Writing the Vision Prayer meeting Day 3
Ministering: Pastor Tayo Fasan
Text: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;) That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full” (1 John 1:1-4).
These verses speak about how God played His own part which cost Him something though it was what God had determined to do from the beginning. God’s eternal agenda had to do with the world to come and He is so convinced that His plan will work. Though we start in faith to find our way through unbelief with the armor of faith, He wants us to be as convinced of His plan as He is. Even the angels began to understand how glorious serving those who are heirs of the world to come when they saw Jesus. Though they live in the world of light and are beautiful beings, they appreciated the process that only man can go through and stood in awe of the glory that only man can wear. These are beings who relentlessly worship God because they have been empowered to do so and also know that He is worthy. The presentation of Jesus must have informed them to take seriously the issue, in the heart of God, of the world to come which they are meant to serve. This made them appreciate the vocation that God gave them and counted it a privilege to serve the purpose of God, which is salvation. God paid a price to manifest this life. Though He knows all things, He keeps Himself in patience till He can partake of a fruit; the first of which is Jesus, who was honored because He fulfilled the Father’s ultimate desire. God said, “those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me will be lightly esteemed” (1 Samuel 2:30). To be lightly esteemed is to be an alien to the supernatural life. For God to relate with you bringing glory and honor to you in and out of season is to come to a place of honor.
Each truth that is coming demands a turning and there is joy in heaven over a sinner that repents (Luke 15:7). The sinner speaks of the soul that is adjusting to the demands of righteousness in different spheres of life. The ninety-nine represent those who have gotten the issue of repentance right because of the fruits they bear. Each light has its own fruits which are interpretations of the seeds in them. The more we yield and co-operate with the Lord, the more our delight will be in the Lord. The soul has to delight in the hearing of faith and receiving of instructions knowing fully well that they are going to end sin in him. The path to this is laced with suffering. This is the only technology that can raise a soul to a level where flesh cannot access it. God never entertains doubts about whatever He embarks upon. He does not fellowship with doubts. He relates with us as though He is blind to our many faults. This is not to say we have to take laws into our hands and live anyhow. We are supposed to join Him in bearing His burdens; not adding to His sorrow. Thus, He keeps speaking and that is why He said, “SEE THAT YE REFUSE NOT HIM THAT SPEAKETH. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven” (Hebrews 12:25). The choosy nature with regards to obedience to the instructions that God gives us is what God wants to destroy in our hearts. As long as instructions keep coming, our hearts must be set on obeying them. There are two ways to examine oneself. Checking up oneself against where one is coming from will bring forth thanksgiving from us while checking up ourselves against the goal, which is Christ, shows that is still a long way to go. We have to saturate our minds in full assurance of hearts and be ready to go all out with God to the end.
Our thought-lives must be fruitful and we must learn to manage the gates of our souls well. A conversation of the flesh that manifests now reveals laxity in the place of instructions that had come years back to deal with such weaknesses and those results in losses. Painfully, many of those losses cannot be captured vividly as it were. Counting losses in the natural is easy but doing the same in the spirit is a different issue; many times, they cannot be quantified because they are eternal. These losses beset us and make finishing our course with joy difficult. Because of the many distractions, we must keep our gaze on the Lord Jesus (Hebrews 12:2). Distractions beset and lead to invisible losses.
Many souls there are who are ever learning but have not been able to come to the knowledge of the truth. God must know us as “comers” because it is as we come that our sins and infirmities drop and are removed from us. There is a commitment of heart that the Lord can see that will make us do in a year what we could have found difficult to do in many years. Journeying and realizing towards the end of our sojourn on earth and realizing that one has not profited with eternal life is very painful. We are being made servants of the Holy unction. It is a fearful thing for a believer to be disconnected from his spirit. Our soul infirmities are not to be taken lightly. Many assent to this revelations but cannot generate the corresponding conversations as a result of negligence or deliberate faults. It is this diligence that will keep us from invisible losses which manifests as unfruitfulness and barrenness. While some are struggling to keep some seeds that God has committed into their hearts, some are struggling to even receive seed. Others have received but cannot go through the gestation cycle of adding things to their faith. May we not use our hands to put down the projects in our hearts that God is raising!
The intention of God is not just that we receive seeds alone but that we abound in it. Just like it is with a pregnant woman whose seed begins to regulate her entire body system, this seed must inform our lives henceforth. The things which Peter enumerated in 2 Peter 1:5-7 are the things that make for entrance. He then went further to say, “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be BARREN nor UNFRUITFUL in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: For so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Wherefore I will not be negligent to put you always in remembrance of these things, though ye know them, and be established in the present truth. Yea, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance” (2 Peter 1:8-13). There are two kinds of problems that believers have in their souls. One is barrenness; these are those who do not have the ability to receive seed while the other is unfruitfulness; this refers to those who can receive seed but cannot carry it through its gestation period. Every seed begins to germinate once it has been able to complete its cycle of death. That is why their gestation cycles differ. If we will tarry with seeds that God gives to us in each season, we will spiritually be like perennial crops.
In this season, God wants to heal barrenness and unfruitfulness. Unfruitfulness is an intricate nature of the soul and to heal this, a thorough soul-searching has to be done which will always produce repentance as the Lord faithfully reveals where the believer missed it. These virtues to be added will birth judgment in us. Being diligent to make our callings and election sure is a personal responsibility. We must learn to be sincere to others and ourselves. We must not condone flesh and use every opportunity to deal with it. it might even require confessing our faults one to another. We must constantly exercise our hearts in thoughts that check the intents of our hearts. Oftentimes, we do not do this because we do not want to count losses and, in turn, also prevents us from counting the gains of eternal life. God diligently and prudently thought through the Redemption programme. The Godhead counted the cost and since then, has never doubted.
When we are like this, we will appreciate and have insights into the prayers of Jesus. It takes time for a believer to get to this point because this place is the place of knowing like God knows and this brings forth mourning in the hearts of those who are so joined to Him. The materials for our cleansing and wholeness are made available and we are being given opportunities to be healed and helped. For some of us, God’s new laws cannot come upon this current heart of ours. He will be removing that old heart and replace it with a heart of flesh. By flesh is meant that it is soft to entertain laws and can go through the pain of circumcision. The doing of righteousness is the doing of those things that are enumerated in 2 Peter 1:6-7. Attention must be given to these things because anything less will be costlier. When a soul escapes the dealings of God, Satan comes to expose it at the door of entrance or coronation. This is a season of help from God to stand in grace.