TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 14TH April 2023)
“There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day.
But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
“Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’
But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.
And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ LUKE 16:19-26 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 104TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
What a devotional text we have today!
The LORD our God has been good to us; giving us another day to be alive and well. Creation speaks of His glory and our lives speaks of His mercies. Indeed, like David would say, He has not been dealing with us according to our sins, but according to His loving kindness, because He has reserved one day to judge all sins.
Personally, my life would have been no more if God had no room for mercies. When you see anyone standing perfect in your sight, just know that he or she was not always like that, and that there were times he or she was worst in God’s sight. Mercies made him or her that way. Only God can clean up our lives and give us a life of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.
That is why if you are battling with a life of sin today, you should not faint or give up following God. keep following until you gain the spiritual fitness not to live in sin again.
Peter denied Christ but did not stop following Him. He kept following until his lack of spiritual fitness was cured in the upper room. We all need some upper room encounters with the Holy Spirit from time to time to cure our spiritual diseases.
Yesterday we began looking at the doctrine of Christ on life. The Bible says in Him is life – whatever kind of glorious life we need, it can only be found in Him. Meaning if we want to have the fullness of life (abundant life) we must be found in Him. Those who are not in Him may have life, but that will be a life mixed with other things. They will never have a pure, peaceful, prosperous, and holy life before God.
We also discovered that there are three categories of life, of which the natural life is the first.
The natural life begins when the seed of a man meets the egg of a woman. The word of the LORD on natural life was what came to us yesterday. We saw when three of our Bible fathers died, and stood there to glean truths on God’s plans for our lives. The truths also revealed the heritage of long life that we have in Christ, and God’s definition of long life.
Today we will be looking at the second category of life; the spiritual life.
The spiritual life is what gives the natural life meaning, because the natural is a baby of the spiritual. No natural life will be truly peaceful and prosperous by God’s definition or design, if it is not built on a healthy spiritual life. Anyone without a healthy spiritual life will live a destructive, struggling, sorrowful and painful natural life, irrespective of the money they may or may not have.
There are two things I want to state at this point. The first is the plan of the devil to make people very poor in natural life and also very poor in spiritual life. This plan of the evil one, has indeed prospered in the lives of so many people who are struggling financially and morally bankrupt at the same time. Those who try to walk with God choose to do so just to have Him meet their financial needs instead of restore their spiritual lives.
IT IS NOT GOD’S WILL FOR US TO BE POOR IN ANY ASPECTS OF OUR LIVES.
But to be poor economically and poor spiritually is one of the worst tragedies in life. Lazarus in our devotional text, was poor economically, but thank GOD he was not poor spiritually. He suffered in this life but never suffered in the next life. There is this life, and there is the next life, which is more real than this one, and will be eternal.
You could be poor naturally but do not be poor spiritually. Be rich in your relationship with GOD. Do not live a life of suffering in this life, and dying to go suffer in the life to come. It is better not to be born than to end that way. If I am poor economically, I should never be poor spiritually. If I am suffering in this world because I cannot change anything, I should make up my mind not to suffer in the next world.
I should decide to become rich spiritually, because it does not require money for one to be rich spiritually. You just need a heart for God and a good church. Yes, you just need a heart that is thirsty and hungry after God, and a Church that will help you to serve the One and only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent, unconditionally.
You will not need a synagogue of Satan; a money-making machine, a political party, a social club or metaphysical cult. You will need a hungry heart and a good Church. The Bible says;
“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money, Come, buy and eat. Yes, come, buy wine and milk Without money and without price.” Isaiah 55:1 NKJV
I remember when we were poor growing up, we made up our minds as a family, that we may be poor economically, but we will never be poor or bankrupt spiritually. My mum drove us to spend our days pursuing God, as we seek to make ends meet on daily bases. We went to Church countless times. We never asked the pastor for money or any help.
We looked for God wherever we could find Him. I remember pursuing great preachers to attend their meetings whenever they visit our church or our locality. We were hot in our pursuit, because we said to ourselves, “we will not suffer in this world and still suffer in hell.”
“IF WE ARE POOR ECONOMICALLY, WE WILL BE RICH SPIRITUALLY.”
In fact, I said to myself, I want to be the richest in our church spiritually, since we were the poorest in the church, hence spending time in fasting prayer and etc. as we try to make ends meet. And it worked. I became one of the richest spiritually, not just in our Church but in the City.
People began to queue up to see me for prayers, counseling and etc., yet I was not a pastor.
When you become rich spiritually, you will have the friendship with God to bring his kingdom, power and glory down on oppressive people. That was what happened. Even the rich came to me for prayers, and before I knew it, I also became rich economically, then I understood what Jesus meant, when He said;
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:33-34 NKJV
Many economically poor people, who are also poor spiritually, are that way because they worry about what they will eat, where they will sleep and what they will wear. They worry about tomorrow but do not worry about their spiritual life. They do not know how to allow their financial challenges lead them to find the true God.
