By GBILE AKANNI
(Living Seed Vol 9 No. 2 April 2002)
God’s Purpose For The Human Body
When God made man, the first thing He did was to prepare a body for him. God, from the dust of the ground, formed man’s body which when finished was like a mere corpse until God breathed into its nostrils and it became a living soul. The body was prepared for the ‘man’ to live in and fulfil God’s purpose on the earth. The body will still be left to return to the dust from where it was formed, whenever the man inside dies. We will still see the body lying lifeless but we cannot see the person any more. God’s original plan was to pour His own kind of life within the body and so have a life of His own image and likeness but contained and carried about in a human body on the earth. And this He did when ‘He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living being’. The body was made for the first man to use as a house, a container, a vessel, and as an instrument to serve as a vehicle of operation. That was why the body was made.
It is not the body that was God’s focus but the man who would live within it to serve His purpose. Man was not to live for his body… Life is more than the body, as the body is more than raiment. But then, man cannot express himself nor-operate on earth without the instrumentality of his body as a vehicle of operation.
God’s Care For The Body
For the man to be able to concentrate on his task on the earth, God went ahead and made adequate provisions for the sustenance of the body. God created a garden to supply the food, and other essential nourishment and secondly,as a befitting physical accommodation so that the body can be preserved in order for the man to achieve the purpose for which he was made. All that the man needed to stay alive and to do the work God had for him was in that garden. God so much knew the man’s needs that He was even the one that thought of giving him a wife. Thus, God created a wife uniquely fitting for him. There in the garden, God placed the man and commissioned him to be His representative and to have dominion over all the earth.
Then God said,
“Let Us make man in our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
And He further charged him saying,
“Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it…” Gen.1: 26,28
Rebellion in Eden
In Gen. chapter 2, God told the man his privileges and limitations.
“Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”. Gen.2:15-17.
Man is to have dominion over all that God created and he was permitted to eat from every tree except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said, “In the day that you eat of that fruit, you will surely die”. Even though the tree of life was in the center of the garden man was not restricted from eating it, such that he could have lived perpetually and eternally. But he was tempted of the devil to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, the tree of rebellion and self-dependence. So in the day he ate of that fruit … the life of God in him, was actually terminated. The man who bore the image and likeness of God living within the body actually died and was cut off…
Nevertheless, the body did not fall down dead as we may imagine, rather another kind of life took over… Another ‘man’, so to say, began to occupy and use the body and direct it with the new source of ‘knowledge of good and evil’. Though the body remained the same old body that the first man used before he died…it is now being subjected to the use of another man-which the Scripture calls Mr. Flesh’ “The Self”; “The Old man” or “The Human Nature”.
This is the situation that resulted after the fall of man…The body remained intact as a container but the content is now a rebellious man – the old man, whose will and purpose is contrary to God’s plan and purpose for forming the body (out of the dust of the earth) in the first place.
On the outside, it was the same body, but inside a different man…This new man now living within the body God made for His delegate to use is a rebel… he seems to say continually: “ I will live only for myself; I will be god in myself and to myself; Iam not going to be a delegate for anybody {even if it be the God of heaven} I want to be the sole entrepreneur of my life.” Thus this man left God’s own employment for the service of himself, carrying away the body for a service that is alien and contrary to God’s original purpose.
In the light of this rebellion, man on earth cut away from the purpose of God, began to bear a carnal life in the body; and the Scripture confirms again and again that
“the carnal man or human nature is enmity against God…he does not obey God’s law, and indeed he cannot”. Rom. 8:7.
Decrease, Disease, Decay, and Death: God’s Response To Man’s Rebellion…
In response to this, God took a decision:
“And unto Adam He said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, Saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herbs of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken”. Genesis 3:17-19,22,23.
1. Malnourishment…
First, the ground that brings forth the herbs and the trees, which were good for food for the man, without any effort, is now cursed for his sake.
“In toil you shall eat of it, all the days of your life”
Also, man was removed out of his free supply of provision:
“Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden…”
The ground will only yield thorns and thistles. Weeds would be the normal things that would grow out of the ground, whereas while he was in God’s service, what
normally grew out of the ground was edible. All the beasts of the field would now run away from man. None would agree to become meat for him, except if he would run about hunting for them. All creatures that were submissive and obedient before, became antagonistic. They hid themselves away. If man will henceforth find food to eat it shall be “in the sweat of your face”. In toil and sorrow will he find sustenance all the days of his life.
