TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (SUNDAY 27th December 2020)
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 361ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
With four more days to go on this set of 365 days according to the Gregorian calendar that control the nations we live in, let’s just hit the ground running.
Many times, the Spirit of God has helped us to understand the prophetic template in the book of Acts chapter 6, that shows us how Evangelist ministries can network with apostolic ministries to execute the great commission without omission.
The template reveals to us the power of genuine evangelistic ministries in the person of Philip the evangelist. And how the apostolic in Peter, sometimes, stands on what the evangelist in Philip may have done to take the gospel further.
I have been a beneficiary of genuine evangelistic ministries of spiritual fathers who were here before me. I remember drinking from the fountain of many of them in our beginning days as a teenager, and running in that direction until the LORD picked us up in His mercy and showed us the boundaries of our calling and the generation we belong to.
But I tell you some of those great men and women spoke things that propelled us into some faith dimensions we operate in today.
That is why when I see false evangelistic ministries, or true ones that have been taken over by error, it pains my heart.
One day I heard one of those great men read the scripture of our devotional and said, “if it did not come from God what are you doing with it” and something sparked off in me.
I began to look into my life to see if there is anything I may be holding tightly to that did not come from God. Our greatest battles will be fought around things God has not given us that we hold onto; things from the realm of the flesh and other realms that are not sourced in GOD’s true will.
A lot of us are in things that God has not given us. We are holding on to habits, passions, cultures, traditions and systems of life that God has not given us.
There are Christians in marriages that God has not given them. There are Sons of the king in Churches and under pastors God has not given them. There are people in careers that God has not given them to pursue. There are young men and women in relationships God has not authorized that they get into.
What is it that God has not given you that you are holding onto? That things must not follow you to 2021.
WE MUST IDENTIFY AND TEAR THEM AWAY FROM OUR LIVES.
You will never conquer the enemy in any battle that rages around things God has not given you. In other words, if the enemy stand on things that God has not given you and fights you, he will always win because you will lack divine backing.
God will never back us to succeed in things He has not given us!
If God has not given you a business and you go pursuing it, you will never be victorious in any battle the enemy muster to stop you from succeeding. In simple terms, you will never succeed in that business.
If you go into a relationship or marriage with anyone God has not given you, you will lack divine intervention when crisis results from it. In other words, you will never succeed in that marriage.
I have taught repeatedly that what God has not joined together, even intensive prayers cannot keep together.
Again I want to admonish that as you pass through the last days of this year, look inward and check your life to deal with anything that the LORD has not given you that you may be holding on to.
That may be the reason for all the woes that may have happened to you this year.
Friend, there are things we must not cross over with into 2021 with. Whatever the LORD has not given us must not cross over with us.
Our devotional text says God has not given us the spirit of fear but of power and sound mind.
Again, what is it that God did not give you that you are still holding tightly to? Use the few days that are left of this year to shake it off your life! If you always keep what you have always kept, you will always be what you have always been. Don’t forget that.
One of the greatest blindness that can occur in the life of a Christian is blindness towards the things that God has not given us. It is spiritual blindness, ignorance and most times pride or arrogance that make us hold on to things that God has not given us.
Satan will never allow us to let go what God has not given us because that is the only way he can have an advantage over us.
MANY TIMES HE WILL THEREFORE CONVINCE YOU THAT WHAT GOD HAS NOT GIVEN YOU IS DIVINE.
In fact, he will act “God” to keep you in things God has not truly given you; be it marriages, life styles, businesses, pastors, Churches, relationships, and etc.
For instance, he could act “God” to move you to walk out of a difficult marriage God wants you to stay put to, or keep you in a difficult marriage God want you to move out from. The issue is not the difficulty but the blindness to what God wants done at an immediate present.
You will be amazed at what you take to be God’s will that is not when you step into the glory of God begin to see things very clearly. You may be anointed but it takes an encounter with GOD’s glory to truly know and come to accurate discernment of things that GOD has not given you, and begin to remove them from your life.
David said,
“But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled; my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the boastful, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked…Surely I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocence….
“UNTIL I WENT INTO THE SANCTUARY OF GOD; THEN I UNDERSTOOD THEIR END.”
If David had not encountered the glory of the LORD in His sanctuary, the blindness he had would not have been taken away. There are things we will never know in the outer court. We must get into the most holy place to know them.
Under the glory there cannot be spiritual blindness. Satan can only blindfold those who are outside the glory. Yes, he does that through our carnal passions and desires. You can be anointed and full of carnal passions and desires. That was why anointed Samson had carnal passion towards the woman he had unfavorable history with – Delilah.
Anointing does not guarantee the disappearance of canal passions, which is why you can be anointed and blind in some things.
IT IS UNDER THE GLORY OF THE LORD THAT CARNAL PASSIONS AND DESIRE ARE STRIPPED.
It is under the glory that the LORD Himself strips off our carnal passions to help us see things clearly. It is seeing things under the glory of the LORD that helps in transforming us. As we see them, we align with the LORD leading to the striping of those things.
I pray that as we exhaust the days God has given us, 2020, we will come into a place in His presence where blindness is stripped and spiritual eyes opened to sense the things God has not given us that you may be holding onto, and do away with them.
I pray THAT the LORD will speak to us even in dreams and visions, and tell us what those things are, even plainly; so that we will not step into 2021 in blindness, holding onto things that God has not given us.
MAY THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate[a] the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” 2 Corinthians 3:17-18 NKJV