Meeting: Sunday School
Minister: Pastor David Kilanko
Theme: Understanding the What and Hows of Growing Up Spiritually
Lessons: 5
Topic: Examining Precepts and Lines
Bible reading: Galatians 2:20, 1 Peter 1:10-11, Romans 10:17, Isaiah 28:9-10
In our last study, we mentioned that the direction of growth is Godward – this means journeying beyond principalities, spiritual wickedness in the high places, rulers of the power of darkness, and pressing till we’re made so much better than the angels. This kind of growth is not accidental; it is a very intentional Christ-centred, spirit-led, and word-rooted growth. This is called directional growth, and it is meant to restore man from grass to glory. This is because man fell from a living soul estate into flesh in Genesis 6, then the quality of life in man became perishable. But God wants us to be better than flesh; He wants us to become everlasting in our souls.
Presently, we are temples of the Holy Ghost; He is dwelling in our spirit comfortably. He is the only member of the Godhead that can dwell in a place that is not yet ready because he is the creative one – the word of God goes forth, and the Holy Ghost brings it to pass. The Holy Ghost prepares us not only as a habitation fit for Himself but for the Father and the Son to come and dwell in. The Father and the Son want to walk in us. God is taking us to a destination where we will inherit Him in our souls.
Growth follows a kind of progression: from milk, to meat, then strong meat. Milk deals with carnality in us – milk well drunk produces a believer who has faith towards God and love for all the saints. Stephen was an example of a believer who drank milk well. That’s why he was placed to man the tables because he wouldn’t murmur like the previous believers who didn’t love all the saints and murmured while manning the tables. Meat makes one become a spiritual man. Immediately, believers like Stephen were appointed, and the scriptures said that the word of God grew and multiplied amongst them.
Meat is the doctrine of Christ that forms us into a perfect or spiritual man. A perfect man or spiritual man is not yet a fully saved man. A spiritual man can still be tempted and overtaken in faults (Galatians 6:1). Where God is taking us is to come into His own nature. God wants us to get to a place where we cannot be tempted because He cannot be tempted -“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). A man that can not be tempted cannot sin and such man cannot die. Because death is a culmination of a process that begins with sin. These are the characteristics of an everlasting man who is not just living but also abiding.
Faith Defined
We’ve heard different definitions and understandings of faith, and truly, faith can achieve plenty of things, but the ultimate use of faith is to please God (Hebrews 11:6). What we are supposed to live by is faith. Faith is not about one getting results, so whenever we exercise faith and don’t see the result we seek, we shouldn’t be discouraged – we are not the determinants of results, God is. And what determines how well faith was exercised is that God is pleased. The sovereignty of God is the final stage of faith, and when it gets to this point, we should allow God and His will, because the goal is to ultimately please Him. Jesus had enough faith to make the cup pass over him, but he had to defer to the sovereign will of God to please Him.
(Genesis 1:27-28) – “27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
When God created the first man, He blessed them and commanded them to “be fruitful and multiply…” – this was a great blessing that God bestowed upon them by a “saying.” When God wants to bless a man, He speaks. “Sayings” are blessings. It is through sayings that faith is disseminated. Faith is the litmus test that God uses to check whether a man is alive. So, faith is not a commodity that we should not joke with because our lives are dependent on it. The worst thing that can happen to a man is that God is not speaking to the man. This is why we need to take seriously the things we’re hearing because we’re not just playing church. When God wants you to become something, He speaks that thing. What God is speaking to you is an indicator of what or who you’ll become.
God is investing power to make us change from the person that the flesh is. It feels very abstract to believe that we can become like God, but where they’re actually taking us to is where we’ll look exactly like Him. We are a congregation of many potential Jesus.
(Ephesians 1:3) – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.”This is a scripture that many new creation believers boldly declare, but the truth is that we can only access it by faith. This faith is the faith to live and come into the blessing. As we change and journey upward, we come into more realities of God. Jesus, at the age of 12, knew about the father’s business, but the measure he knew at 12 was different from the measure he knew at Gethsemane, at the age of 33, 18 years later. This is because the salvation of our souls is kept at the end of our faith, not at the beginning – “Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.” (1Peter1:9). The once saved, forever saved gospel makes us oblivious of the work that needs to be done in us before the end of our faith. There are some works of sin and works of the flesh that only growth can deal with and not anointing. Nature can only be dealt with through the attainment of life. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32) – The truth making us free here means that work needs to be done for us to truly be free. This freedom comes from hearing to seeing, to looking upon and laying hold of – through faith.
