Programme: School of the Spirit (SOS)
Date: Thursday, 11th May 2023
Transcript Summary
1. Jesus authored and finished the program of the cross, but He is not the only one who is meant to fulfil that course. It is the path that whosoever would come after Him must take (Heb. 12:2; Lk. 9:23). There is the process of initiation into the life of the cross for whosoever will yield his or her desires after the New Birth. It is not immediately we experience the New Birth that we gain the capacity to see or enter the Kingdom (John 3:3-5). The new birth is to make us gain entrance into a place where the Lord can work on our eyes for the purpose of seeing the Kingdom. There is a level of purification that must be worked out in the heart for the eyes to see the Kingdom. To see the Kingdom is to comprehend the values of the Kingdom. There are things men value on earth, but the Kingdom also has its values. There are things we do not physically see that are tangible and valuable to men. For example, the reason men can be pulled by money is because we know its value in this present world. Mammon is a kingdom that offers man a kind of dominion among other men. Satan has lied to man and has veiled man with mammon. The evil eye that Jesus talked about is a mammon eye, such is the eye that men use to value and esteem worldly goods (Matt. 6:23). A man with an evil eye is veiled but he knows the worth of mammon and can sell his soul to Satan to gain mammon. It is an evil eye that makes a follower of the word of righteousness to want to seek the spiritual but not without having the good of mammon. It is impossible to seek God and mammon at the same time (Matt 6:24).
2. Just like the kingdom of God, the kingdom of the enemy is also invisible and not physical. Though Satan now uses physical things to bring men into his kingdom. Anything in the realm of the invisible is highly valuable and anything that has been brought to the physical realm has been devalued. The currency of God’s kingdom is righteousness, and it is of an invisible and eternal value. On the other hand, what is referred to as the “kingdom of this world” is a kingdom that has been highly devalued though it does not yet appear as such to men. The time is coming when men will see the uselessness of the kingdom of this world and drop it. We would come to know how much it has been devalued. No evil spirit can devalue God’s righteousness, nothing at all can. Righteousness has eternal value, and sin cannot access it. According to Romans 10:10, it is with the heart that man can transact with invisible values. Satan made the values of his kingdom visible so that he can draw men's hearts, but he is drawing the heart to something invisible. The values of the kingdom of Our Lord Jesus are firstly spiritual and so, we need to begin by believing. To believe unto righteousness is to see righteousness as a valuable substance that we can invest our lives, our time and pursuit to gain.
3. There is gain in God’s righteousness, but Satan likes to discredit God’s righteousness by making us believe that it cannot also meet our earthly needs. Even though the kingdom of Satan is not just about putting food on our table; Satan is using food, raiment, and lusts to pull us to a place where man would be a subject of his kingdom. Satan is an expert in making men slaves and subservient to his laws. Man fell so much that he got to a place where he now sees gold as a treasure because the first man (Adam) was not living for gold in Genesis. Adam was not spending his time to gather gold because he was higher than the gold of the earth. Adam had another valuable good, which is righteousness. Adam’s heart valued righteousness. With the value of righteousness in the soul, man would despise earthly gold and follow Christ. Many believers make compromises because they do not have the value of righteousness. It is a weak soul that compromises righteousness for worldly things. Man has been weakened by Satan and he is still weakening man further, but there is hope for man in the gospel.
4. We must be able to esteem the sufferings of Christ as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt if we will take up our cross daily (Heb. 11:26). The sufferings of the cross are our treasure and we must esteem it as such. Moses was able to see and esteem the cross, He weighed the treasures of Egypt alongside the reproach of Christ, and he saw that the reproach of Christ is weightier than the treasures of Egypt. Egypt was a wealthy nation at that time; it was the richest and most powerful at that time. Believers of today must be able to esteem the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the riches of advanced nations like America. America is not as rich as the Egypt of Moses' time, yet Moses forsook Egypt. We must daily examine ourselves by finding out what we really value, esteem or hope to gain in life.
5. God is calling us to a place where we transact with the values of the Kingdom. We can imagine how Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ as greater riches than the treasures of Egypt. There is really nothing in this present order that can be compared with the joy ahead of the cross. According to Apostle Paul, the afflictions of our lifetime are actually for a moment. What men call their “lifetime” is a moment before God. Our lifetime here on earth is unimaginably momentous compared to Eternity. However, the scriptures make us understand that we can use those afflictions of our lifetime to work a far more exceedingly and eternal weight of glory (2 Cor. 4:17). We do not yet value this weight of glory as much as we should. We are not yet appreciating what lies ahead of us in the New Testament. Paul came to this realisation and forbade to boast in any other thing "save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Gal. 6:13). Our senses must come to this kind of understanding of value.
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Blessings!