TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 8TH SEPTEMBER 2022)
“Then the disciples of John came to Jesus, inquiring, Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, [that is, abstain from food and drink as a religious exercise], but Your disciples do not fast?
And Jesus replied to them, Can the wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is still with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
And no one puts a piece of cloth that has not been shrunk on an old garment, for such a patch tears away from the garment and a worse rent (tear) is made.
Neither is new wine put in old wine skins; for if it is, the skins burst and are torn in pieces, and the wine is spilled and the skins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wine skins, and so both are preserved.” Matthew 15:14-17 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 251ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
This is the day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it. Day unto day our God has been great to us. His mercies have kept and given us the reason to be alive and shinning.
For two hundred and fifty-one days our God has loaded us with blessings, we have seen His compassion, we have eaten from the fountain of His faithfulness and it has really made life easy and given us hope in the midst of hopelessness.
His faithfulness has sheltered us from storms, winds and floods of life. It has made sure the waves of the enemy did not sweep us away from our walk with the LORD.
The greatest victory, for the believer is victory over things that comes to pull one from the faith that was once for all delivered to saints. This victory is the greatest because if something pulls us away from the faith, we will be left with a false faith that places one on the broad way that leads to eternal death.
We will be among those going to hell with our Bible in their hands.
Talking about standing strong in the faith that was once and for fall delivered to the saints, we live in days when that will be difficult. That’s why we need the help from pur Head office – the Throne of God.
We are very close to the coming of the LORD but what will precede it according to the scriptures, is the falling away. The Bible says;
“ Let no one deceive or beguile you in any way, for that day will not come except the apostasy comes first [unless the predicted great falling away of those who have professed to be Christians has come], and the man of lawlessness (sin) is revealed, who is the son of doom (of perdition),” 2 Thessalonians 2:3 AMPC
IF YOU HAVE EYES, YOU CAN SEE THE CLOUD OF THIS PREDICTED FALLING AWAY OF THOSE WHO HAVE PROFESSED TO BE CHRISTIANS, GATHERING.
If you understand what the faith that was once delivered to the saints is, you will realize that we are right in days when the foundation for this predicted apostasy is being laid in the hearts of present seekers of GOD.
That is why GOD has also positioned churches and ministries like ours across the globe to carry strategic assignments that will help us remain in the faith in times like these. But the foundation of apostasy has been laid in the hearts of some for some years and it is still being laid. It is being laid today by money-making doctrines and need centered teachings.
There are so many teachings that precipitate apostasy on the lips of many preachers; teachings that do not form Christ in people or make them temples for the LORD in the Spirit.
If you know the teachings that make men temples for the LORD in the Spirit, you will mourn each time you hear preachers preach and people should hallelujah to them.
The Ignorance of Church goers is making these guys prosper by what they do. Many do not now that the kind of preaching that precipitate apostasy is what they listen to week after week, and see practiced by our famed preachers.
For instance, over 97 percent of our Pentecostal preachers have presented evil altars as what is responsible for people’s problems, and breaking, silencing and all that the solution. Millions of believers are busy doing that, while the preachers reap relevance and revenue from them.
But that is a false teaching. It is not a doctrine of Christ. However, millions of believers have embraced it and are practicing every detail of it. You will never know they have embraced a seed of their own apostasy until you meet those who have now fallen from the faith for holding on to same teachings for years.
I have met quiet so many who do not want anything to do with preachers or church because for years they raised altars, silenced some, used oil, salt, and water, were given this bracelet, that religious gadget, and that photo of this prophet and all that, to use and be free from their problems.
They never found who a man truly needs.They never found the LORD.
A man needs the LORD living in Him nothing else; and if you have that, you will not need water because out of your belly shall flow rivers of water. You will not need oil because you will be anointed of the LORD with the Anointing of the Holy One, you will not need salt because you will be the salt of the earth.
YOU WILL NOT NEED BRACELETS OR PHOTOS OF ANY PROPHET BECAUSE YOU WILL CARRY THE IMAGE OF CHRIST.
