TODAY’S DEVOTION (Sunday 3rd August 2025)
“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.”
“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.” Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 215TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
Today is the first Sunday of the month, and we thank the LORD for granting us the mercy to be alive and be given the breath, vigor and life to join fellow believers in corporate fellowship.
Indeed, we live in days of not forsaking the gathering of those God has made part of our journey of faith; a local church ordained for us. If you do not cherish church attendance now, you might, sadly speaking, wake up in hell to regret ever ignoring that church that you never allowed God to use to prepare you for the next life.
Jesus described our days as the days of Noah, where people will be carried away by marriage matters, and entertainment until the inevitable happens.
For many the inevitable will be death, and others the rapture of the Church. God does not want us swimming in the mundane. He wants us to become awakened in the Spirit because of the times we live in. He wants us in Churches that his Holy Spirit can use to prepare us for the inevitable.
If you are an Esau Christian, this might not make sense to you, but if you are a Jacob Christian, you will understand and become anxious to find a good Church where the God of the Bible is the God that is revealed, and the Jesus of the Bible the Jesus at work.
You will never want to worship in any oil using, holy water using, altar of sacrifice raising, silencing and breaking church.
You will desire to be in an assembly of men and women who are being discipled for Christ. You will desire to be part of a church that is your God given spiritual family; a place where you will be nurtured to fulfill your prophetic and eternal destiny.
The LORD has been speaking to us on this platform about destiny matters for some weeks now. Specifically, He has been showing us what our destiny needs to be fulfilled, and we have seen quite a lot.
TODAY WE WILL BE LOOKING AT THE NEXT THING OUR DIVINE DESTINIES NEED TO BE FULFILLED.
There are seven classes of eternal life, and from the lenses of those classes, you can see that so many Christians are either in the outer darkness or the outer court. You can also see that GOD wants everyone of us to press into the Holy Place and then the most Holy place, where the essence of the Christian faith takes place, and we can be the body of Christ indeed.
The reason many are not where God wants us to be is lack of pressing into the next grace dimension available in Christ, and if you are not pressing, you will become depressed. The evil one will catch up with you and press you out of divine will or ways.
Yes, like we do to the orange fruit, Satan will use evil and unreasonable men to successfully squeeze out the joy of the LORD in your life and make you hate being a Christian if you are not pressing into heights of grace, or faith you are yet to attain. The Bible teaches that the LORD expects us to yield to His grace and press from 30-fold to 60-fold, and from 60-fold to 100-fold.
Which brings us to the next thing our divine destiny will need to be fulfilled.
Our divine destiny will need a constant pressing into heights of grace and faith we have not tasted, depth of truth and revelation we are yet to know, levels of the anointing and the Spirit we are yet to encounter or carry, etc. before it can be fulfilled. Friend, if it is the kingdom of God, we are part of, then understand that such pressings will be necessary for the release of destiny.
The Bible says:
“The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is pressing into it. Luke 16:16 NKJV
TO PRESS YOURSELF INTO THE KINGDOM MEANS TO FORCE YOUR WAY INTO IT.
Yes, you must force your way into the Kingdom by going after heights of faith you are yet to attain in Christ, encounters with the LORD you are yet to have and other glorious experiences you are yet to taste with His Holy Spirit if the release of destiny is your vision.
It is important to understand that it will take a pressing or forcing your way into God’s grace dimensions for your destiny to be released.
Friend, if you do not press into the kingdom of God, you will never progress among the kingdom of men. It will take a constant pressing for progress to take your destiny from the declaration to the manifestation.
The plan of GOD for our lives is that we move and keep moving from a lower level of faith to a higher level of faith, a lower level of grace to a higher dimension of grace, a lower realm of glory to a higher realm of glory until our time on earth is over.
That is the only way we can unleash our destiny!! In our devotional text today, Paul wrote to the Church at Philippi those strong words that has shaped the destiny of many from generation to generation. It is a devotional text that stirs hunger for more of God.
It stirs a righteous desire for constant pressing.
There is, therefore, something about the scripture that needs urgent attention in our generation. That is why I believe the LORD had us to have it as our devotional text today. A major highlight in the text says,
“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.”
PAUL SHOWED US HOW DESTINY IS FULFILLED IN THIS SCRIPTURE.
He showed us the importance of pressing until heights one is yet to attain and living our days doing that. If we do not count the success or progress of yesterday as obsolete today and seek for fresh heights and depths to press into, we will not fulfill our destinies.
If everyone of us in the Church today begin to press into heights and depths in God that we are yet to taste, we will fulfil prophecies about the end time church. The Bible made it clear that she will be fair as the moon, clear like the Sun and terrible like an army with banners; a people Satan will fear.
If you become one of those who press into fresh heights or depth in God, you will be part of God’s moving army on earth and never know defeat. A moving spiritual army moves from faith to faith, truth to truth, grace to grace, and realm to realm. They do not camp at one spiritual height. That is why it always releases its destiny.
Samson made a major mistake in this regard and remains a bacon of truth for all of us. At the success peak of his life, he decided to camp around earthly things. The Bible says no one who engage in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life. The essence is to please Him, who enlisted him to be a soldier.
A true walk with God needs constant pressing into things yet to be revealed, to be revealed. It requires constant pressing into things in GOD’s redemptive plans for our lives or the generation we find ourselves that are yet to be made manifest or fulfilled. Any walk with GOD that does not keep a man pressing into fresh heights, widths and depths in God, is already dead.
It is a walk that will never result in the release of a man’s destiny in God.
You must learn to press into what God want to do next in your life, or with your life, after watching Him do one thing with it. If this kind of righteous walk is absent in your Christianity, then you will be stuck to a season that will open you up to the perils of life.
When it comes to matters of the Christian faith, no pressing, no progress – you must press from one level, width, height or depth to another, in order to be able to become all that God has predestined you to be. I pray for you today that as the curtains of this month open further, you will catch the fire and join us in our Believers’ Victory Seminar this week.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY.
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ”
“and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;”
“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
“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.”
“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 3:7-15 NKJV
