Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Date: Saturday, 11th December 2021
We are blessed by God to be partakers of this downpour. "And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them" (Num. 6: 27). One of the things we would notice in this scripture is that the job of the priest is to put the name of the Lord upon God's people, while God does the blessing. The priest only imprints the name of the Lord on the forehead of His people; it is God's business to bless them. Priests do not bless; they are only designed by heaven to be the trigger point of blessings.
There are different levels of blessings and there is the blessing. When we align with the blessing, all other blessings would align. We cannot receive the blessing without appropriating the priesthood. The priesthood cannot release its blessing if it is not in sync with the divine order.
Priesthood has different applications. At the foundation, it is the status of every believer in Christ Jesus. Priesthood is the dignity of the redemptive work of the cross that has been bestowed upon us by Christ Jesus. The veil was torn to signify access (Matt. 27:51); thus, every believer has the right of access to God. At another level, priesthood is a ministration of gifts. Priests are New Testament ministers. Priesthood is the template of heaven with which the church is supposed to be built. The priesthood ensures that the habitation of God is built according to the heavenly pattern.
Priesthood is also for spiritual stature. We cannot inherit all of God without gaining a certain level of maturity. Priesthood is pivotal to sonship. The Church matures into sonship through priesthood. Priesthood grants us the right of access. There is a difference between the right of access and entrance itself. To enter into the presence of God, we have to become His priests.
Priesthood is by election; nobody brings the honor upon themselves (Heb. 5:4). Priesthood is also by process. We are all blessed because we are called into priesthood. Priesthood is not restricted to a privileged few in the New Testament; all of God's people have been called into it. The invitation is given to us all and has been bestowed upon us. We all have been called to stand in the gap between God and mankind.
"And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood…" (Rev. 1:5-7). Redemption was paid for by Christ. Prayer and fasting could not have made it possible. The glory we are to come into has been paid for; our obedience only certifies our response and bring us into it. There is no more price left for us to pay. He, by Himself, has made us kings and priests unto God (Rev. 1:6). There is the legal application for this priesthood; in that we have the status given to us already. However, Christ will not present us to God and the Father if we are yet to receive the ministry of the priests.
Apostle John, by mercy, saw the end and saw the church as a nation of priests. These people were priests by stature, not by calling. He also saw how God would deliver the Church from the earth, from tongues and from tribes of men, and redeem them into eternity. That is what is being declared here. This is the destiny of the Church.
The prayers of the saints, as referred to in scriptures, are not for ephemeral things (Rev. 5:8). Heaven does not keep such kinds of prayers. This prayer is a prayer of redemption that arises up unto Him. It is a prayer of surrender and is often from the heart. Heavens keep such prayers.
As we read the epistles, we should look out for both the legal and the experiential applications. The essence of our kingship and priesthood is for us to reign on earth (Rev. 5:9-10). Even though we have been made kings and priests, we still have infirmities in us and heaven will not admit us into priesthood to reign while darkness is still in us. We have to grow and be like our Lord Jesus, or else, we would wreak a lot of havoc if the darkness in us is not dealt with before coming into priesthood. Priesthood requires that we mature in understanding, wisdom and character; otherwise, we cannot handle authority.
“The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool. [2] The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies." (Psalm 110:1-2). The proclamation that the Lord gave to the psalmist was fulfilled in His death, resurrection, ascension and enthronement. Christ has conquered all the enemies but they still need to be made His footstool. He left some for the Church to overcome, so that we can sit with Him on the throne and also reign over the enemies with Him forever.
The footstool speaks of the body of Christ. To send the rod, as in Psalms 110:2, means to grow out of the stalk. It is from the Hebrew word “Shalac”. Oftentimes, scripture refers to the body as a branch of a tree. If so, then growth is involved. The nature and likeness of Christ must be replicated in us, only then can we speak of the rod of His strength. If there is no growth and maturity into sonship, there would be no rod. Rod is from the Hebrew word “Matteh”, which means staff; it is synonymous to authority, without which there would be no governmental authority in the spirit. This governmental authority authorizes the will of God on the earth and it only rests upon spiritual stature (or priestly stature). The concern of heaven is our growth into maturity.
The blessing and priesthood work cooperatively. For the blessing to be given to priesthood, the priesthood must be in sync with the heavenly order. Priesthood does not operate in isolation in the New Testament era. It is spiritually illegal for priesthood to be isolated. The blessing is not to be handled alone. As seen in the scriptures, it was handled by Aaron and his sons on behalf of the whole of Israel (1 Chron. 6: 49). Ministry is not a one-man job; it is in the order of the ark of covenant. The ark was placed on the shoulder of a team ministry called the priesthood.
Priesthood should not be established upon the manifestation of the gifts of the spirit. It is an illegality when the central point of the ministry of priesthood is miracles. Manifestations and healings are authentic, but they are supposed to follow the word. The five-fold ministry would come into that place. Jesus gave gifts unto men; He gave ministry gifts (Eph. 4:8-16). The Kingdom of God is in the business of training, equipping, and raising souls to maturity.
