give us this day...our daily bread"...2

                                                       Goal of the Study

Premised on the principles of faith and Divine provisions as seen in the Sabbath Days we intend to launch into the deep as it relates to our rest in the God who is more than enough for our needs. We look into His heart full of love for us and into His hands full of works done to meet our needs. For He said “touch my hands and see the holes in there”. The holes came because He would provide for us…because of this we can look to Him and say…’give us this day, our daily bread’…and then go rest…knowing that those hands have gone to work…on our behalf.

God is also as concerned about our needs. In fact I would say He is even more concerned than we are about them…”for your heavenly Father knows that you have need of these things…” But the issue has never really been about whether He sees and feels the way we do about what we need, the issue has always been about we knowing the way He works.

If we do not know how He works we may not be able to receive from Him. This is because we wouldn’t know when He’s at work or when He’s not the one working.

Not knowing how the Lord works has landed us in so much bondage to so many diverse delusions orchestrated by those who feel called to ‘help’ us. In fact one of the reasons I believe the Lord is raising this teaching at this time is because He wants to deliver us from so many strange philosophies (of the East/Orient) that have taken over the world and the church these days.  

…our daily bread!

The Lord says we should trust Him for daily rations of our needs. That is what the modern man cannot easily come to terms with. We always want the provisions of the next year to be stored up today. In fact what many people run around and labor for is not the daily bread. It’s the weekly bread; the monthly bread; the yearly bread ; the decades bread and the millennia bread!

Most of the corruption in the society has been the human struggle to get more than what he needs. In the Nigerian context this has brought us to the place where privileged people in positions of power have cornered to themselves and to their families what may feed a thousand families or more for ten lifetimes and over! And I’m not exaggerating here! The other time I heard that a former vice-president of Nigeria is worth about 6.7 trillion naira! To me that may have been stretched too far because my thinking cannot just accommodate that kind of a figure belonging to one man!

Depending on the Lord for the daily bread is really a very difficult thing to do. This is because we will then no longer be in charge. Man likes to be in charge. But then we have to realize that the goal of God for the Church in this dispensation is to first of all remove us from the driver’s seat of even our own lives. He wants us to be like children, waiting on Him for all things.

As long as Adam rules the new man cannot and will never be enthroned and Christ cannot come! Because someone else is yet on the throne of our hearts. And He must come in us before He comes for us and to the world.

Moreover there will come a time in this generation (I hope you know) when no man or woman would be able to buy or sell except they have the mark of the beast. If we don’t learn how to trust the Lord for the little things of life now how do we escape when the time comes to get the mark. It is true that the mark is first of all a spiritual thing pointing to the dominating thrusts of our thoughts (mark on the foreheads) and the subsequent works of our hands (mark on the right hand); but then these spiritual fulfillments will still be replicated in the physical.

The structure of the ten foot empire of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream is already under construction. It shall spread its tentacles over the entire earth and bring all men under subjection. Its major weapon will be economics. The capstone is about being set in place. Once the capstone comes into place they will gag the whole place and tighten the noose.

If we do not learn how to trust God for the daily bread how do we survive when the time comes? In the days of Elijah, you had to bow the knees to Baal (god of fertility) to be part of the economy. But then apart from Elijah, seven thousand men were preserved for the Lord. They didn’t bow the knee to Baal and they were still fed by the Lord. The crunch is coming. The times will get harder. Our salvation will eventually come from trusting the Lord and being contented with that which He gives us per time.

I shall be sharing on the definitions of ‘day’ as it is seen in scripture. We shall see that 'day' is not limited to the 24 hour definition of that word. This will help us know that when we ask God to give us this day, it may have graduated meanings. However those graduated meanings still fall in place with the intentions of the Lord to trust Him for our living.

THE SPIRIT-LIFE COACH IS A " NOW WORD" from the Spirit of God sent to believers to facilitate our coming into the present glory. For more information about past messages in the series, counsel or prayer requests, you may e-mail: Pastor Dele Matthews, christcollege07@yahoo.co.uk or call 2348028783451, or 2347066668066

Pastor Dele Matthews is Senior Minister, Restoration Ministries and Dean of Studies, Christ College- a Word School set up for the Spiritual Growth of ALL Christians, focussing on bringing the believer into the fullnes of Christ. 

