Meeting: Sunday Service
Date: 25th May 2025
Message: Transitioning from the Word of Faith to the Word of Righteousness (Part 3)
Minister: Pastor Laide Olaniyan
(1 John 3:12) Cain and Abel were meant to be brothers unto everlasting life but Satan quickly taught Cain wicked works which affected his love for his brother Abel. His wicked works here was his yielding to what sin taught him to think about his brother which filled his heart with jealousy.
(2 Cor. 5:14) – “For the love of Christ constraineth us;” We need to love our brothers and sisters. Love constrains us from putting them in danger.
Self is bad, ambition is grievous. These are things sin teaches a soul to break the bond of brotherhood. Only by the gospel does sin appear as sin but without the gospel, sin looks like promises. It promises us fulfillment. Sin gave Cain passage to innovations and raising cities through his obedience to sin.
Wicked works are thoughts that fuels animosity, grudges and offenses. Cain killed his brother without any remorse. There are certain messages or things we listen to that will teach us to kill brotherhood. This is why we must be careful what we listen to. (Prov. 6:18-19) We must not allow Satan to use us to plant discord that makes people turn against their brethren.
(Gen. 4:5-7) God warns or cautions us early before we kill our brother as seen with Cain. We must be careful of things that stir us to break brotherhood.
There is the dispensation of the word of faith and of the word of righteousness. The dispensation of the word of faith is primarily to ground us in the faith that is in the Lord Jesus Christ, establish our hearts in believing the word of God and introduces us to the milk of the word of God. The word of faith or the pure milk of the word of God produces a childlikeness of heart that can receive the word of righteousness. This man has been raised with love above offenses.
(1 Cor. 13:13) – “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”
(Gal. 5:6) – “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.”
(1 Thes. 1:3) – “Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father;”
Faith, hope and charity have their labours. How we show works of faith is through the labour of love and patience of hope.
(James 2:16-18) – “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. [18] Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.”
How we do the works of faith is by actually doing love. Faith is evidenced by our lovewalk. What God gives to us is faith, not works. It is our own responsibility to put faith into work and show our faith by our works.
What we see in most people in the body of Christ is the believing side of faith, but we hardly see the outworking of the labour of love. One of the hallmarks of Rev. Hagin was his ‘love’ work.
Faith without its corresponding measure of love walk is dead. What many call the works of faith are miracles, signs and wonders. What these are are the manifestations of the spirit, they are not the works of faith. The works of faith are our labour of love. The full profit of the word of faith is using faith unto love.
(Heb. 6:10) – “For God is not unrighteous to forget your work and labour of love, which ye have shewed toward his name, in that ye have ministered to the saints, and do minister.”
Traditionally, we’ve been taught to evangelise, build ministry and perform many miracles. However the work here is the work of faith, which also leads to the labour of love. Ministering to the saints isn’t giving to everybody in the body of Christ but rather it is showing a life that reflects the love of Christ towards the saints.
A person can build a ministry for the body of Christ but such a person isn’t yet labouring in love. It is really by undertaking the labour of love that faith is perfected, and this is what it means to see the kingdom.
(John 3:3) – “Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
It is not everyone who is born again that has seen the kingdom. Though being born again is a necessary requirement to see the kingdom, it doesn’t mean it’s the only requirement. For us to see the kingdom, our eyes must be open. When we were born again, our eyes were not opened.
The requisite meal to open the eyes of the new believer is the milk of the word else the eyes remain closed unable to see the kingdom. As we feed on the milk of the word of God, our eyes become open and then we can now see the kingdom.
Seeing the Kingdom is different from entering the kingdom. Likewise, entering the kingdom is different from inheriting the kingdom. Seeing the kingdom is the first level. However, we can see the kingdom and not enter into the kingdom.
(John 3:5) – “Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
(Matt. 13:14-15) – “And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: [15] For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.”
(Matt. 18:3-4) – “And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. [4] Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Being converted into a child isn’t the same as being born again. When we get born again, our recreated spirit is not a child, our spirit is Christ, however our soul remains an old man. We are referred to as children in a sense, because we have just been newly born but we haven’t grown.
There is a difference between nature and stature. Nature and stature are inversely related. Our nature hasn’t changed because we became born again. At new birth, we have the stature of a child spiritually and the nature of an old man in our soul. We are required to grow up in stature but reduce in age in nature, that is, be converted to a child. What heaven wants to convert in us is our nature. As we are being converted in nature we are growing in stature. Growth in stature is our conversion in nature.
We do not grow by just hearing the word. The hearing must translate to a conversion. Conversion is not just metamorphosis. Conversion and metamorphosis are not the same. Conversion is an external force that will happen upon us to change us, while metamorphosis is an internal law that is set in motion to transform us. In Christ, the two laws are at work in us.
We need to understand this because people get stuck here in the body of Christ, because they believe Christ has done it all. The difference between word of faith and word of righteousness is that the word of faith only sees the works of Christ at His death, but not the works of His resurrection, so those who are under the word of faith cannot subject themselves to the dealings of word of righteousness to change. This conversion is one of the most difficult transitions of the believer.
(Mark 10:13-15) The kingdom of God must meet us as a little child. As we see the kingdom of God coming from afar, we must have been converted to enter it when it comes near or arrives. (Mark 10:21-23) In conversion, we are being emptied of our riches and great possessions. One of the labours of Satan is for us to possess everything but our souls – “In your patience possess ye your souls.” (Luke 21:19). Satan will give us everything so that we can lose our souls. In our souls, we have many possessions and riches that prevent us from seeing Jesus. Many of us are like the rich young ruler. God must succeed in making us poor. (Mark 10:24-25) The disciples here had been converted into being a child but yet to enter the kingdom.