The longtime implication of the above was the gradual decrease in the correct standard of living and nourishment of the body. Correct food became scarce (the kind he was provided in Eden), since he had to struggle so hard to get it. Sometimes he had to improvise and take something else and sometimes he went without. (You only need to visit some parts of the world today and see the poverty level, especially in places where drought, famine, prolonged war, and inter-tribal clashes have taken their toll. You may never fully imagine what a malnourished body can sometimes look like).
Subsequently, feeding habits began to change. Out of fear that he may not get another on time, he sometimes would over eat; irregularity, gluttony, and over indulgence became part of his life style. As junks also began to enter his diets, his taste bud also began to adjust… The secret of a balanced diet was forever lost from him. Man began to feed his body with whatever, and from wherever he could find to put in his stomach… Some tasted sweet and delicious, good only to the taste bud, but in the long-run, actually dangerous to his body system.
By malnourishment, do not here imagine that we are talking about only a category or class of people called ‘the poor’; those who do not have money to buy some ‘suya’ or include eggs or milk in their daily meals. Even among the so called rich class, rich men, rich nations, it may interest you to know that some of the most expensive foodstuff and delicacies that they spend so much money on, may be of little or no value to building the kind of body that God wants man to go about with. Severally, we hear of “rich men’s diseases” (something something, tomboises). Some of those very elaborate foods still result in diseases, disorders and complications of the body. In the context in which we are examining, most of these ‘rich’ and heavy eaters have unfit bodies (the kind that do not fit God’s purpose). Being fat, or becoming very obessed is actually not a sign that your body is in sound health.
Even sincere medical people tell us that in the growth of the body, there comes an age where meat (for instance) no longer contributes much, health-wise to body built. Rather it tasks the digestive system and makes it to grow old quickly. But our rebellious human nature has cunningly placed value on meat as a status symbol, or an evidence that one is living fine. And you may erroneously (even as a christian) be coveting a state of affluence when you can consume a whole turkey as part of your daily meals.
Yet in all of these, a genuine child of God can still become very healthy even without having to pursue plenty of money. As long as in faith, he obeys the Word of God and regulates his whole life under the direction of the Holy Spirit who has the secret of balanced diet at Eden, he will have a healthy body.
“Hol! everyone in need, come to the waters, and he who has no strength, let him get food: come, get bread without money; wine and milk without price.
Why do you give your money for what is not bread, and the fruit of your work for what will not give you pleasure? Give ear to Me, so that your food may be good, and you may have the best in full measure. Give ear, and come to Me, take note with care, so that your souls may have life: and I will make an eternal agreement with you, even the certain mercies of David”. Isaiah 55:1-3
And sometimes, what it will take to maintain and keep the body fit for you may not be the elaborate turkey, chocolates, margarine, ice-cream, fish fingers, et.c. as you may have imagined. When the Holy Spirit is allowed full control over your life, ordinary akamu from guinea corn, or beans and gari, some water leaf soup e.t.c, at the right time, and on a correct dose, may be what it will take for you to keep healthy in addition to God’s grace.
Remember Daniel, under the leadership of the Spirit of God:
“And Daniel had come to the decision that he would not make himself unclean with the king’s food or wine; so he made a request to the captain of the unsexed servants that he might not make himself unclean…. Then Daniel said to the keeper in whose care the captain of the unsexed servants had put Daniel… Put your servants to the test for ten days; let them give us grain for our food and water for our drink. Then take a look at our faces and the faces of the young men who have food from the king’s table; and, having seen them, do to your servants as it seems right to you.
So he gave ear to them in this thing and put them to the test for ten days. And at the end of ten days their faces seemed fairer and they were fatter in flesh than all the young men who had their food from the king’s table. So the keeper regularly took away their meat and the wine which was to have been their drink, and gave them grain.” Daniel 1:8,11,16
So again, the first thing to do if you want this your body to be maximized and fit to serve God’s purpose is to bring your life, (body, soul, mind, tastes , appetites, will, feelings, desires,) and all else again under the leadership of the Holy Spirit. He will definitely touch all aspects… all excesses… all artificialities. And all superficialities that are the results of mere habits and bondages will be taken out in Jesus’ name.
2. A Shortened life Span…
Secondly, to forestall and curtail the consequences of the wicked and evil nature that has now entered man, the life span in which he can use the body is now cut short.
“And the Lord saw that the sin of man was great on the earth, and that all the thoughts of his heart were evil. And the Lord had sorrow because He had made man on the earth, and grief was in His heart. And the Lord said, I will take away man, whom I have made, from the face of the earth, even man and beast and that which goes on the earth and every bird of the air; for I have sorrow for having made them… And the Lord said, My spirit will not be in man for ever, for he is only flesh; so the days of his life will be a hundred and twenty years.” Genesis 6:5-7, 3.
