Spiritual Fitness

2 Corinthians 13:5 MSG

“Test yourselves to make sure you are solid in the faith. Don’t drift along taking everything for granted. Give yourselves regular checkups. You need firsthand evidence, not mere hearsay, that Jesus Christ is in you. Test it out. If you fail the test, do something about it.

1 Timothy 4:7-9 AMPC

“But refuse and avoid irreverent legends (profane and impure and godless fictions, mere grandmothers’ tales) and silly myths, and express your disapproval of them. Train yourself toward godliness (piety), [keeping yourself spiritually fit]. For physical training is of some value (useful for a little), but godliness (spiritual training) is useful and of value in everything and in every way, for it holds promise for the present life and also for the life which is to come. This saying is reliable and worthy of complete acceptance by everybody.”

1 Corinthians 9:26-27 MSG

“I don’t know about you, but I’m running hard for the finish line. I’m giving it everything I’ve got. No lazy living for me! I’m staying alert and in top condition. I’m not going to get caught napping, telling everyone else all about it and then missing out myself.”

Don’t ever face the battles of life with natural boldness. Peter was a garrulous fellow and asked Jesus, if it is you, tell me to come (Matthew 14:28) but he was not ready for what he was to face. He was not spiritually fit.

That you carry a title does not mean you are spiritually fit.

You cannot rise high in life without God having a great plan for you. However, you cannot take secular training to Kingdom work.

If anything is not supposed to come your way, God will stop it. But if it has come, He expects you to be able to handle it.

Faith doesn’t work on guess work. Get scriptures to work with.

It is what you do personally that makes sure that devil that has left your life doesn’t return. What the anointing starts many times, your faith finishes.

Even in natural sports, a good coach will not feature a talented person that is not fit.

The battles of life are fought on current form, not on past reputation.

That you used to be a giant, you will just be a bigger bread for the devil. Your current form is what you should be tracking.

The Holy Ghost does not train us lesser than our future is calling for. Spiritual training will do more for us better than our future requires.

Spiritual training will make you better than physical training. Being highly trained spiritually reduces the time you will get something done physically or mentally.

When you spend time praying in tongues, for the first one month, it may look like nothing happened. But it is building spiritual fitness in you. Everyone is ordinary until trained.

You never know the value of any form of training until it is tested. And the devil will test you so you must be ready when that test comes.

The devil comes from your past to your present. Men only deal with your present. God comes from your tomorrow.

God does not come from your past. In spiritual training, the devil is the one that comes from your past into your present.

Psalm 18:29 KJV

“For by thee I have run through a troop; And by my God have I leaped over a wall.”

Leaping over a wall is a picture of a high jump. If you want to jump over something high, you give yourself some pace, speed and then you jump.

So, God paces you. He knows the heights, the levels you are to take.

New level, new devils. Every level has its own devil. The devils you have faced in a previous level are different. In this endtimes there are many new devils that people will not be ready for if they remain spiritually unfit.

Philippians 4:13 AMPC

13 I have strength for all things in Christ Who empowers me [I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who [a]infuses inner strength into me; I am [b]self-sufficient in Christ’s sufficiency].

Spiritual fitness means being prepared beyond what is coming; ready and equal to anything. Nothing should catch you by surprise. The enemy shouldn’t bring anything that your faith in God, your wisdom and knowledge in God cannot handle.

Spiritual fitness will put these in your life:

1. The recreated genes that came into your life when you were born. The potential to become like the person that gave you those genes.

As you begin to respect your recreated spirit and feed it, you begin to grow.

Romans 10:8-11, 13 AMP

“But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word [the message, the basis] of faith which we preach— because if you acknowledge and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord [recognizing His power, authority, and majesty as God], and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a person believes [in Christ as Savior] resulting in his justification [that is, being made righteous—being freed of the guilt of sin and made acceptable to God]; and with the mouth he acknowledges and confesses [his faith openly], resulting in and confirming [his] salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes in Him [whoever adheres to, trusts in, and relies on Him] will not be disappointed [in his expectations].” For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord [in prayer] will be saved.””

