FULFILLING ALL
RIGHTEOUSNESS
Matthew 3:15, "But Jesus answered and
said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for
thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all
righteousness.” Then he allowed Him." To fulfill all righteousness is not just
to do something for the sake of doing it
for nothing sake. To fulfill all
righteousness is to follow the scriptures
accordingly, even when it seems not
necessary or when it looks difficult. Fulfilling all righteousness is
following scriptures to the last letter as
written in the Bible for the fulfillment
of the righteous promises of the
scriptures to come to pass. We must follow the scripture to the end
before we can see the end-result of the
scripture. It's when we fulfill ALL
scriptural righteousness that the
scriptural promises will come to pass in
our lives and ministries. When we obey or fulfill half righteousness of the
scriptures, when we interpret the
scripture to suite our personal
conveniences, or when we obey some
parts of the scriptures and see the other
parts as unnecessary, we cannot have the fullness and fulfillment of the
righteous promises of God. Jesus Christ went to John the Baptist
for water baptism, but John saw it as
quite unnecessary for Jesus Christ to be
baptized by him, in fact he said he
ought to come to Jesus for baptism. But
then Jesus Christ told him it was necessary to fulfill all righteousness.
And after Jesus was baptized by John,
as He came up from the water, behold,
the heavens were opened to Him, and He
saw the Spirit of God descending like a
dove and alighting upon Him. And suddenly a voice came from heaven,
saying, "This is My beloved Son, in
whom I am well pleased." Matthew
3:16, 17. Three things happened after Jesus
fulfilled all righteousness:
(1) HEAVENS OPENED. Heavens,
not just a single heaven, all heavens
were opened on Jesus. Until we fulfill
all righteousness of the scriptures, we can not experience the opened heavens of
God's blessings in our lives and
ministries. What we are experiencing
now is minor compared to when
"heavens" opens. The fullness of all
blessings of heavens hinges on our fulfilling all righteousness. When we
desire opened heaven of God's
outpouring Spirit, anointing, blessings
and miracles in our lives, families, and
ministries, we must first fulfill all
righteousness. Half-done obedience or half-way obedience cannot reach heaven
to open. (2) SPIRIT FALLING. God has
promised the outpouring of His Spirit
upon us, but before this scripture can be
fulfilled, we must first fulfill all
righteousness of the scriptures - by
following the will of God, obeying the Word of God and doing things in
the way of God. Failure to fulfill all
will falter the existing blessings and
frustrate the expecting promises of the
scriptures. The fulfillment of God's
promises is not just by asking, praying or fasting; it is by fulfilling all
righteousness of God. (3) GOD'S APPROVAL: To experience
the blessing of God in our lives is not
as important as experiencing the Spirit
of God present and working in our lives
and ministries; and to experience the
move and miracles of Holy Spirit in our lives and ministries is not as important
as receiving God's approval at the end
of our lives on earth. It's possible to get
God's blessings of opened heavens, it is
possible to see the move and miracle of
God's Spirit, and at the end gains no entrance into heaven. Jesus Christ said, "Many will say to
Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we
not prophesied in Your name, cast out
demons in Your name, and done many
wonders in Your name?’ 23 And then I
will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice
lawlessness!’" Matthew 7:22,23. These
Christians and ministers who were
disapproved by Jesus Christ experienced
opened heaven of blessings in their
lifetimes, they also experienced the great move and miracles of God's Spirit
to the point of doing "many wonders",
but they failed to fulfill all the
righteousness of God in their lives and
ministries, they failed to follow the
scriptures to the letter, they gave their personal interpretations to the scriptures
for their own conveniences. At the end,
they failed to receive God's approval,
and so they were doomed forever to hell
despite all the blessings and anointing
they had. Jesus Christ received God's approval,
"This is My beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased" because He fulfilled all
righteousness. What if Jesus did not go
to John the Baptist for water baptism?
What if Jesus went to John just to visit without fulfilling all righteousness
for water baptism? What if Jesus had
heeded the suggestion of John the
Baptism not to be baptized? He would
not have seen heaven opened, then, He
would not have received the Spirit falling, and He would not have
received God's approval. PERSONAL LIFE
Christianity has become so clumsy with
different ideologies and doctrines that
fulfilling all scriptural righteousness
is not unnecessary, or it’s so tedious. In
our personal Christian living, and in our different denominations, we tend to do
half righteousness and fill the rest
with human ideology or interpretation
of the elders. We indulge in several
worldliness and unfaithfulness,
falling short to fulfill all righteousness. We involve in "it doesn't
matter" sins, selfishness and
permissiveness, and we still claim to be
righteous. Little lies do not matter, little
worldliness do not matter, worldly
music, movies, magazines, TV reality shows, and makeup do not really matter
to us any longer; exposing and
expensive dress never bother us again,
bribing for contracts and falsifying
age for job do not matter as long as you
pay your tithes faithfully. Anger, envy, jealousy and gossip do
not spoil our faith again as long we
still greet one another. All these make
us fall short to fulfill all
righteousness, and they will make us
fail to get God's approval if we do not repent. When we fail to fulfill all
righteousness, then we fall short to
receive God's righteous promises of
eternal blessings. We need to go back to
old time faith of righteousness before
we can ever experience old time revival. FAMILY
In our marriages and families, starting
from courtships, do we fulfill all
righteousness to keep the bed undefiled?
