How have you been these days? Although December 25 isn`t mentioned in the Bible as the date of Jesus` birth, for Jesus Christ wasn`t actually born on this day, pale in comparison to the scene in Luke 2:8 where the fields were green as the shepherds grazed the lush fields with their flocks, in the mid fourth-century the Western church set December 25th as Christmas Day to inhibit the pagan worship of a sun god on that day in a fight akin to fighting fire with fire; this, as a result, has become widely recognized and accepted throughout Christendom as Jesus` birthday. It is the Christmas season and we welcome the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ who came incarnated in the flesh of a man and blotted away all your and my sins as well as the sin of the world about 1,900 years ago through the baptism Jesus received from John the Baptist and His death where He died hung on the Cross and in three days was resurrected from the dead giving us new eternal life. Based on the Gregorian calendar historians have set up the date system from when Jesus came into this world as denoted by BC for "Before Christ" and AD which means Anno Domini (in the year of our Lord). In like manner, Jesus Christ was born in 1 AD. But even so, for the first two centuries, the early church Christians only commemorated January 6 as the day on which Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. We can thereby see here the great significant importance placed on the baptism of Jesus. Like this, I give all my thanks to Him. Because through this righteous deed of Jesus Christ`s baptism by John the Baptist at the Jordan River your and my salvation from all our personal and future sins could be guaranteed in the gospel of the water and the Spirit. I love making friends to begin with even if it`s askew provided that it isn`t a stumbling block since I think it`s beneficial for the spreading of the gospel of the water, the blood and the Holy Spirit and it is going to be no different this weekend coupled with the fact that it is almost the Eve of Christmas. So, do not make friends with those who are to be born again as of yet. The Lord said in Psalms: ``Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners`` (Psalm 1:1). By the same token, last Christmas it was therefore near impossible for me to have learned the whole Bible up until now without studying along with the mission books of The New Life Mission written under the context of the whole Bible as a type of Bible study strategy I implored in order to grasp our Lord`s gospel of the water and the Spirit through verse-by-verse Bible study and exegesis from the sermon books in union with the church.

I read from one of the partners of The New Life Mission days ago online on who is a sinner and who is a born-again Christian explained from the perspectivity of both the Old Testament and the New Testament so to speak. You have to read the Bible carefully. Well, according to that statement a sinner in the olden days was one who was uncircumcised and a sinner today is one who doesn`t believe in the gospel of the water and the Spirit in contrast to a born-again saint that is one who believes in the spiritual salvation of the baptism and blood on the Cross of Jesus Christ. So I was entranced realizing that he was trying to make a point by dividing sinners according to the Old and New Testaments. We should read the Bible carefully. Without this dividing principle of a sinner then and a sinner now so who is a sinner? The descendants of the first man our common ancestor Adam are all sinners. A sinner therefore is a descendant of Adam who is bound to sin. Anyway that was rightly divided. It is ok without a trace of a doubt.

To cut to the chase, we are never alone but with our Great Shepherd the Christ, having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to accompany us, for we are the little shepherds, His male and female servant members and servant leaders. We receive the Holy Spirit simultaneously when we become born again. Acts 1:8 says, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." By "you shall receive power" it refers to the power of the gospel word of the water and the Spirit which is that of a dynamite (Romans 1:16). The word dynamite is derived from the Greek word "dunamis" which means power, strength or ability and doesn`t in anyways means fleshy power in order to operate in the domain of signs, wonders and miracles nowadays. This power of the gospel of Jesus` water baptism and crucifixion is in and by itself the cleansing of sin for mankind. Let`s hold fast to this grace of our redemption in this living years till our last breath with every morsel of our abilities wholeheartedly remembering the words at the same time defending all over again of the assured faith and belief in the splendors and glory to come as our inheritance in the eternal world of the Kingdom of God—the Kingdom of Heaven, that is—through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. What we are to endure as our hardships and sufferings in this passing world are but only for a while and cannot be compared with the splendid life and glory to accompany us in the New Heaven and Earth.

Dearly beloved, I am telling you, on a different scale you can see the devastation right where you are while you are home away from home caused during the recent uprising by the people inhabiting the Anglophone regions in my country. Well, what I haven`t told you is it was during this struggle by the Anglophone regions that I came to meet one on one some brothers and later a sister of The New Life Mission whom I had just recently come across. Hooray! It was a speedy encounter and lasted briefly for just a couple of hours and days. I was able to meet with that sister last weekend. Besides, until now I haven`t yet been overly distracted. I learned of some few things during our exchange and encouraged her to keep, maintain, defend, spread and follow the faith of the gospel of the water and the Spirit having at heart the spiritual authority of the church of God. I expected questions, during the encounter with the sister, to clear off the confusion hovering because it is natural for us to initially be confused when you enter into the power of the gospel word of the water, the blood, and the Spirit as the light of truth is shed. Everyone must go through this experience first. So we look onto our predecessors of faith who are ahead of us in the faith because they came into the fold prior to us. What they have gone through we obviously have to go through as well. We refer to Abraham as the father of faith because he believed and obeyed God. Like so, to have been 10 years in the faith and then suddenly abandon it is a sorry sight to find oneself and has got absolutely nothing to do with someone who has just been weaned from milk after his or her spiritual rebirth as a born again. You cannot serve two masters at the same time, you either despise one and love the other or else you will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. So is everyone who has abandoned his or her faith and the church after 10 years of being born again to serve the world whereas at the infantile stage in the third year under the guidance of the church you need to hold fast to the true gospel as your true calling in the church by remaining a faithful servant of God where God`s work becomes your own tasks. Hark! Look at what happened to Judas is what happens when you drawback to perdition of faith by abandoning the faith of the water and the Spirit. Isn`t your body emaciated without food? So is the soul that has received salvation, if it doesn`t feed on the bread of life that is God`s word you die spiritually. And here was the food the apostles didn`t know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ spoke of to them who went in search of food while the Master rested at the well in the city of Sychar in Samaria. In other words, let`s do the will of the Holy Triune God by believing in the words of the written Scripture, that is, the beautiful gospel of the water and the Spirit wholeheartedly in these living years. But even so was the woman at Jacob`s well in Sychar who had had five husbands and came to drink the water of life given by Jesus Christ freely to quench her thirst consistently and not carnal perfections. I give all my thanks to God! ✉️