TODAY’S DEVOTION (Wednesday 9TH March 2022)
“Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:23-27 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 68TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
Glory be to God!
Today marks the 22nd year since I was formerly commissioned into ministry; that is after 7 to 8 years of proving my ministry, as they call it in those days.
In our days, you do not just say God call you and you get ordained. You must prove your ministry for 7 to 8 years before the leaders will commission you. I guess, that was why we had few lying preachers then.
Sadly, today the standards are fallen, a person will speak in tongues in one day, and the next day he will be handed over the mic to preach and after a short while, they make him or her a pastor.
I want to thank the LORD for seeing us through all the years and for taking me out of every pit my sins, iniquity and trespasses dug for me, and the ones the enemy of my soul and wicked men also dug for me.
There are times our sins dig pits for us, and there are times the enemy does it. Its not always the enemy.
My life is a testament that God does not chose the qualified, God qualifies the chosen. Because For these short years, He has been qualifying me almost on a daily bases, to carry His holy words to this generation. If not for that, I would have been very unfit for the task. To Him belong all the glory.
We have been on a spiritual expedition on one of the most important aspects of our faith this month; an aspect of our faith that has to do with righteousness, purity and holiness. It is even the most important because without holiness no eye shall see the LORD.
Today is the 9th day of this 31-Day mission. The vision as we have made it clear from the beginning, is to achieve consecrated Christian living; a life that honors the LORD spirit, soul and body.
Most times we honor the LORD with our lips but not with our spirits, souls and bodies.
When we honor the LORD with the three, especially our bodies, we live holy lives. But now we do not. That is why you find many of us professing to know Him with our lips but denying Him with our deeds. We have replaced what ought to be demonstrated with deeds with talk of the lips. We now demonstrate with our lips what was designed to be demonstrated by deeds.
The Bible says;
“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:8-9KJV
THIS IS ONE OF THE LAMENTATIONS OF THE ALMIGHTY IN SCRIPTURES.
I can sense this same lamentation made over the Israelites in Bible days being repeated over us today.
When we gather in our Sunday services, this is what the LORD groans about in the Heavenlies. That is why we do not see His glory. We just struggle with the anointing and dwell in realms of human manipulations and most times charismatic witchcraft, where people are told to pray looking at rods or combing their hairs backward and forward.
If there is anytime we need to come out of all forms of occultism presented as Christianity, and all forms of hypocrisy and personal ungodliness, into the Bible way of Christian living, it is now.
Yes, if there is a time to walk away from desecrated Christian living to consecrated Christian living, it is now. However, that is not possible without the Holy Spirit building righteous strongholds within us that makes such living possible.
The sanctification of the spirit, souls and body is a major activity of the Holy Spirit going on now. The reason is because of the days that are upon us. We are in days of sanctification of the Church by the water of the word, so that we can be all presented to the LORD without spot or wrinkles. The Bible says;
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:25-27 KJV
Sometimes, we do not realize what ways the LORD demonstrates His love towards us. We think it is always be giving us miracles. But one of the most unknown ways the LORD demonstrated His love towards, like a husband should do to the wife, is by sanctifying us.
THE LORD SANCTIFIES WHO HE LOVES, AND HE LOVES ALL OF US; SO HE WANTS ALL OF US SANCTIFIED.
In other words, if the LORD loves you, among other things, He will sanctify you for Himself as a purifier of the sons of Levi, so that you will be living as part of His glorious Church on the face of the earth; a person who is without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish.
This activity of His Spirit is predicated on our love for the LORD.
Now, if you are wondering how to love the LORD, a part of our devotional text presents how. It made it clear that we are to love the LORD by demonstrating it, not by singing, giving, praying or preaching, as important as they are. It says we are to demonstrate it by keeping what He said in His word;
hear Him;
… “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” John 14:23-24 NKJV
I think the time has come to stop following what our misled preachers are preaching about loving the LORD and start following what the LORD Himself taught in this scripture. Because loving the LORD properly will make our lives the home of the Godhead.
So, from these scriptures, it is clear that we demonstrate our love for the LORD by obeying His commandments, while He demonstrates His love towards us by sanctifying us. That is how obedience meets sanctification in the Christian race.
WHEN WE LOVE THE LORD AND GIVE OURSELVES TO HIM, HE WILL SANCTIFY US.
