Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Date: Friday, 10th December 2021
The interest of God is not just for us to accumulate knowledge; it is for us to know how to relate with persons. This is why God has to speak about relationships. In every epistle, three things are constant: there are revelation thoughts, then there are the issues of the heart and lastly, they address relationships. These relationships can either be between husband and wife, parents and children, and so on. This shows us that relationships are important. The essence of knowing persons is to attain what God wants to achieve by bringing us near.
“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:18). God’s coming to us is very important and He comes to us through understanding (1 John 5:20). If God does not come to us, we would not have comfort; and He comforts us by giving us understanding. The part of man that needs this comfort is his heart because it is the door to the soul and the core of it.
Love encapsulates the entire commandment. When we gather together, it should move us into different stages of love. The first commandment is to love God with all thy heart, might, strength; and the second is to love thy neighbour as thyself (Luke 10:27). God delivers love to us at different stages when He comes to us or gives us His commandments.
The hallmark of love at the level of the meat of the word is to love all the saints. When a believer goes further in the learning of Christ, the hallmark changes to the purification of the heart in obeying the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren (1 Pet. 1:22). Having attained this level, the demand of love is to love one another fervently in order to access the light of everlasting life. It is by doing so that we pass from death to life. At the level of Christ, we have not yet passed from death to life.
The work of everlasting life is to quicken us into love. We have learnt to love at a level but there are higher demands of love. A man who has arrived at everlasting life is one who has passed from death to life, and this is shown in the level of love he expresses. Love is the measurement of life that a man has. As such, God is Eternal Life. There are different levels to the understanding of love. There is also a continuous and progressive understanding of love. We must grow to the point where we would be able to apply everlasting life to our daily living.
“That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ.” (Col. 2:2). There is an understanding that a child has, but it is little (1 Cor. 13:11). When he becomes a man, one of the things he has to put away is that childish understanding. Therefore, to come into full assurance of understanding, we must put away childish love. The love that a child expresses to his parents is not at the same level of love that a husband and wife express to each other. The latter is a tested love; it is a love by commandments and it has undergone tough situations. Love is expressed in varying levels of understanding. The milk of the word operates at the level of a child's thoughts, but when the soul has come into full understanding, the case is different.
The key to understanding lies in the mysteries. Mysteries are secrets – they are hidden truths. We need to come into full understanding of the mysteries of God, the Father and Christ. Although we have been taught Christ, it is as we come into the things of the Father that we really understand Christ better. It is as we journey into higher levels of understanding that we understand what Christ is all about. As we understand in more measures, new measures of life or natures are formed in us.
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. [7] Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.” (Gal. 1:6-7). The grace of Christ is the gospel of Christ. This gospel can however be perverted or corrupted because we live in a crooked and perverse nation There are things within and outside the soul that can pervert the nature of Christ in it. The word of God referred to in these verses is the incorruptible seed, and it can be perverted by things like dishonesty, craftiness and deceitfulness (2 Cor. 4:2), if we do not hold it in an abiding state. Perversion occurs because understanding is not full. As long as our souls do not yet fully understand Christ, the Father and God, our ignorance will continually be a door for the enemy within to prey on us.
“Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart…” (Eph. 4:18). The use of the definite article ‘the’ to qualify the word ‘ignorance’ in the verse above shows us that there is a definite ignorance in us. Therefore, it is important that we come into full understanding. We do not yet have full assurance of the knowledge of Christ because we are expected to journey to seeing Him with a better light. As we move into everlasting life we would see Christ and the Father fully, for it will take the Father to bring us full understanding.
We would not be able to fully interpret the mystery of Christ, the Father and of God if our hearts are not knit together in love. Love keeps the heart and it cannot be overcome (S.O.S 8:7). It has power and victory over death, although, there are some levels of love that death can be found working in. As instructed in the book of Jude, we must keep ourselves in the love of God (Jude 1:21). As we also gain understanding and come into revelations, we must seek to fully understand the interpretation of the works of these mysteries. This interpretation will come by love – all the sides of love.
