THE REALITY OF THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT

CALL TO WORSHIP

CALL TO WORSHIP

I close this book with the theme “Call to Worship” which reveals the reality of all we are and the reality of our identity, to connect us back to the tree of life. We did not miss it in ASCAT’s love, we only travelled far…. So we are returning to the heart of worship, where it is all about Him, because there no us without Him, we only exist in Him.

A call to worship is a call to no excuses. We are returning to the heart of worship, where we have no excuses like Adam, but to correct Adam’s error, as we say sorry to the Lord for Adam’s sake who disobeyed by eating the forbidden fruit. Worship brings us to a point of totally surrendering our all to the Lord who takes all our sins and gave us His grace. In the heart of worship, we see our emptiness, we see our filthiness and void in the beauty of His holiness and when He robs on us, we are transformed and renewed and polished by grace which covers all of our filth and leaves us with the only option of falling in reverence awe. Oh! I see! Now I understand what the 24 elders and the heavenly host are enjoying in the presence of our Lord. If I will miss anything, no! It cannot be heaven, heaven I must be there.

What a humble ASCAT, who can reduce Himself to become small as man, to have man become great and magnificent as Him in Him as man abides in Him. This is the ASCAT we serve, who desires nothing but our heartfelt worship. And to have this experience with us, He often comes down to commune with man. What He feeds on and lives on is just worship and praises, and no one gives Him, except those whom he had redeemed by his very act of grace through the shading of His blood, to cancel the verdict of eternal condemnation passed as a result of sin (of which its wages is death) from the one who lost the opportunity to enjoy the all of ASCAT. He came to reconcile and connect us back to ASCAT. What a loving Father! They left His best to rescue us and bring us rest from the bondage of sin and death and brought us eternal victory in Him who is without sin but became sin so that we can be declared righteous in Him.

We will behold Him as He is, much more real than we are real to ourselves when we truly worship Him. The essence of our being, seen as He is so that our faith will now rest in peace in Him because we will no longer hope for since what we hope for is very much with us, not just with us, but in us and we can see and feel Him in the literal sense, not in abstraction. Oh! How I wish, you can just connect to this reality. I can feel it! It is real!! ASCAT is very real!!! His presence is truly heaven and knowing and accepting ASCAT-man is simply the end of the world. The end of our passion and dreams, hunger to fulfil great things, should rest in this Jesus’ statement when His disciples urged Him in John 4: 31 to eat. His response in verse 32 is “I have food to eat which you do not know. And He further made it crystal clear, that His food is to do the will of Him who sent Him and to finish His work. What is the implication of food? Food satisfies our hunger and makes us filled in the literal sense, but spiritually as Christians, our food should also be what Jesus has mentioned above, for in that alone we can be satisfied and find fulfilment, not in our white-collar jobs or gigantic business empires.

Please, Brethren, the time is now! Maybe you should read this again….

John 4: 35, 36

Do you not say, there are still four months, and then comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, living up to your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest! And he who reaps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

The Reality of a desperate Heart

The woman of Samaria came to draw water as recorded in John 4: 7, this is symbolic to us Christians. What she came to do was to look for what to quench her thirst, which water is, but she has an inward desire we will get to find out as we advance in bringing out the reality of this woman’s encounter with ASCAT-man. In our time, the only thing that can quench our thirst is the inspiration that connects us to the revelation of true worship. The thirst quencher is simply the object of our worship from which the inspiration (living water) to connecting the revelation that flows from and that is, in this, is life. There is true life, in true worship and what the first Adam lost was life and what the last Adam brought was life (John 1: 4) and it became a gift, all in ASCAT’s love. And to enjoy the gift, communion is the medium and we commune and have fellowship with ASCAT through worship.

Let me try to tap into the revelation of the Samaritan woman’s encounter with Jesus. Jesus asked the woman to give Him a drink. Yes! The woman came to fetch water from the well, my question is, if she finally gets the water, what will the water do for her? It will cool and quench her thirst when she uses it to bathe and drink and also wash dirty from her body and also like her clothes. We all know the importance of water in our lives and the place of water cannot be overemphasized. But, invariably, Jesus was asking the woman to give Him her pride (pride of life), what she so desired. Until we give up our pride, we cannot truly worship to connect ASCAT.

