TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 2ND SEPTEMBER 2024)
“So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.” Exodus 23:25 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 246TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Today we will continue with God’s plan for our health.
Yesterday we shared that God wants us healthy, and that sickness is not His original plan for our life. It takes healthy bodies to serve Him and do great things for Him. If you do not have that, it would be difficult to do great feats for Him.
The central theme of our devotional yesterday was a revelation about the stone to roll away for our health to come out of any grave of sicknesses and diseases. We learned that there is something to do to be saved from health problems, and that can only be revealed to us personally by the Holy Spirit.
It is important to note that the Holy Spirit can use scriptures to show us things that we can do to be saved from illnesses, or things that we can keep doing for God to keep making our lives healthy, peaceful, prosperous, and beautiful.
Yes, the stones to keep rolling away for us to keep experiencing regular visitations from God.
One of it is the stone of not being useful to God in any way. In other words, the stone of living a life that is un-useful to God. Can someone be un-useful to God? You may ask!! What does it mean to be un-useful to God?
That is what we will be looking at today. We will be looking at what it means to be useful, and that will help us to know what it means to be un-useful.
In the meditational text of yesterday, we found out that a prison officer asked the apostles who were imprisoned for preaching the gospel, “What must I do to be saved.” The apostles responded, “Believe in the LORD Jesus, you shall be saved you and your house.”
In Christ, there are certain things to do to be saved from any diseases, or problem of life. It is not raising an altar, drinking oil, using salt to pray, breaking a pot or buying spiritual gadgets from prophets to use. That will save the prophet from earthly needs. It will never save you permanently from anything.
WHAT TO DO TO BE SAVED IS IN THE WOMB OF THE HOLY SPIRIT, THE TESTIMONY OF JESUS CHRIST.
If the prophetic goes active, it will use the scriptures to tell you so many things to do, pointing out which is applicable to your situation. We are going to look at this one that bothers on being useful to God.
As you go through the devotional, my prayer is that you will listen to the Holy Spirit and let Him whisper to you if this is applicable to your case. Our devotional text today says,
“..You shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.”
Meaning serving Jesus in spirit and in truth, brings healing to our sick bodies. It puts God in position to take away any sickness or diseases from us. It is one way we can be useful to Him.
In simple terms, being useful to God through kingdom services to Him, can bring His arm upon our lives, to heal our diseases, and make our lives beautiful.
God said it will make Him take sickness away from our midst, bless our bread and bless our water. What a promise from a promise keeper!!
I have enjoyed the blessing of divine healing and health for over 31 years now. The reason is not because I am holy or righteous. Sin still lives in me like in everyone else, and I have not ceased from trusting God daily not to live in it. So, the reason is not righteousness.
The reason is simply because I made up my mind not to live a life that is not useful to God when I was a teenager, and have kept to that decision since then. God on His part, has also kept His word by making sure He takes sickness away from me whenever it comes, and keep me healthy.
If you want to see how faithful God can be, just find out your part in a word of promise made in His word, and keep it. Then you will see Him keeping His part. In this case, He said, “if you are useful to me, I will keep you healthy. I will not only keep you healthy, I will make your life beautiful.”
I am a living testimony of that. I know many others are also living testimonies!! Kingdom service is one thing you must do to be saved from sickness and diseases. Serving God unconditionally with our talent, our treasures and our time is one way we can be useful to God, and that is one way to have the arm of the LORD on our lives, healing us, and saving us from life problems.
Now, there are people who are busy in Church but even in their busyness, they are still un-useful to God. In fact, they are rather useful to the evil one and the antichrist in Church. They are involved in empty church services but not God’s kingdom advance services.
YES, SOME ARE INVOLVED IN SERVING MEN OF GOD WITH MONEY OR FAME BUT WITH NO GLORY OF GOD IN THEIR LIVES.
You are not useful to God if you are serving what is not advancing His immediate present will or kingdom. Understand that, it is possible to be useful to Church systems and preachers, who you do not know are cut off from God, thinking you are useful to God.
That is why you find people who are busy in church still not experiencing the blessing. Some are serving the right mandates but with wrong motives or methods. They are not faithful. They are involved in religious service instead of kingdom advance service.
Kingdom advance service is different from Church or religious service. While Church and religious services are always good ideas conceived to move the work of God forward, Kingdom service is purely God’s idea. It has no religious or human stain.
That is why in kingdom service, you serve the right mandate in God’s way, God’s will, God’s time, and God’s method, thereby becoming useful to Him.
Sadly, many are involved in what they think is God’s work, but in reality, it is not, that is why they are not seeing the blessing of divine health or healing. No one can be involved in Kingdom service without being kept healthy by the KING of kings and LORD of lords Himself.
No one who is useful to God will be ignored by God when they run into life problems. No one who serves God according to His perfect will for his or her life will be ignored by God when sickness and diseases comes. He or she will be considered in the court of divine settlement too useful to God to be ignored.
BY GOD’S GRACE, I HAVE SERVED GOD ALL MY LIFE BUT HAVE NEVER BEEN INVOLVED IN RELIGIOUS OR CHURCH SERVICES.
I discovered early in life that they are the most foolish ways to serve God. You will just be laboring in vain and bringing forth for trouble, while people will be celebrating you as an active church member. I have always been involved in God’s Kingdom advance services both in Church and outside the Church.
Friend, if you want to be useful to God, do not ignore the counsel of the LORD in this devotional, find out what He created you to do with your life, and live your days doing it. Find out how He wants you to serve Him, and live your days serving Him how He wants you to serve Him. Do not do anything to please anyone.
I have heard of Christians who served and served and served until they become sick and died at even very early ages. Making things appear as if God is not faithful to His promises. But the truth is, they served, but in their service, they were not useful to God.
You have to be careful of working for God and not working with God.
If you ask many of us in Church today, we will tell you how we just came back from this crusade to preach to the lost, that hospital to pray for the sick, this camp meeting, or how we clean up the Church every day, sing in the Choir, and do not miss a weekly meeting. We will tell you all we are doing for God, how we are serving our pastors, visiting the poor and giving them support, and etc.
Many do some, or all of these things, and still remain the way they are in the area of peace, health and etc. They do all that and are still sick terribly. Others do all that and when trouble come, they will still be told to raise an altar, silence one, or sow a seed to be free.
Friend, if you are truly useful to God, He will not ask you to raise an altar or silence one when trouble comes. You will not need to use salt, oil, water or any gadget in prayer to be free. You will not need to sow a seed or do anything when sicknesses, diseases or any life problems comes.
God will just step in and take away the sickness, disease, or life problem from you. The word of the LORD this morning is clear. Be useful to God, and you will see how your life will become beautiful. You will see God fighting for you, and you holding your peace.
You will see Him defeating the evil forces rising against you and making a way for you even where there is no way.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY
“So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.
No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.” Exodus 23:25-26 NKJV