TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 10THAUGUST 2023)
“Of what use is money in the hand of a [self-confident] fool to buy skillful and godly Wisdom — when he has no understanding or heart for it?” Proverbs 17:16 AMP
WELCOME TO THE 222ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Glory be to God for bringing us to another day. In addition to eating well, watching your ways health wise, and maintaining a beautiful walk with the Holy Spirit, thanking God daily for the days He allows you to see is a huge secret to long life. That is why it pays to live a thankful life.
It is not just a new day we thank God for, we thank Him for what He has done, what He will do, and what He is doing. Gratitude is something that should be coming out of us always, irrespective of the circumstances that we find ourselves. The Bible says;
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit.” 1 Thessalonians 5:16-19 NKJV
The wisdom of God for us humans, is what we have just read in the verses above. We are to rejoice always, pray without ceasing (this is not referring to prayers of the hypocrite, the heathen, or the ignorant, but the prayer of the righteous), and be thankful to God always.
The Bible says these things, along with the ones that came after them in the later verses, will help us not to quench the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Consider a hospital, fully equipped with the latest life support equipment, with hundreds of people on life support, and many others undergoing other forms of life saving treatments, then its power supply is cut off completely. Many will die. That is what happens to our individual lives if we quench the Holy Spirit.
There is nothing that will be beautiful in your life if the Holy Spirit is quenched.
Darkness will just set in, leading to depression and a shutdown of the critical things in your life. It will shut down your joy, momentum for living, your wisdom, your prayer life, then your economy, your ability to say no to sin, and it will not be long, you will become a captive of one of the mighty in the spirit.
But the Bible says the captive of the mighty shall be delivered. How will he or she be delivered? The person will be delivered by restoring the power of the Holy Spirit to the person, and by being taught how to walk with Him intimately. That is the best way to be delivered.
THAT IS WHY THE GIFT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE FIRST WE RECEIVE FROM GOD WHEN WE COME TO JESUS CHRIST.
The Bible also said, those who do not have the Holy Spirit, do not belong to Christ. Meaning, having the Holy Spirit in your life, and relating with Him intimately, is a major sign of salvation and spiritual progress. It is a seal of our faith, because no one can live the Christian life without the Holy Spirit helping him or her. That is why we must not quench him.
When we quench Him, the Christian life becomes a struggle.
You will never experience the blessings, miracles, steady progress or any of the blissful things God predestined for you, if you quench the Holy Spirit. God’s promises for your life, will never come to pass, if you quench Him. Keeping Him burning should therefore be the concern of all believers.
Now, one of the things that keeps him burning in our lives is our worship. Worship is more than singing. In fact, worship is not singing but living. We sing to worship God, and it’s great to sing, but worship is more than singing.
Worship is living a life that is in synchronicity with God’s will and ways, and that life is not possible, without walking in the wisdom of God revealed in the Holy Scriptures – the wisdom of obedience, separation unto God, purity, righteous prayers, crucifying the flesh, living right, and listening to the promptings of the Holy Spirit within, and making sure you do not grief or injure Him.
However, no one will go for such Godly wisdom if he or she has no heart for it. That is why self-confident fools do not see reason why, they should buy great books that helps them understand the Bible, or attend a Bible Teaching church, or develop the habit of spending time with their Bibles to drive away ignorance.
They do not see why they should spend money on materials that bring such Godly wisdom. Spending money to buy skillful and godly wisdom is a distinguish character of the wise.
It’s more costly not to know than it is to know. Ignorance is indeed more expensive than the acquisition of knowledge. Talking about getting Godly wisdom, understand that, money may be spent to drive away ignorance, but much more than money will be required to deal with what the ignorance of Godly wisdom will cause us.
OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT SPEAKS OF SKILLFUL WISDOM.
If what will give you a Godly, skillful, and spiritual wisdom is a breath away, it is important that you take that breath and get it! The breath could be your last, but it will multiply in the hands of wisdom if you spend it to get that wisdom, instead of withholding it.
People who value spiritual wisdom take steps others consider uncommon to get it – steps some will call “foolish.”
For instance, if you want to increase the wisdom of God for practical living in your life, you can read the 31 chapters of the book of proverbs. If you take one chapter a day from today, you will end up much wiser in the next 31 days. Everything written in the Book of proverbs has a way of helping us increase the works of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Let me talk to you a little about the wisdom that should govern relationships!
Most people are in crisis today in the area of relationships simply because they followed what men wrote or said about it. No one has ever followed what God truly said about relationships and come into crisis.
Personally, I have come to discover that whenever God wants to change our seasons, He will move in fresh people into our lives, and move out some of those who have been there before.
