TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 19TH DECEMBER 2022)
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, That He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such things [that she might be holy and faultless].
Even so husbands should love their wives as [being in a sense] their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.” Ephesians 5:25-28 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 353RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
It is the LORD’s doing, and it is marvelous in our sight!
From the first hour of this year, following the order of the Gregorian Calendar, to the 353rd day today, it has just been God’s amazing grace, which is a totality of His mercies, power, presence, provisions and all that pertains to Life and Godliness.
We are confident that the same grace will keep us to the end.
We have been on a 31-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on the Presence of God. It has been enlightening and illuminating.
You see, this world can be full of depression, and a lot of trouble. So many are trapped in the prostration that circumstance keeps the souls of men in. But those of us who are absorbing the truths that have been coming on this platform daily, are rising and shinning with the Light of the radiance of God’s glory buried in His word.
We are rising to a new life and freshness of the Spirit. The Bible says;
“Arise [from the depression and prostration in which circumstances have kept you—rise to a new life]! Shine (be radiant with the glory of the Lord), for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you!” Isaiah 60:1 AMPC
Yesterday, we began a journey on what the indwelling presence of God will do in our lives in other to strip us of filthy garments.
Do not forget, taking away our filthy garments and putting on us rich robes, remains the ultimate purpose of the indwelling presence of the LORD. For many, that will never happen until they use fasting and prayer to humble themselves before God for a change of moral behavior, maybe with the aim of coming into fresh dimensions of the Spirit.
Yesterday we said that there are seven things the indwelling presence of God will do in our lives to strip us of filthy garments and bring us to the place of experiencing its full strength in our lives, depending on our spiritual status.
For the lost and those who do not know the LORD, it will begin with conviction of sin, judgment and righteousness. Then move the soul to the place of repentance.
FOR THE SAVED WHO SLIP BACK TO HIS OR HER OLD WAYS, IT WILL BEGIN WITH PROVOKING REPENTANCE.
We saw six hallmarks of repentance yesterday.
It is important to note that the manifestation of the indwelling presence of God in our lives depends on our spiritual moral conditions. Whenever it comes, it is always to improve our condition, and then take us to a better moral state and greater heights in the Spirit.
Having seen thr first two, lets see next thing the indwelling presence of God will do in our lives to strip us of filthy garments. For lack of better terms, I will like to describe it as an “internal bath.” We can also call it “taking a bath on the inside.”
Off course, this is not a bath with water but a bath with the water of the Presence of the LORD with the word of God as detergent.
It was this bath or inward cleansing of the spirit and the soul that the Bible refer to as the washing of water by the word. When this happens, you will feel as if you have taken a bath on your inside. You will feel cleansed of filth, guilt, fear, and related immoral or sinful burdens and filthiness.
There will be a new feel on your inside resulting in righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
In other words, the kingdom of God will break forth within you, resulting in a feel that can be best described as a new life on the inside. This is the very delivery that genuine repentance brings. That is why it is the third work of the indwelling presence of God.
That work is also called “times of refreshing.” It is usually created by the indwelling presence of the LORD!
The Bible says;
“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,” Acts 3:19 NKJV
Once the times of refreshing comes, once that inward bathing or washing of the Spirit takes place within you, a new you will emerge. A vibrant spirit nature that is free from the stain of sin, iniquity and trespass will emerge, enabling you to live a glorious life on the face of the earth; pure, holy and righteous before GOD.
That is when the Spirit of God will say to you “see you have been made well spiritually, sin no more least a worst thing comes upon you.” He could do that using John 5:14 where Jesus said that to the man that was sick for 38 years because one with filthy garments is morally sick. .
Moral illness is actually more terrible than physical illness.
IT IS THROUGH THIS WASHING OF THE INDWELLING PRESENCE OF GOD THAT WE ARE MADE WHOLE OR FREE.
Once we are free, we are to walk with the LORD and not go back to getting ourselves into the pound of filthiness, corruption or moral decadence again. If we do, God will still not give up on us, but a worst thing may happen to our spiritual lives, leaving us with tougher spiritual battles to fight, conquer or overcome. The Bible says;
“Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Galatians 5:1 KJV
God’s will is that every human be saved from the penalty and practice of sin. His will is that we all achieve both practical and positional righteousness by this beautiful work of His indwelling presence. But there is a generation that the Bible says will never be able to experience this.
