TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 10TH NOVEMBER 2022)
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 314TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
It is still our 30-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Holy Spirit on practical wisdom. The Bible says the voice of one crying in the wilderness. Prepare ye the way of the LORD.
When the Bible says the Spirit Cries, it is referring to the voice of the Spirit bringing a word to us with a strong passion because of how serious the situation is. It is not “cry” as in shedding of tears in expression of distress, pain, sorrow or joy.
Though the Holy Spirit still does that and you see it expressed through intercessors and prophetic people sent to put the lives of men straight.
I have shed tears like twice in all my preaching days.
I did not just decide to shed them, they just broke out and I was even amazed. It was during two important preaching moments. One was when I was preaching about salvation in a crusade ground in the 1990s, in Nigeria, the other was when I was preaching about the sorrows of sin here in Kenya.
So, sometimes the Spirit express tearful emotions through men and women. But the Cry of the Spirit here is the shout and screaming of the Spirit of God to us, in pain of what we may be going through, or about going through, or in grief for our souls and total redemption.
That was what John the Baptist and the rest of the Prophets brought to their generation.
Some people the Bible will call dummies, once wrote to me saying, am deceiving people with the words “the Cry of the Spirit” that the Holy Spirit does not cry. A lot of so-called Christians are possessed, because only a demon can say such things to us not a normal human. The demon of religion stirred them to send such words to us.
It also exposed the level of Biblical illiteracy in the Church today, because the devil can only speak through you that way if you are ignorant. But for us who have been feeding from God through this platform, we have benefit so much form the Cry of the Holy Spirit on different issues of our faith.
THIS TIME AROUND IT IS ABOUT THE IMPORTANTlCE OF PRACTICAL WISDOM TO OUR EARTHLY LIVES.
Yesterday in our midweek service, we learned that, practical wisdom is a weapon of war. What a word it was. Many of us do not know that. We saw how David engaged it and won a battle that would have claimed his life.
We also saw the mysteries behind the “MAN OF WAR” title that only GOD has.
It was a kind of a service that every believer should have attended. If you want to come into the revelation of experiencing GOD as your “Man of war” while you become a “man of rest,” get that message. It is titled “WEAPONS OF WAR IN GOD’S KINGDOM – Part 01.” It is a series that we will run for some time.
Today is the 10th day of our 30-day journey and we are on the revelation of things that will not happen in our lives except we walk in practical wisdom. We have seen one of the most important of them all – honor.
In fact, there is so much about honor that we may need a separate 30 days to exhaust.
But let us move to the next thing that will never happen if we do not walk in practical wisdom – the establishment on earth of things God has finished concerning us in Heaven.
You see, you will never fail in life if you limit yourself to things God has finished concerning you in Heaven. That is what it means to walk in God’s plans and purposes for your life.
The reason why there can be no failure in God is because, all He does with us on earth are things that have already been successfully finished in the realm of the Spirit; we are only assembling them on earth. I hope you understand me!
The mystery of finished things in God must be understood so that one will not spend their days running here and there looking for how to make good things happen in their lives, while they have already happened in Heaven, and are only waiting to be assembled in our lives on earth through the proper application of practical wisdom.
IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOTE THAT ONE OF THE MAJOR THINGS JESUS DECLARED ON THE CROSS WAS “IT IS FINISHED.”
Meaning, there is nothing about your life that is still pending in Heaven. All is finished.
Your marriage is finished, your economic prosperity is finished, everything you need on earth to make your life beautiful and blissful have been granted. They are all in Heaven, you only need to assemble them into your life on earth.
It was these things that our father apostle Paul referred to, when he said;
“ Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:” Ephesians 1:3 KJV
The blessings are spiritual, and are in the Heavenly places, waiting to be assembled in our lives here on earth. That goes to say, if you are poor on earth, it is because you are yet to have what have been finished about your economic life in the Heavenly places assembled in your life.
If you are having marital problems, single and searching, sick and dying, or suffering in any unjust way and in constant attacks of the enemy, those things are happening because you are yet to download into your earthly life the Spiritual blessings Paul talked about that are in the Heavenly places.
The Bible says “He has blessed us already with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, waiting to become physical blessings in our lives.” It will take practical wisdom to assemble or make them physical in our lives.
