TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 2ND DECEMBER 2024)
“All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:27-30 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 337TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
It is the second day of a new month, and we give God the glory for His marvelous works in our lives.
Like I said on this platform before, we started this year with a word from Him, and we have continued the year with a daily word from Him.
The natural Life is full of challenges and problems, however, a daily word from the LORD has a way of helping us pass through each day with refreshing in our spirits.
A day without a refreshing word from the LORD, can turn out to be very bad, depending on the circumstances that surround each person’s life.
The reason for all that is because our human spirits are designed to need a word from the LORD to thrive on earth. Israel was trained to feed from what comes out of the mouth of the LORD, instead of bread alone.
However, that was a return to original intent, because before the fall, Adam survived daily by eating from the tree of life among other trees in the Garden.
The Bible says,
“Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” Genesis 2:15-17 NKJV
As you may have known, there were so many trees in the Garden but two stood out because of their power and purpose.
The first was the tree of life which was responsible for keeping the body of man in the state of immortality. The second was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which was planted to serve as a school of divine laws for Adam.
Do not forget, he was a son of God whose primary purpose was to judge the fallen angels.
THE BIBLE TEACHES THAT JUDGMENT IS COMMITTED TO SONS.
Like I have always shared on so many platforms, God’s plan was for him to eat of the tree at a later date, so that he could come to the knowledge of good and evil, and understand the weight of Satan’s eternal crime for proper execution of divine judgment. He was God’s judge on earth.
So, Adam was restricted from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, not the tree of life. He was feeding from the tree of life.
His restriction made His freedom meaningful. It is important to know that our freedom in Christ also has restrictions. Freedom is only meaningful when guided by restrictions.
If your version of freedom in Christ is without restrictions, then you are in the captivity of self. It will soon turn into destruction. That is why you must govern your life with the laws of God.
Do not be too free to love the LORD and obey His laws. To not be too free to walk in sexual purity, and other forms of purity.
Understand that, though Adam enjoyed peace, when the devil deceived Eve and she made him to break the restriction of the Almighty on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a lot went bad eternally.
A lot can go bad in our lives when we break the laws of God, and walk in moral corruption and the carnality of the heart. The Bible says;
“Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever — therefore, the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.
So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.” Genesis 3:22-24 NKJV
CLEARLY, THINGS CANNOT REMAIN THE SAME IN OUR LIVES WHENEVER WE DISOBEY GOD.
From this scripture, it is clear that one of the things that went bad with Adam, when he broke the restriction of the LORD around the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was the loss of access to the tree of life, and exit from the Garden of Eden.
If mankind had not been denied access to it, it would have been impossible to redeem us from sin.
From the perspective of the New Testament, we can say access to it was denied so that access to it can be restored.
The tree of life today is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, our LORD and saviour who died on the cross to redeem us from the penalty, practice, and presence of sin.
Today, access to Jesus Christ is access to the tree of life. Which brings us to our devotional text for the day. The text says;
“All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:27-30 NKJV
If you look at this scripture, you will realize that the first verse is about the revealing of the Heavenly Father to man by Christ. Other parts have to do with coming to Christ to sit and learn so that you will have rest.
Meaning, there are two things we get from the tree of life Today; the revelation of the Heavenly Father and Rest.
The revelation of our Heavenly Father is also the revelation of the knowledge of God, because our Heavenly Father is our God.
His revelation is so powerful that it can give one a foretaste of immortality on this side of eternity, like the tree of life made Adam’s body immortal while in the Garden.
That is why the word of the LORD can bring healing to the Spirit, soul or body to grant us rest from diseases. It is the same way Immortality manifest in our mortal bodies on this side of eternity.
THERE IS SOMETHING ELSE WE CAN FIND IN THE SCRIPTURE OF OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT.
The text says,
“…..Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him. Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”
This scripture, further established that what we pluck from the tree of life today, as end time Church, is the revelation of the Father that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the Son brings.
In apostolic sense, it is the doctrine of Christ. When we absorb it, the result will be rest for our souls.
It is not complete Immortality we get on this side of eternity from what we pluck from the tree of life (the doctrine of Christ), but rest for our souls.
Rest in time and Eternity is what we get if we make use of the access that have now been granted to the present-day Tree of life and become intimate with Him.
The devil has replaced the doctrine of Christ with the doctrine of raising of altars, silencing of altars, redemption of first born, sowing of seeds, charging of altar, praying with oil, salt and water, spirit husband, lawless holy communion service, and etc.
That is why many do not have rest.
So many in our churches are restless because of that. They are restless because of being fed with these things – doctrines that are not from the tree of life, but from the greedy and ignorant hearts of the preachers, and the spirit of the anti-Christ.
The Bible says preachers like that are destroying and scattering the sheep of the LORD, and exposing them to unclean spirits to feed on them.
It says God will attend to them for the evil of their doing. He will judge them severely at the appointed time. But He will gather the sheep to fresh shepherds who will feed them with what He gives, His doctrine.
For example, we have seen People who used the oil given to them by these preachers, who do not feed souls from the tree of life, coming under heavy attacks for using them, with spirits walking in their houses and physically attacking them thereafter.
Indeed, they are destroying and scattering the sheep of the LORD.
Child of God, while you may not be able to stop these preachers from doing these evil things, and feeding people with wrong doctrines, you can separate yourself from them and find a preacher who can feed you with the doctrine of Christ, the only fruit from the tree of life that gives us rest from sorrows.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!” says the LORD.
Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel against the shepherds who feed My people: “You have scattered My flock, driven them away, and not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your doings,” says the LORD.
“But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase.
I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the LORD. Jeremoah 23:1-4 NKJV