the Lord to, not only accommodate your sister/brother, but also anyone and everyone. What Joseph's brothers did to him was enough to end brotherhood in his heart. However, his response to them when they showed up after many years typifies a perfect man (Genesis 43:30).
Heaven had taken time to enlarge Joseph’s heart and he had come into an everlasting conversation. This was why he judged that what his brothers meant for evil, God had turned around for their good. He knew that they did not know what they were doing. It is everlasting judgement to agree that those who persecute us do not know what they are doing, irrespective of how it seems in the physical (Luke 23:34).
God is merciful. After Cain had killed his brother, and still answered God brashly when asked of him, God did not take it too hard on him. Cain’s response showed his insolence, stubbornness, and ingratitude (Genesis 4:9-12). The Lord proceeded to ask him, ‘What hast thou done?’. When the Lord asks a question of this sort, it is not as though He did not know what Cain had done, but is seeking to see if there is any iota of repentance in the heart; perhaps there was anything left of it that can make Him restore the heart.
God did not curse Cain but only brought to his knowledge what had transpired in him by reason of his killing his brother (Genesis 4:11-12). God, who gave the instruction, ‘curse not’, will not curse either (Romans 12:14). When He told Adam, “cursed be the ground for thy sake” (Genesis 3:17-19), He was not cursing the ground but was only bringing Adam’s awareness to the state that the ground had come into because of Adam’s violation.
God did not curse Cain, thereby making him a fugitive; the action he committed brought him into that state. Murder is a grave sin. There are sins that must not be committed because they leave the offender in a terrible state afterwards. One of such sins is adultery; something leaves the soul when it is committed. The other is murder, you injure yourself by doing so. Another sin is the pursuit of riches; you pierce yourself through with many sorrows (1 Timothy 6:10).
By killing the law of brotherhood that was in him, Cain became a fugitive and a vagabond. God did not punish Cain; he brought the punishment upon himself when he broke the laws God had set (Genesis 4:13-14). This is not to say that God does not judge men when they do wrong; but when He judges, the goal of His judgement is to save. He is referred to as the righteous Judge (2 Timothy 4:8), that is, His judgement is righteousness; it gives one the sense of what is right. Whether we believe the laws God set or not, they are effective.
Cain drove himself to being a vagabond and fugitive because of sin that had worked in him. Yet, when he cried out to God, he complained and made statements of verdicts that God did not pass on him. He did not even care about the wrong he had done to his brother but was selfish in his reasoning. He was only bothered that anyone who found him would slay him, even though he had slain his brother. Yet in these all, God was merciful to him and put a limitation on his punishment (Genesis 4:15-16). The mark God placed on Cain was a mark of preservation, so that he would not be killed. This tells us how merciful our heavenly Father is.
When you keep the doctrine that was delivered to you, you are made free from sin (Romans 6:17-18). Just as the law of Christ delivers from sin and death, the law of everlasting life delivers from everlasting condemnation. It is only a man who has done charity, and by so doing has gained sufficient spiritual muscles, that can keep the instruction contained in Luke 6:35, "But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil". This is a law of the Father.
All God’s laws that are given to us are for our sake. For example, the law of tithing is for our sake. Anyone who breaks it will be harming himself, and thus bringing limitation upon himself. One who is not faithful in little will not be given true riches (Luke 16:11). True riches refer to everlasting life.
The commandment in Luke 6:35 is a great commandment, that is, a commandment of everlasting life. Those who keep great commandments will receive a great reward. The reward is to be transformed in order to become. Hence, the secret of becoming lies in obeying this law. Obedience fashions a man (1 Peter 1:14); likewise, disobedience ‘dis-fashions’ a man.
Children of the highest are children from above and they behave like the Highest - being kind unto the unthankful (Luke 6:35). We are naturally disposed to helping those who are grateful and withholding from those who are not. Anybody who is unthankful will never give, yet our Lord remains kind to such people. It takes the strength of kindness to do good again and again to those who are unthankful and those who are evil. Cain was of the evil one, yet God still did him good.
"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful" (Luke 6:36). Mercy is what is called perfectness in the season of everlasting life. Everything that is being given to us in this season, is to bring us to the place where our hearts are full of mercy and enlarged with mercy like our Father. To keep yourself in the love of God is to obey His laws (Jude 1:21). By doing so, you will be looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus. We must obtain this mercy in order to cross from everlasting life to lay hold on Eternal life; and only the merciful can obtain mercy (Matthew 5:7).