TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 31ST MAY 2022)
“Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.
And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.
And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” Matthew 24:3-13 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 151ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
God has given us another day to be alive and to serve our generation according to His will. He has blessed us with life, health, peace, freshness of spirit and transmitted His breath into our lives again.
We appreciate Him for these glorious deeds.
It was Moses our father (a prophet of symbols and prophetic acts which Jesus came to fulfill) who first sang as a prophet saying,
“The enemy said, ‘I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; My desire shall be satisfied on them. I will draw my sword, My hand shall destroy them.’
You blew with Your wind, The sea covered them; They sank like lead in the mighty waters.
“Who is like You, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders? Exodus 15: 9-11 NKJV
Indeed, who is like our GOD among the gods of the nations? Who is like Him, who is Glorious in Holiness and fearful in praises, doing wonders in our lives even when we do not deserve it.
The enemy issued so many threats during the month (and is still issuing) but God save us; He sent the winds and waters of His presence to blow upon their evil threats and we were not given over to their teeth.
I SAY AGAIN, INDEED, WHO IS LIKE OUR GOD AMONG THE gods?
Who can save like He does? Glory, honor, worship and adoration be to His holy name for bringing us peacefully and gloriously to the end of another month, which is the end of another cry of the Spirit on kingdom matters.
It was a 31-day trip of sanctifying truths on practical Christianity. And as we wrap up the journey today, we will be gleaning what I will consider as the final set of truths for this trip from the most comprehensive Bible prophecy Jesus ever gave directly.
I used the word “directly” because previously, when He was on earth as Spirit, before becoming flesh to dwell among men, He spoke indirectly through the Old Testament prophets about the end of time. But this time He was speaking directly and it was very different, very comprehensive and clear, without symbols of prophetic acts. That is how prophecy comes by the hand of New Testament Prophets.
But let me say this; Practical Christianity actually involves living your Christian life with eyes on Bible Prophecy, especially prophecies from the Mouth of Christ Himself. People who spend their Christian lives looking at Bible prophecies, will never live in sin.
Now, we did not say they will not fall into sin; we said they will not live in sin. Living in sin is different from falling into sin. It takes people who were living holy, pure and righteous lives to fall into sin, and those who are not, to live in sin.
Those who are not live in din calling it their weakness. And saying “we are not perfect.”
People who live their Christian lives with eyes on Bible prophecy may fall into sin because of the pressure of life but will never live in it. They will rise immediately and move from confession, to cleansing and to the washing of the Holy Spirit, crying like David,
“Create in me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence oh LORD, restore unto me the joy of my salvation.”
They are the ones who repent with tears, not just in their eyes but in their hearts, renting their hearts not their clothes, and turning to the LORD wholeheartedly and feeling so sad about the whole thing.
THEY WILL NEVER SAY “WE ARE NOT PERFECT” OR “IT IS MY WEAKNESS.”
Friend, If you want to lead a pure, holy and righteous life before God, one major catalyst that will help you to do that is eyes on Bible prophecy. It will stabilize your walk with the LORD and keep your fire burning, no matter what may come upon you.
It will unleash an uncommon grace upon you, which is why we were admonished to spend our days looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of Jesus Christ.
Now to what Jesus said in our devotional text.
The text is a portion of the comprehensive prophecy Jesus gave about the end of times and the end of days. It also contains prophecies about the end of the Church age. We picked the portion we sense is the emphasis of the Spirit for today’s devotional.
In fact, the portion of our devotional text today is just the prologue of the entire prophecy that began from Matthew 24, with a simple question from our apostolic fathers, and ended in Matthew 25 with the prophecy of the judgment of the nations.
You will never be established in those things that Jesus said in Matthew 24 and 25 and become comfortable in sin. I have fallen in sin in my walk with God not once and not twice. But part of what helped me to get back on my feet and keep running the race without saying “we are all sinners” is what I know about Bible prophecy.
The first thing we find in what Jesus said about the end was a word of caution which we have taught over and over again. He said; “Take heed that no one deceives you.”
I want to submit to us that the first person we should watch against when it comes to falling into deception is ourselves. Because until we deceive ourselves no one can deceive us.
THAT IS WHY I USUALLY SCREAM SAYING “IF ANYONE DECEIVE YOU, DO NOT DECEIVE YOURSELF.”
People who do not deceive themselves cannot be captured by the deception of others for too long. Satan will first make us deceive ourselves before deceiving us. That was how Eve first of all deceived herself with the notion that the serpent she was in conversation with was a friend, before she was deceive by the serpent.
In the area of prophetic deception, you find that people will first deceive themselves saying “a heretic teacher or a false prophet is true” before being deceived by those heretic teachers or false prophets. They will deceive themselves saying a spiritual father cannot be wrong, before they are deceived by others. If you do not deceive yourself you cannot be deceived.
We deceive ourselves when our hearts deceive us. The Bible says
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV).
