TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 9TH May 2023)
“I am the LORD, your Holy One, The Creator of Israel, your King.”
Thus says the LORD, who makes a way in the sea and a path through the mighty waters, who brings forth the chariot and horse, The army and the power (They shall lie down together, they shall not rise; They are extinguished, they are quenched like a wick):
“Do not remember the former things, Nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, Now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness. Isaiah 43:15-19 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 129TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS & WONDERS!
It is another glorious day in our discourse on the faith, purity and patience of the saints – especially these end times.
The God of Heaven and earth have been imparting us with sanctified truths on what matters most to Heaven; a consecrated Christian life, which is a major catalyst of the faith, purity and patience of an end time believer in Christ. It is also the qualification of making Heaven, because the Bible says we should follow peace with all men and Holiness, without which no eye shall see the LORD!
We have seen so much about these things, and also understood that, a consecrated Christian life is not possible without the sanctification of the spirit, soul and body.
The Bible made it clear that the sanctification of the spirit, happens at once. It happens when one meets the LORD. But the sanctification of the soul is a daily thing. There is also the sanctification or redemption of the body, which will also be at once; on the day of the resurrection of the righteous. These are the things that precipitates the faith, purity, and patience of the saints.
The most important thing to get yourself involve with after giving your life to Christ is to focus on the sanctification or salvation of the soul.
I have always taught this to the elects of Christ. I have always said, we are saved, we are being saved, and we shall be saved. The sanctification of the soul, is the part of our salvation that falls under being saved. And we have been looking at how to extend sanctification to the five faculties of the soul.
The first unit or faculty of the soul that we have looked into is the imagination. It is clear that if our imagination is not sanctified, our lives cannot be sanctified.
There can be no consecrated living without a righteous, pure and holy imagination. The Bible made it clear that no one can restrain us from doing whatever we imagine to do. That’s why so many do what GOD will not want them to do, and others even do what they do not want to do because of the unholy imaginations they have!
I have found myself so many times while growing in the faith, doing things I do not want to do. That was when I found out by the help of God that, once my imagination is unholy, my actions cannot be holy. The imagination must be holy for a man’s doings to be blameless.
Now to the memory!
We ended yesterday devotional when we took the first step towards unravelling the second unit or faculty of the soul, as it relates consecrated living – the memory. We found out that without the memory imagination will not be possible.
The memory works with the imagination in creating and recreating images. It is in the memory that the images created by imagination are stored and recalled from time to time. If it is a sinful image like sexual images, the memory will receive from the imagination and store it for future recall. That is why, one sexual act, can keep one in multiple sexual sins, if recalled from time to time.
MOST TIMES, IT IS THE MEMORY THAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE REPETITION OF SINS AND EVIL DEEDS THAT GOD MAY HAVE WARNED US ABOUT.
Sadly, a memory that is corrupt and ignorant, can bring so much trouble upon us. It can set us in the frequency of rebellion. That is why we find ourselves sometimes, committing certain sins, and saying to ourselves “I will not do this again,” only for the memory to recall the pleasure for you and push you back to the gutters.
An unsanctified memory only recalls the pleasures of sin, not the warnings of the Almighty against sin and the danger of living in sin.
Except the Holy Spirit act on it, no unsanctified memory has the capacity to recall what you read about the danger of sin, or the preaching you heard about the consequences of the sins you commit. It will always recall the pleasure you got from it. I think the deceitfulness of sin is made possible by a corrupt memory working in agreement with other faculties of the soul.
For instance, many who are trapped in sexual sins, have lost the sense of God’s judgment on what they are doing due to the state of their memory. It has become corrupt and unsanctified. They find their memory recalling the pleasure of the moments they spent with their sexual sin partners, and every other thing that happened, pushing them over and over down the same lane.
We know so much about our enemies but know very little about the consequences of not repenting but repeating our sins. If sin will not have dominion over us, then we must not neglect the power of the memory in making us repeat instead of repent from our sins.
The Bible says;
“Dear friends, if we deliberately continue sinning after we have received knowledge of the truth, there is no longer any sacrifice that will cover these sins.
There is only the terrible expectation of God’s judgment and the raging fire that will consume his enemies.” Hebrews 10:26-27 NLT
An unsanctified memory will keep one in repetitive sins, until the consequences comes like a consuming fire, wiping the person’s blessings away. That is how many marriages have been wiped away, many economic lives reduced to shreds, many lives made sick, and the shalom of God eroded from the lives of many, resulting in persistent demonic attacks.
