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For every one of us that is a disciple in discipleship, there are boundaries set for us. The discipler does not ask you to come unto nothing. He has asked you to come into a space. The discipler asks you to come into an expectation, into an experience. There is something he expects that you will learn, there is something that he expects that you will do, there is something he expects that you will stop doing — there are expectations. Those expectations are some of the things that are within the boundaries of your discipleship. So, it is expected of us that we understand the need to live and thrive within the boundaries. Another word we can use is the limits of our discipleship.
Listen to Podcast: Living and Thriving within the Boundaries of Your Discipleship
Let’s look at the Book of Genesis chapter 1 from verses 1-3: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Now, if we begin from verse 1 especially, the Bible says, In the beginning; when it all started, God created the heavens and the earth. So, when you are talking about God, or you are thinking about God, please, think about the heavens and the earth. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, He didn’t create tyre, the Bible didn’t show us that. He created the heavens and the earth. So, every time you think about the heavens and the earth, think God. And every time you think about God, think about the heavens and the earth.
So, what are the heavens and the earth? They are territories, they are spaces. Do you understand? They are places where you can dwell, you can live. And beyond living, you are expected to thrive in them. God did not just create the heavens and the earth for nothing, He created them to be inhabited. There’s a place in the Bible, I think in the book of Isaiah where the Bible was talking about God created the earth and created the people to dwell in it and He gave them breath so that they can live on the earth. While they live on the earth, the ultimate goal is not that they may just live, but that they may thrive. What do we mean by thriving? When you are thriving in something it means you are excelling.
For instance, a student has been enrolled in a school. As long as you are in that school, you are a student, but it’s not enough. Some students in school are failing in their classes. So, when you thrive in your school, that means you are succeeding in your studies. So, God didn’t just create people to live on the earth, He created them to excel, to succeed. When there is something different from success; different from excellence on the earth, it means something is missed, or something is messed up. It means the ultimate plan of God is not yet visible; something has gone wrong. So, it is either we claim that the things that got wrong, got wrong with God or it got wrong with the earth or the inhabitants of the earth. And I’m sure nobody will say ‘what got wrong, got wrong with God’.
So, when we isolate God, what is left is us and the earth. So, if we can fix ourselves on the earth, we can make a success out of our lives. We can succeed; we can fulfil our destinies; we can finish whatever God asks us to start; we can really be great. Knowing that God is always faithful. On God side of the matter, nothing can ever go wrong. So, if anything should go wrong, then it must be on our side and the side of the Earth; the space that we have been created to live in. So, the Bible says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”, and we must understand that there is a purpose for those two places.
In Genesis chapter 1:26-28, let’s take it a little bit further. These are verses of the Bible that we are familiar with, but we need to connect them so that we can understand the boundaries of our discipleship. Then God said, “Let us make man in our image according to our likeness [let us make a man happen. Let us bring forth a man, let us grow a man]”. “Let us create a man,” a man has never been, let’s make him to be. The Bible says, “God is the one that calls the things that be not as though they were”. But God said “let us make man in our image.” Let us assume that I am a teacher…
I stumbled on an article online about this guy that they call Buchi (Barrister Obus; the comedian). You could know him. He was talking in an interview about how he started and became successful. But out of all the questions they asked him, there was one that stood out for me: They asked him; are you currently grooming any comedians? In his response, he said he has a comedy club, where Basketmouth and himself are grooming other comedians. That was the place that fascinated me. They asked him: Comedian Obus, are you grooming other comedians or you’re just enjoying the success? He said, no! We’re not just enjoying the success; we are grooming others.
So, what has happened? Comedian Obus has a responsibility to make other comedians after his own self, so that when people listen to those comedians, it will be as if they’re listening to Basketmouth or Obus. So, the way they laugh when either of them is talking is how they will laugh when they are talking. What has happened? A discipleship has taken place. Real discipleship is usually patterned after one’s image and likeness. You can’t be my disciple and all I will make you do is to become like another; you talk and do everything like another person, yet you are my disciple. I can’t do it. Do you understand? You can’t give what you don’t have. Take for instance, if Joy is not a doctor, but somebody suddenly said to her, “Ma, please, I just want you to make me a doctor just like you”. But Joy is like saying, “I’m not a doctor”. “Forget about that just make me a doctor.” She’s not a doctor, can she then make somebody else a doctor? The answer is no.