This sanctification is carried out by his Holy Spirit, using sanctifying truths. It’s an activity of the Spirit that will lead to the rebirth of the crucified life in the lives of those who submit to the LORD.
The Bible says;
“ And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Galatians 5:24-25 NKJV
In Heaven, those who are Christ are known by the kind of life they live not the kind of things they say. They are known by the Crucified life they live not the spiritual things they say.
Yes, they are known by walking in the Spirit not in the flesh. Simply put, they are known by their consecration. And do not forget, it is the sanctification of the spirit, soul and body that results in consecrated living.
We saw what the Bible teaches about the sanctification of the spirit in previous devotionals, now we are looking at what the Bible teaches about the sanctification of the soul.
As we already seen, the sanctification of the soul is what the Bible calls the saving of the soul. And in saving the soul, all the units of the soul must be sanctified.
There are five units or faculties of the soul that needs to be sanctified. We have seen two of the five, and how to get them sanctified. We have seen the imagination and the memory. But we will still dwell on the memory today because there are more truths to uncover.
The memory describes that unit of the soul that stores and recalls things. We saw how the unit bring destruction to us if it is not sanctified, and we also saw how to get it sanctified. The Bible describes a desecrated and polluted memory as a memory that does not retain GOD. Such memory will make our lives corrupt and sinful.
IT WILL ALWAYS BE RECALLING THE PLEASURE OF THE SINS WE ONCE COMMITTED AND ALWAYS PUSH US BACK TO THEM.
It is very important that we always fast and pray regularly, asking the LORD to sanctify our memory. Yes, it is important that we develop a culture of spending specific days and nights, absorbing sanctifying truths and memorizing them.
Memorizing the scripture and what it teaches is one way we put or retain God in our knowledge. Sadly, many of us do not do that today!
One of the spiritual exercises God taught the nation of Israel to be engaged in the previous dispensation was the memorization of the Torah. In fact, God placed the success of Joshua’s ministry on memorization of the Torah. That was why he was even able to stop the Sun.
I believe, he went to battle that day after memorizing and recalling what He had memorized from the Torah, and came back victorious.
We will always be victorious in the battle against sin, if we get our memories filled with the word of the LORD day and night, like Joshua did in his days.
God said to him expressly;
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8 NKJV
Meditation is strongly connected to memorization. It is one way we retain GOD in our knowledge and do exploits with it. David, one of those who grew up in the culture of memorizing the Torah like Muslims memorize the Koran, wrote saying;
“How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments! Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:9-11 NKJV
We hide the word of the LORD in our hearts by meditating in it and memorizing it.
MEMORIZING THE SCRIPTURES IS ONE WAY WE SANCTIFY OUR MEMORIES.
For instance, if your problem is sexual sins, due to what lies in your memory, you can change that if you engage in a season of mild fasting but with intense memorization of scriptures that forbids sexual intercourse outside marriage.
You will never continue living in sexual sins if you hide the word of the LORD on the consequences of it in your memory bank or subconsciousness. The Holy Spirit will always find what to use to stop you from committing the sin, which brings us to another aspect of our devotional text. The text says;
“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” John 14:25-26 NKJV
This scripture presents to us one way that the Holy Spirit helps us to lead sanctified Christian lives. He helps us by taking what we may have memorized during the time of spiritual life building fasting and prayer, from our subconsciousness to our memory, so that we can use it as a sword in battle.
In other words, He helps to act on our memory to pick what lies in our subconsciousness and bring to the fore for appropriate action. That means if we have not put in anything into our subconsciousness through meditation and memorization of scriptures, there will be nothing for the Holy Spirit to pick in His love to help us lead consecrated lives.
This is a call to all who want to lead consecrated lives to wake up! It is a call to wake up and shun all forms of spiritual laziness, and begin to hide the word in our hearts (put it into our subconsciousness) by memorizing the scriptures.
Our memory was designed to help us put things into our subconsciousness by memorizing them. It was designed to help us absorb into our subconsciousness scriptures on Righteousness, Purity and Holiness. If we make proper use of it in our quest for holy living, it will keep it sanctified; the sinful and ungodly things that lie in our subconsciousness will be deleted and replaced with righteous and godly truths from the Bible.
I think enough has been shared for the day; May the LORD use it to build us up and give you an inheritance among they that are sanctified.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AND ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Colossians 3:16-17 NKJV