TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 8TH MARCH 2024)
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 KJV
WELCOME TO THE 68TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
The goodness of the LORD has caused us to see another day in our year of impact. We should never take that for granted.
We sleep and we wake up, because it pleases His mercies to keep us alive while we are asleep. It is the presence of the LORD that makes our enemies weak before us.
It is the presence that makes sure we sleep and wake up without being taken out in our sleep by the enemy.
To God belongs all the glory!
The 2024 Sons of Issachar summit has been immensely blessed by the LORD, especially with amazing insights from His Holy Spirit, on deliverance matters in God’s kingdom.
It gets sweeter and sweeter with the LORD!
Yes, the wine of the Holy Ghost gets sweeter by the years; by the years you spend with Him. There is no dull moment in the presence of your King, who died on the cross for you.
He makes you see and hear things that make you wish that time should leave you in the hands of eternity.
The summit has been one of its kind! There are no words!!!
God has a word for us today. It pays to start a day with a word from the LORD. Successful people in God’s Kingdom start their day in God’s presence and with a word from the LORD.
In our devotional today we shall continue with the flow of the Holy Spirit that started yesterday on “not living according to the dictates of the flesh.”
The flesh has been our main problem not really our human enemies. In fact, there are three basic enemies of a man – the world, the devil, and the flesh. If we conquer these three, we have conquered all.
Being a Child of God indeed is not possible, if you are walking according to the dictates of the world, the devil, or the flesh.
It is not possible if you are not living the crucified life.
SADLY, THE SUBJECT OF LIVING A CRUCIFIED LIFE HAS BECOME AN UNKNOWN BIBLE TRUTH IN OUR CHURCH GENERATION.
I am yet to hear a present-day front-line preacher preach about the crucified life. The last preacher I heard talk about the crucified life died the day I was born.
That explains how I heard the message; it was through an audio tape. Her name was Katherine Khulman.
No wonder she moved in such waves of glory in her days!
Today, no influential preacher on cable or local television wants to talk about it because it will rob them of their fame, fortune, and worship.
The crucified life is a life that does not live according to the influence of the world, the devil, or the flesh.
It is a Christian life that does not allow the three to dictate, fashion out, or determine how it is led. That is the Crucified life, the very life that is missing today. It is missing because very few know it or want it.
Even in the few places where it is preached, very few want to embrace it.
For instance, if God put a word in your mouth that brings people to the cross and urge them to live the crucified life, they will give you names and leave your ministry.
That explains why many of us preachers do not preach it today.
We are afraid we will lose our followership. We forget that the message of the cross that is foolishness to the world, is what we are all called to preach.
But the devil is a liar. Our generation must rise and say no to his schemes. In our own corner, we have made up our minds.
The apostolic voice of the Cry of the Spirit Ministries will keep lifting up the message of the cross.
Even if we are attacked, misjudged, and demonized by other preachers and their followers for that, we will keep stirring the saved to die to the flesh, the devil, and the world.
We will not cease from calling on the end time Church to return to the Crucified life, because that is the place of true power and glory! Anything outside it is false.
Everything people usually line up in deliverance services to get from God only comes permanently through a Crucified Christian life.
A DELIVERANCE PRAYER COULD GIVE YOU HEALING BUT ONLY A CRUCIFIED LIFE BRINGS BOTH HEALING AND DIVINE HEALTH.
A deliverance prayer could set you free for a moment but only a crucified life will permanently make you free because it guarantees a constant flow of the supernatural.
Any kind of deliverance may come through a man praying for you, but a deliverance that comes with divine preservation is a product of a crucified life.
In fact, captivity, oppression, and all kinds of successful demonic oppression in the life of a Christian, are products of not living a Crucified life.
A Crucified life is the only life on the face of the earth that cannot be oppressed by demons. It is the only life Satan fears and Heaven honors.
It is the only life that Satan only views from afar of in fury without being able to do anything about it.
Though very costly in a pervert and crooked generation, if you are not living it, your rest in life is not guaranteed.
It is important to note that, believers struggle with many things because we have not been crucified with Christ. Most of us confess it with our mouths but deny it with our acts.
Some or most of the life we are living now that we claim saved, is still the very life we lived before knowing the LORD.
We live that old life of sin, calling it our weakness. Our devotional text today says,
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”
If we allow ourselves to be crucified with Christ, leading a crucified Christian life, we will no longer struggle with the many things we are struggling with today as members of the end time Church.
For instance, one of the many things we struggle with today as end time Christians, is failed promises or prophecies; or lack of manifestation of prophetic promises.
In other words, what we heard from God in the Spirit, that He wants to do in our lives, and are sure that it was HIM who spoke to us, is yet to be made manifest in our lives.
PERSONALLY, I HAVE BEEN USED BY GOD TO SPEAK TRUE PROPHECIES IN THE LIVES OF SOME PEOPLE THAT HAVE NOT COME TO PASS.
I have come across other accurate and true men of God who share the same experiences with me. “Why will God show us true things He wants to do in the lives of people but we don’t see them come to pass in the lives of some?” we enquire among ourselves.
One day the LORD made me to understand that what He speaks to us or through us in the Spirit, will not come to pass in the lives of the beneficiaries, if after hearing is from the Spirit, or in the Spirit, they step down to lead a Christian life in the flesh.
I began to understand that, what began in the Spirit, must remain in the Spirit, to be made manifest in our lives.
If God speaks a word of promise to us in the Spirit, we must remain in the same realm of the Spirit to see what He said come to pass.
If we walk away from the realm of the Spirit and step down to walk in the realm of the flesh, we will defeat His purpose and stall the manifestation of His word of promise.
Walking in the Spirit is very essential to the performance of divine promises. I saw that in the life of the Sons of Eli.
God had said the priesthood will remain in the seed of Aaron. He spoke that word in glory, and gave standards to be respected by Aaron and his seed from generation to generation.
The standards were to help them see His word come to pass in their lives. They are likened to the Crucified life today.
But generations later, it was the turn of Eli and his sons to serve as priests.
Suddenly, they started breaking the very principles God gave them to sustain the manifestation of the prophecy. They started desecrating the women who came to worship God sexually, and the offering of the LORD.
The result was not pleasing. God changed His mind and they lost the priesthood!
Many Christians have either lost their blessings, or are at the verge of losing them, because they are repeating the same error. They do not remain in the very realm they were, the realm of the Spirit they were, when God spoke into their lives.
They depart from there into a life of the flesh, leading to a life in a realm where such words do not manifest.
Let no one deceive you, no glorious word spoken concerning us will manifest, if we move from a life in the Spirit to life in the flesh, even if we give sacrificially.
There are those who are told to plant a seed for the prophecy to come to pass. That is stealing. If the prophecy is truly from God, you do not need to plant a seed.
You only plant seed if it is from another god who works miracles like the One and only true God.
In God’s kingdom, it does not take sacrificial giving to make what God says come to pass. It takes sacrificial living; the sacrificial life called the crucified life. That is the life that will keep you in the realm of the Spirit where what God says come to pass.
This morning God has sent a word to stop you from losing His blessings for your life.
If you give it the attention it deserves, you will come into the fullness of His blessings, and no longer suffer delay in the manifestation of His promises for your life.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURAL PASSAGE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION AS YOU EMBRACE THIS DAY!
“Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
Beware of Him and obey His voice; do not provoke Him, for He will not pardon your transgressions; for My name is in Him.
But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.
For My Angel will go before you and bring you in to the Amorites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Canaanites and the Hivites and the Jebusites; and I will cut them off.
You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars.
“So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.
No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.” Exodus 23:20-26 NKJV