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                                'GIVE US THIS DAY,OUR DAILY BREAD..'! (2)

'give us this day, our daily bread'...1

                                                              The Spirit-Life Coach

Premised on the principles of faith and Divine provisions as seen in the Sabbath Days we intend to launch into the deep as it relates to our rest in the God who is more than enough for our needs. We look into His heart full of love for us and into His hands full of works done to meet our needs. For He said “touch my hands and see the holes in there”. The holes came because He would provide for us…because of this we can look to Him and say…’give us this day, our daily bread’…and then go rest…knowing that those hands have gone to work…on our behalf.

                                                                           

                                            'GIVE US THIS DAY,OUR DAILY BREAD..'! (1)

WHEN THE Lord walked the earth He lived a life of prayers depending on His Father for all His needs. He couldn’t afford to look unto man because He knew what was in man. He was the Priest of the New Covenant (while the Old still held sway) but being not of the course of Levi he couldn’t minister in the temple. It would be unlawful. But then, that-not-withstanding He must still fulfill the functions of a priest, for He came as a Priest.

To this end Paul declares in Hebrews chapter 5 that the Lord offered up strong prayers unto God who was able to save Him from death and He was heard in that he feared. Praying is one of the ways through which we fulfill our priestly ministry as the Body of Christ in the earth today. Prayer would help us bring salvation to all men.

The men around Him, His apostles saw the length and the efficacy of His prayer life. His prayers were fervent and it met their needs. They were alarmed. It was a new concept. Yes, in the religion of their fathers they knew some about prayers but then this man prayed in a way man never prayed. He meant it!

And whoever He was praying to was in business with Him too, for that God heard Him and met Him at the points of His needs.

So they did the right thing. They came and asked Him after one of His sessions, “Lord teach us to pray”. Jesus as usual went a step ahead of them. They wanted Him to teach them like John the Baptist and the Pharisees taught their disciples to pray, but then He taught them to pray not in a legalistic way but in very dynamic way- a living way. He taught them to pray to a living God in ways their hearts could feel. He led them to engage in a conversation with the Father…a conversation that could be started at any time and that could last for any length of time. Whatever the case may be, this God was ‘all ears’, always there!

A little digression

Please permit me to show you something about this form of prayer He taught them. One of the statements reads …”and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us”. It would go this way when they prayed it “…Dear Father, I really need you now, I just messed up and sinned against you…(a little coarse laughter laced with the dryness of regrets and godly sorrow)…. I was dumb and acted dumb on Monday, when I ………………………………….but then Lord I’m really sorry for hurting you and making your words ineffective. However I know that there is forgiveness with you. And among other things Father, I know that if I could forgive brother so and so of his offence against me I know you would do this for me and just let it go. I’m full of faith that this case is not beyond you…please Father, forgive me”

Now I’m not saying this is the way this prayer MUST be prayed. I’m just bringing out the possibilities of the vibrancy that could be replicated in our talks with the Father again and again and again. As it were one could pray this prayer with tears, rolling on the ground, kneeling or standing, sited on a stool, lying down on the bed, tearful or tear-less, the possibilities are endless.

Back to the message

One of the real issues the Lord wants us to discuss with the Father is about our needs. And boy!... has anything ever felt so REAL! In fact to most of us there is really nothing as real as our needs. We could feel them. They determine our moods for the day. For some of us the weight may be so heavy that whether we greet anybody back in the morning is determined by whether we think those needs could be met or not and of course when we think they could be met. 

  

THE SPIRIT-LIFE COACH IS A " NOW WORD" from the Spirit of God sent to believers to facilitate our coming into the present glory.

For more information about past messages in the series, counsel or prayer requests, you may e-mail: Pastor Dele Matthews, christcollege07@yahoo.co.uk or call 2348028783451, or 2347066668066

Pastor Dele Matthews is Senior Minister, Restoration Ministries and Dean of Studies, Christ College- a Word School set up for the Spiritual Growth of ALL Christians, focussing on establishing the Believer in God's Present Truth to the Body of Christ. 

the basis and patterns for revelation...23 (the last edition)

                                                       THE SPIRIT-LIFE COACH

The Apostle says all scripture is given for our edification, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instructions in righteousness that we may be complete lacking nothing. The Lord says it is given to us to understand the mysteries of the Kingdom of God but for others it is not given. in this series I hope to be able to outline the basis for understanding the word so that to us the whole bible would be a synopsis of truth rather than patches of disjointed passages each struggling for preeminence. 

