The Potency of Conversion for Everlasting Life (SOS)

Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)

 

Programme: School of the Spirit (SOS)

 

Date: Thursday, 22nd September, 2022

 

Ministering: Pastor Thompson Ehima

 

 

 

“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:” (Philp. 3:20). Conversation is very necessary. If we are going to move far, we must be diligent with conversation. As doctrine is being opened up to us, a commensurate conversation must follow. The spirits that are fighting us in this season, which are the spirits of the antichrist and of the false prophet, are fighting us because of conversation. They are fighting against the manifestation of Jesus in the flesh. The manifestation of Jesus in the flesh is not referring to His coming at birth; He already did that. Instead, this coming speaks of how Jesus would be manifested in our conversations. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is majorly for conversation (2Pet. 1:16-17). 

 

Conversation is very important lest we become hypocrites. (Isa. 33:14) We ought not to have hypocrites and sinners in Zion but, at the time of the giving of everlasting joy, it was discovered that sinners were also present in Zion. The giving of everlasting joy is the crowning of everlasting life. The hypocrites and sinners of Zion are not unbelievers. Apostle James was writing to the saints, the Church of Christ, when He said, ‘Cleanse your hands, ye sinners…’ (Jam. 4:8). In the book of Isaiah we also found that there were sinners in Zion, likewise the fearful and hypocrites (Isa. 33:14).

 

Hebrews 12:22 says, “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels”. This portion of Zion is not referring to its base levels or elevations but the plateau of Zion. That is where Zion peaks. We are gathered first at the base of Zion, then we journey in Christ to stand upon mount Zion. 

 

God wants to rid Zion of sinners, the fearful and the hypocrites because there is a devouring fire that they must dwell with and the everlasting God, where incorruptible life would find full expression. The intent of everlasting life is to bring us to a state of sinlessness. No sinner should be upon Zion. The sin that is done by the sinners here are not the works of the flesh. The first, second and third epistles of John, when studied, expose the issues of sin more clearly. 

 

1 John 2:1 says, “My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous”. It is obvious from the scriptures that God wants to eradicate the issue of sin. The book of Daniel speaks about the LORD bringing an end of sin (Dan. 9:24). God wants to finish transgression and reconcile iniquity (Dan. 9:24). 

 

“My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:” (1 John 2:1). Having an advocate with the Father refers to the high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ (1John 2:1). The high priestly ministry of Jesus Christ is for the purpose of taking away our sins (1John 3:5).

 

God wants to make sure that sinners in Zion are afraid (Isa. 33:14). It is good for us to be afraid. Fear would come upon the hypocrites, which are those who have the lingua of this message but who chose to not enter. Such men have the resources for entrance but fail to convert the keys into conversation; hence, they are referred to as hypocrites.

 

God wants to rid us of hypocrisy. Hypocrites are different from false prophets. Hypocrites are hypocritical with the doctrine, tenets, principles and commandments of life that are being measured out. They only pick what is comfortable for them in the standards and parameters of Christ. Jesus was not comfortable with the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes because they were hypocrites who had revelations and appeared white but were full of dead men’s bones (Matt. 23:27). When we do not transact with the light and revelations that are being committed to us and make them our conversations, we would be like the Pharisees that Jesus referred to as sepulchers.

 

We must transfer the light we receive into conversations. We need to import conversations from heaven down to our earth (Philp. 3:20). We have used earth so much that we do not like conversations that are from heaven, because they strip us of everything that earth has offered us. Whether we like conversations that are from heaven or not, we are bound to live out earthly conversation which really is a perverted heavenly conversation. Although carnality is a conversation that is expressed on the earth, it stems from a fallen heavenly being. Satan is spiritually evil and hell is an inverted heaven. Therefore, earthly conversations cannot be used to convert a soul from the conversation of a fallen cherub.

 

We can not use men’s customs and traditions to combat the design of the princes of this world. Everything that man has designed to deal with sin at the level of the work of flesh fails for this reason. Such methods may work for a while but they will fail ultimately. Paul exclaimed about his failed attempts at being free from sin in Romans 5 and 6. Sin was able to overcome the law (Rom. 7:11). This shows that nothing earthly can deal with the conversation of sin and death in the soul (Rom. 7:11-14). 

 

The Lord will not allow sinners in Zion. “Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven. [27] And this word , Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.” (Heb. 12:26-27). God is going to shake off our old conversations and inverted heavens conversations that hold us bound and have taken us captives. The inverted work of wrong spirits will be shaken until nothing remains, except the things that are meant to remain. They want to remove the earth (Heb. 12:27), that is, remove our carnal nature. 

