TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 12TH DECEMBER 2024)
“If you faint in the day of adversity, Your strength is small. Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, “Surely we did not know this,” Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds? Proverbs 24:10-12 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 347TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Glory be to the LORD GOD for a brand-new day. The mercies of the LORD are new every morning. His faithfulness is from everlasting to everlasting.
The Bible says how great is His goodness stored up for those who fear Him. There is no end to the compassion that come from Him to us each day. In fact, the day it ends will mark our end, because we are alive because of His unconditional love.
I remember the first day I read what God said when His glory swept past Moses on mount Sinai, I was shocked at the expression of God’s love and compassion towards mankind in the statement. God is indeed, never tired of showing even the worst sinner love and compassion. The Bible says
“Now the LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD.
And the LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.” Exodus 34:5-7 NKJV
Now, deliverance preachers who have seen what God said in Ezekiel 18, will zero into the last statement that say “visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the Children” in their quest to teach about what they call evil pattern and all that. But there is a very beautiful portion of this scripture that presents to us how compassionate and kind our GOD is.
It says ““The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”
YOU CANNOT HAVE THIS KIND OF GOD BY YOUR SIDE OR IN YOUR LIFE AND WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING.
Previously, when Moses asked the LORD to show him His glory, God responded by saying He will make His goodness sweep pass him. That tells me God’s goodness is a major aspect of His glory. It is a glory product. When His glory is in our lives, His goodness will be on full display.
Now, what was it that qualified Moses for this great blessing from God? This beautiful encounter? The call of God upon his life and his commitment to fulfil it by God’s help qualified him. He went down to Egypt and represented God well.
He was in pursuit of God’s assignment for his life and requested for the presence of GOD to be with them, and then requested to see the glory. Both requests received answers from the LORD.
People who pursue their God given assignments, will not lack God granted encounters. They will know what to seek God for and will grant it speedily. If we seek God for Heavenly things that are required for the release of our destiny, He will not deny us. But if we seek Him for things that are unconnected, we will die praying without getting any result.
One of the major assignments that is hanging on all believers is practical Christian living.
Our destinies as believers are released through practical Christian living. If you say you are saved and those touching you, or the ones you are touching are not being made morally whole, the way people who touched Christ were made physically whole, you are not releasing your destiny as a believer.
Concerning Christ, the Bible says;
“Wherever He entered, into villages, cities, or the country, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged Him that they might just touch the hem of His garment. AND AS MANY AS TOUCHED HIM WERE MADE WELL.” Mark 6:53-56 NKJV (Emphasis mine).
The world is sick with an eternal illness that is making it morally bankrupt, God-less and Christ-less or anti-Christ.
SADLY, A MAJOR PART OF WHAT WE CALL CHURCH IS SICK ALSO WITH THE SAME ILLNESSES.
Many are under the grip of eternal death through the activities of hell that has stricken their souls and spirits with the eternal illness mentioned. God’s redemption plan is that they touch us and be made whole. His plan is that through the release of our destinies as believers, they are made whole.
Sadly, many of us believers, are not unleashing our destinies as Christians. That is why many souls are still sitting in the shadow of death, hell and grave – the three gates of the enemy.
The world is slipping into hell daily and the perverted church too, yet we seem not to even know that it’s our job to stop that. We seem to be more interested in God solving our problems than getting involved in the rescue of the eternally damned
souls that are both in the Church and the world.
But our devotional text made it clear that even if we are in the midst of adversity, our destiny of rescuing the eternally damned through practical Christian living must not change. We must not faint in adversity and make our problems the main thrust of walking with God. We should keep delivering the eternally damned like our fathers did, even in fiery trials and adversities. It says;
“If you faint in the day of adversity, Your strength is small. Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and old back those stumbling to the slaughter.
If you say, “Surely we did not know this,” Does not He who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, does He not know it? And will He not render to each man according to his deeds? Proverbs 24:10-12 NKJV
When Jesus was Physically on earth, He spent each day after 30 years of age, rescuing those who are drawn to eternal death. He did not feign ignorance like we do today, and that is what He has called us to do; to walk in His footsteps of changing those around us through practical Christianity.
The Bible says,
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it”. John 14:12-14 NKJV
Scriptures like this make me wonder if all of us who profess Christ have really believed in Him, because there is not such fruit in our faith. Present day believers are not doing the works Jesus did, come to talk of greater works.
OUR FAITH IS NOT PRODUCING THE WORKS HE SAID THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN HIM WILL DO, MEANING MANY OF US HAVE NOT REALLY BELIEVED IN HIM.
That kind of practical Christianity our fathers had, we still lack. Which is why we pray prayers that are not answered. Until we begin to do the works He did, and even greater in quantity than He did, we will never come to the place of “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it”
This is the place of amazing divine attention, which if all of us have, none of us will be running after prophets for miracles or worshiping the so-called papas for miracles. We will all know how to produce them by our selves and change the world for the LORD.
Sadly, there are so many enemies of the cross among us preachers who are preventing the Church from coming to the fulness of the stature of Christ so long as practical Christian living is concern. Consequently, people now pray for days, fast for weeks and do not see results.
There is no grace of divine attention in so many lives, hence making them depend on some prayer warriors and preachers who display themselves as the great power of GOD for help.
These heretic pastors and false prophets are having a field day on the innocent. Conditioning their miracles on money or some deliverance rituals by the demon of deliverance, they have succeeded in keeping many in a state of needing them all the time.
Keeping people in a state of needing the preacher all the time is a major enemy of practical Christian living. It stalls the faith of Christians and makes it important in doing what Jesus did.
There is also those doctrine of we are saved by faith and not by works that prevent people from living practical Christian lives, especially in the area of morality. But let me share this with you.
YOU SEE, FAITH WITHOUT FRUIT OR WORKS IS DEAD. THAT IS WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS.
Now, salvation indeed is not by works but by faith. However, we must understand which of the faith because there are two kinds of faith. There is the faith with works as fruits, which is a living Faith, and there is a faith without works, which is a dead faith. You find that in the book of James chapter 2.
We are not saved by the faith that lacks corresponding works of righteousness. We are saved by the faith that HAS corresponding works of righteousness. So, if your faith has no works, it is dead. It will not save you in the day of Judgment.
A faith with a sinful life as fruit is a faith that will lead someone to hell. Let no one confuse you about that. The Bible says;
“Boys (lads), let no one deceive and lead you astray. He who practices righteousness [who is upright, conforming to the divine will in purpose, thought, and action, living a consistently conscientious life] is righteous, even as He is righteous.” 1 John 3:7 AMPC
I believe the message of today has been passed. God wants us to have a faith with works as its fruits; works of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, touching the lost world and the sick Church to make them whole. That is practical Christianity.
Even in the day of adversity, we are not expected to depart from it. Anything outside that is a form of godliness without power. The Bible says from such turn away.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONLA MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“But understand this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear].
For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane.
[They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good.
[They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will
be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God.For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 AMPC