TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 12TH May 2023)
“These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
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.
But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:13-16 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 132ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS & WONDERS!
Each day is an act of God’s mercy. We have seen 132 acts of God’s mercy, 132 demonstrations of His faithfulness, 132 times of Him enabling us to sleep and wake up. Yes, each day that we have seen is a load of God’s mercy, a demonstration of His faithfulness and a release of His goodness.
To Him belong all the glory for keeping us thus far!
Have you ever sat down to consider why there is less consecrated Christian living today, unlike the days of our Bible fathers? Have you sat down to consider why so many believers live sinful lives, and then believe that does not count since they have recited the sinner’s prayer? In the beginning these things were not so.
The faith, purity and patience of our fathers never had this kind of Christianity that we see today. Our generation seems to be very far from what that generation was. Theirs was a generation that really impacted the nations, with the holiness of God.
God has a word for us today and let us begin with Biblical numerology – lets refresh our minds on the number 70.
There is something unique about the number 70 in God’s kingdom. It is an apostolic number because it is the number of nations. There were seventy original nations that emerged before and after the tower of Babel incident.
In His bid to save the lost world, God’s eyes have not departed from them. Even if we now have so many nations, with many still trying to spring up, His eyes are still on those boundaries; the boundaries of the original 70 nations.
He assigns territories for ministry to His holy apostles and prophets by content, according to those ancient boundaries. The essence is to birth other ministries, and provide the spiritual resources those ministries need to convert the kingdoms of this world (in those territories) into that of God and of His Christ.
Now if you want to lead a consecrated Christian life, you must locate one of these men and position yourself under their ministries even as you pursue God’s assignment for your life or your own ministry. God eyes on those original nations was demonstrated when Jesus appointed 70 people and sent them out with instructions.
THE BIBLE IS CLEAR ON THAT.
He did not raise apostles according to the number of the nations of His day; because as of that time, they have multiplied. He raised them according to the number of the original nations. The Bible says;
“After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.
Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. Carry neither money bag, knapsack, nor sandals; and greet no one along the road” Luke 10:1-4 NKJV
Some translations say seventy-two others but it was seventy.
Sadly, most of us preachers have violated the very principles for ministry established in this scripture. We forget that whatever was spelt out here by the LORD remain valid to this day!
For instance, when He said to them “carry no money bags,” He was completely guiding against the commercialization of the gospel by us. You find many in ministry today with a money bag mentality. That is why everything have been commercialized.
In Nigeria, there was a time that a British missionary called Pa Elton of Blessed memory, warned those we grew up to know as spiritual fathers, against the commercialization of the gospel. Records has it that, they argued with him and ignored his warnings.
Some of those fathers are dead now, while others are still alive, propagating what the Bible calls another gospel – a gospel that cannot form Christ in men or evoke consecrated Christian living.
Today we now have this image of jealousy in the house of a jealous God. What that ancestor of faith, Pa Elton, warned them against have not only been entrenched, but it has given birth to a generation that take the destructive practices the fathers created as the norm.
If you want to lead a consecrated Christian life today, you must be careful who you listen to. You must let GOD lead you and locate one of those who still keep the instructions the LORD gave to the original 70, and sit under them, because they are the ones with the divine potency to help you fulfil your dream of consecrated living.
Jesus knew the negative effects of carrying a money-making mindset into ministry; how it destroys the potency of the gospel! That was why He warned that we should carry no money bag as we carry the gospel across the nations.
IT WAS A STRONG WARNING AGAINST THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF THE GOSPEL.
A commercialized gospel cannot evoke a consecrated Christian life. That is why many are desecrated, and most of us preachers are scandalous and our church members unfit for Heaven. So many have been turned twice the sons of hell by some of us preachers, because they do our bidding and are more influenced by us than Christ who died for them.
Yesterday, we looked at the sanctification of the unit of the soul called the Intelligence. We have said, the sanctification of the spirit happens at once, but that of the soul should happen daily. To sanctify the soul, all the units or faculties must be sanctified; the imagination, the memory and now the intelligence.
A commercialize gospel cannot sanctify any unit of the soul because if you import anything into the gospel, no matter how great it sounds, that reformed or adulterated gospel will loose the potency to change any soul. If we will keep our intelligence sanctified, we must be ready to walk away from any gospel that has money making tendencies at its centre.
