The following are inspired thoughts I found grace to fetch while celebrating the word of righteousness and attempting to acknowledge the truth that would birth in us - the hope of eternal life.
1. The hope of this world within men would only be replaced by the hope of inheriting eternal life as we journey to become Christ; from faith, through hope to Charity; or while adding to our faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and Charity (Col. 1:27, Tit. 1:2, 2Pet. 1:5-7). Successfully doing so would someday endow us with the mind of Christ and also admit us into a company in the spirit called “the believers”; a company of those who through many sanctifying experiences of the faith in Christ, have become His brethren (1Cor. 2:16, 1Tim. 4:12, Heb. 2:11).
2. Two strong weapons the devil can use to limit believers from journeying at a pace and to a place in Christ Jesus where the hope of eternal life would be born in their hearts are discouraging thoughts from their past and bleak images about their future; thoughts that only expire after a long grip on the word of Christ (Tit. 1:2, 2Cor. 10:5c, Phil. 2:). And one deadly weapon he can use to limit those who now have the hope of eternal life both in their hearts, are hurtful images or painful experiences that require the love of God to overcome (2Cor. 10:5a, Heb. 5:14a, Lk. 23:34).
3. There is no way a believer can divorce or disown his former hope of this world without fighting the spirits that cultured that hope in his soul (Eph. 6:12). While striving to do so, we would have to be schooled in the faculties of Christ; in the faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness and Charity found in Christ Jesus birth (2Pet. 1:5-7). Hereby would a heart of flesh that can easily respond to God be born (Eze. 36:26); a perfect man called Christ who can press further into the fullness of God or of perfection (Eph. 4:13, Matt. 5:48).
4. We live in fearful days; in unusual days when some saints would be raised to a place in Christ where they sin not; where men would have been separated from their sins and from sinning; and would have been born of God (Acts 26:18, 1Jn. 2:1/5:18). And when that day (or light of Christ) fully dawns upon many, those who despised the separations that faith offered them or who haven’t been sanctified in their soul or aren’t numbered among the fellows (brethren) of the Lord, would know it - and would quietly be ashamed (2Pet. 1:19, Heb. 2:11/1:9d, Isa. 4:1).
5. There are things we do and don’t do because of fears and insecurities that are born out of our past experiences or because of some substances of faith in Christ Jesus that we still lack (1Pet. 2:1/2Pet. 1:5-7, Jam. 1:4). Such insecurities are mostly born out of not having Christ as our source of energy and security; especially in seasons when we aren’t in possession of our soul (1Tim. 1:1, Lk. 21:19). Such are the soul infirmities we fetched from meditations we had outside Christ; meditations that birth (in us) malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies and evil speakings; that limit us from comprehending the word of God (Phil. 4:8, 1Pet. 2:1-2).
6. The first goal of the epistles is to bring believers who are under the ministry of righteousness (or of the spirit) to a place where they can’t process selfish thoughts that originate from this world; even until they become sanctified stones (2Cor. 3:8, 1Cor. 13:5, 1Pet. 2:5). The next goal of the epistles is to bring such lively stones to a place where they can’t process imaginations outside the Son; images that the wicked one hurls at them to limit sons of faith from fully conforming to the image of the Son; from becoming precious stones or from bearing the name of God (2Cor. 10:5a, 1Pet. 2:6-7, Rev. 3:12).
7. We can’t escape the swords of temptations if we judge things by any other eye but that of the Spirits of the Lord; if we don’t thereby see ourselves like Jesus did; as nobody outside whom God has called us to be or to inherit (Isa. 11:2-3, 1Jn. 2:25). While doing so, idols like self-recognition and things that make us easily irritated or bottle up, will be starved to death. Most temptations would lose their potency the day we (by the power of God) lift our eyes off ourselves and rest them permanently on Christ (1Pet. 2:1).
8. From now till the Lord’s second coming, we can keep claiming that we have the mind of Christ - but that mind and the exploits of that mind won’t become ours - if, unlike the apostles and few in the early Church, we aren’t seeking or striving to judge all things spiritually or according to the righteousness of God that constitutes Christ (1Cor. 2:13-16). While doing so over many years, we would have to keep fighting the imprint of the world in our minds; even until our mind become useless to the world and the law governing the mind of Christ is embossed in our mind (1Cor. 2:13-16, Heb. 8:10, Jer. 31:33).
Blessings!
Tayo Fasan