TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 24TH May 2023)**
“Is anyone among you afflicted (ill-treated, suffering evil)? He should pray. Is anyone glad at heart? He should sing praise [to God].
Is anyone among you sick? He should call in the church elders (the spiritual guides). And they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord’s name.
And the prayer [that is] of faith will save him who is sick, and the Lord will restore him; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].” James 5:13-16 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 144th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS & WONDERS!
The faithfulness of our God is beyond Human description. His patience and kindness towards mankind, is much more than hearts can truly fathom. Day unto Day He wakes us up to see a brand-new day from Him. His breath kept sustaining us and His Spirit kept giving us life.
Indeed, we owe Him a life time of gratitude, and holy fear. The Bible made it clear that He does not seed those acts of love into our lives, to keep us moving in the direction of our will, or our wickedness. He seeds them into our lives, to evoke a life that will be spent, doing only His will and following only His ways.
We have been looking at the faith, the purity and the patience of the saints. The Bible made it clear that Heaven is holy, that no practicing sinner will get there. That is why when you hear preachers say “we are all sinners” referring to those who claim born again, it should worry you. It means they are all going to hell; none of them, with all their religious activities, will make Heaven.
From the book of the Old Testament to that of the New, it is clear that the Holy God will never dwell in Heaven with rebellious men and women. If Satan was casted out of there because of that, do not dream to go there when you die if you carry the same nature. That is the very nature that promotes moral decay. That is why salvation deletes the nature (moral decay), through regeneration, and implants into us the divine nature.
In other words, salvation bestows upon us the nature that is require and suited for life with Jesus in Heaven when we die. It helps us to escape the rottenness and corruption that dumps men and women in hell when they die, by becoming partakers of the divine nature that makes us Heaven worthy. The Bible says;
“For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [ full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue).
By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature.” 2 Peter 1:3-4 AMPC
This scripture describes the practical impact that a genuine salvation experience will have in our lives. From bringing us into a personal relationship with the LORD, where we share in His glory and virtues, to bestowing upon us precious promises, genuine salvation is aimed at getting us ready for the LORD.
WHEN WE THEN ADD A LIFE OF CONSECRATION TO IT, THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL BE GIVEN MORE ROOM TO KEEP US READY.
God knew we will never make it to Heaven with our sinful lives, hence coming to die on the Cross as Jesus Christ, then pouring His Holy Spirit upon us, and releasing His holy word to deal with our sinful lives. The vision is to bring us into a life of consecration – a life of righteousness, purity, and holiness.
We ended yesterday’s devotional with a plea from the LORD to us; a plea to depart from what is unclean and embrace what is clean. Today we will be looking at an aspect of the sanctification of our body that is responsible for divine health.
To start with, let’s look at God’s plan for our health. God has a glorious plan for our physical lives. Sickness and diseases are not part of it, that is why he heals the sick and keep the healthy in divine health.
If you think that God is happy when we fall sick, you are deluded. I have heard people say God made them sick, and wondered, “how?”
If God made you sick, then you are either Pharaoh, Egypt or one of His other enemy types on earth. Diseases are weapons of war in the spirit realm, and God does not use weapons of war on His own. He does not put diseases on the lives of His obedient children. Concerning the church in the wilderness, the Bible says;
“And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree which he cast into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There [the Lord] made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there He proved them,
“Saying, if you will diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord your God and will do what is right in His sight, and will listen to and obey His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord Who heals you. Exodus 15:25-26 AMPC
GOD WILL PUT NONE OF WHAT HE BROUGHT UPON THE EGYPTIANS ON HIS OWN.
From this scripture it is clear that diseases are weapons of war, and that God will never put them into the bodies of His obedient children***. ***Sadly, some believers do not know that diseases are weapons of war in the spirit realm, and some others do not know that God’s obedient children will not be visited with diseases by Him.
Satan may attempt to put diseases in our bodies to hinder us from serving the LORD, just as he did to Job, but God will always come to counter Him with His healing power. That is why you must be familiar with the power of the blood of Jesus, and the scriptures that promises us divine healing, in any battle with diseases.
In the hand of the LORD, diseases are used to smash the arrogance of the proud, and bring them into submission to divine will. I have learned that if our ways please the LORD, He will make even our enemies to be at peace with us. It could be by putting diseases in them, or helping them to rest in peace. God has a history of dealing with human opposers of His will.
Understand that the kingdom of GOD is more equipped than the kingdom of darkness, it is just that we are ignorant of the set of equipment. We have a God who can use diseases as a weapon of war. That is why He keeps us healthy and in perfect peace. He will put none of what He put upon the Egyptians on us.
His plan for our health is glorious! In the outer court, He give us divine Healing, in the Holy place He gives us divine Health, but in the most holy Place, He gives us a foretaste of immortality. That is the plan of God for our health.
It is through the sanctification of our bodies, that we move from one plan to another.
Personally, am pressing from divine health to the place where I will have a foretaste of immortality before I step into eternity at the end of my days on earth.
THE DEEPER THE SANCTIFICATION, THE BETTER THE RESULT.