You can’t disciple somebody outside yourself or your capacity or your ability. When God wanted a man to be made, God even knew the implication of discipleship. He said we will make that man in our image and our likeness; no struggle. We wouldn’t go about borrowing learning materials and course curricula. Let’s borrow. What are you trying to do? What do you need? We are trying to download the materials online. Online cannot help you to become like. Online will only help you to become like online. Because where you are tapped from or where you are sourced from is going to determine your flow. Your source determines your flow. Wherever you are sourced from is going to determine the expression of your life, and this is very true in discipleship.
God was going to be the source of man and man was expected to flow in the dimension of God so that every time people see that man on the earth, they will see one that looks like God on the earth. So that as it is for the Father, they say like father like son, it will be for the son. Everything that bows to the father will bow to the son. I was watching a video on YouTube many months ago, I think this year, and it was about the son of the governor of Abia State. He came for an event, a political event, you know, a biological son of about 29 or 30 of age, very young. He was simply dressed, and as soon as he stepped out of the big expensive car, people were honoring him as if he were the governor of the State. And you know, he was just walking to people, smiling, and shaking them just like his father would do.
So, as you see the son, you give him almost the same honour you give the father. The way policemen would block people from touching the Father, they will block them from touching the son; the glory of the Father flows to the son. This is how discipleship has been ordained. The reason why it is flowing is because the son has been with the father. So, he carries the likeness and the image of the father. When you see the son, you will say, “You must be the son of Chief so, so, and so. Why is it so? It is because you look like him; your charisma, your character, and your characteristics are like his own. You talk like him; you look like him. And in fact, you are packaged like him, so we give you the same honour we give him.
Imagine us who are disciples of Jesus Christ today, do we think we carry the similar honour, the similar respect that Jesus carried and carries? Do we think the elements of this world give us the honour they give Jesus when they see us? Are we not the ones introducing ourselves to the world when in reality whenever we appear, they ought to know that there’s something strange about these? You look different from the rest. There is a popular saying that says, “The corn that is in the glass bottle has become untouchable for the chicken.” Ordinarily, when the chicken finds some seeds of corn, it’s supposed to start eating them, but because of the protection of the glass, the chicken will have a desire, but there will be no ability to consume them.
Do you think the enemies don’t have the desire to kill us or maim us, or make us useless? They have the right to that desire. It will be wrong for us to blame them for that desire, it is in their nature. No matter how much the devil tries to talk to us, giving us the impression that he’s for us; All he’s trying to do is just to make our lives better, it is because ultimately he wants to prey on us. But when we are disciples of Jesus Christ indeed, we become untouchable. As they cannot touch the Master, they cannot touch the servants, as they cannot touch the father, they cannot touch the children. But when the discipleship is messed up, even though there are boundaries that have been raised up by God, the boundaries therefore become ineffective.
Before I go on in the verses we are reading, there is a Scripture that quickly came to my mind in Job. The Bible says, “The sons of God came to present themselves to God. And Satan came among them also,” he didn’t come to worship. Because if he came for worship, he would have focused on it. He would have been worshipping God: “Holy, holy, holy, are you, Lord.” So, God said, “Have you considered my servant Job?” Look at it, God didn’t say, “have you considered my creation, Job, but “my servant Job”. Don’t forget as it is true for the master, it is true for the servant. One of the best things that can happen to you is for you to be called a servant of God, not by men, but by God Himself. “Have you considered my servant?” “This is the who one serves Me.” Those who fear me must fear My servant, that was what God was trying to say. “Have you considered my servant Job that there is none like him in all the earth?” Everybody misbehaves on the earth but he is different.
Satan who was very faithful said, “Lord God, does Job fear you for nothing, have you not made a hedge around him?” What do we call this hedge? That thing that you call a boundary is a hedge. It’s like a fence. It’s like a wall. God has made it all around your life. It looks invisible; that’s why you don’t see it. Because nobody can see the walls that God has built around your life does not mean you are accessible. The Devil said, “Have you not made a hedge all around him?” You can imagine the devil going into every aspect of his life, and everywhere he turned, he found an edge; he found a boundary; he found a wall. Do you understand? “Does Job love you or serve you for nothing?” He didn’t serve God for nothing, He indeed served God for a hedge. God made an edge, as long as God lives and the Spirit of God lives, nothing would have touched Job without God’s approval. How do we think we are different from that? If the Lord does not approve anything to happen to you, it should not happen.
