What are The Benefits of the Joy of The Lord

Messages for April 2016: Our Month of unspeakable Joy

Message for the 10th of April 2015

Theme: Understanding the importance of the Joy of the Lord

Topic: What are the benefits of the Joy of the Lord?

Last week, we began this series by looking at what Joy is and we took the time to establish that it is also part of our entitlements in the covenant of grace. In explaining what Joy is, we also saw some of the characteristics of joy that distinguishes it from any other thing like happiness and natural zeal. 

Today, we shall be looking at what we stand to benefit if we take advantage of this great grace of the joy of the Lord. Please understand that this great gift of God is meant for our good and part of the mystery keys of the kingdom of God that enables us to exercise dominion on earth until Jesus returns. No matter how much grace God makes available to you, your ability to take advantage of it is limited to your awareness and understanding of it. If for instance; you own money in the bank and are not aware of it, while the money will always be yours, you could remain in abject poverty if you are not aware of its existence and how to cash it. While looking at what joy is last week, we saw how it comes and from that we can gather that it is a gift of God and we can also generate it by staying with God until His word is revealed to us. John 15:11 and Isa.11:1-2.

The benefits of Joy

The word of God reveals the following benefits of joy among others to us:

1. The joy of the Lord is what makes your service of God acceptable in the kingdom especially when all your service is done joyfully. For instance, for your offerings and tithes to be acceptable to God, you have to give them willingly and cheerfully because God loves a cheerful giver [2Cor.9:7]. In truth, any kind of service you render to God must be joyfully done otherwise it would not be acceptable to God and therefore not be rewarded. This is because in God’s kingdom, only acceptable service is rewarded [Heb.12:28]. When you do not render service to the Lord joyfully, you risk serving your enemies in sorrow; lack, want etc. see Deu.28:47-48.

2. The joy of the Lord is a fruit of the recreated human spirit that proves your new birth status. With the joy of the Lord in you to the overflow, the enemy of our souls cannot mistake you for one of his own because this joy keeps him and his cohorts off you and yours just like fire keeps off wild beasts and prevents them from harming you. See 1Pet.1:8; Gal.5:22.

3. The joy of the Lord empowers us to bear fruit because the absence of joy causes barrenness. In Joel 1:12, we are told that everything around us can dry up and wither away if joy is not present in our lives. This is quite serious as there is an unleashing of the spirit of depression on people these days due mainly to lack of fulfilment rooted in their refusal to embrace the great salvation provided for them by the Lord. See Heb.2:2-4. The antidote to a situation like this is first to get saved and then make a choice like the prophet Habakkuk to rejoice in spite of your circumstances. Hab.3:17-19. 

When Israel did this in 2Chron.20:1-24, their enemies were smitten before them by God. All they had to do was to cart away the spoils from the war they did not fight.

4. Helps us to bind the any kind of strong man no matter how long they had afflicted us and our loved ones: Without joy, we cannot render acceptable praise to the Lord. When we render praise that the Lord accepts, we can bind the strongman. Believe me, joyful praise is a sure means of binding the strongman; disarming him and spoiling his house – Luke 11:21-22; Ps.149:1-9.

5. The joy of the Lord is the strength of the believer in all walks of life. Neh.8:10. Remember that last week; we established that joy is a gift of God and that he delivers this gift to us by the Holy Spirit in His manifestation as the Spirit of might[Isa.11:2]. This explains why the joy of the Lord is our strength. It provides us strength that enables us to deliver on the favour that God brings our way. For example, if you are favoured with a good job and lack the strength to accomplish it, the favor given to you would lose value and you may never have another chance at it again. So the spirit of might which presents in unspeakable joy provides the drive or momentum required to stay on the work until it is completed. This is what Joseph had going for him that made him become prime minister in Egypt and delivered on his job eventually with excellence. See Gen.41:38-44.

6. Joy facilitates access to revelation: in Isa.12:3, the Holy Spirit reveals to us by the prophet that joy is the bucket with which we draw from the depths if revelation from God. It takes revelation knowledge for one to gain access to the top in life. This is why Apostle Paul who was so distinguished among his peers said in Gal.2:2 that he went up by revelation. See also Deu.29:29 and Prov.20:5. Understanding is only available to us by divine revelation which we receive on the platform of joy. 

For want of time, we will stop here today. Next week, we shall continue this series by looking at helpers of our joy. Meanwhile, Access to this grace was freely available to man until the devil came in to mess things up by luring man into sin which resulted in his separation from God [Gen.3; Rm.3:23 and 6:23]. Thankfully, the Lord Jesus Christ already came to solve the sin problem for us. However, we are required to embrace His sacrifice by believing in Him and receiving God’s free gift of salvation through faith. See John 3:16-18.

If you have not yet received this free gift, you can do so right away by saying the following prayer out loud in faith and you shall be saved:

Heavenly Father, 

Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name! Amen. 

Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com and follow us on twitter at alero_nannaand on face book on www.facebook.com/flourishinggirlwww.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email:  jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.    

Remain on top of your challenges in Jesus’ name! 

