MANY YOUNG PEOPLE MAKE HEROES OF FRAUDS!
THERE ARE PEOPLE YOU NEED TO UNFOLLOW ON SOCIAL MEDIA.
DON’T LET ANYBODY DECEIVE YOU, THESE TEACHINGS ON GRACE ARE LEADING MANY TO HELL:
GRACE IS NOT PERMISSION FOR SIN, IT IS FOR DOMINION OVER SIN.
-Pastor David Oyedepo Jr at International Youth Alive Convention 2021
Day Two, Evening Session
*We go on social media and watch people who have no means of livelihood that is traceable and say, “see enjoyment, this is life.”
*Some of you must delete Instagram because it has given you instant dealing.
GATEWAYS TO EXCELLENCE: ENGAGING THE POWER OF SANCTIFICATION
God has ordained us as entities in redemption
Scriptural Patterns and Examples to follow
- Paul
In many ways, he had misfortunes but he became the prince of the Apostles – 2 Peter 3:15.
Paul the Apostle operated on unusual realms and insight and the secret that pushed Paul to the realm of eternal relevance is sanctification.
This was a man that operated with a working knowledge of what sanctification is all about. He was a man that manifested the reality of it. Church Gist. I’ll like you to understand that if you and I are going to end up at the top like Paul did, then we must go through the process like Paul did. The process of sanctification is a vital necessity in determining your access to excellence, but I will like us to begin to unpack the insight that God gave to Paul concerning the subject of sanctification so that you and I can go through the process and therefore emerge with the products.
The process of sanctification will give you the products of excellence but the process is vital. What do we see from Paul the Apostle, as attributes that will position you and I in order to manifest the excellence God has in store for us via the channel of sanctification? We will look at a few keys here quickly tonight and I pray that the Holy Ghost will grant each one of us understanding in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
THE PROCESS OF SANCTIFICATION
- We must pursue after holiness: Holiness must be a pursuit; it must be a deep-seated desire.
We must understand that it takes a press before you can secure the prize. You must press in the pursuit of holiness in order to secure the prize of sanctification.
1 Thessalonian 2:10
I will like you to understand this, until you are successful in sanctifying yourself, you are failing as a Christian. Your success as a believer is measured by your success in sanctifying yourself.
Colossians 4:12
Until you are conformed to His will in holiness, you can’t claim to be a success.
I will like you to understand this very, very clearly: Success is not accumulation of resources, success is fulfillment of divine plan. You cannot fulfil divine plan until you conform to divine image, until you look like God, you cannot claim a sincerity to belong to God.
I will like you and I to be very frank tonight:
When last did a person accuse you of your Christianity?
When last did somebody look at you and see boldness?
How comfortable are sinners with you? It is a picture of how clearly they see your holiness.
1 Timothy 6:11 – If you don’t press for it, you can’t reach it.
Matthew 5:6
May I say this, it will help you: one of the most important prayers you pray as a believer is, “Lord, help me to please You.”
Many of us are consumed with ourselves: “Give me my breakthroughs; Give me my blessing; Give me my husband; Give me my wife; Give me my company; Give me my job; Give me my open door; Give me favour”, but we forget to pray the most important prayer: To please Him.
Pleasing God is the measure of your Christianity. It is the measure of the success of your Christianity.
2 Corinthians 7:1
You and I must ensure we are continuously cleansing ourselves, pressing towards perfection. Paul was a man in pursuit of holiness continuously.
-I pray tonight that the same grace that was made manifest in the lives of Paul the Apostle will come afresh upon each one of us.
- We must engage the power of a good conscience
All through the scriptures we see the example of Paul manifesting the example of a good conscience – 2 Corinthians 4:2
2 Corinthians 1:12 – our rejoicing is the testimony of our conscience. There are so many people today that are embattled in their conscience: “we will with one leg pursue God and with one leg maintain sin”, so conscience is in turmoil.
We live in a day and age today where you find many people who are professing Christ but they are not living out Christ. The conscience is in turmoil.
Years ago, a man came to me and said, “Pastor, I am having oppression in my office. There is all manner of demonic activities, there are occultic personalities in my office, I want you to pray for them to be subdued.” I began to talk to him about his authority as a believer. Church Gist. That we are seated above principalities and powers, above all the rulers of the darkness of this world, we have authority to subdue them and he looked at me and said, “Pastor, I know why I said you should pray.”
