Part 1

A preparatory footing for the

manifestation of the third-day ecclesia.

 

By Isaiah-Phillips akintola

 

Job 23:10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

 

Tribulation and the formation of character

When we mention tribulation or suffering, the first thing that comes to most mind is the end time anti-Christ theology. Most part of the church has bought into the lie that merely defers tribulation to a time period in the future where the antichrist will have his reign for a seven-year period.  Arguably, there’s no tribulation that can be greater in impact than the excruciating spiritual, emotional and psychological [pain] suffering the patriarch Job faced within a short period of his life.

What is so unique about the tribulation of Job is that it wasn’t caused by the act of personal sin as most Christians have been taught to believe. The suffering of Job was the sovereign act of the will and purpose of the father. And that sovereign nature of the operation of the father needs to become a deeper revelatory knowledge for many of us. The reality is, there will be a growing increase in trying to regulate and even shut down the activity of the church of the living God through various state apparatus in creating a full secularized society, and of cause the church will resist, and eventually be persecuted for its resistance as it has been done in the past.

The scripture and history clearly show that the persecution of the church has always been there from its very inception. I do believe in the final showdown battle between the church and the antichrist. In fact, some of the unfolding events we are witnessing across Europe and America with respect to righteous right are laying the foundation for the appearing of the man of Sin.  However, the painful reality of suffering or tribulation I am referring to is a present, current challenges many within the body of Christ are faced with.

I am not considering the tribulation that might directly come from the enemy, but the one the father himself allowed the enemy to afflict us with in order to bring the best of is the prophetic purpose to bear through us.

This is not some new, or strange doctrine, neither is it limited to some old testament prophet’s challenges.  The 21st-century church will be persecuted in order for her to develop and mature into the kind of governmental entity she was ordained to be in the earth. 

All followers of Christ are summoned to daily carry their cross. The invitation to carry the cross is not a fun walk, but painful drilling of our humanity until every aspect of the self-life is completely drained out of us. 

Some of the challenges we are going through or will pass through are not necessarily because we are in some kind of sin, but because the father’s desire to gain glory through our lives, and if we don’t precisely understand this truth from a sovereign perspective wisdom of the father, the enemy will take advantage and cripple our capacity to face headlong the training that prepares us for reigning in life.  All things are working for the good of those who love the Lord and are called after his purpose.  

I have often wondered how to best capture in words the spiritual technology behind the majestic, glorious architectural design of the father’s knowledge and wisdom in dealings with his creation, especially the likes of the icon and patriarch Job.

As I study the multifaceted descriptions and display of the grand wisdom, power and authority of the father in display, I begin to progressively understand why the creation of man in the image and likeness of the father captures, in summary, the grand purpose, and expression of such creative wisdom, and why the contention of the battle of the last day is centered on the issue of who will finally take residence and precedence over the human heart.

As the archangel, Lucifer, tried in the eternal past to dethrone the father from his glorious throne, he is also currently intensifying his diabolic scheme in trying to unseat him from his position over the human heart, especially that of those who have truly invited the father to come to take his place over their hearts.

And the father through his justice nature must allow him to try as he did allow him to test the faithfulness and loyalty of the patriarch Job in the beginning. There will be nothing the enemy will be able to hold against the love and the justice system of the father in the final judgment and condemnation of Lucifer and his fallen angel to the lake of fire.

Hence, the battle of this third day characterizes the same battle objective of the first man in the garden and after he was cast out of the garden. The church of this new day is a type of the corporate Adam that must clearly understand the spiritual dynamics of this season, and adequately position itself in the light of the revelation of the wisdom and sovereign reality of the father’s unfolding prophetic agenda. 

The stage is now being set for the knowledge of the glory of God to cover the earth, even as the water covers the sea. Both the formation and outflow of the glory of the father through the church are a call to maturity. A maturity that enhances our spiritual template to function adequately in the proper formation of the inner structure required to carry with all grace, the weight of the dealings and displaying of knowledge of the glory of the Lord.

 While justification by faith in Christ gives the church access into peace, we must, however, move on to the next revelatory reality of knowing how to rejoice in the hope of the glory that comes through the weight of our tribulation. The quality life of those called to represent the initiatives of the father in this period will be defined by the character virtue of embracing the reality of being persecuted for standing for truth and righteousness.

 

Sovereignty and the display of God’s glory

There’s no doubt that the third-day church is designed and mandated to usher in the golden era of the kingdom reign of God. It does make adequate sense for the church to start emphasizing on subjects and messages that are required to better groom and prepare the spiritual structure of the ecclesia in a manner that makes it possible to effectively fulfill this mandate.

This present house of the Lord has been sandaled with the administrative grace in creating the spiritual platform for the manifestation of the in-depth, glorious knowledge of the father for creation at all levels. Of a certain, creation is waiting in anticipation for the revealing of this matured company of Saints who are carriers of the glorious knowledge that will finally break the chains of bondage over death and decay.  

The vastness of one’s spiritual insight and understanding in terms of spiritual maturity cannot begin to comprehend the depth of glorious knowledge of the father from a limited, outer court position of the church’s spiritual orientation.

There are still realms, depths, heights, and measures of spiritual realities that are yet to be discovered, touched, or even explore in the second-day reality of our journey as we now transit into the third-day life in Christ.

