I would like to encourage us concerning the heart attitude we ought to have around this present emphasis of everlasting life, in order for us to fully profit with this season. The things spoken are not outside the express command of the Head of the church - Jesus. There is nothing that comes to the church in terms of doctrine or emphasis of the Spirit, that is not sanctioned by our Lord Jesus. Jesus is the most competent Pastor that will ever be; He is the custodian of all pastoral graces and in His wisdom, per time, He brings emphasis of the Spirit. He will not bring emphasis to a thing we are not graced to understand. He said, “It is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven…” (Matt. 13:11).
The reason why we have the opportunity to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven is because we are privileged. The delivery of light to us per season is an expression of the pastoral grace upon our Lord Jesus. If the Lord in His benevolence and wisdom, has determined that things around everlasting life should come to us, then there should be a sense of desire in line with the delivery, for us to come into what the Lord has to say.
Genesis 1:1-4
“1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.”
For the Lord to do anything, He always precedes it with light. Light is the enabling environment for God to function.
1 John 1:5-7
“5 This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.”
We are told here that the message actually is that God is light. Before we can interact with God as love, we must first understand Him as light. As seen in verse 7, for every light that is shown, the Lord expects us to walk in it. It is not just going to be something that will be in the archive of preaching; the intention is for us to translate it to a lifestyle. John stated that this is the message.
Our journey as believers is calibrated in light. “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov 4:18). “Unto a perfect day” means that we are able to see God as He is.
God will never send a light that we are unable to walk in. I am saying this so that we will not think that the things being said are too high that we cannot understand them. Unto us has been given to know the mystery of the kingdom. If they do not give it to us, there is no way we can know it; no intelligent mind can break into the mystery of Christ, the Father, and the Son, in whom is hidden all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. It has to be the ordination of the Head of the church and He has said "unto you it is given…" (Matt. 13:11).
There is no mystery that Jesus is speaking that we have not been ordained to enter into, especially when we have heard it. The light Jesus is giving to us is what we are expected to walk in. There was a time in the history of the church that the light (understanding) prevailing was “the just shall live by faith” and as many that wanted to have fellowship with Jesus at that time, would have needed to understand and prospered in that light. Fellowship occurs as light comes. This is so we know the importance of the place of understanding. If there is any prayer we should pray this season, it is for understanding because our fellowship is at stake.
The light Jesus is beaming to us now is the light for our fellowship. If we have a lower light, we are cutting ourselves off from fellowship. The blood of Jesus cleanses us in fellowship. So, when we excuse ourselves from the understanding of an emphasis, we are not taking cleansing seriously. Anytime we are not comprehending the emphasis of the Spirit and not bothered about our lack of comprehension, we are not taking cleansing seriously, and as such not taking fellowship seriously.
When we talk about sin, we are talking about arrangements that excuse us from God. These are the things we need to be cleansed from. In this season where the Lord is talking about everlasting light, there is a requirement for us to walk in this light to keep up with the fellowship. In the book of Revelation, we see the different journey of different people. We see the woman and the remnant of her seed. They are calibrated in fellowships of light. It signifies some people who journeyed to the point where they became the remnant and could not go further. Some journeyed to the point where they became the woman and could not go further. Some journeyed till they became the man child and ended on the throne.
The aim of the present light is to make us part of the man-child company. There is the way the man child knows the Lord that the woman and the remnant of her seed does not know. Brotherhood is classified according to your light. Our confession daily should be that it is given to us to know these mysteries (Matt. 13:11).
There were 42 encampments the children of Israel had in the wilderness before the Promised land. For each of this encampment, there was an emphasis and anyone who did not move with the cloud (emphasis) would have been consumed by beasts. If you do not move with the cloud, there is every tendency for you to be spoiled by what is behind.
Around these, there are two thoughts that came to my heart. One of them is what I call largeness of heart. The Lord is delivering us from what we can call “the creation mindset”. One of the infirmities of creation is familiarity, which brings contempt. There is every tendency for us to have contempt around these things. The creation in heaven that keeps saying “Holy, Holy, Holy”, do so because they are seeing something every moment. As light comes reverence increases, but when we find that it does not increase, it shows that somewhere we are stuck in the creation mind (in a realm of familiarity). These emphases are pieces of Jesus that are being brought to us, so we can come up to where He is and fellowship can continue. So, familiarity is one of the attitudes we should not have.
