TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 22ND MARCH 2023)
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed-
always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you. 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 81ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
It has been 81 days of sleeping and waking up for us! All had been done to us freely by the One and only true God, who has love as His nature.
Sometimes, I reason within myself that; “If Love was not God’s nature, I would have been long dead and gone.” Not gone to Heaven, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and the wages of sin is eternal death; I would have gone to hell.
But His love that saves, justifies, sanctified, transforms and purifies, cancelled that and made it possible for me, and all who are saved today, to be justified, sanctified, and made Heaven ready. I guess we should learn how to sit down to appreciate God’s loves with reasonings like that.
Reasoning that way, can helps us to appreciate what it means to have the God who has love as His nature in our life. Yes, there are many temptations and trials, but His holy nature, known as love, will keep helping us sail through the waters.
We have been looking at the faith positions to take as precious word carriers, in other to be able to carry what the LORD has committed to us from the declaration to the full manifestation.
The LORD has indeed opened our eyes to very precious truths. We have known that as born-again Christians, we have a responsibility to live our lives as God’s holy seeds. One of our jobs is to serve as watchmen over His seed. We are not to do anything to have it mixed. We are to fight every inch of the battle to make sure the seed remains pure, and is delivered in its sanctity.
However, God also knows our limitation as holy seed carriers. But before we get there, let me remind us where we are coming from. We have been looking at what God does to help carriers of the holy seed carry it successfully, from the day it is planted into their hearts to their final day on earth.
One of the major things He does, is to help us overcome our limitations or infirmities. There are seven infirmities or limitations that we need help from God to overcome. We will be looking at the seven today and the divine help systems in the scriptures.
It is my prayer that the LORD will speak to us using the revelation of His word.
The first is the dimensional limitation. We live in a dimension that is limited by time and space; a natural dimension that cannot see into the invisible realm like we see into the natural realm, because of the veil that covers us.
The enemy of the seed we carry is not like us. He lives in a dimension that gives him an advantage over us.
He lives in a spirit dimension and we live in a dimension of a material world. We are naturally ruled by what we see, hear, taste or feel naturally. But he is naturally ruled by what he sees in the spirit realm; which puts him at an advantage over us.
THAT IS WHY FOR MOST CASES, WE DO NOT SUCCESSFULLY CARRY THE HOLY SEED FROM START TO FINISH.
The battle becomes too tough for us sometimes, and we cave in like Samson did. That is why the Bible says we must put on the whole amour of GOD, as holy seed carriers. It is God’s way of helping us to overcome him, even if we live in a dimension that placed him at an advantage over us. The word says;
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.” Ephesians 6:10-13 NKJV
We will never be able to successfully carry the holy seed, because of the wiles of the devil, if we do not carry it putting on the whole amour of GOD. Do not forget, the world is under his sway. He will successfully sway people to influence us to do things that will corrupt our morality in other to corrupt the holy seed we carry, if we are not careful.
Each holy seed carrier, therefore, must study the book of Ephesians, and see the pieces of the amour that God has made available to us, and know how to use each one in spiritual warfare. We will be too limited to succeed, without putting on the whole amour of GOD, in the dimension we live in. That is the message.
Putting on the whole amour of God, is His divine help system for handling life in the material world; it is the help system for dealing with the first limitation we face as holy seed carriers. The second, third, fourth and fifth limitations came upon us at the fall of man. I call them the fall limitations. Let us look at them one after the other.
We have the limitation of the sin nature as the second on the list. Yes, the sin nature was not there when mankind was created. What was there was the holy nature of God. The sin nature developed and became a limitation after the fall of man. Bible and human history are littered with the lives of men and women who had a great destiny to fulfill, but the sin nature could not let them.
YOU WILL WANT TO LIVE A HOLY AND PURE LIFE, BEFORE YOU KNOW IT THE SIN NATURE WILL JUST DRAG YOU BACK.
That is why one of the requirements of carrying the holy seed successfully is the crucifixion of the sin nature. God has made His grace available to help us achieve that. It was that grace Paul the apostle used to make sure the limitation of the sin nature does not hinder him, when he said, “I die daily.”
The sin nature is the limitation that make us operate in lust, pride, and all forms of the works of the flesh. It has capacity to quench the works of GOD in our lives, and inflame the works of the devil, that is why it is very dangerous. The Bible says;
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders,
drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21 NKJV
It is the limitation called “the sin nature,” that produce all these works of the flesh. Each one has the potential of quenching the works of God in our lives. It has capacity to give the devil what to use in hindering the works of GOD permanently, and cutting down great progress in our walk and talk with the LORD God.
In chapter 9 of 1 Corinthians, God presented to us the pattern of self-denial for all who carry the holy seed. Once the grace of God has gotten us saved, the same saving grace is available to help us practice self-denial and make sure the sin nature does not limit us from carrying the holy seed successfully.