The labour of Jesus is heavy on the need for conversion and we see the Lord mention this in Matthew, Mark and Luke’s account. We all have possessions and God by His word must dispossess us of the world and its goods. For a man to be possessed, it means that a spirit owns him.
There are things that our souls have lifted itself unto, even things our souls own, that ought not to be what we own. Our soul should not possess anything other than Jesus, we shouldn’t own our children, no, we shouldn’t even own our wives. (Matt. 16:26) The way Satan takes our soul is that he gives us something other than Christ to own. When a man gives his soul out, he collects vanity in return from Satan. There is always an exchange, nothing is free anywhere, even someone paid for the kingdom of God to come. For every thought we take, we are trading something, many times our souls when we are not discerning.
(Isa. 55:1-3) The only fair trade is what we collect in exchange for the knowledge of Christ and God. Our exchanges are what makes our soul live or die.
The more death we possess in our souls, the more we age in our souls. How old a man is in his soul is judged by the degree of his possessions. A person can be 14 years old in the natural but based on what he is trading with in his soul, he can be older and richer than a fully matured man through the possessions of the treasures of darkness he has. The more our soul possesses, the harder it is for us to enter.
(Acts 14:22) – “Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.” – The process of taking away our possessions for entrance is through tribulation. Tribulation is the mercy of God to us to dispossess us from our many possessions so we can receive or enter the kingdom. These possessions are our pride, integrity e.t.c, not always or only physical riches. The essence of the word of righteousness is to prepare us not just to see, but to enter the kingdom. It is possible to be rich in our knowledge of God, that we take pride in it. This can also hinder our transitions.
Many believers of the word of faith sometimes struggle to transition into the word of righteousness because of the possessions they had gathered using the word of faith. Just like the rich young ruler, he acquired his great possessions from keeping the laws from his youth, even so we, in the word of faith have gathered possessions, but in the faith of the Son or word of righteousness, the Lord wants to dispossess us.
The old man is not just works of the flesh. That a believer is not indulging in works of the flesh like fornication, stealing, drunkenness e.t.c doesn’t make him/her a spiritual man. The old man can stop works of the flesh yet still remain old. It only means the flesh is still there but not working freely as it used to. (Eph. 4:24) The hallmark of a spiritual man is a new man created in righteousness and true holiness. This man who by reason of conversion of nature has become a child.
(Matt. 18:8) Our entering into the kingdom is not by and by as some think, we are going to enter into the kingdom here and now.
Under the word of faith, the primary burden is believing the word of God from the (old) heart. Much more than believing the word from the heart, God wants to create a new heart entirely. He also wants to put His words/laws inside our soul and write upon our hearts. Before the Lord can do this He first creates a new heart, because God cannot write upon an old heart.
(Jer. 31:31-33) – “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: [32] Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: [33] But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”
This is the new covenant. This process as captured in the scripture above begins from Christ and ends up in everlasting life. The heart also mentioned in the scripture is the new heart.
(2 Cor. 3:3) – “Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.” – God will not write His laws upon a heart of stone. He will first convert it into a fleshy table, which is a new heart of flesh before He can now write upon.
(Ezek. 36:26-27) – “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. [27] And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.” – When we are born again, our heart isn’t born anew yet. It is the same old heart. God by the gospel reconfigures the heart, and makes it new. What reconfigures our heart is the gospel of Christ and this work is completed in Christ through the corridors of faith, hope and charity. By the time a charity or spiritual man is raised, He already has a heart of flesh. The dispensation of writing begins at everlasting life through the everlasting gospel on a heart of flesh.
(Psa. 51:10) – “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” – A new heart is a clean heart. A clean heart is a heart free from vanity, free from the world. The clean or new heart is created by the teachings of Christ. This heart is created by teachings of meekness and lowliness. Jesus said He is meek and lowly in heart (Matt 11:29). The heart that God will not refuse is a heart that trembles at the word of God. Creative miracle is happening in our souls when we sit to hear the words of Christ, there is a reconstruction taking place in our heart.
The writings of God are the writings of His law, with this, God won’t necessarily have to hold us and lead us by the hand as He did with the Israelites. By engraving His laws in our hearts we will be able to by default live the way God will live. This is the intention of God.
The writing upon our heart is preparation for entrance into the kingdom. Heaven will not write upon anyone who is not set on entering into the kingdom. The ordination of God is for us to see, enter and inherit the kingdom. We need to be careful in this season because Satan wants to rob many of their inheritance.
(Acts 20:32) – “And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.” – From this scripture, we see that our inheritance hasn’t been given to us, because if we have the inheritance when we get born again, there will be no need for us to be commended to the word of His grace to build us up. Before God can give us inheritance, He must first sanctify & raise us so we can come of age. (Gal. 4:1-2) No one gives natural inheritance to a child, same with spiritual inheritance.
Satan’s intention is to cheat us. He knows the things to cast in the way of men journeying towards inheritance. He understands that the warfare is not over until we have inherited the kingdom. We must not rest in that we have seen or entered into the kingdom, we must labour, and keep labouring until we inherit the kingdom.
There is also an urgent need for us to painstakingly keep them that are not fully established in our midst. He can devour a soul by giving wealth, leaving the soul without any substance of life. Devouring means to tamper with one’s journey of faith; removing the substance of faith.
We must guard our faith. We should strive to go from faith to faith, hope to hope, love to love and life to life. We must keep hearing, labouring and obeying until we come to the end, this is how we can fortify our hearts against the devourer.
(James 4:7) – “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
We cannot resist Satan if we do not submit ourselves under God. We should be so submitted under God so much that when Satan comes roaring we can resist him by the power of Him whom we are submitted under.
THE END.