TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 24TH April 2023)
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
“He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. John 3:14-19 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 114TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS & WONDERS!
As we enter into the working days of this week, it is important that we look back and say a big thank you to the LORD for keeping us alive all these days. For some of us, He did not just keep us alive naturally, He kept us alive spiritually through this platform.
Day unto day He faithfully sent a word to us from His throne room, to open our eyes, remove our veils, kindle or keep our fire burning and build our faith to conform with what is written in Heaven concerning us. It is from the storehouse of this faithful deed of the LORD that we can say He kept our faith and fire alive in Him.
To Him belong the glory in Jesus precious name!
Today we are picking up from where we stopped yesterday. The LORD started opening a chamber of the Doctrine of Christ on Eternal life to us yesterday, after days of absorbing His word on the doctrine of Christ on natural and spiritual life respectively.
We ended yesterday with a word from the book of Ecclesiastes that says,
“Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “All is vanity.” (Ecclesiastes 12:6-8 NKJV)
The truths in this scripture are very deep. But we are going to take what we can take into our spiritual loins.
To start with, I want to submit that it is very important to recognize things that will not be relevant in eternity while we are still in time, so that we can lead our lives with the soberness and spirituality that is required for making Heaven. But before we go any further, let me share this with the current generation of believers who never saw Christianity in its purest form.
Many years ago, gospel ministers had messages that were filled with eternal relevance because of what they knew about eternity in time. They taught things and opened scriptural truths that helped us to recognize things that are valuable today but will be vanity when one step into the next life.
IN THOSE DAYS THERE WAS NO LOVE OF MONEY. THERE WAS NO DESIRE FOR ACQUISITION OF WEALTH BY BELIEVERS UNLIKE TODAY.
We did not see preachers turning the Church into a money-making machine. Neither did we see church members making the pursuit of fame, fortune, and success, their ultimate reason for living, even at the detriment of their relationship with God. Scriptures like the ones we just read above were the guiding light of the faith.
The Church was not trading the LORD for the riches of this world. They knew very well that it profits a man nothing to gain the whole world and loose his soul in hell. Consequently, they never gave any part of their souls in exchange for the pleasure of this world. They knew all is vanity!
But things changed when the so-called gospel of prosperity came. Those who started it may have meant well. Those who hijacked it would later present it as the ultimate of Christianity, creating a spiritual environment where the love of money is enthroned over the love for GOD.
Today, people with dollars and all kinds of riches are the ones given important attention and recognition. Those who display a little anointing are given places and positions in Church that are for the absolutely consecrated.
I was shocked when I saw someone, years back, laying hands on TD Jakes after giving him one million dollars. I could not believe my eyes when I saw the scriptural rule changed; when I saw the less blessing the better now, because the less has money. The rule says the less is blessed by the better, not the other way around. You see this rule in Melchizedek blessing Abraham in Genesis 14 when they met.
Abraham did not bless Melchizedek because riches do not qualify the less to bless the better. Rather, Abraham was blessed by Melchizedek. The Bible says;
“Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils.
And indeed those who are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to receive tithes from the people according to the law, that is, from their brethren, though they have come from the loins of Abraham;
but he whose genealogy is not derived from them received tithes from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. Now beyond all contradiction the lesser is blessed by the better.” Hebrews 7:4-7 NKJV
THIS SCRIPTURE COMPLETELY NEGATES THE LAYING ON OF HANDS ON THE BETTER BY THE LESS, FOR ANY REASON.
The enthronement of the rich and their activation to do things that only the consecrated should do, is one of the many things that has destroyed the eternal relevance of the present Church. If you have money, you are the preacher’s favorite. But if you have the fire of God in your life, you are given no attention, except when a demon visits the Church.
We have lost the sense of Christlike consecration and enthroned money above God in our assemblies. The less is now enthrone over the better because of their material wealth, creating a major spiritual breach in the lives of those who sit under such ministries. It has made them blind, naked, wretched, poor and vomited them out of God’s mouth.