The corporateness of priesthood stretches further into the need for the discipleship of the church. Discipleship is a critical operation of priesthood. It is not a crash program; it is not quarterly, or annually. Discipleship deals with the impartation of the spirit of Christ. The spirit of Christ is transferable. This is not the Holy Spirit; rather, it is the law of Christ that must be weaved in us. The spirit of Christ is transferable through the dissemination of biblical truth. The more the spirit of Christ is being passed into us, the more we are being changed into His image. We would become the exact person of His image when we are totally submitted to the laws of Christ.
We would be integrated into the world if Christ is not formed in us. God is raising a church that would interface with the world and show it a different standard, a different world. This is how the world would be convicted and darkness judged.
When Christ is formed in us, the internal contents of Christ remain in us. The spirit of Christ then becomes our core values, belief systems and behavioral patterns. This is what the world will see and will bow to God, as we express the fruits of the spirit of Christ.
What is happening in church presently is cloning, including people imitating ministers and following after a man’s imperfect personality. We are not meant to be a clone of a man of God; rather, we are meant to be a replica of Christ. This is why we must be discipled. This is the essence of maturity.
A priest carries the burden of the Lord, not the burden of the people. The burden of the Lord is the burden of carrying the ark. This is not possible if we do not learn of Him and allow the spirit of Christ, which is a meek heart and a broken spirit, to be cultivated in us. A spiritually mature person is a dead man; he is humble. He comes last and considers others better than him: that is maturity.
"The Lord bless thee, and keep thee…" (Num. 6:24). Priesthood deals with blessing. Blessing, in another term, is ‘barack', which is to kneel down or to pass a measure of oneself to others. Priesthood is the mechanism of heaven by which our heavenly Father confers measures of His person upon us. When He does so, there is a conveyance of the divine life. The life of God is being passed unto us, and it constitutes spiritual stature and capacity. A church without spiritual stature and capacity cannot carry glory. Without God's life we cannot handle His glory. The essence of the blessing is so that we would be kept. The word 'bless’ means ‘shammar', which in other words, means a military garrison or to be innoculated, guarded, and spiritually immune. In this world, we need immunity; we need to have our immunity constantly increased.
There are viruses, spells, and curses that are fashioned against us. Therefore, we have to enact the victory of the cross. We have to be spiritually healthy and inoculated to stand against spiritual viruses and diseases. The spirit of error is sophisticated and is set to sting the church with simplicity so that we may become shallow. When we are shallow, we cannot deal with spirits; this is how the enemy immobilizes the church. That way, we are stripped of discernment, lack judgement and cannot handle battles ahead. Every form of virus and disease in the body of Christ must be dealt with.
There is a spiritual infection that is affecting the soul already called corruption or decay. We need heaven to thwart it. This is why we need the blessing. We need to receive inoculation so that corruption in our soul would be dealt with. God has established growth to help us overcome viruses. We cannot be spiritually inoculated if we are not receiving the blessing, and we cannot receive the blessing without light. As we receive illumination, we are being blessed.
The light of the face of God energizes us with grace. This grace is not to make us successful in career and ministry; there is a grace for that and that is not the fundamental working of grace. The purpose of grace is for our spiritual transformation. It is so that we would change from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18).
As we receive knowledge, we are being changed. When revelational knowledge comes, it is a mirror to expose the darkness in us. This is the purpose of the light of His face; it is for internal adjustment. The iniquities within us are highly sophisticated and we need the light of the face of Jesus to expose them. Grace is for internal transformation and inward change. Until we come to the knowledge of Christ, we cannot change. Grace first opens the eyes of our understanding and removes deception so that we can see what we cannot see by ourselves, then we are empowered to do the will of God. This is the purpose of change and the working of grace.
We must not be patterned and fed by the philosophies that would gravitate us to the world system (Rom. 12:2). We do not need to make geographical movements to have the world in us; we only need to relate and interface with it. As much as we relate with the world, we should do so with discernment. We should spend more quality time with the word of God than all other activities.
Our minds must be renewed. The word "mind" here does not refer to our mind, it refers to the inner life; everything that exists within our soul. They all need to be renewed. We would then be able to prove what is pleasing to God as we imbibe values, compassion, mercy, commitment and become acceptable. That is to be in alignment with the will of the Lord, then we will journey to perfection.
When the Lord lifts His countenance, He gives us peace. There are different levels of peace. It is faith that generates peace. Peace is the umpire of the spirit (Phil. 4:7). We need to learn to be governed and led by the Spirit of God. The dimension of peace ultimately is that the light of His countenance comes upon us as we conquer the enemy of Christ. He is bringing the church to this peace and ultimately, we will be able to conquer the last enemy. Our rest is to fully enter the Kingdom. But we would not enter if our corruption is intact (1Cor. 15:50).
A specific generation would witness the rapture. We would have been receiving the sounding of the trumpets before that final one (1Cor. 15:52). That suggests that discernment is key and obedience is essential. If we have not obeyed a particular trump, we would not be able to obey the next, or even hear it.
The essence of the other trumps is to kill us. There is a certain corrupted life in us that needs to die. Corruption has become one with us. It has weaved itself with our thoughts. It is the dragon that has perpetuated the corruption inside our souls. We carry His gene and DNA in our souls. We must find life to scuttle the gene of the dragon in us by yielding to the revelation that the trump brings. We must be obedient to the sound of the trump as it reveals wisdom, understanding, instruction, and power to destroy every level of corruption of the seed of the dragon in us.