TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 29TH JULY 2023)**
“Now Joshua said to Achan, “My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.”
And Achan answered Joshua and said, “Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done:
When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it.” Joshua 7:19-21 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 210TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
It has been 210 days of His marvelous help, comfortable, faith-building, and sometimes fiery truths, and much more grace and peace from the LORD. If we all take a deep thought, we will realize that our God has done much more than our finite minds can fathom.
Sometimes, we do not remember that; maybe because of the things we may be seeing around us, the hopes and life expectations that are yet to come to fruition.
Yes, the circumstances of life that were created by our decisions; they all cloud our minds, preventing us from seeing the silent and unspectacular but significant deeds, of a loving Savior. Often, we have allowed the undone to blind us from the done, consequently slipping into the valley of emotions that make us ungrateful to God for what He has done.
But this morning, I want to admonish us, to wake up from the mental dust that has settled on our minds because of any unpleasant happening, and let us lift up a voice in prayer, and thank the LORD. He is our all in all and our everything. We have no other one to look unto and be brightened up.
To the one who sins, and seeks God’s mercy, He is the mercy seat. To the sick one among us, He is our great Healer. To the one who sits in darkness, He is our light. To the one who is in the valley of the shadow of death, He is our resurrection and life.
To the one in spiritual problems and all forms of attacks from the gates of hell, He is the deliverer who delivers without requesting that you raise an altar of sacrifice. To the fatherless and orphans, He is the everlasting father, and to those with absentee fathers, He is the ever-present father.
If you are in danger, He is the ever-present help in your time of trouble. If you are grieving and hurting, He is your comforter.
IF YOU ARE IN FINANCIAL DISTRESS OF ANY KIND, HE IS THE GREAT PROVIDER, THE EL SHADDAI.
The difference between what He is, and what you may be going through, is the absence of the divinely appointed animator of who He is in your life, and we will get there shortly. I am yet to see a situation we find ourselves in that Jesus cannot take care of. I am yet to see a need we have, whose supply He is not.
He is the voice of the LORD to those who are seeking divine direction, or a word of prophecy. If you are struggling with a life of sin and want to live right, He is your righteousness. He is the holiness of God to all of us, and the source of all depths of purity of the spirit and the flesh.
He so fit as our righteousness and holiness, because His first manifestation was to destroy the works of the devil, and the works within context are sins. He was made manifest that He might help us live a life where sin will not have dominion over us. So, if sin is having dominion over you, God has made the Christ dimension available to us all.
Now, all these Christ dimensions mentioned so far, cannot be a reality in our lives if we do not have a healthy relationship with the animator of those dimensions; the Holy Spirit. Yes, the Holy Spirit is the animator of the Christ dimensions we have mentioned so far, and the ones we did not even mention, like walking in the supernatural abilities of Christ.
For instance, Holiness and righteousness are Christ’s dimensions. Healing the sick today and bringing deliverance to the oppressed without using oil, water, salt, stones, prayer clothes, asking people for sacrificial giving, or doing what they call raising or silencing of altars, is Christ’s dimension in the present truth.
Holiness, righteousness, power, and all these things are not the dimensions of any human or created being.
When it comes to holiness, the Bible says, “There is none holy, no not one.” So, you cannot get holiness from the earth. It must come from Christ, who is currently seated at the right hand of God. In simple terms, if you want to be holy, as God commanded, you will need that Christ dimension made active in your life.
THIS CUTS ACROSS EVERY OTHER THING YOU MAY NEED.
The Christ dimension that makes that thing available must be made active in your life for you to have it. The Holy Spirit is the current animator or activator of Christ’s dimensions in our lives. Jesus Himself said, when He comes, He will not speak of Himself but will reveal or make Christ’s dimensions known to us.
In other words, He will make any Christ dimension we need to become active in our lives. The reason why many of us do not see the dimensions of Christ made active in our lives, is because we fake the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, or hold the shadow in our hands.
Ordinarily, Christ’s dimensions should be an automatic manifestation in our lives whenever it is needed, like it was in the days of our fathers. Yet we cannot see it in our lives because, we either do not have the genuine holy spirit, or we do not have a relationship that is healthy enough for Him to unlock those dimensions in our lives.
Friend, if the Holy Spirit is not in full control of your life; your decisions, your choices, your daily devotions, and your everything, you will never see any of the Christ dimensions you need to be made manifest in your life. You might have all the knowledge of the dimensions but will lack the manifestation of any of what you know in your life.
The Holy Spirit, in His full measure, is all we need to see all of Christ’s dimensions in our lives. That is why the first experience you should crave for as a child of God, is not water baptism, but the baptism of the Holy Ghost and fire. Our desire should be to have Him and have Him in His fullness.
I want to at this point bring back the story I shared in the last two devotionals about the farming experience we had when we first came to Abuja. One thing I did not share in that story was my ‘encounter’ with a particular weed we call ‘Striga.’
Striga was a terrible weed. It reminds me of the things we do that either reduce or eliminate the works of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
In those years, we discovered that, wherever and whenever the weed called Striga appeared on our farmland, every crop around it will turn yellow, and start dying. At first, we thought it was a spiritual attack on our crops because of our spirituality without revelation knowledge of the Word then.
BUT AFTER A WHILE, THE MYSTERY WAS UNFOLDED TO US THROUGH SOME LESSONS IN AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE.
Science told us that the weed has an organic Chemical, that can kill any crop on a farmland. If it is not spotted very early and weeded away, the crops will be in danger of (in prophetic words) not ‘fulfilling their God-given destiny,’ or in the spirit of this devotional, “not coming into Christ dimension in their lives.” I hope you understand me!
