TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 24TH MARCH 2024)
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.” Philippians 3:12 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 84TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Permit us to begin our devotional today with this salutation, “Happy New Week.” This is the day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it.
This week we shall have our Passover as the Body of Christ. It is a remembrance of what happened over 2000 years ago. Jesus actually said we should do it as often as possible.
Howbeit, I bless GOD that over 2000 years ago, Jesus sacrificed His life on the Cross in a season like this, to save me and every other soul from the curse that the fall of man brought upon the human race.
It shuts the gates of eternal death forever and opened the gate of life.
If His death was the consequence of some criminalities, it would have not resulted in our redemption. But it was a sacrifice, that is why we are saved today.
Take a moment to thank God for your salvation. Use this day to celebrate your victory over eternal death and damnation. It is important to think of hell and how the death of Christ redeemed us from it.
Yes, it is important to remember how we became accepted by the LORD, and how the middle wall of partition was removed, especially for mankind to have unhindered access to our LORD and Maker.
Through Adam’s sin, we were separated from God and condemned, but through Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection, we were washed, sanctified, justified and reconciled back to God.
Now that we have been reconciled, we have peace with God through Him. We shall not be ashamed in the Day of Judgment. We shall not be thrown into the lake of fire on that great day when all men shall appear before the great white throne judgment.
Through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have escaped this judgment.
We will only appear before the judgment seat of Christ, where we will be rewarded for our works. Until then, we are to keep serving our generation according to His will, until our days are fulfilled.
Child of GOD, you will never know redemption is one of the greatest and sweetest gifts of GOD to mankind, until you cast a Bible gaze into approaching judgments.
THE WORST DAYS OF WORLD HISTORY ARE NOT BEHIND US, THEY ARE AHEAD OF US.
But God has redeemed us from the bad side and now call on the human race to come to the LORD Jesus, for safety. Only those who refuse to come will be lost when that future unfolds itself.
At the beginning of this season, I admonished that we make the week a prayer week because of the portals of glory that will open. I guess you are in the prayer room.
We also admonished that, we move from “prayer books,” back to the “prayer Spirit.”
In our devotional yesterday we highlighted one major spiritual eyesore that is killing the prayer Spirit – the rise in cases of Ecclesiastical intimidation and Charismatic witchcraft in the Church.
We stated how spiritual leaders and Church elders turn themselves into predators to devour their members who feel led to leave their Churches or ministries.
We discovered how this development is killing the prayer Spirit, and replacing it with hate driven prayer books called dangerous prayers. But today God has another word for us. Jesus lived a purpose driven life.
He lived, not to live but to die. That was His purpose. Death, burial, and resurrection were the primary purpose of His coming.
If He had only healed the sick, casted out demons, raised the dead, commanded the sea and waves to obey Him, led great crowds to truth, and succeed in these and other great things, without going to the cross, it would have been a waste.
He would have lived and died an unfulfilled life. His immaculate conception, the move of Heaven from Adam to Joseph, would have been a waste.
All He lived for would have been a wasted life. There would have been no season like this.
What is the lesson in all these? There are so many lessons. But one we can easily see is this, you can succeed in life by all human definitions of it, but your success will still be defined as an unfulfilled life, so long as the will of God for your life is concerned.
Life will be eternally beautiful, when you are not just pursuing success, but living your days for God’s eternal purpose for your life.
It is clear that there are things some of us have succeeded in, that are not really God’s purpose for our lives. Those things have a way of breeding worms from hell into our lives and eating us up.
SADLY, MANY DO NOT EVEN CARE. HENCE SPENDING THEIR DAYS PURSUING WHAT DOES NOT ETERNALLY MATTER.
For instance, getting and staying married is great but not an eternal purpose. Based on God’s original intent, it is simply an empowerment to fulfill an eternal purpose.
If therefore you take getting and staying married as your purpose for living, you will end up living a wasted Christian life.
When God Created Man, He gave Him purpose before giving him marriage. That is why no one can get or stay happily married until he or she has discovered their prophetic purpose and build his or her marital life around it.
Secondly, getting rich is not an eternal purpose. If making money is therefore, what you take as your divine purpose in Life as a Christian, you will live a wasted life like the rich fool in Luke 12:13-21, even if you succeed greatly in financial matters.
Whenever the revelation of divine purpose did not come before the release of prosperity, another rich fool will emerge.
God gave man purpose, before giving Him prosperity. You must not see financial prosperity as your purpose for living, but a means for the release of your eternal or divine purpose.
That is why some remain poor, until they discover God’s purpose for their life, get established in its revelation, and then get ready and begin to pursue it.
As soon as they become sold out, they will begin to experience the release of financial prosperity. In other words, money will begin to find them.
Understand that true prosperity is buried in a man’s prophetic purpose, not in his labor. That is why as soon as you discover God’s prophetic purpose for your life, and become sold out to fulfill it, money will begin to find you.
Getting money is an empowerment for the release of divine purpose, just as getting married is. We can go on and on and on.
Friend, there are so many things in life we take for divine purpose, which are not, but are basically empowerments and preparation for the release of divine purpose.
The Bible says Jesus was “going about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.” But if He had stopped there, got married and settled down into family life, like many of us do. That would have defeated His purpose.
INSTEAD, HE WENT TO THE CROSS IN A SEASON LIKE THIS, AND DIED FOR OUR REDEMPTION.
That was His purpose for coming. Marrying would have defeated that purpose. That was why He never got married.
Many are single today, because of ignorance and errors of the past.
But there are few who are single because marriage is not part of their empowerment for the release of their destiny.
This morning God is urging us to wake up to the revelation of our prophetic purpose. Our devotional text today was a statement Paul made. He said,
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
This man knew that getting saved was just the beginning of an eternal purpose driven life. He knew there was something that made God to arrest and got him saved, and was determined to find it.
He was also determined to tailor his life to it. That thing was his prophetic purpose.
Friend, until you press on to lay hold on your prophetic purpose, evil will keep laying hold of you. Blessings will never come to you, until you are rooted in God’s eternal purpose for your life.
People who have not laid hold on what made Christ to lay hold on them, will never live a peaceful life on earth. There is a reason Christ got you saved. Find it and spend the rest of your days dying for it.
Finally, I want to submit to you that when you step into prophetic purpose, you will step out of any form of captivity.
Permanent deliverance from all works of the devil is only released when a man steps into divine purpose.
The power of coming into divine purpose is the missing force in the lives of those who are still struggling with sin, poverty, satanic attacks, and other related things.
PRESSING INTO PROPHETIC PURPOSE IS A CATALYST OF DELIVERANCE AND DIVINE PRESERVATION.
The question now is how do we press into it? Prayer is the first key. It will bring you into the ideal spiritual place in the glory realm to step into and bring forth prophetic purpose.
That was why Jesus started with prayer (when the Holy Ghost drove Him into the wilderness to seek the LORD), continued in prayer (most times withdrawing Himself from the disciples and all that was seeking His attention), and ended in deep prayer in the garden of Gethsemane and on the cross.
If we do the contrary, we may know, but will never step into or unleash our prophetic purpose as Christians.
It’s a New Day for you! You will not fail in Jesus’ precious name. The LORD will be your keeper and sustainer.
I submit that you make this devotional your meditation today. If you do, there will be a revival fire in your spirit, and you will begin to press into God with a fresh anointing.
You will finally find yourself laying hold on that which made God to lay hold on you.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURAL TEXT AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.” Philippians 3:13-15 NKJV