TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 1st JULY 2024)
“And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, “Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”
Then Simon answered and said, “Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.” Acts 8:18-24 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 182nd DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
It is the first day of a new month, we give God the glory for His marvelous works in our lives. Day unto day He has been showing us mercies. We are beneficiaries of His love, His grace, and His blessed will.
His love has been stronger than our sins, iniquities, or trespasses.
That is why He has been forgiving us, chastising us where necessary, urging and purging us to live right, cleansing our hearts with sanctifying truths to keep them pure in His eyes, and making sure iniquity is not our ruin. He has kept us alive despite the circumstances of our lives.
Also, we give Him the glory for the just concluded Destiny Matters Apostolic Conference. It was indeed a conference of destiny. The LORD enriched us with great truths and amazing move of His Spirit. It was a meeting of meetings, God made it so.
I pray this month will mark the beginning of amazing things in our lives. God is faithful and true, that we can testify. It is His faithfulness that has kept us, and will still keep us this month, even as we keep seeking Him.
Yes, seeking Him is the only way to survive an ecosystem like the one we live in. One way we seek Him is by prayer, righteous prayers.
Righteous Prayer is the only way we breathe in and out Spiritually.
It is the only way we breathe in God’s mercy and grace, resulting in His deliverance, healing, peace, and etc. in our lives, and breathe out whatever is making our lives uncomfortable. That is why if it is not righteous prayer, do not go there. You will end up getting nothing divine.
It is a New Month, we will need to keep breathing in God’s mercies, grace and etc., daily through righteous prayer. Yes, righteous prayers! That is all we need to breathe in Heavenly wisdom and breathe out our foolishness.
An hour you spend with God in righteous prayers, is an investment with a turn over that can take you for the whole day and even more. In Genesis 15, Abraham had just one moment with the LORD, it did not just take him through that whole day, it brought forth what the entire world is still reaping from.
AN AFFECTIVE PRAYER TIME WITH THE LORD, CAN CHANGE A LOT IN OUR LIVES
Jesus had one moment with GOD in the Garden of Gethsemane, and He received the strength form God, as man, to overturn what happened in the Garden of Eden. Prayer in one Garden led to redemption from the things that happened to the human race in another.
That is what righteous prayers can do.
The entire journey of Christ on earth was one of righteous prayers and intimacy with GOD. If we try to lead our earthly lives the other way, we will not see the peace He enjoyed despite dying on the cross to redeem us. At one time, He said to our fathers, His first set of disciples;
“I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” John 14:30 NKJV
If the prince of this world will have nothing in us like he never had in Christ, we must learn to live our lives from the prayer knee.
A life of righteous prayers can protect one from the foot hold Satan uses a man’s carnal moments to create. It can enhance our spiritual sensitivity in a perverse and crooked generation.
It is therefore important to note that there is no way a man can survive a world like ours without spending his days from the prayer knee. The prayer knee is a humbling position to live a glorious life from. Engage it daily this month because the days are dangerous.
Now when it comes to prayer, there is so much that need to be known because a lot of things that are not Godly are being done in the name of prayers. People do not know that the prayer realm is one realm that the devil often wants to reveal himself or participate in.
IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THAT, THERE ARE PRAYER MEETINGS THAT DEMONS HAVE EVEN ORGANIZED AND EMPOWERED.
The enemy hates righteous prayers, hence will do anything to make sure we do not get to the realm of righteous prayers. One of the many things he is doing is in the area of bringing in sorcerers and magicians in the name of God to mix the prayer spirit with the demonic.
There is the aspect of paying for prayers to be made on your behalf that is being practiced in many religious circles. Prayer is not supposed to be commercialized. But in those religions people are made to pay amounts of money to engage special people to call on the supernatural for them.
Sadly, we find the same practice in the Christian faith. In living each day from your prayer knee, you must know these truths. Make sure you pray from the position of righteous prayers.
I have seen where the rich, who have no time for God, pay the poor who have, to keep praying for them. So long as the realm of righteous prayers is concern, this is absurd, very ungodly and Satanic.
Also, there are preachers and so-called prayer warriors who have made fortune out of that.
I have come to realized that whenever money is involved in spiritual transaction, the spirit of lawlessness is at work there. There is a kingdom rule that was practiced by Christ when praying for people. Same was committed to His Church when He was handing over to the early apostles. He said to them;
“And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.
Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food.” Matthew 10:7-10 NKJV
There is no way you can Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons without praying for people.
