Understanding Spiritual Renewal 3

katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa k katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa katoa kato In Jesus mighty name we are prayed. Praise the Lord. Shall we be seated? Our topic today is Understanding Spiritual Renewal Part 3. Romans Chapter 12 verse 1 to 2. It is as it is issued here for brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice only acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. You can just allow them to follow me. So you can see the prayer, the request of Paul to the Romans. The renewal of their mind was so important to him that he said I beseech thee by the mercies of God. And then in Psalm 51 verse 10. You can also see the prayer, the personal prayer of David. He said create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me. So understanding spiritual renewal is very very important. In our last two editions of Sunday we have discussed about 4 minutes of spiritual renewal. I want to tell us 7 so today I am going to conclude with the remaining 3. So number 5, when we talk about spiritual renewal, it is strengthening of the arms which are down and the feeble knees. The feeble knees must be strengthened and also the arms that are hung down must be strengthened. Hebrews chapter 12 verse 12. He said wherefore lift up the arms which are down and the feeble knees and let strength pass for your feet, lest that which is lame be torn out of the way, but let it rather be healed. If you look at that passage very well, it is a warning message to us. Though it is an instruction, but it back it with a warning. He said we must lift up the arms that are down and the feeble knees must be strengthened. If it is not done, he said, let that which is lame be torn out of the way. So you will discover that if you refuse to lift up your spiritual arms, you will discover that that arm will be cut off. It can be lame permanently. You have seen many times, which happens to me, I have knee neck injury, may be in the night. Sometimes they go. And so if I am walking, I will be walking like this. But the doctor said I should be exercising it. Like this, exercising it. And due to that, I have my neck restored. And I also believe there was a day, may be I slept on this hand and I don't know what happened. And I discovered that I cannot lift it up. So but during my exercises, I will be raising it up. I will be doing like this. Now today it is back. And so if I retain it like this, and say I don't want it to pain me, may be it would have been like that permanently. And that is why this passage is an instruction, lift up the arms which are out down. The people knees must be stretching, lest that which lives be torn out of the way. But when you lift it up, it is rather be healed. So this is a figurative speech. What does it mean? That we should not ask of spiritually. And that we must not engage in spiritual retirement. For one reason or the other, that is best known to you, which can happen to me. I have the tendency, spiritually to ask of. And that is why many pastors, at a very rapid rate, they abandon their assignment today. They are earning off the assignment God has given to them. And so also many of us too, they are studying things that we have been before. But we are abandoning them. Just coming to church become a problem to you. Now doing your normal job in the church become a problem to you. The choir you don't come to practice again. The same thing with pastor, we cannot stay before the Lord. You know how much stress people like me had yesterday? And the ones that have been preparing for the summit of yesterday. And yes, I am to preach today. But if not because of the grace of God, I won't be able to do what I need. Or what I did, I rushed home early yesterday, and I went to have my rest. And by quarter to devil or thereabouts today, I woke up. The devil was trying to say, no your body is still waiting and not those kind of a thing. I said I must preach again today. And I begin to prepare my message. And some other things, now I am strong. It was just early this morning, I have enough before I start dressing up. If you are not doing things like that, before your hands is hands of you, you will not know. In the activities we are doing, many of us we have engaged ourselves in spiritual retirement. You accepted that, oh this thing I can't do it, I will not do it again. But one thing I want to let us know, even the psychologists will prove it to you. Anything that you are doing constantly, you will discover that you are able to do it very well, later you will be excited about it. You will say well I will be getting to church before 8 o'clock, you will see, and you do it about several times, you will be excited to come. So that is what the scripture is saying here, when we are talking about spiritual renewal. We must be perfect in the spirit and serving the Lord. And that is so much after 12 past 11. If they do not be slothful in zeal, be perfect in the spirit, serving the Lord. There is one Yoruba expression that says, When you allow your hands to rest too much, the devil will come and because of you. So it is not only doing it, but that zeal that you have in doing it. You must be doing things with zeal. Sing with zeal, pray with zeal, do things in zeal, study with zeal. Your business, you must run it with zeal. Do whatsoever you can do to make sure you push everything out with zeal. And if you