TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 19TH MARCH 2022)
“ For even though I did grieve you with my letter, I do not regret [it now], though I did regret it; for I see that that letter did pain you, though only for a little while;
Yet I am glad now, not because you were pained, but because you were pained into repentance [and so turned back to God]; for you felt a grief such as God meant you to feel, so that in nothing you might suffer loss through us or harm for what we did.
For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death].
For [you can look back now and] observe what this same godly sorrow has done for you and has produced in you: what eagerness and earnest care to explain and clear yourselves [of all complicity in the condoning of incest], what indignation [at the sin], what alarm, what yearning, what zeal [to do justice to all concerned], what readiness to mete out punishment [to the offender]! At every point you have proved yourselves cleared and guiltless in the matter.” 2 Corinthians 7:8-11 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 78TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
It’s been 18 days of Cry of the Spirit on matters of Righteousness, Purity and Holiness, and today the LORD in His mercies is bringing us the 19th Cry. We give Him the glory for all He have been doing; for not giving up on us and for not allowing us to be ruined in our sins.
Yesterday, we wrapped up the sharing on iniquity not being our ruin.
That beautiful scripture in Ezekiel 18 was food to the soul for those who really want to live for the LORD. It tells us what will happen if any of us abandon God’s righteous ways permanently and go back to our old ways. It says all the righteous things we have done, the price we may have paid, the tears we may have shed, the lives we may have changed, will all be forgotten and wiped away from Heaven’s record.
Those of us who are saved can take that as a word of caution, and know that we can lose everything we are doing in GOD’s kingdom now, if we permanently return to our old ways.
It was a perfect revelation of GOD’s justice system that I believe every human being should know. It tells us what the result will be if we turn our will to favor a life of sin or a life of righteousness.
That scripture (Ezekiel 18) also tells us what will happen if a wicked man or woman permanently abandon their wicked ways and begin to follow the LORD. It made it clear that no matter the sin we may have committed, if we abandon our wicked ways and permanently go for GOD’s righteous ways, there will be hope for us.
We have been focusing on the salvation of the soul, and of late the sanctification of the unit of the soul called the will.
A lot depends on how we use our will. If we do not understand the importance of our will, so long as living a blessed life in this life and making Heaven in the next life is concern, we will be sorry on the last day.
God’s will, is that we live blessed lives on earth and make Heaven in the life after, that is why the Bible says;
“The Lord does not delay and is not tardy or slow about what He promises, according to some people’s conception of slowness, but He is long-suffering (extraordinarily patient) toward you, not desiring that any should perish, but that all should turn to repentance.” 2 Peter 3:9 AMPC
HIS WILL REMAINS THAT WE LIVE A BLESSED LIFE ON EARTH AND MAKE HEAVEN IN THE NEXT LIFE.
But the problem is our will.
It is our individual wills that are preventing His will from coming to pass in our lives. That is why we do not see His will come to pass in the lives of many of us, so long as His prophetic and eternal plans and purposes for our lives are concern.
For many of us, the defilement in our souls do not allow our will to let His righteous will to be done in our lives. Yet, Jesus said when we pray, or relate with Him (our Heavenly Father), we should say;
….Our Father Who is in heaven, hallowed (kept holy) be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 6:9-10 AMPC
The earth here implies both the entire planet and our individual earthly lives, because the will of GOD is perfectly done in Heaven. It is on earth that man’s will resist it from being successfully done.
And let me share this with you; you see, Satan’s will cannot resist God’s will successfully because God will crush him in less than a second if he tries. There is a decree that says “the counsel of the wicked shall not stand” so he cannot successfully resist GOD’s will. But man’s will can successfully resist GOD’s will because God will not crush him
God will not crush man because man is not His arch enemy but His own. He created man for His pleasure and will not want him destroyed; hence even stepping down as man to die on the cross.
You do not crush down your own if they resist you. You only persuade, correct, enlighten, grant them encounters and at most discipline them if they resist you. But crushing them down will always be out of the question, except they join forces with the one destined for crushing, they will never be crushed for resisting you.
At most they will suffer the consequences of resisting your will with a window of repentance opened to them.