But these people had the foundation of apostasy laid in their hearts by the preachers, wrongly or rightly, and were given sorcery for prophecy, divination for revelation and all kinds of mixture. Others were taught a stale gospel that sounded good and great but was just persuasive words of human wisdom, and after a while they dropped from the faith because it never formed Christ in them.
There are those who have gone back to godless religion. Few have opened their own churches just with their families and friends to be protected from what almost took them away from the LORD.
All these happened because you do not give a man alcohol when he needs water.
You do not give a man religious practices, divination or sorcery when the need to be temples for God in the Spirit. They will not find satisfaction in the long run and will one day drop from the faith.
There are those who are embracing these same teachings and practices today, defending them and persecuting those the LORD has sent to help them. They will also get to the place the others got to and dropped from the faith if nothing is done to save them from the teachings and practices.
Sadly, these precious souls are still being manipulated to keep holding on to the very teachings and practices that are actually a foundation for their future apostasy or falling away, the very things that will make them depart and make them to no longer want to hear anything called Church.
That is why I call preachers who peddle such teachings apostates!
Today they are celebrated and called “papa.” Some are called “champions of the faith” others “fathers of the land,” many others “God’s generals” and etc. But then those who are calling them such names will hate anything called Church and will not want to have anything to do with it.
WHEN THEY HIT APOSTASY AND EXPERIENCE THE FALL AWAY, THEY WILL BE FILLED WITH RAGE OVER WHAT THEIR LIVES HAVE TURNED OUT.
Apostasy is not just a falling away from the faith, but also a falling away from the standards of the faith; it begins by following the foundations that our apostolic fathers never laid. Our apostolic fathers never taught many things our present fathers teach. They never practiced the things that are being practiced today in the name of prophetic acts.
One of the practices that they never practiced is the kind of fast many are made to practice today. Which brings us to purpose of our 30-day journey of faith – the Cry of the Spirit on Biblical Fasting.
It is apostates that stand on the “this-kind-can-not-go-out-except-by-prayer-and-fasting” scripture, to plunged even the un coveted into fasting. Fasting was not original for those who have not experienced genuine regeneration of the spirit.
There are so many in church today who we call saved but they have not experienced genuine salvation. They have confessed the LORD as their savior but have not repented of their old life and have not been converted. They are made busy in church but most are adulterous, liars, thieves, lesbians and all that.
The so-called apostles who are indeed apostates are not seeing that. They tell all of them to use fasting to cure their problems while Jesus never instituted fasting for the unregenerate.
All un-regenerated souls who had spiritual problems got deliverance without being told to fast. They were healed of diseases, had demons casted out of their lives, and were set free without a fast. But our apostates that we call apostles are doing it differently.
When you ask the un-regenerated to do things that are for the regenerated, you are destroying them. You are putting the new wine in an old wine skin. It will burst forth and destroy their lives.
That is why fasting has made many in Church today insane, some diseased, and even killed others. It has destroyed the marriages of some, and made them do things that they are currently spending their lives regretting ever doing.
There are those it has given a false assurance of salvation, and planted them on the way that leads to hell but placed a bible in their hands to convince him that they are going to Heaven. That was why the disciples never fasted until after the day of Pentecost.
JESUS NEVER ASKED THEM TO FAST BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT YET REGENERATED.
He knew it will destroy them. He met them in Judaism, and Judaism does not regenerate people. That is why GOD buried it.
From our devotional text it is clear that they disciples of John fasted and the Pharisees also fasted frequently (the religious fast) but became troubled that the disciples of Christ were not fasting. They were troubled because they never knew that Jesus came with a new order.
Under Judaism, people fasted and did all forms of religious fast. But Jesus came with a new kind of fast – a Spirit, Grace and Truth enabled fast. That type is not possible until a man is regenerated, and his disciples were not regenerated so he never instituted it for them.
