Meeting: Season of the Spirit (Day 5)
Date: 2 March, 2025
Message: The Attitude of A Sojourner
Minister(s): Pastor Lilian Egwuchuwkwu
Mummy Lilian Egwuchukwu
(Phil. 3:3) – “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.”
A wise believer who hopes to end well must have no confidence in himself. The path we are on is one we don’t know. It’s a path we tread with caution. We must keep our gaze on Jesus because only Him has been successful on this path.
The wicked one sets traps for many who put confidence in themselves. Satan is a twisted cherub who has once been with God making him a wise enemy. He can use all our seeming wisdom to outsmart us. No matter our level of enlightenment, literacy or skill, or the wisdom we think we’ve gotten, we must lean on Jesus on this journey.
Nobody arrives at the throne casually or carelessly, or even with his/her own confidence. We must rely on Christ (John 12:6). Satan is an anointed cherub, he’s not afraid of our anointing (Eze. 28:14). It takes meekness as exemplified by Jesus to defeat Satan. Jesus knew who He was up against. Satan is only afraid of the meek. Jesus defeated him because He chose to be nothing even though He was the creator of the universe.
Having no confidence in one’s self is the only way to rattle Satan. We must constantly pray and constantly wait on God who is able to save us. We must pay attention to what we are filling our heart or midst with and to what we are fellowshipping with.
Only Jesus, the knowledge of Christ, the knowledge of the Son of God, and the knowledge of the Father can defeat the devil. This is why we must not play with knowledge. We are in the last days and the thoughts of the True God are being given to us, however, the reality of this inheritance is not dawning on us because the wicked one crafted the world and its empty pursuits to distract us, he has put blindness in the hearts of men.
There is no inheritance without spiritual growth. The enemy wants to steal our inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and unfading. Satan did a terrible work that we cannot easily untie. He filled our hunger with things that will perish such that we cannot hunger for the real thing. Like the rich man, we can spend time gathering what perisheth until our life is demanded of us (Luke 12:13-21).
The essence of our coming to church and being taught of God is to know how to fight for our right, to take what belongs to us – which is the inheritance God promised.
Through the Season of the Spirit, the Lord has come to visit us from heaven. God has rained manna from heaven through His servants but what will we do with the knowledge that God has given to us? God is not giving us knowledge to fill our heads, it’s given to us to take steps, to walk and defeat Satan, and the world that is in us.
(1 John 5:20, John 17:3) This is the way to have eternal life; knowing the True God through the understanding of Christ Jesus.
We’re expected to go back and study what has been taught like the Berean Christians. We don’t know the True God by listening on a surface level, we must plunge deeper to know.
Knowledge is not given to us to puff us up or to speak high revelation, it is given for us to fetch and do commandments. Knowledge is not supposed to end in our jotters, we’re supposed to go back and invest in our learning and growth just as we do with our natural learning and knowledge acquisition.
We need to run the race set before us, we need to have the mindset and an attitude of a sojourner. (Col. 3:1) If truly we are risen with Christ, we should seek the things that are above. Rather than seeking things above, we have been so wired to seek after vanity. Some of us do not know when we are empty and not connecting, we just live a flat life, a life of anything goes. We should be able to identify when we are not fellowshipping/connecting. We should be able to trace or be aware when we have disconnected, when we are no longer as hungry for the things of God as we previously used to.
Are you able to tell when you are no longer measuring up? Can you tell when you are no longer walking in love? On this journey, if we are not dying everyday, we are not making progress – “I protest by your rejoicing which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.”(1 Cor. 15:31). As light comes, we need to take steps to dying or to obeying quickly.
The reason why we get offended is because we are still alive to the edge or rights we had before coming to Christ but we’re supposed to be dead to those things for us to sit on the throne. (Heb. 5:7) There is a need to always cry out for help in order for us to make progress in our journey of salvation. Christianity is a place of dying.
(1 John 3:15) Walking in love is how we will ultimately arrive at the right hand of the Father. We will not make any spiritual progress if we hate our brethren. We need to die to our rights e.t.c and choose rather to be a nobody. We escape the devil by going low, taking the rubbish and becoming nobody. It’s better to be a nobody here and be somebody in the world to come. Walking in love is a death in itself. We die when we walk in love. We must be our brother’s keeper.
Jesus grew until He was able to detect the heart of man, this is not discernment, but more so the ability to know the activities going on in the heart. This is what made Him escape the snare of the fowler.
As the church is growing, a lot of things are going to creep in. This is why we need to be built, we mustn’t allow division, we must not break rank. Jesus stayed under His father, He didn’t break rank.
The reason why we’re not compatible with one another is because a work has not yet been done in us. When this work is done, we will find ourselves being able to prefer one another without competition. We ought to watch one another, and learn to give excuses for our excesses. Satan chooses to divide and he will do everything to remove us from being under. It is not easy to remain under spiritual authorities but we need to die many deaths to remain under for therein lies great blessing. It’s Satanic language to say “Why will you choose to be under?”. Even Satan himself did not remain under God. Breaking ranks is Satanic. We’ll become vulnerable if we choose to stick out our heads.
(John 13:35) – “By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” – Love has got to reign!
We must prioritize our growth and change. However, there is no way we can unlearn anger or covetousness e.t.c if we don’t take the knowledge that is in the Son of God. Knowledge is power. We should be disturbed when we are not growing.
(Gal. 4:1) – “Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;” The inheritance God promised will not be given to children because a child will make mess of it because he does not understand the value of it. This is why God is taking time to groom us and give us higher judgements to see what He has saved us to grasp.
We didn’t get born again to sit idly by waiting for rapture or to go to heaven. It’s an invitation to come and learn. (1 Pet.1:9) We come to church to receive the end of our faith which is salvation.
(Matt. 6:19-21) – “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: 20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: 21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
Having the goods of this world without Christ is having nothing. We can be singing and engaging in all sorts of activities whereas our hearts don’t treasure the things of God that do not get corrupted. We must ask ourselves, “What do I treasure? What is it that gives me delight?”.
What we are being given are treasures. The knowledge of Christ and the Son of God are treasures that we don’t yet value. This could be because they were freely given. Therefore, our eyes have to be opened to see the value of the things of God. God’s mercy is needed to know His things. The inheritance of God will not be given to a wishy-washy person or someone who is indifferent about it. We must earn it by our obedience to get it.
Many times, the things of God are not wrapped in shiny packages, they are usually easily despised.
Knowledge is being given to deal with the enemies of our soul. The enemy is within our soul and not external. (Prov. 23:23) “Buy the truth, and sell it not” – We should not make light of the things we are hearing. God must show us mercy to hold on even when we do not understand, even when we are despised. We are expected to trade and/or profit with what we have heard. We must fight to believe the word, even when we do not understand it but we should obey.
In this season, we need to strive for unity amongst ourselves. We must fight anything that wants to scatter us. The Lord loves it when we dwell together in unity (Psa. 133:1). Even in the face of obvious faults, learn to make excuses for your brother/sister/husband/wife. Do not see them as the enemy, rather see the real enemy and trust God to help them and show them His mercy. We must also be careful to watch and pray and also check our intentions. The spirit of God will always correct us and show us where we are not getting it right but we must be quick to repent at His reproof.
THE END.