PURITY FIRST

As I trained to become a chemist in the university, one of the foundational lessons I learnt was that elements are the most reactive (potent) in their purest forms. This lesson has stuck with me ever since.

The Lord drew my attention to the importance of being secretly pure toward Him early in my Christian life - long before I was given the privilege of prosecuting public ministry. He drew my attention to this testimony by the Lord Jesus:

“I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” (John 14:30, NKJV).

As many times as the devil came by to check Jesus out, he had nothing IN Him to use to build or tear down anything. Jesus was completely immunised and sterilised. He was, so to speak, very useless to the devil. His vessel was fully saturated by God, therefore, had no space for the most minuscule of the devil’s shenanigans.

I must state that Jesus spent 30 years of His life building, nurturing, honing, whetting and scaling a consecration base that would eventually become the firm foundation upon which His three and a half-year public ministry rested. The motif of it all was purity, purity, and purity! God Himself publicly attested to Jesus’ secret purity by saying Jesus’ life brought Him pleasure.

The Lord taught me early enough that all the resources He would ever make available to the believer by His grace is for them to first prosecute a victorious Christian life. This is because a successful Christian ministry is a byproduct of a victorious Christian life. A christian minister is first a faithful Christian. A victorious Christian life is built on the grace of God as appropriated through intense consecration and purity. An impactful Christian ministry at the most basic level is in turn built on this! This is because with God, it is your life first before your service. If your life is pure before Him, your service would be acceptable to Him. So, acceptable ministry is powered by a pure life.

I have shared elsewhere how upon my return from my premier international missionary trip to the nation of Malawi in 2012, the Lord told me to shut down until further notice. When I enquired why from Him in the place of prayer, He told me I was not yet ready for full blown international ministry. He told me my consecration level at the time would not handle the miasma of darkness in the nations. Not because His grace was not sufficient enough but because my vessel had not imbibed enough of His grace. The imbibition of sufficient grace by my vessel would take more time (another five years or so) as this would literally require me to grow some more.

So for my own safety and protection, He would not grant me visibility until He had purged my vessel some more. Note that by God’s grace, this was not because I had private sins, it was because the highways to international ministry are slippery. And stationed in the nations are rulers of darkness equipped with scanners with which they would check God’s servants out again and again. Territorial devils would push back violently. They have done this for ages and have become quite efficient at it. Unprepared, Peter would deny Jesus again and again and again. Prepared, Peter would rise and speak to the harvest from the nations at Pentecost.

Eleven years later, I totally understand why the Lord would tell me to shut down until further notice. If you fail at consecration and purity, you will fail on the ground. And woefully so as a minister. Your message would be a lie because you will not do and teach like Jesus. Your gifts would be corrupted. You would glisten on the outside and rot steadily on the inside. All the private issues you refused to deal with at consecration would blow out monstrously and become an inglorious public spectacle. You would be more useful to the devil in the field than you would be to the Lord. You would abuse grace and make yourself an enemy of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Am I saying you cannot serve the Lord until you have attained ultimate, grand perfection? No!

Actually, perfection with respect to the work of the ministry does not mean the absence of human faults and limitations. It means steady growth and development by the relentless uptake, ingestion and assimilation of grace. It’s going beyond human faults and limitations by the grace of God which is lavishly available to all believers to take advantage of.

Jesus walked this earth, breathed the same air, was tempted in every possible way, yet sinned not once. He has made His grace available for us all to be and do the same by the Holy Ghost.

I tell you, grace is stronger than sin. Oh yes, though the raging fires of Babylon were intensified sevenfold against Shedrach, Meshach and Abednego, the Lord’s salvific might so matched and surpassed them that not a hair on their bodies was harmed. This is what blazing holiness does: it nukes all the powers and possibilities of unrighteousness. Grace is more serious than whatever complications sin conjures.

I say this by the mercies of the Lord: If you do not have a robust consecration base by which you appropriate the grace of God for a victorious Christian life with the evidence of living above sin’s tyranny daily; what you need is grace and not visibility.

Apostle Arome Osayi

Set-Man RCN Global

(Message and book excerpts)