not only have that zeal, you must make sure you are not slothful in it. There are certain things you do, but you are not doing it with zeal. But now it is now saying, do it with zeal. And you must not slothful in that race at which you are doing it. You know, this may happen to anybody including myself. And that is the reason why you must have something to push you up. I have some prayer list that I do regularly. So sometimes the devil will come and he will say, ah ah, you have been praying this prayer, but I have made a covenant, I want to be praying it regularly. You know what I do? I will quickly read a verse of the scripture. And when I read the verse of the scripture, I will pump up to go back to that prayer with zeal. So you must have things like that in your life to maintain zeal in whatsoever you are doing. Something that will remind you that you must not reduce your zeal. I can say this after 9 verse 10. It says, whatsoever thy hand finds to do, do it with thy might. You know why? For there is no work nor device, nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave without that weight. So this is a wise advice to the wise. It is a wise counsel to the wise. So you must be amongst the wise that you are going to follow this, that whatsoever your hand finds, do it with us. All your works, your might, with everything. You know sin is contagious. If you see a choir coming here to lead us in their songs, and we see the way you are dancing, you are demonstrating, and people that are watching you will also take it away from you. But we will come here and just stay like that. You will not see the choir that people that are watching you will just be like that. And that is the reason why sin must be added to what you are doing. That is why you must strengthen the hands that are hand down. Don't be discouraged. Go ahead. In your monetary relationship with your spouse, go ahead. Do what you want to do with thee. The pastor may discourage you as a church member. Find a way to encourage yourself. And begin to do your work with thee. Come to church with thee. Read your Bible with thee. Don't think that you are abandoned. Go back and begin to do that. That is what is called the spiritual renewal. Number six, when we talk about spiritual renewal, it is taking away the draws from the saviour. Taking away the draws from the saviour. You know I am speaking in figurative speech, and you must interpret it. Taking the draws from the saviour. Proverbs 26 verse 4, it says take away the draws from the saviour, and dismiss as material for a virtue. Can you see that? It is when you see saviour, it is unattractive. You will now discover that it will be of no use to the smith or co-smith. Even some of us, when you see saviour or gold on the floor, raw, you will not be able to identify. But what you need to do is take away the draws away from it. And then you will see the saviour. If it is there that the co-smith or the smith can be used, can use it. So what do we mean by draws? The draws mean the rubbish. The worthless and just covering a metal object like gold, diamonds and saviour. But here we are talking about spiritual renewal. It is not talking about taking away all the corporations attached to our spiritual life. Whatsoever is not making us to run the race of faith as we are supposed to run it, we must take it away, they are corporations. And we have many of them. Number one, some of them are things that this lab has teached us. Like frivolous engagements. You engage yourself frivolously with your friends. Frivolous speech. They are the draws covering your gold. Worldly friends. Those friends are not necessary but you just have to have them. There are more times I talk of worldly friends that I don't remember my experience in the university. I won't mention the name of the girl because I don't know maybe one day you can come across this message. So I will not mention her name. It is all because of my brilliance in the school, in the class. So she always speaks to me and with others. And we are not doing anything bad but they feed tutorials and some other academic work to the time of fellowship. Just a few minutes or hours to the fellowship time. But you know when you are having tutorial for example and discussion, especially on political science, we put that deep to the time of the fellowship. By the time I get to the fellowship they will have finished praise and worship, they will have finished intercessory prayer and we just come in by the time the speaker is to start his message. I can remember this story vividly. God convinced me with this scripture that I am reading to you that I need to take away the drugs and the sin that this lay besieged us. It was then I said well, it means I will not belong to this group again. I said you change the time. I don't know whether my miracles is in the praise and worship that I miss and intercessory prayer. Holy friends, holy friends, they don't talk things that are good to you. Little by little you will join them and if you see Romans chapter 1, I think the last verse is there. It says that we know that the wrath of God is upon those who are disobedient children and those who love those who are doing it. He mentions things that they are doing. He mentions them very well but he says the wrath of God is upon them. It is not only those that are doing it alone but you that have interest in them. What are you doing with your friend that says drug