It was with great expectation, people gathered to get revitalized as the third day of the 2021 Easter Retreat commenced.
Giving the 3rd talk of the Retreat, Pastor Isaac Olori, the International Director spoke on the topic, “The Quickening Power” (Romans 8:1-11). He taught that it was the Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead and that is the same Spirit that dwells in us. The challenge we have is lack of knowledge that this same Spirit dwells in us that is why we live defeated Christian lives.
Defining quickening as - to quicken is to make alive, to give life or the inflow of divine life, he explained that this can be seen in three ways
- To endue with life (divine vitality, Ephesians 2:1)
- To produce alive(this means that the life we now live as believers is a new life Ephesians 2:5)
- To preserve alive
At salvation, we are endued with life (Ephesians 2:1). There is a life a believer has that unbeliever does not have, that is the divine life (Ephesians 2:5). He stressed that one proof that you are born again is that you have been quickened that is, we have been given a different life that subdues the flesh (Colossians 2:13).
Pastor Isaac Olori described two categories of people
- Those who are dead in sin – the life of the old man.
- Those who are dead to sin – the life of the new man on whom sin is powerless by the power of the cross (1 Corinthians 15:45)
He stressed that the born-again believer was designed to live not by the dictates of the flesh but by the quickening of the Spirit. You cannot live a victorious Christian life without the help of the Spirit. It is the Spirit that quickens.
In conclusion, he explained the Secret of the Quickening (John 6:63). It is the Word of God – the quickening agent (Psalms 119:50). We need this quickening every day.
