Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
Programme: Lekki Soul Centre (LSC)
Date: Wednesday, 12th October 2022
According to Philippians 3:20, Apostle Paul spoke about ‘our conversation’ which some other translations refer to as ‘our citizenship’ and ‘our community’. Our conversation is our life and it is in heaven. It is when our conversation has been fully established as our life that it then becomes our lifestyle.
In heaven, there are many realms: Outer Court, the Holy Place, the Most Holy Place. Then there is the throne of God where God the Father is seated and His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ is seated at His right hand. There is a need for us to know which part of heaven the conversation is from, and which conversation is therein. Our conversation is not in the heavens of the present angelic hierarchy.
Even though our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, is using the present outer court to the Most Holy place to save us, our souls are meant to ascend through those corridors of domains of angels. We do not share citizenship with angels regardless of the realm of heaven that they stand. Rather, we share citizenship with Jesus. Our conversation is of a particular place in Christ (Eph. 2:4-6); and Christ is at a particular point in heaven, at the right hand of the throne of God in the heavens.
‘Conversation’ translated to Greek is ‘citizenship’. We are citizens of heaven by birth. We are firstly citizens of earth because of our genealogy. We all hail from Adam, the first man in creation. According to Philippians 3:20, our citizenship being in heaven makes reference
to what happened in our spirit by the new birth. Ephesians 2:5-6 explains that we share citizenship with Jesus our Lord with our
spirit by the new birth.
What occurred with our spirit is an instantaneous citizenship. The day we got born again, we changed our genealogy from just being earthly to being heavenly. Everyone who will be a partaker of the world to come must first be a partaker of our Lord Jesus Christ. Although we would be in different estates in the world to come, the estate of our lives at the moment is in heaven because of where Jesus Christ, with whom we share citizenship, is. The thing that happened to our spirit that made our citizenship to be in heaven was commissioned to Paul to be taught to the churches. Paul taught the churches ‘our life’ (Col. 3:4).
The everlasting things are from above and they are taught after the things of Christ are given. At a particular time, Christ was the conversation of Paul and some other people in the Colossian and Philippian churches. Christ was their life not just in their spirits but in their flesh. Much more than having Christ in our spirits, He wants to be the Lord of our souls. The lordship over our souls is not done by proclamation but rather by the revelation of the doctrine of Christ.
One of the ways we deny the Lord is when we do not do His life. To deny the Lord is not to refuse to preach publicly when we are being prompted to, although there is a measure of it in that context (Luke 9:26). To deny the Lord is to deny His demand of life when it is being measured out to us. The Lord does not put the demand of His life upon us when He has not given the doctrine of His life.
Sometimes we make up our minds to do certain things we see in scripture but it never lasts because we cannot do it. Living out the life without doctrine can be likened to wanting to be like Jesus without knowing Him. God is just: it is important that we stick with the commandments measured out to us individually.
Christ does not automatically become our life as rendered by Paul in Colossians 3:4. At new birth, a person can claim this scripture but it is only true in the spirit of such a one, and not in his soul.
Life is where living comes from. Livings are the many shades of life. Human and animal lives are not the same. The life of different creatures is in their souls. Animals are body and soul— they are not everlasting and do not live beyond the present or carry an expression beyond their soul. People differ from person to person in their soul despite our similarities in the external. Soul is the house of life.
A person can be born again and have a different life in their soul. Man is essentially a spirit; the real man is the spirit. But amongst the three - spirit (inner man), soul (inward man) and body (outward man) - the most influential and powerful is the soul. It is the soul that opened the door to death in Genesis. If the woman had partaken of the fruit without Adam eating of it, death would not have entered the earth because Adam had knowledge. What activated the power in the knowledge of good and evil was the knowledge that God put in Adam when He formed him (Gen. 2:7).
If Adam had a life or knowledge lower than the living soul life, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would not have been unlocked. The knowledge in his soul made it possible for sin and death to come in. The soul opened the door for Satan to kill the spirit (Gen. 3). Also, without the soul, we could not have been born again.
"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Rom. 10:10). The heart is the lower soul that is attached to the spirit. If the soul did not believe, there would not have been access to the spirit. Though, you can be born again in your spirit, but what you do in your soul can send you to hell.
"And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." (Jude 1:23). These people got to this stage because of what they did in their soul. The soul is so powerful but so underrated. Adam never underrated his soul because of knowledge. The one who makes us underrate our soul and its potential is the devil. He wants us to underrate the soul, whereas, he knows the capacity of the soul. The soul will also open the door for the body to receive life. Obedience begins from the soul; it is not first of all what we do with our body. The basis for obedience is doctrine.
A kingdom is what heaven wants to deliver. We must be enlightened and place a premium on the Spirit of wisdom, revelation, counsel, might, knowledge and the fear of God for Them to act on the soul. Yielding to hear doctrine is a key part of obedience. When the word comes, grace is given (2 Pet. 1:2). Gracious work is a product of doctrine. Without doctrine, outward showings of righteousness will eventually wane. The strength to do instructions is revelation. If the revelation is not well received, there will not be power to obey.