The woman identified herself and made a clear demarcation, been amazed why Jesus who was a Jew having to deal with a Samaria. This is not an act of hypocrisy but an act of humility which is an attitude of a true worshiper. Unlike some of us, who would claim to be who and what we are not, presenting ourselves worthy when all our righteousness is just but a filthy rag before ASCAT. Because of her humility… heaven started speaking, stirred up to release grace and this was made clear in Jesus’ response in the verse 10, Jesus told the woman, “If you knew the gift of ASCAT”. The word “knew” reveals intimacy (Gen. 4: 1) which brings to revelation the alert call to worship., and the discussions went on, and tend toward the reality to correct a misconception initiated by religion. I know you are anxious to know the misconception, even as I hear your heart asking the question, which misconception?

(Similes) This Scripture patterning the Samaritan woman is blowing off my mind, so full of revelation. The woman says in verse 11, “Sir, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then do you get that living water? What a question! Because this question will tend to reveal that the woman, already knows Jesus is not referring to the literal water. The word “deep” quickens my spirit to instantly scan through the Word and I caught this in the realm of the spirit and hear clearly in an ascent loud and clear, “deep waters”, “over the face of the deep”, and “deep things of the spirit” and I know I was already familiar with the Scripture that says, “The purpose of a man’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out” (Prov. 20: 5) This implies, the woman has a purpose and she is trying to connect, even as she taps into the revelation of true worship where everything will be made clear, even as revealed through the Word who became flesh Himself. Hallelujah!

And the Bible also says in Proverbs 20: 27, “The human spirit is the lamp of the Lord that sheds light on one’s inmost being” which implies the woman’s spirit was searching to know what it truly means to worship ASCAT. She questions her inner crisis “Are you greater than our father Jacob who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as well as his sons and his livestock?” (John 4: 12). The answer to this question will reveal, what demarcates instituted doctrines that have an iota of self (ASCAT’s greatest enemy) from the very revelation knowledge of ASCAT’s Word. Jacob dug the well and the knowledge they had then about worship was to worship on the mountain, but Jesus changed their thought lines when he answered by saying, “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him, will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him, will become in him a fountain of water, springing up into everlasting life.” (John 4:13, 14) reveals the heart of worship. The woman did ask to understand what Jesus meant, requested Jesus to give her the water, this reveals a desperate heart. As a result of her desperation, she got connected to the revelation of true worship. And in her desperation, Jesus having known had to clear the ground and prepare her heart to enter into the heart of worship, and this was done by asking her to go call her husband. The woman’s response reveals that she was truthful and confess based on the reality of her heart, and that resulted in the revelation of what true worship should be, not just a routine, designed to follow a particular set pattern. The knowledge was that Jerusalem is the place where one ought to worship, but Jesus reprograms her though with the revelation reality as revealed in the verse 21 which states, “Woman believes Me, the hour is coming, when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, worship the Father”.

Worship cannot be true when you don’t know what you worship. Knowing here, as I have earlier emphasized involves sweet intimacy with ASCAT. This woman became the true worshiper, encountering ASCAT-man and face to face she was with what she had ever long for.

True worship brings you face to face with your dream come true so that you no longer wait in expectation, you only stay in jubilation.

Worship brings us face to face with ASCAT when our heart is humble, desperate, truthful, contrite and broken, repentant, and to a place of knowledge of the Word such that, we can see Him clearly as he is. (John 1: 14; and we behold His glory)

Thank you Jesus for this revelation! This cannot be me, it can only be ASCAT.

I Patrick Egah, Igoche Ikwue, am most privileged to enjoy ASCAT’s grace, because I have not the privilege to grow under a Christian home or the tutorage of a mentor, but He still chose me and mentored me… and I am still learning Him. I surrender my all to you Jesus my Lord and saviour who gave my life meaning and became my reason for living.

We are returning to the heart of worship, a place of no excuses, a place of facing the task ahead to reveal Christ even as pointed out by ASCAT, with His question to Adam, “Where are you?” having its true revelation in the acronym, WAY (i.e. picking out the first letter from the words that makes up the question, “where are you?)” of which Jesus is the WAY (John 14:6) and this will help correct Adam’s error because it is an act of humility recognizing our inability to salvage the situation of the fall of man by becoming obedient to the will of ASCAT which is ASCAT original intention, that Adam as a result of self missed the opportunity.