Love has measures; it has a height, a depth, a length, and a breath (Eph. 3:18). It will take understanding to bring us to these zones. We are being kept at every level of love, but the wicked one can still get to some levels like the love of the brethren because this level lacks resistance. The love of the brethren at some level is not formidable enough against death, therefore, we must climb higher in our love walk.
A carnal man can only define love at his level of sight. This is why there is a need for understanding in the heart. A man must have wisdom to carry out love commandments. Love is a wisdom. Jesus Christ chose Judas Iscariot out of love because He wanted to save him. He showed so much love to him to detonate the death inside of him. This is because there is a wisdom in love that seeks to save. There is also a wisdom that demands that we lay down our lives, but we must first have life in us which we can lay down (sow). As we sow our lives in weakness, they will be raised in power (1 Cor. 15:43).
“And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.” (2 Thess. 2:10). The truth that is in Jesus begins with the learning of Christ and then climaxes at the revelation and understanding of the Father. Jesus has all the measurements of truth and in Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead, bodily (Col. 2:9). The fact that truth is in Jesus means that understanding is in Him.
“Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” (John 5:24). Although a man can possess Christ, he is yet to pass from death to life if he does not have everlasting life. To pass from death to life is to move from the land of the dead to the land of the living. Death is an understanding that rules our lives. It is the fear of death that drives men to make plans for their lives. Sometimes, we think we have escaped the fear of death but then, it may show up again. Many cannot fulfil the love towards the poor and needy as instructed in the scripture because of the fear of death.
“See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven…” (Heb. 12:25). We must not disobey the voice of God when we hear it. There is a voice speaking from heaven and we must do well to take heed to it. What will deal with our death is in the voice. We cannot be delivered from death without having the fear of the Lord in us. What delivers us from death is fear, which is also love. Fear was put in the heart of Jesus by the voice. The voice that is being heard by the dead is the voice of the Son of God and not of Christ (John 5:25). We cannot obey some love commandments without fear generating from our hearts.
“Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared…” (Heb. 5:7). Jesus was heard not because He cried, but because He feared. This fear is a fear that helps a man to obey commandments. The commandment Jesus obeyed is a love commandment, for He loved the Father. What made Him lay down His life was a commandment. His obedience was a deliverance from death; it was a ministration of passage from death to life and He received these commandments from the voice.
There were a lot of activities that happened on the mountain but the children of Israel could not endure it. They had journeyed in Christ (the wilderness) but they could not receive the everlasting voice. They turned away from Him that spoke from the heavens because they were content with Christ. God brought the Israelites to Sinai in hope that He would put His fear in their hearts. This fear was His love. They could not have kept the commandment of loving God with all their hearts except by the fear of God; but they could not endure the speakings of God that would bring the fear. Although they received commandments, they could not keep them because they lacked fear.
“And hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man. [28] Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice.” (John 5:27-28). There is a judgment that we must receive that would make us rise above the grave. Lazarus received life but he was still inside the grave and bound with grave clothes (John 11:44). This shows that if we have not come into everlasting life, we have not yet been delivered from the power of the grave. It is by executing judgment that we will be delivered from the power of the grave.
Execution of judgment is the power for quickening. We will be quickened by commandments and also escape from the grave by the commandments of love. Hell is a wisdom therefore we need another wisdom to make us escape from it, as well as the grave. Hell and death are perverted heavens. The grave is also an inverted heaven that hell refined. It will take Him who speaks from the heavens to deliver our souls from the grave. The key to abiding is in His voice.
“Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear…” (Heb. 12:28). The voice of the Son of God and the only begotten Son must come to us. As we hear the voice of the only begotten Son, we will receive fear to serve God. We will serve God with good and perfect light. We will serve Him by the commandments that are coming from His mouth and also by the judgment He is giving.