Eternal Glorious Fountain Ministry (EGFM)
www.egfm.org
Programme: Saturday Revelation Hour (RH)
Date: Saturday, 25th September 2021
Ministering: Pastor Emeka Egwuchukwu
“I and my Father are one.” (John 10:30) Oneness is an important aspect of the everlasting gospel and this gospel was expounded in the gospel of John. God preached this everlasting gospel to Abraham, while he was on earth, and as such, his life was in consonance with the teachings of Christ. God led Him and trained his soul to relinquish the ephemeral, such that he began to live everlasting life. God made him an everlasting man by preaching the everlasting gospel to him.
At the age of seventy-five, the Lord told Abraham to be patient as regards having an heir and then told him that He would bless him; this blessing is everlasting. Anything that can pass away is not a blessing. A man that has not been blessed with everlasting conversation is not blessed. Abraham had to be led through a path of patience. In the midst of nations with tempting things, God was leading and training his soul. God preached the everlasting gospel to Abraham, such that his soul acquired capacity for everlasting life. God gave him the substances of everlasting life and by it, he captured the conversation of everlasting life. This is why we cannot teach the Bible without making reference to Abraham.
The season of the Father is the season of bringing in everlasting life. One of the major essences of everlasting life is to achieve oneness with the Father. “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. [22] And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one…” (John 17:21-22). There is a way God and Jesus are one. Being one does not mean not having quarrels, it is much more than that. If we understand how Jesus and God are one, then we would understand how we ought to be one because the standard of oneness is how God and Jesus are one.
The reason for the tabernacle is to reconcile the people. Every segment of the tabernacle has an amount of reconciliation that it can minister. Reconciliation means bringing us near -- we need to be brought near to be made one. We need to leave where we are and come to where God is. God responds to us based on our coming; this is why Jesus was always saying “I go to My Father”. What He wanted to achieve was oneness with God. Oneness with the Father begins with oneness with Christ. Each level of the tabernacle brings us closer to God. A Levite has a portion in the tabernacle that someone who is not a Levite cannot access, even a king. To be made a Levite is to come into that level of closeness and oneness. Closeness comes before oneness; this can be explained with marriage.
“For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.” (Eph. 5:31-32). Marriage is a preaching of the gospel. In marriage, a man would leave his father and mother, and shall be joined to his wife and the two shall be one flesh – this is a great mystery. The essence of marriage is to express the Life of God, but you cannot express this life beyond the level of understanding you have. As light and understanding come to us, God expects us to step up in life expression. In marriage we can get to the point where we begin to love with everlasting light. When this is achieved, there is a togetherness and oneness that is also achieved.
If we know everything about marriage, we will fight for our marriages to express the life of God. Satan hates marriage. When he saw marriage in Eden, he knew it was a formation that would not allow his evil agenda to thrive. This is why he likes to come in between a man and his wife; he knows that once they are separated, God will not come. Satan understands the essence of oneness; he understands that it is a ground that needs to be prepared for God to come to man. Satan has a total hatred for marriage and fights against it, but marriage is everlasting. Anytime Satan is fighting vehemently against a thing, it means there is something eternal in it and it has the capacity to stop him.
Marriage mirrors a great mystery – the mystery of Christ and the Church. There is a level of oneness that ought to be with Christ and the Church. Without that level of oneness, we would not have oneness with God. Oneness is not an attribute of what has happened in our spirits only, our souls also have a major role to play. It is in the dimension of the soul that oneness is counted. It is mentioned severally in the Epistles that the Church should be of one mind. Paul said it was “his joy” for the church to be like minded, having the same love and being of one accord (Phil. 2:2). Paul could demand this of the church in Phillipe because they have been taught the things of Christ. Oneness cannot be achieved without the soul understanding the things of Christ.
When a couple experiences issues or differences, all they need to do is to continue to give attention to the word of Christ and that wall will crumble down. That wall only exists in a mind that is not yet Christ, so to dissolve that wall, the husband and wife have to be of one mind. What will settle things in a home is not going to the court of law; all that is needed is to teach Christ so that both husband and wife become like Christ. The word works! Couples do not need to take their marriages to professional marriage counsellors; all they need is Christ. They need charity -- being of one mind and one accord.
“And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” (Philippians 3:9). When we get to this dimension, one of the things God begins to arrest are the things that constitute “my own”. They are natures that make us personalize things that we should not and we were taught this by Satan. Many come into marriage with the “my own” attitude. Those things are expressions of flesh. Flesh likes “my own”, but in Christ we cannot have our own, 'that we may be found in Him, not having our own things'. We must be delivered from “my own”. We must come to accept that we do not have anything; all that we have was given to us from above. If we have this understanding, we will not boast. When Christ is being taught, what is going to be arrested is “my own”.
“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” (Matthew. 16:24). “Himself” is the foundation of “my own”. We cannot follow the Lord if we are mindful of where we came from. If anyone will come after Jesus, such a person must deny, relinquish and let go his own things. In being one with Christ, we have to learn that. Beyond the natural prowess that Paul had, he had gained some things in Christ but had to also relinquish them, to look for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ (Phil. 3:8).