2 Corinthians 5:17 AMP

“Therefore if anyone is in Christ [that is, grafted in, joined to Him by faith in Him as Savior], he is a new creature [reborn and renewed by the Holy Spirit]; the old things [the previous moral and spiritual condition] have passed away. Behold, new things have come [because spiritual awakening brings a new life].”

1 John 3:9-10 AMP

“No one who is born of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, because God’s seed [His principle of life, the essence of His righteous character] remains [permanently] in him [who is born again—who is reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose]; and he [who is born again] cannot habitually [live a life characterized by] sin, because he is born of God and longs to please Him. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are clearly identified: anyone who does not practice righteousness [who does not seek God’s will in thought, action, and purpose] is not of God, nor is the one who does not [unselfishly] love his [believing] brother.”

1 Corinthians 15:2 AMP

“By this faith you are saved [reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for His purpose], if you hold firmly to the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain [just superficially and without complete commitment].”

Philippians 3:3 AMP

“for we [who are born-again have been reborn from above—spiritually transformed, renewed, set apart for His purpose and] are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory and take pride and exult in Christ Jesus and place no confidence [in what we have or who we are] in the flesh—”

2. Your born again spirit.

Be more of a spirit than a brain.

This is the order that God intended – Your spirit picks information, your mind processes it, your body carries it out.

1 Corinthians 15:57-58 AMP

“but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory [as conquerors] through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord [always doing your best and doing more than is needed], being continually aware that your labor [even to the point of exhaustion] in the Lord is not futile nor wasted [it is never without purpose].”

3. Conquer your flesh.

Every effort to conquer your flesh will make you strong spiritually.

It takes more than a willing spirit to win in life. It takes a conquered flesh.

It is a continual effort to put your flesh under.

Galatians 6:8 AMP

“For the one who sows to his flesh [his sinful capacity, his worldliness, his disgraceful impulses] will reap from the flesh ruin and destruction, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.”

If you allow the flesh, what it will do in 15 minutes will shock even you.

1 Corinthians 9

27 But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.

4. The wholesome tongue.

The discipline to control your mouth is one of the exercises of spiritual fitness. You lose your peace. Holding your peace …. When you speak carelessly, you give your peace away. A wholesome tongue is a tongue that is speaking correctly. It is not a gift, it is a result of training and discipline.

Know who has righteous authority over your life.

As you begin to discipline your mouth, every time you say something dangerous, your spirit rises and spanks you, and then you trace back to what you said and when you said it and close that door.

There’s a devil hanging around everything you have authority over, and the question it’s asking is who giveth this particular thing to us?

When you begin to talk over your son, those words are going to play a role. There is a devil that is asking ‘Who giveth this boy away’

Know who has righteous authority over your life, and who you have righteous authority over.

There’s a way you talk over what you have righteous authority over that is a product of discipline and training.

Every statement you are making is a statement of faith, authority, accuracy!

Every time you open your mouth, heaven or hell goes into operation.

7 THINGS THAT WILL HINDER YOU FROM GETTING READY FOR YOUR FUTURE & THE THINGS GOD WANTS YOU TO HAVE:

Your past experiences in life

Always put your past experiences in perspective. The biggest thing is not what you went through but what you learnt from your past. Don’t let the past intimidate you, everyone has a past. What did you learn from it?

Present circumstances.

Circumstance is different from each other. The church is a nation of God within the nation of men.

Everyone that is an effective member of the kingdom of God is automatically a leader among men.

The kingdom of God effectively prepares you to be a leader among men. What they are looking for in the world is what the Holy Spirit supplies to a Christian life. Normal christian life does not make you a normal human being. Much of what we have in church in the current dispensation is Christianized position.

If God gives you a position, it will provide you with two things:

Influence – This belongs to God

Affluence – This is yours

Every position offers you influence and affluence. When God put you in a position, trouble will come not because you are enjoying the affluence but because you are taking the influence. Always know that God has a higher plan for every place you occupy.

Lack of purpose will defeat you and not make you an endtime overcomer.

People in Christianized positions used their influence to buy power in the church, not for God.

If you do everything for people, you make them cripples.

It is in the struggles that butterflies come out of cocoon. God does not spare us certain struggles.