God began to reduce the life span of the body gradually. And eventually we heard Him saying, “if you are able to reach 80, it is with a lot of stress”.
And death which was (first of the spirit) was now pronounced and extended to his body. “For dust you are and to dust you shall return” Whatever things act to bring about the dying of the body-like diseases and agents of death are now empowered to act and bring it back to the dust from which it was formed.
Though it is lamentable that because of wickedness, the life span in which an average man can now live and operate within his body is very short; but I must still warn you that even this cutting short is a continuous process. If presently as you are reading this there is wickedness in your life whether as an unbeliever or a pastor (that makes it even worse) and if there is no repentance, irrespective of how long you were to live before, God will further cut your life short. This article you are reading may be the only warning God was waiting for before you perish. You may just finish reading this article, and depending on how your heart responded, the next thing people may be hearing is your funeral! This same INIQUITY and WICKEDNESS …FORNICATION, ADULTERY, FORGERY, (if you like, put the name of your own alongside) will do it! It will cut your life abruptly… You only need to go about to witness the untimely deaths of several men and women around our nations today. AIDS and other terrible diseases are among the numerous short-cuts.
“What a man has a love of life, and a desire that his days may be increased so that he may see good? Let him be turned from evil, and do good…” Psalm 34:12&14 (Basic English Bible)
But righteousness will prolong, and can even add years to your body life span. Life and death is within your reach. Make your choice while you may!
3. Immortality Forbidden
Thirdly, God also now restricted man from touching the tree of life that would have immortalized his life on the earth. This, however, is done in love, making room for the redemption of man from sin and from eternal separation from God. Eternal life is not possible for man {in the body} any more. No man would exist in his body forever. He becomes a mere vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. James 4:14.
Proper Stewardship of the Body…
Thus, the most important issue we are trusting God to help us address in this article is the fact that our body, our physical make-up, is an investment from God for a purpose. As beautiful as it may be for several of us, it Is only an instrument. It is a means to an end. We shall reap both for now and in eternity how we used it, and for what purpose. We will also give account of all we did in it and with it. .
“For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men…” 2Cor.3:10-11.
“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? if any man defiles the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.” 1Cor. 3:16-17.
Do Not Misapply You Body
The biggest trouble most of us have is that we think we were sent here to service and to serve our body. ‘The body was created to serve the man inside. For instance, your body is not created just for the sake of eating. And there are several men today who live as if that is all they were created to do. It is the basis and reason for all their actions. They will mortgage everything else, even the purpose of God, as long as they can make personal gains for the body. No where is this more lamentable than in the Church of God today, where people can sell their conscience, and short-measure the Word of God and His standards…as long as they can have big crowds and big offerings to support the “Man of God’s” bogus appetite, wild taste, and worldly life stlye. The Scriptures are full with many of such tragedies…
“Brothers, take me as your example, and take note of those who are walking after the example we have given. For there are those, of whom I have given you word before, and do so now with sorrow, who are haters of the cross of Christ; Whose end is destruction, whose god is the stomach, and whose glory is in their shame, whose minds are fixed on the things of the earth.” Phil. 3:17 -19 (Basic English Bible).
Several men, for this reason of appetite, have been disqualified from God’s service. They cannot endure hardship and so they are unable to live and serve Christ the way He wants, and where He wants. Many preachers who would have been in rural areas, villages, and unreached tribes as misssionaris…are today everywhere in the state capitals and cities targeting the so-called “big fishes” that they can hook in order to maintain their sumptuous life styles. Some cannot even fast and do spiritual battles for the Lord. And there are even pastors whose appetites have so mastered them that they even beat their wives in anger when their meals are delayed.
“All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but l will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them.,.”
Originally, we were not even created to look for food. There was a work we were created to do for God. It was when man resigned from that employment, and he went into the employment of self that looking for food became a pursuit. And it is yet so unfortunate that several men who – would have been in ministry today as soul winners, have ended up as bread winners… out of fear of “what will my family eat?”, “What will they wear? Labouring for what to eat, what to wear and all else is part of the curse that God placed on man at Eden.
This was what Jesus deliverd Bro. Peter from when He interrupted his life on the lake of Galilee. Could you imagine all that he was wasting his God-given body to pursue if not that Jesus, in mercy called Peter (as I hear Him call several of you today)? ‘Tilapia’ and ‘Mudfish’? Let us even imagine that Peter was hardworking, deligent, and intelligent, what is the highest that he could have become out of that? Galilean professor of “fishiology”. Imagine a man with the potential of an anointing to save 3,000 souls at once, heal the lame, and raise the dead… But the devil almost squandered that life by making Peter pursue day-in day -out what he and his family would eat. When he dropped his net and followed Jesus, did he not eat’? Was his family, including his mother -inlaw, not catered for?
