TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Wednesday 18TH August 2021)
“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 230TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
Yes, with the light of the LORD shinning within us, our future is bright and we will get there. No one walks in the LIGHT of the World and miss the right way to a glorious future. Jesus Christ is the LIGHT of the world. You will never walk in darkness or miss your way if you walk with or in Him.
The LORD has been our LIGHT and our salvation. Who shall we fear. He is the reason we are alive and well. He has been our refuge, our shelter, our rock, our fortress, our deliverer, and our strength. Who else do you think we will trust? No one off course except Him.
When the LORD has been all of these to you, it is important that you make sure your life add value to His kingdom on earth.
Our apostolic Father Paul showed us how to lead a life that add value to the Kingdom of God. He said;
“Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.”
And he was not preaching the gospel of scamming people of their monies; the gospel of redemption of first born, giving of first fruits, raising or pulling down of altars, or etc. He was preaching the authentic gospel, with great passion and zeal for the LORD, not looking for earthly rewards.
We at the Cry of the Spirit are enjoying all mentioned above from the LORD and have decided to add value to His kingdom by doing what our Apostolic Father Paul did. He preached the authentic gospel, confronted sorcerers and scammers in God’s garment.
He exposed error even rebuking Peter. He Baptized entire nations into sound doctrines and left a legacy of truth that is yet to be exhausted by any generation.
WOE ARE WE IF WE DO NOT DO THE SAME AS THE LORD ENABLES US!
We are under an obligation to fight every inch of the battle until the last soul appointed unto salvation under our apostolic jurisdiction is saved. We believe with the whole of our hearts, that God wants His word to be heard by our hands, among other end time apostolic and prophetic voices He has raised.
We are awake to our responsibility and prophetic purpose as Christ ambassadors on the face of the earth. Earthly success is never our goal. Heavenly success is our goal. It is our greatest passion. We have decided not to place human drive for any form of earthly success above our passion to make it to Heaven, and make it very well to Heaven.
There is making Heaven and there is making Heaven well. For instance, the thief on the Cross made Heaven, but people like Elijah, Moses and Paul the Apostle did not just make Heaven, they made Heaven well. It is better to make Heaven well like them.
Making Heaven well will give you greater glory in the next life than what the thief on the Cross got. And that is our goal; to make Heaven the way our Bible fathers made it.
Someone may think we are stupid not caring about earthly success, but they fail to realize that no one who pursued Heavenly success failed on earth. All who did, succeeded greatly before they died. From Seth to Enoch, to Lamech to Noah, to our father Abraham.
Concerning our father Abraham, the Bible says,
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
“By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:8-10 NKJV
Many of us do not know that when Abraham left his father’s house, his drive was not a physical land out there to be possessed but a Heavenly City.
SADLY, MANY PREACHERS HAVE PREACHED THE OPPOSITE.
They have measure Abraham’s reason for following God and success for doing so in material acquisition not seeing the prophetic picture. Personally, I grew up hearing preachers presenting earthly success and physical inheritance as his goal for leaving his father’s house, then promising us the same if we sow this seed or sow the other seed. But the Bible says;
“For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:14-16 NKJV
This scripture tells us why God said to Moses;
“I shall be called the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. That is my name forever.”
The Bible says God was not ashamed to be called their God for He has prepared a City for them. It was the prophetic sight the prepared City that moved Abraham out of His father’s house, and kept him following the LORD till death.
If we are seeds of Abraham according to Galatians 3:29, then we must do the same. We must divorce ourselves from this friendship-with-the-world kind of Christianity, that set our minds on earthly things instead of eternal things. we must re define our purposes for following the LORD.
The doctrine of Christ teaches that people who us God to get earthly things are Heathen or Godless by spirit nature. Meaning, they could be prophets, apostles, pastors, popes, Arch-Bishops, Bishops, or whatever, they are not born again.
TIME HAS COME FOR US TO CROSS- CHECK WHAT OUR SPIRITUAL DRIVES FOR BEING CHRISTIANS ARE!
Most of us are not driven by the Heavenly; hence God is ashamed to call Himself our God. And because He is ashamed of calling himself our God, we do not see Him break out against our enemies when they move against us. We don’t see Him move marvelously the way He did in the days of the Bible.
You may be proudly calling God your God, but is He proudly calling himself your God? That is the big question this morning.
Whenever God proudly call Himself our God, we see His glory in our lives. Whenever He is not ashamed to call Himself our God, He brings us into the things He has prepared for us before the foundation of the world.
What can we glean from the scriptures in this devotional this morning? So much, to say the least! The vision and passion of those seeking earthly success is different from that of those seeking Heavenly success. Those who seek earthly success look for money to build the best houses on earth. But those who seek the Heavenly, looks for the City whose maker and builder is God.
The beauty of it all is that those who seek the Heavenly City, with foundations, whose builder and maker is God, will end up inheriting things on earth that they did not build if they are required to be used to preach the gospel. That was what God revealed in the lives of the Israelites.
God brought them into earthly successes that they never labored for. Moses said to them;
“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey;
a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you. Deuteronomy 8:7-10 NKJV
When we follow God in pursuit of the Heavenly, He will bring us into earthly blessings we did not labor for.
I HAVE COME TO DISCOVER THAT PEOPLE WHO LABOR FOR THE HEAVENLY END UP INHERITING THE EARTHLY.
But those who labor for the earthly end up losing both the heavenly and the earthly. That is why we at the Cry of the Spirit ministries make the Heavenly our passion and pursuit. We know that even if God refuse to give us the earthly success people crave for; we will still inherit things in the next life that those who run after the earthly will never see.
Our devotional text this morning says;
“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20 NKJV
People who pursue the earthly at the expense of the Heavenly are usually selfish. They use God to pursue selfish ambitions.
I use to wonder what we really expect from God. I use to wonder why some of us in Church today treat Him and His servants like tools for the realization of selfish desires. But now I know; it’s because our passions are not the same. Some of us are in Church to use God as a good will charm. While few of us are in Church to allow God use us to get all He wants done on earth done.
To many the Church, God, or His servants are like a Hospital or clinic.
A hospital or Clinic is only important when people are sick. But once they are healthy, they are no longer important. So when they have problems, the seek God, His Church, or servants, but once they are free from their problems they disconnect from them. That is not how to treat God.
Though Jesus is called the Great Physician but God is not your Hospital. God is your dwelling place. If you do not make Him your dwelling place you will mourn in time and eternity.
I use to define the Church to be a spiritual hospital and God the doctor and us the patients because of what Jesus said about the sick needing a doctor. But God brought me out of that when He gave me a deeper revelation of what Church is in the book of Ephesians.
If we just reduce Church to be a hospital, we the patients and God the doctor, then we are not seeing things in God’s apostolic and prophetic perspective. That is why people do not have a relationship with God! They only have contact with Him.
No patient really has a relationship with a doctor, a hospital, clinic or dispensary. We all have contact with them not relationship. That is why no one has ever moved out of his or her home to go live in a hospital, clinic, or dispensary with a doctor or nurse forever. But God is different. We must not treat Him the same way. He is our dwelling place. Hence He wants people who will live with Him not just have contact with Him.
It’s my prayer that He use these truths to fire you into proper alignment with Him and His in Jesus precious name. AMEN!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Acts 20:32-NKJV