Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Writing the Vision (June Edition
Date: Saturday, 18th June 2022
Speaker 3: Pastor Thompson Ehima
Faith is a life which the just lives by (Heb. 10:38). It is a shield to a man who has it. However, it is not just a material of the Holy Place because it is progressive. We move from faith to faith (Rom. 1:17). As we journey to the Most Holy Place, we also use faith. Therefore, there is a faith known as the Most Holy Faith and we are encouraged to contend for it (Jude 1:3). This is a faith that has been tried; it is not just the faith that is used in obeying the doctrine of Christ.
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Heb. 11:6). Faith also means to believe. We cannot have everlasting life without believing (John 3:16). Believing means agreeing, obeying and submitting to something — in this case, God. Therefore, in the lesson of believing, faith prescribes how to walk and respond to God. Every level of faith reveals righteousness and the revelation of righteousness is the revelation of God’s standards of life.
Grace is life and it can be measured. The proportion of grace that a soul has is the measure of life that it has access to. However, we cannot have access to life without the revelation of the righteousness or standards of life. God is life and He reveals His life to us through the standards of that life, so that we can see, love and appreciate His life. The essence of the revelation of righteousness or grace is to show us the possibilities or provisions of God's life.
When grace is brought to us, it shows us the provisions or preparations of God for us. What God has prepared for man is His Life. but we cannot see everything about God’s life or the promise of Eternal Life because of what the enemy has done in us. This is why grace for grace is measured to us. Jesus is the fullness of grace but when He comes to us, we can only receive it in measures (John 1:16). In Romans 5:17, Paul calls this grace the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. When we have access to it, we will reign in life because we would have gained a life for dominion over things that have dominated us or ceased to be servants of the things that have put us under servitude.
You do not start reigning in life until you have attained everlasting life. The learning of the Lord or Elshaddai is everlasting. Those who can access good things of the Lord are those who are walking uprightly. To walk uprightly means you have obeyed the faith of Jesus unto charity. You cannot walk uprightly if you have not made peace with God. To walk uprightly is to have obeyed Christ. Such a man is a building of the word of His grace (Acts 20:32). He has been built up by the doctrine of Christ and has been erected by faith, hope and charity.
An upright man is a man in whom Christ has been formed. He is a man that has been sanctified by the faith of Jesus Christ. The proof of uprightness is by what has happened in the soul of a man, for such a man would have obeyed from the heart. It is an upright man that good things would not be withheld from (Psa. 84:11). These good things are the things of salvation or the good things to come.
Jesus Christ is the High Priest of good things to come (Heb. 9:11) and He will not withhold any good thing from us. God wants to build us up, so that we can be positioned to receive good things, even the things that pertain to grace and glory. However, there is a kind of work that must be done in us, before we can receive good things. The Lord does not give good things without a vessel that can receive it. Jesus is full of grace and truth but we cannot receive all of it at once; we have to receive it in measures. Grace is life measurements. Faith and love are measures of grace and they will make you become upright (1 Tim. 1:14). Exceeding abundant grace is from mercy.
“Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.” (1 Tim. 1:16). The season of 'all long suffering' is the season of everlasting life. The Bible tells us that the long suffering of God is not slackness concerning His promise (2 Pet. 3:9) and the promise of the Lord to us is life; it is the promise of the new heavens and the new earth. The reason for His long suffering is to those whom He wants to bring into salvation or everlasting life and ultimately, into the promise of Eternal Life.
The first portion of exceeding grace is faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus. But there is a higher operation, which is a portion of mercy that is called all long-suffering towards us. Grace is also under long-suffering. All long-suffering is for a pattern to those who would come into everlasting life. One of the commandments of everlasting life is long suffering. We must practice long suffering because God is also long suffering towards us, so that we should not perish. Therefore, it is a pattern that we must also show to our brothers and sisters. We have learnt long-suffering before but at this level, we need “all” long suffering. We must have long-suffering towards our brethren just like God is having towards us.
Jesus is full of grace that gives faith and love, grace that is long suffering unto life eternal and the grace that can deliver eternal life, immortal and invincible life to us. This is the grace that Paul called exceeding and abundant grace, and it is in Christ Jesus. We must hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought to us (1 Pet. 1:13).
We must be able to discern what grace is being brought to us, for it is then that we can know what that grace has to offer us. We will also know the standard of life or commandments that come with such provisions to us. One of such commandments has already been revealed to us, which is that the grace of everlasting life comes with long suffering. Therefore, the long suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ is not slackness or one that we should take lightly, Rather, this grace should make us to be sober and gird up the loins of our minds (1 Pet. 1:13). We need grace to serve but we cannot serve when our minds are not girded.
The essence of girding our loins is to carry out service — to obey. In this season when revelation is coming to us, standards of life and the expectations of God are coming to us, so that we can exercise ourselves in them. However, we cannot receive grace without being humble (Jam. 4:6). Humility is a spiritual work that God has to do in us and it begins with the learning of Christ. We can not receive the gospel of Christ without being meek.
