Programme: Lekki Soul Centre (LSC)
Date: Wednesday, 31st May, 2023
Transcript Summary
1. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ…” (Eph.1:3). The God and the Father of our Lord Jesus has blessings, and He has blessed us (believers) with them. Some Christians believe that we already have these blessings and only need to confess them. But if this was true, Christians would not have issues with sin, darkness and death. It is possible to have life in your spirit, but that life may not yet be in your soul. It is a person who has the life of Christ in his soul that can have this blessing of God and the Father.
2. “That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ…” (Col. 2:2). There are three mysteries — the mystery of God, the mystery of the Father and the mystery of Christ. These are all life expressions in God. The essence of the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, His obedience to God (as He grew) and eventually, His inheritance of the life that is in God was to spell out all of these life expressions. The gospel seeks to give us these lives, in their entirety.
3. God’s intention from the beginning was for man to come into His image and likeness (Gen. 1:27). He wants man to come into all the levels of life in Him - life, everlasting life and Eternal Life and the fall of man (in Eden) did not change this intent. This is why we should not be lazy about learning doctrine, but trust God to keep up pace in understanding it.
4. The blessing of God and the Father can only be found in Christ. This means Christ is the foundation for these blessings to rest. God can only quicken one who is Christ in His soul; He can only work out everlasting and Eternal Life in a soul whose foundation is Christ.
5. (John 3:3). The essence of being born again is to give our souls a leverage to see the Kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is in three strata — Righteousness (the Outer Court), Peace (the Holy Place) and Joy (the Most Holy Place) (Rom. 14:17). Joy represents everlasting life, while righteousness and peace (or life and peace) constitute Christ. A man cannot come into the understanding of these without the New Birth.
6. “If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?” (John 3:12). These ‘earthly things’ that Jesus was telling Nicodemus about are all ‘Christ things’. When the spirit of a man is born again, it is born on earth. This does not mean that the spirit is a physical entity. It rather means that it is the earthly aspect of the blessing of God. All the blessings in God are twain — earth and heaven. That of heaven is also twain — everlasting life and Eternal Life.
7. Heavenly things are the things of the beginning; they are everlasting things. A person who has not learnt Christ may conclude the teachings of everlasting life as an error. That is why in listening to doctrine, we ought to listen with our spirits. Jesus’ question in John 3:12 connotes to us that comprehending heavenly things would be impossible without first comprehending earthly things.
8. Continuously ignoring the promptings of the Holy Spirit will make a person blind and unable to discern error. The Holy Spirit will always prompt the soul ahead of danger, which is oftentimes characterized by a loss of peace in one’s soul. But if a believer is still a babe in the spirit and cannot discern certain truths, the Lord in His mercy will keep such a person from harm. One of the ways He does so is through pastoral oversight.
9. All heavenly places are spiritual, although of different grades. The first two heavenly places are the ‘earth of the last heaven’, which is the Most Holy; and that last heaven has a heaven over it which is the throne of God, the peak of all heavens.
10. To further explain this, for example, on earth, the stars and galaxies are part of the earth, even though they are referred to as celestial or heavenly bodies. However, this does not mean that they are heavenly in the context of the heaven of angels. Similarly, the realm of the Outer Court is heaven but in the context of the heaven that the Most Holy Place is, and in the measurement of doctrine, it is earth.
11. The reason Jesus came is to begin in us, the project that failed in Adam in the book of Genesis. He started by getting our spirits born again, after which He would begin to teach our souls. Adam was given all the blessings at once, but we have to come to church to be so that we taught the earthly things that Jesus spoke about in John 3:12. These things are the things of the Spirit; they constitute the law of life and peace. A soul who uses the doctrine of Christ will become born of the spirit of life.
12. When a person uses the doctrine of Christ by obeying it, such a person will come to the point where the doctrine will change his soul and he will become spiritual. While his spirit is already spiritual as a result of the life it acquired through the New Birth, the soul will become spiritual through teaching. When the soul of a man has become spiritual, the Lord will further teach it the mysteries of the Father, which will make him everlastingly spiritual. Then, such a man will learn the law of living and abiding and his soul will be born to become incorruptible. It is this type of man who will then come into the blessings of Eternal Life.
13. Heavenly places are not only places of habitation for angels but also doctrinal places. The fabrics of angels and their habitations are held by doctrine. Doctrines are instruments of judgment; not only judgment for scriptures but also for judging life (1 Cor. 2:15). God is putting things in us through doctrine. Someone who has the doctrine of Christ to the level of peace would not fret over things that would make a normal person fret; no bad news can take his peace away. That peace is not automatic but one that is built with doctrine and obedience, to a point where the person is settled within and nothing can unsettle him.
Blessings!