I said: Why?
He said, “because there are things that I do sometimes, I do somethings sometimes.” So the conscience was embattled. I will like you to understand something: you can’t confront the devil with authority if you don’t live with authenticity. You can’t!
How many of you know that it is a crime to wear a military uniform as a civilian and go out on the streets pretending to be a soldier. If a soldier mistakenly salutes you and he finds out, he will beat you to nonsense. But that is what happens when your life is not conformed to Christ and you are trying to exhibit Christ.
Didn’t you hear of the 7 sons of Sceva – Acts 19:13,15
There are people whom say, “well they didn’t have a clear revelation, that was why the devil was able to subdue them.” The Bible says, they were sons of a priest, they were people in Church, they were there to hear the message concerning the authority of the believer. They understood the fact that they should be able to cast out devils, but the Bible calls them vagabonds, unstable personalities.
Suddenly that demon looked, “am I seeing a soldier wearing a civilian uniform? He said, “Jesus I know, Paul I know, but you didn’t go to NDA, who are you?” and suddenly the demon pounced on them, beat them, made them naked and they ran out of the house.
Authority without authenticity equals reproach. If you are going to walk in the authority that God has in store for you, then authenticity in your Christian walk is a vital necessity.
Hebrews 13:18
If you are going to walk with God to the place of excellence, you cannot live carelessly. This journey towards sanctification requires that you and I continuously guard our conscience against corruption.
Why? No matter the strength of your faith, without a good conscience, your faith will suffer shipwreck. I said to you earlier that it takes authenticity to exhibit authority. Where your conscience is violated, your faith will be corrupted, it cannot deliver.
We live in a world today where people are not ashamed to come into the Church and to expect God to bless them while they are living ungodly lives.
Hear this:
Christianity does not permit you to live for corruption and expect glorification. Church Gist. There is a demand for holiness and I tell you that there is no coincidence that God is sounding this alarm over and again to us. We are to live as light in a crooked and perverse generation.
Years ago, the Lord told me some time ago, He said, “you have wasted many prayers.”
I said: Why? He said, “many of the cases you are praying concerning cannot be answered.”
I said: Why? He said, “anytime people come to you, ask them questions first. Don’t pray in a hurry.”
So I began to ask questions and when I began to ask questions, I was shocked. One day, a woman came to me and said, “Pastor, please pray for me for the fruit of the womb” and as a Pastor, one of the things that you don’t want is to see anybody under tension. Here comes this woman to pray for her. The Holy Ghost gave a caution, “ask her questions.”
I said: where is your husband? She said, “my husband is not here.”
Why is he not here?
Response: Hehnn, it is a long story, tell me the story, I want to know the story, because I must know it before I will pray this prayer.
I got to find out that the person she is expecting to be pregnant with is somebody’s else husband.
I said: so, you came to God to help you do evil! You want to break another person’s home. Prayer is a request and you think I can make request that God should help you scatter the home.
That is the kind of world we live in today.
There are some of you, where you came from for this Convention, you must not go back there. That is, you came from a place of iniquity and you are jumping with everybody. You must not be found there.
You say: where will I go?
Go and find somewhere else.
You can have identity in Church, it does not mean you have identity with God. Church Gist. You must fight to maintain a good conscience. Part of the reason why people are running everywhere, looking for who will pray for them is because they know their prayers cannot be heard. They are fully aware that with the way their lives are being lived, there is no way, God will hear them.
-I pray for somebody here today, every violation of your conscience, I pray that the violation be brought to an end today.
While the conscience is there to alert us, in order to help us escape evil, when the conscience is subjected or exposed continuously to evil, it becomes seared. A seared conscience is one that lacks sensitivity, can no longer pick it.
I have shared the experiment some time ago. A frog was put into hot water, as it entered the water, it was hot, he jumped out. Another frog was put into cold water and the water was put on fire. Because the environment was changing gradually, he stayed there till he died.
