TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Thursday 10th December 2020)
“Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.” Daniel 11:32 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 343RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
One beautiful thing about each day that the LORD enables us to see, is the benefits he loads into them. David saw it and said “Blessed be the LORD who daily loads us with benefits, the GOD of our salvation” (Psalm 68:19 NKJV). He went on to say “our GOD is the GOD of salvation; and to GOD the LORD belong escapes from death” (Psalm 68:20 NKJV).
If we look deeply into our lives this year, we can see the manifestation of this scriptures. We are all alive today because God loaded us with benefits for the 343 days of this year that we have seen. Yes, we are alive today because He helped us escape death.
For us at the Spiritual Family of the Cry of the Spirit Ministries, it’s been more than all that; it’s been 343 days of trying to build our lives around the Kingdom power and glory of God! Though we failed Him in so many ways, He never failed us. If He had failed us the way we failed Him, then there would have been no us today.
Indeed, He does not deal with us according to our sins. It is our sins that deal with us according to our SINS.
There has been no year that the LORD schooled us in the things of God like this year. That is what tells us that we are going somewhere! Because when Elijah was told “rise and eat” it was because a journey was ahead of him. There was an Elisha to train and a Jehu and Hazael to push into destiny.
By God’s grace, our lives changed significantly this year and are still changing, because there is more work to be done. God enabled us to look with unveiled faces into His word this year as never before; He helped us to behold as in a mirror His glory through strong word sessions leading to amazing changes in our lives.
The Bible says;
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV
One of the major lessons to draw this year lies in what a man builds his life around. We took time to build our lives around the word of the LORD, and it helped some of us greatly.
YOU SEE, WHAT YOU BUILD YOUR LIFE AROUND WILL ULTIMATELY AFFECT YOU POWERFULLY.
That is why it’s dangerous to do wickedly against the covenant. Doing wickedly against the covenant is not building your life around God and His word; it will result in leading a Christian life without an intimate knowledge of God. And since there can be no vacuum in the spirit, if we are not building our lives around GOD and His word, we will build it around other things.
Life can be ‘terribly’ shaped by any negative things we build our lives around. For instance, if you build your life around pornographic pictures (motion or static), no amount of prayer will be able to save you from sexual perversion. If you build your life around past sexual experiences you had, no determination to lead a godly life will work. You will find yourself going back to your sinful life from time to time.
People of God, we must learn to train our minds to be able to pull down any thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of GOD. But that can only be possible if we build our daily lives around God and His word. What you build your life around is what determine what your character becomes.
If you build your life around looking at the opposite sex lustfully, you will become a sexual pervert one day. It will just be a matter of time.
It may interest you to know that we do not just fall into sexual sins. We walk into it, because sexual sins are not just a problem but a result. They are mostly as a result of seasons of building our minds around, either the feelings that the activity generate, the thoughts that come into our minds, or the people we sexually admire.
That is why, when your mind begins to go there, you must pull it back else you find yourself there! But if you do not build your daily life around God’s word and active presence, you will not always win the battle.
Building our lives around people or things that do not minister grace to us is the reason for so many wrong things that happens in our Christian lives. So many we cannot stand in God for a long time have their lives wrapped around people, places and other things that do not minister grace to them from time to time.
YOU WILL NEVER BECOME A FIRE BRAND CHRISTIAN IF YOUR DAILY LIFE IS NOT BUILT AROUND PEOPLE OR THINGS THAT MINISTERS GRACE TO YOU!
A lot of people are wrapped around people who hate God.
If you build your life around people who hate God, or turn their back on the gospel, or worst still look saved on the outside but have not true relationship with the LORD, you will find yourself failing and finally become like them.
But if you build your life around God chasers; people who will want to have nothing less than the glory of God, you will find yourself able to overcome personal sins and other forms of spiritual struggles and finally become like them.
If you build your life around churches, ministries or fellow Christians who are full of hypocrisy, sexual defilement, and lies, you will become like them.
But if you build your life around Churches, ministries and fellow believers who function like the gate of Heaven on earth for you, with a portal of glory opened over their lives, you will live under a grace that will always keep you going. The only thing that will hinder you from becoming a spiritual giant is if you are not willing at heart to follow the LORD as they do!
Anything we build our lives around will be made manifest in our lives. Our lives are products of what we our spirits absorb on daily bases. They are products of what we faithfully expose ourselves to on daily bases.
