AHF Study 14: Entering Into The Rest of Redemption (series 4)
The rest of redemption is not primarily entering into heaven after our death. However, it is entering into heaven here on earth. Heaven must come into our heart. It is when we have the experience of heaven on earth that we can have the guarantee of reigning with Christ eternally in heaven. Failure to experience heaven on earth is an assurance that we will not be able to reign with Christ in heaven.
Two things disrupt our experience of rest on earth: first is condemnation; second is when we sin and when we submit to the law of sin and death. Unfortunately, we have preachers who minister condemnation, they have the ministry of condemnation and judgement, it’s the ministry of the letter that kills. Gladly, we also have new testament ministers who minister life, but they’re very few. They operate with the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus
Hence, it is essential that you know this whenever you stand before people to minister: you’d either minister life or minister death; if you don’t make alive, you’ll kill.
No Condemnation!
An end has come to condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus through redemption. Jesus Christ has died for us, and by His death, He has bored the penalty of our sins. We are a new creation, and the righteousness of God is poured on us. He took our filthy nature and gave us a brand new life with the garment of God’s righteousness, that terminated our condemnation.
The old things of condemnation, sin, sickness, failure, fear, doubt, failure has passed away and now we are a new creation without fear or condemnation. That is what it means to be in Christ.
2 Cor.5:17. Take note of the word “if” The scriptures did not say “if any man be in Church”, or “if any man be in discipleship”, it says “if any man be in Christ”. It is only the life that is found in Christ that can be found in discipleship. If we do not find a new creature in discipleship, such labour will be labour over rebels.
If you’re in Christ, you are a new creature. “Old things are passed away” — The condemnation of sin is gone, the issue of old sins gone, sicknesses gone, failure, doubts are all passed away. We have become instantaneously a child of God and we are reconciled to Him. There is no condemnation, no fear, no sense of unworthiness.
No Feeling of Unworthiness!
You don’t approach God with a slavery heart. I have a biological father, and a spiritual father. I am free with both of them. I have a close rapport with them, I am never intimidated by them. I have the freedom to discuss with them. In the same way, we ought to comport ourselves in relating to our heavenly father.
There is no sense of unworthiness when I approach my father, yet I will not go to him arrogantly. I know that it is the blood of Jesus that gave me access to Him. Through that blood, I have a legal ground to relate with my heavenly Father. That’s the way I relate to God. I don’t see God as a person that is a terror because the redemption that Christ did settled many things.
By the virtue of that blood, Jesus is not only my saviour, not only my Lord, but He is also my brother. We are born of the same Father. He is the elder Son, I am behind Him, He is the heir of the royal family. Through His work of redemption on the cross, I became his joint-heir. By implication, all that belongs to Jesus, which is from the Father, belongs to me as well. Jesus had come to the world to show me the way I ought to relate with the Father. He expects me to relate with the Father the same way he related to the Father in heaven.
Jesus never customized the Father as though He was only for Him. Matthew 6:9…” our Father who art in heaven…” this is a collective statement. Many have entered into this experience and gone to heaven. The Father is also giving us this opportunity as His children. There’s no fear in approaching Him. The redemption that Christ got for us on the cross has settled the issue of fear and intimidation.
There is no sense of unworthiness because of 2 Cor. 5:21… Jesus poured His righteousness to whoever is found in Christ. Hence the issue of unworthiness has been settled. So any time God is looking at that life, what the Father sees is the righteousness of Christ. That is our legal standing, it is our right standing.
Christ’s Righteousness vs Self Righteousness
Anyone who stands outside Christ’s righteousness and is pursuing the righteousness of the flesh will end up as Paul, though blameless before men, but a criminal before God. You have to make your choice — do you purse your self-made righteousness or remain in Christ’s righteousness and keep on chasing Christ, pursuing to know Him so that you will become more robust in His righteousness. Because the more you know Him, the more you become more robust in His righteousness, ever strong in grace, always fit to do what he wants you to do. You will then give Christ the platform to have a ministry without limitation.
You cannot pursue Christ in your righteousness, however, pursuing Christ make you robust in His righteousness. Just like Paul who became robust in His righteousness, then he could say in Philippians 4:13. He had gotten strength from one degree of knowing the Lord to another degree. He has a ministry without limitation. Paul will not get somewhere and be stammering when God wants to speak, he knew what to say, and there is liberty to say it and utterance to say it, not using carnal words to express spiritual things. He didn’t have a specialized ministry. He had gotten to a point that Jesus had decided to use him anywhere.
God is our Father. This is part of our redemption rest. As a child in his mother’s bosom, we are perfectly restful. A child sleeps soundly in his mother’s bosom, without any agitation or fear. We are to enter into such rest. This should clarify your understanding of this rest as not primarily a matter of heaven but rest here on earth.
We have entered into our inheritance in Christ on the account of our identification with Him. We share with Him in His death, suffering, burial, righteousness, victory over His adversaries, in the dark regions in His resurrection and His enthronement on His throne of majesty. So, we are free from condemnation.
When anybody is raising anything against God’s elect the question is Rom.8:33. This is why we should be careful of the ministry of condemnation and judgment. God does not condemn His elect. Holy Spirit does not condemn God’s elect. Christ, while he was here in the human body, never condemn any of His elect. So how do you think He would do that now that He is at the right hand of the Father interceding for us?
Jesus Went For Us!
Christ went to the heavens for us. This is the peculiarity of those of us who are fortunate to enter the rest of redemption. God doesn’t deal with us the way he deals with other human beings, neither does he deal with us the way He deals with the Jew. There are three classes of men in the world now — gentiles i.e. all other nation apart from Israel. The second class is the Jews i.e. the Israelis. Third class is the Church — those who are redeemed by the blood of Jesus, those who are the new creation men.
Jesus went to heaven for the Church. He doesn’t intercede for the Jew, nor the gentile. He is the high priest of the new creation. All I am saying is there is no ground for your rest of redemption to be disrupted on account of condemnation. We are God’s beloved.
Whenever we step out of love, we step out of light into darkness. Then our fellowship with Him is broken but can be restored immediately we confess our sins, and our conscience is cleansed by His blood from guilt. Now you can see that as far as you are concerned, as a new creation, you are free from condemnation.
What we mean by stepping out of love. God Himself is love. God who is love is light. When you step out of God, that is when you sin. Whenever you are found not in God, even when you are praying, or preaching. It is possible to pray or preach and not be in God.
What is Darkness?
1 Jn.1:5,6 Darkness is hatred. Hatred is the mother of all sins. I once read from an article, that whenever you hate someone, never try to bring others into that hatred, that would be witchcraft. What witches does in their coven is to present a case of someone that offended one of them. Then all of them will collectively hate that person, and collectively add their powers to afflict that person. To hate someone makes you an agent of darkness. It becomes worse when you bring others into that hatred.
In Battle Against God!
When you hate those who God love, you are not only the child of the devil, you have as well drawn a line of battle to attack God. If you love someone God hates. In case you are not sure if God hates certain persons. Remember Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 19:1,2) and Ahab. You can’t love God and love his enemies. You can’t love God and love what he hates.
Seven things are abomination before the Lord. Prov.6:16–19. None of these attributes can be found in a Christian brother. You can’t love such people, you have become an enemy of God and stepped out of his love. Ps. 139:21, 22.
You cannot love God and tolerate any of the people listed in Prov. 6:16–19. Even though you are not involved in these things, but by fraternizing and loving those who do them, you have left the love of God. If you are doing this on account of the new command that Jesus gave, that we should love one another, but you ignore 1 Cor.5:11, you’re missing out of God’s plan. When we refrain from keeping company with the enemy of the cross, many who do not understand scriptures will quickly judge and say it is hatred.
2 Jn.1:9. When you listen to people who are trying to pull other ministers down to accredit their ministry, you have become an enemy of God because you have joined the company of the enemies of the cross. Anyone that grows to be a rebel, is a potential emissary of Satan, and he will destroy what Jesus has built over the years.
2 Jn.1:10–11. When others are not there, what do you say about a fellow brother? What is the focus of your teaching ministry? What is your preaching content?
In Fight Against the Enemy of the Cross
When you consider men like Peter, James, and Jude, they wrote to combat, attack, and contend against brothers who were not in Christ. They only claim to be in Christ but their belly is their God. They’re the enemy of the cross. If you have listened to such, and even given them your tithe, if they seek money from you and you try to pity them, even though you know they are not in Christ, thinking you won’t join them directly, but unknown to you, you have become a part of them, by doing this, you have stepped out of his love, thereby sinning against God, and your fellowship with him is broken, but it can be restored immediately you confess. Will you confess your sins right now?
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