How readest thou?
“PARTAKE OF THE AFFLICTION OF THE GOSPEL”
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; 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.
There is distant consciousness of
eternity in the heart of all men. There is this natural impulsive tendency
towards a high-up existence. But the problem seems to be that much as flashes
of or the momentary dawning of this reality tends to induce a sense of peace and satisfaction in us, this
feeling, however, is rather short-lived
each time, as we are soon plunged in at the deep end of fear and anxiety. No
sooner do we think we have reached satisfaction than there is a feeling of
hunger and emptiness deep within us.
This natural, or better still, this spontaneous urge, which keeps on nagging
man, coming on and off intermittently, is nothing but the light of God within all men
called “Eternity.” This is what the scriptures have to say about this truth:
Eccl 3:11-12 He has also set eternity in the hearts
of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
It is the chained and trapped soul of man in time and space and in the
world of appearances that wants out. It is the light of God which has been
covered over with a thick dark blanket of ignorance and rebellion of the
natural and carnal reasoning of man.
The carnal reasoning and perception of man is the product of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is
simply the thought that man knows and has to find solutions to problems. Don’t
you realize that this is what Adam did in the Garden? He was not meant to
figure things out because, in that perfect state, all was in order. The only
task he had was to maintain that state of affairs as God had already created.
Let’s read it all together:
Gen 2:15-16 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of
Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man…
Note that in the mind and language of God work does not mean the result
of force over distance multiplied by time, as we perceive it in our natural
world. It simply meant for Adam to be vigilant and to ensure that that
Spiritual state did not alter. This we know that he failed to do anyway.
You will not fail to note either that the first time Adam ever worked
was when he went and plucked up fig leaves, sewed them together for covering.
Let’s read it together:
Gen 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they
realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings
for themselves.
Note also that this labour action of Adam’s had been proceeded by a
knowing or a consciousness. Brethren, this is the beginning of the world! Gaining another form of consciousness other
than that of God who fills all and all. This consciousness says that you are
God and you and now you see and you know so take control and solve the problem.
So we see and understand that when Jesus said before Abraham was, I Am, not
only was he saying that his existence predated the fall, which we now know by
the Spirit to be the world, but that our
existence also predate the beginning of the world. It is therefore clear that
the world in the language of the Spirit is not a cosmic reality, but a state of
spiritual mind or consciousness.
However, this light, called the Spirit of God or the breath of God, has
always been there in man, because when the “world” intervened on the Spirit, it
was only a covering not an extinguishing or an annihilation. Practically, the
Eden garden state of man was covered over with human reasoning and actions
called the wisdom of men other words denoted as thorns and thistles. Consequently,
we see that when God said, “let there be light,” he was addressing the darkness
that came hovering over and darkened the mind of man so that this darkness would
be dispelled and the light, which was already in man would pop up once again.
From this understanding we are beginning to comprehend that unless the
voice of the living God, in other words the breath of life, thunders from the
light realm of heaven and quickens our mortal perception, we will keep groping
about in the dark, trapped in the world. Instead, when this light dawns on us, the
world comes to an end on us.
The end product of the desperate kicks of the trapped soul wanting out is
the monster called religion. Religion is the fruit of the desperate efforts of
man. Religion is man’s innumerable inventions to link up to God, to once more
arise and shine as it used to be before; to link up to his inseparable maker. It’s man’s attempt to
reach out of the pit or grave to which he’s joined in the fall.
Religion takes diverse forms and shapes in its manifestation: it shows up in the setting of human rules by
which we establish things that are allowed and not allowed to be done; rituals
which involve making particular gestures and praying actions to a divinity
outside man; ways, forms and times of praying in communication to God. Other
manifestations are in the form of the use of Sacred books, the observation of
sacred holidays and the reverence of holy temples and sacred places; the holding and promotion of a distorted idea
of life after death; the holding in high
esteem of certain group of people and myths, all stemming from a shadowed notion
of the divine and true God, the father or our Lord Jesus Christ. Cultures and
moralistic ideas and all the seemingly high sounding, well settled and
popularly accepted ideas of men are churned out of this debased spiritual state
of the mind of men.
