Cultivating the Heart that Seeks Things Above
Message Excerpt
We are not bigger than the provision of grace God has made available to us, and there is no darkness in us that grace cannot accommodate. The only issue we have is usually our willingness to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in dealing with that darkness in us. Light is never threatened by darkness. Light shineth in darkness, and darkness does not comprehend it (John 1:5).
The investment of all that we have been hearing has worked a certain level of uprightness (righteousness) in us. When God made man, he naturally had an affinity for things that were right in God’s own eyes, not in man’s eyes; but after the fall, man lost the ability and covering he had. The teaching of Christ is to restore man to that level of uprightness.
As believers, we should remain in a constant state of thanksgiving because the darkness we see in our souls can discourage us from expressing gratitude for how far we have journeyed in light. We need to keep telling ourselves, “I am not where I want to be, but I thank God I am not where I was; I have moved and changed.”
As you journey in your programme of salvation, you will not look like everyone else, and we should be comfortable with that. I find that we are sometimes not comfortable; that thing is an evil spirit that wants us to just feel alike with others and not be comfortable with the separation the Lord is taking us through. If you are following the Lord, you will be separated automatically; you do not have to force it. There will definitely be separations because you are not heading in the same direction as others. Where they are raising you to is to seek things that are above (Col. 3:1)
The message in Colossians 3:1 isn’t for everybody. It is not every Christian that has the capacity to seek things that are above. You can be born again in your spirit and speak in tongues, but you do not have the capacity to seek things above yet, because you have not agreed with the raising programme of Christ.
What will raise a soul and make it qualify to have been said to be risen with Christ is that the soul has been granted the capacity to relate with the things of Christ; he may not know it, but he has the capacity to relate with it, so he begins to seek.
A charity man is a man that is risen with Christ. This is a normal man; this is a man that has the capacity to seek things above or things pertaining to God. Things pertaining to God are not on earth; Christ has embodied it.
Seeking those things which are above is about lifting you from the earth; exaltation is a lifestyle. Seeking things above shows a conversation that will be so evident that people will know you are not from here because of the way you behave. The separations that are required in this season are what the Lord is bringing to us in words, in preaching, and in teaching. Seeking is a very technical operation of the soul because a soul is raised to seek, and it can seek for many reasons.
To set your affection below means your passion, your love, and your pull are towards earthly things, and Satan has found a technology that can make a believer mind earthly things; in this state, he still has a hold on you. He is still confident you can keep praying in tongues and seeking Jesus for earthly things because when what is propelling it is checked, it will be obvious whether it is a pursuit of earthly things or of things above. (Col. 3:2)
You can seek Jesus with the mind for earthly things; earthly things are what Satan uses to attack upwardly mobile believers. What he uses to scuttle your growth are just earthly things. Earthly things are things that give you relevance on earth, things that make people say you have done well. (John 6: 25 -26)
Until you are raised to begin to seek things above, you have not started learning Jesus Christ. You can learn a lot of things that will help your natural endeavour, so that you are less distracted, so you can look up. As long as you have not been raised upright to look up, then you have not started learning about Jesus, because Jesus is not on the earth. Jesus is not an earthly learning.
On this side of eternity, we are given an opportunity to seek things that we will be decked with when we arrive in glory. We need to use our earthly sojourn well and amass the things that will give us relevance where it matters. Pastor Emeka Egwuchukwu once said “You should see your life here as a seed; don’t eat it. It’s a seed, not bread, and you should have the wisdom to sow it to reap something greater.”
We will never stop existing, but we have the privilege of using our present existence to secure an eternal destiny, and that is why if truly we are risen with Christ, we will see it; it will reflect in our seeking, and we will trap so much strength to seek diligently.
We will not ascend from the earth outside of our ability to seek things above. This will be reflected in our ability to sacrifice this present earth for the world to come. People may regard this as being useless here on earth, but we have to lay priorities on what matters most, and set our affection on things above.
Blessings!
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