addict? What are you doing with a friend that is talking about death that they have messed up with? They are sins that this lay besieged us. You train them to do certain things and then when you teach them how to do it you say you are a Christian, you are deceiving yourself. This is a drug in your sliver. Holy friends, doing the right things in the wrong time is a drug in your life. Like when sleeping is good but it can be done in the wrong time. This time you are supposed to pray. You are still sleeping. Nothing disturbs me from sleeping throughout the night because of what I did yesterday. Nothing disturbs me from sleeping throughout the night today. But my restful sleeping did not come for that. It did not come for that. My restful sleeping did not come for that I should use the whole night to sleep. I would disappoint those who depend on me. You depend on how this morning my pastor will preach. And I have come to you before you and say I am very sorry I slept throughout the night. What many of us are doing? Useless excuses in serving the Lord. And that is the reason why God cannot commit many things into your hands. So you must do away with them. No. 2 things that seem to be like a drug in your sleeper that they are saying that will isolate, besiege us. They include watching games. Games to watch games are good. But they are saying that can isolate, besiege you. Watching sports. Watching television. It is not bad to watch television. But if you are a man of vision, you are watching television with a mind. You know why? It is good for you to watch a man of vision with a mind in television. A man of vision. They will soon be watching him in television. But it is a man without vision that will click through to television all the time. So you must discipline yourself in watching all these things. Friendship. Chatting. Some of us are just chatting. So watching games, watching sports, watching television, being in friendship and chatting, they are good. But they become dross when they take your prime time for your spiritual devotion. They take your prime time to discharge your spiritual responsibility. And this is, I have discovered, this is very easy. For example myself. You will just discover that as you open your phone, they will be pushing some news to you, off-brand news. I don't know whether I am right. Off-brand news. And by the time you see the topic, and they show one picture of a man there, they are already receiving news. It is not the one they want to talk about. They will coin the topic. And they will put somebody there. It is something they want to discuss about that person. And you think that that person is doing what the agency has put there. No, by the time you open it, you know that they are just talking mess. And by the time you are reading another one will come. And if it is not taking five minutes, it is taking away. Ten minutes it is taking away. And all the rest, and all those kind of things. And many of us, we have many friends, we have done many groups in WhatsApp. You want to see what they are saying. So family you will not open it to. Where they will push message to you. When you see one of the session that you join, and you open it, before you read that thing, the message that your partner has sent to you for your notice in the family, you will not read it. You have to be very, very careful. These things are good. I have belonged to so many groups. For the reason why I joined these groups, is that any message that we have in the church, I just push it to them. If you go to the message of yesterday, I have sent it to more than 75 groups. And you know, each group will contain three or four, five people. That is why I joined them. And it is really working. Even some of the names of the groups you have joined, you ask them, how can your partner belong to this group? But if you are not discernment like people like me, you will not discover that you also joined them. So these things are good. But when they begin to take your prime time, they begin to take your prime labor, some of us immediately we wake up. The first thing you do is your ascent. You want to see what happens in the night. And the best thing for you to do is to kneel down and pray for us. But your ascent is the first thing you have to do. And even some of us before we sleep in the night, you will watch these things until you slept off. You know, I have made a lot of reading and research. It is also your own conception. That there is something called metaloin in our system here. That when you see black light like in your ancestors and all those things, you will destroy, they will drain that metaloin from you. And that is why some of us we cannot sleep very well. You watch television in night. And that is why this thing is destroying our system. I am not the medical doctor. But as a pastor, I must have knowledge in little little things that I can speak of. So this is very important to you. So make sure that these things as good as they are. They don't take your prime labor. They don't take your prime time. Do you understand what I am saying? You know in the time of Bible study you should be watching TV. Even if it is Nigerian pastor, Brazil, it is not meant for you. Things that refuse to discharge your spiritual responsibilities. And then number three, your uncontrolled temperament. Yes, you can't control your temperament. When somebody offended you, you lose your guard with your