I also discovered that whenever God brings into our lives, a person we truly need (to fulfil His will for our lives), Satan will come in swiftly using whatever he can, even the language we understand like dreams to generate crisis between us and the person. That’s why good people do not last long in the lives of some.
The intent of satanic crisis between us and those the LORD brought, is to push them away from our lives, and leave us without the blessing the LORD brought them to plant in our lives. Satan cannot stand the power of right relationships sticking together no matter what to do what God brought them together to do.
Sadly, many of us have not failed in helping Satan to tear us away from those the LORD brought into our lives to bless or build us.
We usually become emotional instead of reasonable when dealing with inter personal relationships that are experiencing crisis. We do not know that everything will be tested by fire, and that even interpersonal relationships that are God’s will for our lives will be tested by fire.
FRIEND, GOD STILL USES MEN TO CHANGE THE SEASONS OF MEN!
God has never used animals to change the season of His Children. He has always used people. For instance, like I shared some times back, one Moses stepped into the lives of a nation that had been in slavery for 400 years – that moved them from a season of slavery to that of liberty.
One Elijah stepped into the life of Elisha and it moved him from a season of being a successful mechanized farmer to becoming a terrific prophet of God. We can go on and on! The Holy scriptures are full of people who stepped into the lives of others and changed their seasons. People like Esther, Mordecai, David, etc.
Someone reading this has been stagnant for too long and God wants to bring a change. But the person must be friendly, control what comes out of their mouths, and learn to be nice to people, because God use people to move people forward in life.
I can’t forget how many have missed favor from me (small me), for saying the wrong things with their mouths. If those the LORD brought to add value to your life will do their work, you must know how to behave yourself and control your mouth.
If you have stayed too long at a particular spot in your life, get set to move because God is bringing men and women into your life to move you. Your season is about to change**. **However, you must change your conduct, because if you keep behaving the way you have always behaved, you will keep having the results you have always had.
I have said repeatedly that relationship is the currency of the earth. It is the invisible pipe that transmits things from one place, people, or nation to another.
Your life is what it is today because of the kind of relationships that are either with you right now, or have come and deposited things in it and are now gone.
Things good or bad flow into our lives through relationships. So, we must only value relationships that are allowing good things to flow into our lives. And the relationships that are not yet mature to bless us, we are to nurture them to do so over time, by investing into them.
NOW, THERE IS A WORD OF CAUTION FOR US ALL, WHEN IT COMES TO RELATIONSHIPS.
We are not to flatter people, become blind to evil, and compromise our faith because we want to have them in our lives. We must not justify the wicked who are giving us things to keep them in our lives, or condemn the just who are not. That will be an abomination to the LORD. The Bible says,
“He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord.” Proverbs 17:15 NKJV
Sadly, there are church members who justify the evil their pastors do, because of what they get from them. They cannot see any evil in their “man” or *‘woman *of God’ even if ‘the men and women of God’ openly kisses and sexually arouse people around them. They do not want to lose what they are getting from them.
They justify their craftiness, greed, covetousness, and recklessness and still try to sell them to an ignorant audience as men and women of God. They do such evil, calling it respect, honour, or covering of the nakedness of their Papa or Mama. The Bible calls such people, “an abomination to the LORD!” It’s says he that justifies the wicked, is “an abomination to the LORD!”
So many have been covering a lot of wickedness calling it nakedness in their local churches. But talking about covering father’s nakedness, it is not our father’s wickedness we are to cover but our father’s nakedness. But that is not what we see in Church today.
The story of Noah and his sons has been so much manipulated to keep evil thriving in Church leadership. It has raised a breed of Christians who justify the wickedness of spiritual leaders and condemned the righteous – seekers of God – their spiritual fathers either molested sexually, or cheated and stole from in the name of raising altars or etc., and deceived for a long time, and finally sent to the abyss of sorrow and regret for joining church.
You think Christ will be smiling at those leaders and their members? No! The Bible says He will not.
How many times have we found Church people, condemning those their spiritual fathers got pregnant, and threatening them with the “touch not my anointed” scare? Except they repent, how can a leader who does such things still be anointed of the LORD? I have even found them condemning some of us who are crying against such practices in the Church.
We must all wake up from our slumber, and tremble at the word of the LORD that says, “He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, both of them alike are an abomination to the Lord” else we become specimens of divine judgment.
When a child of GOD becomes an abomination in the sight of God, before the final judgment comes, he or she will no longer be able to discern between light and darkness; they will be calling light darkness and darkness light. Sorceries will become prophecies to them, and divination revelation.
Time has come to start doing the right things, and stop grieving the Holy Spirit.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Therefore, be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints; neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them.” Ephesians 5:1-6 NKJV