Spiritual Growth series Session 2 Lesson 5

Understanding how to grow up spiritually

Session 2 Lesson 5

Growing in Intimacy with God

Introduction: Four weeks ago, we introduced this segment of our series with the truth about the fall of man from grace in the Garden of Eden and the new challenge which is the spiritual death from which God had to raise man. About two thousand years ago on the Cross of Calvary, this problem was solved when the Lord said in John 19:30 “…It is finished…” as He hung on the Cross. 

Last week, we continued to see the eternal effects of this simple sentence made by the Son of God on Calvary’s Cross in our favour. We began to look at the benefits of making a decision for Christ. We saw some benefits and we continue this week to look at more benefits. 

1. Man becomes an ambassador if Christ – As an ambassador of Christ; we can liken what we are now to that of a natural ambassador to any nation who enjoys diplomatic immunity and the freedom to move from nation to nation at the expense of his nation. Every time we preach the gospel, we enforce our covenant right to divine diplomatic immunity and provision.  2Cor.5:20 and Matthew 28:18-19.

2. Man becomes a king and priest of God and ordained to reign with Christ in the earth – Rev.1:5-6; Rev.5:9-10 and Rom.5:17. We receive the right to royalty in God’s family and also priesthood. As priests, we can represent God to people and intercede on behalf of people to God. As kings, we can reign in the earth with Christ to establish God’s dominion everywhere we are. 

3. Man is now ordained to bear abiding fruits – Jn.15:16 and Rm.7:4. The entire purpose of God in creating man in the first place is for us to bear fruit until we grow to exercise dominion in the earth. After the fall of man due to sin, God solved the sin problem and insisted that we are to bear fruits that would abide. In this way, God has reemphasized that His reason for making us and recreating us in Christ Jesus is for us to be fruitful until we exercise dominion on earth. See Gen.1:26-28 – When we grow to the point where we reign with Christ in the earth, this mission is being accomplished.

4. Man now receives and walks in Eternal life – Jn.17:1-4 and Jn.5:24. Through the new birth experience, we now receive and walk in eternal life. Note that eternal life is not a place; it is a relationship. The experiential knowledge of Christ and God the father is what the Lord Jesus Christ defines as eternal life. The closer we get to God, the more of eternal life we walk in and demonstrate. When this happens, the expectation of the entire creation groaning for the manifestation of the sons of God is actualized.  

5. Man can therefore cultivate and grow in an intimate relationship with God that beats the imagination – Rm.8:14-17; Gal.5:16 and Ps.25:9. Man enters into fellowship with God better than Adam had in the Garden of Eden where he can cultivate such an intimate relationship with God that God can actually treat him as his friend. This is the kind of experience that Abraham had when God took the time to confide in him and later referred to him as his friend. See Isa.41:8.

6. God now dwells in man and that makes Him the closest person to man – 2Cor.6:16 and Heb.8:10-12. By the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us, the closest person to each one who is born again now is the Holy Spirit. Whether or not you enjoy this closeness depends on your willingness to take responsibility to play your part to keep the relationship working. 

Helpers of our joy

Theme: Understanding the importance of the Joy of the Lord

Topic: Helpers of our joy

Introduction: 2Cor.1:23-24: 

“Moreover I call God for a record upon my soul, that to spare you I came not as yet unto Corinth. 

Not for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.”

Last week we were looking at the benefits of joy in this series and we established that the joy of the Lord is so valuable that each of us should desire to flow in it. In our text here, we saw Paul referring to himself and Timothy as helpers of the Joy of the Church at Corinth. This means there are people and things that can help our joy. Another aspect of the importance of joy we are going to be looking at in this series therefore is the helpers of our joy. What are the things about life that help us to become and remain joyful so that we can continue to experience the benefits that the Joy of the Lord brings? We will look at some of them today to provoke us to research more from the word of God to find more hidden treasures that would help us in our quest for walking in the joy of the Lord. 

The following are some of the helpers of our joy:

1. The word of God: The word of God is the revelation of what God says or imparts to the heart of men by the Holy Spirit. They are either written down like the scriptures [2Tim.3:16, 2Pet.1:19-21] or spoken to us directly in our hearts either audibly – Jn.15:11 or by the inward witness – Romans 8:16. The result of this is that the joy of the Lord is released into our hearts to confirm that it is God who has spoken to us. When Jesus spoke to his disciples in John 15:11 about bearing fruits for the father, he brought this truth out clearly in relation to the connection between the joy of the Lord and bearing fruit in the kingdom of God. He said he spoke these words to them with the intention that His joy might remain in them and that their joy might be full. This makes the word of God a major helper of our joy because it not only gives you joy, it makes you full of joy. 

2. Another helper of our joy is The Holy Spirit: He is not just a helper of our Joy for being God; He is the oil of Joy. In Isaiah 61:3, he is referred to as the oil of joy and has the capacity to destroy everything that causes a person to mourn. In other words, the Holy Spirit has the capacity in his ministry as to oil of joy to eliminate depression from the life of a person and replace it with divine strength. Like we saw last week, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Therefore, the oil of joy comes to strengthen us for the journey of faith and empowers us to take the journey to the end without weakening. In John 16:13, we are told that when the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide us into all truth. When we are guided into all truth, we are guided into all the revelations of God. Therefore, we are guided into unspeakable joy because the truth revealed to us as we saw in the previous paragraph, causes the joy of the Lord to remain in us and makes us joyful.

