I have observed in recent times that this commonly quoted verse of the Scripture in the past no longer enjoys popular references on our pulpits. That, in a way, suggests an erroneous notion in the Body of Christ that either the Christian battle is over or we actually never had a battle to fight. In truth, the lifestyle of an average believer in the church today testifies to the situation of ‘the captives of the mighty’. We live a surrendered life, not to Christ but to the world and its system. Given to this deception of the enemy, we now feel at home here in the world, conquered by the Prince of the world, who gives pseudo rest, pseudo hope, and pseudo faith but keeps us in servitude to him and in torment by his cohorts. If we had been made aware of this condition, perhaps we would have paid all the sacrifices for our deliverance, but alas, our spiritual blindness aided the enemy. He helps us to maintain the Christian tag on our necks while we serve him in the church. He saddles us with religion but makes us serve Mammon, his deadly general in this end-time battle. This shall not continue to be. The Lord is visiting His people, crying; Isa 52:1: “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.”
The Lord is set to purge His church! It is time for the manifestation of the sons of God.
THE PRINCE IN A FOREIGN LAND
Rev 2:5: “Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent,…”
It is no gainsaying that we missed it all and lost our god-given dominion, authority, and even relevance in the world! The reason is clear. We have denied the fact that we are strangers here and hence have been lured by the prince of this world to pay dearly for earth citizenship. We have nationalised ourselves in the world in order to enjoy the comfort and material blessings of this world. How did the enemy do this? For God’s sake, how did we fall for his pranks? These and other questions must be answered to chart our path to discovering our destiny.
Firstly, in this journey as Christians, we became so yielding to earthly pressure that we forgot that we are spirit beings first and foremost. This is the point where we went off the tract. And you know, it takes a very small degree of deviation to go off the track. At this point, we lost our identity, we lost our mission here on earth, and we got disconnected from God. We failed at this, and the enemy took advantage of us and kept us in spiritual dwarfism and slavery.
YOU ARE ESSENTIALLY A SPIRIT
The truth is, before birth, you have been existence for a long, long time as a spirit in heaven. You have a privilege from God to come to this earth with a destiny to fulfill in your hands. You have a period between birthpoint and deathpoint to fulfill this destiny and then return to God in heaven, again as a spirit. The Bible confirms that you were created in the image of God. This means you share all of the attributes of God originally. One of these is His nature as a Spirit. John 4:24: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” You got the flesh you now wear at the point of entry into this world through your mother’s womb. It was at this point that the fallen nature came in. We need this body of flesh, which is a borrowed gab because this planet requires it for living. So, while passing through this earth, you naturally would need to borrow it for use in the pursuit of the destiny in your hands. See the way the Lord Jesus puts it; Heb 10:5-7: “Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, O God.”
This passage is loaded with secrets of success in life and the ministry of Christ while He was here on this same earth. We need to search out what made Him escape the deadly influence of this borrowed gab we call flesh for us also to fulfill the destiny we brought with us to the earth. We trust God for deeper revelations of these secrets as we proceed. The truth we are considering for now is that, all through the earthly life of Christ, He never forgot His original identity/nature. He operated as a spirit, thereby able to maintain a constant and regular fellowship with the Father.
Today, if we, the Body of Christ, would find our place in fulfilling the mind and purpose of God, we need to embrace this truth and apply it in our lives in order to connect with Him and His purpose. This is basic to the revival we have craved. This is basic to the fellowship we have desired to have with Him. This is basic to our quest to be like Him. This is basic to recovering our lost glory.
1Jn 3:2: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” Not just when He returns, but He appears to us as we seek to know Him.
To be continued…
Written by: Mallam Tim.