TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Friday 29th January 2021)
“After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying:
“Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them — the children of Israel.
Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Joshua 1:1-4, 8 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 28TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS
We bless the LORD our God for giving us another day and giving us life all together. Indeed, the Spirit of the LORD has made us and the breath of the Almighty gives us life. It does not just give us life; it gives us understanding.
The reason is because the life it gives is the light of men; and that light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot comprehend it. May we find light and life every day from Him in Jesus precious name. Amen
Let me begin today’s devotional with some questions. “What will you be remembered for? Will you be remembered for the problems you solved or the ones you created?” The truth is you will be remembered either for the problems you solve or the ones you created both for yourself and for others.
I remember asking this question over four years ago on this platform and also in church. Life is all about the footprints you will leave behind on the sand of time when your days will be over. Such questions are not Church advance questions. Not at all! They are Kingdom advance questions.
Kingdom advance is all about extending the frontiers of the Kingdom of Heaven to the earth (the hearts of men) through the demonstration and preaching of the gospel of the kingdom. Our calling as kingdom citizens is to do just that. That is why I decided to ask that kingdom advance question.
You see, there are Church advance questions and there are Kingdom advance questions. Church advance questions are all about empty religion, dogmas and man-made Church doctrines. They are asked to provoke you to give more money to a greedy preacher, engage in more empty religion, or keep you on the path of a form of godliness that has no power.
They are usually asked to provoke men and women to do the will of man that is presented as the will of God through ecclesiastical craftiness and deceit. But kingdom advance questions are different.
Kingdom advance questions are questions that are asked to provoke people to rise up to the challenge of progressing God’s will on the face of the earth as written in Heaven. Such questions are asked to activate the faith of God’s Family to release their divine destiny.
AGAIN I ASK, WHAT WILL YOU BE REMEMBERED FOR?
Today we are starting our January 2021 apostolic summit. We will begin from Church in the house and end at Church in the hall, from today through Sunday. It will be a time of refreshing for the king’s household. It’s being our season of looking into matters of our corporate divine destiny. Doubtlessly, God has been so gracious in releasing insights and things to absorb into our spirits.
The Spirit of Truth has been showing us things that are aiding the release of our divine destinies. Now it is time to bring one more truth that we will need to become all that God has called us to be. I hope you are ready!
Apostle James was the first apostle to be martyred or killed for what he believed. He was also the first to write a book. That is why the book of James was the first new testament book to be written. It was written when a bit of Judaism was still mixed with Christianity; like the use of oil in praying for the sick.
It also has some core values of the Christina faith that if we do not identify and align with, our salvation will not end ups in Heaven.
Sadly, the entire Church has camped on chapter 5 of his book because of the oil and forget the most important purpose and chapters of that book. They camped there because that is the only verse that seem to give them a strong platform to keep using oil.
You know if there was no oil, it would have been easier to tell who is a fake preacher, because you will not see the Holy Spirit on their lives. But with the use of oil it is easier to cover up and fool the sheep. This people camp on James 5:14 while the Holy Spirit that was sent the replace the use of oil is here directing us to more important verses of the book of James.
ERROR WILL ALWAYS CAMP ON ONE VERSE OF THE BIBLE, SPICING IT WITH ONE OTHER TO ESTABLISH ITSELF.
In the whole of the New Testament, you see the use of oil only twice. But the move of the replacement for the oil all over the books of the New Testament. The most important verse of the book of James is not verse 14 of chapter 5.
Verse 14 of chapter 5 do not have eternal relevance. But the rest do! Verses like the ones in chapter 3 about the tongue, chapter 1 down through chapter 2, are full of eternal relevance and will help you build your faith in Christ Jesus. There are other verses in Chapter 4 and even five. But we do not go there.
You find majority of Christians knowing just chapter 5:14 because of the use of oil. That is what brought them into Judaism. If you mix Judaism with Christianity, you have created a platform for the occult to enter the church and for the demon of deliverance to do its work. You have allowed religious spirits to come in and live among you.
But many do not care. So long as it is bringing some supernatural acts and making the preachers smile to the bank. They will keep camping on verses that mix Christianity with Judaism (James 5:14)because they do not place a demand on their character. They give them a platform to keep practicing Judaism and fooling people to give them money and see them as men of GOD.
I want to submit to you that the book of James was not about oil but about eternal relevance. One of the major eternal relevance scriptures of the book of James is the scriptures that tells us to be doers of the word. It says
“but be ye doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” (James 1:22 kjv)
I this scripture is widely known like the one for the sue of oil, there will be no hypocrisy in the Church. Do you see the elevation of scriptures like James 5:14 does to the core of our faith? It buries eternal relevance scriptures and leave us with a Christianity without Christ-likeness.
