TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 30TH SEPTEMBER 2023)
“With his mouth the hypocrite can ruin his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.
When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; and when the wicked perish, there is joy. By the blessing of the upright, a city is raised up; but the words of the wicked tear it down.
He who belittles another lack good sense, whereas a person of discernment stays silent. A gossip goes around revealing secrets, but a trustworthy person keeps a confidence.” Proverbs 11:9-13 CJB
WELCOME TO THE 273RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS
It’s the last day of the month. We thank God for keeping us all through. Our words cannot express how grateful we are to our maker. He made sure we were not given to the will of our enemies and kept us in His love. Some of us did very wicked things, yet He kept us. His Spirit has not ceased from washing us of our filthiness, and His truth has not ceased from guiding us on the right path to follow. He has been a loving father to us, all.
The Bible says;
“As a father pities his children, So the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.” Psalm 103:13-14 NKJV
This scripture has been so true in the life of each and every one of us, especially from the beginning of this year to this day. It will remain true in our lives till Jesus comes. That is why God is different. He is a Father, not just God. He has a heart and eternal touch of compassion. We are witnesses.
We are stepping into a fresh month from tomorrow. I believe God has a blessing for us. He wants us not to be hindered, hence bringing truths to our attention. One major truth He is bringing to our attention, is the truth on hypocrisy. We will continue on same flow today!
To start with, I want us to know that one of the greatest plagues in the body of Christ today, is deceit. We are not just facing hyper deceptions from heretic teachers and lying prophets, we are facing terrible deception from the many of us believers, who are hypocrites, yet parading ourselves as children of God. That is why many are under curses that have refused to leave them.
Like we read in our devotional yesterday, the easiest way to live under a curse is to be a hypocrite. There are curses that follow hypocrites. From the curses in a person’s blood line, to the ones Jesus pronounced on the Pharisees, the list is terrible. The sad thing is we live under these curses and blame our father’s houses for them instead of our hypocritical lives.
Genuine salvation, and a crucified life will stop any curse in your bloodline from speaking in your life. But when we are hypocrites, we will not cease experiencing them in our lives. It is important to note that, the greatest destruction to our local churches today, is hypocrisy.
DEPUTY DEVILS ARE EVERYWHERE PARADING THEMSELVES AS SERVANTS OR CHILDREN OF GOD.
They make the devil even scream at their lies, and hypocritical living. When Satan scream because of our lies and hypocritical living, curses will break out. Friend, let no one confuse you about the terrible consequence of hypocrisy.
No matter how you look at it, hypocrisy is the reason for the many cases of demonic oppression in the present Church. Social media has even fueled it. We place on it what we are not, and make people believe who we are not. It has helped us in building towers of hypocritical living everywhere.
Friend, hypocrisy is the reason for the divisions, and irreconcilable differences in most families. It is the reason we no longer see the genuine power of God, but dark powers demonstrated through the use of oil, water and etc. Like I said yesterday, I am yet to find a place in scriptures where Jesus healed or delivered a hypocrite from the hands of the devil. They cannot be delivered, no matter how much time you spend in prayer asking Him to do. Like King Saul could not be helped by the powerful prophet Samuel, so is the case with any hypocrite.
They will only end up with sorcerers and heretic teachers because God will not answer them, like Saul ended with the witch of endor. Others will be plugged into circles of deliverances that will not come to an end. That is one major reason we must spend our days avoiding hypocrisy by all means.
Like Saul’s hypocrisy frustrated Samuel, so has the hypocrisy of many, frustrated genuine men and women of God, who meant well for the souls of the lost and dying. Like I shared yesterday, it is one of the many trouble waters that the Holy Ghost has to greatly help end time ministers who are true to their calling.
The plague of hypocrisy is beyond words in so many respects.
You find men and women in marriages getting destroyed by their hypocritical spouses. You find marriages, breaking down like biscuits by the second because of terrible hypocritical living. You find the economic lives of people breaking down by the force of hypocritical living. You find nations totally destroyed by hypocritical politicians and national leaders.
The Church is being turned into metaphysical cults, political parties, money spinning machines, and all kinds of dark religious constructs, by hypocritical preachers and devils in God’s garment. You find hypocritical people defending terrible preachers even when their deeds clearly reveal that they are devils in God’s garment.
THE DESTRUCTIVE POWER OF THE PLAGUE OF HYPOCRISY IS BEYOND MEASURE.
You find hypocritical Church members ruining the ministries and compassion of genuinely called preachers and servants of God. They pray for them, and they turn around to destroy the preachers in confidential whispers, but point accusing fingers to other people, basically to divert attention. There are so many genuine preachers with members they have labored for who have not still committed themselves to the ministries of the preachers who God has so used to build their lives.
Some commit themselves to the preachers by mouth not by heart. They forget that God searches the heart not the mouth, and that He rewards everyone according to their works not their mouth. We need to remind ourselves that every action is a seed, and the harvest will surely come. The Bible says, “hand join hand, no sinner will go unpunished.” We need to come to terms with this Bible truth and cease being hypocrites.