(Romans 4:1-12) This scripture talks about how Abraham came into the righteousness of God even while being uncircumcised, because God rewarded his believing with grace and called it righteousness.
The Meat of God’s Word
(Hebrews 5:12-14) – “12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. 13 For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. 14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”
A teacher being referred to in this passage is not a person who is taking the microphone to teach; a teacher is someone who is living the life. This person can be trusted to teach people using his life. This teacher must have come into being a spiritual man. This person is skillful in the word of righteousness because he has the skill to use it. In Acts 6:5, the apostles instructed the deacons to look around and select people who lived exemplary lives and were full of the Holy Ghost to man the tables – people were excited about this because they knew men of honest report would be chosen. The spirit of murmuring among the believers was going for the word of God, that’s why men of honest report were needed to man the table.
Everything we’re hearing in the gospel is to prepare us as a habitation. The power in Christianity is to prepare a soul to become the habitation of God. (Isaiah 66:2) –“For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” Trembling here means a man who is trembling to do the word of God.
Precepts
According to Isaiah 28:10, if precepts must be upon precepts, line must be upon line. Precepts are revelational knowledge of Christ that is impacted on a soul through teaching and preaching. Precepts need to be arranged systematically. Every stage of the doctrine of Christ must be laid well in a believer so they can have faith towards God and love towards all the brethren. (1Corinthians 2:13) – “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” Someone can start a church, and all he is using to teach is man’s wisdom. God gives various kinds of illumination of the scriptures by the Holy Spirit that is not really the revelation of Himself, and people use these illuminations to preach according to the level of understanding they have, their stature, and their relationship with the Holy Ghost.
Precept is for laying the knowledge of Jesus into the soul. The truth is a person, and it is that person who will make one free. What will communicate things that will make you become like Jesus are precepts. In the Old Testament, it was called precept, but in the New Testament it is called “knowledge of Him”, and this is what God regards as riches – His things. It is a pain in the heart that many Christians are ever learning, going to church, but they are not arriving at the knowledge of truth because what they’re feeding on is not the real truth. God wants that knowledge to save man; God wants everyone to be free. While there is nothing wrong with other illuminations, God brings ministers who bring better revelations of God in different times and seasons, according to His will, timing, and sovereignty, so that we become partakers through mercy.
The reason why scriptures were written is for us to know God through His knowledge (precepts), the truth, behold it, and become.
Summary
Pastor Segun Adeeko
People feel that teachings in church are meant to be simple, no need for teaching precepts and all. But without these teachings, a lot of darkness will still remain in us. This is why there is a need for precepts to go ahead so we can have a proper understanding of what God is demanding of us. Because some of us have not been taught accurately in church, we only use faith to get carnal results. Whereas, we are meant to use faith to get the things of God, precept by precept, line upon line. Before Adam fell into sin, he wasn’t praying about the things that we believers pray about these days because they were not his issues. This is to show that anything we use faith to get here is not the reason for our faith. Faith was given to man to journey to God. God allows us to use faith for these things so that we can progress into higher things that are demanded of us to use faith for. This is why precepts must be built upon precepts. We didn’t come to this life to get a job, get married, give birth, and die.
This is to say that we should understand that the calling of God and the essence of why we are being taught is so that our eyes will be opened to see the things that we are to embody in heavenly places, which are spiritual blessings. A spiritual man is not defined by the natural or carnal things he possesses, but by how much he can house God. Yes, a spiritual man can look like an ordinary man. Jesus looked ordinary, but he was in tune with the Father and knew what He wanted him to do at the time; this is what a spiritual man should be, also. A spiritual man is characterized by the fruit of the Spirit; he obeys the leading of the Spirit. This is the kind of person we should aspire to become. A spiritual man can be cheated and all sorts but without reaction. This is the kind of person Jesus is, which is why he said we should learn from him.
Give attention to the things we are being taught. Be at peace with precepts, don’t get weary of them because they will build you up to be a spiritual man. Don’t despise teachings around precepts and lines, these teachings create an atmosphere around us that makes it easy for God to bring leadings that will build us.
THE END