Such will be your case if you also abandon your personal pursuit and surrender your life to Jesus. When you come under God’s leadership, and your body becomes available again for His employment, food, shelter, and security for you and your family becomes His primary responsibility. In the same vein, wearing of cloth is not the reason your body was given to you. You see how elaborate some people invest in their dressing! They can spend time out of their so called busy schedules with tailors to discuss patterns, spend even up to N5,000 on a single dress, but give a total tithe and offering of only N15,000 to God’s work in a whole year. No time to wittness and visit souls for the Lord.
Some ladies will even sew dresses to make all the contours and shapes of their bodies apparent. All these are not the reason for the body. By God’s grace, we will wear modest clothes to decently cover the nakedness of the body. And I do not want you to be ignorant that clothes as beautiful, expensive, and important as they have come to appear, are the product of rebellion. Compare the two passages below.
“And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” Gen. 2:25.
“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.”Gen. 3.7.
Originally, man was covered with something more glorious than fabrics and wool, he was clothed with the very glory of God which covered up his nakedness. Each time you look at him, you never could see his nakedness, he was so glorious that you are struck with the majesty, the image, and the authority of God which man bore.
Much more beyond ordinary clothes, God is still offering His people this glory today…By God’s grace we are not asking people to go about naked as we hear that some fanatics are already doing in some parts of the world today, but there is a glory (call it any name… anointing, His presence…etc ) which Christ gives; that when such is upon any man on a daily basis, people do not even know whether what he is wearing is an old or cheap dress. What exudes out of you by way of God’s personality and character makes a stronger and an overwhelming impression.
Even when you wear the same dress continuously for 7 days, each of those days when people see you, you will still strike them with a freshness comparable to that of the sun. The same sun has been setting and rising for as long as any man dares to calculate. Yet each day it rises, it comes as fresh as anything fresh can be. Nobody, no matter how old he or she is, gets tired of seeing this sun again and again.
When your life returns to God’s purpose, even with a minimal clothing, nobody gets tired of your presence or even of your message if you are a preacher. It is the absence of this fadeless glory and freshness in a man that the multi-billion dollars fashion industry of the world sytem is trying to exploit. So you hear of fashion designers who manipulate all the dynamics and psychology that colours and various fabrics can offer to create ‘personalities’ for people at a very exhorbitant price. So you see some dresses deliberately designed to give a ‘strong personality’ to the weak, a ‘smartness’ to the lousy et.c; things that ordinarily living perpetualy in God’s presence could have wrought inside of you.
But when you lack this presence and glory, to make an impression on men so that you still may appear relevant and not discarded, you may have to keep spending so much on these designs.
“Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?…
And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, Shall He not much more clothe you, O ye Of little faith? Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal Shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” Matt..6:25, 25-33.
God’s purpose for making every organ of your body is in preparation that when you come inside, you would use them to serve Him. God has chosen that He will only work all the works He wants to do in this world in a man, in a yielded, emptied man. This understanding is necessary to comprehend that which God is in need of, for you to be a minister, and for you to be able to serve God acceptably in this world. As such, every thing, and every decision you take, must be subjected to this.
There is a necessary body care that is within the limit of stewardship which all of us are supposed to do since it is an instrument we must use. We must not allow it to break down. If the pomade (for instance) that you use is not to strengthen the body, but goes beyond just the necessary treatment of the body, you have missed it!
The other day, I suddenly discovered that if I continue to drink ice-cold water, my voice might not be available to serve God for a long time and I need this voice because I have not yet finished speaking what God wants me to speak. I then sat down to analyze the basic function of ice-cold water in the upkeep of my body. I found that it has no particular advantage, health-wise, apart from appetite; apart from self-indulgence. So will I because of self indulgence destroy an instrument that God gave me to serve Him? Brother Paul said,
“I keep under my body and bring it unto subjection. Lest that by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a cast away.” I Cor. 9:27.
Look around your house, how many of those things are there as a contribution to body care in order to make that body of service to Jesus? You will discover that much of what is there is for self-comfort; they are for the old man. The body is not meant for fashion, for perfumes, or for food. It is part of body care to eat balanced diet -protein and all that. But it is self-indulgence to over-eat. On top of that you are drinking a lot of sugar. Is that body care or body destruction? Very soon you will lose shape, and your teeth will begin to fall out until you can no longer pronounce some syllable words without throwing saliva from the pulpit. Then you can no longer effectively carry Jesus to do the work for which He redeemed you.