Like we shared yesterday, hypocrisy has a way of neutralizing the mercy and power of God, either in a man’s life, or in the lives of those who join themselves to the hypocrites. That tells us what the present-day presence of Jesus Christ will never do – it will never prosper the hypocrite.
That is why, any Church led by Christ cannot prosper hypocrites. It is a Church led by the anti-Christ that will prosper hypocrites, with the prosperity of the wicked. I think time has come for our generation to know what Jesus will never do. Jesus will never bless or prosper a hypocrite.
He or she will struggle and struggle until they become upright. When you see any hypocrite in prosperity, the LORD is not the one behind, even if they stand to testify and give credit to Him. The words of Christ on every hypocrite remain, “woe unto you”. That is why they move from peril to peril. We must therefore avoid the plague by all means. We should live our lives as true believers not impostors and hypocrites.
The sad thing is, because of Satan’s desire to take as many as he can to the lake of fire along with him, he comes into a church system to do whatever Jesus will never do.
HE PROSPERS THE HYPOCRITES. HE DOES IT THROUGH THE FALSE CHRIST IN SO MANY CHURCHES.
The explosions of the work of a hypocrite can sometimes be likened to the explosion of the atomic bomb that hit Japan many years ago. That atomic bomb paralyzed the military might of that nation and made where it fell unfruitful. That is why Satan uses them.
He uses them to paralyze God’s kingdom advance activities, and to render God’s work unfruitful. He uses them to give preachers of righteousness a bad name, in other to turn hearts away from their God given messages. Our devotional text says; “With his mouth the hypocrite can ruin his neighbor, but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.”
There are preachers raised to deliver the wicked from their wickedness. There are those God raised to deliver the righteous. Both are usually surrounded by hypocrites. The enemy plants them to do just that. I want to counsel you that if we find ourselves around genuine men and women of GOD, we should make sure we do not play hypocrisy in anything. It will harm the ministry, and we will be in for it. We should be true to GOD and to them.
Friend, we have hypocrites who are capable of ruining the reputation of people God uses to change the lives of others. We should not be part of that breed. If the devil uses us, we will be in for it. Like we shared yesterday, no one being used by the devil, does not get destroyed by the same devils using them!
UNDERSTAND THAT SATAN DOES NOT USE AND BLESS, HE USES AND BREAK.
He will use you then break you. Only God will use you and bless you. And trust me; God does not use hypocrites except to judge fellow hypocrites. Our devotional text is indeed full of truths on the dangerous capabilities of hypocrites. Another verse says,
“When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices; and when the wicked perish, there is joy. By the blessing of the upright, a city is raised up; but the words of the wicked tear it down.”
Apart from the influence of the words and personalities of political leaders, this is also talking about the capabilities of the hypocrites. The prosperity of the righteous makes a city, church, family or nations rejoice. But that of the hypocrites makes a city, family or church, groan in pain.
By the blessing of the upright, righteous cities, upright people, Christ centered churches and individuals are raised. But by that of the hypocrite, they are brought down. The words of the hypocrite have the capability to tear down a righteous person, a God centered people, or Church. But that of the upright does the opposite.
That is why God wants the mouth of the hypocrite closed or stopped. The Bible says their mouth must be stopped! Another verse in our devotional text said, “A gossip goes around revealing secrets, but a trustworthy person keeps a confidence.” One of the most dangerous postures of a hypocrite is when he appears to be one who hates gossip but goes about revealing secrets. They will scoop all confidential matters they can scoop from you, swearing to keep their mouths shut, only for them to go out there filling the ears of even those who are not interested with the stories they swore to keep.
We should not be like that, It will ruin us! No hypocrite is trustworthy; we should be trustworthy. We should not allow God to begin to warn people about us. Now, I want to talk to us on how not to allow a hypocrite to destroy you. The first thing to do is this, as God unveil them, keep them afar off; but with love. Cut ties with them, and let their hypocrisy not destroy your destiny.
They could be calm in their voice, or very gentle in their deeds, but don’t be deceived by that. The calmness of the voice and gentility of the hypocrite are a camouflage. They are a manifestation of the chameleon spirit, that rules the lives of all hypocrites.
THE CHAMELEON SPIRIT IS A SPIRIT THAT AGREES WITH EVERYONE, EITHER GOOD OR BAD.
It adapts to all circumstances, and fits with all moral and immoral characters. It will meet the upright and act upright, and when it meets the wicked, it will blend with them.
The chameleon spirit sits enthroned in so many hearts in the Church today.
I remember someone sitting before me to frown at a sexual sin one person committed, and later sitting before the person to say, “we are all sinners, God will forgive you also,” and I marveled! He came to me and behaved like at upright person, and went over there to truly be who he is – that is how hypocrites behave. We should not be like that.
We should not sit before people to denounce a sin and sit before others to embrace a sin. That is not Christ like, but Satan like. Sadly, most have become Satan like instead of Christ like. There is so much about this that we cannot cover in a devotional. But tomorrow is another day! God may lead us on the same paths as we step into the new month.
Until then, may the LORD continue to watch over us and protect us from hypocrites. May He also help us not to be hypocrites. May we not join or remain part of the army of believers who are playing the hypocrite in their local Churches. Amen!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.” Galatians 2:13 NKJV