But this is not going to be because you are a Christian by nomenclature; it is not by what people call you. “That man, I think he’s a Christian, he goes to church”. No, it is not by that, but it is about whether you have been made in the image and the likeness of God. Is God sitting upon your life and destiny? Is God making something happen in your life? I travelled in January to a place where I was meeting somebody that knew me about 20 years ago or so. The person knew me and left me 20 years ago, and the person was commenting beside my wife that the first time I started seeing your husband’s messages online, and I was checking them, I was not checking because I believed in what he was saying. But I was checking them to be sure if he has changed. I knew who he was. As the conversation was going on, my wife was just smiling that day because it was just coming left and right. And you know, it was like my wife was collecting a certificate after training me for this long: “you are the wife of this man, and this change has taken place in his life”.
These are people that knew me before I entered the university. Now they are seeing me physically after I’ve been married for many years, and they are watching the changes. I don’t know if you understand. So, you don’t qualify for that hedge, if God is not doing something with your life. Your life cannot be like something that has been finished and hung on the wall. Nothing can touch it; nothing can change it. Nothing can improve it. And you still expect God to be protecting it there. God has to be working on you; making you better. When you’re working on something, and anything wants to interfere you protect what you are busy on. Usually, when we are eating a precious meal, and flies want to perch on whatever we are eating, we do all we can to protect what we are eating. There is a value you are drawing from it, so, you protect it. You don’t want any harm to yourself.
When God is working on your life, it is like He is making you ready to eat. He guards you against flies, the enemies. He doesn’t allow evil to befall you. He doesn’t allow you to for sick because he knows the damage or the loss that the Kingdom will record for the days of your sickness.
Dr. Myles Munroe was talking about the kingdom, and he got to a point where he was speaking about healing. He said, “God wants you so badly on the earth that God created divine healing.” He doesn’t want you to come to Him so quickly. You are sick, get your healing; focus on your work. Everything you need, God seems to be supplying. Why is God giving us this day our daily bread? It is so that we continue all He asks us to be doing. When He said, “Occupy till I come,” whatever you need while you are occupying, He keeps supplying so that you remain there. That’s also like living within the limits or the boundaries of your discipleship.
God has called you out of darkness into the light. Now that He has called you, He has defined boundaries for you. He expects you to stay there. Whatever you need, while you are there, He supplies. The Bible says, “The children of lions hunger and thirst, but those who put their trust in God will never lack.” Those who live within the means or the boundaries that God has set for them will never lack anything good. So, let’s go back to Genesis chapter 1:26. The Bible says, “Let us make man in Our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”. Let’s go to verse 8 of Genesis 2: “The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden. And there He put the man whom He had formed”.
God planted the garden and the first thing God did was to, of course, God created the earth. Later on, after creating everything God created the man that will manage the earth. And then God put him in the garden that He had made. In Genesis chapter 2 verse 15: “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and to keep it.” This is now more specific, the purpose defined. God did not leave the man to be clueless about what he’s supposed to do in this new space; this new boundary. God said, “Tend it, keep it”. But lest you misbehave while you’re tending it and keeping it and said, “God, after all, I’m tending it and keeping it, so, I should still be called a faithful servant”. God reckon that your faithfulness is not just by doing what I asked you to do. There are certain other things that you must not do, and you must do beyond what I asked you to do.
This is why this matter is about boundaries. Boundaries do so much more than just one thing. God put him in the garden and God said, “Tend it and keep it.” That means as God had put him, God did not expect him to get out. If you carry somebody and put him in a place, is it not so that he can stay in that place? So, where God put him defined the boundary of man. God didn’t expect him to be responsible outside the garden but for the garden. The Lord God said in verse 16: “Every tree of the garden you may freely eat, but of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you shall not eat for in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.”
This is a man that God has made in His image — a general overseer. This is the pastor of a church; this is a discipler made already, and God said, “All the trees in the garden you may freely eat; this new space that I have put you, eat whatever you see there but don’t eat this one — for in the day that you eat it, you will die. On the day you eat it, you will cease to be relevant here. Is it possible for you to look at our Bibles and say after they did it, they continue to function in the garden? We must understand much more than just dying, that you could always think about, “but they didn’t die”. But did they continue there? Imagine God bringing a man out of darkness into the marvelous light and saying, “As long as you do the right thing, you will remain in the light, but once you disobey me, I throw you into darkness”. And you’re thinking, “but he’s not dead in darkness; he’s still alive”. Go and check what he’s doing in darkness.
