TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Friday 19th March 2021)
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea.
Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! Matthew 18:6-7 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 78th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
I want to begin by thanking the LORD for keeping us alive and well and bringing us out of darkness and given us His marvelous light. I thank Him for our lungs that are functioning properly this morning. It is fatal to take that for granted going by what COVID-19 is doing to the lungs of men and women.
Those who have died by the disease are precious souls who we are not better than. I believe most of them are even more righteous than us, but the LORD kept us from the diseases. To Him belong the glory! When the lines fall upon you in pleasant places, humble yourself under God and thank Him.
It is so sad that this disease has exposed how naked we all are in the spirit. How vulnerable we are as humans. If we were covered with the glory of God as Adam was, the case would have been different. But sin stripped us of this most important aspect of life; divine protection against diseases.
But sadly, Jesus came and died on the cross to restore us back to that position and many have refused to follow His ways hence we are yet to be restored. You see great men in and out of the Church taken down by the sword of this diseases and you are left with either of this two thoughts to think about.
You are left to, either think the way the world thinks, saying “It is the will of God” or think the way the righteous should think, saying “where are the miracles God promised us against diseases like this? Where is the protective edge of the blood of Jesus? Where is the manifest presence of God that kept our fathers from things like this?”
If we would not think the way the righteous should think, we will not repent of the things we may be doing that have stripped us of the protective edge of God’s power.
The errors we have allowed into the faith has carved our anti-Christ life styles we label as born again, and COVID-19 is an anti-Christ bullet. We cannot be protected from it leading an anti-Christ life style as believers. Except the LORD will leave us a remnant, this may turn out to be very fatal.
TODAY WE WANT TO STILL REFRESH OUR MINDS ON RELATIONSHIPS.
The scripture of our devotional text is one of the scriptures I fear in the Bible. When I say I fear I am referring to righteous fear. I fear because it is a warning to first spiritual leaders and second all believers.
It warned us of the consequences of making young believers who look unto us for direction and leadership with a good heart, to sin.
It is not referring to the type who mocked Elijah in 2 Kings chapter 2; a template of unruly and untrained youths who say what they ought not to say to anointed men of God. What God did to those young men tells us what He does to young ones who have wicked hearts.
So there were not the ones Heaven was warning us not to make to sin. Heaven was warning us of young ones who have believed in Christ and are waking with Him looking up to us for leadership of encouragement. Not the unruly ones like the likes of those who mocked Elisha.
I have come to realize that most young people who grew up with no father figure or strong authority to streamline them in their lives are very unruly and can be very distrustful when dealing with men and women of honor.
They do not know how to treat men of honor and what not to say to them. They speak to them with unruly tongues and do things that in the days of the Bible would have caused she-bears to come out and eat them alive.
The reason is because they grew up like wild animals did. They had no one to deal with them and culture then in all aspects of interpersonal relationships when they were growing up. They had no one who should have properly taught and train them on different issues of life; especially what not to allow to come out of their mouths or pens when dealing with authority or people who are higher than them.
The worst is, they do not know how to treat God’s anointed! I have come to realize that an unruly young one may maltreat a blood relative and go free but will never go free doing the same to an anointed one of God, even if he or she says nothing to you. You will lose the protective edge of God that should have kept you from devils and other horrors of life.
David was protected from the sword of Goliath because he never maltreated Samuel or any other men of honor in his life. Even when Saul was chasing him to kill, he still spoke to him with respect. The lives of young ones will be at risk if they do not follow the principles God has set when dealing with those Heaven has placed over them in life.
BUT THERE ARE OTHER TRUTHS ON RELATIONSHIP TRAPPED ON OUR TEXT.
There are two basic types of people on the face of the earth; people who are a blessing to others and those who are a curse; people the earth is mourning over because they were born and those the earth is rejoicing over because they were born.
Those who are a blessing to others are Right Relationships, but those who are a curse to other are Wrong Relationships.
There are people today who are making the earth Cry unto God, and regret not killing them the day they were born because of their wickedness. Don’t forget how the earth cried when the blood of righteous Abel touched the ground. And there are people also who make the earth rejoice like it did the day Jesus shed His blood to break the curse of the fall on both the human race and the earth itself!
There are people who make God regret allowing them to be formed in their mother’s womb like He regretted for creating man in Genesis Chapter 6. And there are those who make God rejoice allowing their mother and father to come together to conceive them, even if it was not done under a covenant of marriage.
There are people who are keeping the ordinances of God and the earth is at peace because of them, and there are those who have defiled denounced and broken those ordinances with unimaginable atrocities, putting the earth in position to cry against them. These people are the weeds and tares among us that kill what should be kept and keep what should be killed.
Sadly, we even have them in our churches today. People who have no tendency to minister grace to others. They only minister war, sin, disbelieve, blasphemies, envies, jealousies and etc.