3. Hope: This refers to the expectation of something good to come in the future. When we were looking at the definition of joy, we established that joy is the passion or emotion excited by the expectation of good. The expectation of good is hope. Where hope exists, joy is inevitable. This is why the bible tells us that the feet of those who bring us glad tidings are beautiful [Rm.10:15]. A major instrument that is used to convey hope is glad tidings. When that happens, people become joyful. For instance, in Acts 8:5-8; we are told that when Phillip took the gospel [or glad tidings or good news] to Samaria, the people received Christ and the result was that there was great joy in that City. Thus the preaching of Christ to the Samaritans helped them to come to a place of great joy. So if you want to be an instrument through which God would help people to rejoice, preach Christ to them. 

4. Faith: Another helper of our joy is faith. Faith is acting on the expectation of the good resulting from the promise of God revealed to you. This is why Apostle Paul said in 2Cor.7:4 that they were joyful in all their tribulations. They were acting in faith on the word that the Lord Jesus Christ taught them in Matthew 5:11-12 where is said that they should consider themselves blessed when men shall persecute and revile them and even say all manner of evil things against themfor his sake. He further said that they should rejoice and be glad in these circumstances for great is their reward in heaven. Thus every time our faith is tried through persecution, is a time of opportunity to rejoice. When we take advantage of this, it would help our joy.

5. People: People help our joy in various ways. As we saw in the previous paragraph, they can help our joy by persecuting us if we would maintain the right attitude in trials. On the other hand, they can help our joy by influencing us to be joyful through what they say to us and how they treat us. In John 15:11, the Lord told the disciples some things to cause His joy to remain in them and cause them to be joyful. There are some people who share the revelations of the word of God with you in such a way as to trigger joy in your heart in unimaginable ways. Remember that one of the main instruments God uses to bring us joy is revealed knowledge and he can convey this knowledge through human vessels. This is why Apostle Paul and Timothy referred to themselves as the helpers of the joy of the Church at Corinth. See 2Cor.1:1, 23-24.

We will stop here for today believing God for grace to be given to each of us by God to seek Him for more helpers of our joy from His word. Access to this grace was freely available to man until the devil came in to mess things up by luring man into sin which resulted in his separation from God [Gen.3; Rm.3:23 and 6:23]. Thankfully, the Lord Jesus Christ already came to solve the sin problem for us. However, we are required to embrace His sacrifice by believing in Him and receiving God’s free gift of salvation through faith. See John 3:16-18.

If you have not yet received this free gift, you can do so right away by saying the following prayer out loud in faith and you shall be saved:

Heavenly Father, 

Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name! Amen. 

Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com and follow us on twitter at alero_nannaand on face book on www.facebook.com/flourishinggirlwww.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email:  jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.    

Remain on top of your challenges in Jesus’ name!

What Joy is

Messages for April 2016: Our Month of unspeakable Joy
Message for the 3rd of April 2015
Theme: Understanding the importance of the Joy of the Lord
Topic: What Joy is
Introduction: As we enter into this season of great influx of souls into God’s Kingdom, there is no better way to take off than being given the opportunity by the Lord to both enjoy his unspeakable joy and learn and understand it so as to guarantee the harvest He is giving us. His joy will also help to preserve this harvest until His return.
For us to enjoy His best for us therefore, we must take the time to not assume knowledge of the joy of the Lord but to carefully learn and understand how it works. This would help us to take advantage of this great grace for our benefit and the glory of God.
What then is Unspeakable joy? The two key words here are unspeakable and joy. Let us take them apart to define them for clarity purpose.
Unspeakable is that which defies expression in words. For our purpose here, it is the joy that cannot be described but must be experienced to know it.
Joy on the other hand is the passion or emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good. It is that which causes joy or happiness. It can also be defined as enthusiasm.
While all these dictionary definitions try to define joy, their definition may not truly describe the joy of the Lord especially when it is seen as something that is a result of the acquisition of something good. In this case, it could pass for happiness if the thing acquired is material and transient. The joy of the Lord goes deeper and stronger than that. The following qualities help to show what the joy of the Lord is.
Qualities of the Joy of the Lord:
It is a spiritual gift of God given to the redeemed. It is therefore not a material thing and not dependent on tangible things to flow and be expressed through a person.Isa.61:3 and 1Pet.1:8.
Joy is a fruit of the recreated human spirit and therefore can be nurtured and can grow. Gal.5:22
Joy is a supernatural mystery that proves the existence of faith in the heart of a person. 1Pet.1:8 and Rm.4:20.
Joy is a spiritual force that can be described as the strength of a believer in Christ. Neh.8:10.
Joy is the energetic assurance of faith that sees you believing God from the time of promise to its actual manifestation. 1Pet.1:8 and Ezek.2:2.
Joy enables you to maintain a staying power in an energetic and expressive way resulting in the creation and sustenance of momentum irrespective of conflicting physical occurrences. 1Pet.1:8 and Jn.15:11
Our right in the covenant of Grace:
Everyone who is born of God has certain entitlements as God’s child that distinguishes them from the world. One of the entitlements we have received in the covenant of Grace cut with the Lord Jesus Christ through His body and blood is joy. See John 1:16-17 and Jn.6:53-54. Joy is one of the proofs of the existence of eternal life in a person. See Gal.5:22.
How joy comes:
It is given to us at new birth as part of the package in our redemption. This makes it a gift of God to us. Isa.61:3.
It is imparted to us through the infilling of the Holy Spirit – Ps.45:7 and Heb.1:9.
It is released into us by the word of God spoken to us. This is why any time you hear the voice of God, one of the proofs that it is God speaking to you is that it leaves you joyful no matter the adversities around you. John 15:11
It is imparted by the revelation of the Holy Spirit of the light in God’s word. See Jer.15:16.
It is a product of answer to prayer by God. See John 16:26.
It is a product of divine visitation. Jn.16:20-22 
When we are filled with the joy of the Lord, we enter into a realm where we cannot be defeated because the joy of the Lord is our strength and nothing can defeat the strength of the Lord which is also called the spirit of might. See Neh.8:10 and Is.11:2.
Access to this grace was freely available to man until the devil came in to mess things up by luring man into sin which resulted in his separation from God [Gen.3; Rm.3:23 and 6:23]. Thankfully, the Lord Jesus Christ already came to solve the sin problem for us. However, we are required to embrace His sacrifice by believing in Him and receiving God’s free gift of salvation through faith. See John 3:16-18.
If you have not yet received this free gift, you can do so right away by saying the following prayer out loud in faith and you shall be saved:
Heavenly Father,
Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name! Amen.
Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com and follow us on twitter at alero_nanna and on face book on www.facebook.com/flourishinggirl www.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email:  jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.   
Remain on top of your challenges in Jesus’ name!

