TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 9TH DECEMBER 2022)
“But I say, walk and live [habitually] in the [Holy] Spirit [responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit]; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh (of human nature without God).
For the desires of the flesh are opposed to the [Holy] Spirit, and the [desires of the] Spirit are opposed to the flesh (godless human nature); for these are antagonistic to each other [continually withstanding and in conflict with each other], so that you are not free but are prevented from doing what you desire to do.” Galatians 5:16-17 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 342ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
According to the Gregorian calendar, we are in the sun set of 2022, walking or running steadily to the twilight of 2023. It is a prophetic move that is stimulated by the power of time.
We believe our God has been faithful to us. We have been feeding on His faithfulness all along.
Every day, I realize why He sent that word to us in 2015. You know, at the beginning of 2015, the LORD laid the prophetic stone of His faithfulness to execute this mandate and preserve us in this harvest field with the word “feeding on His Faithfulness.”
Since then, we have been feeding on his faithfulness. It has been responsible for all the beautiful things that have been happening to us despite disappointing GOD in some areas of our lives.
Sadly, I have not been faithful to Him this year the way He has been faithful to me. In fact, I believe I have never been faithful at any time to Him the way He has been to me because no man can match God’s faithfulness.
I do not know about you. Maybe you have been as faithful to Him as He has been to you. But I and some others have not been faithful to Him the way He has been to us. We have never matched His faithfulness; however, we will keep trying not to disappoint Him as long as we live in this body of sin. Even when we fail, we know it is not over.
The bedrock of our gratitude to God lies in His faithfulness to us.
We have been faithless and disappointing so many times, yet He still keeps us, He still loves us. Those are the things that bring tears out of our eyes. They are the very things that keep us grateful to Him every day.
HE IS WORTHY OF ALL WORSHIP, ADORATION, BLESSINGS, AND THANKSGIVING.
You know we live in Time and He lives in Eternity. Yet He is so close to each and every one of us. How that happens is puzzling.
The truth is, He lives in eternity but fills Time so that He can remain close to each and every one of us. His matchless love is responsible for all that. One way God expresses His love towards us is by sending His Rhema word to us.
Day after day, he has been feeding us through this platform with choice knowledge from His Holy Word, the Bible.
This time, we are on a 31-day journey of faith with the Cry of His Holy Spirit on what we call “The presence of God!”
We have been told that the active presence of God was where God created man to live in originally. It was man’s habitat. We have explained in previous days what happened thereafter and why we are where we are today, as humans.
The most obedient creations of God are not people. The most obedient creations of God are other created things.
For instance, no creation of God has ever left where God created them to live in except man. Fishes were created to live in the water. They are still there. Birds were created to fly in the sky and live on trees and other places. They are still there.
Animals were created to walk on the soil and live there. They are still there. Man was created to walk in the Garden and live in God (the Active Presence of God). He is no longer there.
The most obedient things God created where creation. That is why GOD now use creation to talk to us.
He will use the eagle, the Lilly, the sparrows, the doves, the olive tree, the fig tree, the rock badgers, and etc. to talk to us about walking with Him and submitting to His will. He is using them to talk to us because none of them have departed from their habitats.
The first of God’s creations to depart from their habitat was Lucifer and a third of God’s angels. Man was the next. Its saddening.
However, man was made to depart by the first of God’s creations to depart. He was made to depart by the fallen angel, who was the first to depart. That was why God had to become flesh in Christ Jesus to die on the Cross to redeem man.
He died to redeem us from life outside our habitat, and poured His Holy Spirit to bring us back to live within our habitat; the active presence of God.
YESTERDAY, WE BEGAN A JOURNEY ON THE THREE CATEGORIES OF GOD’S PRESENCE.
We saw the Omni-Presence of God and what it does. We also saw the manifest presence. The active presence of God is the manifest presence. That was where man was created to live in. That is where the Holy Spirit was given to help us return to. But there is another category of God’s presence which can be seen in Genesis chapter 2, and its important we uncover it.
The Bible says;
“Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath or spirit of life, and man became a living being.
And the Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden [delight]; and there He put the man whom He had formed (framed, constituted).” Genesis 2:7-8 AMPC
The Garden was the place of a concentrated presence of God; the place of GOD’s manifest presence.
As we can see in this scripture, before God planted man in His Manifest Presence, He first transmitted into man the spirit of life. The spirit of life is the human spirit. He framed or constituted man by taking a little part of Himself (Spirit) and putting into the clay, and everything got up and became a human being.
Then he took the being and planted him in His active presence. I hope you understand that.
Now, when the being was planted in His active or Manifest Presence, the Being was filled with His indwelling presence. God’s indwelling presence is the third category of God’s presence.