The essence of Christ is to move into the Father. Christ is a corridor -- He is a means to a Place, not an end (John. 14:6). When we tarry long in Christ without the desire to move into higher light, we do not maximise the purpose of Christ. The purpose of Christ is to journey. There is a way flesh can glory is knowing Christ. This can be seen in the way the Pharisees gloried in the flesh. That which was supposed to be spiritual had been hijacked and possessed selfishly by the Pharisees. Satan is always around anything that brings about gain to the flesh. He can turn godliness to selfish gain. This is why we have been called to deny ourselves.
In this season, we are being called to a higher calling – God is calling Christ to a higher level, so that he can hear God's voice. Not everyone hears God. A man must be able to hear Christ before he can hear God. We are expected to carry our cross daily throughout the learning of Christ. However, when a man takes up his cross and boasts in himself, it will prevent him from journeying into a more excellent light. The cross is where God takes away from us everything that is of man.
‘Oneness with Christ’ does not mean that we (our natures) will exist together with Christ, but rather that Christ must be the only one living or existing in us (Gal. 2:20). In this realm, we will not only deny ‘self’ (our carnal nature), but also deny ‘father and mother’ because these are places where our own things (our natures) hide. They hide in the blood (Matt. 10:37). We therefore have to be redeemed from our own blood by the blood of the Lamb.
Oneness in Christ is not achievable without being in charity. A church that is in charity is a church that can go into God, and to such, God will come consistently. Oneness in Christ is achieved when souls come to charity, for we would be one when we think charity thoughts. Oneness with Christ is a state where Christ is the only life of a man. However, when a soul arrives at everlasting life, he will be one with the Father. Therefore, oneness with the Father is the dimension where only the Father’s life will be lived out or expressed. Jesus got to this point and was called ‘Everlasting Father’.
The administration of God is upon the shoulder of the Father, and not Christ. When God wants to speak, He raises fathers because He speaks to fathers, not children (Heb. 1:1). The government of the everlasting Father is an everlasting one.
No one can go to the Father except by Jesus. ‘Going to the Father’ does not refer to Jesus’ journey to the cross, but a journey He undertook while He was losing His own nature and taking on that of the Father. Hence, He came to the state where He could say, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30). Jesus would not have been able to make that statement if He had not relinquished all of His own nature. No one can come into oneness with the Father unless He is taught to relinquish and hate the things that are ‘his own’. The things that are ‘your own’ constitute iniquity; therefore, you have to hate them. In the time of the everlasting administration, we are taught to hate the things that are our own.
Jesus undertook a journey to the Father, by which He trapped attributes of the Father in His soul. This was how He could get to the point where the Father is in Him (and He, in the Father). He got to a point where He thought like the Father and could speak His thoughts too (John 14:10). The Father is a Father of spirits, hence we should not try to comprehend Him from a physical point of view.
In marriage, a man and his wife can come to a place where they think the same way – this is a sign of oneness. However, this does not happen until they are several years into the marriage. The journey to becoming one as a husband and wife begins when each spouse starts learning to relinquish his or her own ways or things.
Jesus arrived at a place where He was in total synchrony with the Father. One can only come into this state when a separation has taken place in him. This separation is a kind of atonement that sets you apart from your own thoughts, so that you can arrive at the thought of God. The state of being in the Father and the Father being in Him (Jesus) took place in the realm of thoughts. As such, you can arrive at a place where you think like the Father, all the time.
“In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. [3] And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2-3). Jesus prepares a place for us by preparing us to come into a state that can receive the thoughts of God. The Father dwells in Christ through His thoughts – His mind (John. 14:10). The Father is a raw energy of life that can consume you such that you will not even be found in eternity.
The strongest aspect of the Father is His thoughts. It takes power to make a man think everlasting thoughts. There is usually a lot of warfare involved in making a man think everlasting thoughts. This is because our fallen states have programmed us to think thoughts of death. What is killing man started from the realm of thoughts. The best of man’s thoughts without Christ is death. Man thinks of how to live for a long time in his flesh but God does not think in this manner. That thought of man stems from the fear of death. God does not even think of how to live because His thoughts are life.
The things that are coming to us in this season are the thoughts of God, therefore we should esteem them greatly. Even if we do not understand them, we should not fight them. If we desire them, we will understand them later (Phil. 3:15). We must therefore trust the Lord for grace for multitude obedience so that the thoughts of God can keep coming to us.
The thoughts of God are very high (Isa. 55:9). We are being dealt with in the area of our thoughts because we become our thoughts. Our thoughts affect our bodies; as such, if a man thinks he is sick, he can become sick. The words that Jesus speaks, which are the thoughts of God, are a result of a work that has been done in Him. Jesus wants to bring us to the realm He spoke of when He said, “where I am, there ye may be also” (John 14:3). This “I am” does not refer to ‘Christ’ but a place beyond Christ. We should therefore desire where He is because as we do, it will be revealed to us.