Welcome to the month of April 2016: Our Month of Unspeakable Joy!

1Pet.1:8; John 15:11; Heb.1:9; Isa.61:3
It is often said that momentum is a leader’s best friend. I can say from my experience that this is so very true. Momentum is the energy that enables a leader to run with the vision without burning out even in the midst of adverse situations. It is the drive in a leader that impacts on the institution or group they lead. God did not leave us to ourselves in this wicked world. He said He would not leave us comfortless but would return to us. He kept his word when on that great unusual day of Pentecost, at the upper room; He visited the 120 disciples who were awaiting his visitation. On that day, the Church was born. God’s longtime dream of finding a place of rest in the heart of man was actualized.
Since then, we have had the privilege of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In His office as the Spirit of might, He releases the oil of joy into us that enables us to rejoice with what Apostle Peter describes as joy unspeakable full of glory! Joy is the fuel that powers the believer with supernatural ability for accomplishing the unaccomplishable by natural standards. The result of this is usually described as a miracle.
Many have confused joy with happiness and have ended up experiencing a roller coaster life because happiness is a transient feeling based on circumstances around us that we like. Joy on the other hand, is spiritual energy supernaturally imparted to us by the Holy Spirit and the revealed word of God. I want to describe joy as active faith that enables a believer to stay believing with the right attitude until the manifestation of what they have believed God for. It is the other side of the peace of God. Joy and peace work together to bring a balance in our faith walk.
The joy of the Lord is so powerful that if we allow it to stay with us, we would never experience depression. Due to the supernatural grace of joy, the spirit of depression is cast out cheaply.
In these evil days when men’s hearts are failing them, the antidote for depression and all that make men’s heart to fail is the oil of gladness. The oil of gladness has the ability to take away mourning of any kind from our lives. It is what energizes us to offer sacrifices of praise [when physical circumstances resist praise] because it dresses us up with the garment of praise taking away all the ashes of our lives.
This grace is so beneficial for keeping us in faith until the soon return of the Lord that we must spend time this month to understand it. To this end, this month, we shall be looking at a series I title: “Understanding the importance of the Joy of the Lord”. This grace is however a spiritual virtue that is only accessible to the redeemed as one of the keys of the kingdom [see Mt.16:19]. If you are yet to make Jesus Christ he Lord of your life, you cannot take advantage of this grace yet until you do so. Should your desire to do so now, please say the following prayer out loud in faith and you shall be granted access:
Heavenly Father,
Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name! Amen.
Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com and follow us on twitter at alero_nanna and on face book on www.facebook.com/flourishinggirl www.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email:  jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.   
Remain on top of your challenges in Jesus’ name!  

