TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 28TH MARCH 2023)
“Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
And you are witnesses of these things.
Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” Luke 24:46-49 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 87TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
We give God the glory for another day that have been added to our lives on earth. We thank Him for His faithfulness that is new every morning. It is the greatness of His faithfulness, that has not allowed us to be given to the will of our enemies.
The greatest security in life, is enjoyed when one is surrounded by the faithfulness of the LORD. It has a way of protecting one against all kinds of threats, spiritual and physical, and above all, the threat within.
Yes, there is the threat within our lives that is always bigger. It is the threat of our own sinful ways and actions. But God’s faithfulness has a way of taking care of that. Bible History is littered with people that God did not just protect from their enemies, but from themselves. He protected so many precious word or holy seed carriers from both their enemies and from themselves.
That is why I consider being surrounded by God’s faithfulness the greatest security on earth.
Every carrier of the holy seed has always been surrounded by the faithfulness of the LORD. Yes, it is required in every walk with God that we be faithful, but God has never rooted the security, success, or fulfillment of holy seed carriers on their faithfulness alone. Their faithfulness has just played a minimal role in everything GOD had ever done with or through them.
We owe God thanks and gratitude everyday of our lives, because of His faithfulness to His own, especially when we become too weak, too battle weary, or too life beaten to be faithful. We owe Him thanks!
Standing on God’s faithfulness, today we will be looking at certain holy seed carrying truths that are essential to us, in addition to all we have learned so far. I hope we are ready!
LET US BEGIN WITH SOME THOUGHTS ON GENUINE CHRISTIAN LIVING.
We are living in very interesting seasons; seasons characterized by the horrors of the last days. These are seasons of many things including deception and falsification of spiritual things. It is therefore important that we understand certain things about our faith – the Christian faith.
The first thing I want us to note is this, a genuine Christian life cannot be lived in the flesh because it is Holy Spirit birth. The scripture says, if one is not having the Spirit of Christ, he or she does not belong to Him. This is so true. I have tasted and seen that a genuine Christian life cannot be live in the flesh.
That is why, you cannot be sinful, hateful, carnal, wicked, deceptive, greedy, immoral, crafty, impure, or one with a lying tongue and all that, and still be a Christian. You cannot live a genuine Christian life in sin, iniquity or trespass.
Any religious life we may be living in any form of the filthiness of the flesh or spirit mentioned above, is not a Christian life. It could be any other thing, or even Christianity by our definition, but it is definitely not a Christian life by Bible definition. The filthiness of the flesh is defined as the works, practices, or doings of the flesh. The Bible says;
“Now the doings (practices) of the flesh are clear (obvious): they are immorality, impurity, indecency, Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger (ill temper), selfishness, divisions (dissensions), party spirit (factions, sects with peculiar opinions, heresies),
Envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you beforehand, just as I did previously, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21 AMPC
One can not be a Christian and be comfortably doing these things because genuine Christianity is Holy Spirit Birth. Any Christianity that you find mixed with these practices of the flesh is not genuine. It is false, and need to be thrown away.
If Christianity is genuine, you will find the practices of the Spirit in the life of a person, not the practices of the flesh. The practices of the Spirit are called the fruits of the Spirit. The Spirit there is the Holy Spirit.
HE BECOMES THE SEED, AND WHAT COMES OUT OF THE LIFE OF THE BELIEVER BECOMES THE FRUIT.
The Bible says;
“But the fruit of the [Holy] Spirit [the work which His presence within accomplishes] is love, joy (gladness), peace, patience (an even temper, forbearance), kindness, goodness (benevolence), faithfulness,
Gentleness (meekness, humility), self-control (self-restraint, continence). Against such things there is no law [that can bring a charge].
And those who belong to Christ Jesus (the Messiah) have crucified the flesh (the godless human nature) with its passions and appetites and desires.
