P. Boye Motivations

My brother and friend Ebun Adeyemo wrote this beautiful and life changing write-up.. today, he celebrates His birthday. Ebun, I celebrate you and I thank you for sharing such a lovely message with us. He messaged me last year offering to help out , he’s wrote this for a while now, however I saved it up till today just so I celebrate him alongside thanking him. God bless you sir , age with grace brother.

Read , meditate and be blessed.

The greatest story ever told that’s hardly ever told. The details of this story are literally too good to be true. A perfect being, forfeiting perfection to lay down his life for the entire human race. To do that, such a person must either be crazy beyond redemption, or so deep in a love that transcends comprehension, a perfect love. I guess it’s true what they say; that the love he has for the human race is so great, it’s as high as the heavens-an endless vacuum of space filled with stars and planets-are above the earth (Psalm 103:11). But who is this ‘him’? Who is this perfect being?

Let’s find out.

It is believed that “God is love” and in order to satisfy the burden of being able to express His love, he created humans. He created us in his image, perfect as he is (Genesis 1:26) and breathed his life force into us. As a child inherits traits from his father, so we inherited the traits of God, the ability to do all that he can. However, what was perhaps the most interesting thing about this creation process was that God gave humans the freedom of will because he as God believed that “there is no fear in perfect love” (NIV, 1John 4:18), therefore freedom abounds. But with this freedom, the first man betrayed God and did the one thing he warned him against. He had one job: do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But because of selfishness and greed, man succumbed to his lustful desire for God’s job and ate it.

This single act of disobedience messed up God’s perfect design, stripped us of our godly nature and left us with a sinful one. In an instant, our spiritual bond with the Father was severed and our spirits died. This pushed man far away from God, because He can’t behold sin. Once again, the law of inheritance came to play and all the descendants of the first man inherited the sinful nature. This nature spread through our race’s genome and became an integral part of us. Death followed almost immediately as part of the “sinful nature package” (Romans 6:23a). Over the years, mankind tried and tried to get back into that relationship we once had with God, all to no avail simply because of that accursed nature. There was nothing we could do to redeem ourselves from the mess we were in, because even our good works were extensions of our selfishness. We couldn’t get our nature back with good works and sacrificing animals, no. This was God’s verdict “You can’t redeem yourselves with your works, so stop trying. Your sacrifice has to be perfect, or your payment isn’t permanent. So if and when you find a perfect person, get that person to willingly lay down their life for you”.

But since the only person that could meet God’s standard is God, God sent himself as Jesus to be the perfect, permanent payment. Of all the different expressions of love, not every kind of love is infinite and perfect. The only type of love that is able to last for eternity is the Agape kind of love; the kind of love God has for mankind. It is because of this love he was willing to do whatever it took to bring us back to Him. He gave up his perfection for us, to bring us back to our perfect godly nature (John 3:16). Upon giving up His perfection, he took our sins and became it’s embodiment (2 Corinthians 5:21). He died with our sins on him and took it to the grave as our representative. The God who created us had died in our place. (Romans 6:4-6).

This death brought about an exchange. He freed us from the accursed sinful nature and gave us His godly nature once again (Romans 6:7-10). We have become new creations, we have power over everything again! The life force of this perfect sacrifice was given to us, we are made perfect in Him (Hebrews 13:20-21). Jesus, the perfect being, the ‘him’ we’ve been trying to figure out laid down his life for us so we could inherit it, as was the plan all along. Looking through the bible, virtually all references made to this man also make reference to life. Some of these references are: John 1:1-5, John 14:6, John 6:40, 1 John 5:11-13, Romans 6:23b. Seems like John really emphasised this fact. We have our life back because Jesus Christ chose to die for us!

But wait, does that mean that Jesus is dead? No! No, it doesn’t. He’s alive!!

“That He was buried, that He arose on the third day as the Scriptures foretold, [Psalm 16:9, 10.]”
1 Corinthians 15:4 AMPC

Jesus, the perfect being robbed the grave. He took our sins to hell and left them there when he rose again. So, because of one man, our sins are dead and we are dead to the sinful nature. We aren’t condemned to die anymore simply because we are in him (Romans 8:1). That’s pretty badass if you ask me.

One more thing. Because God created us with freewill, the life he gave to us through his death isn’t automatically endowed on us. We have to choose to accept it, just as the first man chose to reject it. God is saying, “I know you can’t fix yourselves, so I’ve come to fix your mess for you. You can have the life your ancestor once had, we can go back to the good times of perfection. All you have to do is believe in me.”

“Because if you acknowledge and confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and in your heart believe (adhere to, trust in, and rely on the truth) that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Romans 10:9 AMPC

This is the core of our preaching. Say the welcoming word to God—“Jesus is my Master”—embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
Romans 10:9 – 10 MSG

“In Jesus coming to the earth, dying and resurrecting from the grave, God is creating a way for us to be restored, for us to heal from our brokenness, for us to find our true identity in Christ” – Jackie Hill-Perry.

“When you understand what Jesus did for you on the cross, in that moment, you understand the ultimate expression of love. The message of the gospel isn’t an ‘ultimatum to submit to a higher power or face eternal damnation’. That was never the message, and it will never be. Rather, it’s an ‘invitation to life, the life found in Christ. The life that was paid for with the ultimate sacrifice’. Anything contrary is a scam.” – Ebun Adeyemo.

This is the gospel, the good news.

Ebun Adeyemo.

17th March , 2018.

Photograph by Jared Kreiss (@ j_kreiss) on IG.