By John Amoda
THIS particular intervention in Nigerian Christian political practices is precipitated by the recent election of the head of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).

His election was accompanied by the same congratulations as is the case with the awards of worldly honours.

The Lord’s first day on earth was in a manger where animals were sheltered from the wintry weather. He was not appointed to head a worldly religious organisation.

He was neither the High Priest nor a Levite. His first disciples were Galilean fishermen. His parents were not aware of the visit of the wise men from the East to Herod.

The full page pictures in newspapers of the CAN President on the other hand were reminiscent of adverts marking the receipt of national honours.

The new head of CAN was given the honour of an elected senator or governor. This is the background of this epistle to the Corinthian congregational leaderships of Nigeria. The Epistle is to them not in their capacity as leaders but as disciples filled with leadership ambition.

The Lord had said to his disciples, quarrelling amongst themselves on who should be first that He came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for all-The ecumenicist Nigerian Christian leadership needs to be brought back to the elementary issues of the Christian walk and to be engaged in audits of their Christian Gospel walk. I begin my epistle thusly:

Dearly beloved, fellow members of Christ’s Body and of the Household of God, grace and peace from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ.

In this letter I want to ask you to reflect on our walk as Christians. Are you like most of us who believe in God and His Good News of the New Birth and yet as much in evidence from our conduct and prayers we still prefer to walk in the flesh? What do I mean by we prefer to walk in the flesh? I simply mean this, that we seek from God, yes salvation; we seek from God deliverance from curses; we expect God to meet us at our points of need.

We pray and desire of him prosperity. Yes, we believe when we die or at the rapture we will go with the Lord to Heaven our Home. Brethren these hopes and expectation place us out of Christ for they are expectations out and from ourselves; they are individualistic self-originated prayers. They are not the prayers of regenerated Christians.

They are prayers of the Jewish disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ while He was in the world, before He was crucified, before He ascended and before he baptized us with His Holy Spirit.

They are prayers of Jews still under the Law, still under the curse of the Law.

Perhaps you are alarmed by these statements and you want to know why I have made them. These statements are true about the majority of us because we do not fully understand and appreciate what God did for us and in us on Calvary.

The process of our being Born Again began on the Cross of Calvary. This is why our Lord told Nicodemus that unless we are born of water and of the Spirit we cannot see and we cannot enter into the kingdom of God established for His children.

What did the Lord mean by being born of the water? He meant that we are to buried with Christ and by baptism we give witness to this fact that we died in Him and with Him. What did He mean by being born of the Spirit, he meant we have received a new life, the Life of the Risen Christ.

While we believe that Christ died for us and rose again for our justification; we do not walk in the knowledge of what God did in us in Christ. God put us in Christ and what He did to Christ He did in us. On the Cross Christ Jesus died for us and we died in Him.

His death was an inclusive death. When he was buried we too were buried in him and thus with him. When He was quickened, we were quickened in Him and thus with Him. When He ascended to Heaven, we ascended in Him and thus with Him into Heaven.

Thus in the heavenly places God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. No blessings that God can bless us with has He withheld. They are all ours in Christ Jesus and thus with Christ Jesus as attested to in Romans 8:31-32.

The New Birth thus begin with our death on Christ’s Calvary cross. We died with Him that we may also be Born Again as God’s children in God’s image and likeness in Him.

Our present plight and problems as evidenced by the fact that we accept the revelation of what God did for us but we do not reckon as facts what God did through Christ in us. We still believe that what God did for us in Christ is to make it possible for us to live a “changed Life” through Christ Jesus. We believe our Christianity is living a better life in our body, a life lived without sinning. This exactly are the beliefs of pious Muslims who believe in God, but also believe that Jesus is only a prophet.

This exactly are the beliefs of pious Hindus and Buddhist. We differ only in labels from the other faiths, if Christianity is only about the changed life. Watchman Nee helps us to appreciate the Gospel as preached by Paul to the Galatians. He says: “What God offers us” is an exchanged life, (not a changed life-similar to a life of an addict delivered from addiction).

What God offers us is an exchanged life, a substituted life; and Christ is our substitute: “Within I live and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me”. This life is not something which we ourselves have to produce. It is Christ’s own life reproduced in us. How many Christians believed in ‘reproduction’ in this sense, as something more than ‘regeneration? Regeneration means that the life of Christ is planted in us by the Holy Spirit at our new birth.