 

What Satan did to us is not really earthly but is a fallen heavenly work. There are things that Satan put in us that made us become his workmanship in his inverted heavens (Heb 12:27). The Lord is removing such things so that things that can endure may remain. To remain is to abide or endure; that which can endure is everlasting. The things God wants to shake are not external; they are things within a man. God wants to shake them by the voice and speaking of the Son of God.

 

When He spoke on the earth, the earth shook. However, He is now speaking from Zion (Heb 12:25). He is speaking from heaven to do a dual work of removing conversations of the enemy that are already in us and downloading His own order of everlasting conversations. His speaking is removing conversations that are of the present, including the present earth and present heavens. He will remove these things by speakings and cause heavenly conversations to remain in us. Hence, we must not refuse Him that speaks, who is the Son of God (Heb. 12:25). 

 

The word ‘today, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts’ is common in Hebrews chapter three through to chapter five. To harden one’s heart does not mean one stops attending meetings. Someone can be attending meetings and hearing revelations but his heart is hardened. To harden one’s heart is to hold to one’s old conversations against the voice that is speaking. One can hear but refuse the voice of instruction and commandments that come from the Great Shepherd. This is a sign of unbelief.

 

An unbelief program is at work in us when a season to let go of our old conversations (way of life, thinking and value systems) comes upon us and we refuse it. Within us are not only earthly value systems but the value system of inverted heavens as well. There are things the adversary and his cohorts place premium on and they teach man to also place premium on such. To rid us of the perverted manner of life that we presently embody, there must be shakings from the Lord. Many of us, in certain seasons, would go through trials which is for the essence of shaking the old away. Shakings weaken us but we must allow God.

 

The essence of shaking is to weaken the strength of the perverted conversations that reside in us. In the book of Revelation, when the seals are being broken and the trumpet is sounding, there are always earthquakes. Earthquakes are needed to reach certain places wherein Satan has clamped us down. Our redemption is not complete when we are not yet redeemed from the earth and from amongst men; these are both everlasting works. The present earth and heaven are everlasting from creation. All of God’s present creations are everlasting in different measures. Redeeming us from the earth is beyond redeeming us from carnality alone because there are also everlasting parts of the earth. We need the voice of the Son of God to break the everlasting strength of the present heavenly order in our souls. These are laws and wisdom that Satan has wrought within our souls, which he uses to hold us down. 

 

There are certain shakings that will come as a result of the speaking of the Son of God in our lives. Such shakings may be silent and the Lord may use our sisters and brothers to perform this work. Every situation and people around us in our homes, workplace or on the road are set to upset and shake the conversations of the earth and perverted heavens in us. When we endure the shaking, a major stronghold, either of the earth or the heavens, will have been removed. Some of us may not realise when we eventually enter into life everlasting because it is not detected by a shiny face but by certain conversations. 

 

“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Philp. 3:20). Apostle Paul, before this verse, was building a thought from Christ and moved into desiring the excellent knowledge of Christ. Doing the law of Christ worked a formation and righteousness in Him. Though he had already counted many things as loss, he discovered that there are still more things that he needs to count as dung again for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ. The things he had let go before were not enough to fetch the conversation of the light that was beginning to be revealed to Him. He saw that he was falling short of the conversation of everlasting life. 

 

Many times, we still fall short of the conversation of Christ and we must attend to it so that we will have good testimonies. The Lord will bring comfort to us in places we fall, as we follow Him and seek to obey Him. We must not be discouraged but must keep following God and not compare ourselves to others in their walk with the Lord. Paul had suffered a measure of losses: the loss of reputation. We must not count it strange when we exhibit the character of Christ. We must not see it as something wrong with us. 

 

The conversation of Christ must be normal to us. It will teach us to forbear with our spouses even when they wrong us. In marriage, the principles obtained in the world would not work in a spiritual marriage. If we try to use the wisdom of the world we would suffer badly in marriage. We must understand that the spouse that the Lord allowed us to be with is to upset wrong conversations in us and we must allow the process of salvation instead of ironing out issues. People of the earth who do not have the light of Christ to iron out issues, but a spiritual home, cannot use the natural light that all men are using because it is Christ that ordained the marriage. Ironing out is a principle in the world, but in Christ, someone must take the fall so that much fruits can be brought forth. 

 

When we take the light of Christ for use, we will grow even when we are not conscious of it. We must not use earthly wisdom or conversations to live. Instead, we must use the conversation of Christ. As we journey in light, we would see many more things we have to lay down because the intent of God is to empty us of the negative earthly and heavenly conversations within us. There is a conversation of heaven we must receive. 