Understanding how to grow up spiritually Session 2 Lesson 3

Growing in Intimacy with God
Introduction: A fortnight ago, we introduced this segment of our series with the truth about the fall of man from grace in the Garden of Eden and the new challenge which is the spiritual death from which God had to raise man. About two thousand years ago on the Cross of Calvary, this problem was solved when the Lord said in John 19:30 “…It is finished…” as He hung on the Cross.
Today, we shall continue to see the eternal effects of this simple sentence made by the Son of God on Calvary’s Cross in our favour.
The benefits of making a decision for the Lord Jesus Christ:
Man’s sin is forgiven – Isa.43:25; Ps.103:3 and Col.1:14. This is not like people do and keep some of the awareness back in some precious place in their heart. God forgives us in totality and treats us as though we never sinned. This is why He says He is the one who forgives our sin and does not remember it any more. He not only forgives our sins, He also forgives our iniquities which are inherited sins of our ancestors. This is what gives us the audacity to destroy generational curses in prayer when the legalistic devil wants to enforce a curse against us based on the sins of our biological ancestors. See Jer.31:34; Heb.8:12 and 10:16-17. It is God’s forgiveness of our sins that allows us to be able to release and maximize our potential without any kind of hindrance. On our part, we must stay away from sin and if we find ourselves sinning in any way, we must repent quickly and get back in fellowship with God. see 1Jn.1:6-10.
Man becomes a new Creation – 2Cor.5:17 and 1Pet.1:23. Since the time of the ancient prophets, God kept sending this message to man of his intention to create a new breed of his people in whose hearts he would live. From when Jesus made that remarkable sentence on the Cross of Calvary: “It is finished” every hindrance to God being able to bring this to pass was taken away and from that memorial day of Pentecost in the upper room in Acts 2, this dream of God was brought to pass and man could now accommodate God as a new creation. This is because man has become one with God. See Is.66:1 and 1Cor.3:16 and 6:17, 19.s
Man now becomes a child of God – Gal.3:26; 1Jn.3:1-2. When Adam was first made, he was called the son of God. But when he sinned, he lost his place and he and his descendants became children of the devil. This is the reason for the wickedness and deceit in the heart of man. Jer.17:9. With redemption, that wicked sinful heart of the devil was taken away and replaced with God’s Spirit so that man now has a new heart which is anti-sin. This explains why we feel guilty when we sin after we became new creations. Man is now a child of God with the nature of God finding expression through him every time he chooses to walk in the ways of God. God’s seed now dwells in man to keep him from sinning. See 1Jn.3:9.
Man can now receive the Holy Spirit and grow in the grace of God – Gal.3:13-14, Acts.2:38-39. As a new Creation, the spirit of God is deposited in man as a seal proving the redemption of man and showing that God would fulfill his promise of eternally rescuing man when the time comes. See Eph.1:13. For the purpose of ministry however, we can now be filled with the Holy Spirit to the overflow. He will in turn give us the power to minister on the behalf of God thus bringing us to a place of fulfilment of our individual destinies. Acts 1:8.
Man becomes righteous – 2Cor.5:21; 2Pet.2:24. With sin, man became a sinner and inherited the sin nature. However, following the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have become the righteousness of God in him. When he hung on the cross, He took our sin upon him and thus identified with us sin in death and went on to hell to suffer for sin instead of us. When he arose from the dead, he arose to die no more and offered us his righteousness through faith if we would believe and be baptized into Him. To us all who have received the Lord Jesus Christ, we are now the righteousness of God in Him - Hallelujah! See Rom.6:4 and Col.2:12.

Understanding how to grow up spiritually

Session 2 Lesson 2

Growing in Intimacy with God

Introduction: Last week, we introduced this segment of our series with the truth about the fall of man from grace in the Garden of Eden and the new challenge which is the spiritual death from which God had to raise man. About two thousand years ago on the Cross of Calvary, this problem was solved when the Lord said in John 19:30 “…It is finished…” as He hung on the Cross. 

Today, we shall continue to see the eternal effects of this simple sentence made by the Son of God on Calvary’s Cross in our favour. 

Man is now free to make choices: By the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary, man was delivered from the dominion of darkness. In the realm of darkness, man was completely ignorant of who he was and who he had become due to sin. The sin nature was introduced to Adam when he sinned against God in Gen.3. 

➢ Man became a slave to sin by that nature which was later passed down to their lineage. See Rom.5:15-18; 1Cor.15:21-22.

➢ Note that Eve was deceived and transgressed due to deception but Adam’s sin was a willful disobedience. See 1Tim.2:14.

➢ God decided to raise a new breed of people with his own seed [1Pet.1:23 and 1Jn.3:9]. See Rom.5:15-18; 1Cor.15:21-22. 

➢ He did this first by bringing Jesus into this world without the involvement of a male sperm thus making him the Son of God in this world. The woman’s womb is the vessel through which a child is born into the world.

➢ The bible recognizes two Adams namely the first Adam and the Last Adam. The first Adam was the one who sinned and the last Adam was the one who did not sin [Jesus Christ]. See 1Cor.15:45-50. 

➢ The sin nature left man a sinner who had no choice but to sin and live in corruption. Sin made man corruptible in that he became subject to the dictates of the devil and death. Rm.7:21-23; Ps.14:1-3; 53:1-3 and Rm.3:10-12.

➢ Any man who receives the last Adam – Jesus Christ is now free from the dominion of darkness and can now see the true difference between light and darkness and therefore be able to make choices that would help him live for God. Col.1:12-13.

➢ The death of Christ on the Cross brought the will of man alive again to be able to say yes to God and no to Satan. See Heb.9:16. 

➢ The Testator of both the Old and New Testament is the Lord Jesus Christ [John 5:39 and Rev.19:10]. By His death, the testaments came alive and so did our will that was bound to obey the dictates of the flesh prior. 

➢ Our will was rescued to be able to not only make choices but to make the right choices. See Eph.2:1-6; Col.1:13-14; 1Pet.1:23.