The Bible calls it a generation that is pure in its own eyes. Concerning that generation, the word of the LORD says;
“There is a class of people who are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their own filth.” Proverbs 30:12 AMPC
According to our devotional text, we live in a prophetic season God has set aside to purify His Church by the washing of water by the word. A season when sound teachings will come from the presence of the LORD, to enable this internal wash by serving as a spiritual detergent in the hands of the indwelling presence of God within us, as it carries out the internal bath that we are talking about.
USING THE ANALOGY OF MARRIAGE, THE TEXT SAYS;
“Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, That He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such things [that she might be holy and faultless].
Even so husbands should love their wives as [being in a sense] their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself.” Ephesians 5:25-28 AMPC
As you can see, the Bible used the analogy of marriage to speak about this beautiful work of the indwelling presence of the LORD that we are talking about. It made it clear that the vision or intent of the work is to present us to the LORD Himself, a glorious church, made up of people who are holy, pure, blameless and faultless in their generation.
But as earlier stated, there is a class of people who will never be able to experience this beautiful work of the indwelling presence of God, even today. The reason the Bible presents is their disposition. It says they are pure in their own eyes.
The Bible did not say they are pure in God’s eyes; the God who sees the heart, and all the impurities of it, as well as of life and hears every conversation. It says they are pure in their own eyes.
It is purity in God’s eyes that is approved not purity in our own yes.
What does it mean to be pure in our own eyes? It means to be morally fine in our own eyes; in our own conceit and imagination, trusting in ourselves that we are righteous, and confessing that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, while living in sin and calling it weakness.
A generation that does that will never be able to experience the washing of the water by the word that the indwelling presence of God carries out.
THE BOOK OF PROVERBS 30 WAS WRITTEN BY A MAN CALLED AGUR.
Obviously in his time there were people who classified themselves as holy and righteous but the people where not really that before God. Consequently, they could not be cleansed of their filthiness. The filthy garments in their lives could not be removed.
You also find a template of that generation in Matthew 23; a generation that focused on outward purity instead of the purity of the heart, that results in outward purity. They lived holy lives that fed the eyes but are not holy at all.
If any of us is like that we will not be able to experience the internal bathing of the Spirit that we are talking about. We must be humble before God.
Jesus had a rough time with this generation in His days, because of their disposition. They resisted every move of the Spirit to grant them this internal bath with their self-righteous attitudes. It made them so spiritual deplorable that they missed their time of visitation.
That generation is the generation of the scribes and Pharisees.
One day Jesus said to them;
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but within they are full of extortion (prey, spoil, plunder) and grasping self-indulgence.
You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside may be clean also.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you are like tombs that have been whitewashed, which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything impure.
Just so, you also outwardly seem to people to be just and upright but inside you are full of pretense and lawlessness and iniquity.” Matthew 23:25-28 AMPC
This scripture makes is clear that the greatest hinderance to experiencing this work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is hypocrisy. If we are hypocrites, we will never be able to yield to the Holy Spirit enough to allow Him do this work in our lives.
A HYPOCRITE SEES HIS OR HER RIGHTEOUS DEEDS AND NEVER SEES HIS OR HER WICKED DEEDS.
In his or her self-righteousness, he or she will end up ignoring his or her deplorable spiritual condition like the pharisees did, and not paid the necessary price to improve it.
There are some who display their righteousness even before GOD. You will not do so and be washed by the LORD. The word says you will never be cleansed of your filthiness.
I believe enough have been shared for the day. When we return tomorrow, we will pick up from the fourth thing the indwelling presence of God will do in other to strip us of any filthy garments.
Remember, there are seven and we have seen just three.
However, do not forget that God sent this word to request that we change our attitudes and allow His presence to indwell us to the point of washing us of our filthiness.
His will is that Christ present us to Himself, a pure, holy, and blameless people.
Understand that Heaven wants us to be faultless and glorious in God’s sight. We must therefore, learn to put on the humble attitudes of the tax collector in Luke 18 in our walk with the LORD, not the self-righteous attitudes of the pharisees.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“Two men went up into the temple [enclosure] to pray, the one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee took his stand ostentatiously and began to pray thus before and with himself: God, I thank You that I am not like the rest of men—extortioners (robbers), swindlers [unrighteous in heart and life], adulterers—or even like this tax collector here.
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I gain.
But the tax collector, [merely] standing at a distance, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but kept striking his breast, saying, O God, be favorable (be gracious, be merciful) to me, the especially wicked sinner that I am!
I tell you, this man went down to his home justified (forgiven and made upright and in right standing with God), rather than the other man; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Like 18:10-14 AMPC