TODAY’S DEVOTION (Sunday 4th June 2023)
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 155TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
We thank the LORD for another day. Today is the fourth day of the new month and a day our ancient fathers picked for corporate worship for all believers in Christ. Actually, days of worship do not matter, it is who you worship that matters.
New months to kingdom citizens, call for new levels of faith. I believe you are gunning for that, even as you prepare to join us today for our international broadcast, for June.
The driving force of the Kingdom is actually to move the church from one realm to another, one glory to another, one faith to another, one grace dimension to another, and one truth to another truth. That is why discipleship is the core activity of the kingdom of God. It involves moving from faith to faith, from revelation to revelation, and all that. It is a posture of continuous learning in Christ and dying to the flesh, and the world.
The Bible admonishes that we move from glory to glory, faith to faith, grace to grace, truth to truth, and revelation to revelation until our days are fulfilled. That is what the Spirit of Christ is offering at the Cry of the Spirit Ministries.
The Christian journey is designed to go from faith to faith, grace to grace, glory to glory, until death does us part. It is not a religion but a relationship with God that must keep growing, and getting better until one is not, like Enoch. Concerning Enoch, the Bible says;
“So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” Genesis 5:23-24 NKJV
The man Enoch represents a generation of believers who will not see literal death. I believe we are either close to that generation, or some among us today are that generation. The man had a pattern for discipleship – a walking with God pattern for all disciples of Christ.
If you are walking with God, you are to move from one level to another until you hit higher realms in Him. You are to maintain a learning and dying posture where you move from faith to faith, fire to fire, and all that. That is what the Christian faith is all about.
In other words, we are saved to spend each day moving from a lower level of faith, to a higher level of faith, from a lower dimension of grace to a higher dimension of grace, from a lower realm of glory, to a higher realm of glory, and on, and on, until we are taken like Enoch was, or until our time on earth is over. That is discipleship!
MOVING FROM WHERE AN OLD MONTH LEFT US, TO A MUCH HIGHER PLACE IN THE SPIRIT IN A NEW MONTH, IS GOD’S WILL FOR OUR LIFE.
We have been looking at things that our divine destiny needs to be fulfilled; things that are made for our peace. Yesterday, the LORD made it clear to us that divine protection is made for our peace. God promised us in His word, saying;
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” Genesis 28:15 NKJV
Divine protection is God being with you to fight your battles, protect you from the sword of your enemies, protect you from your sword, and all the dragon hurls at you, as you fight the battles of the LORD, or live for Him.
Divine protection is actually the heritage of all in Christ, but it is best enjoyed by those who are living for Him and not for themselves; those fighting His battles and not fighting for their interest. Divine protection is one thing the LORD made for our peace. It is my prayer that we all pursue it on daily basis, especially on the prayer knee, in Jesus precious name.
Our devotional text today tells us one more thing that the LORD made for our peace; one thing our divine destinies will need to be fulfilled. I hope we are ready!
Paul wrote to the Church at Philippi those strong words that have shaped the destiny of many from generation to generation. I have come to discover that every revivalist God ever used, to rekindle the flames of His Holy Spirit, fed from that scripture, to stay on fire for the LORD all through till death.
There is, therefore, something about that scripture that needs urgent attention in our generation. That is why I believe, the LORD had us to have it as our devotional text today.
A MAJOR HIGHLIGHT IN THE TEXT SAYS;
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
This scripture has a three-dimensional revelation – One for the outer court, one for the Holy place, and one for the most holy place.
In the outer court, if we do not forget the things that happened yesterday – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and press into what God has predetermined that happens today, we will never unleash our divine destiny. A generation that holds on to past glorious or inglorious things that happened to it, will never be able to finish its course in God’s eternal plan for mankind!
The church ought to be a moving army and if you are part of the body of Christ, you ought to be part of the moving army. If we get to a particular peak in life and do not lift our eyes to look for higher grounds to press into, we will begin to stink and sink. Your destiny will need constant pressing to be fulfilled.
In other words, constant pressing into God, and looking up to the next level of things to press into in Christ day unto day, is one of the many things the LORD made for our peace.
Samson made a major mistake at a particular success peak of his life. He did not just make a mistake, he desecrated his consecration by turning himself into a captive in the hands of people who once dreaded him, due to that mistake. We all blame it on Delilah but if you take a second look at that incident, you will realize that Delilah came into the picture when Samson got stuck to a season of success.
The Bible says for 20 years He was busying on one spot and doing the same thing over and over. That kind of life is not made for our peace. Things will suddenly flow into our thoughts, and we will start desiring the carnal and sinful in the process, venturing into things that are not God’s perfect plan for our lives.