This is the order of all men. This is the common-place of all humanity
under this thick blanket covering of spiritual ignorance. Out of this men build
churches and religious platforms. They crisscross the globe in the name of
global evangelization and missionary works. But, as we have already highlighted,
this state is called death. In that dead condition men are blind, dead and
oblivious to the life eternal lying and abounding in the depth of their
innermost being. For that matter, all they plan and project is dead. All they
say is dead-man talk stemming from grave.
There is a vivid prophetic and
mind-blowing picture of this in the gospel. Let’s read it together in the book
of Luke:
Luke 5:1-7 One day
as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret, with the people crowding
around him and listening to the word of God, 2 he saw at the water's edge two
boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. 3 He got into
one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little
from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat. 4 When he had
finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into deep water, and let
down the nets for a catch." 5 Simon answered, "Master, we've worked
hard all night and haven't caught anything. But because you say so, I will let
down the nets." 6 When they had done so, they caught such a large number
of fish that their nets began to break. 7 So they signaled their partners in
the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so
full that they began to sink…
The account above has it that the
presence and activities of brother Jesus, the light of the world, the rest of
the soul of all men from their night-time toil, was around the shore of the
lake town called Gennesaret, near Capernaum where Jesus had transferred his
ministry after he’d been rejected in Nazareth, where he had grown up. There
were people crowding around him and listening to the word of God. If this is
the picture the bible paints of the scenario then it is questionable that from
the fame of what Jesus was doing, the focal point on which all interests were
centered at that time, there could be anyone within the vicinity who remained non
attracted to the scene. All were there
listening to the voice of life, yet, there were Peter and his fishing team who
could not be bothered by the activities of the “Day.” They were consumed by the
disappointment and failure of their night activity. You see, in the “Day” we are
supposed to see and hear and be illumed with the light of life. At night,
instead, we toil, labour and despair. This was the case of Peter and his team.
They had hoped to be productive at night, but it had been a fiasco. Yet they
were busy washing their nets for the next night fishing trip. But how do we
expect to be productive at night when in fact we are heavily drunk deeply
asleep at nighttime, losing every spiritual consciousness? Let’s read what
brother Paul has to say about it:
1 Thess 5:7-9 For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get
drunk, get drunk at night. 8 But since we belong to the day, let us be
self-controlled, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of
salvation as a helmet.
By the way, know that this scenario involving
Peter and his team was a prophetic one meant a teach us a spiritual lesson.
The thing is, we are the very embodiment
of the living God, yet we can’t be still enough and know that we - “I” – now watch this out, because this
is the actual prophetic designation for the second personal singular pronoun “you” when the Spirit of God is talking
as the first person singular- am God”. So,
in actual fact our true perception of the declaration above is, “ be still and know that you are God! If
you don’t understand this then tell me how else you’ll understand the Spiritual
communication of God to you.
The problem is that we have been set up and triggered by
the poison of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil to run around ever
busily with works and distraction of men so much so that we are oblivious to the presence of the
abundant life within us, the life standing nearby us on the shore of the lake
thundering to our trapped soul to listen and obey and become fruitful. We are
always getting prepared in the day - the time in which we are supposed to be
sitting still and listening - washing our nets to get back to work the next
night. Jesus once said to Mary:
Luke 10:38-42 As Jesus and his disciples were on their
way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39
She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he
said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made.
She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left
me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" 41 "Martha,
Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many
things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it
will not be taken away from her."
Anyway, this too had to be so with Mary and Martha as it was divinely
ordered to further teach us a lesson.
Well, this life we have been talking about is called grace, and this grace does not have its origin in the
day we got born again, in fact it had always been there before the world began.