God presented self-denial as the panacea for dealing with the sin nature. You do not deal with the sin nature by wishing or believing it will not take you down. You deal with it by through self-denial. It is through self-denial that we nail it to the cross. That is God’s divine help system for handling this limitation.
The next limitation created by the fall is the limitation called “sense and reason without the Holy Spirit,” or the carnal mind. The Bible calls it the natural mind. It was created at the fall of man. Before then, it never existed. The word says;
“But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” 1 Corinthians 2:14 NKJV
THE NATURAL MIND IS ALWAYS WITH US. IT IS WHEN WE MAINTAIN CERTAIN FAITH POSITIONS THAT WE WALK AWAY FROM IT.
But whenever we are not in the Spirit, doubtlessly we are in the flesh, or within the power of the natural mind. That is why it is a major limitation that God have to help us to overcome. From Bible examples, He can help us overcome this limitation in many ways, including showing us mercy, and bringing us back to Himself whenever it limits us.
This limitation is responsible for the very bad decisions carriers of the holy seed make, most of the time; especially decisions on marriage matters, career matters, relationships, money matters, and a host of other matters of life.
It was responsible for Samson’s fatal decisions, including his decision to relate with Delilah. It was responsible for the fatal decision of Ananias and Saphira to lie to Peter, a man of God. It was responsible for the destiny ruining decision of Reuben to sleep with his father’s concubine. It was responsible for the rest of other spiritually fatal and abominable cases we find in the Bible.
In fact, it stopped Moses and over three million people from making it to the promise land. This is a major limitation, so long as carrying the holy seed or walking with GOD is concern. Understand that, because of its capacity to stop us, God would always want us to operate with a spiritual mind, but it is not every time that we can do that, hence having some pitfalls to contend with.
This limitation was responsible for Esau’s sacrifice of his birthright for a morsel of food. He sacrificed the spiritual on the altar of an immediate need, like we all do. He slayed the spiritual on the altar of the carnal.
It was responsible for Judas’ betrayal of Jesus. It made him to sacrifice a great future in Heaven on 30 pieces of silver, which he did not even spend. How many times have we sacrificed great destiny blessings, on the altar of this limitation, only to end up not even enjoying what we sacrificed it for? The marriages, men, women, and jobs we sacrificed it for?
I have done that, you have done that, but GOD wants us to stop that.
It is this limitation that makes us see what He says to us, or may be saying to us as foolishness when our needs of carnal feelings have consumed us. In other words, this is the limitation that makes us to have a low sense of value on things God say to us. It is this limitation that usually make us rebel against Him.
It has a way of making us not to see sense in what He might be saying to us, hence doing nonsensical things that leaves terrible marks on our lives, sometimes even after repenting and returning back to Him.
Apart from making us disobey GOD, which is very dangerous to a carrier of the holy seed, this limitation also makes us trust in men instead of GOD. And the Bible says, “cursed is he who trust in man.” That is how it brings us under curses.
THIS LIMITATION IS ALSO RESPONSIBLE, FOR OUR INABILITY TO WALK IN DISCERNMENT AND SOUND JUDGMENT AS CARRIERS OF THE HOLY SEED.
It is responsible for bad relationships in our lives, because it makes us accept people who ought not to be part of our destiny. It makes us live in places we should not have lived as carriers of the holy seed. We see that in Lot, who left Abram and went to settle near Sodom, and it was not long, he found himself in Sodom.
This is the limitation that make us settle close to perverse people or places, only to find ourselves doing what they do and bringing our destiny to ruin.
It is because of this limitation that the Bible says we should live a life of daily devotion, where we absorb the word of the LORD day and night. That is one of the faith positions that God have designed to help us overcome this limitation.
I think we will stop here! Enough have been shared for the day! When we return tomorrow, we will pick up from here. But understand that God is usually patient with us because of all these limitations. It is these limitations that are described in the Bible phrase, “earthen vessel.”
The Bible made it clear that the treasure is in an earthen vessel; making a very limited thing, the host of a holy thing. The vessel is so limited that GOD would have to teach it, transform it, and most times defend it, so that it will not crash into pieces while facing the limitations of carrying His holy seed.
But wait a minute, why would God put a very holy and precious thing of His kingdom, in a very limited thing? The Bible has the answer. The first line of our devotional text says;
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.” 2 Corinthians 4:7 NKJV
Yes, God put His holy seed in earthen vessels, so that no flesh will glory in His presence. He put an unlimited treasure of Heaven in a vessel full of earthly limitations, so that the excellency of the power to unleash the holy seed, may be of God and not of us. Like we said earlier, we will pick up from these thoughts when we return tomorrow.
May the LORD use what has been shared already to guide us in Jesus precious name. Amen!!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward;
How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him;” Hebrews 2:1-3 NKJV