Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Writing the Vision (November Edition)
Date: Saturday, 19th November 2022
One important thing the Lord is showing us is that we are all destined for glory. It is God's intention from the foundation of the world that man be glorified (Gen. 1:26). You cannot separate image from glory. When an image is being formed, then glory is being prepared. Everything about God is glorious. It is His intention to bring man to glory. For any of us hearing these things, it means God had ordained us for glory. Sin was responsible for removing glory from man, after Adam sinned (Rom. 3:23).
Through making, Adam had a stature of glory and honor (Ps. 8:5). Angels have their glory. The stars have their glory. The sun and the moon also have theirs. God is the Father of glory; He decked all things He created with glory. What God ordained for man is for him to come into His glory.
Jesus prayed, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (Jn. 17:5). At this point, Jesus already had some kind of glory. Before the foundation of the world, Jesus had the glory that only the Creator could have. But He became lower than the angels and grew as a man. He grew in stature and glory until He was qualified to have the same glory that God the Father has.
Jesus spent all His life in the flesh seeking this glory. We must pant for glory. Man was not created void of glory; it was sin that took man’s glory. If sin took glory, then righteousness will bring back the glory. A baby has no glory. Glory cannot rest on a babe but on one with stature. When They want to raise stature, They delete sin by the administration of righteousness.
"How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? [9] For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory." (2 Cor. 3:8-9). The ministration of the spirit is the way. When we were babies, we were introduced to teachings of the righteousness of Christ to wean us from being carnal men to being spiritual. The revelation of Christ makes a man spiritual. The righteousness in Christ is responsible for sanctifying us. It takes the sanctified to receive the declaration of the Father (Heb. 2:12). It takes more than knowledge to be raised. There is more to raising and glory than knowledge.
"To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood…" (Gal. 1:16). Paul received the revelation of Christ by appearance. He preached that revelation to others. One danger is that one with a commission like that of Paul could put himself at the level of that commission, not acknowledging that he has flesh to deal with (1 Cor. 9:27). This is where the enemy gets us. Hence, we need meekness. Before knowledge was granted to us, these things were normal. But when knowledge is given, you are able to recognise the workings of Satan in the soul.
Flesh would not be allowed into God’s kingdom. The flesh is a robber. A preacher may even keep flesh (1 Cor. 9:27). To deal with flesh, God brings the revelation of righteousness. There is a revelation in Christ we ought to partake of when we are weaned from milk. Pure milk trains you to trust God. The High Priest is coming to take those who are sanctified, those who have finished the course of peace. But before we finish that, there are issues of flesh that must be addressed.
"This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." (Gal. 5:16). Many believers do not know how to overcome flesh; we even excuse flesh. Knowledge teaches us the way of the Spirit. The way of the Spirit is also called the way of righteousness, and it is meant to cleanse us.
Knowledge gives you an opportunity to escape the pollution of the world (2 Pet. 2:20-21). We ought to work with the light that comes from the revealed knowledge, or else one will remain the same. If one works in light for a while and stops, one will go back to one's former estate. Revelation is the knowledge of the person of Jesus, and His person is configured by ways. You do not know Jesus until you have known the ways inside Him; it is His knowledge that will cause you to walk a walk that will lead to your sanctification.
The Holy Ghost is the administrator of the ways inside Jesus. When you have revelation, look out for the way God is showing you through it. It is with the Spirit that you can turn knowledge into a way. Without a way, there will be no building or development in the spirit for any man.
“As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him…” (Col. 2:6). ‘Receive’ here means receiving the knowledge of Christ, whereas, ‘walk’ is related to being rooted, built and established in the faith (Col. 2:7). You cannot walk if there is no way. The Holy Ghost paints a way when knowledge is received. We should be humble enough to honour all men and also be humble to receive from elders in the faith. Many spiritual elders know the ‘ways’ of God more than many of us who claim to have many ‘revelations’.
We have to be meek to trust saints who are ahead of us. We must be humble to take instructions and commandments from them because their judgment is higher than ours. When we trust the spiritual authority over us we would be saved, including our families. We should always pray for the grace to stay under and obey instructions given to us by spiritual authorities.
Every believer is destined for glory. The glory of Jesus is the glory of God. Jesus lived all His life to gain back the glory He had in the beginning. To attain glory, the things listed in Galatians 5;19-21 must be taken away from us. There is no flesh formation that the leading of the Spirit cannot deal with (Gal. 5:16). The instructions of the Lord are to make us gentle. We must take deliberate steps to kill and exterminate sin from our souls. When light comes and our darkness is revealed, we must not condone it, nor attempt to pamper our darkness. We must be deliberate to be cleansed from it so that the High priest can receive us unto Himself. This comes by the revelation of Christ and the leading of the Spirit.
