TODAY’S DEVOTION (Saturday 12th February 2022)
“And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”
Then Simon answered and said, “Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.” Acts 8:18-24 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 43RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
It has been days of His amazing grace indeed in the depth of truths, revelation and insight on building a life of prayer. God has been showing us mercies, and making Himself mighty on our behalf in so many fronts. We owe Him gratitude and a life of righteousness. His grace will remain sufficient.
Yes, righteous prayers! That is all we need today to operate in Heavenly wisdom and come into spiritual inheritances in Christ. I have come to realize that what breathing is to our lungs is what prayer is to our human spirits; I mean righteous prayers. That is why this discourse has been helpful.
One hour of true prayer can be an investment with a turn over that you will never recover from.
Abraham had just one moment with the LORD in Genesis 15, the world is still reaping the dividends. Jesus had one moment with GOD in the Garden of Gethsemane and He received the strength as man to overturn what happened in the Garden of Eden. Prayer in one Garden led to redemption from the things that happened to the human race in another.
The entire journey of Christ on earth was one of righteous prayers and intimacy with GOD. If we try to lead our earthly lives the other way, we will not see the peace He enjoyed despite dying on the cross to redeem us.
HE SAID IN ONE OF THOSE GLORIOUS MOMENTS HE HAD WITH THE APOSTLES;
“I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” John 14:30 NKJV
If the prince of this world will have nothing in us like he never had in Christ, we must learn to live our lives from the prayer knee.
A life of righteous prayers can protect one from the foot hold Satan uses a man’s carnal moments to create. It can enhance our spiritual sensitivity in a perverse and crooked generation.
There is no way a man can survive a world like ours without spending his days from the prayer knee. The prayer knee is a humbling position to live a glorious life from. That is why we must not allow our prayer lives to be mixed, quenched or polluted.
Now, when it comes to prayer, there is so much that need to be known because a lot of things that are not Godly are being done in the name of prayers. People do not know that the prayer realm is one realm that they devil often wants to reveal himself or participate in.
There are prayer meetings that demons have even organized and empowered, believe it is not. I can tell you that as one who began his ministry as a prayer team leader.
The enemy hate righteous prayers, hence will do anything to make sure we do not get to the realm of righteous prayers. One of the many things he is doing is in the area of bringing in sorcerers and magicians in the name of God to bring in the demonic.
There is the aspect of paying for prayers to be made on your behalf that is being practiced in many religious circles. Prayer is not supposed to be commercialized. But in those religions people are made to pay amounts of money to engage special people to call on the supernatural for them. Sadly, we find the same practice in the Christian faith.
I have seen where the rich, who have no time for God, pay the poor who claim to have, to keep praying for them. So long as the realm of righteous prayers is concern, this is absurd, very ungodly and Satanic. There are preachers and so-called prayer warriors who have made fortune out of that.
I remember a woman whose goods where were ceased by the Nigerian customs for violating import rule asking a pastor friend to engage prayers for her on a fee. The man was so elated because the money was huge that he called me for reinforcement, so to speak.
You can see clearly that the woman had no time for GOD, neither was she a child God but got one who appeared to be a preacher and claim to have time for God to pray for her.
I DO NOT THINK GOD DESIGNED PRAYERS TO BE OPERATED THAT WAY.
That is why there is no place in the Bible where prophets, apostles, or God’s people were given money by those in trouble to pray for them. Those are practices of religious cult, some of the cults are run as church. You do not pay for prayers! There is no place in the Kingdom where men and women paid for prayers or anything in God’s kingdom.
I have come to realized that wherever money is involved in spiritual transaction, the spirit of lawlessness is at work there.
It important that we understand the kingdom rule that was practiced by Christ when He was physically on earth praying for people. The same rule was committed to His Church when He was handing over to the early apostles.
He said to them;
“And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.” Matthew 10:7-10 NKJV
This scripture contain the kingdom rule that forbids commercialization of the gospel or any related aspect. It forbids commercializing prayer because there is no way you can Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, or cast out demons without praying for people.
