Day 3 Morning Session Rev Busuyi

The Church will ultimately war with the Antichrist, who is the son of perdition; he is a strong son who Satan has been waiting for and would operate not as a spirit but as a man. The Gospel aims to raise men against the Antichrist, building in men a stature that can stand against the works of the devil. God desires that His Son would be received by many men to destroy the works of the enemy. The work of the devil cannot be destroyed without the revelation of God’s word. Thus, our hope lies in the gospel, as only God can save and alter the nature of a man.  
 
The gospel is the power of God unto salvation; it has the potency (strength) to save a man. This power of the gospel was demonstrated in Apostle Paul, who was a man saved by the gospel. Outside of Christ, no man is good, regardless of how cultured or morally upright he is in the natural. Hence, all men need salvation. (Romans 1:16, 1 Timothy 1:15).  
 
God gave Adam the curriculum and knowledge for salvation. Hence Adam’s sin was not carried out in ignorance. After being enlightened, such a man does damage to that which he has been taught. (Hebrews 10:26).
 
The revelation of Christ is the foundation for the flesh to come to God. God is a Spirit, and so He cannot come to the realm of flesh. Christ, which is the appearance of God in the flesh, is a mystery through which we can be raised to journey to God or through which God can meet a man in his flesh estate. The Church of Christ is a rock against flesh that can give men a lift to access God. Hence, Christ is the beginning of strength. The greatest job of a pastor is to ensure that Christ's life is lived by the church, and from there, the church can journey from strength to strength (Genesis 6:3, 1 Timothy 3:16).
 
At Jordan, the Lord Jesus had already been raised as the Son of the living God. Satan’s temptation was, therefore, a temptation engineered against the "Son of God" estate in Jesus. It takes sons to reach out to matters of dominion; such sons are raised by the preaching of Christ (Matthew 4:3).
 
Though the family is older than the Church in its physical manifestation, the church is older than the family as it is an eternal thought of God, a great mystery of God. The Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth is also a mystery of God. All things created in their order came from the mystery of God.  
 
Marriage was established from the beginning. Hence we must look to the invisible for the pattern needed to do marriage well. Some people have decided never to get married because of the marriages they have seen around them, but we must be encouraged to know that God ordained marriage to be beautiful.  
 
Jesus is our Saviour; He has provided all that we need to achieve all that God said is possible. The gospel is real; it is the power of God to us against the assault and ideologies of the world. Whosoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, even in a difficult marriage (Romans 10:15).
 
For us to call upon the name of the Lord, God has to first send the one with the gospel, and then we also have to hear and believe to be saved. To be saved is to be changed. The gospel is not in the possession of the natural but in the giving of the glad tidings. The gospel intends to change us, and our growth (change) is measured in levels (2 Corinthians 3:18).
 
Christ is a law that must be cultivated before it can be applied in our lives. At new birth, we are in Christ, but we do not yet have Christ in us. We have only attained a state of righteousness by which God can reckon us as His children. Christ is a learning that has the power to form in us a new man.  
 
There are provisions of God in righteousness contained in church life that strengthens us; doing the will of God makes us strong. God must have strengthened a man for him to do the will of God. Hence each member of a church is strengthened to do every instruction unto righteousness given to the church (Ephesians 5:3).
 
The Ephesian church is an example of a church exercised in the strength of Christ, and so Paul could instruct that unrighteousness should not be named amongst them. This shows that there is strength available to anyone who comes into such a church to overcome their weaknesses.  This strength is a corporate conversation in such a church. These conversations should be common in our churches to raise foundations for salvation.
 
The relationship between Christ and the body is a mystery. The husband ought to be the head of the wife as Christ is to the church. The husband ought to minister life for change to his wife by his administration of headship. Every woman should change in marriage; the husband should give the wife a new vessel. (Ephesians 5:23-25).  
 
The church is not a nuclear family but an extended family. A functioning church of Christ must thus operate as a community. No church would be saved in fractions but as a community. This is also a pattern that should be modelled for marriage; this is because each individual in a marriage is a carrier of different compartments in their soul. Hence, no church should have a mindset of superiority or minority amidst them, as the end of such a mindset is destruction.  
 
The souls of men have compartments within them; the intention of God in adding souls to the church is to change nature. Natures reside in a soul right from childhood, hence the need for correction. Children must be continually corrected and instructed.  
 
Changing a man is not an easy task. Christ is wisdom to overthrow sin (which is also wisdom). Hence we must be a people well equipped such that sin cannot thrive amidst us. We must be carriers of God’s light, as its absence is what makes sin manifest and reign.
 
In learning Christ, we learn new standards of doing things. Until the righteousness of Christ is revealed to us, we cannot call it righteousness. We should not use a sense of our righteousness to affirm that which is righteous, except it is revealed because our sense of righteousness can be determined by many factors present in our souls. A parent must be equipped to bring up a child in a way that they would be able to come into and understand the righteous standards of God.
 
The essence of the milk of the word is to cause us to embrace righteousness. Learning and embracing new standards of righteousness is what makes us right. We must begin to see and understand the righteousness in living as a community in the church. We must be able to relate and connect with our brethren in the church and look beyond their physical appearance in relating with them. We must fight every form of resentment against our brethren and relate accordingly, trusting God to overcome whatever puts us off from them; this is how Christ imputes His strength to us as a church. We can learn to die to our flesh and be changed thereby.
 
As we learn to see men after the spirit and not after the flesh, we will relate well with our brethren regardless of their personalities. Our standards of righteousness must not deter us from healthy relationships with our brethren, as many things we perceive as righteousness are unrighteousness before God. (Romans 12:3).
 
For a wife to forbare her husband, she must die to the flesh. A wife must be able to render herself to her husband with due benevolence. (1 Corinthians 7:13).  
 
A man receiving the law of Christ must know that he is a dead man, as Christ crucifies the old life to give us a new life. Christ would not need to die if we had any good residents in us. Thus, He came and died to deliver us from the works of the enemy resident in us. God wants us to have this understanding of Christ’s dying for us. With the knowledge of this, we ought to strive to make progress in Christ. (Romans 12:7-9, 2 Corinthians 5:14).
 
The gospel intends to take away our life seemingly; it is a blessing to give us a sense of dying to our old self and also an understanding of the life we now live in Christ. Having a thorough understanding of this heals us of our sense of entitlement and attachment to things.  
 
Every man must know that the provision of his household comes from the Lord and not from himself. This would mitigate against every form of strife and contention between a husband and his wife. No man must strive to earn more than his wife just to prove his capacity as a head; rather, each man must grow in spiritual age to function as the head of his home.

‍