mouth. You talk and talk and talk and talk. You just ignore that anger will come. They are uncontrolled temperament. They are things that literally besiege us. If you know you have done it, you have used your mouth to say rubbish, you say Lord forgive me. For how many times you will be saying Lord forgive me? Your uncontrolled appetite. They are things that literally besiege you. You know what I am talking about. You will eat and eat so much that you have to be going to toilet. Because you have opportunity to drink as many bottle of minerals as possible, you keep on doing it and at the end of the day you get dysentery. You know what, because of our uncontrolled appetite we cannot pray and fast. Our uncontrolled tongues. They are all thrust in our savour. You see many are to be ready to battle in the hands of God. But because they are in combat with frivolous activities, God cannot use them as a battle axe. This morning when we are talking about renewal, the spiritual renewal, you must deal with them. They are practical things you must do. And finally number seven, when we are talking about spiritual renewal, we are talking about retreat to the fire. Retreat to the fire. Again I want to say one of the Yoruba Indian expression. That is how you are supposed to do. It is difficult for you to stop me there. When you are talking about a sheep that retreats, a ram that retreats, coming to the fire again, you see them? Have you seen that before? And when it got the time, it will go like this. And that is to retreat to the fire. And then it will come with force. You see that is not doing the same thing to you. So most times we are spiritually exhausted. Even because of our spiritual assignment like the one we have been doing, you are exhausted, you are tired. At that point in time, you need retreat so that you can refire. When we are searching, our spiritual strength is drained. Our spiritual strength is weak and weary. So in such occasions, there must be personal retreat and spiritual refreshment. Sometimes, you just discover most of those things you are not doing in the world, you are doing them. Your soul is now being diverted to things that are not normal. Please go and retreat. You know, your last wife for example, you have visitors for almost a week or two. The traffic in your house is mush. So much so much is affecting your devotion, your quiet time. The time like that is always real. You have to cook mush, you have to do the mush thing. At the end of that exercise, the thing I say for you to do is to retreat. Or you have some assignments in your place of work. Or you are an examiner, you mark many streets. Because there is a deadline for it. In the process of that, you have sacrificed some things spiritually. You must have a time to retreat so that you can refire. If you go like that, you are going to break down spiritually. And God has taught us a lesson. By the way we arrange ourselves, you will discover that in the day you will be so tired. And in the night, you go back to sleep. That is a retreat. Not so you wake up in the morning. You are refreshed. You are strong. The headache has gone. That is God telling you what you will be doing in your life. So you must always retreat to refire. You will go beyond the level of what you were doing before. Look for a camp to go that all what you will be earning is the word of God. You will know your prayer life is going down. Go to a place where they are doing nothing but what? Prayer. Oh you know it. Your earring to the word of God is going down. Go and lock yourself up somewhere else. Look at messages on your phone. And be hearing the same message all the time. Oh is it on prayer? Go and look for messages that will be talking about that. This is the secret of spiritual renewal. Oh you know you are not holding on to a very sound message. Is it on holiness? On righteousness? On even being a good wife? Search for it. There is nothing you are looking for today you cannot find. Then make sure you listen and listen and listen. And not only listen if you look at our Facebook or anything you see that the technical they have tagged our messages. They have tagged that. Go to the one that talk about renewal of strength. Look at the one that talk about Jesus you critic. You will go and you will be listening. And they are listening like that. They just saw my message last month. Before I pre-start of today I have to spend time to listen to it. And that is about 45 to 1 hour. I have to pick up from there. So please you, these are the practices that make you to be a champion. There must be a time of alone with God. When you have hunger, waiting and searching the spiritual. And pray at with most appropriate time. And you know this is the practice of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some other time I will talk about that to you. When Jesus Christ have performed a lot of miracles. You will see the next thing is that he is going for a retreat. That is it. Even when he was announced that this is my beloved son whom I watch. And the next thing you see he went to the wilderness. And he stayed there for how many days? 40 days and 40 nights without food. And the type of thing that he should be doing. When you know you have eaten so much. Be good fasting. That Lord will be with us. In the mighty name of Jesus. I have explained, I have given you 7 meanings of what? Spiritual what? Renewal. Number one, I have told you spiritual renewal is