The first time I shared about this plant on this platform, I shared it in the light of right and wrong relationships.
Sadly, most wrong relationships in life, are like “striga.” If Satan plants them in your life, and you do not spot and weed them out early enough, they will infect you with things that will make it impossible for you to fulfill your divine destiny, or come into any Christ dimension you need in your day of trouble!
Sometimes Satan can be strategic. He will not bring these “striga men or women” into your life early enough. They will come after you have suffered and are ready to be promoted or lifted. That is when they will come in to kill everything.
The Bible says “humble yourself, and God will exalt you in due time.”
In this kind of spiritual assault, Satan does not bring striga men or women when you are humbling yourself, no! He will allow you to humble yourself unhindered, and wait until you come into the season of lifting. Then he will bring this striga men and women, wrapped in great appeal, and use your unguided passion or compassion, to plant them in your life.
Once they are planted, your destruction is no longer a matter of if, but a matter of when. He will just leave you alone and go sit with his demons to click glasses, waiting for the Striga man or woman to inject you with things that will not let you come into the full measure of the Spirit.
I remember a farming season in Abuja in those days when many crops failed to yield due to this terrible weed. Crops were planted, fertilized, and properly taken care of but a few weeks to when they will start producing, this weed called “striga” appeared and killed everything.
In some cases, crops like maize were so green and beautiful, already shooting out their ears to produce the full corn. Then the weed sprang up, and in a few days killed everything. Investigations later revealed that the seeds of that weed were already in the ground before the maize was even planted.
IN OTHER WORDS, THE MAIZE WAS PLANTED AMONG THE STRIGA SEEDS
We were not having the know-how to detect if there were striga seeds in the ground before planting the maize. And because we lacked it, we ignorantly went in to plant our great and beautiful seeds, among terrible striga seeds.
How many times have we planted good ideas among bad things and got them destroyed? So many!
How many times have we done very good and promising things with Striga people, and watched them not succeed? So many times. How many times has the Holy Spirit desired to fill our lives, only for us to develop some striga behavior, and then watch His works brought to an end in our lives? Severally!
For many of us, what is hindering us from seeing the Christ dimension we need to be made manifest in our lives, is the striga behaviors and ways of life that we have refused to let go of. The Holy Spirit will begin to do good work in our lives, and after a while, we will do something that quench it, and not even realize it.
Our walk with the Spirit is so poor, hence our lives are filled with lack and poverty, so long as the prosperity of the righteous is concerned.
Child of God, if your walk with the Holy Spirit is very poor, do not expect your life to be very rich with His works. Do not expect any Christ dimension to manifest in your life in time of need. If you do, you will be disappointed because it will never manifest. You must identify and take away the striga behavior first, the way Joshua identified and took away Achan.
Our devotional text says;
“Now Joshua said to Achan, “My son, I beg you, give glory to the Lord God of Israel, and make confession to Him, and tell me now what you have done; do not hide it from me.”
And Achan answered Joshua and said, “Indeed I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I have done:
When I saw among the spoils a beautiful Babylonian garment, two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. And there they are, hidden in the earth in the midst of my tent, with the silver under it.” Joshua 7:19-21 NKJV
THE REST OF THE CHAPTER TELLS US THAT, BECAUSE OF THE JUSTICE SYSTEM OF GOD FOR THAT DISPENSATION, ACHAN WAS TAKEN TO THE VALLEY OF ACHOR.
The valley of Achor means the valley of trouble. That is where the striga conducts, behaviors, or lifestyles belong; we must take them to their valley of Achor, which is the cross. We must nail them all to the cross.
That sin that has refused to let you go forward must be nailed to the cross. That lifestyle that quenches the Holy Spirit must be nailed to the cross. Everything that will not allow you to come to the fullness of the Spirit must be identified and taken to its own valley of Achor.
This is no longer about people but about our own conduct; our secret sins and private lawlessness. If they are not nailed to the cross, forget about any Christ dimension you need in your life; it will never manifest. You will keep using water, oil, salt, and all those Nehushtan gadgets in prayer. You will be running after preachers like a fly runs after dead things.
For instance, do not expect your life to have Christ manifesting as your El Shaddai in times of need, or your Healer in time of illness, or your Refuge and immediate present help in times of danger, or your Deliverer, who delivers you from evil powers without asking you for a seed.
Do not expect Him to manifest as your redemption sacrifice, because He will not. It is when He manifests as our redemption sacrifice, that we do not need to be raising altars of sacrifice for our freedom, like the heathen and ignorant Christians do. In fact, do not expect any Christ dimension to be made manifest in your life if your walk with the Holy Spirit is poor.
You must not have a striga spiritual or natural lifestyle, or else you will be living a miserable life on earth. Either it is striga behavior, or striga men or women, nothing striga will make a positive impact in your life.
If you extend this to the marriage and family life frontiers, you will see a lot to glean into your spirit. A good man will go and plant his righteous seeds in the womb of a terrible striga woman, whose true nature is hidden by either their religiosity, spirituality, beauty, or some graceful features they have, putting the lives of his unborn children in danger.
Even ladies of destiny are sometimes trapped in the same quagmire. You find them becoming mothers to children of striga men whose outlook hid their true nature from the innocent women.
Friend the situation is really worrisome. Only true discernment can help us to sport striga people afar off.
It is my prayer that God will use this mystery to guide your walk with Him and bring you to the fullness of the measure of the Spirit, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen!
YOU CAN MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE YOUR MEDITATION;
“Anxiety in the heart of man causes depression, but a good word makes it glad.
The righteous should choose his friends carefully, for the way of the wicked leads them astray.” Proverbs 12:25-26 NKJV