TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 5TH SEPTEMBER 2023)
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13
WELCOME TO THE 248TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS
We bless the LORD of Heaven and Earth, the judge of all and governor among the nations for giving us another glorious day to live and use in serving our generation according to His will.
Come to think of it, many of us do not know or think of what the vision of God for could be allowing us to sleep and wake up, each day, like He did this morning. The vision is not for us to pursue an earthly ambition or desire, but to worship Him by serving our generation according to His will.
Not understanding that leads to the waste of days God has appointed a man. When days are wasted for a long time, life could become difficult. Darkness can prevail. Satan will first make a man waste his days over time, before he can waste his life.
A wasted day is actually a wasted piece of life. One may be wondering how a man waste his day. We waste a day, if we do not use it to serve our generation according to God’s will.
Serving our generation according to the will of God, includes serving Jesus Christ and walking intimately with His Holy Spirit daily. It includes perfecting our ways on daily bases and allowing ourselves to be used of God to minister to others, like Jesus will do. Understand that our highest calling as believers is to be the body of Christ wherever we find ourselves. A body He can use to touch the lives of others, the way He did through the early church.
The call involves, waking up in the morning and fulfilling God’s vision for giving us days to live in. It involves being the body of Christ in our offices, business places and etc. To be the body of Christ is to serve as His base station for reaching that boss, that colleague of yours, that client, that man or women who sits beside you and etc.
THE HAPPIEST PEOPLE IN THE KINGDOM ARE PEOPLE WHO SPEND THEIR DAYS FULFILLING GOD’S VISION FOR KEEPING THEM ALIVE.
I have come to realize that people who do not fulfil God’s vision for waking them up, or for keeping them alive, will end up having a dark life. They will have a stream of bad days to contend with. Trust me; it’s not God’s will that a day He freely gives us, turn out to be a bad day. We must therefore learn to deploy and direct our will in the right direction.
This morning we will be digging out certain truths in a part of the scripture that was given to us for meditation in the devotional of yesterday – that is why we made it our devotional text today! It says,
“Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. Philippians 2:12-13
Our Church generation is a unique generation. We know how to work out our fallen nature and make sure we touch people with it, but we do not know how to work out our redeemed nature – our salvation. When we gossip, slander, fight, become greedy, lustful, and proud, or do anything to harm our fellow men, we are working out our fallen nature and using it to touch others. That is not our calling!
One of the major things that we must learn to work out as children of the Most High God, is our salvation. We must learn to work out our redeemed nature and use it to touch the lost world around us according to the will of God. And the Bible says we should do that with fear and trembling!
To work out your salvation means to live true to your heavenly calling as a saint – to manifest the Holiness or purity, power and goodness of God deposited in your life by the saving grace of God! It means, to take your salvation from its potential or prophetic state to its actual or practical state.
It covers a whole range of things. It also means to pull from the cross, the righteousness and blessings that Christ has accomplished in God’s plan, into your life.
WHEN WE DO THAT, PEOPLE WILL SEE IT IN OUR LIVES, AND GLORIFY GOD IN HEAVEN!
To work out our salvation also means to make sure that every eye that looks at us, see the finished works of Christ in our character, and in every other thing we are, or do! That is why Jesus said in Matthew 5:16, “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16 NKJV).
Working out our salvation is bringing into fore the internal works that the grace of God has accomplished in our lives.
Sadly, many of us have not yielded to God’s grace enough to accomplish anything in our internal lives, hence have nothing Godly to bring to the fore. We always bring forth the nasty, the sinful, and wicked to the fore. From our heart, evil things still spring forth to people around us, yet we call ourselves Christians.
Most of us pastors, apostles, prophets and prophetesses, allow sexual perversion to spring forth from us, to the men and women who God brings to us to harvest into His kingdom. We allow greed and covetousness to spring from us, inducing us with all kinds of visions and instructions, to prophelie to them, just to keep us smiling to the bank while they smile to hell.
God will Judge us if we do not repent!
You cannot work out any salvation that the saving grace of God has not been allowed to work in you to work out. You will just be working out religion; going to Church unchanged, praying, singing in Church, and doing all the Church stuff with sin and wickedness still in your life. That is why the Church is yet to influence the world back to Christ. We have influenced it to our religion but not to Christ. The part of the world turning to Christ is being influenced by Christ Himself using the few among us who have refused to bow to Baal.
Many of us think that the world will return to Christ by our preaching only. That is a lie. Our lifestyles are stronger in pulling the lost to Christ, than our preaching. When you preach the right message, and lead a wicked life, no one will come to Christ genuinely. If they come at all they will go back to hell after watching us for a while, or become hypocrites if we compel or manipulate them to remain in Church.
UNDERSTAND THAT NOT WORKING OUR SALVATION, WILL PREVENT GOD’S GLORIOUS LIGHT FROM SHINING THROUGH US TO A DARK WORLD
If we do not work out our salvation, with our lips we will profess that we know God, but deny Him in our works. That is the hallmark of the hypocrite. If we do not work out our salvation, we will claim born again, but live like the lost sinners around us. The only difference between us and them, will be Church attendance. Our spiritual states will still be the same.
Our apostolic Fathers spent their days working out their salvation with fear and trembling. That was why there was no scandal among them after accepting Jesus. But the reverse is the case in the present Church! Most of them like Saul who became Paul, were terrorists, criminals and assassins. They killed and did so much terrible things.
Some of them were harlots, convicts and all that. But when they met Christ, there was no turning back to the path of sin and wickedness. That was possible because they submitted totally to the demands of God’s saving grace and allowed it to do a work in them. It resulted in the very salvation they spent their days working out with fear and trembling! If you have not submitted your will to the grace of God to guide you daily, through the word of God, there will be no salvation in you to work out!
The Bible says it was God that worked in the people to will and to do of His good pleasure, it wasn’t just them. That means if there is no Christ in you, there cannot be Christ out of you! Sadly, many of us who confess that Christ is in us, cannot express Him through our characters, Christian conduct and etc.
Friend, if Christ is really in us, we will not be the ones telling people He is in us, they will see it and say, “Wahoo…this person has really changed. I can see Christ in him.” If you are the one shouting it, then He is not in you! Witches will testify in their inability to attack us if He is in us, devils will testify in their inability to ruin us if He is in us, the lost will testify in our ability to influence them to the LORD, with our godly nature, if He is in us.
Friend, we can go on and on, but like I have always said, this is a devotional not a book! May God use what have been shared to give someone an inheritance, among they that are sanctified! Amen
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:16-20 NKJV