When you think about what goes on with Nigerians today, and what goes on in certain places in Nigeria, some of us look like people living in darkness. Of course, we live in darkness, with no light. I was watching a YouTube video of a country in Europe, Switzerland. The person that did the video claimed the country has the best train system. Friend, they don’t have cities like Abuja in Nigeria. They have villages and every village is connected by train. The video showed a particular train station in the middle of nowhere. The train station was built for a café — an ordinary café. You take the train to come and use the café and then you follow the train back. In Nigeria, how many of the people in Abuja had follow the train before? This is the capital of Nigeria and the most powerful politically. The VAT that Abuja collect is bigger than many other states, it’s competing with Legos and Rivers.
But look at it we are living so to say in darkness. Some people are living better than us. When the world is talking about the per capita income of countries: what is the average income of each person living in their countries, they will give it a value. Nigeria’s per capita income is very low. In some countries in the world, what they’re expected to make per month, some of us may need to live all our lives to make it, what they will make in one month. Yet you are under the sun, are you not alive? You are alive, but the standard or quality of your living is not comparable with other people. Do you imagine the life that Adam and Eve were living in the garden before God sent them out? When God sent them out, do you imagine what God sent them out to? Do you imagine the degradation or the downgrading that took place for them? It was almost like Nebuchadnezzar that was sent into the bush. “A man in authority [a man in honour] that does not understand is like a beast that perishes.” A man that God made to be in charge of everything is now at the mercy of the things that God made.
When you see men today that are smoking harmful substances, this same thing that God said rule over it, manage it, keep it, but when people smoke them, they cannot function sensibly again; they begin to behave like animals, why? They’ve taken something that they shouldn’t take. So, this is the point, there was a life Adam and Eve were living, God said, to keep this life, these are the instructions. The Word of the Lord that builds faith came to them, and said, “Don’t do this; always do this. As long as you do this, the life of God will be sustained in you”. Let’s jump to Genesis chapter 3, lo and behold Genesis chapter 3 verse 1 started: “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
God says it, I believe it and that settles it. A matter that has been settled, should it be unsettled by any other person? When God said, “When you get to 40, this is how your life must be”. But you get to 40, and somebody came and said, “I am your spiritual father (or spiritual mother) don’t do it, do something else,” then you now have the decision to make, should I obey God who has spoken to me or obey this man who is speaking in the name of God? By the way, do you recognize that the serpent was older than man? All living creatures were created before man was made. So, these creatures had contact with God. They had been with God before man came. They can be claiming some authority, don’t you see how the Bible talks about the dragon? Do you see the dragon behaving like somebody that doesn’t know God? The demons believe, and they tremble. They believe, but they don’t work with the things they believe. They believe God is this, but they were behaving differently.
The serpent was like a spiritual father. There was a time Jesus was saying, “Do not call any man a father,” at best people are just your teachers.” Don’t call any man on earth your father because you have only one Father and that is God. Every other person is your teacher. Sometimes, Apostle Paul, when he wants to talk, will say he’s a spiritual father to Timothy like he will call him a spiritual son. But Jesus said, “Don’t call any man your father”. What has led to the issue of spiritual father or mother is ‘I was there before you, I was the one that guided you. I showed you this”. What was the serpent trying to do? We’ve been here; we know God. Just meditate on the characteristics of the serpent. It said, “Has God indeed said” it doesn’t look very annoying. But the second thing is annoying. He said, “You will not surely die” does it not mean as if God is lying, “for God knows.” The man that said you will not die for God knows is trying to claim that he knows God more than you. So, you should beware of spiritual fathers. Those who know God more than you, beware.
That somebody is a spiritual father or a leader over your life, beware because such a person can mislead you. The visions of God in your life cannot be amended. They are not like the constitutions of nations that can be amended like President Buhari Amended the 1999 Constitution. Do you think what God said to Jesus before he departed from heaven and came to the earth, do you think Jesus was able to change them on the earth? The Bible says Jesus went to pray three times, and he said, “Father, could you take this cup way, but” I’ve said these things, but you’re not doing it. You know, we must be very discerning. You came to pray one prayer today, but God didn’t answer you. You pray the same Prayer tomorrow; God didn’t answer you. Tomorrow, when you come back again, start asking another question. “God, since you have not answered this question, it looks like I’m asking a foolish question. Lord, what is the question that I should ask?”
