TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 14TH AUGUST 2023)
“One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 226TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Blessed be the name of the LORD who daily loads us with benefits! Blessed be His glorious name for bringing us into another day. I am persuaded that the God who fed and led us through the previous days is still alive and well. And will be abundantly available for us in this new day.
Today the LORD wants to speak to us about something that might be your problem, right now as we speak. Something that over 90 percent of us preachers do not teach, preach, or talk about, yet it is the root cause of all the problems people go through and seek divine intervention for. That thing is called carnality.
The early church never had the problems we have today because they made sure no one lived a carnal Christian life. They identified it, rebuked it, and corrected the brethren not to go that direction. For instance, one of the early apostolic fathers wrote to his spiritual children saying;
“ I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?
For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal? 1 Corinthians 3:2-4 NKJV
If you look at this scripture, you will see that the chief concern of spiritual fathers then, was different from what we see spiritual fathers concern themselves about us today. Today it is about the tithe and other things. But then they were concerned about the people’s spiritual lives.
So many do not even know how a carnal Christian life look like. Believe it or not, there is a dangerous trend in the Body of Christ today – the rise of carnality among us believers. It leads us on who to marry, what to do, which church to attend, who to walk with, what to accept and reject, and all that.
The result is not good; the result is a life governed by the filthiness of the spirit which can prevent anyone from enjoying the best of GOD in this life, leading to oppression, spiritual problems, constant demonic attacks, toiling, lack of progress in life, etc.
EVEN IN THE AREA OF MARRIAGE, CARNALITY HAS DESTROYED SO MANY HOMES AND KEPT MANY SINGLE.
In fact, the number of those carnality is keeping single, are more than those the devil is keeping single. The number of Christian marriages that carnality has destroyed are much more than the number of those other things have destroyed.
If you look at how we Christians will leave this marriage today and find ourselves in another, and then leave again to another, and then to another, and then to another. You will know it cannot be God or the devil. It is our carnal nature that is leading us. Sadly, we always come up with a “God say this,” while our carnal natures are the ones saying it.
How can we convince everyone that this man or women is God’s will for us, then wake up another day after living with the person for some months or years to say, it is no longer the person? And that God is saying this and that, and that He has given us another direction? Then after that we make another move again?
God could be involved in one or two, but not in every one of our decisions. Many of us are just driven by our carnal nature. Our carnal natures are the one decolorizing our lives and making us lose integrity. There is so much carnality has done in the lives of men and women in church.
Even down the memory lane of Church history, you find what it has done.
Carnality has stopped major moves of God and great spiritual movements and awakenings in Church History. Today, you still find its exploits along similar lines. It has paralyzed and destroyed ministries, broken churches into fragments, and done so much through its capacity to create strife, divisions, bitterness, etc. among believers. It is the silent devil many of us have not considered.
One moment of carnality has destroyed great people of God and buried glorious destinies. Years of Spirit led living and the glorious results that it brings, can be buried in one moment of carnality.
I cannot forget the story of a great servant of God in ancient times, who was greatly used by the LORD in ancient cities of some western countries, to snatch souls from hell and bring them into Heaven. He became so loved and famous that the daughter of a royal and very rich family began to desire him for marriage.
Today, everyone will see that as divine favor from the LORD, because of how carnal and materialistic the church has become!
HE HAD BECOME CLOSE TO THE FAMILY THEN, BECAUSE MANY ELITES WHERE COMING TO HIM.
But in one moment of carnality, he forgot that a man like him does not need a very beautiful woman from a royal home full of riches for a wife. A man like him needed a Levite like him, so to speak, for a wife. In his moment of carnality, he married this woman in a very lavished wedding.
After the wedding, the woman joined him in ministry. But his ministry was buried after a short time, because she was not designed for it. You do not marry who GOD and upbringing did not designed for you. You will be sorry if you do.
For instance, there was one day that they were returning from a crusade and because dust was all over her due to the bad roads they had to travel through, she came down from the cart, and began to slap and beat up her husband due to frustration. She had never seen such in her life, hence getting frustrated.