If you find yourself going back to sinful deeds helplessly, especially sexual sins, your problem may not be a demon, but what you have seeded, sowed or planted into your memory. It is the unsanctified aspects of our souls that keep us doing what we do not want to do.
THE THINGS WE HAVE SEEDED, SOWED, OR PLANTED INTO THEM OVER TIME, ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR OUR REPETITIVE SINS.
There are two kinds of repetitive sins. They ones we repeat willingly and willfully, and the ones we repeat unwillingly and unwillfully.
The first one happens without a fight. The second one is a product of losing the fight you put on not to repeat the sin again. You lose the fight because the weight of what you have seeded into your soul, knowingly or unknowingly, is heavier than the will and desire not to commit the sin.
To stop the willful or unwilful repetitions of sins, we must operate the principle of seed time and harvest. We must stop seeding into our memories or souls what will keep us from committing the sins, and start seeding, in large portion, what will keep us away from it.
The Bible says;
“Do not be deceived and deluded and misled; God will not allow Himself to be sneered at (scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions, or by His precepts being set aside.) [He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God.] For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap.
For he who sows to his own flesh (lower nature, sensuality) will from the flesh reap decay and ruin and destruction, but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Galatians 6:7-8 AMPC
The word “sow” means to seed or plant. This scripture is telling us that what we seed or plant into our memories is what we will harvest from it. What we did not seed or plant into our memory, will never be harvested from it. You will never reap a life of holiness, if you have not planted the revelation that will help you live that life, in your imagination or memory through meditation.
Meaning, if we do not like what we are harvesting from our memory; if we do not like how it pushes us here and there to sin, we should check what we have been seeding, sowing or planting into it through what we have been seeing, hearing, touching, meditating upon and etc.
For instance, if you plant the seed of sexual pleasure into your memory or into any other faculty of your soul, either by fantasying sexual encounters you had or discussed, watching a movie, being involved in sexual acts real time, or watching pornography, you will reap a life of repetitive sexual sins.
Your memory will keep bringing the images, feelings and pleasures back until you are ruined by becoming addicted. It is important to understand that what we seed or plant into our memory over time, will become a stronghold in us that forms an addiction.
ADDICTIONS ARE DEVELOPED WHEN WE DO SOMETHING THAT DEVELOP THEM OVER AND OVER AGAIN.
Many of us do not realize when we are taking our journey into an addiction. We only realize when we have gotten there. Then some of us will begin to blame demons. But we must understand that whatever we train the faculties of our souls to do, our souls will do it perfectly; be it what is holy or what is sinful.
If you train your soul to do righteous, pure and holy things over time and under GOD, your soul will be doing righteous, pure and holy things. That is how the soul was designed by GOD to work! It is like a computer system that gives you whatever you install into it, and displays whatever command you give it.
That is why addictions are broken by the power of GOD, working in the sanctifying truths planted, seeded or sowed into the soul over time. I have seen many sexual and drug addicts delivered that way.
It is like installing a software and uninstalling another software. You uninstall from your soul the spiritual software responsible for an addition, and install into your soul the one that will keep the addiction away.
That is how we break from sinful habits and all forms of addictions.
Now, part of the stronghold of addictions and sinful habits is usually in the memory. When the memory is therefore sanctified, an addition can be broken. The question now is, how is the memory sanctified? That brings us to the last verse of our devotional text. It says;
“Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness. Isaiah 43:15-19 NKJV
This scripture is usually read in the format of seeking for breakthrough. It is usually read to encourage us to press into new things in God and break from a bad past. There is nothing wrong with any of that. But there is a dimension that the LORD opened to me as I studied it again.
The word remember means recall. We recall using our memory; in fact, whatever we may be recalling lies in our memory bank. So, to recall simply put, is to invade the memory bank and retrieve an information.
If we must recall, we should not recall any of the sinful things we did with the aim of retrieving the pleasure we had when we did them. If we do, it will shut down the new things GOD want to do in our lives and keep us in our old sinful ways.
If we are to recall any sinful thing we did, it should be to sorrow for it, deepen our repentance, and make sure we do not go back to them again.
The memory is sanctified when we do not recall the pleasure of the sin we once committed. It is sanctified when we wipe away or forget the former things (the pleasure of the sinful things we did), and press into the righteous, pure and holy things that we gave our lives to Christ to be doing.
Now, the Bible spoke about a generation that does not retain God in its knowledge. We must not be part of that generation if our memory will be holy. We must be actively involved with the generation of believers that retain God in its knowledge. That will help us lead consecrated lives.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,
Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:
Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. Romans 1:28-32 KJV