Reason for Good Friday Celebration

WHAT HAPPENS TO YOUR BODY AFTER YOU ARE SAVED IN CHRIST?
As you as a person possess spirit, soul and body; your body is your physical entity, your soul is your real person and your spirit is like your conscience, giving you the consciousness of God and His will. When you die, you will immediately get out of your dead body– Genesis 35:18, “And so it was, as her soul was departing (for she died)” and the body will perish,that is, goes back to the earth; the spirit goes back to God, and then it will now remains you, that is your soul.


WHO ARE YOU?
Your real person that is bearing your name is not your body, because your body belongs to the earth; your real person that is you indeed is not your spirit, your spirit belongs to God and it will return to God when you die, but your real person is your soul, that is, your soul is yourself. Your soul is hiding under your body to live temporary on earth, and after that your soul goes and moves on. You get out of your body when you die, and then you are set to face judgment as it has been given to man to die once and after that judgment.

Every soul in sin is in bondage of Satan and heading to hell, no matter how nice, popular or powerful the person may be; immediately the person dies he reaches and enter inside hell, When the Bible says the soul that sins shall die in Ezekiel 18:4, it is not talking about physical death but second death.

WHAT IS SECOND DEATH?
Second death is eternal, unending torment in hell fire. Revelation 21:8, "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” When you give your life to Jesus and experience Salvation through Jesus and by Jesus, your soul is set free from the bondage, that is what makes you experience peace unspeakable joy, and so you are saved from the looming destruction of eternity. Salvation brings restoration of your soul back to relationship with God. Psalm 23:3, “He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.”

HOW ABOUT YOUR BODY?
But then what happens to your body when your soul is saved? The answer is simply nothing! Your body remains the same as it was before you were saved. You remember your body is a channel by which the devil uses to seduce you to commit sin? ….... the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. James 3:6. The process will still remain the same. Your body is not saved, it is your soul that is saved. After you are saved in Christ, your unsaved body will want to pull you back into sin, the pleasant and pressure of sin will come on your body.

When the Spirit of God in you motivates your soul to read Bible, your body will say to you, "No, don't read Bible" If you are reading just any book or watching football or any sport competition, you may not fall asleep, but when you want to read Bible, you fall asleep. When the Spirit of God moves your soul to pray, your body will say, " Not now" If you are paying attention to non spiritual matters or talking with people, you may not that easily fall asleep, but when you want to pray and talk with God, you begin to feel deep sleep. On an ordinary day, you may not feel hungry without eating till afternoon, but when you want to fast, you may start feeling serious hunger since 6 am. When your soul wants to do God’s will, your very body will oppose. Your saved soul will want to live righteous life but your body will say no.

Your case is not special, it happens to everybody, even to Apostle Paul. “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” Romans 7:18, 19

SO WHAT SHOULD WE DO?
As saved children of God, we must not allow our body to overcome our spirit again, we must not allow the pressure and persuasion of the flesh to overcome our souls in Christ. Because a child of God does not obey the flesh any more, no longer walking in the flesh. Romans 8:12, “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors—not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” That is what makes the difference between sinner and saint, when you are saved and before you are saved. Before you were saved, you obeyed the commands of the flesh into sins, but now God forbids.

So what are we going to do with our persistent and stubborn body after we are saved? What are the things we must do to our body after the salvation of our soul? Let's see what Paul did to his body that helped him to pleased and served God till the end. I Corinthians 9:27, "But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection" Another version says, "But I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection" To disciplining and keep our body under subjection of the Holy Spirit is what we must do every day, and every hour so as to live to please God and make heaven at the end.

But you may ask,"How am I going to possibly discipline and subdue my body under" The Bible answer is that, for us to overcome and subdue our body every day, we need to do three things. Let's see what Jesus said in Matthew 26:41, “Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

WORD, WATCH AND PRAY!
(1) WORD OF GOD: We grow and get strength to resist and subdue the flesh through God’s Word. God’s Word sanctifies us and strengthens us against sin. “Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:11. Daily Bible
reading, at least 2 chapters a day, and meditation on what we read give us daily victory over the flesh. “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.” Psalm 119:9.

(2) PRAYER: “A prayerless Christian is a powerless Christian” To subdue the flesh in our Christian life, we need daily prayer for God’s help and strength. Without daily prayer, we can’t make it. Jesus commanded us to be prayerful so as the overcome the flesh and live righteous life. Matthew 26:41. Fervent prayer to subdue the flesh, to renew our strength and receive God’s grace. At least, a serious minded Christian must take 1 hour to pray daily on his or her Christian life and grow from there.

(3) WATCH: How do we watch out to deal with our body in new life in Jesus? The answer is by discipline and keeping it under God’s spirit. That was what Paul did to his stubborn body. 1 Corinthians 9:27, “But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” It involves daily watchfulness over our hearts, thoughts, thinking, tongues, tones, tempers and attitudes; watching what type of music we listen to, what type of movies we watch, what type of pictures we look, and our lifestyle generally; guiding and subduing them with God’s word. But we can’t do that with or by our own human ability, we can’t change our sinful habits by our own abilities. It takes God’s grace and strength of the Holy Spirit. Not by power, nor by might but by My Spirit says the LORD. Zechariah 4:6. We get that through prayer.

May the Lord help us to be watchful and prayerful as we continue in our onward Christian journey to eternal life, no turning back, no looking back, we have decided to follow Jesus to heaven, not to half way, in Jesus name.

This Bible teaching is from BTCP, BIBLE TEACHING CORRESPONDENCE PROGRAM. We had a 3-month online Bible course last year and we treated 27 topics, you can join the group on facebook and go to the file of the group to read all the studies from the first. Just click on this link, join check it every week for the weekly study. http://www.facebook.com/groups/btcprogram/

If you want to be receiving this study in your email, you can please send your email address to btcprogram@yahoo.com. On facebook, you can join our group and check it every week for the weekly study.

I also want to implore all the participants to go over all the studies again, if possible print them. You can freely share any of the studies.

I want to challenge you to finish reading the whole Bible this year, create more time to read and meditate the Bible this year. All you need is to read 3 chapters a day, you can read 2 chapters in Old Testament and a chapter in New Testament per day.

Be blessed in the mercies of God

Evangelist Gideon Akande
Revelation of Truth Evangelical Ministries, RTEM
Nigeria.
Tel: (+234) (0)803 924 9751, (0)705 937 3351, (0)802 578 7942.