Rev. Kayode Oyegoke once said that we should not think death thoughts because death is not part of the plan; you should think of how to continue. That scripture says, “Of the increase of His government and peace, there shall be no end” (Isaiah 9:7). One mindset we must have is that we should never want anything to end but be prepared for an endless journey: it will remove death from our thoughts. We have to get to a point where death will be demystified. Death starts with a thought pattern, so when they begin to bring everlasting thoughts, they are unwinding death from us.
Be prepared to hear everlasting thoughts. We have not heard anything yet! We will hear things that will elevate us out of what makes us mere men. We will receive everlasting thoughts for us to walk, and the consciousness of this should not leave our hearts because that is the demand for our cleansing in this season. There is darkness in us that will take only everlasting light to cleanse, and those things need to be spoken because if we do not fellowship with our lord Jesus at that level, we will not receive cleansing.
If we have issues understanding this present emphasis, we have to do Christ well. We need to do Christ well to an extent whereby we are able to lay hold on all everlasting doors that are coming. Christ is the One who learns things everlasting; there is an appetite that only Christ has for the everlasting. This appetite has to be worked in us - the appetite that will be enable us to eat all that the Lord is bringing through His servant.
The kind of things that are upon the face of the earth are things that can make someone scared, but everlasting thoughts are the thoughts that will keep us in this season. We should take time to ruminate on the things Rev. Kayode Oyegoke is teaching us. Jesus is showing us these so that He will bring us up. One of the major mindsets we must trust God for this season is that we do not look for things to end. We have to get to the realm of endlessness - that is what God expects of us.
Reverend Kayode, in a meeting held at Ibadan explained that there are thoughts flesh and blood cannot relate with. Flesh and blood are another way of saying “creation”. Creation in its natural state is not bad but it is supposed to embrace something supernatural. When we begin to think everlasting thoughts, we begin to have everlasting life. Jesus is not disorganized: He is the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (1 Peter 2:25), and every light He sends per time is to bring us into an estate in the spirit. For us to get to the point where we can relate with the everlasting thoughts, we have to believe that it is given unto us to know the mysteries of the kingdom.
God has given the soul the ability to learn anything; we should not joke with the soul. This ability was not designed by Satan, but Satan exploited it and corrupted it. The soul can become anything: he can learn Christ and learn everlasting life. It is subject to any learning you bring it under and the ability to learn Christ, God and all the mysteries was kept in the soul by the Lord. The issue is that we approach these mysteries with a defeatist mentality. Rather, we should approach them with the knowledge that the soul can learn them. This is where we employ faith. It may not look like it now, but believe that “I have been given to know these mysteries”.
This is why we ought to pray! Sometimes when we pray, we pray like we do not want God to answer but when Jesus was praying in John chapter 17, He was full of faith that the prayer will be answered. Some of us need to go to the Lord in faith. The Lord wants us to pray that we will understand these things. There is a way the Lord wants to fellowship with us and it cannot happen except we have a particular kind of light. When that light is shining, the onus is on us to embrace it and walk in it, so fellowship can continue.
The Hebrew church was going to pull out of fellowship; they were told to go on unto perfection but they wanted to go back (Heb. 6:1). They were cutting themselves off from fellowship and that could have turned them into anti-Christs. So, onus is actually placed on us not to take for granted the light that is coming to us in this season. We will embrace it and treat it with the mindset that "I will know it". We will not settle for anything less because fellowship and cleansing are at stake.
I perceive there is a mindset the Lord must imbibe in all of us. What comes to mind is the scripture that says "blessed are those who hunger…" (Matt. 5:6). The soul is designed by God to take all, but there are illegal occupants that need to leave and that is why light is increasing. As light increases, it dislodges darkness then we can have fellowship and be cleansed. It is at this point light will continue to occupy us until we are completely occupied by light. Jesus stands from head to toe as light - there is no space for anything that is not God, and this is how we ought to be like.