We have life in our spirit at the new birth but that life needs to become our life. Out of life comes 'livings'. ‘Livings’ are characterised by nutrition, irritability, growth, excretion, movement, reproduction and death. The soul also demonstrates these things. Our soul is meant to demonstrate living. When life is flowing, we are living. When life is static, there is a drop. Words are life (John 6:63; Ecc. 7:12). When doctrine is being taught, life is being given.
Many things are not really doctrine. Doctrine is the revelation of Jesus Christ, His Person, penned down by apostolic authority in the scriptures which only the Holy Spirit can help a person to see.
"But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by His grace…" (Gal. 1:15). Doctrine is Jesus' Person revealed through preaching and teaching. The Lord empowered the Apostles in the early church from the scriptures of the prophet to see Christ. A person can love and talk about Christ but it does not equal doctrine. For it to be doctrine, it has to be the singular revelation of Jesus, Jesus alone being shown and magnified.
"…Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person…" (Heb. 1:3). His Person is converted into revelation and put in the epistles, to be excavated through preaching. When they preach His word, they preach His gene. The word is a seed. Most times, we cannot tell when the seed falls into us. This is why every meeting is important and none should be regarded as less important than others. The Lord might just say something in a meeting and seed falls and begins to divide in us.
. When the seed first falls, it is a wisdom. But when it is watered, it grows bigger. As the seed grows, our understanding also shifts ground and progresses. This can be likened to a foetus that grows bigger as long as the mother keeps eating. The more the feeding, the faster the growth until the child is formed (Gal. 4:19). Growth takes time. For nature formation to happen, it has become a life, a conversation. Preaching is the script for formation.
“My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you…” Gal. 4:19. According to this verse, the full formation of Christ does not happen at once. For Christ to be formed in a person means the life of Christ has become the life of such. Anytime Christ is preached and unveiled, we become wiser per the doctrine that is being given. At this level, the Spirit of God limits its operations to the Spirit of Christ. For someone else who is in the season of everlasting life, that same Spirit of God would operate as the Spirit of the Father in that person. It is the same Holy Ghost but what He does in people differs. The Holy Ghost takes the word we have heard and begins to give us instructions.
When the doctrine is given and we do it, it can be said that we are living. When doctrine is given, life is given. Life is given by teaching, not by laying hands or other means of transference. Life is made available when preaching and teaching are going on. Meetings can be so full of life because the atmosphere is full of the right words. Another word for life is revealed righteousness. When the doctrine is in us, the Spirit of God operating as the Spirit of Christ takes the word and gives us instructions. He will lead us in every aspect of our lives. This is how we engage the conversation of life. We should live and live. Most times we are in haste to move from life to everlasting life. As good as this is, we must know that life has beauty. There is beauty in just taking the Lord’s instructions and doing them.
In a particular season of our lives, the Lord can decide to deal with a particular thing in us that we do not like but have never had an answer to. God exposes us to a level of word that has enough grace to deal with that thing. He turns the season around and majors on that particular infirmity, depending on how we yield. In most cases, such infirmities may be hidden (2 Cor. 4:2); but the Lord would create a circumstance that would reveal them. As He reveals them, He begins to instruct us concerning them. Then war begins. Most times, war does not begin in hearing. We often rejoice while hearing because the word excites us. After the excitement, the Spirit of God brings instructions that are in tandem with what we have heard. This is what triggers warfare.
Without warfare, obedience would have been easier. The reason obedience is difficult most times is because of ourselves and evil spirits who are also shareholders of the natures that we have. We are all shareholders in the sin and death/hell and death commonwealth. We are important to the reign of evil spirits on earth. When they sense the increased presence of doctrine or spiritual activities around a person, they collide to wane the atmosphere.
A person can have life but has not yet possessed it. When life is owned by a person, it means that is where the person founts from. That life has become the person’s inheritance. Our default responses to life’s events come from who we really are. Anytime we respond contrary to the word we are hearing, God knows that we need to receive more life. He knows that we need to be brought into dealings that will make us more contrite and sober. That is the reason for the atmosphere of words. Without it, we may hear the word but will be unable to do it.
On this path, there are issues in life that will consistently break one’s heart. That is why God padded us with the ‘gift’ of being excited, or else we would be depressed. A life becomes one’s life when it has been inherited. Life is not inherited by knowing it; rather, it is inherited by consistently using it. The beginning of usage is most times by instruction. If usage is continually obeyed at the instance of the leading of the Spirit, one would eventually get to the point of using the life even without being prompted by the Spirit.
