TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 10TH May 2023)
“Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him.
He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:23-27 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 130TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS & WONDERS!
God has been faithful to us. It is out of His faithfulness that we have found our sustenance. We give Him the glory for another day to be alive and well.
It has been a journey of truth on the faith, the purity, and the patience of the saints. Three virtues that will see anyone through these end times, and because genuine faith and patience have their anchors in purity, God have been speaking to us on purity all through. He has shared amazing Bible truths to us on the sanctification of the soul; an integral part of consecrated Christian living.
Consecrated Christian living has faith, purity, and patience as part of its hallmarks. In fact, consecrated living has a way of creating amazing Christian virtues in the life of a believer. It is the process through which the fruit of the Spirit is developed.
It is the process through which we come into true worship. There is so much false worship today because of lack of consecration. The Bible says;
“This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Matthew 15:8-9KJV
This is one of the lamentations of the Almighty in scriptures. I can sense this same lamentation being repeated over us today.
When we gather in our Sunday services, this is what the LORD groans about in the Heavenlies. He will look at us and say,
““This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.””
That is why so many church gatherings do not see His glory.
Many church gatherings just struggle with the anointing, and dwell in realms of human manipulations, and most times charismatic witchcraft, where people are told to use this oil, this salt, this broom, this stone, this prayer clothes, or pray looking at rods, or combing their hairs backward or forward to comb all their problems away.
If there is anytime we need to come out of all forms of occultism presented as Christianity, and all forms of hypocrisy and personal ungodliness, and lead the Bible way of Christian living, it is now.
Yes, if there is a time to walk away from desecrated Christian living to consecrated Christian living, it is now.
However, that will not be possible without the Holy Spirit building righteous strongholds that makes such living possible within us. The Holy Spirit would have to use sound apostolic and prophetic teachings, the way He did in the days of the Bible to make such living possible. There have to be the sanctification or saving of the soul.
THE DAYS THAT ARE UPON US, ARE DAYS SET ASIDE FOR THE SAVING OF THE SOUL.
Serving God with the lips instead of the heart, is a product of a soul that has not been sanctified or saved. Some times we take true worship to be a matter of the lips alone.
You see, in the Kingdom of God, faith and confession are matters of the heart and the lips. Thanking, praising, or worshiping God in songs, are matters of the heart and the lips. Prayer and offering adoration to God, are matters of the lips and the heart.
So many other things we do in our relationship with God, are matters of the lips and the heart. Though often, we have reduced them to matters of the lips. We now demonstrate with our lips what is designed to be demonstrated with our deeds. True worship is designed to be demonstrated with our deeds, not our lips.
Friend, we are in the days of the sanctification of the Church by the water of the word. The vision is to bring us to the place of true worship – the place of being presented to the LORD without spot or wrinkles. Jesus Christ, the Husband of the church, is the one doing it. He used an allegory of family life in scriptures to show us. The Bible says;
“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” Ephesians 5:25-27 KJV
SOMETIMES, WE DO NOT REALIZE WHAT WAYS THE LORD DEMONSTRATES HIS LOVE TOWARDS US.
We think it is always by Him giving us miracles. But one of the most unknown ways the LORD demonstrates His love towards us, like a husband should do to the wife, is through sanctification. The LORD sanctifies and cleanses who He loves, and He loves all of us; so, He wants all of us sanctified and cleansed, so that He will present us to Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle or any such thing.
In other words, if the LORD loves you, among other things that He will do, He will sanctify and cleanse you for Himself; He will do it as a purifier of the sons of Levi, so that you will be living as part of His glorious Church on the face of the earth; a person who is without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish.
This activity of His Spirit is predicated on our love for the LORD.
A part of our devotional text presents how we are to demonstrate that love. It made it clear that we are to demonstrate it, not by singing, giving, praying or preaching, as important as they are. It says we are to demonstrate it by keeping what He said in His word.
Hear Him;
… “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.” John 14:23-24 NKJV
I think the time has come to stop following what our misled preachers are preaching about loving the LORD, and start following what the LORD Himself taught in this scripture. Because loving the LORD properly will make a man’s life a home for the Godhead.
So, from these scriptures, it is clear that we demonstrate our love for the LORD by obeying His commandments, while He demonstrates His love towards us by sanctifying and cleansing us.
That is how obedience meets sanctification in the Christian race.
