THE CRY OF THE SPIRIT DEVOTIONALS – BY RICHARD E. S. TAKIM

TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 4TH NOVEMBER 2022)

“Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted. Their soul abhorred all manner of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” Psalm 107:17-20 NKJV

WELCOME TO THE 308TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!

With less then 60 days to the end of the year, we cannot but give God the glory for all His marvelous deeds in our lives this year alone.

There are no human words.

The fiery darts of the enemy that we escaped, the traps that Jesus busted for us, the known and unknown assaults of the wicked that He saved us from. Indeed, there are no words!

Some of us would have been no more if He was not there for us! Our words are too weak to really convey our gratitude.

There are things I believe you alone know that would have destroyed your life, but the LORD came through for you. Such interventions of the One and only true God has a way of taking words out of your mouth. Sometimes you can only scream in gratitude or shed tears.

It is my prayer that we continue to experience the works of the LORD in our life’s day after day in Jesus precious name. Amen

The Bible says “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.

As bearers of His message to a sick church and a dying world God has a way of beautifying our obedient feet for a purpose, but the enemy also has a way of using those who survived by our hands to take away the beauty, with the aim of rendering our ministries useless.

That was planned against some of us this year, but the LORD busted it as well. Marvelous are His deeds! Great is His faithfulness.

Sometimes you cannot tell if you are anointed until things hit you at very close quarters and you find yourself still standing. I have learned from this kind of experiences that the sign that one is anointed is not always in the miracles God performs by his hands, but in the attacks of the enemy he survives.

When the LORD said to us, it will be our Year of Amazing grace, we did not know it was going to be our year of survival too.

THANK GOD WE ARE HEAR TO SHARE THE JOY OF ALL HE DID TO KEEP US STANDING.

In case, you are joining this platform for the first times, we are on a 30 days journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on Practical Wisdom.

The glorious God lives and He Speaks! If there is anything God is screaming at us, His serious-minded Kingdom kids and kings, that things is this,

“Get Practical Wisdom! You are too foolish for the liftings I have decreed upon your life to take place. I have finished everything, you are the one hindering everything. Through wisdom kings reign and princes decree Justice not through religion.”

I hope someone is listening! Our devotional text for today says;

“Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted. Their soul abhorred all manner of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.

Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, and He saved them out of their distresses. He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” Psalm 107:17-20 NKJV

There is a word that can deliver us from all our destruction. Sometimes, that word is not religious but a word based on practical wisdom.

I believe God has set aside these 30 days (today is day 04) to give us the very truths we need to get back to the feet of practical wisdom, and begin to bring into the material realm, the things He has finished concerning us in the spirit realm.

I have come to discover that there are certain things in the present Church that make Christians fools in God’s sight. One of it is the magic mentality some preachers create in people’s minds. They make them believe that God can do all things, while some can only be done by us using practical wisdom.

FRIEND, THERE ARE THINGS THAT GOD ‘CANNOT’ DO.

Those things have been handed over to practical wisdom to do. Things like rolling away the stone in the case of Lazarus, or carrying the bed and going home like in the case of the one who was sick for 38 years.

God will never do the practical. Even when He wanted to cure the business draught of Peter, there was a practical side He never did. Peter had to cast the net into the deep by himself.

If you allow any preacher to make you believe that God can do everything, you will be the one to suffer. There are things in your life that God cannot do. Only practical wisdom can do them for you. Until you begin to identify and stop committing them to God in prayer, you will die a reproach.

It is so sad to discover that so many people have been preached and taught by their pastors to be committing to GOD in prayer things that God has already committed to them to use practical wisdom to solve. That is why they are suffering.

They will be told to be going on dry fasting, or to this mountain or the other place to pray, thinking that if their fasting and prayers are strong enough, God will move fast enough.

What they do not realize is, even their fast is making them more foolish because of the ability to think that it takes away from them.

Understand that there is away you will deny yourself food that it will kill that ability to think that GOD have given you, making you too stupid to come out with any practical wisdom to solve a problem whenever it shows up.