In other words, Jesus was saying, we should engage righteous prayers in bringing down the supernatural power of God to intervene in human situations as we preach the kingdom or represent Him. Then the golden rule for doing that was given at the end of the same statement.
HE SAID; “FREELY RECEIVE, FREELY GIVE”
Meaning, as we do that, as we pray for the people, prophesy His word of deliverance or preach to them, nothing should be commercialized. That also means there was commercialization of the supernatural in His days. There were people collecting money, before or after praying for others.
Obviously, those were cults and dark religions, because as you would find out shortly, it is in the kingdom of darkness that people pay money for supernatural things to happen to them, not the kingdom of God.
We should be very careful when money becomes involved in prayer matters.
It is in the kingdom of darkness that you pay special prophets, prayer warriors and preachers to engage the supernatural for you through prayers. The Kingdom of God has no such practices. The king of the Kingdom, Jesus Christ, did not do it when He was physically on earth, none of those who belonged to him did then, and none does it now.
If you find any so-called prayer warrior, prophet, prophetess, and etc. in any church or prayer house or shrine doing that, they are not part of Christ. They are impostors!
However, that also does not mean that all who pray for people not doing that are of God. There are religious cult that pray for you freely, then you go to give money later. They make themselves prayer contractors or make you pray yourself sometimes.
The bottom-line is, any prayer activities that is not interested in your eternal life or in building you up to become a temple for GOD in the Spirit, but is just interested in getting you the miracle or intervention you came seeking for, is a demonic prayer activity.
That brings us to our devotional text.
Our devotional text has the story of the first-time money was involved in spiritual transaction in a church system. Prior to that time no one had ever paid for prayers or given money to get any gift from God in a church system.
NO GIFT OF GOD WAS COMMERCIALIZED UNTIL THAT INCIDENT, AND NO ONE IN GOD’S KINGDOM MADE ANY ATTEMPT TO DO SO.
But one day Philip got into Samaria to preach the gospel an met a sorcerer by the name Simon. After depleting and closing down the man’s Church through Righteous preaching, the man pretended to have given his life to Christ and joined Philip’s Church.
Unlike now, then there was apostolic order in doing the things of GOD or engaging in ministry.
So, Philip followed the order and stepped aside for Peter to come in so that the apostolic can take over from where the evangelistic stopped in establishing the people in the faith. That was when the hidden hypocrisy of the Sorcerer was revealed.
When he saw How Peter was demonstrating the supernatural and releasing the gift of God to the people freely, he offered him money to be able to do the same. That is what sorcerers you call prophets do!
He was used to offering money and collecting same for spiritual transaction when he had his congregation, and decided to repeat it in the congregation that had gathered around the true word of the LORD. But Peter did what many of our spiritual fathers cannot do.
A major aspect of our devotional text said;
But Peter said to him, “Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money! You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.
Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.”
In this scripture we see why some preachers commercialize the gospel and related Christian practices like prayer. We see why people pay money for prayers to be made for them, and why prayer people or prophets collect such monies from them like Balaam did.
1. They think that the gift of God can be purchased with money.
2. They have no part or portion in the kingdom of God; meaning they are impostors who are trying to pervert the ways of God, some knowingly, others unknowingly.
3. Their hearts are not right before GOD.
4. They are controlled by the spirit of wickedness.
5. Most of them are poisoned by bitterness.
6. They are bound by iniquity.
THIS CALLS FOR A TOTAL SEPARATION
Yes, a total separation from people, Churches, preachers, ministries, prophets, prophetess, and shrines that collect money for anything in the name of God. It calls for a total separation from all who commercialize anything in the Kingdom of God.
The answer and rebuke Simon the sorcerer got from Peter is what these breeds of people should get from us as we preach the gospel and enforce righteousness. They may call us devils or cult like we are being called, but we must remain resolute and uncompromising.
As we bring this to a close, always remember that prayer and any other thing in God’s kingdom is not a commercial product. If you commercialize prayers you have perverted the ways of God, and there will be judgment. Learn to follow the word of the LORD not the sentiments of preachers or any prayer person.
If you want to operate in the prayer realm of God’s kingdom, you must stay away from sorcerers and magicians you call people of God. You must be careful of men and women in God’s garment who do things God never commanded in his word using twisted scriptures.
I believe God has spoken to us this morning.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.
They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness. Isaiah 8:19-22 NKJV