TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 17TH AUGUST 2022)
“I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you.
For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you, imitate me.
For this reason, I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church.
Now some are puffed up, as though I were not coming to you.
But I will come to you shortly, if the Lord wills, and I will know, not the word of those who are puffed up, but the power.” 1 Corinthians 4:14-19 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 229TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
The mercies of the LORD has granted us life again and given us another day to live and serve Him. We cannot thank God enough for all He have been accomplishing in our lives.
We have been on a journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit for 17 days now, on matters of spiritual fathering. Like I stated yesterday, if the concept was not a concept of God’s kingdom, I would have denounced it due to what many preachers, false and true, have done in the lives of men through it.
Today we want to continue with the subject of charismatic witchcraft that is presented as spiritual fathering.
So many lives have been ruined and are being ruined in the name of this kingdom concept. There are people who will not want to hear anything about spiritual fathering because of what they or others had gone through in the hands of preachers.
No matter how great your message is blessing them, as soon as you say “you need a spiritual father” they are off.
Everything you had said before can be rejected at that point. That is why I said to myself maybe it is good to denounce the concept. But doing that will be violating the principles of God’s word. It will tantamount to taking away from the scriptures. And the Bible says;
“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” Revelation 22:19 NKJV
I think let me share something deeper about this beautiful warning from the LORD. It could be of help to someone’s.
By the law of first application, Revelation 22:19 was first and foremost a warning to preachers and all believers; it is a warning not to distort the word of prophecy called the book of Revelation, basically because of how critical it is to the destiny of the human race.
The second application is the entire Bible.
Being in the last chapter of the Bible tells a lot about how God guides His word, the Bible; and will not want its truth adulterated by either taking away from it or adding to it. There are other curses God placed on those who take away or add to His word.
IT WAS THOSE CURSES THAT APOSTLE PAUL REFERRED TO WHEN HE SAID;
“I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel:
Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.” Galatians 1:6-8 KJV
If you read further you will realize that Paul repeated the word “Let him be accursed” twice. Only an apostle by content speaks like that because apostle are custodians of the doctrine of Christ; the whole counsel of God. That is why you find GOD using them to balance the revelation and ministries of prophets, evangelist, pastors and teachers.
The Bible says,
“And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues.” 1 Corinthians 12:28 NKJV
Now, when the Bible says “God has appointed apostles,” it is not a reference to everyone with the title of an apostle. Not every preacher with the title of apostle is one by content. Most are nothing, while others are evangelist, prophets and pastors by content.
When the Bible says “God has appointed first apostles” it is a reference to apostles by content. They are God’s messengers positioned in the body of Christ to, among other things, protect the purity of the doctrine of Christ and resist those who the flesh or the enemy may use to pervert the word.
Yes, apostles by content are God’s special agents whose job includes fighting against the adulteration of the gospel.
Because of this critical assignment placed on their lives by the LORD, you sometimes find them in contention with those who are polluting, perverting or adulterating the gospel, be unbelievers, prophets, evangelist, pastors or teachers.
SADLY, BELIEVERS WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND THEIR ROLE ALWAYS PERSECUTE THEM.
Some of the many areas you find apostles by content contending with other preachers about are in matters of ethics, doctrine, ministry, church government, worship, giving, administration of deliverance to the oppressed and how prayers are made and etc.
The worst war front in the war to keep the gospel pure is in the area of doctrine where you find preachers taking away from, or adding to the truth of the gospel. That was why we found Paul saying;
“But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.
As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. Galatians 1:8-9 NKJV
Today, the preachers he referred to here will write to social media platform against him, if he put that on any of them.
Yes, they will call him the enemy of the Church in Kenya if he was in Kenya doing or saying that. They will lose some young preachers whose revelation need to be balance against him. They will invite preachers from his home country to come denounce him for them, like Balak invited Baalam to denounce Israel for him.
I learned that when you take anything away from the Bible or add anything to it, you will be preaching another gospel. In other words, you will be perverting the gospel.
Our generation of believers must understand that the perversion of the gospel through our life styles and our teachings will be judge severely by GOD. We pervert the gospel by our lifestyles when we live opposite what the Bible teaches and pervert it with our teachings when we add to or take from it.
MY DECISION NOT TO JETTISON THE KINGDOM CONCEPT OF SPIRITUAL FATHERING WAS INFORMED BY THIS.
It is sad that most beautiful and critical concepts of God’s kingdom are being adulterated and perverted by the way they are preached or applied to the daily lives of people.
Like I stated earlier, the concept of spiritual fathering has been misapplied and adulterated. It is now nothing short of witchcraft in practice. The preachers who use it to manipulate people’s lives and the people themselves who allow their lives to be manipulated by it, are all heading to ruin if nothing is done to salvage the situation.
If you have been following our devotional, you will realize that the day before yesterday we revisited the ultimate redemptive purpose of spiritual fathering. We looked at the word begotten.
We said it means “to bring forth something into existence through the process of reproduction.” In other words, Christ is formed in people through a spiritual process of reproduction. God ordained spiritual fathering to first and foremost form Christ in people through spiritual process of reproduction.
The spiritual father whose life is built around the tree of life carries Christ on his inside and allows the Heavenly Father to use him to produce Christ in others, especially those who submit to him as sons and daughters. That is why the word begotten should be the watch word in spiritual fathering.
We are to become begotten of God through fathering. If fathering is not guided by that we will be ruined by it.
It may interest you to know that the word begotten was the same word that was used in John 3:16 where Jesus was called the “only begotten” Son of God. And how was Christ begotten? The Bible says the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and the power of the Highest Overshadowed her and Christ was formed in her womb.
In other words, Christ was begotten of the Holy Spirit. And the person who stood before her to make that happen was the angel Gabriel.
Gabriel means God is my strength, the strong man of God, or the hero of God. This is what a spiritual father should be before God to be able to make people begotten of God. If he is not all that, he will make people begotten of himself, or other things.
HE WILL RUIN THEIR LIVES WITH MANIPULATIONS AND WITCHCRAFT.
But if he is God’s true Gabriel in your life, the Holy Spirit will be falling on you and the power of the highest overshadowing you to form Christ in you under his spiritual fathering. You will find something Heavenly and Christlike in him to imitate.
A major portion of our devotional text says;
“For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Therefore, I urge you, imitate me.” 1 Corinthians 4:15 NKJV
When your spiritual authority is the one built around the Tree of life, he will be like Gabriel in impact. You will find the image of Christ in him to imitate.
People have said, imitation is limitation. But that does not apply in fathering. Imitation is reproduction when it comes to fathering. We become Christlike most times by patterning our lives after those who are Christlike..
The truth is, when we follow spiritual fathers, who are indeed following Christ, we will become Christlike. That also means when we follow spiritual fathers who are not following the true Christ, there is no way we can be Christlike.
I believe the message of today has been passed. It is my prayer that we use it to keep building ourselves up in the most Holy faith in Jesus precious name. Amen!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul. And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.” Acts 11:25-26 NKJV