Friend, no matter how gifted, graced, or divinely backed we are, if we do not spend each of our days pressing into fresh things in God, or new horizons in Christ, one day we are going to begin to stink and eventually sink into things we once abhorred. If we are not moving from an existing level of success to another level, or from one glory place to another, we will be captured by the mundane, or the demonic.
If we do not move from a dead, or spiritually stagnant church to a living one, we will be doomed. Nothing in Christ is designed to succeed through stagnancy. You are not designed to succeed in life through that. You must be part of the moving army of God on earth.
NO MOVING ARMY CAN BE CAPTURE BY THE ENEMY.
That is why in God’s kingdom, we don’t get ourselves stuck to a season of success (or even failure), we move on! That is the secret of unending strength from the LORD.
Your divine destiny will therefore need constant pressing into things yet to be revealed, or made manifest in your life, or through your life, to be fulfilled. If you do not press into them on daily bases – if you do not press into what God want to do next with your life after doing one thing with it – you will be stuck to a season of progress (or peril) and begin to see your carnal craving come alive and someone or something to satisfy it for you. That is the reason generals in God’s army fall.
Take David for instance, he saw Beersheba, the naked woman who trapped him into sin, in a season when kings go to war. He was in a season when kings go to war, but was right at the roof top enjoying the pleasure of one season of success. The Bible says,
“It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.
So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.” 2 Samuel 11:1-5 NKJV
Everything in this scripture, and what happened as a result, is traceable to one season the King did not go to war; one-time that the great King, David, got stuck to a season of success. If he was in the battle field responding to the next thing God wanted to do with his life, he wouldn’t have seen a woman who was busy taking her bath from his pent house.
OUR CARNAL DESIRES, WILL TAKE THE BETTER PART OF US, WHENEVER WE ARE NOT IN THE BATTLE FIELDS OF OUR DIVINE DESTINIES, FIGHTING.
*We allow our carnal desires to take the better part of us, if we do not spend our days *submitting to the next thing God want to do with our lives, after doing one successful thing with it. Your divine destiny will need a constant pressing into things yet to be done with your life to be fulfilled.
The Church is stuck and stinky in the Spirit today because we do not know or apply this in our walk with God.
We rather move from one marriage program to another, one poverty killing meeting to another, one dark deliverance service to another, one altar raising and breaking meeting to another, one star recovering meeting to another, and so forth, but do not move from realms of glory to another.
Sometimes I ask myself when the poverty will be finally killed, and so-called lost stars recovered. All these kinds of meetings are just to make or keep the pastor smiling to the bank!
The truth is, any man or woman preacher who takes you from one poverty killing meeting to the other, or one dark deliverance meeting to another, is only interested in killing his own poverty, and delivering himself from lack, or something else. Not your eternal life!
You may not believe this, but it’s clear in scriptures that anyone who builds his ministry, solely on solving demonic, marriage or money problems, is a big fraud. Even witch doctors do that. That has nothing to do with the great commission.
The great commission is to form Christ in people. Then Christ in them, becomes the hope of their financial or marital glory, delivering them from the demonic. I hope you understand! Whenever local churches loose touch with the glory, preachers settles on using the anointing to solve earthly problems leaving the people with great eternal problems.
DIVINE DESTINY WILL NEED A CONSTANT PURSUIT OF AND PRESSING INTO THE THINGS OF GOD TO BE FULFILLED, NOT THE THINGS OF MEN (MARRIAGE, MONEY AND ETC).
It will require that you press on your knees, mostly through intense fasting and prayers, to get into dimensions of God’s truth, grace, kingdom, power and glory you are yet to see.
It will require that you press with your mind through hours spent with the word (The Bible and any book, CD, or DVD that will help you understand the Bible). It will require that you press along with members of your spiritual family, through corporate fellowships, where the word is dissected, and the power of God imparted.
When it comes to matters of divine destiny, no pressing, no progress – you must press from one level of success to another, or from inactivity to productivity.
Now, talking about inactivity, I have come to realize that you do not wait for destiny to be fulfilled, you press into destiny for it to be fulfilled. Inactivity is the greatest killer of divine destiny. If you are just lying down inactive, and expecting your destiny to be fulfilled, it will never be fulfilled. That is why no lazy man or woman has been able to fulfil divine destiny.
I pray for you today that as the curtains of this month open wider, everything that is anti-divine destiny in your life will be closing tightly. There will never be another June 2023, so, make sure that nothing that is against your divine destiny survive this month.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE B AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY.
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ”
“and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;”
“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
“Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.” Philippians 3:7-15 NKJV