Revelation does not come to make you feel good. Despite the revelation Paul had, he said he had to bring his flesh under (1 Cor. 9:27). The will is being revealed to us and it is the Will that will enable us to walk in the Way. We also, like Paul, must seek to put our bodies under. Paul said he stood the risk of being a castaway after He preached to others.
When the way is being shown to us, we ought to receive it and walk in it. When we have been cleansed from flesh, we qualify for heavenly things. Carnal men are not called to hear heavenly things, it is foolishness to them; only the sanctified can hear heavenly things.
"Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus. [2] Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. [3] For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. [4] For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God. [5] And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; [6] But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end.” (Heb. 3:1-6). We need ‘all things’ to raise the stature of God in us, which is the building qualified for entrance. We do not become a house till we hold fast the properties for building the house. We hold them by doing them. We are raised by doing. We hold the standards of righteousness as we walk in them; and as we walk in them, we are also being built by them.
“Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:- [9] When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. [10] Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. [11] So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest…” (Heb. 3:8-11). It is very dangerous not to have the knowledge of the Way. The voice of the Lord delivers the Way, which is for our hearts, not our heads. We err because we do not keep the way in our hearts. One can have knowledge and not hear the voice that communicates ways. When we do not hear the ways, then we would not be able to see the path to walk in.
The voice of the Lord communicates commandments and laws to us for us to walk in. The Spirit guides us in discovering what is truth. And as we walk, we are being raised. Sin is responsible for our low stature. Ways are meant to deliver us from our sins. Sin is the reason for our present stature. In the leading of the Spirit, idols drop. After we have heard revelation, the Holy Ghost comes to lead us in the way. He gives us understanding and the wisdom for living, which makes us have the way. Failure to submit to the way would result in us remaining the same.
Idols and sins would not drop until we are led by the Spirit. It is while one is in the way of leading that sins drop. The way the Lord comes to each individual differs. This is because our formations or darknesses are different from each other and so our leadings would be different. As such, our manner of being delivered from sin is not identical but we must just align and obey the way of the leading of the Spirit so that we can be compatible with glory.
Everlasting life has ways. These ways come by understanding and leading. Eternal Life also has its way and leading. When we are learning, we must not equate our stature to the height of things we are hearing. We must be meek. Paul, after all the appearances of the Lord he had, still knew that He had flesh to deal with so that he wouldn't become a castaway (1 Corin. 9:27).
We have all been destined for glory. But first, things that are not compatible with glory must be dealt with by revelation, leading and obedience. After this, we will be qualified to hear the revelations of everlasting life to the end. The end of everlasting life would begin to call for Eternal Life. We must journey to everlasting life by ways. There are everlasting ways and there are also eternal ways. Our hearts must be tempered with meekness. One of the ends of Christ is meekness, Christ makes you meek to receive judgment. It is the meek that will be guided unto salvation (Ps. 25:9; Ps. 149:4).
Blessings!
Summary
1. Knowledge provides us with a way of escape from sin (Rom. 6:17). The essence of knowledge is to enable one to obey the laws of life. One who fails to obey these laws will remain in his darkness.
2. Revelation is the knowledge of a Person who is configured by ways (Col. 2:6). This Person is not known until His ways are known. It is only with the help of the Holy Spirit that knowledge can be converted into ways.
3. We must not lack the knowledge of the way. However, we can have knowledge but decide not to hear or yield to the voice of the Spirit that communicates ways, and this would incapacitate us from walking in the path that leads to God (Heb. 3:10-11).
4. The voice of the Holy Spirit communicates commandments and laws for us to walk in them. We need to walk in the ways that the Holy Spirit communicates so we can gain entrance into realms in the spirit. As we walk in these ways, we are being raised spiritually. The Holy Spirit comes to lead us in the way. He gives understanding and the correct wisdom for living, which would result in us having the way. When we do not submit to the way, we would remain in our darkness.
5. Idols and sins will not drop until we are led in the ways of the Spirit. It is while one is in the way of leading that sins drop. The way the Lord comes to each individual differs because our formations and darknesses differ. However, we must align and obey the leading of the Spirit in our individual lives so that we can be compatible with glory.
6. When we are learning, we must not equate our stature to the height of things we are hearing. We must be meek. Paul, after all the appearances of the Lord he had, still knew that He had flesh to deal with so that he wouldn't become a castaway (1 Corin. 9:27).