TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Monday 4TH October 2021)
“So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?”
He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.”
He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.”
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?”
And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep. John 21:15-17 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 277TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
We give God the glory of His many wonderful acts and deeds in our lives. We thank Him for giving us a fresh day to serve Him and walk with Him. He has not given us to the teeth of our enemies.
It is out of His mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassion fails not! It is from everlasting to everlasting. We do not say these to cover our sinful lives, because most times when believers are saying, “It is out of His mercies we are not consumed,” the flesh has done it again, like an unknown person put it on Facebook.
One of the major things we are grateful to the LORD for, as members of the Cry of the Spirit Ministries, is the quality spiritual food that Heaven has been feeding our spirits with. Sometimes, I wonder what kind of Christianity we would have had if we were spiritually famished. Maybe we would have been epitomes of ungodliness and moral decay.
The Bible says;
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by what proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.”
No one can live a morally excellent life until he or she feeds from what proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD. People who feed on things proceed from the mouth of preachers, which are not truly from the mouth of the LORD, will not be able to live the Christina life. They will live a defeated Christian life.
And if you are interested in knowing what the Christian life is, here is what the Bible says about it;
“By means of these He has bestowed on us His precious and exceedingly great promises, so that through them you may escape [by flight] from the moral decay (rottenness and corruption) that is in the world because of covetousness (lust and greed), and become sharers (partakers) of the divine nature.” 2 Peter 1:4 ABCE
This is just one of the millions of scriptures that tells us what the Christian life is. Sadly, Church people do not read them. They just follow what their pastors present to them, hence accepting a version of Christianity that will lead them to hell as the Christian life.
From this scripture, it’s clear that the Christian life is not a life of spiritual rot and moral decay. It is not a life of adultery, fornication, masturbation, deception, craftiness, drunkenness and the like.
MEANING, IF YOU ARE TRULY SAVED, YOU WILL NOT BE FOUND DOING ANY OF THEM.
You will not be a spiritual rot and immoral person like many believers have become today, calling yourself a servant of GOD or saying “am born again, Jesus Christ is my LORD and personal savior.”
The scripture of our attention went on to describe the Christian life as a life shaped by God’s divine nature within the saved and sanctified. It is life of a person who have escaped the moral decay, rottenness and corruption in this world, by the dynamic working of God’s saving grace. He or she no longer live a morally bankrupt life. He now lives a life of righteousness defined as the divine nature of God.
The nature of God is not moral decay or spiritual rot. It is Holiness and righteousness.
When you become a partaker of it by the working of God’s saving grace, you become the righteousness of GOD in Christ Jesus. You begin to work your salvation with fear and trembling, using God’s grace and truth available to you to be developing and exercising self-control, steadfastness, patience, endurance, godliness or piety, and brotherly affection; which has nothing to do with endorsing and tolerating sin, but exposing and rebuking it strongly to help others to be sound in faith.
Many people today are not living the Christian life as presented in scripture. The lead a life carved by the sin nature within them. That is why we have so many scandals in the Church. Ministries all over the world that preaches the adulterated grace many of us call “hyper grace” are having preachers who live in sexual sins. I ran into a report on the one in Australia and was not surprised. The sex scandals are terrifying and shameful.
If you do not feed people what comes out of the mouth of LORD, as documented in scriptures, but use the scriptures to feed them what you think about grace, they will not be able to lead a true Christian life. They will be leading an ungodly life calling it Christian life.
My apostolic and prophetic ministry under God has taught me over the years that until people are properly fed spiritually, they will not be able to lead a godly life.
GOD’S POWER TO LIVE RIGHT WILL NOT BE AT WORK IN THEM, RESULTING IN A LIFE OF NO DOMINION OVER SIN.
Jesus indeed demonstrated the importance of feeding His sheep with quality spiritual food when He asked Peter those questions, as if He was talking to a deaf man.
God designed that our spiritual and natural well being be sourced from proper spiritual feeding. That is one of His redemptive plans. That was why He was resounding to Peter the “feed my lambs” and “tend my sheep” mandate. Without proper feeding, there cannot be proper tending. Our devotional text says;
He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.”
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.”
Sadly, many of us preachers are fooling the sheep of Christ and troubling them, instead of feeding and tending their spiritual lives.
We fool them, then feed on them sexually, emotionally, financially, and all that. We do not feed them as God has said we should. We trouble them to bring tithes, seed, contribute to this project, that project and all that without feeding and tending them as Jesus said.
To tend simply means to care, and the only way you can care properly is to feed properly. Hence Jesus saying “feed my lambs” “tend my sheep” “feed my sheep.” Those are the major highlights in our devotional text today that should get your attention.
TIME HAS COME TO WALK AWAY FROM FOOLING CENTERS YOU CALL HOUSE OF GOD. TIME HAS COME TO SAVE YOUR SOUL.
You must become ‘judgmental’ as they call it. Yes, you must become judgmental because the depraved calls examining and checking things out the way the Berea Christians did, judgmental. They call making a proper decision after a careful analysis of what is happening being judgmental. They do not want their captives to begin to reason with a Holy Ghost sense. They know if they do, they will be free.
If you want to make Heaven and escape the rot in the Church today, you must begin to use your brains properly and align with what the Bible says a genuine Christian faith looks like.
If you are part of the flock of Jesus, and you are under a church or ministry that may be scooping all kinds of financial support from you, asking you to give all the money but is not feeding you with proper spiritual food, a time is going to come that you will hate anything called church, pastor, prophet, apostle and etc. because you will suffer the plaque of spiritual malnutrition and die spiritually over time.
Sadly, many are in a very bad shape in marriages, finances, faith, social life, health and etc. because they are spiritually famished.
What is the message of our devotional today? The message is simple. God wants you to start looking for a spiritual father or family that will feed you properly so you can come out of sinful living into the glorious life Christ purchased for us.
MAKE THIS DEVOTIONAL AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
“And I will give you pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.”
“And it shall come to pass, when ye be multiplied and increased in the land, in those days, saith the Lord, they shall say no more, The ark of the covenant of the Lord: neither shall it come to mind: neither shall they remember it; neither shall they visit it; neither shall that be done any more.” Jeremiah 3:15-16 KJV