TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 28TH MAY 2022)
And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand;
and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in My zeal.
Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace; and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’ ” Numbers 25:6-13 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 148TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
When Paul concluded in one of His letters to the early Church that “The Grace of our LORD Jesus Christ be with you all” he was expressing the importance of God’s grace upon our lives.
Indeed, God’s amazing grace has run our lives these 148 days. We give Him all the glory for such marvelous deeds!
We believe it has not been exhausted and will never be exhausted but will keep running our lives till the end of our days!
Many in our generation have understood God’s grace as just the pardon of God, and have related with Him that way. We have not come to terms to that part of God’s grace that is all about the power to sin no more, hence continuing in our sinful ways despite His pardon.
But the aspect of the power to sin no more hold much more blessings for earthly living. For instance, it was responsible for Noah’s exemption from the global judgment that hit his days. It kept him safe in the perverse and crooked generation that he lived in by walking with His will to live right.
You can now understand why many of us are not holy and righteous before God. There is no will to live right in many of us. There is so much grace but we are still living in sin and error because there is no will to live right and walk in truth.
There must first be the will to live right and walk in truth for the part of God’s grace that enables us to sin no more to work in our lives.
The Bible says we are in the days of Naoh. If there was no will to live right and walk in truth in the life of Noah, grace would have found nothing in him to enable. Do not forget, grace enables.
It is the will to live right and walk in truth that grace will have to find in our lives in other to enable or activate our lives with the supernatural strength that keeps a man pure, righteous and holy in a perverse, sinful and crooked generation.
Once we are empowered and continue to use our will to say no to evil, error, sin, iniquity or trespass, grace will keep working in our lives to keep us pure, righteous and holy before GOD.
This dynamic way that grace works is unknown to many of us preachers, that is why we do not teach it to our members. We just teach them the pardon part of grace and tell them “the grace of God is sufficient” when they fall into sin and keep living in it, they will believe there will be no consequences for not knowing the part of grace that activates us to sin no more.
THIS MYSTERY OF HOW GRACE WORKS CAN ALSO BE SEEN IN HOW LAZARUS WAS RAISED FORM DEAD.
There were two things Jesus asked the people to do that if they had not done them, his prayer would not have raised Lazarus. The first was for Him to be shown where he was buried, the second was for them to roll away the stone. He made use of their will and obedience to raise Lazarus back to life.
Now, Jesus, being the grace of God, represents God’s grace in a man’s life. Lazarus in the grave represents you and I in this world, being a grave yard of anything holy, righteous and pure. Do not forget, the world system does not encourage holy living. It is a grave yard were holiness, purity and righteousness is buried whenever it dies.
In other words, it buries righteousness, purity and holiness and makes sure people are dead in trespasses.
To come out of this grave and begin to live right before our GOD, God’s grace must locate where our will to live right is, just as Jesus located where Lazarus was buried. Then we must roll away the stone of the desire to keep living in error, sin, iniquity or trespass.
Once the two are done, grace will bring us out of the grave of moral decadence and empower us to live right in a perverse and crooked generation. I hope you understand me!
If there is no will to live right in anyone, the power to sin no more will not be release to anyone. It will be there but will not be effective.
Noah had the will to live right, that was why He found grace to live right and stand out in that generation. The Bible says;
“Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
And the LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.
So the LORD said, “I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”
But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. Genesis 6:5-8 NKJV
NOAH FOUND GRACE BECAUSE GRACE FOUND THE WILL TO LIVE RIGHT IN NOAH. WE CAN ONLY FIND SUCH GRACE IF GRACE FINDS SUCH COMMITMENT IN US.
You also see that in the life of the centurion in Acts 10. The will to live right pushed him to lead a very godly life that attracted the grace of God to sanctify him to be Heaven worthy. God had to go and call Peter to locate him. He first sent an angel to him and then sent His voice to bring Peter to him. The Bible says;
There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian Regiment, a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always.
About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius!” And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, “What is it, lord?”
So, he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa, and send for Simon whose surname is Peter. Acts 10:1-5 NKJV
When Peter finally came, Grace was released in form of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost upon him and all his household. But if God had not found that will to live right, if it had not come as a memorial before God, there would have been no release of God’s grace upon him and his household.
The message here is, You will never have the grace to live right if you do not have the will to live right. The commitment to live right must first be in us before the release of the power to remain committed to right living. That commitment is created by the preaching of the true word of GOD.
You find that in Israel in Bible days!
Whenever the will to live right get lost, you find the nation in terrible sins and wickedness. Then God would raise prophets to cry His word to their ears, persistently until it is restored. That brings us to our devotional text for the day. The text showed us what the old testament saints did when sin was normalized.
SIN IS NORMALIZED WHEREVER THE WILL TO LIVE RIGHT IS NOT PRESENT. WALKING IN ERROR IS NORMALIZED WHEREVER THE DESIRE TO WALK IN TRUTH IS ABSENT.
For instance, The normalization of Nehustan practices like the use of oil is happening because the preachers refused to walk in progressive Bible truths. There are three kinds of Bible truths. We will be sharing about that in our Sunday service tomorrow, the 29th day of May 2022.
Sadly, the normalization of sin is what our flesh wants to achieve even in the face of divine warnings and judgment. Whenever sin is normalized, spiritual attacks and some forms of calamities becomes a normal occurrence. That was what happened in the days of Israel, and it brought death to the camp.
The Bible says Israel got to acacia groove; the last camping ground before getting to the promised land. Instead of consecrating themselves for the promised land, they began to defile themselves through sexual immorality.
Then the wind of repentance hit the camp and Moses assembled all to the threshing floor to weep before God for pardon from sin.