 

There is no salvation among men as Acts 4:12 says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved”. The name in the above scripture can refer to nature. This implies that there is no nature in the present that is given among men by which we can be saved. The nature that can save man has to come from above. It is the conversation from heaven that will detonate and destroy every perversion that we carry in our souls which constitute a limitation for us. 

 

“Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,” (Philp. 3:8). The Christ that is referred to here is not the Christ after the measure of life and peace. Instead, it speaks of Christ at the stature of everlasting life; that is, a Christ that has attained sinlessness. There is a Christ that makes us godly, while the Christ in the above scripture is to make a soul attain divine nature. So we must see that our conversation is not from or of the earth. 

 

We are to be redeemed and delivered from this present world. Jesus gave Himself for our sins to be delivered from this present world (Gal. 1:4). Evil spirits pester thoughts such as the thought that sinlessness is not possible, but this is not true.

 

What is keeping sin and death and hell and death present and active in our lives is some kind of knowledge and obedience. This knowledge is called thoughts and imaginations (2 Cor. 10:4-6). Hell and death can be called evil (corruption) and what keeps it in us are certain thoughts and imaginations (Gen. 6:5). We all have evil in us because of our thoughts that are not in alignment with God. Such thoughts are inverted heavens that are present in us. Sin and death is referred to as the world or uncleanness. Ungodliness, unrighteousness and evil in our lives are products of these thoughts and imaginations. We obey these imaginations and thoughts and thereby keep them in us, but they can be avenged. 

 

Satan should not tell us that we can not overcome sin. The thought that we cannot overcome sin is the thought of hell and death. Accepting this is an act of taking thoughts of hell and death which seek to limit us. These thoughts seek to hinder us from getting the best of God’s provisions.

 

The law of ungodliness interprets the issues of life and gives definitions to them. Similarly, the laws of righteousness can be interpreted in our daily life, activities and conversations. Man is meant to interface with all facets of human life and appropriate the judgements of God’s righteousness. It is not about quoting scriptures only. We must begin to think and judge like God would in any situation and every matter. It is not about memorising or meditating on scriptures without applying them. The scriptures that we meditate upon are meant to be a conversation in us. They are meant to be reflected in our everyday living, our jokes, interactions, relaxation, rebuke, corrections and every other expression. The Word of God should be a law in us, and by it, we order our conversation with all men and in every situation that comes our way. We must exercise the standards of God’s righteousness in our homes, work, and schools.

 

What man partook of is a tree of knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 3:5). What keeps the unrighteous nature (sin and death) in our souls is knowledge. Darkness can be resident in the soul even when it is not being committed. It is possible to have sin and not yet commit it (1John 3:8). Sin ought to be reconciled and remitted from our souls lest it advances because anyone who commits sin would become evil. God wants to expunge sin in all its measures from our souls lest we degenerate into becoming evil. The doing of sin is what turns the soul into evil. God does not want us to be committing sin. Instead, there should be an end to sins. 

 

It is good to be free from the law of sin and death (Rom 8:1, Tit 2:11-12). The intention of God is to make us free from unrighteousness and ungodliness, through the activities of obedience of faith until we attain charity. There are stages of Christ growth that are made explicit in the scriptures (2 Pet. 1:5-7). There are some virtues that we must attain before we can come into the season of certain knowledge (2 Pet. 1:5-7). These virtues come as one learns the Spirit. 

 

Every soul that is in the faith must learn the way of the Spirit. One of such virtues is being poor in the spirit, so that one can receive knowledge. If a person is satisfied with casting out devils and healing the sick, such a person will not receive help from God but will boast in his/her righteousness and in the privileges that they have in Christ. That way, such person will not move into the meat of the word that is described in 2 Peter 1:5-7.

 

The end of these things is the commandment of Christ. One of the virtues that is required is love for all the saints. While love for all the saints is a virtue, we must not stop at the love for the saints but must move into being poor at heart and being meek. Some people who believe that they do not need this but think that we are only trying to make too much of the epistle. However, the Bible says that you should add to your faith virtue and to virtue knowledge (2Pet. 1:5-7). That knowledge is the knowledge of Christ and we are to move from knowledge to knowledge; that is, the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of the Father and the knowledge of God.

 

Why God wants us to go through the season of knowledge is because what keeps sin, this world and evil in us is knowledge. We need knowledge to face that knowledge. God does not only want to bring us to a state of sinlessness, which is incorruptibility. He also wants to bring us to a state of deathlessness, which is immortality and this is also accomplished by knowledge 

 

What also keeps sin in us is obedience; our obedience to the knowledge we have. Knowledge comes to us in the form of thoughts and imaginations. When we stay, rapport and fellowship with those thoughts and imaginations, and engage and commune with them, they become a law and form a nature inside of us. We may not yet even commit a physical act, but our souls have already committed something. 