If you are having a life of frequent diseases, walk in sanctification and it will cease. Let the Holy Spirit sanctify you, spirit, soul and body, and all will come to an end. It is defilement in our bodies that causes diseases some times. That brings us to our devotional text!
The text is one major scripture that oil users have used in keeping themselves and those following them, under the spirit of Nehushatan; the demon that brings effect to shadow that have been turned into substance. The scripture said;
“Is anyone among you afflicted (ill-treated, suffering evil)? He should pray. Is anyone glad at heart? He should sing praise [to God].
Is anyone among you sick? He should call in the church elders (the spiritual guides). And they should pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord’s name. And the prayer [that is] of faith will save him who is sick, and the Lord will restore him; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].” James 5:13-16 AMPC
The book of James was the first book of what we call the new testament that was written. That is the only book in the New Testament that contain one of the many practices in Judaism that Jesus came to lay to rest. The reason is because James wrote it to Jews, who were used to the use of the anointing oil, and had not received the Holy Spirit, God’s replacement for the anointing oil.
He asked them to anoint the sick with it praying over them. But Jesus never used it. He saw the disciples use it in Mark 12, when He sent them out, and did not stop them because He knew the replacement had not be given, then. When it was finally given, there was no record of even James who got the replacement using it to pray for the sick.
There is the bastardization of the oil today, because the spirit of lawlessness took it over, and anointed the papas and the fathers of faith, as you call them, to be using it. That is why we do not have genuine move of God any longer in so many churches. We just have anointed flesh and religion on display.
BUT THE LATER PART OF OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT, SAID SOMETHING SIGNIFICANT. IT SAYS;
“Confess to one another therefore your faults (your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins) and pray [also] for one another, that you may be healed and restored [to a spiritual tone of mind and heart]. The earnest (heartfelt, continued) prayer of a righteous man makes tremendous power available [dynamic in its working].”
This part of our devotional text, placed the cause of some diseases at the door step of a sinful life. It made it clear that diseases sometimes, are caused by a lack of the consecration of our bodies. There is a connection between defilement of our bodies and frequent illness. I have seen God take many people from frequent illness to divine health by just asking them to clean up their lives.
Confession of sins to the right ear in repentance, according to this scripture, is one way to clean up our lives.
I watched God healed a man of kidney diseases when he confessed to me about the money he stole from Church offerings, which I asked him to return. His healing came when he returned it. Spiritual defilement can destroy critical organs of the body. It can make the heart fail, the kidneys malfunction, the lungs sick and etc.
I have seen someone whose lungs had holes get new set of lungs from the LORD through sanctification. The person confessed and cleaned up her life, and God responded with a new set of lungs.
In the days of Moses, there were several washings that took place in different times of a day or night. They all underscored the importance of the consecration of the body to a peaceful life on earth. A body that we do not separate from spiritual defilement will one day catch diseases that prayer cannot cure and die.
As we bring this to a close, it is important to note that, in these days of spiritual defilement, repentance and consecration of our bodies must be taken seriously. We should not forget that there is a strong connection between the sanctification of our bodies and the soundness of our health.
For instance, the Bible is against putting alcohol, drugs* (cocaine, marijuana, and etc.)* or cigarettes into our body system. It is one of the many ways men and women defile their bodies spiritually, and acquire incurable diseases eventually. And most medical scientists, have rightly argued that such substances can destroy a person’s health.
It is important to note that, apart from accidents and age, the body is designed to be in health by the power of God’s glory, good nutrition, regular medical check-ups, and adequate exercises. It only breaks down when defilement lives in it.
We must understand that if we are always in a cycle of constant diseases, it is a wakeup call to a life of proper medical care and the consecration of our bodies. Those who may not have realized the connection between a defiled body and their health should be instructed by today’s word.
They should not forget that even sexual defilements can destroy their critical body organs. That is why the Bible says we should flee from all sexual sins and sanctify our bodies from such defilement. That, it is the will of God for our bodies to stay sanctified from sexual defilement.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“Furthermore, brethren, we beg and admonish you in [virtue of our union with] the Lord Jesus, that [you follow the instructions which] you learned from us about how you ought to walk so as to please and gratify God, as indeed you are doing, [and] that you do so even more and more abundantly [attaining yet greater perfection in living this life].
For you know what charges and precepts we gave you [on the authority and by the inspiration of] the Lord Jesus.
For this is the will of God, that you should be consecrated (separated and set apart for pure and holy living): that you should abstain and shrink from all sexual vice,
That each one of you should know how to [c]possess (control, manage) his own body in consecration (purity, separated from things profane) and honor, Not [to be used] in the passion of lust like the heathen, who are ignorant of the true God and have no knowledge of His will,
That no man transgress, and overreach his brother and defraud him in this matter or defraud his brother in business. For the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we have already warned you solemnly and told you plainly.
For God has not called us to impurity but to consecration [to dedicate ourselves to the most thorough purity].
Therefore, whoever disregards (sets aside and rejects this) disregards not man but God, whose [very] Spirit [Whom] He gives to you is holy (chaste, pure). 1 Thessalonians 4:1-8 AMPC