IN OTHER WORDS, BEING CREATED IN GOD’S IMAGE AND LIKENESS MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR MAN TO SUCCESSFULLY RESIST GOD’S WILL.
The preaching of the gospel is actually to persuade man to stop resisting GOD’s will and start aligning with it. That is why when people accept the gospel, they begin to lead their lives differently. They begin to place their will in GOD’s hands and allowing His Holy Spirit influence it.
A son of God is he whose will have being sold out to do GOD’s will, no matter the cost. That is who we become after accepting the gospel.
We must understand how deeply our will determine the direction of our lives on this part of eternity and how it will determine on the other side, and begin to give it the attention it deserves.
For many of us, our will is our killer not our enemies. We have refused to permanently allow it to follow the ways of GOD. We forget that it is how we bend our will to follow GOD’s will, that determines how GOD will deal with our enemies. Yes, our lives only turn out well when we use our will well. The Bible says;
“Oh, that My people would listen to Me, That Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn My hand against their adversaries.
The haters of the LORD would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever.
He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat; And with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.” Psalm 82:13-16 NKJV
Personally, my destruction has always been around areas I did not listen to GOD. I do not know about you! Not listening to GOD is not subjecting your will to His will. It is the root of all calamities of life. You find Him lamenting in this Psalm about that.
Oh, how we delay our blessings and even deny ourselves great things from GOD by being self-willed instead of GOD- willed.
When our will is sanctified, we become GOD-Willed, but when it is unsanctified, we become self-willed. Most people die and get dumped in hell fire for being self-willed.
And do not forget, it is with our will we make marriage proposals or accept them. It is with our will we give help or accept help. It is with our will we walk away from or stay with. When we do not subject it to GOD’s will, we make or accept eternally damning marital proposals, offer or accept eternally damning help, stay with what will destroy us eternally or walk away from what is designed by the LORD to raise us.
MAKING HEAVEN OR GOING TO HELL DEPENDS ON WHOSE IS IN CHARGE OF OUR WILL ON DAILY BASIS!
Living a sinful or consecrated life depends on who is in charge of our will on daily bases. If the Holy Spirit and GOD’s holy word are in charge, we will not be led to lead sinful lives. Our decisions will be holy, righteous and pure. We will not do things that desecrates us.
Now, we cannot look at how to sanctify this important unit of the soul (the will), without looking at what to do when it becomes weak and lead us to a sinful deed or life of sin. I have tasted both ends in my walk with GOD and I believe you have also tasted.
Not knowing what to do could cloud your judgment with impulses and conclusions from the spirit of hell, planting you permanently in a life of sin, iniquity and trespass. If you have been in battle against sin, you will realize that it will take knowledge not to give up on GOD after holding up for a while and seeing yourself falling back to things you vowed not to do again.
There are some of us who have gone permanently to the devil and are now not even interested in Christ because of that.
We stood firm when we heard the word, sacrificed in prayer and fasting, hoping we will not sin again, only to fall back into it. Then we gave up saying, “Heaven is not for everyone” and went back to a life of sin. Some who even still go to church do it believing that we can not be perfect having tried to be and fell.
Two things we must remember is, living a consecrated life is not by might nor by power but by the Spirit of the living God.
Falling into sin is a result of shortage of grace because the Bible made it clear that the true grace of God is an enabler of righteous living. That is why where sins abide grace much more abides to eliminate sin. It does not abide to keep people living in sin without repenting and GOD forgiving them. That will not be the true grace of GOD, that will be a hyper grace from hell.
THE MANTRA OF GOD’S TRUE GRACE REMAINS, NEITHER DO I CONDEMNED YOU GO AND SIN NO MORE. PERIOD! NOT GO AND KEEP SINNING.
The reason we fall back into sin after fasting, praying and holding on to a life of righteousness for a while, is because a time comes in our quest for right living that pride or spiritual arrogance forms in our hearts, leading to a shortage of God’s grace. Then the shortage of grace results in one fall into sin to another, until we give up on holiness.
The Bible says GOD resist the proud but give grace to the humble. Meaning, in our fasting, prayer and consecrating, we must remain humble in spirit. When we are humble in spirit, we will not over estimate ourselves and disdain the sinner, like the Pharisee who went to pray in the temple. That will result in shortage of grace, leading to a fall back to a life of sin.
