TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 2ND OCTOBER 2022)
“And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple.
But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.
So, he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him. When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus.
Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.” Acts 9:26-31 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 275TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
This is the Day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it. Our God is faithful and to Him belong all the glory.
I believe today is one of the appointed days He gave us before the foundation of the world, and we are glad we are counted among the living. The Bible says to all who are joined to the living there is hope.
Yes, there is hope for us. No matter what we have or do not have, being alive alone shows there is hope. That is why people who take their lives because of circumstances of life, take away the hope that would have led to their recovery.
Friend, God will prefer us staying alive when things are not okay with us, because to all who are joined to the living there is hope, and a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Do not ever contemplate suicide no matter what may be happening to you.
Suicide closes the final door of hope a living man has to receive eventual help from a loving God. It is better for one to be killed by suffering than to be killed by themselves. Taking away your own life is a direct ticket to eternal damnation.
Keeping it and trusting God to come through for you is one of the best ways to manage a day of adversity.
Sometimes people do not take away their physical lives, they take away their spiritual lives. But do not allow your spiritual life to be taken away either. You will need it intact for the LORD to bring you back on your feet.
Do not do what job’s wife suggested to Job to do when things were down. Do not make God the root cause of your problem. She said to her husband, “curse God and die.” But the man of God was still in faith despite the fight he was in.
The Bible says;
So, Satan went out from the presence of the LORD, and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And he took for himself a potsherd with which to scrape himself while he sat in the midst of the ashes.
Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!”
But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2:7-10 NKJV
THE BIBLE SAYS IN ALL THE PAINS AND ETC., JOB DID NOT CURSE GOD.
He kept his spiritual life intact.
It is important to note that We keep our spiritual lives intact by sowing to please the Spirit irrespective of what we may be going through, instead of sowing to please the flesh. Job spent his days of adversity sowing to please the Spirit, reasoning with His God and His holy words against the background of what he was going through.
I have come to realize that one thing the enemy usually desire that it go down in our lives, when we are facing adversity, is our spiritual lives. Though difficult, we should also make our spiritual lives the one thing that we will not let go down when we are in adversity. We can do that by using the grace of God in our lives to constantly sow to please the Spirit, no matter what the case may be.
The truth remains, if we keep our spiritual lives intact in the midst of any situation, we may find ourselves (by sowing to please the Spirit), we will create a platform for our recovery.
Like the Bible say, it is not by might nor by power but by the Spirit of the living God.
Now, talking about the Spirit of the living God, yesterday, we began a journey of truth on the Blessed Holy Spirit. The first truth we gathered about Him is His mandate to perform God’s word in our lives.
We saw that what the LORD commands He gathers, and because He is the chief executive officer of God’s kingdom on earth, He gathers what God commands to perform them in our lives.
There are also times when He gathers what God says about our enemies and performs it in their lives.
For instance, God gave a promise that if we follow His voice, He will be an enemy to our enemies and an adversary to our adversaries. He will make the Holy Spirit step into the camp of our enemies to make sure their wickedness fall on their own head.
WE WILL COME FULLY INTO ALL THAT AT THE COURSE OF THIS JOURNEY.
Before we get into the details of who He really is, let us see the basic functions of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.
The first and most important function of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to help us take care of matters of eternal life. Not even anything earthly. That is why we enjoy the most of Him if we are not carnally minded.
You see, When people are not eternally minded, they do things that grieves the Holy Spirit and even quench His works in their lives.
But when they respond to the grace of the LORD upon their lives and become eternally minded, He pours Himself into their lives and more of Himself as they respond to Him. And the more of the Holy Spirit we have, the more of His comfort we get. The more of His comfort we get in our lives, the more of His peace we enjoy on earth.
Talking about the comfort of the Holy Spirit, our devotional text says;
“And when Saul had come to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, and did not believe that he was a disciple.
But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. And he declared to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.
So, he was with them at Jerusalem, coming in and going out. And he spoke boldly in the name of the Lord Jesus and disputed against the Hellenists, but they attempted to kill him. When the brethren found out, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him out to Tarsus.
Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, they were multiplied.” Acts 9:26-31 NKJV
The scripture made it clear that as soon as Saul was arrested by the LORD and made a believer in Christ, his nefarious activities against the Church was extinguished. That itself is a work of the Holy Spirit. It was one of the ways He gave the early Church comfort.
YOU SEE, THE EARLY CHURCH WAS CONSTANTLY UNDER THE PRESSURE OF HELL THROUGH SO MANY FACTORS OF WHICH SAUL WAS ONE.
But when the Spirit of the LORD moved, one of His core blessing manifested in the Church, taking down her greatest threat. That core blessing is the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit gives a man comfort, it will take care of what may be threatening the peace of the man. The comfort of the Holy Spirit has a way of eliminating anything that may be making our lives uncomfortable. It has a way of filing our lives with peace; the shalom of God.
Oh, how we need that comfort today!
Our world is experiencing so much pressure from the gates of hell as it enlarges itself almost daily. There is not a day that we do not hear one bad news or the other on global media. Sufferings are becoming unbearable globally, and even those who travel from Africa to the Western world for greener pasture are no longer finding them.
Gone are the days when we think a visa to the United States or any other Western nations is a ticket to economic heaven.
Except the LORD be with you, even if you are working at the White House of the United States, your life will still be full of misery. Friend, it is getting hot and hotter even with those who are living in the very comfort of this world. The Bible says;
“Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; Unless the LORD guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.
It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.” Psalm 127:1-2 NKJV
If God is not building our lives, or watching over us, we will never have a blissful life. That is why we need the Holy Spirit. He gives us comfort as we submit to Him to build our lives. He makes sure we do not eat the bread of sorrow as we walk in His directives.
It is my prayer that you will enjoy the comfort of the Holy Spirit this month as never before in Jesus precious name. Amen!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you.
For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you.
The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Isaiah 60:1-3 NKJV