So, if you look at the Garden then, you will see a Human being in God’s Omni Presence, Living in His Manifest presence, and walking around the Garden by the power of the Indwelling presence.
Hallelujah!
It was the indwelling presence of God that enabled man to name the animals so accurately that God did not have to change the names. The indwelling presence of God will help us name things on earth as named in Heaven.
THE INDWELLING PRESENCE BRINGS THE VERY KEYS OR ACCESS CODES OF THE KINGDOM THAT JESUS PROMISED US.
In other words, the indwelling presence of God will help us to know things that have been decreed in heaven and decree them on earth. It will enable us to live as kings and priests on earth to our God. It will enable kingdom living.
Sadly, so many do not carry the indwelling presence of God. That is why religious living is what you see among most believers today. There is no kingdom living.
Kingdom living is knowing what have been decreed or done in Heaven at the immediate present, and decreeing them or getting them done on earth. It is knowing written things in the Throne Room, and decreeing them on earth as written in Heaven. You are able to do that as a believer, only if the indwelling presence of God is within your spirit.
God constituted the human spirit to carry His indwelling presence. If our spirits do not have the indwelling presence, we will be doing things that fail. We will be failing in life because we will be doing things that have not been done in Heaven.
It is when we do things that have been done (finished) in Heaven that we do not fail. We can’t fail because they are already finished.
If you look at Adam in the garden, you will also realize that it was the indwelling presence of God that enabled him to recognized his wife Eve, as the bone of his bone and the flesh of his flesh, and called her woman, or man with a womb.
What can we glean from that? So much but there is no space for it on this platform.
But understand that it is the indwelling presence of God that enables us to recognize spiritual things God bring into our realms and establish them on earth. Like I said, this one is so deep that we cannot fully bring it out on this platform. But just know that not having a consecrated indwelling presence of God in you will limit your life terribly.
Now, God created mankind to live in the Omni Presence, walk in the manifest presence, and have His indwelling presence. That was the design until man ate from the tree of sound Judgment (or the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and lost everything.
God’s redemptive purpose remains to bring us back there!
By the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, all who have accepted the LORD are positionally back there. But being positionally back is not being practically back. So, it is not enough!
God’s will remain that we be both positionally and practically back. But as it stands now, all genuine believers are positionally back but majority are not practically back yet. That is why we still have problems.
THE GREATEST HINDRANCE TO GETTING PRACTICALLY BACK THERE IS THE FLESH.
Therefore, conquering the flesh to be practically back in the active presence of GOD, and carrying His indwelling presence in us wherever we go, should be our priority after giving our lives to Christ. As we can see in the lives of our fathers, putting up a daily fight against the flesh to achieve that should be our priority as believers.
The problem is, many of us have been wired to put up a fight against sickness, diseases, demons, poverty, lack and etc. instead of a fight against a flesh controlled Christian life. A flesh-controlled Christian life is the main reason why we are diseased, oppressed of the devil, poor, in lack and etc.
It is the reason we can’t live in the active presence of God and carry (or demonstrate) His indwelling presence wherever we go. People need to come into the realization that our primary call as believers remains to conquer the flesh by walking habitually in the Spirit, not to bind demons.
I have said it over and over that the most effective way to bind demons is to obey GOD.
But the flesh will not let us obey GOD, that is why we must fight it to a standstill on daily basis. We must conquer it; and our devotional text tells us how.
The first portion of the text says;
“But I say, walk and live [habitually] in the [Holy] Spirit [responsive to and controlled and guided by the Spirit]; then you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh (of human nature without God).” Galatians 5:16 AMPC
As we can see in here, one major way to conquer the flesh and live in the active presence of God is to walk habitually in the Holy Spirit. Walking habitually in the Holy Spirit is being responsive to Him, controlled by Him, and guided by Him. The Bible says when we do all that, we will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh.
Enough have been shared for day. Time to absorb it. Do not forget, the indwelling presence of God will not just activate a kingdom life, but a life free from the power of the flesh.
I pray God will use these words to keep building us up and giving us an inheritance among they that are sanctified!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“But if you are guided (led) by the [Holy] Spirit, you are not subject to the Law.
Now, the doings (practices) of the flesh are clear (obvious): they are immorality, impurity, indecency,
Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger (ill temper), selfishness, divisions (dissensions), party spirit (factions, sects with peculiar opinions, heresies),
Envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness,
Gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things, there is no law [that can bring a charge]. And those who belong to Christ Jesus (the Messiah) have crucified the flesh (the godless human nature) with its passions and appetites and desires.
If we live by the [Holy] Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. [If by the Holy Spirit we have our life in God, let us go forward walking in line, our conduct controlled by the Spirit.]” Galatians 5:18-25 AMPC