So what’s the world, then? It most certainly doesn’t have to do with the cosmic
reality as the carnal mind of men tend to perceive but, rather a concept or
thought to denote a spiritual state of mind called death or annihilation or blindness
and spiritual deafness. Yes, we all have
natural eyes, ears and heart - in fact this is what composed the world or in other words the earth, as you will see
referred to often in the book of revelations.
The formation of this world has a beginning, but the deposit of grace or
eternal life in us has no beginning. Brother Paul calls it the “Christ in you:”
Col 1:27 To them God has chosen to make known among
the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the
hope of glory.
This revealing truth links us to the
content of our opening passage above, which is 1 Tim. 1, 8.
Brother Paul, therefore, was
reminding and encouraging Timothy and, for that matter all men who will awake
to the reality of the Christ in them, to endeavor to stick to the voice they
heard at the lakeside asking them to launch into the deep for deep catch. The
voice calling them to awake from their sleep and the deadness of the human
identity to conform to the divinity in them. A call for men to move from the
common-place and averages of their human understanding to soar and excel to
exceptional dwelling place of the Spirit where the eagles gather. A calling to
abandon the mediocre and embrace the perfection. A calling to move away from
the old heaven and earth to take refuge in the New Jerusalem, on top of mount Zion, the ancient mountains of the
Lord.
Mind you! Here too we are not talking about
geography, but about a spiritual reality that can be ascended to and
experienced. I tell you while the multitude are wallowing in religion and crying
to a god outside of them, lots of others have found the narrow way to the
paradise of God and have entered in. oh how I would love to touch the issue of
the Mayan prophecy here but I won’t, because I am preparing another article about that.
Brother Paul hints further that this transition or passage from the lower realms or our
humanity to the peak of Zion is no longer to be understood as based on
religious beliefs and ideas; it’s no longer to be perceived as determined by
dos and don’ts of the church; it is no more to be construed as fueled by our
human attachments and identity, but rather as a discovery of this age-old truth about our beginnings in
the eternal God, and waiting to see the power nested in this truth transform us
from people groping in darkness and ignorance of who we truly are, to
knowledgeable men and women who walk in the fullness of the midday of the Lord.
This is our holy calling!
In verse 8, Paul acknowledges two difficult areas in our
realization of godliness:
·
Firstly, the
difficulty in letting go of our seemingly safe, familiar and well-settled
mistaken human identity which we call our life. This means the faring off of that
which we have always known and considered our life and true identity; that
water below from the well of Jacob after the flesh which the Samaritan woman
had always known and identified with; that life characterized by the knowledge
of good and evil by which we see only
problems and imperfections and for which we think we have to reach out and solve.
As long as we
see this to be our life it will be hard for us to reach out for the water above
which is our true life. Jesus once said, “I,
remember we have said this means “you” am
from above but “you” the self or Adamic nature, which in the
deadness of our human identity, which most invariably is the one always
speaking and acting, are from below. This
is the reason why the communication of Jesus often sound wired to us. Often he
is addressing the old man within. When
John the Baptists tried to talk Jesus out of the necessity of his having to be
baptized in Jordan, it wasn’t the Spirit of God who was influencing the life,
perception and utterances of John
speaking at the moment. It was a flash of the manifestation of the Red Dragon,
which is the carnal mind of man. If we don’t understand this way of communication
of Jesus, we will miss it all. We will
think that God is one thing and we are another.
In effect, we are saying that there is an uncertainty
and discomfort involved in truly discovering yourself in Christ and arising
from the dust of our human sense of being and getting transformed into the
original image of the father that we all once walked in. To this was Paul’s
appeal to Timothy to partake of the affliction and the pain involved as he took
the leap and launched out into the unknown. Paul was literally saying to all
who will see life to arise and respond to the voice calling from above unto
perfection; to take back the true life we first had with the father before the
foundation of this world, meaning before man was victimized by the evil
judgment or the world of appearances and space and time. This is the world
which started in the garden of Eden. So if you read the word you come across
such phrase as, before the foundation of the world, get understanding that the
world began in the garden of Eden. It is a spiritual state of being of the
mind, not a cosmic reality. This world intervened and cut off, secluded and isolated us from the fountain of
life. Paul therefore was admonishing Timothy
to do all it takes to exist the world - the realm of hell - and enter the
kingdom.
