PASTOR OLUWASEYI OSANYINBI
[biblegateway passage=”2 CORINTHIANS 10:9-10″ display=”2 CORINTHIANS 10:9-10″]; [biblegateway passage=”1 CORINTHIANS 9:24-27 ” display=”1 CORINTHIANS 9:24-27″]
Despite the fact that Paul was intelligent and his letters were weighty, his person was contemptible and people took him for granted. However, we must understand that ministry is not about eloquence.
In the sight of God, a man that is mighty must have the character of a child. We have a situation today where we have leaders who serve with humility and people despise them. People would rather honour those who are ‘well packaged’. The more you acquire spiritual authority, the more you should become servant like.
All the processes we are going through in life have reasons. We are being trained for the responsibilities that lie ahead. We cannot be talking about perfection if we are sloppy in the way we do things. We are not here by accident and we must not do things haphazardly.
The journey towards perfection is a race. It is both an individual and a corporate race. The major problem we have is that we do not exactly know the prize for the race. When Paul said he strove and pressed on to lay hold of the prize of the high calling of God, we need to know the prize and why it is worthy to live our lives for it. If we don’t know the mark, we would not run properly. We must be very careful how we receive and pass on the baton. Those who will finish the race will have to be the best that can ever be. They should be fierce runners who cannot be overrun by demonic forces. We must run in such a way that we can receive the prize. We often misconstrue heaven as the ultimate prize because we cannot see the big picture.
Excellence must go with perfection. God is precise; He is perfect in all His ways. He subjected His word to test and it was found to be pure and flawless. We must be like our Father; we must not be sloppy in our dealings. We must be perfect in every aspect of our lives leaving nothing out since God is concerned with every aspect of our lives.
God must bring us into experiences that will help us recalibrate our thinking. If your religion would be real, you must pay attention to every aspect of your life. There must not be sloppiness of any sort. Lack of balance can be a source of attack to us.
[biblegateway passage=”JEREMIAH 35:1-19″ display=”JEREMIAH 35:1-19″]; [biblegateway passage=”HEBREWS 11:26 ” display=”HEBREWS 11:26 “]
If you want to run and you are not temperate in all things, you are not ready. The Rechabites held unto their father’s instruction not to drink wine even when God instructed Prophet Jeremiah to give them wine. Just like them, we must not allow the prevailing activities around us to control the way we live our lives.
It is easy for us to feel cool when we are one notch higher in righteousness compared to the people around us. If we are going to be a peculiar people pursuing perfection, we have to separate ourselves unto God. We must be ready to look very ridiculous to people.
As we pursue perfection, the uninitiated will reproach us but we must stay focused. That which should be ours legitimately could be denied us but we must be far and above human sentiments and frailties. The jibes they throw at us should be deflected by the stronger force within us.
[biblegateway passage=”2 PETER 1:1-4″ display=”2 PETER 1:1-4″]; [biblegateway passage=”PSALM 8:3-4″ display=”PSALM 8:3-4″]; [biblegateway passage=”ACTS 6:4 ” display=”ACTS 6:4 “]
Peter was considered great having experienced Jesus first hand. However, he had to make people understand that the faith that made him great is the same faith we have all received. We can be carried away thinking that Peter and Paul are our standards but we must know that Jesus of Nazareth is not even our standard. The Resurrected Christ is our ultimate goal. To get into full perfection is to be just like the Resurrected Christ, that is what Paul calls winning Christ.
We have to redefine why we are really serving God because what we define is what we find. If we cannot define the prize, we will not be able to know for sure what we need to do to get it. If we must be going to perfection, we cannot afford to be frivolous.
To proceed to perfection, we must acquire the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. Perfection is not for the ignorant. The degree to which you acquire the knowledge of God on earth will determine your position in eternity. All around us is a school that teaches us how to know God. Everything in creation displays the inexhaustible wisdom of God. He is vast and his ways are past finding out.
As we continually acquire the knowledge of God, we metamorphose into supernatural beings. Prayer and the ministry of the word are very important in our race towards perfection. The two form an unending cycle: The word drives us to pray and prayer pushes us back to the word; the cycle continues until we attain unto perfection. Prayer is effective when it is based on the word.
We need the life of God to be infused in us so that we can automatically be inclined towards perfection. Divine nature is the nature of deity; the full nature of divinity. That is the nature we must acquire fully in order to get into perfection. The life that God’s power gives is not the bios life. We cannot live the life of God without the God kind of life (zoe).
These words are like arrows, the place of prayer and the word can never be replaced. Just like Acts 6:4, the word and prayer forms character and makes us dependable on God. The more we grow the more we see a greater need to depend on God like Jesus in the 4 Gospels he just saw that place for prayer and dishing out the Word, he’s our Pattern, how much more in his resurrected state!!!! Glory