She slapped the man of God and God did nothing because the man brought it upon himself, and God is not in the business of killing wives because of their husbands. Yes, God will never kill the wife of a preacher who was not designed for him if he married her in carnality, neither will he kill the husband of a preacher who was not designed for her if she married him in carnality.
Few months after, she left the marriage and the man’s ministry sank. He never recovered. The Bible says;
“For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” Romans 8:6-8 NKJV
Many of us have taken decisions in our moments of carnality and brought so much death and moral corruption into our lives. We have stopped great purposes of God for our lives through decisions we took in carnality. But to be carnal minded is still death.
IF WE WANT LIFE AND PEACE, WE MUST BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED AT ALL TIMES.
Intimacy with God will help us achieve that. We should not live Christian lives that are far from God’s active presence. If we do, we will grow carnal and begin to do things with a carnal mind. Our devotional text says,
“One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 NKJV
You can’t enter the active presence of God to behold His beauty and enquire at His temple daily and live a carnal life. You cannot die daily and lead a carnal Christian life. People who make it a spiritual culture to be spending regular time in God’s presence, to behold His beauty and enquire at His temple, will not be caught in the web of carnality.
Those who make it a spiritual tradition, to always check their desires and decisions in the intensive presence of God, before carrying them out, will be safe from following the path of carnality. They will never come to the valleys of carnality where destinies are slain.
Sometimes, we preachers become so busy with Church and ministry affairs, some others with side business and begin to spend little or no time in God’s presence.
As we become so busy with ministry and reduce our time in God’s presence, we begin to grow in carnality. Before you know it, we have become so carnally minded that we do not even know. That is when we behave the same way unbelievers behave; you find some of us making sexual moves towards our members, and sending carnal text messages to them. It is saddening.
You find those who are sexually chaste doing some other things in carnality and ruing the faith of some. You find others moving from one marriage to another and shamelessly giving twisted scriptural reasons for their actions. That is not the will of God for us. We must rise against carnality.
All believers must rise against carnality because it is ruining many of us. True Christianity forbids carnality. It has no place for it. True Christianity will make you spiritually minded not carnally minded. It will bring you into a Holy Spirit led life not a carnal led life.
HOLINESS IS NOT POSSIBLE WHERE BELIEVERS ARE CARNAL.
When you see a Christian living in sin and excusing himself or herself, that person has become carnally minded. The scandals in church today are children of carnal mindedness, and nothing else. Secret sins in church are products of being carnally minded. No one who is spiritually minded will take a decision that will lead him to sin.
You will always grow from a Child of God to a son of hell when you become carnally minded.
As we bring this to a close, understand that if we are not carnally minded, the devil cannot destroy anything about us. It is when we are carnal that we diminish in God’s grace and glory and become vulnerable to all dark powers.
Eternally, carnality can hinder one from making Heaven because the Bible says, blessed are the pure in heart (or spirit), for they shall see God. Carnality is a sign that one is no longer pure in heart or spirit. We have to be pure in heart, not filthy, to see God.
Sadly, because of this, the lake of fire will be full of carnal Christians too, not just unbelievers who refused to accept the LORD. Carnal mindedness is what makes us to call Him “LORD, LORD,” but not do what He says! To be carnally minded is death, nothing has changed that; it will lead to eternal death not eternal life.
The perverted gospel of grace is not letting us know these things. A lot of false doctrines and practices are not letting us know that carnality is the greatest hindrance on the paths of many who profess Christ.
Carnality is allowing the flesh to be in charge of your life after declaring Jesus as LORD. It is being ruled by the natural senses, instead of the sense of the Holy Spirit after accepting Christ.
The Church must wake up from the valleys of carnality and come into the higher life of the Holy Spirit that we were originally called into. We must embrace deep intimacy with Jesus Christ, and nothing else. Deep must begin to call unto deep in our lives, so that God’s grace and glory will have their full expressions.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’
And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV