Seeing Jesus Makes You a Better person.

Three major things take place in the life of anyone who sees Jesus genuinely- a feeling of inadequacy and moral dirtiness is the first. A typical example is  Isaiah who said in Isaiah 6 “⁴ At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. ⁵ “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.””)   The second is an interruption of personal life journey and a declaration of the clear original divine purpose is the third.  Jesus told Saul in verse 6 of  Acts chapter 9 to get up and go into the city where he would be told what he must do and verse 16 Jesus told him saying “I myself will show him all that he must suffer for his name sake”  you see the way Jesus crashed into the young man’s personal life journey of “arrest and kill” to a sudden blind man who will later hold firmly the flag of Jesus? It wasn’t easy but who dare says no when Jesus comes to double cross your way and plans? You are not your own says the scriptures, you were bought by a price, so honour Christ in your body. That’s why I pity so many young people who spend their bodies and life to please themselves. When the owner is ready to interrupt their plans, they will be powerless- I tell you! Go and ask Paul the Apostle.

That reminds me of my second experience with Jesus. After my first experience with Jesus that led to my surrendering to him, I was baptized and began to undergo discipleship using the book, Follow the master. Follow the master is an interesting discipleship tool that highlights a step by step approach to follow Jesus Christ as your new master. It is designed in such a way that a new follower of Jesus sees him or herself as an apprentice who learns from the master. Specifically, that material is divided into six sections with deep scriptural pattern to become webbed with Jesus in lifestyle. In that book, I learnt to make Jesus the centre of my life as I establish a cordial relationship with him in a daily quiet time for a dialogical communication. Next to that was to learn that I belong to a big family-the body of Christ and so as each member of the body is very important so that if one part surfers, the whole body surfer too and if a member rejoices, all others feel the same, irrespective of the size and position it occupies in the body. So also every member irrespective of age, status and gender, is very important in the body of Christ. I pity the church or cell group that do not see and take teenagers and young people to be very important as the elders or other well positioned members. Such church will soon lose relevance and will soon cease to exist, I tell you. We all have specific function for the building up of the body. Furthermore, I was thought that there are two natures that war in me-the flesh and the spirit. What caught my attention here was that I as an individual decides who wins between the flesh and the spirit. So if a thought to tell a lie emerges in my heart as a child of God, the spirit of the Lord that I was given when I surrendered my life to Jesus, reminds me that all liars shall find themselves in the lake of fire and by the way, Satan is the father of lies and by implication, the father of all liars.  Now, that struggle to have me continues between them until I now ignore either of them. Whichever one that I ignore renders the other one to emerge as the winner in the fight against my soul. Therefore, I decide the winner of the battle over my soul. The implication of this is that, every child of God needs to strengthen his or her faith in Christ from a regular participation in the church worship services and in constant prayers. Or else, a child of god can be so weak spiritually as to give the winning order to the flesh rather than the spirit. You remember that the scriptures says, pray without ceasing and so Jesus had to exemplify that by praying and fasting for 40 days, he usually withdrew to the mountain to pray all night and even on the day of his arrest by the Roman soldiers, he was on the mountain to pray to draw strength for the next phase of his life. In fact, when he saw Peter and the rest of the disciples sleeping, he challenged them to pray so that they will not fall into temptation. But the lack of prayer landed Peter in big mess- he fought and cut someone’s ear, he fled from Jesus and denied him three times and so on. Falling into any temptation is as a result of spiritual weakness which can be conquered by constant effective prayers and charged by holding hands in hands with those who are spiritually matured.  After the big lesson about two nature, next was the lesson about three stages of salvation- Salvation past, salvation present and salvation future. This had been a big issue among some Christians who say, once you are saved, you are saved forever. That cannot be correct. I came to agree that, once you surrender your life to Jesus, you are saved. However, after being saved, do you still face issues of life that challenge your faith in Christ Jesus on a daily basis? Yes.  In that case, there would be a need to constantly work out your salvation from the source of such challenges on a daily basis. Therefore, on a daily basis, you will be trusting God through Jesus not to fall into sin. And once you overcome that of today, it does not mean that you will not face the same and many others tomorrow. And that is how it will be until Jesus returns to take his people home. Now do you remember that only those who stand in faith- who kept their faith-who, despite the challenges on daily basis, they were always being saved from fallings, they are the ones that will eventually be caught up to meet with Christ in the sky when the trumpet shall sound? By implication, those who were being saved on the daily basis will be saved forever from sin, Satan and the world to reign with Jesus in eternity. By my analysis, you will discover that there are three stages of salvation- the salvation of new birth, then salvation from daily challenges of faith and then future salvation that rescues one finally from this world, sin, Satan and death.  So if one claims to be saved and then faced with sinful challenges again and he falls into it, do you think that your salvation is still intact? So why will apostle Paul say, will you continue in sin and expect that the grace of God continues? No, Never! Grace, is one of the packages in the salvation that is obtained in Jesus through his blood. Therefore, if grace will stop as a result of continuous sinning, then it means that salvation that houses that grace had stopped also. Friend, salvation can be lost. Period!

