Why Some Christians Still Feel Spiritually Stuck by Apostle Arome Osayi: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

The Foundation That Must Hold

Psalm 11:3 — "If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

The most critical aspect of a believer's life is foundational. The weight of ministry, the weight of defense against the enemy — all of it rests on the foundation a Christian has built. If that foundation is inadequate, there will come a season where it can no longer carry the weight of what God wants to do in that life. In most cases encountered across Africa, Europe, North America, and South America, the labor of discipleship — ensuring believers have an adequate foundation — is no longer the consistent practice of ministry. People begin to navigate destiny with an inadequate foundation. When they enter a season where the weight exceeds what their foundation can bear, they snap and abandon God.

The effort in this study is to dig around the foundation and fortify it.

The subject of lesson two in this foundational series is: Clearance of Old Living — or Clearance of the Past.

What Salvation Accomplishes

A brief review establishes the ground:

• Salvation spares from perdition — from the wrath of God occasioned by the rebellion of the first Adam.
• It is regeneration — the spirit is made alive. The fallen man's spirit is dead; his soul becomes self-centered; his body becomes flesh, a warehouse for the serpentine nature called sin. Salvation activates the spirit, enabling it to perceive what is obtainable in the realm of God.
• It makes a person eligible for eternal life and adopts them as God's offspring — to carry His legacy and manage His estate.

notifications_active Stay Updated

Join the Readsermons communities for daily nuggets and new sermon alerts.

WhatsApp Telegram

The proofs of salvation are threefold. First, the outward proof — scriptural evidence. Second, the inward proof — the Spirit himself bears witness with the human spirit (Romans 8:16). This witness comes in three communications: peace (the quarrel with God is settled), quietness (no longer within the corridor of accusation), and assurance (the inner signal that one is born again). Third, the proof of life experience — joy unspeakable. Joy is not derived from happenings but is a state furnished by the Spirit of God regardless of circumstance.

The Clearance That Was Neglected

Here is where foundational failure begins. In previous generations, when a person gave their life to Christ, old evangelists would administer a comprehensive questionnaire — capturing every dimension of possible past involvement: idols, deities, covenants, spiritual transactions, the type of dreams experienced. This was not legalism — it was the clearance of the past.

2 Corinthians 6:14-16 lists five critical words that describe possible ongoing links to the demonic realm:

• Fellowship — an open pipeline of relational access
• Communion — ongoing intimate contact
• Concord — active agreement with a spirit
• Part — a shareholding arrangement in a person's destiny
• Agreement — a contract that has not been formally closed

Satan cannot stop a person from choosing Jesus — that is an act of the will. But he can determine how far that person will go with Jesus. Like Pharaoh negotiating with Moses, Satan negotiates the terms: "Go — but leave the children. Go — but leave your cattle." He prefers a believer saved and poor, saved and bound, saved and going nowhere.

Three Specific Areas Requiring Closure

1. Closure to Idols, Deities, and Gods

1 Thessalonians 1:9 says those who came to God "turned from idols to serve the living God." The Greek word translated turned is epistrephō — meaning to revert, to convert, to turn around and give one's back to the previous position. Turning from idols is not passive. It is deliberate. It requires formally concluding every devotion, every worship, every transaction with any idol, deity, or god previously involved with.

Exodus 20:5 reveals that God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who maintain those connections. This is not vindictiveness — it is how spiritual inheritance works. An unclosed door remains operationally open regardless of how many years have passed.

A woman was encountered who had been married for two years without conceiving. When prayer was made, the Lord directed going to the location where her grandfather had worshipped idols — a powerful idol worshipper in his time. Upon standing in that place and commanding the spirit to release the woman's womb, she conceived within the same month. The altar had been holding her womb for two years. She was born again, speaking in tongues, yet that door had never been formally closed.

Satan is a powerful negotiator. He allows a person to take off in ministry, to advance, to rise — and then demands his harvest at the height of their influence. This is why people with extraordinary anointing suddenly fall in catastrophic ways: something was not closed.

2. Discarding Evil and Unclean Things

2 Corinthians 7:1 says: "Let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." This is significant: the spirit itself can receive filth. Witchcraft operates through symbols, through music, through curses, through spells. Objects that were given with invocations upon them — rings, beads, pendants, dream catchers — remain active conduits.

You may also like

Efc2026: Easter Celebration Service — Wings Of Faith Day 4

by Bishop David Oyedepo

arrow_forward

In the early church, those who practiced magical arts collected their books — valued at tens of millions in today's currency — and burned them publicly (Acts 19:18-19). They believed and confessed; then they disclosed and destroyed. The unclean thing for them was the books. For others, it may be objects. Whatever it is must be deliberately discarded.

Touch not the unclean thing. The civilization we inhabit is permeated with demonic activity. A decisive, unrepentant attitude toward previous darkness is required.

3. Laying Aside Weights and Besetting Sins

Hebrews 12:1-2 — seeing the great cloud of witnesses who endured far worse, the call is to "lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and run with patience the race set before us."

A weight is not necessarily a sin, but every sin is a weight. The believer who walked in a certain area of sin before coming to Christ has a groove — a familiarity — that makes slipping back easier. That groove must be deliberately destroyed through fasting and spiritual warfare.

Satan knows this is a marathon, not a sprint. He has time to track the pace, discern the weakness, and formulate a custom-made situation designed for a specific individual. He knows when faith is slowing. He knows when the altar is becoming temporary. He will wait for the maximum point of altitude before demanding his harvest.

The race requires light runners. Whatever weight the Holy Spirit indicates must go — lay it aside. Not manage it. Not negotiate with it. Lay it aside.

The Life of Separation

2 Corinthians 6:17 — "Come out from among them and be ye separate."

Holiness literally means separate. When God is called holy, it means He is in His own class — ungroupable with anything else. When a believer walks with God, the expectation is that they, too, become separate from the flow of their age. Swimming against the tide of one's generation is not dysfunction — it is the proof of separation.

Separation unto God is not merely being different. It is being different because of God — being separate in order to be alive unto Him and serve His will. The world will name it. It will make a person appear out of sync with their generation. That is the price of separation.

God's best blessings are reserved for those living fully for Him. He will not release the depths of what He has prepared for a life that is not fully aligned.

Perfecting holiness in the fear of God is not a one-time event — it is a process. It begins with a call to separation and continues through cleansing from all filthiness of flesh and spirit.

A Practical Closure