 

Jesus Christ taught this principle in Matt 5:28. This look is to commune or fellowship with something. As the heart communes with it, it stays on the heart until the heart engages it. ‘Looking’ is what James refers to when he speaks about looking unto the perfect law of liberty. To look is to fellowship with a thing, reconsider and weigh it. When we look enough, a work will be done in the soul and upon the mind (Jam 1:25). At this point, the soul will start handling it. 

 

We cannot move into conversation without looking for and continuing in fellowship with the thoughts (Jam 1:25). We need to continue hearing and continue judging ourselves. We do not just want to be forgetful hearers who deceive our own selves, but want to look and continue therein. We will not turn these things to conversation when we cannot continue in them. It is by continuing that we fetch skills. Skills are keys. We must continue hearing, beholding and checking all our actions with the words that we are hearing. We should continue to repent as often as we find out that we fall short. 

 

No matter what we do currently, there is still a better way to do it and we must recognize this. If we continue hearing the word and check our conversations, light would open and we will see the better way and find opportunities to sow righteousness and reap mercy. “Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” (Hos. 10:12). To sow righteousness is to sow everlasting righteousness. We have to do a lot of everlasting righteousness in order to break into the season of mercy wherein we would reap the mercy of Jesus unto Eternal Life. 

 

We must sow in righteousness and keep ourselves in the love of God (Jude 1:21). In Christ, what we practise is brotherly kindness. The conversation of brotherly kindness can be seen through the elder brother of the prodigal son (Luke 15:30-32). The elder brother did not refer to the prodigal son as his brother but as his father’s son. Thus, he joined the accuser of the brethren. This shows that although the elder brother is godly, he still lacks brotherly kindness.

 

A godly man is one who has submitted himself to the governance of the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. However, one can be submitted under this governance but still not be large enough. Paul was warning the Corinthian church of that (2Cor. 6:11-12). Charity will teach us to be large. That is the only safety that prevents corruption from entering into a community. This makes room for giving leverage to your brother even when he is falling short.

 

There is a way God sees some of our brothers that we do not like or we feel are not doing well. That thought we have of them is a sin and is responsible for causing sin to remain. We can never attain sinlessness with that kind of thought.

 

In Christ we do brotherly kindness but when we move to the season of everlasting life, we do lovingkindness, which is better than life (Psa. 63:3). The scriptures say that saviours will come out from Zion (Oba. 1:21). The world is becoming terrible and if we are not wired like this, we are going to smite people because we will not be able to tolerate what people are becoming. God wants to save them but He will not come down from heaven to do so. He is going to use you and I. He would raise us and raise a kind of immunity within us that cannot be contaminated. We would carry so much light that can break the formation of death within them

 

We have to be like our father, as it is said in Jeremiah 31:3, “The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee”. Lovingkindness draws men from all nations. When we attain this state, something in us will go after nations. Pastors understand this to a measure. Jesus Christ spoke of how the Good Shepherd left the ninety-nine and went to look for the one lost sheep (Luk. 15:1-7). 

 

While teaching, Jesus Christ said that whenever our brother has ought against us, we are to go after such a brother and reconcile with them (Matt. 5:23-24). This is a ministry of reconciliation and these are everlasting commandments. These are commandments and works of everlasting life and they require that, in such situations, we leave our righteousness and ground of justification to go after our brothers or sisters. When a soul does this, it would attain the state of sinlessness. 

 

In the Lord’s prayer, we ask the Father to forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us. These things are supposed to be in us and abound. In Christ you add, but when it comes to a season of everlasting life, you abound or multiply. We must abound in our conversations, kindness, forgiveness, patience, long suffering and knowledge. We may have had knowledge before but we now have to abound in knowledge, that is, multiply the knowledge that we have known before. 

 

“Now consider this, ye that forget God, Lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver. Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: And to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God.” (Psalm 50:22-23). Why do we forget God? This is one major thing that does not give us conversation. The place of considering a thing is where we are looking, weighing understanding, trying to wait on, communing with light, and with understanding so that understanding can break upon our hearts. Even though we hear, we also need to stay because it is in the fellowship that we are cleansed.

 

Apostle Paul commended the whole Thessalonian Church but, out of them, he regarded a certain church as more honourable or more noble - the Berean Christians (Acts 17:11). They received the word with all readiness of mind. Readiness of mind means that their minds were ready to engage it. That was why they were looking into it and continued therein, not forgetting but considering it.

