TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 25TH MAY 2022)
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering.
From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair;
ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood; oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Exodus 25:1-8 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 145TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
For the LORD is good and His mercies endures forever. Indeed, happy are those whose God is the LORD Jesus Christ. Happy are those who have bowed their knees in submission to His will and ways!
Happy are those who have Him in their hearts. He will always be an immediate present help for them in time of trouble. He will fill them with His peace, heal all their diseases, and defeat their enemies for them (the flesh, the world and the devil) in any close quarter battle.
The importance of having the LORD Jesus Christ in our hearts cannot be over emphasized. Apart from getting us ready for the afterlife, it also helps us to lead blissful and beautiful lives while we are in this world.
Let me share this with us, maybe it will help us understand what I mean.
There was a lady who have been battling never-ending illnesses, and I have been concerned about it. Sometimes when I become too busy, I forget and she sends me a prayer reminder. There was a day I was in prayer and the LORD made me to understand that the secret of her healing is in having Him in her heart. Having Him is having His Holy Spirit in her.
Now, God will never speak to you outside the boundaries of the scripture; so, as soon as He transmitted that understanding into my heart, what the Bible says about it came to my mind. The scripture says;
“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” Romans 8:11 NKJV
In other words, Christ in her will give life to her sick body and heal all the diseases she has been battling with.
MOST TIMES WE THINK THAT OUR HEALING WILL COME FROM AN EXTERNAL SOURCE.
Well, our healing may come from external source, yes, but divine health comes from within – from Christ in us. Let me repeat again; divine healing may come from someone praying for you, but divine health comes from the active presence of Christ in your life.
Though the lady was seeking divine healing for her sick body, but divine healing was not what she needed. Divine health was what she needed.
If you are having incessant illnesses, you do not need divine healing, you need divine health because your immune system is weak. Divine healing is the restoration of our health by the power of God. Divine health is the preservation of our health by the power that is at work in us – the presence of Christ in us.
That is why it is not good to lead a fake or a no-Christ-at-heart Christian life. The active presence of Christ in us, remains the hope of Glory.
As earlier stated, a lot about our peace and harmony on earth depends on what or who is living in us. If things are not working for you, do not follow the mountain of fire philosophy of “who is responsible for my problems?” Check out who or what is living in you. If Christ is not truly living in you, your life will be truly filled with unquenchable crisis.
One day I was watching a preacher tell his audience to get up and declare by faith that Christ is in them, and they did with loud voices.
He told them to declare by faith that Heaven is their home and they did. He told them to declare by faith that they are born again and Holy Spirit filled they did. He also told them to declare that they are special on earth, and that they have the gifts and fruits of the Spirit in their lives, and they did.
Now, these kind of spiritual gymnastics and religiosity looks beautiful, enlightening and makes a service wonderful but it does not change anything. Yes, we live by faith but there are things you do not live by faith.
OH, YES THERE ARE THINGS WE CANNOT LIVE BY FAITH.
I know someone’s theology may have been trouble by that and is now calling me “heretic” like one of the Kenyan Bishop did on Tv when I was saying things that are Biblically sound that he was ignorant of. Some many people call you names when you dazzle them with scriptural revelations that they have no idea exist on the same pages of the Bible they carry but do not study.
You see, our God is not stupid. He is all wise God. He knows that not everything about the fall of mankind can be fixed by faith. Yes, the journey begins by faith but not everything that is wrong with us can be fixed by faith. Adam was not created by faith. Adam was created by the glory, making faith too limited to fix certain things about our redemption.
That was why God positioned three aspects of the supernatural for us in Christ to fix our redemption completely. Those aspects of the supernatural are faith, the anointing and the glory.
There are things in our lives that can be fixed by faith, but there are things that can only be fixed by either the anointing or the glory. The very things that the preacher was asking his audience to declare that they already have do not come by faith and confession.
For instance, it takes the glory to form Christ in us. It takes the glory to transform our lives to the image of Christ and have Heaven as our home. It takes the glory to have the gifts and fruits of the Spirit working in our lives. The journey begins with the glory and ends with faith. Unlike some other journeys in Christ, this one does not begin with faith and end with the glory.
If you want Healing, deliverance and related things from God, you can begin with faith but not the things the preacher was asking people to declare that they already had by faith.
