Text: 2 Peter 1:1-4
"Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust."
God desires to bring us to the place of incorruptibility. One of the characteristics of the inheritance is that it is incorruptible. This is where God desires to bring every believer. There is, however, a place before this state, which if we do not journey through, we cannot arrive at. Incorruptibility is the exclusive preserve of God; He is undefilable and incorruptible. There is a little below here that a man must get to; otherwise, he will not be made incorruptible. The Godhead will not use the corruption in man to make him incorruptible. That is why we must journey. By journeying, we drop things that make us corruptible. Our journey is towards Christ.
Our Lord Jesus in His thirty-three and a half years was escaping corruption on earth. That's why Christ is the level we must be found in before we can be made incorruptible. Christ is the template that launches a man into incorruption. Divine nature comes to us after we have escaped corruption.
To escape from a thing means that you are smarter than that thing. The prince of this world found nothing of himself in Jesus, because He had stepped to a higher level than what the prince was coming with The learning of the knowledge of Christ makes us wiser than corruption. Whoever fellowships with unforgiveness is in a trap of corruption; we should always fight not to stay in corruption.
Christ is the One that knows how to escape corruption. Corruption is the templates that Satan hewed out to prove to man that he does not need God. God does not use any ounce of corruption.
In John 13:1-3, the Bible says, "Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end. [2] And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him; [3] Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God..."
We do not really know the life that has been given to us from God, because it is not something we have lived by. However, they want to make us to begin to know them. Our Lord Jesus had to walk this path. He condescended to the point where He understood our state so He knows what it means to be faced with corruption.
Satan hewed an existence before man was created but the angels knew how he evolved. They saw how he began to and is still “excelling” in that existence. This earth is a place of possibilities. Our potential is to inherit incorruptibility; we have the unique privilege of inheriting what only God has - a privilege that angels do not have.
Death is an existence that fallen angels hewed out. Satan is consistently selling his life which is not obviously called corruption among men, though that is what it really is. Our Lord Jesus Christ came to the earth to show us that we do not have to exist after the order of corruption. Man met this corruption and did not even know that this inferior life has been from the beginning. Not being corrupt means to be purified. Christ comes to purify us from corruption.
The issue of sin is not primarily because of what we did but a fashioning in man. By reason of the fall, man was naturally configured to exist in corruption.
In Genesis 6:3, the Bible says, "And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years."
Flesh is a thing in the spirit. The origin of sin is the third heaven. If one can turn in a realm, then, that realm has been compromised; it means any other person in that realm can turn. God did not determine to upgrade angels but He has determined that man can change state. We can come out of carnality and end up in divinity. We are blessed and this is what makes the enemy angry with our existence, because this is what he wanted to do (Isaiah 14:13). He was complete and perfect in that realm.
Our evolution is to be changed from flesh to spirit. Evolution comes as a result of substances of the next evolution state. When you get born again, you will be taught Christ, because that is the next stage of evolution. Ruth told Naomi that she would follow her and would commit to her, but that did not change her (Ruth 1:16). She actually had to follow her and went to the land of Israel even as a Moabite. She stuck with Naomi (Naomi representing the Holy Ghost) to learn the rudiments of the lifestyle of the Israelites. Later, she evolved and she was getting instructions from Naomi on how to become a bride in Israel. She was evolving by the instructions she got. We keep evolving as he Holy Spirit brings the substances of that next realm.
If we do not understand incorruption, we will not be void of the corruptible. Incorruptibility is what Christ was trusting God for. Paul said in Romans 7:22- 24, "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: [23] But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. [24] O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death..."
Paul was not only seeing another realm, he was also seeing his limitations. In our walk, we would also see limitations that we need a different fashioning to obey. Both Paul and Jesus had to pray because they saw higher commandments (Rom. 7:24; Matt. 26:39).
It is a very high warfare for a soul, when he starts to think he does not need to go through process. You cannot change state without process. Even Satan takes people through processes to make them corruptible. We should not play with any form of sin because it has the potential to make us vile.
The Bible says in Hebrews 7:25- 26, "Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them. [26] For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens..."
Our Lord Jesus showed us the trajectory of becoming incorruptible: He first became holy and then undefiled. All of our processes are embedded in learning, because there is something you will know that will separate you.
The whole problem of man started with a message. What Satan left as an existence for man is nonsense. We have to know that we do not live by corruption.
Nothing we do on earth has our best interests at heart (jobs, education). This does not mean that we would not be involved in them but we are designed to live above it. The degree to which God cannot wrap this earth up is the degree to which we still rely on it. Satan and his cohorts will fight us from using faith so that they can erode God from existence. We should put the natural where it belongs because they have no eternal bearing.
Parents should always tell their children that the reason they should not do certain wrong things is because of God and not as dos or don’ts, so that they do not just become suggestions in the heart of the children.
One place where we will have eternal life is in our thoughts. Most of our problems start from our thoughts. The Bible says take no thoughts but corruption teaches us to take thoughts (Matt. 6:25). Everything on the earth has been spiced with lust so we have to be convinced to follow God through multitude of teachings and preaching.
Jesus came to earth, the Godhead was arranged eternally so that man could be saved. God is not playing. In the wilderness, nothing happens to you without the Lord’s exclusive supervision. When a man sees God, he sees his nakedness. God wanted to get Job to this state.
The wilderness process will not kill you. The learning of eternal life is far more useful to all generations than passing through walls.
The Bible says in Romans 10:13-15 KJV,
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. [14] How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? [15] And how shall they preach, except they be sent? as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!"
The degree of the delivery of glad tidings to us as a people is based on the giving of a teacher. One thing Satan has taught this generation is to despise preachers. Those who do this will never inherit incorruption.
It is written in Proverbs 30:11, "There is a generation that curseth their father, and doth not bless their mother."
Romans 10:13 - 14
"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. 10:14 How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher..."
Our ability to hear is granted by staying under a preacher. Everyone in the five-fold ministry is a preacher. Change of state will not be possible without a preacher. The preacher is the one the Lord has sent and we will do well to maximize profiting. Whenever God's provisions come our way, may we find mercy to stay under them. If we do not honor or recognize that power, we will not get to the point where we will believe them.
God is not casual about His approach to where we are. The most important things God does are done unassumingly, and not necessarily by obvious signs of thunders and lightening. What has come to many of us as thunders was knowledge or enlightenment through teachings.