In other words, Jesus was saying we should engage righteous prayers in bringing down the supernatural power of God to intervene in human situations as we preach the kingdom or represent Him. Then the golden rule for doing that was given at the end of the same statement. He said; “freely receive, freely give”
Meaning, as we do that nothing should be commercialized. That also means there was commercialization of the supernatural in his days.
People were praying for people and collecting money form them, while others where given money to others to engage the supernatural for them. Obviously, there were religious cult in those days too because as you would find out shortly, it is in the kingdom of darkness that people pay money for supernatural things to happen to them, not the kingdom of God.
WE SHOULD BE VERY CAREFUL WHEN MONEY BECOME INVOLVED IN PRAYER MATTERS
It is in the kingdom of darkness that you pay special prophets, prayer warriors and preachers to engage the supernatural for you through prayers. The Kingdom of God has no such practices. The king of the Kingdom, Jesus Christ, did not do it when He was physically on earth, none of those who belonged to him did then, and none does it now.
If you find any so-called prayer warrior, prophet, prophetess and etc. in any church or prayer house or shrine doing that, they are not part of Christ. They are impostors! That does not mean all who do not do that are of God. There are religious cult who pray for you freely and you go to give money later. They make themselves prayer contractors or make you pray yourself sometimes.
The bottom-line is, any prayer activities that is not interested in your eternal life or in building you up to become a temple for GOD in the Spirit, but is just interested in getting you the miracle or intervention you came seeking for, is a demonic prayer activity. That brings us to our devotional text.
Our devotional text has the story of the first-time money was involved in spiritual transaction in a church setting. Prior to that time no one had ever paid for prayers or given money to get any gift from God. No gift of God was commercialized, and no one in God’s kingdom made any attempt to do so.
But one day Philip got into Samaria to preach the gospel and met a sorcerer by the name Simon. After depleting and closing down the man’s Church through Righteous preaching, the man pretended to have given his life to Christ and join Philip’s Church.
Unlike now, then there was apostolic order in doing the things of GOD or engaging in ministry. So, Philip followed the order and stepped aside for Peter to come in so that the apostolic can take over form where the evangelistic stopped in establishing the people in the faith. That was when the hidden hypocrisy of the Sorcerer was revealed.
When he saw How Peter was demonstrating the supernatural and releasing the gift of God to the people freely, he offered him money to be able to do the same. That was the first time money was offered for spiritual transaction in a Church setting.
THAT IS WHAT SORCERERS YOU CALL PROPHETS DO!
He was used to offering money and collecting same for spiritual transaction as a sorcerer and decided to repeat it here. But Peter did what many of our spiritual fathers cannot do. A major aspect of our devotional text said;
But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”
In this scripture we see why some preachers commercialize the gospel and related Christian practices like prayer. We see why people pay money for prayers to be made for them, and why people collect such monies from them like Balaam did.
1. They think that the gift of God can be purchased with money.
2. They have no part or portion in the kingdom of God; meaning they are impostors who are trying to pervert the ways of God, some knowingly, others unknowingly.
3. Their hearts are not right before GOD.
4. They are controlled by the spirit of wickedness.
5. Most of them are poisoned by bitterness
6. They are bound by iniquity.
This call for a total separation from people, Churches, preachers, ministries, prophets, prophetess and shrines that collect money for anything in the name of God. It calls for a total separation from all who commercialize anything in the Kingdom of God.
The answer and rebuke Simon the sorcerer got from Peter is what these breeds of people should get from us as we preach the gospel and enforce righteousness. They may call us devils or cult like we are being called, but we must remain resolute and uncompromising.
As we bring this to a close, always remember that prayer and any other things in God’s kingdom is not a commercial product. If you commercialize prayers you have perverted the ways of God, and there will be judgment.
Learn to follow the have been shared so far this month on prayer and use the truths to approach the Throne of GOD for yourself and receive answers for your prayers from God.
We have been talking about having a prayer heart. You will never have a prayer heart adding money to spiritual transactions. The Holy Spirit will resist you and keep you in the outer darkness until there is repentance. If you want to operate in the prayer realm of God’s kingdom, you must stay away from sorcerers and magicians you call people of God.
You must be careful of men and women in God’s garment who do things God never commanded in his word using twisted scriptures.
I believe God has spoken to us this morning.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness. Isaiah 8:19-22 NKJV