Men Who Squandered Their Bodies
It is so unfortunate that for some of us, our body is going and we have not yet started what God sent us here to do. Every part of the body has a life span. Years ago by God’s grace, I could drive for twelve hours, and yet be able to jump on the pulpit, and still preach for six hours non-stop. Those sitting down could complain of tiredness but I would not be tired. But as Iam growing older gradually,my body system is informing me “Brother, don’t kill this horse before you have delivered your message”.
I never used to preach and drink water simultaneously. It is because at a certain age, the saliva supply can sustain you. When you reach a certain age it begins to dry up gradually. Iam not talking of those that are being stylish, who come in as if drinking water on the pulpit is something acceptable to God. That is foolishness. And that is not how to deliver a message for a king nor how to deliver an urgent message to a dying world. Somebody is on the brink of going to a hopeless eternity, and you are joking with his life! These are modern-day Christianity. It is not acceptable. Yet, there are men that their salivary glands have announced to them “It is finished.”
JOSHUA
“Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the Lord said to him: You are old and stricken in years, and there remains yet very much land to be possessed.” Joshua 13:1.
This was God’s verdict on Joshua. The story of Joshua is the story of omission in the ministry of a man who was given power, but did not know how to manage his life until the life span for his vehicle of carriage — the body gave up. Because he could no longer go to battle, God said the only thing he could do was to sit down and divide unconquered lands for the people. It is those same lands, that up till today, they have not been able to drive the people out. So they are still battling because Joshua did not use the best part of his life, of his body, to achieve his work. It pains me every time I read the Bible and see what is said concerning Joshua:
“For if Joshua had given them rest, then would He not afterward have spoken of another day.” Hebrews 4:8
JACOB
I want to also draw your attention to another man Jacob, who almost squandered his body ever before he arrived at where God was taking him. Do you know that there is no everlasting man? There is only one everlasting God. Anointing does not make any man immortal. We are all living here within a space of time. We have a time limit in which to serve God. How many years of your life have you wasted?
When Jacob got to Egypt, the Bible says, “…and Joseph brought in Jacob his father, and set him before Pharaoh,…And Pharaoh said unto Jacob, How old art thou?” Gen. 47:7-8.
I get an impression of a man who is frail and weak that could not carry himself but had to be carried and to be set, that is he had to be arranged. And I was surprised that the first question Pharaoh asked was “How old are you?” Jacob seemed to understand the question perfectly well. He knew that Pharaoh was not just asking him of the number of his years but rather how old was he that he was so scattered, so over-used that he had to be carried.
The other way to put that question is “How many years of your life have you spent?” Instead of Jacob simply giving the number of his years, that question made him to start a biography. He knew that Pharaoh wanted to know what he spent all his useful years doing.
“And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.” Gen. 47:9.
Jacob must have remembered the story of his life and concluded that it was full of evil, full of struggles, full of self program, and not like those of his fathers. Actually none of them pursued the things of this world the way Jacob did. He pursued Rachel for twenty one years and this same Rachel died ever before he got home to show his father the woman whom he loved.
What is the story of your life? The things you pursued for the first thirty-five years of your life, where are they? Is your story similar? The thing you pursued with all your youthful strength, did it die on the road?
If seventy years is the total number of years for your life, how much of those seventy years have you spent for the flesh? You are fifty years old and you are still pursuing certificates. If the Civil service rule is something to go by, when you are sixty, you will be retired. What will you do with that certificate when you have got it? I have never seen a man whose son inherited his certificate or went back to the office where he worked, to continue from where his father stopped.
How many of your years have you spent looking for a wife? You have engaged and disengaged several times because no sister seems to satisfy you. Some of you keep pursuing women. But I want to ask you “How old are you? How many years have you spent pursuing every little thing you are so annoyed about and for which you break your engagements. This is the fifth sister. The work for which you were born, you have not done it. Or did you think the body was made for you in order to pursue a woman? Jacob spent the best of his years being Jacob until God came and changed his name to Israel but it was too late. Most of his former acquaintances, knew him as Jacob. Though God called him Israel, nobody else called him Israel because his past was what they remembered. They did not know the good thing he was doing now. For some of us the reason we will not excel in ministry is the atrocities we have committed in the-past years. So that when you now decide to change and God is calling you a different name, they still call you, your old name. You need prayer. Ask God to change your destiny, change your outlook, change your acquaintances, and give you a new beginning. By the time Jacob got to Egypt, weak and worn out, there was nothing he could do again. That man died. He died almost a struggler. He is in heaven today, but not with much.
