TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Thursday 2nd September 2021)
“Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him.
But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.” Exodus 23:20-22 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 245TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
This is the day the LORD has made! We shall rejoice and be glad in it. Indeed, He has not dealt with us according to our sins but according to His faithfulness. If He mark iniquity, none of us can stand. But there is forgiveness with Him so that He may be feared. I hope we understand that.
God’s mercies are not a fertilizer for a life of sin and rebellion, but many of us treat them as such. We do not make use of them to lead holy and righteous lives. Ordinarily, if God did not deal with me according to my sins, I should fear Him and request for grace not to go on living in my sinful ways. I should seek the inner strength from Him to live right on daily bases. Hallelujah!
Indeed, our God have been so mindful of us. He has kept us from diseases, lack, self-destruction (for some of us), the swords of our enemies and our own swords, and all that the kingdom of darkness hurls at mankind. He has been our shelter, peace, strong tower, refuge, and all that. We are in the 9th month of our year of Higher Heights because of that.
To our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ belong all the glory!
If you take a careful look at the plans of the devil for our lives, it’s clear that none of us should have been alive today. But here we are! Alive and well. Indeed, the expectations of the wicked shall perish. Heaven has proven that over and over again in our lives.
Daniel was thrown into the Lion’s Den by betrayers and hatters. The expectation was for the lions to eat him up and his life and ministry forgotten in ancient Babylon. But God defeated that expectation. He made sure the Lion’s lost their wild nature and become what they were originally created to be when his servant stepped into their den.
DANIEL CARRIED A PRESENCE THAT CALMED THOSE LIONS.
That is what I crave for every day of my life. That I live a Christian life that carries a presence that calms the Lions of life. The world we live in is a Lion’s den, if you truly understand what lion means in the prophetic within the context of what happened to Daniel. If we do not carry the presence of God to calm them down, we will be eaten by it every now and then.
Remember the story of the young prophet from Judah and the other one who refused to obey the word of the LORD. They both were killed by lions. If we lead lives that do not carry the manifest presence to calm Lions in a crooked and perverse generation, we will be eaten by them because there are so many people who do not life us; who want us on harm’s way.
In the story of Daniel, people conspired to send him to the Lion’s den and it worked. But the LORD intervened for him. When He came out, it was their turn to face them. We belong to a kingdom that knows how to deal with our enemies.
If they put us on harm’s way and God come in to save us, it does not stop there. God has a way of using them to continue their judgments by bringing the evil they determined for us to them. if they do not repent That is the only way the name of the LORD is glorified in the battle between us and the evil men and women planted in our lives.
It happened in the days of Daniel, it still happens in our days! The Bible says the men and their families where all thrown there. Maybe their families contributed to Daniel’s ordeal by laughing and making mockery of him at their homes when their fathers who were working with him brought the story of how they do not like him to the dining table. They must have said one evil or the other against Daniel that made them part of the judgment.
God knows how to execute Judgment on the wicked and spare His own from their swords. It all sprang from the intimacy with God and consecration Daniel maintained in in a foreign land. We all in a foreign land because the world is not our own. If we maintain the same standard Daniel maintained, we will see the same things he saw.
SADLY, OUR GENERATION SEEMS REALLY BEREAVED OF MAJOR MOVES OF GOD.
The whole creation is still groaning and waiting for our manifestation. I think this is time for us to experience what our fathers experience. But it will not happen until we uphold the standards they upheld.
Today is the 2nd day of the 9th month of our year of higher heights. What height of faith have we all achieved? What is our individual altitudes in the Spirit? Are we flying higher above there with the LORD or we are walking down there on the feet of carnality? It is very important that we check these things!
We will never see what our fathers saw if we do not do what they did. God has been giving us proper spiritual feeding since the first day of this year. Are we making use of each meal to improve our spiritual lives?
Yes, God has been showing us mercy by feeding us with choice spiritual meals. Whenever God show mercy to a people, He will get them some quality spiritual food so. The intent is to change their lives by taking them out of their ways and bringing them into His ways. He will establish for them a prophetic and apostolic food center or feeding home, then appoint kingdom stewards for them to feed them by giving them their meat in due seasons.
We at the Cry of the Spirit Ministries have been experiencing these all these years under this mantle. We have moved from one due season to another and are currently in another due season called “7 DAYS 7 MOUNTIANS.” God have been providing us meat in every of the due seasons.
We have come to realize that the greatest call on the human race is the call to come and be fed. Only those who obey that call are being saved and sanctified for the master’s use.
Responding to the call usually begins with accepting Jesus Christ as LORD and savior, and then continues with taking a seat in any Spiritual Feeding Home He appoints of you until you become a temple for Him in the Spirit.