Those who have eyes will agree that one of the major things that we have seen missing in the Church today, is the salvation of the soul. That is why there are few real Christians on ground. But the spiritual plague was caused by the very things Pa Elton warned against when he was speaking to these men who God graced to be fathers, many years ago; the commercialization of the gospel.
The love of money remains the root of all evil. The evils we see in Church today are products of the love of money. That is why if you want to live a sanctified life, you must cut off from Churches and preachers who operate with the love of money in their hearts. You must sit under those controlled by the love of GOD.
WHY I’M I SAYING ALL THESE? THE REASON IS BECAUSE OF MY OWN EXPERIENCE WITH THE COMMERCIALIZE GOSPEL.
I fell into sexual sin for the first time in my life, not as an unbeliever or a lost soul, but as a Christian and a preacher; it happened between the age of 27 and 28. All my life I had known no sexual activity until that season of darkness. It led to an ungodly life that lasted for almost 10 years. But I did not just fall, there was a demolition process that brought me there.
From my childhood to that time of my life, I had a strong defense system against all forms of temptation, built over the years from the sound teachings I had received from my pastors. The root of my fall was the commercialized gospel I started listening to. I never knew that it was breaking down the spiritual defence system the Holy Ghost had helped me to build for those years.
I attended conferences in Lagos from Abuja that took away my desire for holy living and replace it with a desire to make money. That was how all hell let loose in my life. It was the worst experience of my Christian life.
Today, I still struggle with the residue of what happened in those unholy years of my walk with God. That is how terrible it is to listen to a commercialized gospel. Please I beg you, if you want to lead a consecrated Christian life, walk away from any money-making gospel; walk away from the oil users, water users, salt users, comb users, rod users and etc.
Walk away from any preacher who cannot dissect the word and form Christ in your character. They almost ruined my faith. Do not be driven by the earthly, be driven by the eternal.
I will always hate a polluted gospel. My experiences taught me how to smell it afar off. My determination to preach the pure and untainted gospel is driven by the LORD, but by also a desire to make sure no one go through what I went through under those commercialized churches.
In our most recent discourse, we have been looking at the sanctification of the unit of the soul called intelligence. Do not forget, you will never be sanctified spirit, soul and body, and made ready for the LORD under a ministry that have been commercialized.
Under a commercialized gospel ministry, your intelligence will remain corrupt before GOD and unfruitful in matters of righteousness, but it will be wise in the wisdom of this world.
The preachers could be preaching good, but the image of jealousy in the place will always destroy the potency of the word, leaving you undone and unfruitful in righteousness. You will be a believer with an intelligence that is too corrupt to walk in the ways of the LORD. The Bible calls it the natural mind that cannot submit to GOD!
A MAJOR PORTION OF OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT 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
An intelligence that have been desecrated like mine was desecrated and corrupted, will see matters of sanctity and holiness as foolishness. It will tell you, we are no longer in the Old Testament. That those things no longer count, and that the blood of Jesus is speaking for us. Hence, we can continue in sin.
When my intelligence got corrupted with the teachings of the commercialized gospel, I saw staying sexually pure until marriage as a doctrine of extremist. I throw away all the royal laws I kept when it comes to interpersonal relationship with the opposite sex. Indeed, the things of God on Righteousness, Purity and Holiness that I had upheld became foolishness to me.
Consequently, sin became a life style that I lived until the gates of hell began to open over me. It was terrible.
Whenever you walk away from sound doctrine, you will loose soundness in your walk with God. Whenever you walk away from things which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, you will begin to live an unholy life.
A portion of our devotional text says;
“These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” (1 Corinthians 2:13 NKJV)
As we bring this to a close, I want you to understand that, when you come into Christ, He gives you the intelligence of the spiritual man. That intelligence is called the mind of Christ. That is the mind that guides us in matters of righteousness, purity and holiness. It helps us maintain a consecrated Christian life.
Another portion of our devotional text says;
“But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the LORD that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:15-16 NKJV
There is the intelligence of the natural man and there is the intelligence of the spiritual mind. The two are not the same. Genuine salvation experiences give us the intelligence of the spiritual man. Then the consecrated walk that results from genuine salvation experience and the hearing of sound doctrine, helps us to maintain its purity and sanctity.
The Intelligence of the natural mind is a sinful one. To move from a sinful intelligence (the intelligence of the natural man) to a righteous one, (the spiritual mind) where sin will have no practical power over you, words which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual must be absorbed over time.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 NKJV