If we do not get back to Christianity with eternal relevance, we will be destroying our eternal destinies. The Bible says eternity is written in the hearts of everyone.
The reason is to make us eternally relevant; it is to help us recognize things that has no eternal value and not allow them to form our purpose for living. But that seems not to be working, because of the false doctrines on the lips of many of us preachers. They are not letting us build our lives on eternal things that are in Heaven but on earthly things that are vanity.
The doctrine of Christ on eternal life teaches that we make eternal things our view because that is where we are going. If we live our earthly lives without fixing our hearts on where we will spend eternity when time will be over, we will be making the vanities of life our greatest pursuit.
IN FACT, WE WILL EVEN BE DOING IT IN THE NAME OF THE LORD.
That is why our church generation has become earthly needs oriented instead of eternal life oriented. We are activated by the doctrines we hear and absorb to gain the whole world through prayer, fasting, sacrificial giving and etc. even if it means losing our souls. We forget that the Bible says;
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Mark 8:36-37 KJV
This is a major doctrine of Christ on eternal life. It was well and alive in the days of old but now buried in our days by the so-called prosperity message. If we will not lose our souls to hell, we must exhume and absorb into our spirits everything Jesus taught and instructed on eternity and eternal life, and feed on them from time to time.
So much is happening and most of us are doing so much that is keeping us in the dark about the next life. In the guise of seeking prosperity, many of us now seek materialism; we are activated by our preachers and teachers to gain the whole world and loose our souls.
Child of God, there is a life Jesus died on the Cross to bring to us. It is called eternal life. A major portion of our devotional text says;
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 NKJV
You will never understand the life called “everlasting life” if you do not understand what happened at the fall of man. Man was created to live forever in the glory of God. In other words, to have an everlasting life in God.
Everlasting life for Adam was a life that was designed by God to last from eternity to eternity in His glory. It was a life of eternal oneness with God. There was no eternal separation. The only being then that was eternally separated was the devil and his fallen angels.
MAN WAS ETERNAL JOINED TO THE LORD GOD IN GLORY. THAT WAS THE ETERNAL LIFE HE HAD.
But when he fell, he was eternally separated from God, making it possible for him to go to hell. Yesterday, we spoke about the lake of fire. The lake of fire is a place where spirits beings that are eternally separated from God will spend eternity. The Bible says it was planned for the devil and his angels.
However, when mankind became eternally separated from God, he came under the same fate. There was therefore need for rescue. Yes, there was need to get back that life that he once had before the fall. There was need to get his eternal life restored. Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection were to achieve just that; and that has been achieved.
He has given us back the eternal life – and even better. But many are yet to come into it because the condition is whosoever believe; which is not just a mental faith. But a trusting in, a cleaving to, a joining to, a reliance on.
Many have not yet trusted in Him to the point of cleaving or joining to Him in spirit and in truth. That is why they still do not have that life. They are still eternally separated from God. Sadly, if they die that way, they will die eternally separated from God.
God’s plan is for the world to be made safe and sound through Jesus Christ; the safety and soundness that is required to spend the next life eternally joined to Him. You see that in the scriptures. The release of eternal life – the very life that was lost in the Garden of Eden – is the reason for Christ first coming. That is the eternal life that comes by knowing God, as the only True God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent.
We will pick up from tomorrow!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts in, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish (come to destruction, be lost) but have eternal (everlasting) life.
For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.
He who believes in Him [who clings to, trusts in, relies on Him] is not judged [he who trusts in Him never comes up for judgment; for him there is no rejection, no condemnation—he incurs no damnation]; but he who does not believe (cleave to, rely on, trust in Him) is judged already [he has already been convicted and has already received his sentence] because he has not believed in and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God. [He is condemned for refusing to let his trust rest in Christ’s name.] John 3:16-18 AMPC