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Poju Oyemade - Teachings and Obedience

  • May 15, 2017 8:18 AM CEST
    Teachings must not only show salvation from sins by His grace but also obedience to God by that same grace. To emphasize the former and be silent on the latter is to call Him Savior but deny Him as your Lord.

    It is a message that stops at the Cross. It forgets the purpose and what happened at resurrection. It is one that emphasizes because I have Christ I now have life, but forgets to mention the second part about the present work of the Spirit in us.

    Romans 8:10-14King James Version (KJV)
    "And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God."

    He is the Vine, we are the branches. The purpose of the branch is not to produce nor distribute the life but to bear the fruits of that life. We are the fruit bearing part of this whole arrangement. We are to bear the fruits of His life. In us the life is to be made visible. We are of little use if we do not bear fruits and make visible that life.

    His plan of salvation was not to make a life of disobedience now permissible but to make a life of obedience now possible. It was to make it now possible and accessible to live a life well pleasing to God.

    Hebrews 13:20-21King James Version (KJV)
    "Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen."

    You cannot preach Him as Savior but refuse to call him Lord. The true confession that got us born-again is recorded in Romans 10:9 as

    "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

    Acts 16:31King James Version (KJV)
    "And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."

    It is the confession of His Lordship that brings salvation.

    As Jonah wasn't just saved from the belly of the whale without a purpose, so also we are not just saved from our sins but unto good works.

    Ephesians 2:10
    For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

    To preach His salvation and exempt His Lordship is to subconsciously push the erroneous thought Jude expressed whereby what you really are saying at subliminal levels is "He has saved you from the consequence of sins and therefore obedience is no longer a must because we are not under works but grace"

    Jude1: 3-4New Living Translation (NLT)
    "Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ".

    Let us teach the whole counsel of God. It was not just His sacrifice for our sins but also His resurrection unto life.
    We must not only show what He did in His mercy but what He intends to wrought in us by His grace.

    The greater part of the Church knows about His sacrifice for their sins, the understanding required is this.

    Romans 7:18 "..........for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not."

    How this glorious life richly deposited in me will be made visible in my mortal flesh. It's not an exegesis on that life they seek but the simple method of the Spirit on actualizing the realities of that life.