THE ROLE OF THE PRICE JESUS PAID AND THE SPIRIT OF GRACE (A):
No believer should remain wounded, bruised and immobilized by the cruel shackles of sins that do easily ensnare. Why? This is because,
“But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was crushed for our wickedness [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing]; The punishment [required] for our well-being fell on Him, And by His stripes (wounds) we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5, AMP)
What Jesus did for us all on the cross was a full package – taking care of all the problems of humankind past, present and future; spirit, soul and body!
By the cross of Jesus, Jesus made the economy of grace readily available and accessible to all and it became possible for humankind to be:
- Regenerated in the spirit
- Transformed in the soul
- Empowered to discipline the body and mortify the works of the flesh (the fallen nature with its attendant corruptions & lusts)
So, those bruises and stripes that were painfully etched in the Lord’s body were not only meant to take care of physical, emotional and psychological maladies alone. They were meant to break the fangs and tyranny of sin on the ground (in the believer’s daily experience ) in keeping with their being seated with Christ in heavenly places.
THE ROLE OF THE PRICE JESUS PAID AND THE SPIRIT OF GRACE (B):
There is a lot of denial among some believers whose wings are clipped by secret sins. This denial is powered by two major factors:
- Arrogance caused by a refusal to acknowledge they need help because they believe that once saved, grace covers all sins. So it doesn’t matter if they continue in sin. Which of course is not true.
- Ignorance of the fact that grace is not a license to sin but an empowerment to live above sin.
The Spirit of grace is more ancient than the tyranny and limitations of sin. All the believer’s victories in Christ are objective —they are true even without human experience. But for these objective victories to become the believer’s subjective experience, the believer definitely has a part to play.
This is because what the believer has received by faith can only be maximised by obedience. So, though the believer is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus which has been made possible by faith, if they continue in sin, they have subscribed to the principle of disobedience which practically shuts them out of the full potentials of the economy of grace.
But if they continue in righteousness by daily depending on the resources of grace to live above sin , they have subscribed to the principle of obedience which opens them up to the fulness of grace.
Dear fellow believer, sin stains the garment and incapacitates! Righteousness empowers and empowers some more!
PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR MIND:
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind…” (Romans 12:2, NKJV)
In my book KINGDOM RECALIBRATION, I wrote the following on the mind:
‘The mind … is one of the major compartments of the soul. It is the engine room, driving seat and steering and power locus of the soul. It is the center of the soul which makes it pivotal to the transformation of the soul.’
Oh yes!
The mind is to the soul what the stomach is to the body. Everything that man consumes through his mouth into his body is first processed in the stomach from where it is dispensed to other parts of the body for the general good or harm of the body.
The mind also collects whatever content is fed to the soul; processes and dispenses the same to other parts of the soul for the general good or harm of the soul.
THE GATEWAYS TO THE SOUL:
The eyes are said to be the gateway to the soul. Well I would like to adjust this assertion to: the eyes and ears are the gateways to the soul. This is because content fed to the soul are audiovisual in nature – sound and picture (still or motion).
When you read, your mind first converts the texts to sound before you can assimilate the words. Then your mind goes ahead to paint the picture of the information contained in the words. For instance, read the words below:
RED HORSE
Your mind converted the text to sound for proper assimilation. Then it went on to paint the picture of a horse that is red in color on the canvass of your mind. This happened in the fraction of a second so you might have not noticed.
When you listen to sound-based content (music, sermons etc), your mind processes the information contained therein and builds a collage of still or motion pictures on the canvass or screen of your mind. When you consume foul content, the poison spreads like soot through the chambers of your soul and leaves you darkened and unresponsive to the light of God’s word.
Several believers suffer a lot from the poor handling of their minds. They carelessly or unwittingly expose themselves to toxic contents that serve as triggers for their personal struggles with sin. A lot of believers reach out to me online to complain about their struggle with masturbation as a result of their addiction to porn. Masturbation is powered by porn addiction. Porn addiction is powered by strongholds in the mind which must be brought down for the believer to enjoy the liberty in Christ.
The good news is, these strong holds in the mind are not nearly as powerful as the cross of Jesus by which these sin-powered limitations/addictions have been permanently taken care of. This is is why I advocate for the believers experiencing any such limitation to open up for help from other believers. The best way to break addiction of any kind is to open it up by first talking to God and then, to another believer about it. This is where therapy begins. Depending on the level of exposure to some of these addiction-based sins, therapeutic help takes time, prayer, discipleship and in some cases outright deliverance (for cases in which foul spirits are involved). The length of time this would take differs from believer to believer.
With love from your brother,
Arome Osayi
(Originally posted by Apostle Arome Osayi on his official Facebook Page)