I have come to realize that if someone decides, maybe out of jealousy, anger, envy, greed, covetousness or any other reason, not to be his or her brother’s keeper. He has decided unknowingly to be his or her brother’s killer. That is why I tell people “if you are not your brother’s keeper, you are doubtlessly your brother’s killer.”
THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND.
Those who decide not to be their brother’s keepers have unknowingly decided to be their brother’s killers, and stand the risk of being used of the devil to kill who God gave them to keep.
And talking about God giving us people to keep; a pastor is given members by the LORD to keep. A member is also given a pastor BY THE lord to keep. A pastor is not given a member to kill, neither is a member given a pastor to kill.
But when we start killing ourselves, either by pastors cursing INNOCENT members for not bringing tithes, having sex with them, or exposing them to the prophetic anointing of the devil and denying them from seeking the true God, or by members saying all kinds of evil things against their INNOCENT pastors, sleeping with them, pushing them to sin, and betraying them in confidential whispers, or doing something worst to them, we have created a breach in our lives.
When breaches are created, the enemy comes there to build an attacking base, to kill, steal or destroy. That is why the Bible says how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.
Jesus spoke about the parable of wheat and tares. He planted wheat to live and grow together, keeping themselves and not killing themselves. You are either a wheat or a tare.
I believe God gives WHEAT pastors to wheat members to keep. And also gives WHEAT members to wheat pastors to keep. He will therefore never give a tare member to a wheat pastor, neither will He give a tare pastor to a wheat member because He knows one will destroy the other.
HE DOES NOT GIVE TARES TO WHEAT FOR KEEP. TARES ARE TO BE BURNT AT AN APPOINTED TIME NOT KEPT.
I know there very bad pastors who now function like agents of the devil in the lives of innocent Church members, and there are very terrible members who are also function like agents of the devil in the life of innocent pastors. That is the case of tares among wheat, a mixture that is usually orchestrated by the devil.
If you are a wheat of the LORD, God will always give you people to keep.
Many do not know that when good people honestly need help and come to us for it, we have been given people to keep by the LORD. If we deny them that help especially when we can offer it, we have killed who we were given to keep.
Now we need to understand this concerning blood relationship!
Yes, there are blood relatives who can be very bad like Cain, but originally, blood relatives were given by the LORD to be kept by their brothers and sisters. I mean, your mother’s Children or father’s Children, even those with another woman are given to you by the LORD for keeping not for killing. No blood relative was originally given to us to be killed.
The purpose of brotherhood (in both biological and spiritual family relationship) is to keep each other. It is lack of awareness of this that make us defeat that purpose by killing each other.
Funny enough, the brotherhood of darkness keeps themselves so much.
But the devil their master does not allow us in the brotherhood in Christ to keep ourselves. He infiltrates us with hate to kill ourselves. He makes us forget all the Bible says about love and care, hence defeating the purpose of bother brotherhood in Christ and family relationships.
Talking about family relationships, some women have been very instrumental in destroying the purpose of God for family – brother keeping. You find them transmitting generational grievances to their Children to hate each other, especially Children their father may have had with another woman.
THIS IS VERY SAD! WE CAN GO ON AND ON.
Even when they have become devils, God wants us to deal with our brothers and sisters in such a way that we do not destroy the purpose of brotherhood. His word instructs that we separate peacefully from them like Abraham did to Lot, and bury ourselves in God watching how He will protect us. It does not instruct that we return fire for fire because vengeance belongs to the LORD.
Satan’s primary goal is to turn people who were created by God to be brother’s keepers into brother’s killers using even their parents if possible. If you return fire for fire as a Child of GOD, you are helping him to fulfill his assignment. You will end up losing the favor of the LORD in your life.
Our world would have been a better place if there were more “brother keepers” than “brother killers.” Indeed, Woe to the world because of offenses!
Sadly, even in Church we have more brother killers than brother keepers.
Satan has a way of using those of us in the Church who has decided not to be our brother’s keepers again due to some things that may have happened to us to fulfill his agenda of “brother killing” making it impossible for those younger in faith than us to keep following Jesus!
You know “love” and “hate” are the loudest utterances on earth.
They speak louder than any other when it comes to turning people away from Christ or bringing them to Him. That is why we must not react by allowing the disappointments we faced for helping wrong people to stop us from helping right ones.
I have come to realize that if the enemy uses people who enjoyed your generosity to hurt you, his goal is to turn you into a brother’s killer. Don’t accept it! Remain a brother’ keeper but allow the LORD alone to be the one leading you afterwards to who to keep.
Perhaps you were hurt because you did not let Him guide you.
Any generosity that is not guided will destroy the generous! An attack on us for being our brother’s keeper should not be allowed to turn us into brother killers. It should rather be used to train our sensitivity on how to direct our generosity.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR TODAY;
“Repay no one evil for evil. Have regard for good things in the sight of all men. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord.
Therefore “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; If he is thirsty, give him a drink; For in so doing you will heap coals of fire on his head.”
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” Romans 12:17-21 NKJV