Personally, I have seen people who have never believed that they can become saved and sanctified, and have never believed or declared that Christ can live in them in life experiencing change. The glory came upon them, and transformed them into what they never believed possible. That is what I am talking about.
CRITICAL REDEMPTIVE THINGS CANNOT BE ACCOMPLISHED IN OUR LIVES BY DECLARATIONS OF FAITH BUT THE MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD’S GLORY.
They are products of the conceptions of the Spirit of glory working in us to bring us to a perfect image of Christ. You do not need to declare that you already have them until you truly have them. And when you have them, you will not need to declare because it will declare itself.
Just as Jesus never went about the streets of Jerusalem declaring that He can cast out demons or raise the dead. He just did it and men knew.
Also, if you look at it in the natural plane, you cannot go about declaring that you are pregnant when a man has not slept with you and got you pregnant. You have to receive seed from a man first, or conceive and become pregnant before you declare that you are pregnant. A lot of what we call faith and confession is either foolishness and confusion or faith and confusion.
You do not just confess that you carry God. You do not just confess that Christ is living in you. You do not just confess that the active presence of Christ is in you. If it is there, those who see and experience it will confess that. They will say God is in you, they will tell everyone they meet that Christ lives actively in your life. That is how it should be. We should not reduce it to a mouth talk, else we remain empty.
As we bring this to a close, I want us to understand that God’s vision for mankind, from the moment he was casted out of the Garden of Eden for his redemption to be possible, to when Christ came to redeemed him, to the day He will come again to take us home, is to live in man. It is to have men as temples for Him in the Spirit.
Even when He commanded offerings to be brought and sacrifices made before the cross, the vision remained the same. Our devotional text says;
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring Me an offering.
From everyone who gives it willingly with his heart you shall take My offering. And this is the offering which you shall take from them: gold, silver, and bronze; blue, purple, and scarlet thread, fine linen, and goats’ hair;
ram skins dyed red, badger skins, and acacia wood; oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense; onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod and in the breastplate.
And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. Exodus 25:1-8 NKJV
THIS SCRIPTURE IS FULL OF BIBLICAL TRUTHS, BUT WE WILL LIMIT OURSELVES TO THE SUBJECT OF THIS DISCOURSE.
You see, everything you find God asking Moses to tell Israel to bring is symbolic of redemptive truths. But most money-making preachers, will not see the redemptive truths. They will just zero in to the asking part, using it to manipulate people to bring money.
While there could be nothing wrong with being motivated to give to the LORD from this scriptural point of view, it is important to note that the purpose of the offerings and the description of what to bring to the LORD here, was to fulfill God’s ultimate vision for mankind after the fall; the vision of living in man.
Then the LORD Could only dwell among men because the blood had not been shared. He could not live in men. That was why He said “that I may dwell among you.”
But now all that has changed with the outpouring of the Spirit. He can now live in us. We can carry His active presence in our lives and live blissful and beautiful lives on earth even when going through test, trails and tribulations.
For over 24 days now, we have been journeying with the Cry of the Spirit of the living God on matters of practical Christianity. Practical Christianity will involve carrying the active presence of the LORD in your heart or the active presence of Christ in your human spirit.
It is the active presence of Christ in us that becomes the power at work in us. The Bible says;
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us,” Ephesians 3:20 NKJV
Most of what we run to other people to pray for us about, can only be solved if the power of Christ is at work in us. Sadly, so many preachers will never train you to carry Christ on your inside, but to depend on oil, water, salt, and even them for all your supernatural needs, like sorcerers.
The reason is to remain relevant. That is how they smile to the bank using our pain and predicament.
The clarion call is for believers to wake up to realize that without the active presence of Jesus Christ in us, a lot of our close quarter battles will end in terrible defeat irrespective of the prayers anyone may be saying to God on our behalf.
I was enlightened when the LORD spoke to me about that precious lady’s illness. I decided to encourage her to make the presence of the LORD her dwelling place. Because for Christ to take resident on your inside you must become intimate with Him. You must eliminate all distances that exist between you and Him.
It’s my pray that God will use these words to keep building you up and giving you an inheritance among they that are sanctified.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
Thus says the LORD: “Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest?
For all those things My hand has made, And all those things exist,” Says the LORD. “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word.’” Isaiah 66:1-2 NKJV