We must fulfill all righteousness of
the scriptures in our homes before we can experience God's presence. Wives must
submit to their husbands irrespective of
their statures, husbands must love their
wives irrespective of their states, and
children must obey their parents in the
Lord. The Bible says what God has joined
together, let no man separate; but today,
we care for money than we care for our
marriage. The incessant separation
because of job and business without
first praying to seek God’s leading has ruined many Christian homes. Simply
because of love of money and care for
better financial life, we do not bother to
maintain the unity of marriage; many
children are wayward, many husbands
have given in to strange women, and many wives are living in grave
loneliness because of technical
separation, because of the love of money
we are running divided house. Temporal
separation because of job transfer or
business pursuit is not a sin, but it is not good and it will not go well with every
family; that is the reason family needs
to first seek God’s face for leading
before moving. But the love of money
and care of this world will not allow
contentment and unity with little. Oneness is Bible command in every
Christian home, that is, husband and
wife doing and planning
EVERYTHING together, but in a case
where husband has secret bank account,
secret project or things he cannot disclose to his wife, and the wife has
something in secret, how do you want to
unite together in prayer and prevail over
the enemy? How do you want to
experience God’s presence in your
marriage, or how will enemies not keep tormenting such Christian home when
there are covered sins and past sins
unrevealed? CHURCH
In the church today, we are fulfilling
scriptural righteousness to half and
filling the rest with our church
ordinances to suite ourselves. Doctrines - Every denomination interpret
the scriptures the way that will fit their
personal interest. The members see what
their senior Pastors and Bishops say as
final without searching the scriptures to
cross check, yes, that is like an abomination today. Tithes- We claim the payment of tithes,
we collect tithes with scriptural backing
but we fail to fulfill the purpose of
the tithes as clearly stated in the Bible.
When the Bible says, "Bring the tithes
and offerings to My storehouse, that there may be food in My house" We
bring the tithes, we collect the tithes but
we divert it for other purposes. We
claim the promises of tithes but we don't
use it for the scriptural purpose for the
collection of the tithes. The biblical purpose of tithes is for distribution of
the tithes for the benefits of the people
who pay the tithes as the early church
faithfully followed and fulfilled it.
Acts 2:45; 4:35. While the scriptural
purpose of the tithes is to build people in God's kingdom, we are busy building
ultra modern church auditoriums. The Bible purpose of the tithes and
offerings is for Food - spiritual food
for the people - for free materials;
physical food for the people - for free
food provisions, free basic healthcare,
free library and schools for the same people who paid the tithes; instead, we
are busy building multimillion church
edifice. Church’s secondary schools are
unavoidable, our church universities are
more expensive than Government schools,
and yet we pray for revival in our churches. How can there be revival of
Holy Spirit when there is no
faithfulness? We claim to have holiness
church, but how can a church that is not
faithful with money be a church of
holiness? How can we claim to run a Bible church when we can’t be faith
with usage of tithes as clearly stated in
Old Testament and clearly followed by
the New Testament church? We give several excuses of using the
tittle for administrative purposes and
others, that is nothing but extra biblical
misuse of fund; it is siphoning money
for unbiblical purposes. The early
church could also give excuses but they knew they had to fulfill all
righteousness just as it is written in the
scriptures, so that they would not fall
short at the end. No wonder we pray
and fast for revival but only to see more
reversal. When we want to collect the tithes, we claim the scriptures, but when
we want to use it, we say that is how
churches in American and Europe use the
tithes for administrative purposes. No
wonder we are not having Bible church
again, but American church; no wonder we are not seeing our signs again, no
wonder enemies are insulting and
assaulting the church, because we are not
faithful, even we money. Until we
fulfill all righteousness, until we are
faithful to all the scriptural commands to the letter, we will keep recycling. If
biblical administrative system is too old
for us in our modern world, then we are
too fragile to contain the old time
revival. Let’s go back to the old path of
fulfilling all scriptural righteousness,
no matter how old or odd it seems, so
that we can experience the old time
revival in our lives, homes, ministries
and churches. Hosea 6:1-3
Come, and let us return to the LORD;
For He has torn, but He will heal us;
He has stricken, but He will bind us
up.
2 After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up,
That we may live in His sight.
3 Let us know,
Let us pursue the knowledge of the
LORD.
His going forth is established as the morning;
He will come to us like the rain,
Like the latter and former rain to the
earth. This Bible teaching is from BTCP,
BIBLE TEACHING
CORRESPONDENCE PROGRAM.
We had 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 and join http://­ www./­
btcprogram/ As we will be sending weekly Bible
Study, if you want to be receiving it on
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