Infinite Fellowship Ministries

Forget The Past! It’s A New Day: Sermon By Rev. Loice Achola

Therefore, while the promise of entering His rest still holds and is offered [today], let us be afraid[to distrust it], lest any of you should think he has come too late and has come short of [reaching] it. For indeed we have had the glad tidings [Gospel of God] proclaimed to us just as truly as they [the Israelites of old did when the good news of deliverance from bondage came to them]; but the message they heard did not benefit them, because it was not mixed with faith (with the leaning of the entire personality on God in absolute trust and confidence in His power, wisdom, and goodness) by those who heard it; neither were they united in faith with the ones [Joshua and Caleb] who heard (did believe). For we who have believed (adhered to and trusted in and relied on God) do enter that rest, in accordance with His declaration that those [who did not believe] should not enter when He said, As I swore in My wrath, They shall not enter My rest; and this He said although [His] works had been completed and prepared [and waiting for all who would believe] from the foundation of the world. 

Hebrews 4:1-3 (AMP)

God’s promises are Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus. He means whatever He says. Whatever He has promised, He will bring it to pass be it in Infemi or in our individuals lives. God has the ability to accomplish what He said without our help.

God does not come to us because of how we act; because of how strong our wills are or what we are able to do. We do very often try to help God bring His Word over lives come to pass. That is what Sara did.

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had an Egyptian maid whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, See here, the Lord has restrained me from bearing [children]. I am asking you to have intercourse with my maid; it may be that I can obtain children by her. And Abram listened to and heeded what Sarai said.

Genesis 16:2 (AMP)

We often come before God on the basis of our timelines. We work with God on the basis of our time yet we do not understand that God is timeless. Time is a cage for humanity. Humanity cannot understand beyond where they have not been. Though it is said that your actions in the past will define your actions in the future, this is not true for a believer of Jesus Christ.

Whether you are going to be late in getting into the presence of God or not is dependent on what you decide to do about it. If you choose to believe that God’s power is not enough to get out of that place of ‘lateness’, out of that mindset, the you will not leave that place.

We cannot keep up with the Spirit of God as human beings. The Word of God refers to Him as the Wind of the Spirit. Our work as human beings is to follow the leading of Spirit of God. And that is why God has given the Holy Spirit to us as an inheritance so that we can be able to be in the place where He is because the Spirit of God lives in us.

If we live by the [Holy] Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. [If by the Holy Spirit we have our life in God, let us go forward walking in line, our conduct controlled by the Spirit.] 

Galatians 5:25 (AMP)

And your ears will hear a word behind you, saying, This is the way; walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left. 

Isaiah 30:21 (AMP) 

Because we have the Spirit of God in our lives, we know that we can get whatever we pray for, as long as it is in accordance with God’s will.

Yet to us God has unveiled and revealed them by and through His Spirit, for the [Holy] Spirit searches diligently, exploring and examining everything, even sounding the profound and bottomless things of God [the divine counsels and things hidden and beyond man’s scrutiny]. For what person perceives (knows and understands) what passes through a man’s thoughts except the man’s own spirit within him? Just so no one discerns (comes to know and comprehend) the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 

1 Corinthians 2:10-11 (AMP)

[Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you [energizing and creating in you the power and desire], both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.

 Philippians 2:13 (AMP)

And this is the confidence (the assurance, the privilege of boldness) which we have in Him: [we are sure] that if we ask anything (make any request) according to His will (in agreement with His own plan), He listens to and hears us. And if (since) we [positively] know that He listens to us in whatever we ask, we also know [with settled and absolute knowledge] that we have [granted us as our present possessions] the requests made of Him. 

1 John 5:14-15 (AMP)

The Good News is being restored back to God Himself.

The Good News is that we are being restored to who we were in God in eternity.

The Good News is being told who you are and walking in it.

The Good News is that you can be able to speak to people from the place of your identity. The place of who you are in God.

The Good News is also expression of the Kingdom of God on the Earth.

Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

 Matthew 6:10 (AMP)

The Good News is also knowing that all things work together for good, for those who are called according to the purpose of God.

We are assured and know that God being a partner in their labor] all things work together and are [fitting into a plan] for good to and for those who love God and are called according to [His] design and purpose.

 Romans 8:28 (AMP)

The Good News is also knowing that we are not of the world but of the Kingdom of God – the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth is to make manifest the will of God as sons of God.

I have given and delivered to them Your word (message) and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world [do not belong to the world], just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that You will take them out of the world, but that You will keep and protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world (worldly, belonging to the world), [just] as I am not of the world. Sanctify them [purify, consecrate, separate them for Yourself, make them holy] by the Truth; Your Word is Truth. Just as You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And so for their sake and on their behalf I sanctify (dedicate, consecrate) Myself, that they also may be sanctified (dedicated, consecrated, made holy) in the Truth. 

John 17:14-19 (AMP)

For [even the whole] creation (all nature) waits expectantly and longs earnestly for God’s sons to be made known [waits for the revealing, the disclosing of their sonship]. For the creation (nature) was subjected to frailty (to futility, condemned to frustration), not because of some intentional fault on its part, but by the will of Him Who so subjected it—[yet] with the hope. That nature (creation) itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and corruption [and gain an entrance] into the glorious freedom of God’s children. We know that the whole creation [of irrational creatures] has been moaning together in the pains of labor until now. 

Romans 8:19-22 (AMP)

God wants us to believe in His Truth, in His Word. To believe that what He says is what is true.

Believers are in the world but we are not of it. God wants us to live unconstrained by time. He wants us to live in Eternity away from time. From Eternity into time. God does not want you to be limited to time. He wants your mind to be open to Him.

Whatever God called has you does not fade because things did not work out the way you wanted them to.

Whatever God called has you does not fade because time has gone by.

What God is concerned about is our perceptions. He is very concerned about what we believe. God does nothing in your life without your consent. God does nothing on the earth without using man.

The Word of God is not bound by time.

The Word of God is true throughout. It does not get old. The Word of God does not stop being relevant because you were not there when it was spoken or written.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. 

Isaiah 40:8 (AMP)

God wants us to be united with His Word, when He speaks we take it and mix it with faith. The children of Israel did not enter the Promised Land because they did not mix God’s Word with faith, because of their wrong perceptions of themselves and of God and of the other nations around them.

God wants us to enter rest.

He gave His Son – Who is now seated at the right hand of the Father.

We are co-rulers and co-heirs with Christ.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing sonship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father! The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God. And if we are [His] children, then we are [His] heirs also: heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ [sharing His inheritance with Him]; only we must share His suffering if we are to share His glory. 

Romans 8:14-17 (AMP)

Jesus did not die so as to defeat the devil. The devil has already been judged. God wanted human to understand that even though we were in a place where we were without strength, in separation from Him, He died so that we would have the power, the strength to overcome the carnal man.

Christ has conquered the carnal man. Alive to God and dead to sin.

For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue). By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature. 

1 Peter 1:3-4 (AMP)

You cannot have the pleasure of reigning with Christ in the Heavenly Places when you are bound in time.

The things that you are passing through and will pass through have been ordained by God to enable you to perceive eternity.

Before the foundations of the world, God had already died. God did not save humanity at Calvary. Calvary was only a culmination. Calvary was for our benefit so that we would know, see and understand what He had already done for us before the foundations of the Earth had been put into place.

God has set up today, He has ordained today so that you may be able to enter rest, so that you may be able to enter into the day called ‘today’.

God wants us to understand there are levels of rest. The rest of yesterday will not suffice for today. When you hear God’s Word, His voice today, do not harden your heart.

God was displeased with the Israelites not because of their actions, but because of the state of their hearts. The state of their hearts was the problem. And that is why they did not access/enter into God’s rest.

God has setup today so that we do not rely on our own strength or human wisdom, but that we learn to hear Him and to depend on Him for every provision, for every task and circumstance. Whatever God has spoken to you is your rest; that is where your rest will come from.