 

You can hear a 3 hour message, but there would be a session that something would stand in your heart. Those are areas that you need to begin to consider, stay on, keep beholding and continue therein because conversations must be born out of it. Sometimes, when walking, you think about such things whilst trying to look around it and wait on it.

 

Our salvation must be a daily search and a daily experience. The Berean Christians were not criticising the apostle, whether he missed it or not. They were checking if those things were so in their lives or if they were falling short. If we are falling short, we should start repenting and should start calling to God for help and for mercy. 

 

When we are like this, God sees that we are offering him praise and that we are a people who are desiring to align our thoughts and our hearts to generate a conversation that is in alignment with God. Salvation does not just come if there is no ordering of life by righteousness. For you to receive salvation, you must order your conversations with everlasting righteousness so that you can see salvation; so that you can be shown salvation. Showing you salvation is making you come to a place of holding, owning and inheriting salvation.

 

God has different instructions that He uses to order our conversations. He has different supplies for different things because it is out of His wisdom to save us and generate a conversation out of them. This is not rigid or systematic. God wants to birth a conversation out of us so that the glory would be His and not of man. Heaven wants us to move into a season of ordering, aligning and arranging our conversations. 

 

One side to ordering your conversations is arranging. When we do, we are meant to continue therein. Sometimes this involves arranging our thoughts about a person or rearranging our response towards a matter or a person. When we rearrange things, a new conversation comes out of it. But if we keep things the way they are, we would continue to repeat our same old conversations. 

 

The Lord is giving us keys and wisdom to generate so many conversations that are well pleasing to him. However, He will not just fall upon us, we have to keep beholding. We must not be forgetful hearers but must keep engaging light, looking and waiting on the word and communing with them for cleansing to take place in our hearts. 

Blessings!

 

 

Summary

1. (Phil. 3:20) Conversation is very necessary. If we are going to move far, we must be diligent with conversation. As doctrine is being opened up to us, a commensurate conversation must follow. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is majorly for conversation (2Pet. 1:16-17).

2. God wants to rid Zion of sinners, the fearful and the hypocrites because there is a devouring fire that they must dwell with and the everlasting God, where incorruptible life would find full expression. The intent of everlasting life is to bring us to a state of sinlessness. 

3. There are things that Satan put in us that made us become his workmanship in his inverted heavens (Heb 12:27). The Lord is removing such things so that things that can endure may remain. He will remove these things by speakings and cause heavenly conversations to remain in us. Hence, we must not refuse Him that speaks, who is the Son of God (Heb. 12:25). 

4. All of God’s present creations are everlasting in different measures. Redeeming us from the earth is beyond redeeming us from carnality alone because there are also everlasting parts of the earth. We need the voice of the Son of God to break the everlasting strength of the present heavenly order in our souls.

5. Many times, we still fall short of the conversation of Christ and we must attend to it so that we will have good testimonies. The Lord will bring comfort to us in places we fall, as we follow Him and seek to obey Him. We must not be discouraged but must keep following God and not compare ourselves to others in their walk with the Lord. 

6. What is keeping sin and death and hell and death present and active in our lives is some kind of knowledge and obedience. This knowledge is called thoughts and imaginations (2 Cor. 10:4-6). Hell and death can be called evil (corruption) and what keeps it in us are certain thoughts and imaginations (Gen. 6:5). We all have evil in us because of our thoughts that are not in alignment with God.

7. Satan should not tell us that we can not overcome sin. The thought that we cannot overcome sin is the thought of hell and death. Accepting this is an act of taking thoughts of hell and death which seek to limit us. These thoughts seek to hinder us from getting the best of God’s provisions.

8. Darkness can be resident in the soul even when it is not being committed. It is possible to have sin and not yet commit it (1John 3:8). Sin ought to be reconciled and remitted from our souls lest it advances because anyone who commits sin would become evil. God wants to expunge sin in all its measures from our souls lest we degenerate into becoming evil. 

9. We cannot move into conversation without looking for and continuing in fellowship with the thoughts (Jam 1:25). We need to continue hearing and continue judging ourselves. We do not just want to be forgetful hearers who deceive our own selves, but want to look and continue therein. We will not turn these things to conversation when we cannot continue in them.

10. In Christ we do brotherly kindness but when we move to the season of everlasting life, we do lovingkindness, which is better than life (Psa. 63:3). In Christ you add, but when it comes to a season of everlasting life, you abound or multiply. We must abound in our conversations, kindness, forgiveness, patience, long-suffering and knowledge.