Minister: Pst. Laide Olaniyan
(Col 2:1-3) For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh; 2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; 3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
God, in his infinite wisdom, hid all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge not in any career or profession but in the persons of the Godhead, and now shrouded them in mysteries. Full assurance of understanding brings us riches upon riches when we come into an assurance that is occasioned by understanding. Commonwealth is in the resourcefulness and riches of God, but that wealth is not accessed by sheer labour alone but by understanding. Col 2:2 ‘That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love’… We see here a work of love being done by a process of understanding because we can’t walk in love or do love’s commandment without understanding. Love will be grievous labour to a soul; it will look like foolishness when we are without understanding. Thus, it is not good that a soul be without understanding. We are meant to be rich in understanding. 1 Corinthians 14:20 Brethren, be not children in understanding: howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men. Maturity is that we have a wealth of understanding. When we are rich in understanding, we can stand under and not be afraid.
The Bible commands women to be in subjection to their own husbands. (1 Peter 3:1-6). We need the adornment of a meek and quiet spirit to be in subjection. We can’t be subject without that adornment. A person who has not worn a meek and quiet spirit cannot stay under. For a woman who is subject, obedience is not difficult. She has worn something in her heart. That ornament is of great price in the sight of God. Some of us are richer than the gold mine of this world because of what God is working in our heart. Satan has made us despise the inside work and makes noise about the outside work.
The concept of poverty that the world has sown to us is the construct of a man’s mind. When it comes to God, He looks at us, and He declares us rich because of what He has wrought in our hearts. He has worked great value inside us that the earth responds to. Yet we think that meekness is weakness. One of the most powerful men on the earth was also called the meekest man on the earth. Meekness is not weakness; it is great strength. 1 Peter 3:6 Even as Sara obeyed Abraham, calling him lord: whose daughters ye are, as long as ye do well, and are not afraid with any amazement. One of the greatest enemies of this ornament is fear of terror — fear of being subjugated. Fear is so intimidating, and it is one of the greatest constructions of Satan to hinder us: fear of our lives, fear of what to eat, etc. What we need is understanding. (Col 2:2) Without understanding wrought by a love walk, we can’t access mysteries. And if we don’t access mysteries, we can’t access treasures. To gain access to mysteries is to gain access to all the riches of wisdom and knowledge that are hid in the Godhead.
(Col 2:2) Comfort of the Holy Ghost is understanding. It is breaking into mysteries. It is clothing the heart with the natures of the divine. It is undoing sin by bringing access to a door of riches in understanding (Isaiah 40:1-2). A man who is in Christ is born into understanding to a great measure. Love is always our access code. There is a work of love that must be done in our heart to access any of the mysteries.
A mystery is what is kept secret. Every mystery has all the elements of being mystical, cryptical, and sealed. Something mysterious doesn’t follow the normal pattern and contains something hard to decode. (Matt 13:11) We should not be afraid of mysteries. That’s our world. God hid the thing that pertains to our destiny in a mystery. The man that God made is capable of so much, and Satan also wants to harness the full capacities of a man’s soul. A man that is not enlightened is useless to Satan. It is only a soul that has handled understanding that is useful to Satan. God wants man to journey into light before his capacity fully opens. Satan wants to use technology to race man to where his full capacity will be unlocked so that the man of sin will be born. But God is limiting those things so that man can race into righteousness. Our mind was made to understand mysteries of God; to comprehend the Creator. We should get accustomed to confessing (Matt 13:11). We shouldn’t always say we don’t understand.
2 Tim 1:8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;
Rom 1:16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. The gospel of Christ is the power of God unto salvation.
We can’t handle or arrive at testimony without the afflictions/contradictions that come from the word of the gospel. When the word of the testimony/gospel is given to us, it communicates the laws to us. But the knowledge of the laws alone doesn’t make us a holder. What makes us a holder is that when afflictions and contradictions come, we hold the laws despite them. To be ashamed of the testimony is to let go of the laws because of contradictions. To hold on to it despite contradictions is when the testimony becomes our life. (Col 3:1-4) Our life being hid in Christ doesn’t mean Christ has become our life yet. (Gal 2:20) The emergence of Christ as our life is a witness that Christ is becoming our testimony, not just knowledge. That is when we have the hope of appearing with him in glory.