Everything there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven. 

Ecclesiastes 3:1 (AMP)

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds [a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy], yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (AMP)

Once you touch base with the eternity locked up in that Word, that is your rest. Then you’ll be able to handle whatever the world chooses to throw at you.

Your rest comes from what God has spoken to you and mixing it with faith to access your inheritance.

The Word that God sent to you has a nature that will enable you to be that which God has said.

After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram, I am your Shield, your abundant compensation, and your reward shall be exceedingly great. And Abram said, Lord God, what can You give me, since I am going on [from this world] childless and he who shall be the owner and heir of my house is this [steward] Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram continued, Look, You have given me no child; and [a servant] born in my house is my heir. 

Genesis 15:1-3 (AMP) 

Abraham was at a place of crisis thinking that Eliezer would be his heir. He was thinking in time; in his realm. But God challenged that thought process.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, This man shall not be your heir, but he who shall come from your own body shall be your heir. And He brought him outside [his tent into the starlight] and said, Look now toward the heavens and count the stars—if you are able to number them. Then He said to him, So shall your descendants be. And he [Abram] believed in (trusted in, relied on, remained steadfast to) the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness (right standing with God). And He said to him, I am the [same] Lord, Who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldees to give you this land as an inheritance. But he [Abram] said, Lord God, by what shall I know that I shall inherit it? And He said to him, Bring to Me a heifer three years old, a she-goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he brought Him all these and cut them down the middle [into halves] and laid each half opposite the other; but the birds he did not divide. And when the birds of prey swooped down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

 Genesis 15:4-11 (AMP)

God challenged Abraham’s view in light of getting a son; an heir. God spoke what was in eternity. God showed Abraham that which was in Eternity and his responsibility to take the Word by faith.

It takes the eyes of faith to transcend from the place of limitation to the place of eternity.

And He brought him outside [his tent into the starlight] and said, Look now toward the heavens and count the stars—if you are able to number them. Then He said to him, So shall your descendants be. And he [Abram] believed in (trusted in, relied on, remained steadfast to) the Lord, and He counted it to him as righteousness (right standing with God). 

Genesis 15:6 (AMP)

The birds of the air wanted to interfere with Abraham’s sacrifice and he had to fight them off. When we get a Word ‘the birds of the air’ (distractions) come to steal the Word.

The devil will try to steal that Word that God has given to you, but you must chase him off.

And when the birds of prey swooped down upon the carcasses, Abram drove them away.

Genesis 15:11 (AMP)

God made a covenant with Abraham that has lasted till now and will continue to last beyond us. That covenant points to the kind of relationship that He would like to have with you and because of that covenant relationship, God will show us where He wants us to be.

Today is a day to receive new mercies.

God says that today is the day to make everything right.

Today is the time to hear His voice in all that you are going through. God has an answer each day when we pray.

Today is also the day to meditate upon that which He has spoken to you. Because when you meditate upon it it will help you to focus on Eternity.

Today is also the day to keep covenant with Him. A covenant relationship is one where God reveals Himself to you. And the covenant that you are making with God now will outlive you. And because of this covenant, it will allow your children to walk in the same thing.

Today is an environment that is forged in eternity. God will actually bring eternity to you today.

Today is the day that God has ordained for you to meet with Christ.

Today signifies that God has an unchanging nature. It means that He is unchanging. That however you are and become, He is unchanging and you can access Him and because He is unchanging, it means that you need not be afraid that you will not be able to access Him. And therefore we need to stop living in time, but live in Eternity.

Let us forget the past. We are in the world but we are not of it.

Let us be in that place of understanding that all that God has spoken over us will come to pass as long as we are living in His today.

For you to be able to understand rest, you need to look at where it was first mentioned in the Bible.

And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

Genesis 2:2 (AMP)

There is no way that you are going to live in rest, if you do not know why you were created i.e. your purpose.

God’s prophetic mountain is a place of rest. If you do not access your inheritance you will never know rest.

Rest is the culmination of purpose. #SELAH