The people in your life.

Identify the people in your life that you can’t say ‘no’ to easily, not because they will beat you but because they carry such a weight with you.

People should know, especially people under your authority, where they can go if they have offended you in any way.

Internal tendencies like fear and intimidation. Moses had an internal tendency that was affecting him. Deal with the internal challenges or they will not let you be an overcomer.

Satanic influences and activities

Social context in which you are working. Tradition, culture, society, proverbs.

Divine prerogatives.

Four things divine prerogatives give you:

1. Purpose

2. Creation

3. Calling

4. Destiny

These will affect what you can do or not do, the limitations and special operations that will flow in your life.

In the prerogatives of God, He makes decisions and we have to discover those decisions.

These are absolutely important. Divine prerogatives start with:

1. Purpose – The purpose of a thing will tell you the limitations and capabilities. You can’t exercise your Faith against divine purpose. Some things will happen in your life occasionally but not permanently.

2. Your calling

What a teacher will be able to do, a Pastor may not be able to do.

What an Apostle can do, a Prophet may not be able to do.

An Apostle can establish a Church and govern it.

An Apostle brings governance.

A Prophet brings guidance.

An Evangelist brings gathering.

A Teacher brings grounding.

A Pastor brings guarding, he protects.

Everybody has their specializations.

In your calling will be a limitation.

Why does God put divine prerogatives in life? Because he still remains God.

We must all exercise caution when it comes to God. That you have not seen something before does not mean God cannot do it for somebody. Your faith and expectation must make room for when God intrudes into our lives, for when God breaks out of the box we try to put Him.

Our minds as human beings work with something we can control. No matter who you become, you won’t master God.

The more you know God, the first thing you notice is that the less you know.

Your supposed knowledge of God does not bring you to a place of humility that the more you know, the lesser you realize that you know about it.

A man of God had a vision of heaven and the angels were moving round the throne and when they move round, the angels see a glory there, they shout ‘Holy’. They move round again and see another glory, they shout holy again …

The first lesson I learnt there is that you can sing one song for praise worship for a day.

He is the God that was, that is to come, and that is why the devil is in trouble.

The principle of seed is the continuity of God. Anyone that does not respect seed, your own seed, will not transfer to the next generation.

The part of God that is to come, he made us in his image, no matter what, till you die, there’s still a part of you that is to come. That is what you must be fighting for.

What we have seen of you now is not all that we can see of you. So, when you have a sense of arrival, is when you fail.

Abraham started his own ministry at 75 so why do you say you are old at 60?

It’s lack of vision that actually kills people faster than plenty of devils.

Show me a man that loses vision, he wants to die.

The person you taught in primary school might become the president of the country in 30 years’ time.

If God should give you a vision of your future, that is the advantage of the Christian. That is why you must take it serious. He told Peter, “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat: But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren.”

No matter what the devil throws at you, if your faith fails not, you are not yet defeated yet. Faith puts that fight, that struggle inside you spirit, that you won’t give up.

The God that we are talking about, He reserves a right to change things and to do things without your permission

God is your owner Father, He chooses your earthly father. Your earthly father is not your real father, he’s your caretaker father.

You are a caretaker over the children you have.

No caretaker has final decision over the property in his custody. That is why you must seek the permission of God.

You have no right to limit the expression of the destiny of your child by using your finances to determine the school they go. Did you ask God that sent them and he said he can’t take care of them?

We take ownership where it doesn’t belong to us and when the future comes to us and the child wakes up to see that you limited him, he won’t respect you too much.

God reserves the right to come into our lives. He has the prerogatives.

By being an ambassador of heaven, you also carry prerogative of mercy authority.

There are some people that the enemy is holding bound, you can say by virtue of my relationship with God, we want to release this person from the bondage of the devil.

If you carry a calling, you carry a higher prerogative, but God has the highest prerogative.

God told me, all men are important to me, not all men are important to me, not all men are important to you. So, take the ones important to you seriously.

In the prerogatives of God, he makes decisions, and we have to discover those decisions.

Culled from the teachings of My Father, Rev Olusola Areogun of Dream Centre of Life Oasis International Church.

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Cornelius Bella