If we live by the [Holy] Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. [If by the Holy Spirit we have our life in God, let us go forward walking in line, our conduct controlled by the Spirit.]” Galatians 5:22-25 AMPC
The first verse of this scripture describes the fruit of the Spirit as the work which the presence of the Holy Spirit within a believer accomplishes. The works includes love, joy, peace, an even temper, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness and etc.
In other words, it is the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives that makes us loving, joyful, peaceful, kind, meek, humble, discipline, self-controlled, faithful to God, and all that. That is why I said, genuine Christianity cannot be lived in the flesh because it is Holy Spirit birth.
Without the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives, we will be trapped in the practices of the flesh, calling ourselves born again.
Now, how do we allow the Holy Spirit to accomplish these things in our lives?
You see, when you genuinely encounter the LORD, the Spirit of God will be planted in your life as a seed to bear the fruits we have mentioned above. To allow Him bear those fruits (He was planted in your life to bear), you will need to be living a life that obey His promptings.
You will also need to be spending time in prayer and fasting seasonally, to keep the flesh under subjection. It is through seasonal fasting that we crucify the flesh, its passions and appetites.
THE LAST VERSES OF THE SCRIPTURAL PASSAGE THAT TELLS US ALL THESE, SAYS;
“And those who belong to Christ Jesus (the Messiah) have crucified the flesh (the godless human nature) with its passions and appetites and desires. Galatians 5:24 AMPC
The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives will always lead us to the cross – to crucify the flesh.
He will always prompt us not to respond to the flesh. It is just that His promptings are not always loud and compelling, except if your human spirit have been freed from the grip of the shell of the flesh. They are always calm, not forceful or intimidating. They just come in the gentility of a dove, not the aggression of a vulture. That is why many of us do not follow them.
We have been looking at faith position of Holy seed or precious word carriers; if you want to carry God’s holy seed or precious word in your life successfully, you must not lead a Christianity that is flesh controlled. You must live a Christianity that is Spirit controlled.
Our devotional text contains one of the valedictory sessions Jesus had with the disciples, before His ascension to Heaven. The word says;
Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
And you are witnesses of these things.
Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” Luke 24:46-49 NKJV
In this valedictory session, we can see the importance of the Holy Spirit painted very clearly. Jesus said to His disciples, despite the urgency to enter the harvest field and start reaping souls into the Kingdom, to wait for the promise of the Father.
The word father means source. He was referring to the promise God the Father (the source), made through Joel the prophet, and some other Old Testament prophets, about the outpouring or the release of the Holy Spirit. It buttresses the fact that, without the Holy Spirit, there will be no Christian life to live. Everything will just be a form of godliness without power.
They obeyed the LORD and waited. The Spirit was released on them finally. They were later called Christians because the people who called them so saw the works of the Holy Spirit in their lives; they saw the character of Christ He formed in them and called them Christians.
You will never become anything close to genuinely Christianity without the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life.
If there is the holy seed of God in your life, you will need the Holy Spirit of God in your life to carry it from the declaration to the full manifestation. You will need the Holy Spirit’s presence, prompting you to walk through sanctified or Christlike paths, that our fathers walked in before they were called Christians. That is the word of the LORD!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk [ever] come out of your mouth, but only such [speech] as is good and beneficial to the spiritual progress of others, as is fitting to the need and the occasion, that it may be a blessing and give grace (God’s favor) to those who hear it.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God [do not offend or vex or sadden Him], by Whom you were sealed (marked, branded as God’s own, secured) for the day of redemption (of final deliverance through Christ from evil and the consequences of sin).
Let all bitterness and indignation and wrath (passion, rage, bad temper) and resentment (anger, animosity) and quarreling (brawling, clamor, contention) and slander (evil-speaking, abusive or blasphemous language) be banished from you, with all malice (spite, ill will, or baseness of any kind).
And become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted (compassionate, understanding, loving-hearted), forgiving one another [readily and freely], as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:29-32 AMPC