TODAY’S DEVOTION (Thursday 19TH November 2020)
“Jesus answered, If a person [really] loves Me, he will keep My word [obey My teaching]; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home (abode, special dwelling place) with him.” John 14:23 AMP
WELCOME TO THE 322ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
We give God gory for all His marvelous works and great acts in our lives. We believe like David; this is the day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it. He has kept us! He has watched over us! He will still keep and watch over us until the end of time.
Talking about the end of time, there was a time when there was no time. That was in the age past, and the dispensation of innocence, when mankind had not fallen. The flow of the Spirit of glory was the current we were plugged to then. That was why man was the most powerful being on the face of the earth after God.
Until sin came into the human race, mankind was, plugged into this current, and was Spirit filled and God controlled. I use the phrase “Spirit filled and or God controlled” for lack of better terms. The proper sentence should have been “Mankind was God filled!” He was God’s dwelling place or abode on the face of the earth. In simple terms God lived in him!
Man was designed for God to live in, and God did live in and around him until the fall. The purpose of that was simple. God created man to live in man and rule the earth from Heaven through man on earth. That was the vision.
HOWEVER, THE FALL CHANGED EVERYTHING BUT THE VISION REMAINS THE SAME.
That is why when you look at the redemptive plan of GOD for mankind closely, you will discover that it is driven by the same vision. And that is, to have God back in man. In God’s view, if you say you are born again, you are simply saying that this vision has been fulfilled in your life. You are saying God has re-entered you and is again living in you like He did in Adam.
Sadly, that is not the case in the lives of many of us. Sin and Satan live in so many who claim born again today. Paul wrote to Titus saying, “They profess to know GOD but in works deny Him.”
In our devotional text today, Jesus made it clear that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. And if we keep His commandments, we will be provoking divine love. When divine love is provoked, God will come to make our lives His special abode or dwelling place on earth again. Hallelujah!!!
Many do not know that receiving God’s mercy and embracing salvation is one thing, and retaining it is another. It is through a onetime submission to God’s word that we receive Mercy but it will take a constant submission to His word to retain it. That is why keeping the word is very important.
To keep the word simply means to submit to it.
So Jesus says if we love Him, it will show in our submission to His word. In other words, our obedience or submission is proof that we love Him. The result of that is the retaining of His mercy in our lives, and the coming of He and the Father come to make our lives His home.
That is a return to Genesis Chapter one and two – the place where the God Head lived in Adam. The most terrific man on earth is a man whose life has become the dwelling place of the Godhead! He will carry the word of the LORD on his lips and the Spirit of the LORD upon his life.
The call of Christ to us is to lead a life of obedience and submission to His word. This call runs contrary to the pseudo grace gospel that preaches the opposite; a gospel that deletes constant submission to God’s word and deep repentance.
IT IS AN ETERNAL LIFE KILLING GOSPEL
It teaches against keeping God’s commands, claiming it is legalistic, or a return to the law. Such gospel will never allow the purpose of salvation to be made manifest in our lives. It will never allow your life to become the home of the Godhead like God pre-planned. That is why people have grown from supposed Children of God to actual sons of hell.
As earlier stated, Hell lives in the many people we call Christians today. The manifestation of God’s ultimate vision in His redemptive plan for them is yet to take place. Jesus made it clear that the proof of genuine love for God is a life of total submission and obedience to His will and ways.
Meaning, if we say we love God but our lives are full of rebellion to His written word, revealed will or established ways, we are deceiving ourselves. We will never be able to provoke divine love, and never become a dwelling place for Him on the face of the earth like Adam was.
This morning, God is calling your attention to the things that truly matter in the faith.
You were never designed be a religious being, that is why authentic Church service was not designed to be a religious show but a means of having the ultimate vision of God for your salvation fulfilled. It’s important to sever ties from any Church that is not making you a dwelling place of God in the Spirit, if you truly love your soul.
True prophetic and apostolic emphasis is that man become God’s House again. True Christianity is driven by that vision. And until it is fulfilled in your life, God’s redemptive plan for you is not yet fulfilled.
Any Church experience therefore, that is not making you a dwelling place of God in the Spirit, is an experience that is shortchanging you. Go back and seek God again, else you will be damned in the Day of Judgment. That is the message of today’s devotion!
Sadly, speaking, Church experiences these days no longer produce Christians who tremble at the word of the LORD. It only produces acclaimed Christians, who make the loudest noise in Church but never trembling at the word of the LORD! That is why devils are on rampage in the lives of so many.
We tremble at the word of our enemies, any word preached about voices crying against us from our villages, or devils that are up against us in our father’s houses, but do not tremble at the word of the LORD!
Until we begin to tremble at the word of the LORD, we will never have Heaven’s attention. And a people who do not have Heaven’s attention will always be defeated by the perils of life. They will never become God’s home on earth.
May the Lord help us to hear what the Spirit is saying today to the church, and to the individuals in the churches this day!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest?
For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist,” Says the Lord. “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word. Isaiah 66:1-2 NKJV