“By faith Jacob, when he was a dying, blessed both the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff.”
Can you see the short summary of Jacob’s whole 147 years of existence, the only record of any eternal and abidng thing he did with his body was what he did with the last part of his life when all his strength and faculty had become weak and exhausted out of misaplication and squandering..
“By faith Jacob, when he was dying worshipped God (served God) leaning upon a stick”
Oh what a tragedy…. where is the record of all that he did when he was young and full of strength? Combustion! To the garbage dump! No record in heaven! How glorious it would have been if his body was earlier on given to the service and the purpose of God. Then, his testimony and reward in heaven would have been much more glorious than what is presently recorded in that one line of a verse.
If the little he did at the point of death even as a cripple, God in loving mercy recognised it, do you not imagine the reception that would have awaited him if he had given God the whole of his lifetime?
Jacob was not like Isaac his father. Isaac right from birth never struggled with God over any thing. He never pursued any personal ambition. He was always walking in the will of God. He did not marry wrongly. The correct wife that Jacob should have married was Leah. But I wonder what Jacob saw in Rachel? Rachel lived with Jacob for twenty one years still an idol worshipper. The day they were to leave her father’s house she did not see anything else to steal except her father’s idol. That is the Rachel that Jacob spent 21 years pursuing. Excuse me, what are you pursuing with your useful years. Do not think you are doing us a favor, if you give your life to Jesus. How old are you? And how many more years will you spend struggling and fighting and being careless? Note how Brother Paul labored. He knew he was a late comer and that was why he could not work at the rate others were working. He knew that years were not on his side, so he began to run. Do you know that by the time Paul was dying, Peter was alive? Do you know that John the beloved was still alive when Paul died?
Even those of you that say you have given your life to Christ what have you achieved all these years? In terms of concrete investments, how much of your life have you given to God? “How old are you?” was the question. You keep celebrating your birthdays, how much of that is meant for heaven? How old are you and how many more years do you have left to serve the Lord? And this body, how much strength does it have left to carry you? If you have been watching how you are ageing, how many more active years do you have left for your eyes and for your legs? Thank God for those brothers and sisters that have good voices to sing. Do you know that there is an age, if God does not preserve that voice, when to sing or take a high note and draw it, becomes difficult? It is the glory of good singers to draw a note. When you grow old, your voice will fail you when you want to draw a note. The note will no more be stable. If you are the one ordained to sing for the next revival, and you have lost your voice, what do we do? If you are an old man who is saying, “here am I,” God will take you but He cannot give you much work to do for you cannot run errands. So when He takes you, He just looks for what you can do, within the limit of your valuable years that remain. You who are a young man not yet married if you give Him yourself now, it may be better. If you cleared enough ground before your children come, it will still be best. Sister, it looks as if your husband has delayed in coming. Why do you not invest these years of your singleness to do quick things so that when you are married and pregnancies and babies begin to come, you will be in a position at least to say, “Lord, I have been in this service.” Pray at this point in Jesus’ name.
Your Redemption… Return To God’s Service
As soon as God took the children of Israel from Egypt, God began to remind them again of his initial plan for mankind. He said,
“And ye shall serve the LORD your God, and He shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee”. Ex 23:25.
As long as God sees a man who is yielded and emptied of himself, God is yet ready to sustain such a man for His service. Many of us do not know that diseases were released in order to cut the flesh short. But God is still in need of a body He will use. Thus the cry from heaven:
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom Shall I send, and who will go for Us? Then said I, Here am I, send me. Isaiah 6:8
Will you be that man?
Yield Your Whole Life In Total Obedience
When God said, “who will go for Us?” it was an announcement in heaven that Jesus stood up to respond to:
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6
The “here am I” we are talking about is a complete offer of our body, as a living sacrifice. And I was amazed when Jesus Christ declared,
“Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared Me: Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God.” Heb 10: 5,7.
For Jesus to thus meet the need of redeeming mankind He had to come in a bodily form. Even Jesus realised that He needed this body for nothing else but to present it to God as a sacrifice. So you see in Jesus, a Man who understood why His body was given to Him. He was a Man who understood why His intellect, His mind, and even His physique were made. To do the will of God with! He knew that they were made not for Him to indulge Himself and live for pleasure, and then be hypocritically looking for other sacrifices with which to serve God.