We should not waste our time hearing things that are not life because those things can confuse our ability to understand life. We need a lot of time to hear and comprehend life. It is the life level in us that determines the level of instruction that the Spirit of God would bring to us. The Lord will not suffer us to be tempted more than what we can bear (1 Cor. 10:13). What we can bear is dependent on what we have eaten. It is the degree of doctrine in us that determines how God can lead us.
When the doctrine of Christ (faith, hope and charity) is being taught to us, life is being given to us. Instructions would also be brought to us, depending on the measure of life given. As we do the instructions, we live (Rom. 1:17). This living sets doctrine into motion. We live by turning doctrine loose because we would be doing the things that are stored in us as truth. When truth is inside of us, the Spirit of God brings instructions that turn it loose, expecting that our whole being (spirit, soul and body) would do the instructions. It begins with understanding. Then demands of life begin to come to us, even when we are yet to agree with the understanding of the doctrine.
When instructions come to us, life is at stake. Allocations of life have seasons and periods that we are supposed to come into them. Our failure to come into them at the appointed seasons affects the divine syllabus. God plans each person’s food within what is being taught to the whole company. So, if one person continues to disobey, such would consistently become hardened and would develop more skills to disobey. Even the channels which the Holy Spirit would use to make such a person obey would be rendered impotent. When we disobey the instructions that were brought for an infirmity, the infirmity develops resistance against those instructions. We must obey instructions in the way they were brought to us. When we adjust the specifics to fit our pride, we lose life and develop resistance against the instructions. Evil spirits would then tighten that ground and ensure that it is more difficult to obey.
The best time to obey instructions is as they come. The more we try to reason the instructions, the less we have the capacity to do them. The instructions are not for another person’s good but because God wants to do something in us through our obedience. The Lord is more interested in what He wants to correct in our lives. When the correction has been done, the Lord moves away from that infirmity.
This whole preaching is about the processes of our life. We need to turn life loose. Some of us have stored doctrine but it is yet to become life. The level of our doctrine is higher than the level of our life. The heavens expect us to live in a certain manner with the kind of resources we have but our lifestyle is not commensurate with the knowledge we possess. The Lord wants us to be meticulous, deliberate and proactive about doing life. We must be able to narrow everything around us down to life conversations. We leak life when we are not like that.
We need to ask God to strengthen our ability, awareness and proactiveness towards conversations. When we are not aware, instructions pass over us and conversations escape us everywhere we find ourselves. We must ask that the full awareness of conversations overwhelms our minds and hearts.
Blessings!
Summary
-
Our conversation is not in the heavens of the present angelic hierarchy (Phil. 3:10). Our conversation is of a particular place in Christ; and Christ is at a particular point in heaven, at the right hand of the throne of God in the heavens.
-
Much more than having Christ in our spirits, He wants to be the Lord of our souls. The lordship over our souls is not done by proclamation; but rather by the revelation of the doctrine of Christ. At a particular time, Christ was the conversation of Paul and some other people in the Colossian and Philippian churches.
-
One of the ways we deny the Lord is when we do not do His life. It happens when we deny the demand of Christ when His demand is measured out to us. The Lord does not put the demand of His life upon us when He has not given the doctrine of His life. Any teaching that cannot paint the person of Jesus is not doctrine.
-
We have life in our spirit at the New birth, but that life needs to become our life. Out of life comes 'livings'. When life is flowing, we are living. When doctrine is being taught, life is being given. Doctrine is not just in the reading of the scriptures. It is the giving of a kind of life.
-
Doctrine is Jesus' Person revealed through preaching and teaching (Gal. 1:15). The Lord empowered the Apostles in the early church from the scriptures of the prophet; they saw Christ. A person can love and talk about Christ but it does not equal doctrine. For it to be doctrine, it has to be the singular revelation of Jesus; Jesus alone being shown and magnified.
-
Doctrine is the ground for the leading of the Spirit. When the doctrine is given and we do it, it can be said that we are living. When the doctrine is in us, the Spirit of God operating as the Spirit of Christ takes the word and gives us instructions. He will lead us in every aspect of our lives. This is how we engage the conversation of life.
-
When life is owned by a person, it means that is where the person founts from. That life has become the person’s inheritance. Our default responses to life’s events come from who we really are. Anytime we respond contrary to the word we are hearing, God knows that we need to receive more life.
-
Life is not inherited by knowing it; rather, it is inherited by consistently using it. The beginning of usage is most times by instruction. If usage is continually obeyed at the instance of the leading of the Spirit, one would eventually get to the point of using the life even without being prompted by the Spirit. It is the degree of doctrine in us that determines how God can lead us.
-
We should not waste our time hearing things that are not life because those things can confuse our ability to understand life. We need a lot of time to hear and comprehend life. It is the life level in us that determines the level of instruction that the Spirit of God would bring to us.
-
When instructions come to us, life is at stake. Allocations of life have seasons and periods that we are supposed to come into them. Our failure to come into them at the appointed seasons affects the divine syllabus. God plans each person’s food within what is being taught to the whole company.