YOU FIND THIS PATTERN IN THE DAYS OF THE EARLY CHURCH.
The Bible says,
“Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.” Acts 2:41-42 NKJV
In other word, they took their seats in God’s spiritual Food home appointed for them shortly after surrendering their lives to Jesus Christ and continued steadfastly, feeding on the apostle’s doctrines through fellowship.
The pattern shows that anyone who gives his life to Christ without finding a spiritual food center or an apostolic and prophetic food home to sit and be fed spiritually for the rest of their lives will eventually take it back by returning to their old ways as within a short period of time.
There are two ways people take their lives back after giving it to the LORD. Some take it back by openly going back to the world, while others by secretly going back to their old lifestyles and still coming to church calling it weakness.
I was told of a pastor who went drinking in a drinking spot boasting of how much he has made through tithes and offerings. Yet, he still goes about as an apostle and still pastors people. When a lost soul pastors you, do you think you will make Heaven? That preacher has taken his life back from Christ but he still goes about as if nothing has happened.
When people take their lives back from the LORD, they become professors. Yes, they become merely professors of the faith instead of living the life of the faith. The Bible described it this way;
“They profess to know God, but in works they deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work.” Titus 1:16 NKJV
A lot of things disappeared from us when we take our lives back from the LORD; one of it is a life of godliness, holiness or purity. Our moral lives will depreciate greatly living us with a form of godliness without power. Everything sinful will become acceptable and treated very mildly. The consciousness to live right that ways kindled by salvation experience will disappear.
FRIEND, IT IS SOMETIMES EASIER TO KEEP YOUR LIFE IN CHRIST THAT TO GIVE YOUR LIFE TO CHRIST.
If you do not understand this and start working out your salvation with fear and trembling after giving your life to Christ, you will not realize when you have taken it back. God knows the enemy will not let us remain in Christ after giving our lives to Him, that is why He established spiritual feeding centers and sends us there to belong. He sends us where we will be fed with the doctrine of Christ.
When we are fed with the doctrine of Christ, we become like Christ. It is when we become like Christ that we are Christians indeed.
Again you find that pattern in the Church in Antioch. The Bible says;
“Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” Acts 11:25-26 NKJV
The people where taught the doctrine of Christ; in other words, they were fed with the doctrine of Christ. And because what you eat will eat, they were eaten by what they ate and they became Christians. That remains the principle till date. Satan knows this hence putting other doctrines on the lips of some preachers instead of the doctrine of Christ. That brings us to our devotional text. It says,
“Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him.
But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.”
THE WORD ANGEL MEANS MESSENGER!
It was a messianic expression of the presence of the pre -incarnate Christ among them. In other words, Jesus Christ was the Angel God referred to. He was among the Israelites as a pillar of cloud by Day and a pillar of Fire by Night. The Bible calls Him the messenger of the New Covenant. But today He is among us through the His Word and Spirit.
When we are fed with the doctrine of Christ, the food has a way of transforming our lives to make Jesus our LORD indeed.
Jesus is your LORD indeed when you call Him “LORD, LORD” and do what He says or teaches. If you call Him “LORD, LORD” but do not do what He says or teaches He is not your LORD indeed and you are not part of Him. This is irrespective of the miracles, signs or wonders that may be flowing in or through your life.
Making Jesus LORD involves obeying His word and Spirit, doing all His will and following His ways. When He becomes our LORD, the results will begin to show. He will become an enemy to our enemies and an adversary to our adversaries.
Child of God, a lot of things happen when Jesus becomes our LORD indeed.
What is the message today? The message is simple. The greatest need of your life, is not marriage, money, freedom from generational curses or evil altars. The greatest need of your life is a spiritual food house where you can be properly fed and brought to the faith position where Jesus will become your LORD and savior indeed.
When that happens, whatever you may be looking for will begin to look for you!
It’s a New Day! I welcome you to a month of fresh portals in the name of Jesus! Make up your mind to be fed if you have not. Build this month around this revelation in this devotional. Jesus becoming or staying as your LORD indeed should be one of your goals this month.
If you ask me, I will suggest that it remain that way all the rest of your years on earth.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
Why do you call Me, Lord, Lord, and do not [practice] what I tell you? For everyone who comes to Me and listens to My words [in order to heed their teaching] and does them, I will show you what he is like:
He is like a man building a house, who dug and went down deep and laid a foundation upon the rock; and when a flood arose, the torrent broke against that house and could not shake or move it, because it had been securely built or founded on a rock.
But he who merely hears and does not practice doing My words is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation, against which the torrent burst, and immediately it collapsed and fell, and the breaking and ruin of that house was great. Luke 6:46-49 AMP