the awakening, resuscitation, the revival, the reconnection, the restoration of the vibrant state of our spiritual life. Check your notes. Number two, spiritual renewal is the replenishing of the divine spiritual fire in us. The divine spiritual fire in us must be lighted again. And then number three, spiritual renewal is the plowing of our fallow ground. Plowing means breaking. Fallow means uncultivated and inactive. Don't allow any of your land to be wasted. Your potential must be uncultivated. You must cultivate it. It must not be inactive at all. No excuse is tenable to allow your spiritual ground to be uncultivated. And number four, the spiritual renewal is the waking of the spiritual slumbering and sleeping. Sleeping time is the most dangerous time I have told you last month. It is our guided hour. It is time when our adversary has free time to strike us. Planting tears into the midst of our wit. So you must not allow it. Sleeping when you are supposed to be walking. Sleeping in a bathroom front. Don't allow the enemy to disarm you. And so today, I have told us about number five, which is the strengthening of the arms which are damned and the feeble-kneed. And number six, is taking away the trust in the Savior of your life. All those things that are distracting you, that are encumbrances. Do you know that this suit is an encumbrance if I want to run a relay race? Do you agree with me? Do you agree with me? Eh? If I want to run a race, I must not dress like this. It becomes an encumbrance. It is the same way too, there are some races that certain things will not be good for you. To be a pastor in the hand of God, some things are not necessary. To be a pastor, some things are not necessary. To be a pastor's wife, some things are not necessary. To be a dynamic Christian, certain things are not necessary. So you must close your eyes to them and when you are going to heaven too, you take strides in the way that go to heaven. So there is no room for excess luggage. So you must put off those robes, those robes that will disturb you. And then finally, the spiritual reward is to retreat and work on the fire. Find a time to be alone with God, to be alone with spiritual hunger, spiritual waiting, searching the spiritual in prayer. There was a time I gave myself about few days to finish the Bible. This Bible. And I did it. I did it. A time I gave myself a month. A month. And I did it. A time I gave myself 3 months and I did it. And more years. That is it. But if you are engaging yourself in certain things and you are not going like that, you are not engaging yourself in spiritual exercise. So what we are talking finally in summary, the spiritual reward is the spiritual regeneration, is the spiritual innovation, is the spiritual restoration, is the spiritual transformation, is the change of heart and life for better. If it is an action that makes our spiritual wish to communicate with God to be fresh and new, it is an action that prefers redundancy and it prefers the expiration of our spirit. So you must understand this. So it is a command. The spiritual reward is a command. You must comply with it. Number 2 is a necessity that is not negotiable for kingdom citizen. And then number 3 is desirable and eternally rewarding. So if spirituality is like this, you must take it as priority. It must be understood. You must make it achievable in your life. If we really love ourselves, if actually we want to enter into the kingdom of heaven, spiritually new and old must be a priority. The renewal of your spirit that makes you acceptable unto God. Because you are a human being, you have limitations. It is when you have renewed yourself like we have read in Romans chapter 12 verse 1 to 2, it is then that you have to become acceptable to God all the time. I pray for you this morning that the grace to renew your spirit will rest upon you. In the mighty name of Jesus, there is nothing as great in achievement as your spiritual renewal. And the power of God will rest upon you as you rise on your feet at this godly time. I speak to your life that you receive the grace that will grant you the grace to sustain spiritual renewal. You will receive the awakening and the revival of a special man in you in the name of Jesus. Your spiritual fire will be rekindled again in the name of Jesus. And whatsoever is attacking your spiritual life, as you have prayed today, from Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 18, they will receive double destruction in the name of Jesus. A better amen to that. I say whatsoever is attacking your spiritual life, that will not make you to win so for the Lord, that will not make you to renew your strength, that is making you to use your prime time and labor on draws of your life, that is making you to trespass your hands. I speak by the power of the living God, you will receive double destruction today and you are set free. It is well with you, in the mighty name of Jesus, every form of spiritual back crossing in you. They are around you, they are transforming in the name of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. It is well with you. Open your mouth and start to talk to God. The Father in the mighty name of Jesus, I receive this message by faith. And I see it as a challenge. Help me to do that. Let my spiritual life be renewed. It must not expire. No expiration, no expiration. No expiration at all. In the mighty name of Jesus, make me to do that.