TODAY’S DEVOTION (Monday 20th December 2021)
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 354TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS.
With just few days of the year to go, I won’t fail to appreciate GOD for watching over us each day. He has done much more than we can ever ask or think according to His power that works in us. To Him belong the glory in Jesus precious name. Amen!
New year for kingdom citizens, calls for new levels of faith.
The driving force of the Kingdom of GOD is actually to move citizens from one realm to another. That is why the Bible admonishes that we move from one level of grace to another and one level of faith to another. The Christian journey is actually designed to go from faith to faith, grace to grace; glory to glory until death do us part.
In other words, we are saved to move from a lower level of faith to a higher level of faith, a lower dimension of grace to a higher dimension of grace, a lower realm of glory to a higher realm of glory until our time on earth is over.
Moving, from where an old year left us to a much higher place in the spirit in a new year remains GOD’s will for our lives. Moving from where an outgoing year left us to where an incoming year should take us should be our focus as God’s kingdom Citizens.
We lead our lives with eyes on the blessed hope and the release of our prophetic destinies. Our lives are filled with destiny seeds, waiting for the rain of the Spirit to fall on us to cause them to grow and be fulfilled. This rain must be falling on us daily for what we carry to be birth on earth.
PAUL WROTE TO THE CHURCH AT PHILIPPI THOSE STRONG WORDS THAT HAS SHAPED THE DESTINY OF MANY FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.
I have come to discover that every revivalist God ever used to rekindle the flames of His Holy Spirit feed from that scripture to release their destinies and stay on fire for the LORD till death. There is therefore, something about that scripture that needs urgent attention in our generation. A major highlight in the text says;
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
If we do not forget the things that happened yesterday – the good, the bad and the ugly – and press into what God has predetermined that it happens today, we will never unleash our divine destiny. A generation that holds on to past glorious or inglorious things that happened to it will never be able to finish its course in God’s eternal plan for mankind!
There are certain past that holds treasure for us to remember and unlock, but there are pasts that are full of curses and can do so much harm on us. We are not designed to succeed camping on pasts but on the future. We are to look at the future, see predetermined things of GOD for our lives and camp around them until they come to pass.
Sometimes, people get to a particular peak in life and camp there. But I have come to realize that if we get to a particular peak in life and do not lift up our eyes to look for higher grounds to press into, we will begin to stink and sink. Samson made a major mistake at a particular success peak of his life.
He did not just make a mistake he desecrated his consecration turning himself into a captive in the hands of people who once dreaded him. We all blame it on Delilah but if you take a second look at that incident, you will realize that the harlot came into the picture when Samson got stuck to a season of success.
NO MOVING ARMY CAN BE CAPTURE BY THE ENEMY.
That is why in God’s kingdom, we don’t get ourselves stuck to a season of success (or even failure), we move on! That is the secret of unending strength from the LORD.
If you are interested in fulfilling your divine destiny, it is important to note that your divine destiny will need constant pressing into things yet to be revealed or made manifest, to be fulfilled. If you do not press into things that are yet to be fulfilled in your life daily bases, you will be stuck to a season of progress and begin to see your carnal craving come alive and someone or something to satisfy it for you. That is the reason generals in God’s army fall.
Take David for instance, he saw Beersheba, the naked woman who trapped him into sin – that he did in a season when kings go to war. The Bible says,
“It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.
So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.” 2 Samuel 11:1-5 NKJV
Everything you just read and what happened as a result is traceable to one season the King did not go to war; one time great King David got stuck to a season of success.
If he was in the battle field responding to the next thing God wanted to do with his life, he wouldn’t have seen a woman who was busy taking her bath from his pent house.
WE ALLOW OUR CARNAL DESIRES TO TAKE THE BETTER PART OF US IF WE ARE NOT IN THE BATTLE FIELDS OF OUR DIVINE DESTINIES
We allow our carnal desires to take the better part of us if we do not spend our days submitting to the next thing God want to do with our lives after doing one successful thing with it. Your divine destiny will need a constant pressing into things yet to be done with your life to be fulfilled.
The Church is stuck and stinky in the Spirit today because we do not know or apply this in our walk with God. We rather move from one marriage program to another, one poverty killing meeting to another but do not move from realms of glory to another.
Sometimes I ask myself when the poverty will be finally killed. All these kinds of meetings are just to make or keep the pastor smiling to the bank!
The truth is, any man or woman preacher who takes you from one poverty killing meeting to the other is only interested in killing his own poverty. Not yours!
Anyone that builds his ministry on solving marriage and money problems alone is a big fraud. That has nothing to do with the great commission. The great commission is to form Christ in people. Then Christ in them becomes the hope of their financial or marital glory.
Whenever the Church loose touch with the glory, preachers will settle on using the anointing to solve earthly problems, leaving the people with great eternal problems. Divine destiny will need a constant pursuit of and pressing into the things of God to be fulfilled, not the things of men (Marriage, money and etc).
It will require that you press on your knees through intense fasting and prayers to get into dimensions of God’s truth, grace, kingdom, power and glory you are yet to see.
IT WILL REQUIRE THAT YOU PRESS WITH YOUR MIND THROUGH HOURS SPENT WITH THE WORD
It will require that you press along with members of your spiritual family through corporate fellowships with where the word is dissected and the power of God imparted. When it comes to matters of divine destiny, no pressing, no progress – you must press from one level of success to another, or from inactivity to productivity.
And talking about inactivity, I have come to realize that you do not wait for destiny to be fulfilled, you press into destiny for it to be fulfilled. Inactivity is the greatest killer of divine destiny. If you are just lying down and inactive and expecting your destiny to be fulfilled, it will never be. That is why no lazy man or woman has been able to fulfill divine destiny.
I pray for you today that as the curtains of 2021 closes and that of 2022 opens, everything that is anti-divine destiny in your life will be closing tightly. There will never be another 2021, so make sure that nothing that is against your divine destiny follows you into your new year.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY;
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ”
“and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;”
“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
“Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.” Philippians 3:7-15 NKJV