There is a scripture I want to bring to our attention. It says;
“ I have seen the God-given task with which the sons of men are to be occupied.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:10-11 NKJV
This scripture, among other things, made it clear that eternity is written in our hearts. When we are going through crisis, we are expected to respond to the eternity that is written in our hearts, not the crisis we are going through. If we do not do that, we may end up in a very bad shape.
I will need to explain this maybe another day. But the line of this scripture that says “God makes all things beautiful in His time” is my focus.
You see, God usually make all things beautiful in our lives by using our challenges to introduce Himself to us on a personal level. Most personal and intimate relationships of a man with the one and only true GOD, usually starts in the crisis moments of his life. It is very important not to seek God for earthly things irrespective of what you may be going through, because you may never find the true God.
If the poor go after God, looking for how to solve his or her financial problems, instead of looking for the revelation of who God is, with the aim of becoming rich in friendship with Christ, the poor will become a worshiper of Baal. He or she will be kept spiritually bankrupt by the enemy.
SO, DO NOT ALLOW THE ENEMY TO KEEP YOU POOR BOTH SPIRITUALLY AND ECONOMICALLY.
The second thing I want to state, is the plan of the devil to make those who may have become rich naturally, to be very rich naturally but very poor spiritually and even morally bankrupt. He succeeded doing that to the rich man in our devotional text. The Bible says, he was comfortable in this life but ended up in torment in the next life. Sadly, many of us have become that way, I mean in the church.
This plan of the kingdom of darkness is responsible for the many people who are rich and famous economically but poor and bankrupt spiritually. Sadly, mankind love to have it so.
Each time I look at the names that are displayed as the richest on earth, I do not find any with a healthy and rich spiritual life. They all are multimillionaires but bankrupt in spirit. They are very rich, yet very poor.
Sadly, this generation know nothing about the plan of the devil to make people very rich in natural life, but absolutely poor in spiritual life. Our LORD and savior Jesus Christ, who is coming back again to judge the world, forewarned us about this spiritual catastrophe when He said;
“For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Mark 8:35-36 NKJV
I do not know what you see in this beautiful doctrine of Christ. But it is very clear that when you are only mindful of your economic life improving in anything you may be doing, you have set yourself up for deception. You will be deceived to gain the whole world and lose your soul in hell.
Without a spiritual life in Christ, any riches you have in your natural life will further push you into the gates of hell. And do not forget, no one with a poor spiritual life can make Heaven, no matter the riches they have. You find that in our devotional text. The rich man’s riches did not qualify him for heaven. That is the doctrine of Christ. You may not like it, but that is it. The doctrine says they will spend eternity in the lake of fire or hell.
THAT BRINGS US TO OTHER TRUTHS IN OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT.
The story of the rich man and Lazarus, is another doctrine of Christ on the spiritual life. Without making poverty valid, I want to submit to you that Lazarus had no good natural life but he had a rich spiritual life. The rich man had no rich spiritual life, but he had a very rich natural life. When time was over for each one of them, the naturally poor, became rich in the next life, and the naturally rich, became poor in hell.
Friend, your time, and my time will be over on earth someday. When that happens, it is the riches of our spiritual lives that will help us not the riches of our natural lives. I repeat, your time, and my time will be over on earth someday. When that happens, it is the riches of our spiritual life that will help us, not the riches of our natural life.
Yes, it is our friendship with GOD that will help us then, not our friendship with gold. It is the riches of GOD’s mercies, the riches of His grace, and the riches of His glory in our lives that will help us then. That is why the Bible calls them the true riches of the kingdom.
So, if we pursue earthly riches and leave our spiritual lives poor or bankrupt of the true riches of the kingdom, we will end up gaining the whole world and losing our souls. Hell is not a place to be, especially after you have been blessed with all you need in your natural life.
That was the pain the rich man had when he said to Abraham from hell;
… “Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’
But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented.
And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” Luke 16:24-26 NKJV
These are the teachings of Christ that should not depart from a man’s eyes. The rich man had the best of life when he was alive, but did not use it to be rich towards God. In other words, he did not use it to make his spiritual life rich. He allowed his riches to make him ignore God in all aspects of his earthly life. He did not use the opportunity that life gave him to make himself rich in the true riches of the Kingdom, that was why he ended up in hell.
A people who take care of their natural life without being mindful of their spiritual lives will always end that way.
Friend, the doctrine of Christ on spiritual life, must be embraced and respected at all times, else we become rich in earthly things and poor in spiritual things.
A rich spiritual life will have friendship with God as its hallmark, deep walk with Him as a daily pursuit, Christ at its center, the Holy Spirit as its governor, the word of the LORD as its guiding light, the character of Christ as its lifestyle, and the true riches of the Kingdom as its utmost pursuit.
A life that has all these will leave an eternal legacy on earth that fills the hearts of men with Christ and Heaven with Joy.
I believe the message of today has been passed. May the LORD build you up and give you an inheritance among they that are sanctified.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’
Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’
But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’ ” Luke 16:27-31 NKJV