Short readings from the Word — written to comfort, to instruct, and to draw you nearer.
For the devil to steal life from our soul, we simply have to respond to a self-seeking thought or to take a well-dressed thought around a life we still cherish outside the Faith (Christ). Anxiety is an unarmed robber!
So, many delays and denials to our prayers are actually in our best interest; they preserve our future in God. Our consolation during seasons of seeming delays about God’s promise concerning our natural life should always be that He had already done more than what we can ever expect from Him;
As long as we are deficient in faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and Charity found in Christ, living in fear and anxiety would remain inevitable. Anxiety is always born when we bear burdens that are meant to be laid at the Lord’s feet.
Submission at all levels remains a vital prescription for weeding out or overcoming hidden natures in us; especially priestly sins like guile, envy, malice, hypocrisies, and evil speaking. The shortcut to this is by delighting in the demands of submission, even until we can both see this world and iniquity within, in its true colors.
We need to add contentment to our godly formation, to subdue all thoughts that can come from unrighteous mammon; to overcome all the pull that can come from what money can do. Christ would then become our life-dominant thought and source of contentment.
And what the gospel of God (or of life everlasting and eternal) is now doing is to perfect our victory over mammon, so we can walk in love with God. A believer who attains the joy of the Father that enables him to consistently despise the god of this world (mammon) is divinely wiser than a believer who hasn’t.
The only way to arrest the influence that mammon exerts upon our soul through the love of money is by being introduced to a contrary influence or knowledge called the Faith of the Son. His freedom lies in a definition of life that is firstly found in Christ and then in the Father, and his reward for finding and keeping these twin expressions of life is a reward called God.
There is a Word that reveals God’s standard for living like Jesus did until He attained the victory called our Faith. That Word is called the Word of Righteousness.
There is a Word that serves as the spiritual means to connect those who have used the milk expression of faith with the strong meat expression of faith (the word of God). That Word is called The Word of Righteousness.
There is a Word that remains uncommon in the Church till date. This Word was branded in Hebrew 5:13 as the Word of Righteousness; and it has been quietly exposing companies of believers across nations to turn from darkness to light, have their past sins remitted and become Christlike new men who inherit a place amongst those who are sanctified in Zion; who, thereby, become the Lord’s brethren.
Fears and anxiety are born when we attempt to carnally respond to a righteous expectation or when we can’t trust in the ability of the Lord to bring to pass what He promised. The true painting of the gospel of Christ always inspires a hope that would see us journey into the corridor of godliness; into a season where living with contentment becomes natural, and living in anxieties and fears becomes unnatural.
The love of money is a love that can thrive when we mind high things or can’t be content with food and raiment (1Tim. 6:8-10, 17).
When money isn’t regulated by a nature, wisdom or commandment that is in the Holy Ghost, in the Son or in the Father, it will become a filthy lucre that serves purposes that are either filthy or earthly, sensual or devilish.
The everlasting gospel was therefore given to help us to perfect the act and art of hating this world, even as we completely love the truth that is in the Father (Heb. 5:14, 1Jn. 5:4-5, 2Jn. 1:1-4).
One essence of the word of righteousness is to purify our motives and thoughts, so we can selflessly relate with the world and the things in her, become fully separated from it, and then take the Father’s commandments. Only thereby would we gain possession of the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, begin to comprehend the actual word of God, and ultimately, inherit the law of God.
The love of money has been an age-long cancer of the soul, long before cancer of the body was ever diagnosed. It has left the soul of many believers unhealthy and covetous, and it remains an unarmed robber that has consistently stolen the birthright of many believers, robbing them of their inheritance in Christ and in the Father (1Tim 6:9-10, Lk. 12:15, Eph. 5:5).
Money drives the kingdoms of this world; it answers to everything there, and the actual season when the love of it would be overcome is after a believer has been empowered through the feast of charity (Christ) to seek first the everlasting Kingdom of God and its righteousness. Only then would money become a servant and cease to be a master that gratifies our carnal nature.
The Faith in Christ provides our first escape from it, but it takes the Love of God to perfect our immunity from it (2Pet. 1:4, Jude vs. 21, 1Jn. 4:17-18). His freedom lies in the definition of life that is firstly found in Christ and then in the Father, and his reward for finding and keeping these twin expressions of life, is a reward called God (Eph. 4:18-20, Col. 2:2).
A believer, who will overcome iniquity, is one who has to excel in judging himself daily like Paul did; one who will acknowledge that he still has unknown tendencies to respond to his own lust (iniquity), because he is yet to totally disown corruption or become incorruptible, even by fully partaking of the divine nature (Acts 24:16, Jas. 1:14, 2Pet. 1:4)
Excelling in the act and art of submission to spiritual authority should someday help us get it right where the devil once got it wrong, so we can overcome an angelic problem called iniquity that the everlasting gospel is presently healing many from (Ezek. 28:15-16, Isa. 14:13-14, Rev. 22:2b).
Iniquity remains a hidden infirmity until it is awoken by the prospects of exaltation or of honour and glory around things that can impact our person, name, or image before men (Gen. 4:17/11:1-4; Jn. 12:43). Being faithful with another man’s business by serving until we are saved from ourselves is one of the Father’s prescriptions to deal with iniquity within our members (Lk. 16:10-13).
The season when our souls locate and abide in a new abode called the doctrine of Christ is the season when we have come over the love for the (old) things that are in this world; things under the influence of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life (2Jn. 1:9, 2Cor. 5:17, 1Jn. 2:15b).
The everlasting gospel was therefore given to help us perfect the act and art of hating this world, even as we completely love the truth that is in the Father.
Going into perfection is moving into a season of a higher obedience, where we use the light of love rather than use the light of faith. The knowledge of salvation, or of the truth that is in the Father, or of the unknown, is the only prescription for this, for therein is the comfort of the true light that would help us see the end of all things.