How To Be Fruitful Pt.2

THEME: BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY

MESSAGE FOR SUNDAY THE 27TH OF MARCH 2016

Topic: How to be fruitful Part 2

Introduction: Like we saw last week, our fruitfulness is rooted in the prosperity of our souls. We are only fruitful to the extent we develop our souls to walk in the ways of God as opposed to how we used to live before we got saved [Isa.55:8; Jos.1:8; 3Jn.1:2 and Rm.12:2]

Today, we shall be looking at the process that lead to our ability to exercise dominion as God originally intended. In Gen.1:26 when God made the purpose of His intention for making man known, He put it in these words: “Let us make man in our image and after out likeness and let them have dominion…” in other words, God made man to rule over the earth. In the 28th verse of that text, God also disclosed the process by which man was to rule in these words: “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. …” in other words, the process where we are productive to the extent of fulfilling our purpose goes like this: Be fruitful, Multiply, Replenish the earth, Subdue it and have dominion over all that God said we should have dominion over. We shall look at these in details here:

Be fruitful: To be fruitful is to procreate after your kind. We want to restrict this here to having biological children. However, there is more to fruitfulness. There is the fruitfulness of your life in the area of your specific purpose. So while being productive in your body, you must be spiritually and soulishly productive as well so you can rule your world. See the parable of the pounds and the talent in Lk.19:12-26 and Mt.25:14-30. In these parables, the master wanted to see how productive they were going to be with the opportunities they were given. What you do with your time and money would tell how well you convert opportunities to wealth and would determine your rating and placement in life.

We can clarify this message by simplifying it this way. Bear fruit of your body at the right time. This means that when you get married, you are authorized to have children of your own by this scripture. See Ps.127:3-5 and Ps.113:9.

The next level of fruitfulness is that of your spirit. Following the fall of man into sin, we became spiritually dead and therefore could no longer bear fruit spiritually. When Jesus came to take our place of punishment, all who receive him would become new creations and have eternal life. But they will come into the faith as spiritual babies who must grow to the point where they can bear fruit for God. Note that if you do not grow, you cannot bear fruit and if you persist like that, you will wither spiritually and cannot attain to your potential. 

The third level is the fruitfulness of the soul. The soul is the part of man that contains the mind, will and emotions. When man sinned against God, his soul became corrupted and since his spirit had been severed from God, the soul came under the control of the flesh that had become subjected to death and its influences. Man’s mind became unproductive as a result and even though the potential of all he could be were still there, corruption had set in to mess man’s mind up and keep him in bondage to sin and therefore the devil. All the suffering of man afterwards is the product of his association with sin and therefore the devil. All the work of the flesh we see around today is the fruit of the association of man with the devil[Gal.5:18-21 and John 15:1-5]. The result of this is unfruitfulness. However, by the grace of God, since the Lord Jesus Christ came to pay the debt for our sin, anyone who receives Him as Saviour and Lord would receive eternal life or the life of God. This life has the ability to quicken the soul and body to make them all God intends for them to be. [Jn.5:24-29; 6:53-58].

In summation here, the first step towards our exercise of dominion therefore is to produce a fruit. Your fruit is what you birth following the leading of the Holy Spirit. It could be a ministry, a book, a business etc. Even your biological children can be fruits depending on how well you have raised them to follow the ways of God so that they can become seeds of the Lord. A seed shall serve him and it shall be accounted to God for a generation. So serving the Lord with your life makes you as seed sown. See Ps.22:30.

Multiply: Whatever fruit you produce is not good enough being alone. The fruit must be multiplied. For instance, if you produce a book, you have to multiply it by technology to enable it to get to many people through distribution. If you raise your children to walk in the ways of God, they would multiply and replenish the earth [Gen.18:17-19]. This is why your fruit must be multiplied. After multiplying your fruit, you have to come up with a good distribution network to spread it around the world. See Isa.9:8 and 68:11.

Replenish the earth: You replenish the earth when the fruit you have multiplied is taken from where you made it to other places where it is needed by others. The more you replenish the earth with your fruit, the more your purpose finds expression. For instance, a nation with more fruits like human resources, products from the nation’s raw materials like minerals, petroleum, vegetables and so on; is more productive than one with these same raw materials which is not producing fruits from them. This explains the existence of poor and rich nations on earth today even though all nations have the basic natural resources – man and time in it.See Is.52:7; Mk.16:15-17; Mt.28:18-20.

Subdue it [that is the earth]: The more you spread your fruit around the earth, the more you are considered valuable provided your fruit delivers on its promise everywhere it goes. The result is that wherever your product goes, the land is subdued before it. When God had made the children of Israel a great people in the Promised Land, the bible says the land was subdued before them. See Joshua 18:1. In Egypt, pharaoh became threatened by Israel because God so caused them to multiply that the land was filled with them. See Ex.1:7. The greater your fruit becomes, the more tendency it has to subdue the earth. This was the fear of the religious leaders that drove them to murder Jesus Christ and attempt to stop His fruit - the gospel. But the Gospel is God’s product and cannot be stopped because of the increase of his government and peace, there shall be no end [Isa.9:7]. See Jn.11:47-53 and Acts 5:28. The more this is done on a consistent basis, the more likely you are to exercise dominion as God intends. This is why the Church is taking over the earth on a daily basis because she is the fruit of Jesus Christ.  