The mountain of the father’s house is currently being built with well-matured spiritual stones, brought out of the river of living water that is trained to fully trust and obey the display of the father’s wisdom even when it seems to contradict our limited apostolic theology and revelation. 

The glory of the father is in degrees and dimensions of knowledge that are only understood through the embracing of the mystery of the crucified ascended life. Trying to describe this spiritual phenomenon is almost an impossible task when it comes to the experiential knowledge of the glory of the father.

Nothing you’ve ever been through, or are going through, or will ever go through in the future can be compared to the wisdom ordained to be revealed through your life’s obedience to the father’s purpose and sovereignty. For man was ultimately ‘created to reveal the glory of God in a multidimensional way.

Many have extensively spoken and written about the glory of God, especially if we are a student of the writings of the old covenant. However, very few can truly testify of personal experiential knowledge of the glory of the lord as it relates to his sovereignty in suffering and tribulation. Furthermore, the glory of God as we have studied in the past is not some misty cloud somewhere.

Neither is it all about the expression of the power and authority of God. The glory of God is about the operation of his wisdom and sovereignty over all things. His sovereignty is the very essence of his glory, who he is in our lives, and what he desires to achieve through our lives are best known to him. Of all the excellence, beauty and majesty of the father, his glory is the most profound expression of his life, image, and essence, and yet, he has chosen to hide this glory within the life of his redeemed creation.

Precise expression of this glory is one of the lord’s objectives for his ecclesia in this season. The preparation and process required for this glory to precisely manifest are what we are trying to discover and glean from this material.

The knowledge of his glory

Those who have journeyed and have reached a milestone of maturity through the grace of the lord can also testify to how they’ve been brought to the point of losing everything they defined as the most wonderful achievements, especially in their search and quest to fulfill some kind of grand ministry assignment.

Only for them to be introduced to another layer, or dimension, in the glory of the ascended life that brought them to nothing, except to finally behold the majestic, glorious, wisdom and love of the father, shining through the face of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then suddenly realized that that’s all they’ve ever needed to be fulfilled in their journey of faith.

A new height in the ascended journey brings us to start gaining a better glimpse of this glorious revelation of life in Christ. These individuals have arrived at a place of complete death to everything their former life had offered them, and they’ve just beginning to understand the essence of the very life of the glory they were being invited to experience at the summit of their trial, pain, and tribulation for the sake of kingdom truth.

A changing season for the church

In the last two thousand years, the corporate body of Christ has witnessed growth, reformation and transformation and resistance at all front. The church has been through various seasons of development and changes; from the very core of its assigned message and mission objective, to its priestly leadership philosophy have all been through a relentless, brutal assault from organized, humanist, tradition that in some cases, forces the church to back down, and compromise its stand against the enemy.

While in another season, the attacks from the enemy, made the church to even become more creative, strategic, stronger, resolute and determined to press beyond the boundaries of compromise, fear, pain, and persecution into that advanced arena of its prophetic spiritual conquest even unto death.

The fear of death was crushed by the early church to the degree that it became a joyful pleasure to embrace persecution and death. The sense of the counsel and will of the Father in their tribulation became the very fuel that drives their understanding to build a true apostolic community, established on their eternal faith and hope in Christ.

 

Building a commonality of a faith culture

A common denominator that gave the early church the edge over the scheme of the enemy back then was its shared power of community life. Christians back then clearly understood that the teachings of the apostle and the elders were built on the foundation of a powerful spiritual community lifestyle, whose value standard was primarily established on the core principle of Christ life, and the developing reality of his kingdom in the earth.

In other words, the faith doctrines being taught and established back then were built on the premise of a new culture, the culture of the kingdom of God. The Christianity they sought to build was established on the foundation of the power of truth and lifestyle which became the footing of the new society they were called to establish.

Their faith, hope, and love were not separated from their societal beliefs and obligation, neither was it divorced from their social economic responsibility. Their common, standardized believe system was in complete harmony with their social lifestyle either in business or career. Their homes, family, and friends were all extensions of their common faith philosophy, unlike we have today.

Today, the church is trying to establish a faith doctrine that is completely alien to the lifestyle of those who profess the faith.  No wonder, the more people tend to know, or even seem to understand the Christian faith they profess, the further their lifestyle speaks otherwise of such knowledge. This scenario, further makes it highly challenging to reconcile our doctrinal faith foundation from the actual reality of our true preferred position of values and principles models. Duality is a major challenge to the current reality of the church and its leadership. True biblical knowledge must be coherent to the power of lifestyle.

While many today claim to understand the standard principles of the message of the kingdom of God, they, however, deny the power thereof. If we must, therefore, rectify this anomaly we must once again consider several principles and factors that can precisely give us the biblical direction the father has ordained to bring us to the confluence of accessing the reality of his kingdom.  

My purpose through this material is to rediscover that ancient path that guides us into the concept of what I call the standardized principle of accessing the life reality of the kingdom.  The body of Christ has entered a crucial season that demands a thorough, broad knowledge, insight and wisdom into the operational life and nature of the kingdom of God if she must successfully advance the ministry of the third day.

 I have written extensively in the past about the ministry of the third day, which basically begins to wrap up the false operational humanist, church traditional belief system as the dawning of the government of the father’s kingdom makes its grand entrance into the activity of man in all dimensions of existence.