We must understand that the first person that is vulnerable to the deceptions of the heart is the owner of that heart. If you do not understand that, you will take everything your heart say as true and create problems for yourself or others, like most spiritual fathers are doing.
That is why our hearts must be regenerated and filled with Bible truth at all times. We should never trust our hearts like the New Age doctrine teaches, until it is circumcised with living truths and made the dwelling place of God through a life of submission to His will.
So, in the prophecy Jesus warned that the first horror of the last days will be hyper deception, and that we should be ware. That is why one of the major things you should go for this end times is sound doctrine not just any preaching out there.
Sound doctrine will circumcise your heart. Sadly, Most preaching today lacks the spiritual ingredient that circumcise the hearts of men. That is why many are deluded and deceived, especially by their own hearts and then their spiritual fathers who they worship as demi gods or Deities that you must not correct.
I have sat with my spiritual father in times past to offer correction in things he was doing then in ministry that were not aligned with the present truth. And he blessed me for it because he understood that the next generation will know better than a passing generation.
Let me share a mystery with you. Living sons are usually blessed with accurate visions; they are empowered by the LORD to see kingdom things clearer. While faithful fathers are blessed with dreams. They see kingdom dreams frequently.
BOTH NEED TO PARTNER TO ADVANCE GOD’S KINGDOM ACCURATELY.
Faithful fathers will need the vision of living sons to understand their dreams, while living sons will need the dreams of faithful fathers to run with their visions. That was the partnership I maintained with my spiritual father until we all entered into different phases of our destinies.
The problems we have today is the problem of spiritually dead sons, following doctrinal unfaithful fathers, allowing deception to fester among them. But as captured in our devotional text, Jesus warned us against such deceptions, especially when spiritual fathers are seen as deities to be worshiped and not even questioned or corrected.
He also spoke about another word that must become our hallmark these last days. We ended the devotional text of today with that word. He said “But he who endures to the end shall be saved.” This statement holds the revelation of the secret of making Heaven in the last days. And do not forget, we are in the last days.
Meaning, we do not make Heaven in our days by just reciting the sinner’s prayer like the Evangelists present, joining a church, listening to the word and etc. We must go further and learn how to endure all things. Again, the word says “but he who endure to the end shall be saved.”
Endurance is the secret of survival this end time. We are to endure the flood of corruption in our age, the senseless attacks of religious people on the elects, the pressure of saying an unconditional yes to the LORD in a hostile environment and etc.
We are to endure the hate from those who have sold themselves to same sex marriages, but are accusing us of hate, while they are the ones who are truly insane with hate; hating God, hating themselves by what they do to their bodies, and hating others. We are to endure their attacks and not fight back.
We are to endure things that will come from different realms to take us back to Egypt like Joshua and Caleb did. Remember, they alone made it to the promise land. The rest of the Jews who made it were those born in the wilderness. We are to endure the cravings of our sinful flesh and not give it what it desires. Though not easy, but we are not to compromise.
ENDURANCE IS A RECOMMENDED VIRTUE FOR THE END TIME.
We are to endure the cross of doing God’s will in a perverse and crooked generation like Paul endured. There are no two ways about it.
So long as these end times are concerned, we will never make Heaven if we do not endure. There are things GOD will never do because of the seasons we find ourselves; hostilities against us that He will never stop. We must just endure them and remain committed.
For us in the kingdom, Endurance is continuing commitment to the LORD in the face of the difficulties of this life. It is the ability to persevere in a GOD given task or divine calling, despite the odds.
It is the resistance we should put up against the flesh instead of responding to it as it pushes us to sin. It is the pain we are to accept and honorably go through just to keep our relationship with the LORD unbroken.
Endurance has a lot of spiritual rewards, both in time and eternity. I believe it is those rewards God wants us to step into in the coming month, hence speaking to us about endurance at the close of this month.
It is my prayer that God will use all He has taught us this month to build us up and give us an inheritance among those who are sanctified. Wishing you a peaceful exit from May 2022, and a glorious entry in June, in Jesus precious name! Amen.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Therefore then, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses [who have borne testimony to the Truth], let us strip off and throw aside every encumbrance (unnecessary weight) and that sin which so readily (deftly and cleverly) clings to and entangles us, and let us run with patient endurance and steady and active persistence the appointed course of the race that is set before us,
Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, who is the Leader and the Source of our faith [giving the first incentive for our belief] and is also its Finisher [bringing it to maturity and perfection]. He, for the joy [of obtaining the prize] that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising and ignoring the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Just think of Him Who endured from sinners such grievous opposition and bitter hostility against Himself [reckon up and consider it all in comparison with your trials], so that you may not grow weary or exhausted, losing heart and relaxing and fainting in your minds.
You have not yet struggled and fought agonizingly against sin, nor have you yet resisted and withstood to the point of pouring out your [own] blood. Hebrews 12:1-4 AMPC