Jesus seems to be saying “I don’t know what others came for, I don’t know what others came to do in life, I don’t know what others came to do in the pulpit, I don’t know what others came to the ministry to achieve, but ‘I’, I am come to do Thy will Oh God.” Those of us that are willing to follow after the order of this high Priesthood Jesus, we are also going to stand and say “Lord, here am I.” “and with my whole body”
Jesus said, “For me, I am come to do Thy will Oh God.” Will you make such a choice? Will you come to that level of decision where you are saying, “Lord, I am come to do Thy will O God. In this church where You gave me an opportunity and a body to serve You with, it is Your will I came to do. And I am ready to die doing it. I am not here to compete for popularity, I am not here to compete for strength, I am not here to compete for power, neither am I here to compete for people’s pockets. I am come to do Thy will O God as it is written concerning me.” That will is to offer your body as a living sacrifice. That is what Jesus regarded as the will of God. The will of God for Jesus is not activities; it is the surrender of His body for God to work in.
Your Whole Body….Rather than Sacrifices
This is another serious aberration God must deliver us from. Many of us keep our bodies intact for our self-purposes, while we look for some other things to give to God. Some of us give God gifts, money, etc. while withholding our bodies for sins or personal ambitions and careers. We need to offer to God this whole body-mind, intellect, feelings, and all for His activity to be done inside. God needs to sit inside this body and do His work.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. Romans 12: 1.
Some brothers with good voices are presenting their voices. They seem to feel that God needs their voices, while the rest of their body is theirs -theirs to fornicate with, to live arrogantly with. So we have so many good singers singing for Jesus in the church but their bodies are most undisciplined. They are in the choir. They seemed to have, you know, lent God their talents. They are playing the guitar or the organ and occasionally they draw attention to themselves using the instruments. They believe that there is no body else that God can use. God is not asking you to present your voice. What does He want? It is when God takes possession of a man that his life becomes useful. When you are going to present your body, it means (the man, the former occupant) with his personal programmes, desires, and taste, is no longer there. You must become a novice because the man that was using that body has passed away. It has to be Jesus who is going to now sit inside the body using the hand, the mouth, and the voice. That is why in God’s kingdom, it is not necessarily true, that because you were a music specialist in the world, that you can automatically become a music minister in the Church. We see such people just after two months of repentance, already starting a music ministry for God. If things are to be done correctly, such persons ought to be sent to go and sit down yet. They will unlearn all the music they learnt, and then learn to humbly ask: “Jesus how do I play guitar for you?” Jesus could then decide that He did not save them to play guitar. What actually their bodies are needed for is to sweep the church, since there are people who are already playing guitar.
There could be certain things that you know how to do before for the ‘flesh’, yet if you want to become useful to God, even those things will first be removed from your hands. This is because you used to do those things with your bodies for the old man. God will remove them from you first so that the old man can die and you can find your course in life. God is asking you to present to Him your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. The Bible calls that your reasonable service. It is your ministry. Brethren, ministry is not preaching, singing nor teaching per se. Preaching, singing, and teaching, are all secondary assignments. Our ministry, our reasonable service is being available for God to work in us. What you now see God doing in me is not my work. This is where the confusion is. Jesus never forgot that. He kept saying it. And if you go through the gospels, Mathew, Mark, Luke, John, especially the book of John, He says many times, “the message I preach… is not Mine. As I hear, I speak”. Can you imagine that? Jesus said, “The Son, can do nothing, except what He sees the Father do”.
Practical Experiences…
When I came to discover that ministry is not doing something but providing a container, or being available for God to work in, it gave me a different understanding and insight. And if I want to be honest with you, most of what we preach is not our own. When the Holy Spirit began to instruct me years ago, I found it very strange. I thought that preaching is what a man does. So I was always ready to preach. But we had a retreat while still on campus. God took us to one of those villages where we used to preach and He began to deal with self in me. It was then I understood that a dead man could not preach. I discovered I was not the one to preach but I then wondered what I should do. He said, “Carry me there.” You know that thing almost confused me. I learnt that God only needed my mouth, my leg, and my hand. Somebody used to use my hand but Jesus came to chase him out. That was when what medical students used to do made meaning to me. Instead of allowing a dead body to be buried, the university authority may decide to buy it for the sake of teaching. Those dead bodies are then put on the table for the medical students to work upon. What ever the students do to those bodies, even the children of such dead men cannot stand up and say anything. This was because it was bought with a price. It could have decayed; if not that the school authority preserved it for their experiment.
I hear Jesus say to me, “you have been bought with a price, your body is no more your own”. The body is now the Lord’s who bought it; therefore glorify the Lord in your body. I needed to know that even what I will preach would be given to me when I get there. It may look dangerous. How can you be going to a place and you do not know what you are going to say? What if you get there, you have nothing to say? People will say you are confused. But I was made to realize that the person who would be ashamed of being considered confused was dead. If I get there and God did not speak, what concerns me about it? So, again, I had to discover that even preaching to get glory, or to get to the point that people will be impressed is what ‘the old man’ loves.