                                                   The patterns and basis for Revelation (23)

We have been working on the premise that the Gospel of the grace of God which the Lord gave unto Paul the apostle was a door to the Gentiles to come into the Kingdom of God. Once we get into the Kingdom of God we discover that there is a king in the House who demands our total loving obedience to Him. We do not have what it takes to obey, we thus give up in death so that He may live His life through us. The Gospel of the grace of God emphasizes grace and righteousness by faith as a basis of our relationship with God but not as the totality of our experience in God. In other words we must move on to other things as citizens of the Kingdom of God. These other things have to do with the Gospel of the Kingdom of God that the Lord began to preach and that He delivered into the hands of His apostles. The Gospel of the Kingdom focuses directly on the eternal purpose of God in preparing His Bride for THE perfection. It is at the instance of this perfection that the Lord will come for His bride. As long as we focus only on the Gospel of the grace of God and we glory only in faith towards God AND ITS ACCOMPANYING TESTIMONIES we remain at the very rudiments of Christianity and therefore are prevented from entering into the INNER CHAMBERS just like the 5 foolish virgins. It is therefore my task to explain to you that the apostle Paul in his letters to the Church did not stop at righteousness by faith and all the redemptive rights and privileges available to us by the blood of Jesus but that he went further to usher us into the perfection of Christ SO THAT WE MAY BECOME THAT BRIDE WHICH THE LORD SEEKS.      

The Conclusion of the whole matter

I hope is some little ways that I have been able to give you some light and been able to lead you on to further studies on this matter. Christ came for a Kingdom. It is none other than the Kingdom of this world. In the bid to get the Kingdom, He must first of all get a people to Himself that would be exactly like Him. These are the ones that would reign with Him. They are the ones that the bible calls THE BRIDE.

He started His venture of getting a people to Himself by calling Abraham. Through him He set up a nation. This nation was used as a type of prophecy of His larger plan to take out of every nation, race and tongue a people for Himself.

To this people He came and announced the coming of the Kingdom. The first apostles limited the spiritual and physical expressions of the Kingdom to the Jews.

Later on the Lord sent Paul to the Gentiles to call forth a people to himself in fulfillment of His plan. Paul declared to his hearers that the Lord has taken the sins of humanity away by His cross and that we should therefore receive the grace of God that comes by faith in the death and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As soon as we obtain this righteousness by faith we meet the Lord Jesus who prepares us for the coming of His Kingdom in us and in the nations of the earth.

The kingdom must come in us before it comes on the Kingdoms of the earth. We must be dressed in white and made ready before we can sit with the Lord in and reign.

God is going beyond the righteousness of faith to get us into the responsibilities of citizens of the Kingdom. It is the assumption of these responsibilities that prepare us to being the bride that He seeks.

This is the program of God. God’s program is not about how many jets we have or whether we own a land or not. God is not concerned about who built this or that church. God is not interested in how many members this or that pastor has got.

God is concerned about building us and bringing us to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Focusing only on the gospel of the grace of God lulls us to sleep because it foists no yokes on us and leave us with no burden at all. Without a yoke and a burden we remain children forever. We cannot come into the Father’s secret place. We cannot partake of the marriage supper of the Lamb. We cannot become like Him

My hope is that we shall leave the realms of children and move on unto perfection. My regards!

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

I have chosen not to put so many bible passages in the articles so we could 1. Have a smooth read 2. Do further study by ourselves.

However the study shall soon be edited and made into a book. We do not sell our books for profit. If we sell at all you can be sure that not a penny of profit shall be put on top of it. I am convinced not to sell the books I have written because the apostles of the Lord did not sell the epistles we read today.

TOMORROW! WE MOVE ONTO OUR NEXT STUDY: "GIVE US THIS DAY...(OUR DAILY BREAD)"- using the templates of the sabbatic days we will endeavour to look into how God meets our basic, daily needs, project needs and long term needs.