He lived it for them to see, so that when they will be regenerated, they can know what it is. Our devotional text says;
“Then the disciples of John came to Jesus, inquiring, Why is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, [that is, abstain from food and drink as a religious exercise], but Your disciples do not fast?
And Jesus replied to them, Can the wedding guests mourn while the bridegroom is still with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.
And no one puts a piece of cloth that has not been shrunk on an old garment, for such a patch tears away from the garment and a worse rent (tear) is made.
Neither is new wine put in old wine skins; for if it is, the skins burst and are torn in pieces, and the wine is spilled and the skins are ruined. But new wine is put into fresh wine skins, and so both are preserved.” Matthew 15:14-17 AMPC
This scripture made it clear that the disciples were exempted from fasting until when the Bridegroom, Jesus, will be taken away from them and the Holy Spirit released upon them. That happened after the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ.
Christ ascended, the Holy Spirit was released and they became regenerated and gave themselves to prayer and fasting until they fulfilled their days.
I BELIEVE ENOUGH HAVE BEEN SHARED FOR THE DAY!
Biblical fasting is not for the un-regenerated. It is for the regenerated. Many in our churches today are not truly regenerated. You see it in their character fruits Yet, they are told to fast. That is why it has not unlocked the glory our fathers unlocked in their days through their fast.
In the dispensation of the law, people fasted and got results because of the justice system that governed that dispensation. We are under grace, fasting today is for the regenerated and must be birth by the Holy Spirit, the grace of GOD, and His Living truths.
Do not allow an apostate to put you under the yoke of fasting when you know you are not regenerated. It will destroy your life! Look for Church that has the rain of the Spirit and plant yourself there until the transformation you need take place. Only then can you do a Biblical fast.
As we bring this to a close, I want to submit to you that, that our apostolic fathers also had it rough with preachers who in their days, were busy laying a foundation for apostasy in the hearts of the believers.
They attacked them furiously with living truths and sought to deliver each soul they have captured from their hands.
It was because of them that one of our apostolic fathers, Jude, wrote saying;
“Beloved, my whole concern was to write to you in regard to our common salvation. [But] I found it necessary and was impelled to write you and urgently appeal to and exhort [you] to contend for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints [the faith which is that sum of Christian belief which was delivered verbally to the holy people of God].
For certain men have crept in stealthily [gaining entrance secretly by a side door]. Their doom was predicted long ago, ungodly (impious, profane) persons who pervert the grace (the spiritual blessing and favor) of our God into lawlessness and wantonness and immorality, and disown and deny our sole Master and Lord, Jesus Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One).”
Jude 1:2-3 AMPC
Jude was one of those leaders whose ministries where birth in the days when many believers in the early Church were slipping into apostasy.
Another of the warriors of righteousness who waged resistance against the apostates of his days was Paul. And we will conclude with a bit about him.
You see, in terms of matters of biblical fasting, Paul fasted frequently out of want and when he did it was not for material wants but eternal wants.
His life shows us that he could get anything material done without a fast, but not anything eternal. The flesh must align with the Spirit through Biblical Fasting for eternal things to be done in time as written in heaven.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“Are they [ministering] servants of Christ (the Messiah)? I am talking like one beside himself, [but] I am more, with far more extensive and abundant labors, with far more imprisonments, [beaten] with countless stripes, and frequently [at the point of] death.
Five times I received from [the hands of] the Jews forty [lashes all] but one;
Three times I have been beaten with rods; once I was stoned. Three times I have been aboard a ship wrecked at sea; a [whole] night and a day I have spent [adrift] on the deep;
Many times on journeys, [exposed to] perils from rivers, perils from bandits, perils from [my own] nation, perils from the Gentiles, perils in the city, perils in the desert places, perils in the sea, perils from those posing as believers [but destitute of Christian knowledge and piety];
In toil and hardship, watching often [through sleepless nights], in hunger and thirst, frequently driven to fasting by want, in cold and exposure and lack of clothing. 2 Corinthians 11:23-27 AMPC