Have dominion or reign: The ultimate purpose of God for man is that the man leads in the area of his or her calling. Leadership is attained when a person has demonstrated faithfulness in servicing the needs of others with their fruits to the satisfaction of those people. This is why the Lord said the greatest among us must be the servant of all. This is why He made us, this is why He restored us after the fall and this is what we are expected to do on earth before the return of the Lord. No one has exemplified this truth better than Jesus Christ and his followers. See Gen.1:26-28; Jn.12:24; Acts 6:7; 19:18-20.

However, dominion cannot truly be exercised in man’s fallen state. This is why we must be born again so that we can bear fruit unto God. See Rom.7:4. Should you desire to make that transition from death to life now, you can do so right away by saying the following prayer out loud in faith and you will be saved:

Heavenly Father, 

Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name!

Amen. 

Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com and follow us on twitter at alero_nannaand on face book on www.facebook.com/flourishinggirl www.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or     www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email:  jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.   

Remain on top of your challenges in Jesus’ name!

Understanding how to grow up spiritually Session 1 Lesson 9

Understanding how to grow up spiritually

Session 1 Lesson 9

Introduction: Everything living is proven by its growth. We were raised from death to life, therefore we must grow. We entered this new life as seeds or children and once admitted into this new life, what is required next is growth. [John 5:24; Col.1:13; 1Pet.1:23 and 1Pet.2:2]

We are still looking at how the devil tries to weaken our faith since he has failed to stop us from getting saved. Another means by which the enemy tries to weaken our faith is:

Deception: This is falsehood calculated to weaken the faith of man thereby making him unable to fulfill his God given purpose of glorifying God. There are many ways the devil has tried to deceive man over the years. See Isa.43:7

·        For instance because of man’s ignorance of who the true God is, he has claimed to be god to many through idolatry where men are cheated into leaving the creator to serve the creation like animals, the solar system like the sun, the moon, the stars and angels. Thus when you see people worshiping anyone or anything without going through Jesus Christ to God the father, they have been deceived to worship devils. See Romans 1:18-32.

·        Bewitchment: People are bewitched when they are deceived to believe a lie as the truth even though they already had access to the truth. The result is that they would leave the way of life and go back to their old ways out of fear and intimidation that if they do not continue in that former way, an evil will befall them. For instance, some people fear that if they did not continue to worship the idols of their past, they would be struck to death by the gods they left. A friend told me this story about a missionary to Republic of Benin. He said they people to who he was sent usually had to bow to an idol in that village at a particular time of the day. One day, the drum was sounded when the people were in Church. The people hurried out of Church to go an honor the devil as they used to do. The missionary stopped them and told them not to go again that Christ had redeemed them. The people obeyed the missionary. The priest of the idol was infuriated and attempted to cast a spell on the missionary and promised the missionary that he would die in seven days. The idolatrous priest died two days later. That brought an end to the bewitchment, fear and intimidation the devil tried to use to keep the people in bondage.  Gal.3:1-10.

·        Another means of deception the devil tries to use to keep men from God after they are saved is the opposition of science. Through science, people have studied and learnt medicine for instance and try to prove by natural means how disease can cause death. Then they come up with imperfect solutions like drugs etc to try to manage disease. In some cases, they even tell man that the disease is terminal in which case, all hope of getting healed is taken away. However, the bible tells us that Christ destroyed the devil and death and hell and took our sickness on his body so that by His stripes we are healed. If man keeps listening to God and excludes the opposition of science, he would be healed. If on the other hand, he chooses to believe science instead of the word of God, he would die. Science means to know. To this extent, there is nothing wrong with science. However, when that knowledge conflicts with the word of God, it should be discarded or man would come under bondage by his weakened faith. See 1Tim.6:20, Rm.8:5-9, Heb.2:14-15; Isa.53:1-5; Ex.23:25-25; 1Pet.2:24 and Rev.1:18. 

How to be fruitful

MESSAGES FOR THE MONTH MARCH, 2016: OUR MONTH OF FRUITFULNESS

THEME: BE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY

MESSAGE FOR SUNDAY THE 20^TH OF MARCH 2016

Topic: How to be fruitful

Introduction: The prosperity of man is rooted in the prosperity of his soul. To prosper is to be whole nothing; missing and nothing broken. When we are whole, we would be fruitful. In the book of 3John 1:2, we read: “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth”. To put it another way, I wish that you are fruitful and multiply to the extent your soul is cultivated to permit you. In other words, God has done all that needs to be done for you to be fruitful; the rest is up to your cooperation through your soul.

From today, we shall be looking at how to be fruitful based on the cultivation of our soul. The reason for the cooperation of the soul for our productivity or fruitfulness is that since the fall of man, the new birth became necessary. When we are born again, a whole new life starts for us. This is the life where the spirit must begin to control the soul as opposed to the old life when the flesh was in control. This is the real warfare of man after salvation. He can therefore only be productive to the extent he cooperates with the new creation spirit and the word of God based on the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Be fruitful and multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it and have dominion: This is the statement of the blessing and it encapsulates God’s work description for mankind. We are only as fulfilled as we obey this command. When we do, we are blessed with increase and we attract God’s interest in us. So he comes to prune us to become even more productive.