Meaning, if you are not walking in practical wisdom, but praying and fasting, attending Church faithfully, going for what they called deliverance, or doing any other thing you consider your worship to GOD, they will never become physical in your life.
One practical wisdom that will make the Spiritual blessings physical in your life, is the wisdom of spending your days to walk in the revelation of the things that have been prepared for you in Christ Jesus that you should walk in; the instructions, the plans, the programs, the directives, the routes, the ways, the visions, the pattern of life, the virtues, the character, the teachings, the ideas, and the goals.
THERE ARE SO MANY FASTING AND PRAYING BUT OUTRIGHTLY LOST BELIEVERS IN CHURCH TODAY!
They are involved in many acceptable things that are not really God’s routes, ideas, vision, character, virtue, directive, program, pattern of life, or plans for their lives. They are busy in church but you cant find them in the Christ life.
Many of us believers, do not realize that once we are born again, we are to spend the rest of our days walking in the things God has prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We are not to be walking in our own conceived directives, instructions, ideas, visions, ways, or ambitions, no matter how good they are.
There are things God has established or finished in His Heaven that we should walk in, in other to cause the spiritual blessings that we have been blessed with in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus to be made manifest in our physical lives.
Our devotional text says;
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:8-10 NKJV
There are treasured truths that can be gleaned from this scriptural passage. But we will limit ourselves to the subject in consideration. We will limit ourselves to the part that says “we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”
The classic Edition of the Amplified version put the same verse in this contemporary sense;
“For we are God’s [own] handiwork (His workmanship), recreated in Christ Jesus, [born anew] that we may do those good works which God predestined (planned beforehand) for us [taking paths which He prepared ahead of time], that we should walk in them [living the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us to live].” Ephesians 2:10 AMPC
The key word here is the word “taking paths which He prepared ahead of time that we should walk in them.”
PRACTICAL WISDOM IS TAKING PATHS WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED AHEAD OF TIME THAT YOU SHOULD WALK IN THEM.
It is not taking paths that tradition, carnal passions or earthly wisdom prepare for you. That will be practical foolishness, and many people are ruined in life because of that.
If you want the spiritual blessings that God has blessed us with in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus to be made manifest in your life, you must limit your life to the paths God has prepared for you ahead of time that you should walk in them. You must not be playing religion in Church, doing your own things without even knowing those paths.
One of the major things I learned early in life as a Christian, was the reality of things God has finished concerning us in Heaven; things the Bible says where finished before the foundation of the word. And the importance of walking in paths God has prepared beforehand for my life on earth.
By God’s mercies I stumbled into them quiet early in life, and was able to move from an inglorious life to a glorious one.
It was not easy at first, I went through a lot of suffering because the flesh, the world and the devil will fight you to a stand still if you find those paths. But I pressed on, and today I am glad I did.
I learned that what have been settled in Heaven need to be assembled on earth for my life to be beautiful and blissful, and as this scripture puts it, I must find the paths God has prepared beforehand for me so that the blessings can be made manifest.
Thank God I did. Someone reading this is the next on God’s list.
Child of God, God did not create your life to be what it is. He created it to be blessed, blissful and beautiful. But you will remain the opposite until you come into those paths that have prepare ahead of time in Christ Jesus for you to walk in.
Only then will you have the synchronicity to have the spiritual blessings that carries your name in the Heavenly places dropping in your life from time to time.
This day, I urge you to embrace the practical wisdom of walking in paths that God has prepared for you ahead of time to walk in, and after a few years or even months, you will begin to experience blessings that will blow your mind.
You will trace all sorrows and not find them. Except for the yokes and burdens of the blessing of the LORD that will result, there will be no yokes or burdens in your life.
Enough have been shared for the day. When we return tomorrow, we will look at the next thing that will never happen in our lives if we are not walking in practical wisdom.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“I [the Lord] will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.
Be not like the horse or the mule, which lack understanding, which must have their mouths held firm with bit and bridle, or else they will not come with you.” Psalm 32:8-9 AMPC
“For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob (Israel) is the lot of His inheritance. He found him in a desert land, in the howling void of the wilderness; He kept circling around him, He scanned him [penetratingly], He kept him as the pupil of His eye.
As an eagle that stirs up her nest, that flutters over her young, He spread abroad His wings and He took them, He bore them on His pinions.
So the Lord alone led him; there was no foreign god with Him.” Deuteronomy 32:9-12 AMPC