TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 13TH OCTOBER 2022)
“How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret.
But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.
But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.
And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” 1 Corinthians 14:26-33 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 286TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
We thank God for showing us mercies and waking us up this morning.
To be counted among the living has never being a man’s job. It has always been God’s job. That is why the Bible says to Him belong escape from death.
He has watched over us! He has fought our battles.
He has been our help against the enemy of our souls. He has not allowed sin to have the final say in our lives. As our redemption sacrifice, He has made it impossible for the enemy to have an establish legal right in our lives for our oppression.
To Him belong all the praise.
Life would have been without a meaning if not for Him. In just few weeks, regions of the earth that used the Gregorian Calendar will bid the year 2022 farewell, and that will be forever.
We will never see it again. Time is indeed passing, and we all are getting closer and closer to the end of days.
One of the greatest companionship we need this hour is the companionship of the Holy Spirit. There are people who have thought, the need of the hour is the companionship of a spouse, and went into marriages, only to find no companionship in it at all.
Often, we do not realize that until we have the companionship of the Holy Spirit that of a spouse will remain not enough. That is why singles who find the Holy Spirit and the companionship He brings make great marital companions in life, especially if they maintain their companionship with the Holy Spirit.
If you are not yet married, make sure you get married to someone who has a beautiful companionship with the Holy Spirit. Do not marry an empty tongue talking Christian.
Tongue talking does not always mean someone is a companion of the Holy Spirit.
It could just mean the person is possess with the spirit of religion. Companionship is a different ball game entirely.
Companionship of the Holy Spirit is that feeling of fellowship and friendship He generates. It is a beautiful feeling that brings so much blessing from God in our lives. If it is there, we can pass same to our spouses and make our marriages blissful.
Now, it is not just our marriages that can be blessed by it even other forms of righteous relationships we may be in can also be blessed.
PEOPLE WILL JUST FEEL A PEACE BEING AROUND US.
It is the companionship of the Holy Ghost that make us great spouses to our spouses, or great relationships to others.
The beauty and Heavenly bliss He put in our lives makes our marital companionship worth having by those we may be married to. It also makes our network of friends happy having us around their lives.
Companionship is also the fellowship that exist between friends. There should be a fellowship between us and the Holy Spirit. Everything in life will be tasteless without it. That is why we are on this 31- day journey of faith.
The fellowship that should exist between us and the Holy Spirit will deliver us from the spirit of religion that comes to mislead us. That brings is to another major truth; Bible truths on the religious spirit.
You see, While presenting what look like companionship with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of religion does not carry the testimony of Jesus Christ in it. We must understand that. It is the testimony of Jesus Christ that produce the living truths that set our lives in order.
That is why, true fellowship with the Holy Spirit carries in it both the Testimony of Jesus Christ and the spirit of prophecy, which makes the Bible a piece of cake for us. It opens our understanding to comprehend the scriptures like Jesus did to the disciples.
A lot of us have been misled for quiet some time by the spirit of religion, filling our lives with sorrow and all that.
In our bid to do the will of God, we did not know when we became over spiritualized; we did not know when we stopped using common sense in our Christian lives and became so subjective in our decisions that we lost all forms of objectivity.
The spirit of religion is what rules in the lives of many so-called deliverance or prophetic ministries. It will render a graduate of law useless, a professor of Philosophy invalid, and a well learned person very unproductive in life, giving himself or herself only to fasting and prayer after spending so much time in school.
I can’t forget how the spirit of religion turned a master degree holder into a dedicated car washer for her pastor. She shared with us how she was spending her days washing the car of her pastor believing that God will bless her because of it, instead of going to find a job.
AND SHE MOVED FROM BEING POOR TO BEING ABJECTLY POOR.
It took apostolic doctrine to deliver her from the shackles of the spirit.
We need to talk about this dangerous spirit because of how it mimics the Holy Spirit and present itself to believers as the Spirit of God. We need to understand its characteristic further so that we can break ourselves free from its shackles.
Understand that the spirit of religion makes people subjective and discourages all forms of objectivity.
Life is created to be balanced by subjectivity and Objectivity. But this spirit takes away such balance and make one either too objective or too subjective.
Now, what does it mean to be objective or subjective? I won’t go into much definition.
In simple terms, to be objective is to make decisions based on facts, and to be subjective is to make decisions based on what you feel.
When follow your feelings without checking them up you are being subjective.
That is what the spirit of religion pushed people to do. It pushes them to either follow their feelings without checking them with facts or follow facts without checking them up with what they may be feeling in their spirit.
I have come to discover that what this spirit moves Pentecostal believers to do more, is to be totally subjective. If makes people follow their feelings without checking them up. In fact, it will use scriptures to make them feel they will be disobeying God or doubting Him if they check their feelings with facts.