 I went further to gain more understanding about four sources of authority. Generally, people gain authority from four sources but among the four of them Bible remains the true and highest source of authority. Do you know what struck me the most about the Bible being the highest source of authority? It is the fact that it is beyond just the compendium of  the voice of God in black and white but that it is God himself. It is written that the Word became flesh. That is why it gives life and it is sharper than any two edged sword- it penetrates to the flesh, bone, marrow, spirit and soul-Kai! And also discerns the intents of the heart! Haba!!!  Do you remember when Satan came to tempt Jesus after fasting for 40 days and night, He quoted the Word of God and Satan bowed and left Him. Mama Faith Oyedepo was critically sick many years ago to the point of death. I heard Bishop Oyedepo say that the word of God was played to her ears per second and healing came- Bible says, He sent his word unto them and His Word heals them. What more authority do you want than that?

You know everything has principles. The principle behind walking is by taking your leg one after the other, the principle of academic success is by attending the classes and studying consistently, the principle of wealth is by putting your hands to work and application of  financial intelligence skills- do what the rich do and you will be rich. There is a principle for physical sound health and spiritual sound heath. You want to prosper in anything, just learn the principle behind it and get it done. Life is governed by principles. In the same way, Kingdom blessing has a principle. You cannot decide not to plant during the planting season and then decide to harvest yam during the harvest season- did you plant yam?! Kingdom Principle is in soul winning. That is the seed upon which to qualify for kingdom blessing. Scriptures says, seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its righteousness and all other things shall be added unto you…the interpretation of that is look out for means of sowing in the kingdom business in the right time, then all your needs shall be met. And what is the only business of the kingdom- seeking those that are lost! Jesus said, I have not come for the healthy but for the sick. For the will of my father is what I have come to do. Have ever heard that Jesus struggled or was bothered about what to eat, drink, wear, live in, his failing health,- non! But he had all that he needed at all times. So the last aspect of that discipleship material was about this secrete of accessing kingdom blessing- soul winning. Hence there was a need to have a plan for that. It was rightly put thus, “five and five plan” meaning, find out five people who will not listen to your salvation story and continue to pray and check up on them until they eventually encounter Christ Jesus and grow in Him. Also find five other people who accept Jesus through your testimony and be involved in their daily spiritual growth.  You would not believe that all that I shared with you on the matter of that discipleship material was offhand. Whereas after 28 years of such relationship, it is still fresh in my memory because it had become a life principle and made me a better person. You cannot claim to see Jesus and all things about you would not change – first in your relationship with God through the way you relate with people, environment and other things around you. Seeing Jesus will change your value system and what you value determines your pursuit. Or how do you tell me that after you saw Jesus, there was no difference between your old and new habit? Everything must change- your communication pattern, your conducts everywhere-home, school, at play, in church,- everywhere. Your dress sense must change, sex life, prayer life, time accrued for Bible study, your desire for things of the Spirit, where you go, who you hang with, what you think about, what you watch, what you put in your mouth, what you spend your time on and all. Bible says old things will pass away and behold all things become new. Your attitude to your academics, work, ministry, home, attitude toward money, marriage, parent and a lot more must wear a new look- You can’t tell me that you saw Jesus and nothing changed in your life. Seeing Jesus makes you a better person.  And off course, no one goes through this experience and not receive revelation from the Lord for assignment for the Kingdom.

So when I saw Jesus the second time, it was in a dream. That night, I was driven out of a house to bring certain people into the house. While I was outside of the house, I saw that there was a beautiful and unexplainable golden light in the house that I will never want to miss while everywhere around the house was covered with thick darkness. I had a lot of voices crying and begging me to lead them into the house full of the golden light. Although I could not see them but I could feel the intense desperation to get into that house. Then I heard a voice that instructed me to wake up from my sleep and read Joshua Chapter 1: 5-8. And I woke immediately. The echo of the voice sounded louder in my hears again and so it forced me out of my bed to check what that passage of the scripture actually was talking about because it sounded urgent. As I switched on the light in the dining room around 1 o clock that fateful day, I patiently but with much anticipation of what could that information be. Now read what I saw on that fateful midnight, it was too striking.

Joshua 1:5-8. “No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you. Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do.

You would not believe it that after reading this few verses, it sounded as if someone was speaking audibly into my ears with such power that cannot be refuted. Something like an electric current sparked and laced through my entire body and I felt like a deep hunger to pray. I placed my head on the Bible and some strange words were coming out of my mouth that I found so difficult to stop. I was overwhelmed beyond control that night.  It looked as if Jesus was talking to me right in my ears. As if he was standing right beside me and his presence was too electrifying as he said that just as he was with Moses, he will be with me for I am the one to lead a certain set of people to their promised land. Kai! I saw Jesus literarily talking to me from that scriptures.

But while I was deep in that experience and prayer mood, another voice interrupted my emerging fire to pray. The voice said, “ open your eyes and cross check the Bible and see who God was talking to”. Do you know that the flow in the spirit suddenly stopped as I yielded to that instruction. He was correct, I said and then hissed. I closed up the Bible and made my way back to my room to continue with my sleep. But as I pulled the handle of the door, I heard the voice of the sweet Holy Spirit again. He said, son, can you go back and cross check verse 9 of that passage before you quit? I did but with reluctancy. Eh! What I read, spark again in me a greater dimension of spiritual electrocution that made me lose control of my physical body to the point of rattling in tongue from past one o clock am to six o clock AM and it seemed to me as if I just began to pray- I was full of unusual strength.

Scriptures says you shall receive power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you(Acts 2:8).

Permit me to stop here for this week. We shall continue next week.