There are many people today who are exposing themselves gradually to sin, their conscience is losing sensitivity gradually. Church Gist. You know what you watch on your phone, you know what you listened to on your phone: Gradually. The seed of evil being planted, sensitivity being lost, conscience under violation until the voice of the conscience goes to silence. That is what makes people to be comfortable in sinful environment.
How do you find a young person attending Church in the morning and he is hanging out in a beer parlour in the evening?
How do you explain a believer who comes to Church in the morning, leaves the Church and still goes out to smoke a cigarette outside the gate?
How do you explain a believer walking beside somebody and you are looking at the two of them, thinking they are brother and sister, not knowing they are living in a bed of fornication?
What is happening in our day and age is that conscience is gradually being seared until evil looks like good and evil looks like good. It used to be that you could see a believer and know that he is a believer, but today you can’t tell the difference. The conscience is being seared, what was considered abominable, is now being considered acceptable.
-I pray tonight that by the encounter you are having on this Mountain, your conscience shall be revived.
- He walked in integrity.
2 Corinthians 4:1-2
Integrity: people are going after things by all means. You find people today, trying to make it to the top with lies. Years ago, a man came to meet me to pray concerning his sports career.
I said, “which sport do you play?” He said, football.
I said: Okay, what age did you tell them. He said, “Pastor, actually”
I said: what age did you tell them?
He said, I told them 19. I said, I am looking at you, I wasn’t there when you were born but I know it is more than 19. You are far older than that. He said, “Yes, but if I don’t adjust my age, they will not give me a chance.”
You want to make it to the top on a stage of lies. I want you to understand something, what you stand determines how long you will stand.
Some people are standing on cardboard stage; what does that mean? It means it won’t soon fall.
People submit CVs today, Pastor pray for my CV, “everywhere I drop it, favour must come.”
All these things in the CV, is it true?
Response: No, but they say if I write it like that I will get a job.
You find people today who lack integrity. You find people today who are swindling everywhere. Many of us even make heroes out of frauds. We go on social media and watch people who have no means of livelihood that is traceable and say, “see enjoyment, this is life.”
You are sitting there, late in the night, just to open Instagram, “see people enjoying. I must get there.”
Before you find yourself going through all manner of fraudulent means. There are people you must unfollow. Some of you must delete Instagram because it has given you instant dealing. You have been tied. Church Gist. There are many of us, before we read the Bible we have checked Social Media. You wake up in the morning, first thing – gbam. The only thing that can stop you is if there is no light to charge phone, but besides that, the first thing, gbam (phone). But when it is time to read the Bible, everything is a hurry.
-I pray today that those who are under that captivity, that hold will be broken off your life, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Godliness is profitable: if you do it by tricks, you will end up with a trap. If you do by truth, you cannot be trapped. Make sure that you stay on the path of godliness.
Look at the testimony of this Commission today. You can’t cage this Commission because there is no skeleton in the cupboard. Look at the way God’s servant opens his mouth and speak with audacity. You can do that if you have something to hide. The only way to get to the top and not be trapped is to do it by truth. That is making sure that your life is packaged with integrity.
- He walked with an eternity consciousness
Please hear this, this life is not the end – 1 Corinthians 15:19. You must understand that we have heaven to gain and hell to lose. We must ensure that we keep our eyes on the prize – Colossians 3:2
Understand that the journey is not concluding here. If no man is seeing you, God is seeing you. God’s servant told us yesterday, if there was no mansion, He won’t say so. We have eternity to gain. Many people today live as if everything will begin and end here. That is not true, there are many blessings here but there is also an eternity there.
Hebrews 12:14 – to gain eternity, you have to live a holy life. You can’t be lying, you can’t be cheating, fornicating, keeping malice. You must cleanse yourself. You must understand that for you to gain eternity with God, it will take holiness. Don’t let anybody deceive you, these teachings on Grace are leading many to hell.
Jude 1:3-5
Grace is not permission for sin, it is for dominion over sin.
WHAT TO DO TO WIN THE BATTLE AGAINST SIN
- Repent – 1 John 1:9-10
- Take a decision to live for God- 1 John. 3:3, 2 Timothy 2:21
- Call for help – Philippians 2:13
Sanctification is the process, excellence is the product; the product comes when the process is fulfilled.
-I command an end to every negative addiction in your life.
-I command an end to every form of shame and reproach on your life.
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