The first time, I was going to practise this truth, I was very careful. I went about as if I was carrying an egg. I knew that God was inside and I was carrying Him to the pulpit. I could not stand straight. First and foremost, I did not know what to say. He had not told me. I did not know what Bible verse to read, He had not told me either. The people sat back as they will normally sit. They thought I was in the Spirit. As I waited the Lord began to speak what He intended for the congregation. The message came out – initially a bit slowly but then the Holy Spirit took over and I spoke for two hours. By the time I was finishing I saw all the people on the floor. When I noticed that they were no more interested in hearing me, but were already crying, I left the message, and also joined them. As they were crying, I also needed to cry for my own self. We wept for another two hours. They were waiting for the man of God to stand up and officiate. I also needed to be officiated. When we prayed like that, the Lord then said, “Go and tell them to stop”. So I did. At the end of that meeting, I had to go back to God to find out what really happened to me. It was then I realised that the man that used to preach — the preacher —was dead. A dead man cannot preach. God only bought my body so as to carry Him. Do you know since that time till now, even though it is going to twenty years since I had that particular encounter, I have never preached differently. I have only had to carry Him to anywhere I had to preach. So I found that ministry is not something that should cause a man to sweat. My own reasonable service is to have an emptied body. I am using the word, emptied, because it was not empty before. I was full of myself. And the more you evacuate, that is, pack out the wisdom, and the tradition of Mr. Flesh the more God gets room to operate. And that is your reasonable service.
Who is going to give God that sacrifice? For Jesus He said, “Here am I”. Jesus also said, “I do nothing of My own will.” And you must have read Him several times, saying, “l have come to do the work of Him that sent Me”.
My singular contribution to the work of God is my body. For the gift of the Holy Spirit to manifest, He needs a body. When we present to Jesus, evacuated bodies for use, then we begin to understand what Jesus did when He agreed to come down to be used.
Jesus’ Example…
Philippians 2:7-8,tells us:
“But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”
When Jesus offered His body He made it without reservation. Yet He was conscious of the decision He had taken. He was to carry God His father everywhere. Sometime it so blessed my mind that even in the midst of glorious, ministerial outburst, Jesus could suddenly announce that He needed to be somewhere else. Can you imagine that? Could He not have settled down to become the ‘‘General Overseer’ commanding His disciples about? He will then be moving around supervising. When some people will say “Excuse me, you have not baptized me.” He will say, “Go and meet my boys.” No, i saw Jesus the patterned Man that I am talking about — from a very large anointed breakthrough; move to Samaria just for one woman, the woman of Samaria. And this woman of Samaria behaved in a very discouraging way. This woman had been dealing with men and she thought that Jesus was just another man. She had had six men before. The way the conversation went showed that the woman took Jesus for granted. Yet Jesus allowed Himself to be taken for granted by a nonentity like that woman. If it were you coming from a very wonderful meeting where thousands were running after you and she is bluffing you up and down like that you would have left her. For some of us, our disciples actually are ready to die for us, if anybody should abuse us. But I saw Jesus who would not even allow His disciples to defend Him. And He talked gently to that woman until the woman discovered the Savior inside of Him.
Jesus could leave a big crowd and go to preach to one soul in a village called Sycar. He did not even enter Samaria, which was the capital city. He was in a village. Can “General Overseers’’ leave cities with big anointing services in pursuit of one soul, especially if that soul is in a village? But note that when Jesus won that woman, she went and brought the whole village. That is Jesus. He could eat with kings and yet find a place to sleep in the house of a Zacchaeus. He was not addicted to positions. He came to do the will of God. What was driving Jesus everywhere was the will of God. He never settled with anything outside the will of God and I just want to pray for my own life. I have seen a Man whom I am going to follow. In Jesus, I have seen a pattern that I am going to live with. I have seen a pattern that will never change. Jesus has been like that since two thousand years ago and He has not become irrelevant. Which other man that has ever lived has commanded such respect as Jesus? It did not happen because He is the Son of God. It happened because He obeyed God. He lived only for God. God actually gave Him a name that is above all names because He humbled Himself.
“And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name”. Phi 2:8-9.
Do you understand the reason why Jesus has a name now that is above every other name? It is this one thing that He did — He humbled Himself.. He emptied Himself, He offered Himself…His whole body for the will of God! Will you?
For further information and counseling :Please call, 08189591591, whatsapp +2348021688883. Email : https://peacehouseabuja.org/contact/
Check more for your Spiritual Growth:https://peacehouseabuja.org/