Sadly, one without the will to live right, who had normalized the sin of sexual immorality, came with a young woman to defile himself with her right in the place where defilement is not permitted or where pardon from sin was being sorted for. Then one man who had resolved to be practical in his faith, did something that brought the covenant of peace upon him and his.
Our devotional text said;
And indeed, one of the children of Israel came and presented to his brethren a Midianite woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.
Now when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand;
and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her body. So the plague was stopped among the children of Israel. And those who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.
Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: “Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, has turned back My wrath from the children of Israel, because he was zealous with My zeal among them, so that I did not consume the children of Israel in My zeal.
Therefore say, ‘Behold, I give to him My covenant of peace; and it shall be to him and his descendants after him a covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made atonement for the children of Israel.’ ” Numbers 25:6-13 NKJV
In this scripture, we find a man zealously enforcing righteousness in the life of the one with no will to live right. He was caught by the arm of the LORD to do what he did because in those days they could not arrest that kind of habit by the word of the LORD but by killing the people themselves.
Do not forget, in that dispensation, they had no power to bind demons hence the actions taken and confirmed by the LORD with a covenant of peace.
Today, you do not kill a man or woman because they committed sexual immorality. You warn them of their evil acts and leave it at that. But what we see in our devotional text is a person who was filled with the Spirit of power by the LORD to bring Israel to the place of willing to live right, manifesting his calling within what was acceptable in that generation.
The vision of God for allowing such stirring is to stop the normalization of sin by people with no desire to live right. He will raise prophets from time to time to keep doing crying His word in Israel until the righteous seed was born.
Even today, the move of God remains the same. Without engaging in physically killing anyone for committing sin, the Spirit of the LORD is filling His prophets with power, justice and might, to declare to His elect people their transgression, and to church leaders their sin, in other to create the will to live right, walk in truth and in Biblical accuracy in the end time church.
MICAH PUTS IT THIS WAY DURING HIS OWN TIME;
“But truly I am full of power by the Spirit of the LORD, and of justice and might, To declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.” Micah 3:8 NKJV
When you see God filling someone with the Spirit of the LORD and of justice and might, and propelling him to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin, it is to create the will to live right in the people he sent the person to; the will to abandon error and embrace order in the house.
If the people humble themselves and allow that to happen, grace will be released to them to live right and walk in truth or Biblical accuracy. If they do not, they will be seen as rebellious and the consequences of rebellion will begin to speak in their lives.
No matter how terrible and intensive God’s warnings are, it is not to bring anyone into calamities but to create the will to live right in people.
Like he did in our case, He will bring His servants to any nation of His choice, to Cry the Voice of His Holy Spirit against practices and lifestyles that are not in line with His perfect will and moves; and also, against sin, iniquity and transgression, until those appointed unto salvation submit to Him and begin to desire right living and accurate walk in truth.
Once they begin to desire right living, and accurate walk in truth grace will be released and families, cities, and nations will be sanctified! That is how the Kingdom of God invades a territory to transform it.
The kingdom of GOD does not invade territories and sanctify to transform them by telling preachers to go about with oil pouring in cities. If that is the way, they will not be repeating it over and over, because am told it has been a practice here in Kenya by those who were once there. It means nothing is really being sanctified or transformed. It is just forms of godliness that has no power.
You do not sanctify cities by pouring oil on them. You sanctify cities by pouring truths in the residents of that city until a revolution take place in their spiritual lives. Then things you wanted to handle by prayers and prayer caravans will not exist.
I THINK WE SHOULD WAKE UP FROM THESE NONSENSE INSTEAD OF SPEAKING ILL OF THOSE GOD IS USING TO TELL US THE TRUTH.
Do you think Jesus will allow anyone of us to be pouring oil in cities to sanctify them from time to time without sending a man to stop us?
We may not listen to him, but some will be saved at the long run and the waste of time and energy will stop. Because the word said we should disciple the people not pour oil on their streets. The works of the Holy Spirit are carried out in people’s hearts not on the soil.
So, from the life of the centurion and the life of the nation of Israel of Bible days, we can see that whenever God sees the will to live right in a man, He will deploy grace to the man. If God did not see the will to live right in a man, He will send preachers of righteousness or words of prophecies to the man to bring him to the place of willing to live right, so that His grace can find something in him to enable.
As we bring this to a close, I want to submit to us that the vision or intent of true gospel ministry is to create or provoke the will to live right and walk in accuracy in men, especially the end time Church. Do not forget, we are the Church that must walk in purity and Biblical accuracy.
We are called to be the glorious church, without spots or wrinkles or any such thing; pure and holy in God’s sight. This make us the Church generation that must hear the authentic gospel; the doctrine of Christ and not any other doctrine.
The purpose of preaching the authentic gospel is to create the will to walk in accuracy, embrace the mystery of godliness, and live right in us so that God’s end time grace can be released to us.
We are the Church generation that must understand that being pardon from sin is not enough, because the vision of being pardoned is to embrace righteousness. In other words, to sin no more and to walk in truth.
I believe there were some who understood God’s grace as his pardon in the generation of Noah who perished in the judgment despite that because they did not progress into the next aspect of GOD’s grace. They rather used the pardon and patience of the LORD to normalize their lives of sin, iniquity, and trespass, walking in errors like many of us are doing today.
If you use God’s patience and pardon to normalize your sinful living and erroneous Christian living, you are filing for consequences that may speak against you eternally. The flesh has a way of deceiving us to use the patience and pardon of God to normalize our lives of sin and error.
God is calling on us not to be like the generation of Noah and other generations that did that in time past.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming.
But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore, you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. Matthew 24:36-44 NKJV