If we disobey this command, we risk being cut off from our source and cast away. That will not be the portion of any of us in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In these teachings, we are going to focus on spiritual fruitfulness as most of us are already familiar with the fruitfulness of the body and for those of us who have developed our minds to some extent; the fruitfulness of the soul. To have children simply entails cultivating a godly relationship as you are led of God. This relationship ends in marriage and the fruit of the marital union are children. Then the work of cultivating them and guiding them into God’s purpose for their lives so as to continue your godly legacy begins as you work to build a great environment for this to happen effectively.

Mental productivity is what informs your decision to become literate and learn a trade or business where you could grow to the point of productivity and more productivity as you faithfully build your business to the point where your efforts by the grace of God can become instrumental in bringing out the best in others. All who are blessed through your work are proofs of your mental fruitfulness.

Spiritually, Jesus tells us to bear fruit that would abide and he told us how. His instructions are found in John 15:1-8; 16. A study of that chapter would reveal the following truths to us:

1.     Jesus Christ is likened to the vine while we are likened to the branches.

2.     As the branches have to depend on their connection to the vine for sustenance, we also have to depend on our connection to the Lord for our sustenance. We do this by the fellowship with the Holy Spirit and the word of God and taking the Holy Communion daily. See John 6:56-57.

3.     The difference between us and the branches is that we can exercise our wills to choose to disconnect ourselves from the vine or stay connected to the vine. See Deu.30:19-20.

4.     If we choose to stay connected, we shall grow because we would be receiving nourishment from the vine and become productive. If on the other hand we choose to disconnect from the vine, we shall wither and die and consequently become fruitless.

5.     The father is likened to the vinedresser. Just as a vinedresser comes to prune a productive branch to become even more fruitful, so does the father do to us when we bear fruits. God is really not looking for perfect people. He is looking for available people who have the heart to stay connected to Him. Prov.23:26 and Ps103:7.

6.     In the same way the vinedresser cuts off the unproductive branch, God also cuts off those who are not willing to bear fruit. This is the same principle at work in the parable of the pounds and talents where the little that the unproductive servant had was taken from him and given to the most productive servant. In the same way, the unproductive branch will be cut off to give room for the productive ones to perform better. This is a very sobering thought when we bear in mind that God is no respecter of persons. This is why Apostle Paul talks of leading himself to be disciplined so that he would not end up as a cast away after he has preached to others. See 1Cor.9:2; Acts 10:34-35; Lk.19:20-26

7.     It is God’s will that we bear much fruit. When we do, we enjoy the privilege of answers to our prayer.

8.     In this passage, Jesus reemphasized that the reason He chose us is that we bear fruit and that our fruit would abide. So it is not enough to just bear fruit, we must ensure that they abide.

9.     The fruits we bear are godly character and good works. See Gal.5:22-23, Matthew 5:16 and Eph.2:10. The godly character is described in Gal.5:22-23. When godly character is cultivated in our lives, it would generate the ability to do good works. This is what I call the grace of God. It has the ability to attract favour to us and energize us to meet the need that the favour opportunes us to meet. The good works are anything we do that would add eternal value to people even though some temporal values may also necessarily be added in the process. For example, God has given me a vision of this ministry which has helped many to find their place in God’s scheme of things that would endure forever. This is like what we are talking about.

10.                        2Peter 1:5-11 provides the recipe that would guarantee our fruitfulness, protect us from bareness and unfruitfulness in the word of righteousness until we step out of time into eternity.

11.                         The best way we can get our souls to cooperate with our spirit to bear fruit unto God is by walking in the spirit. To walk in the spirit is a choice you make and follow through with the help of the Holy Spirit. We are told in Gal.5:16 that if we walk in the spirit, we shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. In Philippians 2:12-13, we learn that if we decide to work out our salvation by walking in the spirit for instance, God would come to help us work to will and to do of His good pleasure. So we are not really left to ourselves. God is only looking for a willing and ready heart.

We shall stop here for today. Next week, we shall conclude by looking at the process that lead to our ability to exercise dominion as God originally intended. Meanwhile, the starting point for fruitfulness is the new birth experience. If you are yet to have that experience, you can begin today by saying the following prayer out loud and you shall be born again and start bearing fruit immediately:

Heavenly Father,

Have mercy on me a sinner. Today, I believe that Jesus died for me and you raised Him from the dead for my Justification. I therefore declare that Jesus Christ is my Saviour and Lord and from today, I renounce the fatherhood of Satan and embrace Jesus Christ as my Saviour and Lord. Thank you for this father in Jesus’ name!

Amen.

Congratulations! For more information and resources that would help you grow in this new life, please visit our website at www.kingdomheirsministries.org and our blogs at www.flourishinggirl.blogspot.com and follow us on twitter at alero_nanna and on face book on www.facebook.com/flourishinggirl www.facebook.com/khmii2015; www.facebook.com/thewellbeingcenter. Or      www.facebook.com/kingdomjointheirsfamily email:  jointheirsfamily@gmail.com.     

Remain on top of your challenges in Jesus’ name!