2 Tim 1:9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. Our calling unto glory is in the days of our flesh. What they call us unto is to inherit salvation with eternal glory in the days of our flesh. Our purpose is not our career. It is not what we studied in school. It is something hid in God. It is not our skills and talent we use to find purpose. Purpose is hid in God. We have been given a purpose in Christ before the world was made. If we are not in Christ, we can never find purpose. Our purpose is not for the world to know us or to celebrate us. Christ begins to judge all those idols that set us against Him. God saw thousands of years; He saw Jesus, then He preordained that thousands of years after Jesus had died, we would inherit salvation with eternal glory. (2 Tim 2:10) That’s how specific God’s purpose is, and it is the same thing for everyone of us. We are born to be conformed to the image of the Son. (Romans 8:30)
2 Corinthians 5:15 And that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose again. Living unto ourselves means that we have our purposes. Someone lifted vanity before our eyes, and we swore an oath that we will become that vanity. We can do a career, and not be stained by it. Vanity doesn’t have to do with whether the profession has more money or not. It is about what engineered our soul to look to it as something to live for. The program of salvation is ongoing for all of us, and God guides us along a career path because they can either make or mar us in the quest for salvation.
What God has purposed for us, He has given us grace for it. (Titus 2: 11-12) The grace that is in Christ is a teacher because what it is bringing is understanding. The grace of God is twofold: the one that is meted out by Christ and the one that is meted out by God (2 Cor 13:14). The grace of God is encompassing of the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The grace of God that brings salvation is the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. This grace teaches us because it wants to align us with purpose. When it teaches us, it gives understanding, which in turn brings grace to our heart.
A Christed mind is salvation-centric because the gospel of Christ tilts the mind toward seeking salvation with eternal glory. That is a life that has found purpose. The trade may differ, the vocation may vary, but the purpose is one. (2 Tim 1:9) It is a holy calling because it separates us from everything here. It is a separate hallowed calling. Our call to be a doctor, lawyer, etc., is not a holy calling. Even the call to the fivefold is not our purpose. It is a gift that Christ gave us in line of the pursuit of purpose as an expression of service to His body. It is an administrative gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is good to want to be faithful in our profession and ministerial calling, but we should hold our purpose dear. What we must prosper in at all costs is the pursuit of purpose.
2 Tim 1:10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gospel: Life and immortality were in darkness, and God used mystery to bring it to light. Things that pertained to them were not permitted to the declaration of man until, by the gospel, Jesus brought it to light. The appearing of Jesus is not an incarnation or baby Jesus born in human flesh. It means the unveiling and the discerning of his person. It is the bringing of Jesus to our understanding. It is also not his crucifixion. It is the revelation of the work that was done in him.
Purpose doesn’t begin until understanding/revelation dawns on us. If our Savior doesn’t dawn the light of that revelation, we have not entered purpose. Until light and revelation dawn, a man can live and die and yet not enter the purpose God called us to before the world began. Grace teaches us to look for the glorious appearing of our Lord Jesus. If appearing hasn’t dawned, purpose cannot emerge. There is an unfolding revelation that we must come into. Purpose is inside appearance.
The grace that is in the Lord that is aligning us to purpose teaches us what to deny, how to live, and what to look for. The grace seeks to align us to eternal purpose. The blessed hope is eternal life. Without the training of the gospel of Christ, a man can never see purpose. It is the grace that is in Christ that teaches us to align us with purpose. And that purpose seeks to align us with salvation. It is only a Christ man that can be hungry for salvation. The grace of Christ, which is the teacher, is a wisdom that patterns the heart to comprehend the workings of God.
Part of the workings of God is a readiness to go through afflictions because it works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. In Christ, they begin to teach us how to live by instructions. God knows the recesses of our heart that can only be unlocked by giving us things. And in due time, God instructs us concerning it. We will now know that the reason God gave us is not for us to enjoy it but to save us. Anything that God gives us is tied to his eternal purpose. When a man is raised of Christ properly, he becomes a soul that is instructed according to salvation. Both abundance and lack will be regulated according to the seasons of our lives.
(1 Cor 15:24-26)Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. Jesus has dealt with death (Rev 1:18), but death is not destroyed until the church overcomes it. The destruction and abolition that is done in Jesus must be done in us. And for it to be done in us, there has to be a revelation of that Jesus. He has begun the work, but all his enemies must still come under his feet. The church is his body, and his enemies, even death, must also come under. The church must also overcome.
Grace needs to reign till it gets to eternal life. The reign of grace is the reign of Jesus Christ. That grace is the teacher of freedom. When we are being taught, we are being given dominion; the tools of reign. The understanding that we are being given when taught by grace is not words but the giving of ascension/elevation. It will be impossible for things that have held us down to keep us bound.
God wants us to be salvation-minded — to mind purpose. A man hungry for purposeful living is a man hungry for the appearances of Jesus. We must not be wanting of those appearances. That is where the power of purposeful living lies. He will appear to teach us the secret of destroying death. Then he will appear to teach us the secret of life and immortality. That life and immortality is brought to light does not mean we know it yet. That it is brought to light, then it has to be shown in the light. We can’t walk in darkness because everything done to us is done in the light. There is power in the light. There is life in the light. There is immortality in the light.
MESSAGE ENDS