PARTAKE OF THE AFFLICTION OF THE GOSPEL

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