CHRISTIAN LIFE (Part I)

By Odon, 27-04-01

I want to remind you that Nicodemus was a man, a highly educated person because he would teach people the law of God and he was famous among teachers. But when he met Jesus, he who was called Master, he started to call Jesus: “Master”. Nicodemus accepted to humiliate himself and become a pupil because he needed to learn. Personally, I need to learn and each one of us must make up their mind to submit and learn. You might only have a 2 months experience and you need to learn. You might have a 100 years experience, and still need to learn because God’s Word is eternal so your learning is eternal as well.

Nobody knows the Bible from cover to cover. The Bible is like a field with crops and each year you must plant again in order to reap: this year you might grow corn and next year peanuts. The Word of God you read yesterday will not be the same today because it is transformed every time. So if you learnt that Jesus is God, tomorrow you might learn that Jesus is the Son of God and above all this there will be a greater understanding.

The Word of God is like a source of water and water comes out every day and every second and nobody knows where that water comes from: we just see the water running. This water that comes from the source, runs here and goes. It is not a fountain, where water runs and goes back to the fountain through a system and the same water runs again. The Word of God is pure water and when it comes out, it is new.

Nicodemus was about to see he needed something new in him. He accepted to humiliate himself and he learnt. Nicodemus didn’t refuse to learn what Jesus was teaching him because he knew that if he refused, his life might be useless on earth, and he would not inherit the Kingdom of God. It is like a man who wants to be a soldier and says: ‘I want to be a soldier but I don’t want to kill, I don’t want use weapons and I don’t want to attack anyone.” Do you think he will be a soldier? I don’t think so because soldiers kill and always defend their country and must be aggressive.

It’s like a student who wants to go to school, but everyday refuses to learn his teacher’s lessons, and doesn’t want to do his homework. He just wants to go to school, see his classmates and that’s it. Is this person a student or not? At the end of the year, he will fail.

It is the same with many Christians today: they want to be called Christians but when they are given instruction and when they are taught what they need to learn, they say “no, I don’t need that, I want to keep only what I already know.” At the end of the day, they will be condemned and judged.

Jesus told Nicodemus that to enter the Kingdom of God he needed to be born of water and Spirit. Last time we talked about what it is to be born of water. We read in Ephesians 5 that water is the Word of God. What do we know about the Word of God? The Word of God is what is written in the Bible: we read these words with our eyes, but behind them there is a divine power. This divine power gives this Word the power to give you life, living water. Don’t be surprised when you see Satan’s followers using the Bible.

I remember one time, I met a magician somewhere who could read the Bible and react according to what is written in the Bible. I know many Muslims who use the Koran to do sorcery. So, Christians must know the way they use this Word. The Word Jesus gives us is living Water, it is not water leading to death, it is not water to lead to perdition, but it is living water. Living water is always clean with no germs in it, nothing dirty in it. If I want to offer Steve a glass of water and if the glass is dirty, I think Steve will hesitate to take the water. He might say: “I’d rather help myself”, and he will go and first clean the glass and then take water. Or he might say, “I am not thirsty anymore. No thank you.” If Steve is ashamed of the person who offered him a glass of water, he will drink this dirty water and the consequences will appear in his body.

This is what Christians should do. Before learning any word we must check it, we must meditate on what we are taught, “What I am learning, is it true or false? Is what I learn useful in my life or not?” And if I learn something that is useless for me, what do I learn? So we must open our eyes widely and be watchful.

John 6: 63
It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Amen!! The Word God gives us, is the very Word that is Spirit and life. So if you need the Spirit of God in you, the Word of God can help you find it. If you need life, you will find it in the Word of God.

I once gave you an example: there was a group of people praying in a church, and they were spiritually tired. They were even dead. The reason was that they didn’t read the Word of God, they didn’t practise this Word in their life, they were dead because they wouldn’t even pray. Once, a servant of God preached: he went to a shop, bought a coffin and a bunch of flowers. On Sunday morning, he placed that in the church, with candles and the Christians started to arrive. When they walked in, they saw the coffin, and if two Christians were chatting, they would instantly stop talking. Look at that, what happened, someone has died? It might be our sick sister. No, it’s the old grandma who seated there, I think it’s her, let’s go and see. And everybody came in.

The preacher/ servant of God said, “Before starting our service this morning, we must give honour to the person who has gone. So, I invite you all to come one by one and see the person for the very last time before we bury them”. The servant of God had put a mirror in the coffin. The first person came, saw himself in the coffin, was a bit surprised and walk away. The second person did the same and the whole church did the same. Back to their seats, they were wondering what all this was about. But when he gave the message about the church being dead, everybody was thinking: “How can I live and be dead? How have I been a Christian for 50 years, and I am told I am dead? I thought I was saved long ago, but I see I am nothing.” Everybody knelt down and asked God to forgive them.
This was what happened to Nicodemus. The Word of God is Spirit and life. So if you need the Spirit and life, go and lay the good foundations, which are the Word of God.

John 1 tells us that the Word is Jesus Himself.

Jesus Christ tells us that He himself is life (John 14:6)

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me.

And the same Jesus Christ says also in John 17:17 that this Word is the truth.

Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth.

Jesus Christ who is the very Word declares also in John 6:35 that He is the bread of life, meaning we need to eat Him. So if Jesus is the bread of life, do we eat this Word or not? And to eat the Word is not what someone stupid I knew did, and ripped off their Bible page after page to eat it. After sometime, he finished off eating his Bible, and he thought he had eaten the Word.

Jesus said unto them. I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

The Bible doesn’t tell us to open our mouths wide and eat these pages, but it is about reading what is in here, understand it and practise it. And when you don’t understand, as Nicodemus did, ask Jesus: “Jesus, how can I go back to my mother’s womb and be born again?” You can also ask Jesus: “Jesus, I don’t understand Ezekiel 19. What do you mean by this?” This is the only thing God asks us to do.

I sometimes wonder how we can spend hundreds and millions of dollars to find a treatment when we are sick, to clothe ourselves and eat because we are scared of death. Each one of us would say, “My child is sick so I will go to the hospital so that he will be healed”.

And you see that from the beginning of life, from birth to death, people do nothing but spend their money, when Jesus Christ gives life free of charge. Men don’t accept this life, the one Jesus gives. Men only want to suffer, and lose their lives.

There was a man who sang about death and said, “I am a billionaire and death comes to me. I told death, ‘take 1 million of my dollars’. And death said, ‘No, I don’t want it. I need you, I don’t need your money’. So I said to death, ‘Death, instead of taking me, take my wife first’. But death answered, ‘No, my address is you and not your wife’. So I said, ‘Take all my belongings’ but death answered, ‘No, I don’t need that. I want to take you’”.

If that man was wise, if that man knew Jesus Christ died for him, he could have told death, “Death, I know someone who was hung on the cross because of me. Death, you have no power on me because I am already alive”.