You see, our human spirits are like soft materials that absorb the spiritual content of whatever we hang around – clean or unclean. That is why any generation that will not hang around the true God, or people who minister grace to others, will have sin and even devils hanging around them.
Our devotional text said,
“those who do wickedly against the covenant shall the devil corrupt.”
Like earlier stated, doing wickedly against the covenant can be very dangerous. It has become the spiritual plague plaguing many in the Church today. We do not even know that salvation is a covenant thing; hence a call for a covenant walk with God. And there are four basic covenants to build our lives on as Christians.
THE FIRST IS THE COVENANT OF GRACE.
I wrote about these things in our book RIDING ON COVENANT WINGS!
The covenant of Grace and redemption demands that we build our daily lives continually around the presence of our LORD and savior Jesus Christ, His HOLY word and Holy Spirit. Anything short of that will expose us to the corruption of the devil.
Sadly, so many of believers today are heading for hell, deceived that they are heading for Heaven. The reason for this is simple; we have been corrupted by the devil for not keeping the covenant of grace. If you do not keep the covenant of grace you will lose your salvation without knowing, you have lost it.
It takes a few alert ones to know when they have lost their salvation. That is why the once saved forever saved theory is very bad. It blindfolds you and takes away the alertness required to keep one’s salvation.
Those who lose their salvation have a way of filling the void with religious activities. You find them singing for God even on the beds of sexual immorality. You find many crucifying Christ again, and causing His heart to bleed without even realizing it’ Yet singing “I am a friend of God.”
A friend of God hangs around God not sin!
The Bible made it clear that the fruit of hanging around God is holiness. It is a life of no darkness at all, because God is light (holy) in Him there is no darkness at all. It will always lead to frustrations if you attempt to lead a holy life without hanging around God to enable you.
If you attempt to lead a godly life without creating time to be with God daily, and absorb grace from His Holy presence, you will only become a hypocrite. You will become a Christian who professes that he knows god but deny Him like Paul warned. He wrote to Titus saying;
“They profess to know GOD (to recognize and be acquainted with Him), but by their actions they deny and disown Him. They are detestable and disobedient and worthless for good work or any kind.” Titus 1:16 Amplified Version
If we do not want our Christian lives to fit this description, we must become believers who hang around God daily to absorb grace from His presence. We must have people around us who minister grace to us on daily bases. We must attach ourselves to things that activate God’s grace in other people.
THAT IS HOW NOT TO DO WICKEDLY AGAINST THE COVENANT OF GRACE.
If you truly take stock of your life this year, you will realize that they enemy had upper hand over you only in times and seasons that you did wickedly against the covenant. Yes, he took you down the cleaners when you dropped from hanging around the LORD and absorbing grace from Him. That was when sinful thoughts came; things you could not pull down, until you find yourself in sin.
But you can make the rest of the year and 2021 a season of “doing righteously for the covenant.” How? You may ask! Our devotional text gave us the answer. It says,
“But the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.”
Hallelujah!
To know God, is much more than having head knowledge of Him.
The word “know” in Daniel 11:32 is the same word that was used when the Bible said AND ADAM “KNEW HIS WIFE”. The result was conception. It is a word that denotes intimacy – it calls for spending time with God on daily bases the way a man spends time with the wife, until conception take place in your spirit.
It calls for hanging around God to absorb His glorious presence until we conceive the riches of His grace, the riches of His glory, and the riches of His mercies in our spirits. Only then can we begin to do exploit.
Christianity was designed to spring from God on daily bases. It is what spring from God on daily bases that make our Christianity true.
True Christianity is not a religion but a Heavenly life on earth. Hanging around God is the only way you can have that Heavenly life on earth. That is why we do not get tired of conferences, meetings and now Church in the House services at the Cry of the Spirit ministry. We love helping people to hang around God!
I believe the message of today have been passed. Now take the baton and run with it. The race is right before you. Winning should be our only option. That is why we are always encouraged by the LORD to get up and return to the race if we fall out of it at any time.
Whatever happened yesterday is gone. God is giving you another opportunity today. Restructure your life and build it only around places, people and other beautiful things that can minister grace to you. Cultivate a life of praying until something leaves Heaven to your life on earth.
If you do all that, you will become a spiritual giant for the LORD in a short while. I see you at the top in Jesus precious name. Amen.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” Acts 4:31 NKJV