·
Secondly,
Paul was referring to the predictability of becoming a victim of a distorted
and ugly religious system’s tendency to
isolate you for the purpose of eliminating and annihilating any effort
at innovating and excelling into new-found vocation. After all not only did
Jesus warn all who will follow the voice of life into eternity about it, but he
himself was a victims of religious and societal isolation. He was exiled from
his own hometown where he had spoken some of the most poignant truth that
pierced the heart of the religious giants and they had, as a result, threatened
to cast him down headlong from the peak of the mountain on which their city had
been built. Paul himself was writing these words of exhortation to Timothy and
to the world in chains for no reason other than that of refusing to be a man
and convincing others to be like-minded. His words were; “don’t be ashamed of
your new-found enterprise; don’t be played down by the church and the high
mountains men who are ready to hurl down any trace of truth that climbs up to
them; stand your ground for as long as it takes for the pull and the cleansing to
be over and the morning star fully breaks forth in you.
Brethren, this is the journey
of faith. This is the majestic voice of revival or reawakening thundering from
heaven calling all men to wake up from their spiritual sleep called in other
words the “resurrection from the dead.”
It is the trumpet sound
inviting men to come out of their grave and be loosened from their grave
clothes, this is the freedom of the son.
If you have seen the light, if
you have heard the voice, if the king has said to you, “come up thither,” obey
and fellowship with the voice! In the book of Acts the Angel said to Peter, “
fellow me!”
Acts 12:8 Then the angel said to him, "Put on
your clothes and sandals." And Peter did so. "Wrap your cloak around
you and follow me," the angel told him.
When Peter did he was taken
past the three gates then out to the city. This is our destination when we
fellowship with the voice.
Don’t be ashamed of yourself
that you are professing and acting differently from the common-place of men,
neither be ashamed of me, an instrument the father used to wake you up to the
Christ in you. My being in jail is not for a criminal act in the eyes of the
father, but of men. But who cares about men? If they didn’t know Christ how
will you expect them to know you? Whose counsel should we listen to, men’s or
God’s?
This life, this hope, this
glory, which has always been and which will always be, is the powerful force of
God to the lifting up of men from the dust whence we made our bed and slept in
the deadness of our consciousness, to a place of transformation and
preservation in the image, essence and identity of the father. This immortality
has now been unveiled for all men to behold and be transformed into. The world
has been abolished; the earth has been folded; the water above and that below
interposed; the expanse of separation has been removed and the water below have
lost its quality, giving way to the water above to cover the whole earth in
knowledge and spiritual intelligence as the waters cover the sea.
If this is the present state
of affairs then there is an important question everyone ought to ask
themselves: are we really in the faith? Have we understood what the gospel is
all about? Are we indeed saved? If the answer is yes, then how come no one is
raising a finger at anything? How come people are not being cast out of the
church today? How come not many are labeled heretic in the body today. The only
divisions and splits we see in the body today are personal-gain motivated and
propelled. Have the church and the unbelieving world so evolved into adjusting
to one another? But didn’t Paul say that there certainly has to be differences
among you to show which of you have God's approval? 1
Cor. 11:19.
Finally brethren, think about
this following passage and ask the Lord of light and life to wake you up:
Luke 7:24-27 24 After John's messengers left, Jesus
began to speak to the crowd about John: "What
did you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 25 If not,
what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear
expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. 26 But what did you
go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
God
bless you.
Jonas Opoku-Forson
