TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Wednesday 22nd September 2021)
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world.” 1 Peter 5:8-10 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 266TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
It’s been an awesome month for us at the Cry of the Spirit ministries. Not just an awesome month but an awesome year. God is just happening to us left, right and center. He is all over us! You may not understand me but to Him be the praise in Jesus name!!
If you are believer who upholds the banner of righteousness in a sick Church, you will understand what I am saying. God’s end time manifest presence is actually for those who will upholds the banner of righteousness in the end times. Because it will be difficult to do so, His presence will be flowing through them like a River to enable them do it.
With fallen standards of righteousness everywhere today, the greatest need of the hour is a people of God who will be firm, strong, bold and committed to upholding God’s standards of righteousness wherever they find themselves.
Jesus knew that doing that will not be humanly easy hence making so many lofty promises in His word.
The standards are fallen and even buried in some cases. God is restoring them back. That is the move of His Spirit in our days. Whatever you feel God may be calling you to do, if it will not end up raising standards of righteousness just know that you have not heard from Him clearly. The Bible says;
“Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment.
Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.
That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.” Psalm 60:3-5 Authorized King James Version
The word banner here is the same as the word standard. God wants standards of truth displayed this end time for the salvation of many preachers who are speeding to hell, many church goers who are not Heaven worthy, and many out there who have not even thought of accepting Christ into their lives and living His life on earth.
WE LIVE IN A WORLD THAT IS CONSTANTLY UNDER ATTACK.
People are under various forms of attacks from men and devils. Many are even under attack from their own decisions and health. Body organs like the heart also launches its own deadly attack on people, leading to their death. God wants everyone delivered.
However, as terrible as these attacks are, they are not the worst.
The worst attack that people are under is the attack of the spirit of hell to have all men in hell fire in the day of judgment. Either you believe it or not, the world is in a state of spiritual emergency, so long as the eternal destinies of men is concerned.
So many lives, even in church, are eternally at risk. Hell the spirit, has enlarged itself and engulfed them. The beloved of the LORD need to be delivered from the entrapment so that many will not close their eyes in death and open it in a pit of hell. Deliverance from the entrapment is by the lifting up or the display of the standards or righteousness known as the banner of truth.
Again, if whatever you feel God called you to do; preaching, singing, giving, praying, helping the needy, or etc. Is not having a restoration or display of a banner of truth or standard of righteousness in it, you are mot walking with the LORD.
The greatest move of Christ in every generation has always been to deliver souls from living lives that will have them in hell fire when they die. That is why, unlike those of us who claim to be representing Him, He spent more time talking about hell than tithes and offerings. He placed the highest priority of life on escaping hell in the next life.
He made it clear that even if it meanings losing our lives or any part of us, the price must be paid to escape hell. He said;
“And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:
where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.
And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.” Mark 9:43-48 Authorize King James version
This scripture made it clear that hell is a place that we should not even wish our worst enemies. Jesus called it a fire that will never quench. This is not a natural fire, as some may think because I once heard someone saying he will use it to lit his cigarette. This is a fire of God’s furry on Satan and the fallen angels.
God’s furry burns like a what we call fire. It consumes things that are eternal in nature like spirits of fallen angels. That is why the Bible made it clear that hell fire was made for Satan and his fallen angels. People will only go there for doing the will and bidding of the devil.
However, GOD has a plan, yes a redemptive plan for all of us. That is the plan He wants to come to pass in our lives. But it will require our cooperation. We must understand the plan and step into it. Stepping into it will require following the banner of truth or standards of righteousness.
When you step into the plan, no matter what may be wrong with you, redemption will begin to manifest in your life. In fact, even successful satanic attacks will cease. The reason for the need for deliverance among Christians today is because we are living lives that align with the lives of those who will be found in hell when they die.
For instance, they commit adultery and we commit adultery. They fornicate and lie, we fornicate and lie. They walk in deceit, especially in money and marriage matters, and we do the same. There is no difference between us and they. The only difference is we are preachers or church goers. The Bible made it clear that the condemnation of those who should know and live right but chose to live like the world will be greater.