The second thing we must not forget is this; hell is not for anyone but fallen angels. If we fall back to a life of sin like those angels fall, we will come under the same sentence with fallen angels, so to speak. We will share eternity with them.
That should worry us and keep us on your toes. And one way it should keep us on our toes is by knowing what to do when our will becomes weak, and we fall into sin.
Before we get there, I want to say, one of the many events that happens in the life of a Child of GOD that eventually culminates into a life of consecration is what he does when he or she falls into sin; especially with the knowledge of the Holy One in his heart. Our devotional text speaks of godly sorrow. It says;
Yet I am glad now, not because you were pained, but because you were pained into repentance [and so turned back to God]; for you felt a grief such as God meant you to feel, so that in nothing you might suffer loss through us or harm for what we did.
For godly grief and the pain God is permitted to direct, produce a repentance that leads and contributes to salvation and deliverance from evil, and it never brings regret; but worldly grief (the hopeless sorrow that is characteristic of the pagan world) is deadly [breeding and ending in death].
For [you can look back now and] observe what this same godly sorrow has done for you and has produced in you: what eagerness and earnest care to explain and clear yourselves [of all complicity in the condoning of incest], what indignation [at the sin], what alarm, what yearning, what zeal [to do justice to all concerned], what readiness to mete out punishment [to the offender]! At every point you have proved yourselves cleared and guiltless in the matter.” 2 Corinthians 7:9-11 AMPC
GODLY SORROW IS THE GRIEF WE FEEL AFTER WE HAVE SINNED AGAINST GOD, ESPECIALLY FOR A LONG TIME.
It is the grief we feel after committing, sometimes, very grievous sins like adultery, fornication, lying, walking in deceit or unforgiveness. It usually comes after a strong conviction of the Spirit. This grief can launch one into a permanent life of consecration if we allow it to take us to the Threshing floor.
The last verse of the devotional text said,
“For [you can look back now and] observe what this same godly sorrow has done for you and has produced in you: what eagerness and earnest care to explain and clear yourselves [of all complicity in the condoning of incest], what indignation [at the sin], what alarm, what yearning, what zeal [to do justice to all concerned], what readiness to mete out punishment [to the offender]! At every point you have proved yourselves cleared and guiltless in the matter.”
What do we do when we grow weary and fall into sin? We should not give up. If we are true Children of God, there will be godly sorrow in our hearts. Wisdom demands that we direct the godly sorrow towards repentance by going to the threshing floor through prayer and fasting, asking the LORD to sanctify our souls, by fortifying our will.
We should not only do this when we fall into sin but when we are about to fall. A Child of God must learn to recognize when his desires have changed from pure and holy desires to impure and unholy desires.
The moments I had badly fell into sin were moments I did not recognize when my desires were beginning to metamorphose. If we can recognize when our desires are changing we can arrest a sinful deed before it happens. .
I later learned that we arrest changing desires by going quickly to the Threshing floor to seek help from the Throne of grace. The truth remains, if we can sense when sin is creeping in like a snake into our lives, and respond by humbling ourselves in prayer and fasting for grace to arrest it from the throne room, we will always win.
I will pick up from here tomorrow.
But do not forget that in the school of holiness there are no graduates, is in no one is immune to fall into sin yet. Until we live this world, our battle with sin continues at different levels. But the Holy God is on our side to help us achieve His holiness, as we fight. And the Threshing floor is the only place He meets us to get it done.
The threshing floor is the place of His Throne of grace, where we obtain mercy through prayer and sometimes humbling fasting, to find grace to help in time of need.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
Inasmuch then as we have a great High Priest Who has [already] ascended and passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession [of faith in Him].
For we do not have a High Priest Who is unable to understand and sympathize and have a shared feeling with our weaknesses and infirmities and liability to the assaults of temptation, but One Who has been tempted in every respect as we are, yet without sinning.
Let us then fearlessly and confidently and boldly draw near to the throne of grace (the throne of God’s unmerited favor to us sinners), that we may receive mercy [for our failures] and find grace to help in good time for every need [appropriate help and well-timed help, coming just when we need it]. Hebrews 4:14-16 AMPC