TODAY’S DEVOTION (Sunday 9TH January 2022)
“Awake, awake! Put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you.
Shake yourself from the dust, arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem; loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion!” Isaiah 52:1-2 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 9TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
Well, for those who are yet to wake up, by the end of today, we would have eaten NINE days of the year 2022. That will be 378 hours or 22,680 seconds of the over 525,000 seconds of this year.
The question is, what have you done with the days, hours or seconds that have already passed? Did you make used of the days, hours or seconds properly?
What I am trying to say is that time is running out very fast, if we do not rise to do what we were created to do, we will be counted as part of those who wasted the year by year end. Man was created to live for divine purpose on daily bases, not human needs.
Sadly, our needs and worries usually occupy the most of our lives, and always reflect in our most intimate prayer seasons with the LORD. This has a way of hindering so much from coming from Him to us.
There are no words to describe what the life of a Christians will become if he spends it not worrying about his earthly needs but God’s goals for his life. The peace, the blessing and the presence of the LORD in the person’s life will be beyond human comprehension.
Ordinarily, every Child of God malfunctions whenever he or she begins to worry about earthly needs. That was why our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ warned that we will add no value to our lives if we spend them worrying about anything.
The book of Matthew puts it this way;
“Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body what you will out on. Is life more than food and the body more than clothing?
Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?” Matthew 6:25,27 NKJV
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT WORRYING DOES NOT ADD ANYTHING TO YOU IT ONLY DIMINISHES YOU.
Worrying is you sitting in the dark rooms of your life developing negatives.
It is cracking your head over things you cannot change. It is generating excruciating thoughts and feelings about painful things that ought to be buried in the grave yard of time, or present things you should put in GOD’s hands and loosing hope about life itself. It is trying to squeeze answers from question that lack human answers.
Jesus said we should not do any of that because it will add nothing to us!
Worrying has never added to anyone on the face of the earth. It has only functioned as the birthplace of high blood pressure and all kinds of diseases and evil expectations. It is the birthplace of sinful acts, bad decisions and dangerous turns in life.
Any moment you sit down worrying, you are wasting away. Yes, you are wasting your time, talent and treasure. You are wasting the precious seconds, hours or days you engage yourself worrying. If you spend your days in worry, you do not need a devil to attack you, you have attacked yourself.
Satan loves seeing us dying in our worries; the times we worry are the very times we make ourselves vulnerable to his deception and eventual baptism of foolishness.
Worrying is the wrong foundation to stand on to do anything meaningful in life.
For instance, it is the wrong foundation to stand on and get married. You do not get married because of the worries of dying single. You get married to fulfill divine agenda. Sadly, many got married because of the worry of being single and childless. That is why the marriages are simple leaking roofs.
ANYTHING YOU DO OUT OF WORRY WILL GIVE BIRTH TO A TERRIBLE ISHMAEL
The word Ishmael in Biblical symbolism, describes situations that are born out of the flesh that are bound to turn out to be against you; maybe all your life! So many are in such situations in virtually all aspects of their lives.
Again, I state that worry is the wrong catalyst of any move in life.
Do not allow it to push you into doing anything. For instance, you don’t go looking for a job out of worry. You go looking for a Job to become responsible in the Kingdom of God and to yourself.
If money is placed on the hands of a heart that is full of worries, that money will never be spent meaningfully. It will just be spent on impulses. Money spent on impulses will diminish your economic life. It will take you from plenty to poverty.
All these goes to tell us that if we add worry to anything in life, it begins to stagnate and eventually die. We must understand that worrying will bring any life under the covering shelter of devils and makes us vulnerable in the spirit realm.
Most lives were brought under intense satanic attacks by worry! I have seen worry turn sane people into mentally deranged people.
I have seen worry do things in the lives of people that even demons cannot do! Worry has handed over beautiful women to terrible men. It has handed over promising young men to terrible women.
Worrying has made 50-year-old women get married to 30-year-old. It can take a very destructive dimension, my friend. Especially, worrying about getting old and not getting married; it is indeed a threshold of personal destruction.
If you are a Christian plagued by worry, you may wake up one morning to find yourself away from Christ. You will hate Church and even a preacher you once respected because of failed expectations.
Worry has taken people from the narrow way that leads to life to the broad that leads to death. It has become one of the bedrocks of compromise in the Church today. It has opened many evil portals over lives.
YES, WORRYING HAS OPENED THE PORTALS OF DEATH AND GRAVE OVER PEOPLE AND TAKEN THEM TO PREMATURE GRAVES.
It has placed people in dangerous panic modes. When you are placed on the panic mode of worry, the death of your peace will be a matter of time. That is why we must not allow it to become part of our lives.
I have learned by experience that worry has a way of killing anything that gives life to our mortal bodies. It has a way of blurring our life vision and putting veils on our minds. It has a way of killing faith in our spirit and impregnating us with doubts about even God, sometimes. It has a way of making us doubt even what He may have said to us.
It can kill our faith or wipe away our trust in God completely.
Friend, if we do not learn how to shake ourselves free from the dust of worry, the uncircumcised and unclean will keep finding a place to rest in our lives. A major highlight in our devotional text says;
“For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you….shake yourself from the dust, arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem; loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion!”
The dust of worry has a way of bringing us into captivity. It has a way of making our lives a highway for demonic traffic. In other words, when we worry, we are few inches away from captivity. We will begin to do and say things that will shut freedom away from us!
God sent this word to counsel you to stop worrying! He wants us to delete worry from our lives this year!
You cannot go into or travel through a year worrying. It will shut you down completely. You cannot enter a year or travel through it recalling painful memories of things you cannot change and developing excruciating imaginations and feelings. You will be chained to oppressing demons if you do.
You must stop worrying! You must free your heart from worries so that it can bring forth life to you.
Now, to stop worrying, you must learn what to do with things that make you worry. The Bible is clear on what to do with things that make us worry.
It says we should cast them on Jesus, for he cares for us. Hallelujah!
When things that put people in worry modes happen to us, we should learn to shake them off by spending quality time in prayer, for the purpose of casting them to the LORD, and seeking that His will be done in our lives.
I believe God has spoken to someone this morning. If you make the message of this devotional one of your guiding lights this year, things will be different. It’s my prayers that you use these words to build yourself up in your most holy faith, and receive an inheritance among they that are sanctified. Amen
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY FOR YOU
“Rejoice in the LORD always. Again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to all men. The LORD is at hand.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God; and the peace of god, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ.” Philippians 4:4-7 NKJV