God is not deaf, and He’s not dumb. If he’s not talking, maybe He has spoken in the past. Jesus said, “Lord, let this cup pass away from me” it was a request; a desire. God had told Him before He left heaven; His Will. He came to the earth because He was in love with mankind. He wanted to love them more. He wanted to shepherd them more and teach them more. “So, Lord, can You allow this cup to pass over me, but nevertheless…” Please, if God did not change His will for Jesus, will He change it for you? So, no matter what people tell you; ‘the way I’m perceiving you now, it looks as if God has updated His plan for your life. This is the new update’. It does not happen. God does not update the agenda, what God has determined for your life before you were born, that’s where God stands. As far as God is concerned, that is neither January, February, May, nor June. There is no Saturday or Sunday, before God everything is plain.
It is the man that grows, God is the ancient of days. He doesn’t get older; He doesn’t have memory loss. It is not as if He told you to go and do this, then suddenly when you started going, He forgot why He sent you, no! He remembers, He is the God of knowledge. He is such a God of knowledge that He judges every action of people, why are you doing this? Friend, what God has said you must do, even though it will take you 60 years to do it; God is waiting and asking, have you done it? God does not change his plan. Don’t allow anybody to update the vision of God in your life. “Let God be true and every man a liar.”
The serpent was like a spiritual father or leader. The Bible says, “God released His breath into the formed body of man”. Some of us have preached messages that God just released the animals and that it was the only man that God formed, for other creatures, God didn’t form them, they appeared after God spoke. If we read Genesis chapters 2 and 3, we will see how the Bible says, “God formed them,” the way God formed you and me. That’s why when you look at your body, and the body of other living creatures, there are so many things that resemble. The way God formed you; God formed them. As you have spirits, they have spirits too. So, don’t look at the serpent as a serpent. He was a spiritual being. And he had been before man came. You can call the serpent an elder.
This is it, those you call elders, your disciplers, and teachers, don’t allow their words to contradict what God has told you. Don’t subject the visions of God for your life to their experimentation or analysis. “Sir, this is what God told me, tell me yours.” “Let God be true and every man a liar, has God indeed said.” We would have been fine if that question did not come. But how many of us hear this question daily? Do you think it was just Eve, the questions come to us too. Every time somebody that thinks he knows better than you come to ask you, “has God indeed told you?” For instance, they notice that you don’t use a head tie, and then they now say, “why don’t you use a head tie, any issue?” it is well, but does it have any issue to do with your spiritual life?” “You know, our church we don’t normally do that.”
“What’s there, has God said, nobody should use head tie?” That’s where it starts. The things you think you believe in, people start coming to you and say, “Has God indeed said,” questioning what you’ve heard. So, you must be careful, the questions did not just come to Eve, it is coming to us too. Daily, we are confronted. And when we make a decision, we do something else different from what God expects us to do, what we have done are we have moved outside the sphere, outside the boundaries of our discipleship.
The moment Adam and Eve did what God did not ask them to do, God came down as usual. I got to a point in my meditation, I realized God was always in the garden. The Bible didn’t say God came down, but “they heard the voice of the Lord walking,” I don’t know why they didn’t hear it before. Don’t forget, we started by saying God created the heavens and the earth. So, God does not give it to you to judge whether He was on earth or in heaven, He can be wherever. As soon as they did what God asked them not to do, God sent them out of the garden. It means there is something beyond the flowers and water in the garden. The presence of God was palpable there. That was like the house of God. The moment they did what God asked them not to do, they could no longer remain; ruling the house of God.
It is like a pastor who is also a disciple of Christ, who has his instruction from God. These are the things you must never do as a disciple of Christ, but he does them in secret, thinking that he is going to remain the pastor over the people of God. If the people don’t know God will send you out of the garden. So, the instructions that God gives us; the words that God sends to us, form our boundaries.
In Proverbs, king Solomon was advising the people, “Don’t tamper with the ancient landmark.” You cannot adjust it. Your neighbor went to sleep, but before you come back, the fence had shifted. Imagine, how many of us can cope like that? When you sleep and wake up, you want the boundaries to be maintained. And it will be unfair of you to also adjust boundaries that are not physically visible. Is there an agreement that this is where you must stop, don’t go beyond it! If physical boundaries can be that important, how much more are your spiritual boundaries? It defines your space. It defines your passion. It defines your focus. Don’t focus elsewhere. Don’t do other things. The place where God wants to grow you, that’s where God wants to use you.
If you mess around with the instructions of your discipleship, God will send you out. And it is in that sending out that we always struggle. Some people will say “God is not wicked now.” What is it that we can do that God can never forgive. Ask yourself, did God forgive Adam and Eve? Think about it.