But feelings not checked with facts will result in insanity. That is why if you lead a Christian life that does not check feelings with facts, you will just be spiritually insane. You will be hearing God leading you to do something and feeling very strong about it while He is not even involved.
I remember a story that was told of a local Church that was in prayer and they heard from God that they should go for a mission work on a certain island. They all felt so strong about it because they all thought it was God, especially when the ‘Holy Spirit’ gave them the name of the Island, what time to go, and who to go with.
There was so much detailed instruction and directions, but they did not check their feelings with facts.
THEY JUST FOLLOWED WHAT THEY FELT SO STRONG ABOUT.
They were completely subjective.
Finally, they took up their journey only to arrive at the Island to discover that no one lives on it except monkeys.
The spirit that spoke to them said to them they were going to save souls in a particular Island, giving them the name of the place, only for them to get there to find out there were no souls there to save.
The Holy Spirit will never lead you to an Island full of monkeys for evangelism. Only a religious spirit will do that.
However, if they had checked what they felt with facts, the would have neutralize the spirit and saved themselves all the trouble of praying, fasting and raising funds.
The spirit of religion has misled people into even marriages and ministry, convincing them that it is God; things that time is proving to them to be liars.
One characteristic of the spirit of religion is, it gives you so much details subjectively. Details that if you finally put to test will turn out to be all lies.
In some cases, if you discover they lies or how wrong you are, a mixture of the fear of being wrong and the religious pride of your so-called prophetic anointing, will twist a scripture or say something else to cover up how wrong you are.
Let’s assume the people got to that Island, and a mixture of the fear of being known as failures or as people who never heard from God, and the pride of prophetic hearing came into play, they will say “Oh, this must be a prophetic message on itself, maybe its an island close to this one.”
Or they would say “the LORD brought us hear to pray, so let’s pray” or they could come out with some other thus says the LORD to cover up their error. The true Holy Spirit does not confuse people.
A major portion of our devotional text says;
“For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” (1 Corinthians 14:26-33 NKJV).
So, if you see confusion or an absence of the shalom of GOD (freedom from all distresses that sin brings) in what you (or other people) claim to be from God, it is not God but you (or them), and if you (or them) feel so strong about it, it is the spirit of religion that is operational.
THE HOLY SPIRIT WILL NOT CONFUSE YOU AND BE TURNING YOUR LIFE AROUND LIKE A FOOTBALL.
In fact, wherever you see confusion, there will be disorder, and the religious spirit loves putting us in disorder because that is the only environment Satan and his demons can function. If will give us a contrary instruction to what our spiritual authority may be saying.
Understand that If there is no confusion, there will be no disorder. If there is no disorder, no devil will have the environment to function. Everything will be peaceful and beautiful. That is why the primary function of the Holy Spirit remains to put our lives in order.
Even if He is taking us through the path of spirituality, it will be spirituality with order, not confusion. Spirituality with confusion is a characteristic of the spirit of religion.
In bringing order to a Corinthians Church that was ruled by this spirit in days of Paul, our devotional text says;
“How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.
If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret.
But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.
But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged.
And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints.” 1 Corinthians 14:26-33 NKJV
You see the characteristics of the religious spirit here.
It gives everyone a psalm to say, a teaching to teach, a tongue to speak, a revelation to share, an interpretation to give, and none of that can bring edification to anyone.
NOT EVEN TO THOSE PARTICIPATING IN IT. THEY ONLY GET A RELIGIOUS SATISFACTION.
It is this every spirit that comes on people to be shouting in tongues when it is time to sit down and be listening to the word. The spirits of the Prophets, remains subject to the prophets. But not to them.
That is why, anyone who cannot be subject to the prophets, is another spirit of the prophets that has come to cause confusion and disorder.
So much can be shared about this subtle spirit in church today. We shared some in our midweek service yesterday. You can get the cd.
As we bring this to a close, I want to submit to us that we have to be careful in matters of the move of the Spirit, because of the possibility for some to be moving in the religious spirit while the true Spirit of God is at work.
Whatever is not edifying should not be allowed a place among us when we gather, or a place in our lives as believers.
Understand that the purpose of spiritual manifestations in the Kingdom of God is for edification. It is through edification that our lives are set in order.
But the religious spirit brings confusion instead of edification, leading to spiritual lives that produce Christian lives that are not in divine order.
May the LORD use these truths to keep our spirits away from any religious spirit and help us to be sold out to the Holy Spirit alone, in Jesus precious name. Amen!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY!
“Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.
But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church.” 1 Corinthians 14:1-4 NKJV