Moses was referred to as the meekest man on earth. Moses asked to see God’s face and glory, but before this time, he had accessed a level of glory and grace. This enabled him to ask for another level of grace. However, he could not have been able to access the former grace without going through the training of meekness. Therefore, for us to access the grace that is about to come to us, we should live soberly and godly. Part of the attributes of soberness is meekness and humility, for these are the heart attitudes that can receive grace. These are the heart attitudes that God will not withhold anything good from. Therefore, we must grow in our meekness.
The essence of all the obedience requirements that He is bringing to us is to deepen our meekness, contriteness, and long suffering, for these things design a man for the grace that is about to be brought to him. If we only anticipate the coming of grace but do not exercise ourselves in things that can house or commend grace to us, we will not be able to receive it.
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.” (Matt. 11:28) You need to find grace in order to find rest for your soul, and we can find grace. The attitude that will make us find this grace is beyond praying, hungering and desiring it. We also have to be exercised in it, so that we can receive grace for grace, from Him who is full of it and who is exceeding and abundant with grace and truth.
Our separation was a work of grace. Nobody can be separated from flesh to spirit without grace. True separation is wrought by grace. It takes you and leads you step by step out of a thing. It instructs the heart and it is a life. The fact that it is a life means that it is not dead. It is a Person, and He is full of grace and truth.
“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord…” (2 Pet. 1:2). Grace teaches. When it has taught you, Christ has taught you. When grace teaches you, it separates you from flesh to spirit. Grace also works true sanctification in us. At the new birth, there was a level of grace at work but as we grow, there is a level of grace that commends works to us. Such graces reveal works for inheritance or formation.
In the New Testament, anything that is not commended by grace is not of faith because it cannot deal with spirits or crack down nature formation in you. God wants to destroy wrong formations and form something else in us. How God dispenses the materials or substances that he will use to work in us is by obedience. But we might not be able to take these materials if we are not humble and meek enough.
Oftentimes, grace plays out in our day-to-day interactions with our brethren. The labour of our parents is to give us judgements that will enable us to discern works that we ought to do, whether to endure or forgo or count things as dung (Phil. 3:8). These are the results of the work of grace in the heart.
“Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.” (Heb. 13:9). It is good for a heart to be established with grace. Good things are what establish our hearts. Establishing our hearts means to give formation to or to consolidate the things that are being done in us. The establishment of our hearts through working upon our hearts and minds are properties of grace. But we will not be able to fare well if we don’t climb the ladder of grace. Every allocation of grace has steps that must be climbed.
When you gain knowledge, the instruction of the spirit will come and tell you how to respond to grace. Responding to grace means to be able to convert the substance you have received or understanding to life. We use these substances by taking steps. If we do not take steps, sin will not be dealt with, nature will not change, neither will formations take place inside us. We must therefore submit and subject ourselves to grace.
“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.” (Heb. 2:9). Jesus had a curriculum of suffering. Grace is a curriculum. The word “suffering” does not mean physical suffering but a learning. Therefore, grace has a learning; it teaches and schools a man.
Jesus was made a little lower than angels and became a man, that is, a servant. But something was responsible for raising Him from that lowly state to being “O God”. He grew in grace (Luke 2:52), until he grew back to God. That grace is a curriculum of learning of obediences.
Grace will teach us how to obey God; this obedience is what is called suffering because anytime we obey God, we deny ourselves of ungodliness and unrighteousness. Rather, we live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world (Tit. 2:11).
Blessings!
Summary
1. Faith is a way of life. There is a dimension of it that is about believing. Believing is agreeing with God’s standards, and we cannot have everlasting life without it. Faith prescribes how we should walk in the spirit and reveals righteousness *(Rom. 1:17),* which are the standards of God’s life.
2. Grace is life and it is calibrated in measures. The measure of grace that a soul has is proportional to the measure of life that He has access to. We cannot have access to life without the revelation of righteousness.
3. The essence of the revelation of righteousness or grace, is to show us the provisions of God's life. God has provided life for man but the work of the adversary in us has blinded our eyes to God’s life *(2 Cor. 4:4)*.
4. There is a fullness of grace *(John 1:14)*, but we cannot receive all at once. When we have the abundance of grace, we would reign in life and not be under the bondage of Satan. We do not start reigning in life until we have everlasting life.
5. The Lord gives us grace by giving us "good things". Those who can access "good things" are those who are walking uprightly *(Psa. 84:11)*. These are men who have obeyed the law of life in Christ (Rom. 8:2).
6. To be upright is to be built up. We must be built up so that we can be positioned to receive good things which are the things that pertain to praise and glory.
7. The first portion of exceeding grace is faith and love in Christ Jesus. But there is a higher operation, which is the portion of all long-suffering. All long-suffering is a pattern of those who would come into everlasting life.
8. The essence of grace is to make us sober and to gird the loins of our minds (1 Pet. 1:13). We gird the loins of our minds so that we can be obedient to God.
9. No one can be converted from flesh to spirit without grace. Grace is a person: it teaches and instructs the heart (Tit. 2:11). However, we might not be able to take its materials if we are not humble or meek enough.
10. Grace establishes our hearts (Heb. 13:9). We will not fare well if we do not climb the ladder of grace. When we obey the instructions that come to us through teachings, we respond to grace; and thereby, converting grace to life.