TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 15th August 2025)
Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16:17-19 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 227TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
Glory to God who has given us another day to get ourselves ready for the next life! Sadly, people do not know that the primary reason for days is for man to get ready for the next life. The next life is life after death. The Bible says,
“Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil.” Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 NKJV
The days of our entire earthly lives are seeds given to us to get ready for eternal life – which sadly for some, will be in the lake of fire and others with Jesus. We have been looking at the things that our divine destiny needs to be fulfilled, the next one is heart on preparing for the next life.
You cannot fulfill anything in God if you do not live getting ready for the next life. Everyone who ever fulfilled an assignment in God’s kingdom and ended well had their eyes fixed on that Heavenly city which has foundation, whose maker and builder is GOD.
They lived each day getting ready for the next life!! The Bible says:
“For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return.
But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.” Hebrews 11:14-16 NKJV
If you will fulfill your destiny, you must run the race of life doing exactly what the men and women in this scripture did.
YOU MUST LIVE EACH DAY GETTING READY FOR THE NEXT LIFE.
How do we get ready for the next life? The answer is simple. We get ready for the next life by making use of our days to serve others according to the will of GOD and live a personal life that is well pleasing to God on daily bases.
The easiest way to spend our days as Children of GOD is to spend them obeying God. We go down to our beds at evening very happy any day we spend doing the will of God alone. The joy that kindles our hearts is a major sign that we spent the day doing the right thing.
Understand that obeying God is the reason for a given day. Yes, spending a day obeying God and doing His blessed will is the reason God wakes us up each morning.
The Bible tells us what our lives will become if we spend each day GOD allows us to see doing obeying Him and doing His blessed will. It says, “If they obey and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.” (Job 36:11 NKJV).
Spending your days obeying God is the best way to live your life. If we want to see good in our lives, we must spend our days doing GOD’s will and obeying His word. We must see days as seeds sown into our lives by God to enable us to obey Him and do his blessed will.
UNTIL THIS TRUTH IS FIXED IN OUR HEARTS, OUR LIVES WILL NEVER SEE ENDURING PEACE AS GOD SAID!
Sadly, many of us spend our days planning our own things and seeking the success of our own desires. The virus the scripture calls “self-seeking” has plagued so many of us who call ourselves Christians, filling our lives with pains and most times reproaches.
The Bible says if we are self-seeking (instead of God seeking) – if we spend our days doing our own thing – we will fill our lives with tribulations.
“But to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness — indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek;” Romans 2:8-9 NKJV
Many of us humans spend our days obeying unrighteousness hence all the problems we have. We spend our days in bitterness, sexual gratification, selfishness, wickedness and responding faithfully to our carnal nature. That is the wrong way God designed that we spend any day of our lives.
When you spend your days responding positively to the lust of your flesh, the lust of your eyes, the pride of your life, and the deceitfulness of riches around, you are spending your days obeying unrighteousness, and you will have yourself to blame.
No one can spend his or her days in prosperity and pleasure if the person is using the days God gives them to obey unrighteousness in any way. At best you will be given the prosperity of hell and the pleasures of this world by the enemy of your soul to trap you further.
Self-seeking people are very destructive people. They destroy themselves and, in the process, destroy others. You find some using others like disposable napkins. We have self-seekers masquerading as kingdom seekers both among the clergy and the laity.
The clergy are the preachers, and the laity the Church members! Those among Church members, will use true men and women of God to get miracles and breakthroughs then abandon them, thereafter, making the immature preachers among us gets angry at them.
They will use servants of God to fulfill their selfish desires and when they are through, they dump them, calling them all kinds of unprintable names and find another preacher to ruin.
BUT GOD JUDGES – JEHOVAH SEES!
The self-seeking people among the clergy are not different. They use Church members and manipulate them to believe certain lies. They use proceeds from ministry to open businesses and run companies, departing from the kingdom ideals Jesus demonstrated and established for His ministers.
Most teach doctrines of demons and that of men, enthroning money and fame seeking teachings above Heaven making doctrines.
Some self-seeking preachers cling only to the rich and when they have sucked them dry, they give them names and dump them for fresh unfortunate rich members who join their Churches because they heard them say something that fed their gullible nature. But this morning, there is a short message in our devotional text.
Major highlight in it says,
“Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.”
Before Peter got here, he had defeated SELF and demonstrated it by leaving all the success he got in his business to follow Jesus! The Bible says,
“For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken; and so also were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon. And Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid. From now on you will catch men.”
So when they had brought their boats to land, they forsook all and followed Him.” Luke 5:9-11 NKJV
It takes selflessness to leave a very successful business for full-time ministry! I mean this man just got the greatest miracle in his fishing career – he got the highest catch ever and did not even think of going to sell it and gain some economic fatness. He just left all and followed Jesus.
I WONDER WHO HE LEFT IT FOR! BUT SELF DIED.
That was why He qualified for the keys of the kingdom! God does not choose the qualified; He qualifies the Chosen. But if the chosen person decides to be selfish, he will be disqualified for any good work in the Kingdom. That is the difference between those who have kingdom keys in their hands and those who do not have.
God does not give heavenly keys to selfish people. That is why everyone you find in the Bible doing exploits with some kingdom keys in their hands overcome the self-seeking virus – from the widow of Zarephath down in Sidon to our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ, to all the warriors in Hebrew 11 – the hall of faith. Our generation cannot be different!
Without Heavenly keys you will not be able to come out of earthly perils. You will not be able to access things that have been loosed in heaven for your life here on earth to become peaceful, prosperous and fulfilling in Christ Jesus!
That is why everyone who is SPIRITUALLY KEYLESS depends on someone for prayers and spiritual help. The will of God is that we all become full of keys to be able to deal with the devil and solve the perils of life.
Sadly, many do not care about seeking GOD until He drop Heavenly keys in their hands. We forget that doors can only be opened with keys not prayer except that prayer itself is a key. I believe the message of today has been passed.
As we bring this to a close, we understand that if you are not living your days preparing for the next life, you will not be able to fulfill your divine destiny. To live your days preparing for the next life, you must not be self-seeking but kingdom seeking. It is kingdom seekers God give the keys of His kingdom to, not self-seekers.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. John 15:12-14 NLT