When we love the LORD and give ourselves to him, He will sanctify us. This sanctification is carried out by His Holy Spirit, using sanctifying truths. It’s an activity of the Spirit that can lead to the rebirth of the crucified life, in the lives of those who submit to the LORD. The Bible says;
“And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” Galatians 5:24-25 NKJV
IN GOD’S POINT OF VIEW, THOSE WHO ARE CHRIST ARE KNOWN BY THE KIND OF LIFE THEY LIVE, NOT BY THE KIND OF THINGS THEY SAY.
They are known by the Crucified life they live, not the spiritual things they say, pray, or preach. Yes, they are known by walking in the Spirit not in the flesh. Simply put, they are known by their consecration. It is the sanctification of the spirit, soul and body that results in consecrated living.
We saw what the Bible teaches about the sanctification of the spirit, now we are looking at what the Bible teaches about the sanctification of the soul. As we seen in previous days, the sanctification of the soul is what the Bible calls the saving of the soul. And in saving the soul, all the units of the soul must be sanctified.
There are five units or faculties of the soul that needs to be sanctified. We have seen two of the five, and how to get them sanctified. We have seen the imagination and the memory.
The memory is that unit of the soul that stores and recalls things. We saw how the unit will bring destruction to us of it is not sanctified, and we also saw how to get it sanctified. The Bible describes a desecrated and polluted memory as a memory that does not retain GOD. Such memory will make our lives corrupt and sinful.
It will always be recalling the pleasure of the sins we once committed and always push us back to them.
It is very important that we always fast and pray, and meditate on the scriptures regularly, asking the LORD to sanctify our memory. Yes, it is important that we develop a culture of spending specific days and nights, absorbing sanctifying truths and memorizing them. Memorizing the scripture and what it teaches is one way we put or retain God in our knowledge.
SADLY, MANY OF US DO NOT DO THAT TODAY!
One of the spiritual exercises God taught the nation of Israel to be engaged with, is memorization of the Torah. In fact, God placed the success of Joshua’s ministry on memorization of the Torah. That was why he was even able to stop the Sun. He went for battle that day after memorizing, and recalling what He had memorized, and came back victorious.
We will always be victorious in the battle against sin, if we get our memories filled with the word of the LORD day and night like Joshua did in his days. God said to him expressly;
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8 NKJV
Meditation is strongly connected to memorization. It is one way we retain GOD in our knowledge and do exploits with it. David, one of those who grew up in the culture of memorizing the Torah like Muslims memorize the Koran, wrote saying;
“How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!
Your word I have hidden in my heart, That I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:9-11 NKJV
We hide the word of the LORD in our hearts by meditating in it and memorizing it. Memorizing the scriptures is one way we sanctify our memories.
For instance, if your problem is sexual sins, due to what lies in your memory, you can change that. You can change that by engaging in a season of mild fasting, but with intense memorization of scriptures that forbids sexual immorality.
You will never continue living in sexual sins if you hide the word of the LORD on the consequences of it in your memory bank or subconsciousness. The Holy Spirit will always find what to use to stop you from committing the sin, which brings us to another aspect of our devotional text. The text says;
“These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” John 14:25-26 NKJV
THIS SCRIPTURE PRESENTS TO US ONE WAY THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT HELPS US TO LEAD SANCTIFIED CHRISTIANS LIVES.
He helps us by taking what we may have memorized and stored into our subconsciousness during the time of spirit building fasting and prayer, from our subconsciousness to our memory, so that we can use it as a sword in battle.
In other words, He helps to act on our memory, to pick what lies in our subconsciousness, and bring to the fore for appropriate action. That means if we have not put in anything into our subconsciousness through meditation and memorization of scriptures, there will be nothing for the Holy Spirit to pick in His love to help us lead consecrated lives.
We must therefore, shun all forms of spiritual laziness and begin to hide the word in our hearts (put it into our subconsciousness) by memorizing the scriptures.
Our memory was designed to help us put things into our subconsciousness. It was designed to help us absorb into our subconsciousness scriptures on different subjects, including righteousness, purity and holiness.
If we make proper use of the memory in our quest for holy living, it will keep it sanctified; the sinful and ungodly things that lie in our subconsciousness will be deleted and replaced with righteous and godly truths from the Bible.
I think enough has been shared for the day; May the LORD use it to keep building us up and giving us an inheritance among they that are sanctified.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AND ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.” Colossians 3:16-17 NKJV