Believe it or not, religious fast make people foolish. It takes away the ability to walk in practical wisdom that is why manipulators loves using fasting to keep people under their control. They love stealing their minds using religion.

Once you become foolish, you will begin to commit back to God in prayer the things He has already committed to the wisdom He has given you to take care off.

And because that wisdom has already been turned into foolishness by the frequent hunger strike you have been calling fasting and prayer (courtesy of your deliverance ministers), you will keep committing them to God in prayer to solve because your lack the practical wisdom to apply.

Yes, you may be known as God’s own person but still be that stupid.

GOD WANTS ALL THAT TO STOP, HENCE THIS WORD.

I have seen very loving and prayerful believers suffering because of having the ability to think taken away from them by the magicians they call prophets, divination the call revelation, and sorceries they call prophecies.

Do not forget that they enemy will present falsehood as true in other to baptize people with foolishness. You could love the LORD and still be a victim of His deceptive practices that steals away the minds of people.

Most sorcerers on the pulpit today have members who truly love the LORD but cannot walk in practical wisdom, because the ability to do so have been taken away from them. Our generation is not the first to witness this kind of development. It happened even in the days of our fathers. The Bible says;

“But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great,

to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the great power of God.”

And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time.” Acts 8:9-11 NKJV

In this scriptural passage, the Bible spoke about a false prophet in Samaria who stole the minds of the people by astonishing them with great miracles. Their minds were so stolen that they were calling him “great power of God.” Even in East Africa today, and in South and West Africa, we have Christians whose minds have been stolen by their mightiest prophets.

They walk like fools on the street calling themselves “fools for Christ.” They call themselves fools for Christ while they are actually “fools for the prophets or prophetesses” they see as the great power of God.

One of the consequences of sitting under falsehood is loss of practical wisdom. Do not forget that. You will be conditioned to think down ward or backward, through the magic mentality they create in you calling it miracles, instead of upward or forward. That is why you find great lawyers behaving like religious animals, and professors of chemistry taking in liquids they call holy.

YOU FIND VERY EDUCATED PEOPLE DOING THINGS THAT EVEN AN ILLITERATE WITH PRACTICAL WISDOM WILL NEVER DO.

It is usually an eyesore.

Now, apart from the magical mentality that makes some Christians bereaved of practical wisdom we also have the religious mindset that commits everything to prayer. This one, as earlier stated, will send you to prayer room while you ought to be in the work room. It will send you to fast while you were supposed to sit and reason with God.

I reiterate again that God did not commit everything about our earthly lives to prayer. He committed a lot to the wisdom He has given us. If you do not use your own well, you will suffer for it. You will be leading a hard life and calling it the will of God.

Yes, you will call it the will of God because to you, after praying so hard without results, it is definitely the will of GOD for you to suffer.

Your religiosity will not just tell you that, it will also tell you to pray harder, like Elijah taunted the prophets of Baal. Sadly, you will respond, and never know that what you are trying to commit to God in prayer have been committed by the same GOD to proper application of wisdom.

I have seen so many who are close to God living a very hard life because of that. They make those who are far from God look down on them as if being close to God is an error.

I believe God has come to change the story for someone, because true Christianity will restore back the ability to walk in practical wisdom to you. It will never make you foolish.

Again, our devotional text says;

“Fools, because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, were afflicted. Their soul abhorred all manner of food, and they drew near to the gates of death.” Psalm 107:17- 18 NKJV

When the Bible says “fools” it is not a vulgar word but a descriptive word.

Apart from describing one who says there is no God, it is also describing one who is deficient in practical wisdom. God does not want any of us to be that person, hence sending this word. It is important that you open up your spirit and receive each truth.

I believe enough for the day have been shared. As we bring this to a close, I want you to look forward to a word in season on daily basis, all through these 30 days, and also bend the prayer knee to ask the LORD to take away every act or form of foolishness from you.

MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!

“The Lord GOD has given Me The tongue of the learned, That I should know how to speak a word in season to him who is weary. He awakens Me morning by morning, He awakens My ear To hear as the learned.

The Lord GOD has opened My ear; And I was not rebellious, Nor did I turn away.” Isaiah 50:4-5 NKJV