The gospel is not to be preached or heard alone, the gospel is to be obeyed. As a result, it is not the hearers or readers of the word that are actually blessed but the doers of the word. It is a doing of the word that unlocks a divine destiny. This is one major truth from the book of James that ought to be at our finger tips.
Some false prophets and heretic teachers tell people to buy special padlocks and meet them with some money in other to unlock their blessings or destiny. But you do not buy special keys and take to prophets to help unlock your blessings or destiny. You do the word of the LORD to unlock your BLESSINGS or divine destiny.
DOING THE WORD WILL UNLOCK YOUR BLESSINGS
You cannot amount to anything in the faith if you are not a doer of the word. If you hear and do not do, your life will be worse than it has even been. The devil prefers you practicing your Christianity according to James 5:14 and not James 1:22. He knows one will make you food for devils, but the other will set you on fire for the LORD, even make you a deliverer for his captives.
Doing the word is what gives us authority in the Spirit to bring things one earth as written in Heaven, not using the oil. Using the oil may bring supernatural acts but does not transform the moral nature of anyone. It does not establish the kingdom of God in the hearts of men, that is why we still have many hypocrites among us.
When God was commissioning Joshua for ministry, one major instruction He gave him is what our devotional text this morning captured. A major highlight in the text said;
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
If you look at this scripture carefully, you will discover that Joshua’s success in the release of his divine destiny was not anchored on sowing financial seeds into another ministry. It was not anchored on even prayer and fasting – as good as it is to pray or fast. It was anchored on doing the word of the LORD.
Now, don’t get me wrong, sowing financial seeds or prayer and fasting are very important acts of worship in the kingdom and in the pursuit of divine destiny but not in the way lying prophets and heretic teachers are saying. These acts of worship have their own place in our walk with God. But nothing can substitute doing the WORD of the LORD in our walk and talk with the LORD.
If you sow financial seeds, fast and pray but live a life of rebellion; a life that is not in harmony with the word of the LORD for your life and prophetic destiny, there will be no progress. Blessings only happen in our lives leading to the release of our destiny only through implicit obedience to the voice, ways or word of the LORD not by playing charismatic games.
It takes a doing to step into significant things in God’s kingdom. It takes a doing to unleash divine destiny and have good success. If you do not add HOLY SPIRIT LED and SCRIPTURAL BASED ACTIONS to your Christian faith, it will remain a reproach. It is people who do the word of the LORD that change the world for the LORD. People who walk in complete obedience to the voice, ways, or word of the LORD will be remembered for the great things God used them to do.
It takes total obedience to become all that God has created you to be on the face of the earth. It takes total synchronicity with the ways of the LORD to become path of His moves on earth and leave a foot print that will remain significant from generation to generation.
THAT IS WHY MAKES US BURNT OR DRINK OFFERINGS FOR THE LORD.
When Saul, the first king of Israel, became king, prophecies made it clear that his Kingdom was to continue to the next generations. That was his prophetic destiny. His lineage was favored by the LORD to be Israel’s first King and lead the nation from generation to generation. But that divine plan for his life and lineage was not fulfilled. He killed it using the internal power of rebellion.
Rebellion is the strongest killer of our destinies. It is stronger than any demon in hell. We go about chasing demons and asking God to neutralize them, but do not know that most of us have the greater demon living in us called rebellion. We cannot obey one little word in the Bible but expect the best of God to happen to us. Things do not work that way!
The first word God gave Saul to do was an instruction to wait for seven days at Gilgal until Samuel the prophets comes to establish his kingdom over Israel. He actually waited, but could not complete his obedience. The worse thing about his waiting was him going ahead to do a sacrifice that only a prophet was ordained to do. That was how he began to cancel his heritage and overturn the plan of God for his life.
The next word He could not do was the complete annihilation of the Amalekites. God has sent Samuel to him with this instruction;
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt.”
“Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.'” 1 Samuel 15:2-3 NKJV
But this again he could not do. He obeyed the LORD but partially. Partial obedience is disobedience in God’s sight. If you obey the LORD partially, or do his word partially, you will leave gaps for His enemies to stand and hinder His kingdom at a later date. That is one of the many reasons God does not count partial obedience as obedience. Men may count it so but God does not count it so.
Don’t forget Isaiah says “as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are His ways higher than our ways.” Saul would later abort his divine destiny and fall under the sword of divine judgment. The Bible gave two reasons why God killed him. The Bible says because He did not obey the voice of the LORD and because he consulted a witch.
I have come to discover that it is people who do not love doing the word of the LORD that runs after the witches and wizards we call prophets. They fall victims of lying prophets. They do not know or do the word of the LORD but visit witches and wizards called prophets and run after them for miracles.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, “I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.
So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal.” Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord.”
But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.”
Then Samuel said to Saul, “Be quiet! And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” And he said to him, “Speak on.”
So Samuel said, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?
Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”
And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.” 1 Samuel 15:10-23 NKJV