Meeting: Sunday Service
Date: 14th April 2024
Minister: Pastor Precious Gabriel
Message Begins
A sweet marriage doesn’t exist because of two perfect people, but because of the lord being at the centre of it. In marriage, as long as both parties continually align under Christ, God will bring forth renewal of sweetness.
(1 Timothy 1:5) – “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”
(1 Timothy 1:19) – “Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.”
We are on a journey but it is possible to not get to the end of the destination. When a people go through tribulations and sufferings but get to the shipwreck of faith, it is a great loss. This is why in this season of tribulations and sufferings, we must walk with the Lord with so much soberness of heart.
(1 Peter 1:13) – “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
We need soberness to get to the end of the journey, we need moments of reflections. We must continually keep ourselves in check and not take a posture of ease. The closer we are to the destination, the more delicate it becomes because we have an adversary that casts stumbling blocks on our paths.
(Matthew 25:8-9) – “8 And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. 9 But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves.”
It is possible to journey corporately, but some of us don’t take the necessary things to arrive at the end. There are things that we need to hold along for the journey but if we don’t guard up the loins of our heart and take an easy posture, some realities won’t dawn on us.
After we have done the commandments og Charity, we are supposed to come out with a pure heart, good conscience and faith unfeigned.
(1 Timothy 1:5) – “Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.”
God put conscience in man to check him from time to time. There is a way the conscience can judge your rights and wrongs. Conscience is made good by truth. When our conscience is picking, we must know that it is not condemning us. If our conscience condemns us, it means we’re not standing right somewhere. You might not have done bad things but have been defiled on the inside.
(Matthew 5:20) – “For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
Beyond being upright on the outside, we should be upright also on the inside. It is good that a believer has a good conscience. People that have seared their conscience with hot iron are those that have exercised themselves greatly in sin without listening to their conscience – “Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron.” (1 Timothy 4:2)
For us ministers and elders who have brethren living with us, sometimes, they do things we term as un-wilful sin, yes, we know these things are un-wilful because they’re repetitive but unintentional, yet, we react in ways our conscience will judge us as not being graceful.
Some of us walk with God for the security of this life, we do every good thing on the outside for this security, this will make our faith insincere. Insincere faith is tied to this earth and its gain.
When we go through trials, the true nature of our faith will be revealed whether feigned or unfeigned. We must know that the reason for walking with the lord and believing goes beyond our own expectations – whether natural or spiritual. None of our needs should be attached to faith as the reason we choose to believe in God.
We can corporately serve God and listen to the doctrine of Christ, yet, our individual experiences of this doctrine is non-existent. When the time for our faith to be tested comes, we can fall. This is why our personal intent for doing all we do is to please God. Our journey has to wholly be about doing the will of God and pleasing Him.
We can define our lives by the things we have but this is wrong; Our lives should be defined by wanting to love and know the lord. We must be weaned from all manners of ambition that give our souls unrest. Our faith must be unfeigned in following God.
God made man so that man can be like Him and what He does through His spirit is the restoration of man back to His original state. It took a lot of labour from God to restore man back. We are firstly weaned from what we do, ranging from works of the flesh to other wrong doings. This could be done within two years however, dealing with the issues of the soul could take decades.
(Ephesians 1:4) – “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.” God has proposed before the foundation of the world that man will be holy and blameless but we must walk and agree with Him to attain this state. The Holy Spirit could carve out a path to bring out virtues in us and react in ways that the Lord would in certain situations.
(Romans 12:20) – “Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink: for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head.” The good we do to others who do evil to us makes them repent, then we can win them over. The Lord wants to make us Holy, but we mustn’t be passive about it, we must consciously agree with Him.
(1 Peter 1:22-23) – “22 Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently: 23 Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth forever.”
When we get to know Jesus, we don’t just get born again once, but again and again. Before we can gain entrance into the kingdom, there must be many separations. We can be in the court and never gain entrance into the main house. One can’t truly experience God if we don’t get admitted into the inner courts of God. It is dangerous to be static place in experiencing God – we need to move with Him as He moves.
The higher we go, the more confined we are. There are some things the Lord will permit in a particular state in your life but as you journey farther, He begins to frown at them. When a believer gets perfected at Charity, that is the end of a journey and the beginning of another. In a new phase, the Lord will begin to make demands He wasn’t making before, not because He wants to kill us but because He wants to kill some things in us.
(Hebrews 8:10) – “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.” This is the dealing of God in man in the new testament. Doctrine of Christ is preparation for the doctrine of everlasting life. Doctrine of Christ makes our hearts spiritual.
(1 Peter 1:13) – “Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” We should not forget that we have an adversary. If we walk as being unconscious of our enemy, we’re walking carelessly, so we need to walk with the consciousness of the enemy. This is why Ephesians 5 admonishes us to walk circumspectly and not as fools. Walking circumspectly purifies our heart and when we do, we’ll see God – “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” (Matthew 5:18).
Walking circumspectly is also us guarding our hearts, loving with a pure heart so we don’t allow the enemy sow seeds of destruction with his sayings. So, how do we guard our hearts such that we can still maintain purity in our hearts? It’s a work, that’s why it’s called ‘guard’. So, how do we guard? Have we journeyed to a place where we’ll live above offence?
This is through walking – walking with the Lord. How to live above offence is by yielding to the lord’s work in changing us. This is a season of mental torture for brethren, this is why we need to love the lord with our all in walking with Him, this helps us to be single-minded and not be shaken.
Walking with the Lord with our all makes our heart pure, it makes us have unfeigned love towards our brethren. The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, so the lord will look at our heart to judge our love for Him and our brethren.
It is the desire of God that man should be sinless, if this doesn’t happen, death cannot be taken away from mankind. The sting of death is sin and the strength of sin is the law. God must succeed in taking sin away from us. Administration of everlasting life is bringing us into sinlessness.
Satan can move up his warfare beyond thoughts to dreams; It is a higher technology from the devil. This is why we need to carefully test the spirit behind every dream or supernatural encounters that we have.
(1 John 3:3) – “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” Hope purifies us. Satan is learned and we can’t overcome him except we are also learned by the word of God; reasoning intellectually by standards and principles of the word. At different points in time, the enemy can sow seeds, but we must be skilled to wade up such seeds in no matter form they might have come and continually exercise ourselves in a pure heart.
There is no one that doesn’t have faith and love but how pure they are is what matters. This is why God must purify our hearts to make us entire, lacking nothing.
THE END