LET NO ONE DECEIVE YOU ABOUT THAT!
You cannot be living like the people of this world and expect God to take you to Heaven when you die, maybe because you are preacher or a committed church goer. That will make Him an unjust God. The Bible says He will reward everyone according to his deeds not according to the weight of his confessions. It is our life style that tells if we are saved or not and not our religious practices or titles. Jesus says;
“For I say unto you, that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:20 Authorize King James Version
I remember a Bishop who was struggling to cover his sins calling me a modern day Pharisee because I said it was wrong to have extra marital affairs as preachers. His sin was not confessed to anyone when it was committed. It was just discovered when the lady in question sued him.
There is a difference between sin confessed and sin discovered.
One attracts mercy the other judgment. In fact, you will be displaying Biblical ignorance if you think the man fell. He did not fall. He is just not born again by spirit nature, hence doing all that he did and even much more than have come to light.
Now, back to the modern day Pharisee accusations.
First, if I am a modern day Pharisee, blessed am I because Jesus, by religious affiliation, was a Pharisee not a Sadducee; that was why He could teach in the Temple. In those days if you are not a Pharisee you cannot teach in the temple. But He was a different kind of Pharisee; one who taught life not lies. Paul the apostle was also a Pharisee.
Secondly, if I am a modern day Pharisee, then the Bible says his righteousness should exceed mine. It should not be bellow mine.
For instance, the Bishop have just been sued for his extra marital affairs, I have never had such nonsense in my over 30 years in ministry, and will never have by God’s amazing grace. So his so called righteousness should exceed mine by quitting the life of sin he calls grace, and getting truly born again if I am a modern day Pharisee.
You see, there is no contention for the faith that will not attract these kind of attacks from those who have made up their mind for hell-after-death without even realizing it.
We cannot claim to be Christians, with no sign of authentic Christianity in our Lifestyles, and expect to be in the Heaven God reserve only for His True Children when we die.
We cannot live according to the system of the lost world and expect miracles, signs and wonders reserved for those who live according to the system of the world of Christ to manifest in your life. They will never manifest. At best we will be seeing the prosperity of the wicked and the supernatural acts of Baal and be calling them God at work.
You must change sides in the spirit to become Heaven worthy. You must become truly and deeply intimate with the LORD. Deep intimacy with Jesus Christ will enable you change sides in the Spirit. It will grant us the grace to live right in a perverse and crooked generation.
When you are deeply intimate, you will be lost in the Spirit and no longer be extremely conscious of what is happening in the carnal world. When you are no longer extremely conscious of what is happening in the carnal world, the power that rules the carnal world (the power of sin, self and Satan), will be broken in your life.
Consequently, the constant attacks that take place to those in the carnal world will no longer take place in your life successfully.
A key highlight in our devotional text this morning says
“…because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith..”
There are two truths we can glean from this highlight. The first is the devil cannot devour everybody, that is why he goes about looking for those he can devour. The second truth we can glean from the highlight comes from the words “Resist him, steadfastly in the faith.” Hallelujah!!
YOU CANNOT RESIST SATAN IF YOU LACK THE SPIRITUAL CAPACITY TO DO SO.
Lack of spiritual capacity will rather hand you over to more demonic attacks if you try resisting him. That was what the seven sons of Sceva in Acts 19 did not know. They tried resisting the devil and snatching a soul from his grips without the spiritual capacity to do so, and got beaten by the demon. Resisting the devil without the spiritual capacity to do so will make him to launch severe successful attacks in the spirit against you.
The Bible says in the book of James chapter 4 verses 7,
“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (NKJV).
If you have no submitted to God fully, and then you try to resist the devil, instead of him fleeing from you, trust me, you will be the one fleeing from him. A generation that does not know how to first submit to God before resisting the devil, will become slaves of persistent satanic assaults.
Submitting to God will give you the capacity to successfully resist the devil. A life of submission to the will of God will be clean and pure. It will not be characterized by the same things the lost world does. That is the word of the LORD for today!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR TODAY;
“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?”
“You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”
“Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” “Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain,” The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.” James 4:1-8 NKJV