TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 12TH JANUARY 2024)
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 12TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
We give God the glory for granting us the mercy to see another day. It is the 12th day of the year, and we want to look at a very critical governmental matter of God’s Kingdom.
We believe we are still in a season of the year when we need preparatory words for the rest of the year. The LORD has spoken some to us. Today, He has another. Do not forget, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD.
The word of the LORD to us this morning is saying, “Keep moving, do not stop.” Yes, the LORD wants you and I to keep moving.
Yesterday we said we are in very interesting seasons of the Church. In seasons like this, we are to keep moving in the direction of God’s will for our lives. We are not to stop.
We are to keep fighting the battles of the LORD, keep believing, keep saying no to sin, keep resisting deception, keep speaking words of truth and reason, keep praying, keep fasting, keep giving, keep doing things that are God’s will, plans, and purposes for our lives. We are to keep moving.
Understand that, the agelong drive or Cry of the Spirit has always been to move God’s people from one realm of glory to another.
The Bible admonishes that we move from one level of grace to another, and one level of faith to another. The Spirit’s drive is to help us accomplish that.
The Christian journey on this side of eternity is actually designed to go from faith to faith, grace to grace; glory to glory, and more glory to more glory as we step into the next life. It is not a life that was designed not to keep moving.
In other words, you and I are saved to move from a lower level of faith, to a higher level of faith, a lower dimension of grace, to a higher dimension of grace, a lower realm of glory, to a higher realm of glory, until our time on earth is over.
In our devotional text today, we find what Paul wrote to the Church at Philippi; strong words that has shaped the destiny of many from generation to generation.
YESTERDAY WE SPOKE ABOUT AN APOSTOLIC REVIVAL THAT HAS ALREADY STARTED IN THE PRESENT CHURCH.
There was a time I studied the revivalist of the past. I discovered in my studies that most of those God used to rekindle the flames of His Holy Spirit in their generation, fed from the scripture of our devotional text to stay on fire for the LORD all through till their death.
There is something about that scripture that needs urgent attention in our generation.
I believe, the LORD had us to have it as our devotional text today for something very prophetic because of the seasons that are upon us. A major highlight in the text says;
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
To start with, I want to say if we do not forget the things that happened yesterday – the good, the bad and the ugly – and press into what God has predetermined to happen today, we will never unleash our divine destiny.
This applies to matters of dispensational moves of God, and our everyday experience of life. Dispensational, if we do not forget the use of oil, water, salt, and all the symbols the people of God used in Bible days, and press into the substance, we will remain the kind of a church we have become today!
A Church of scandals, deception, criminalities, sorcery, devils and etc. We will keep having criminals, thieves and greedy dogs as preachers. The dark Church will keep presenting itself to the lost world as the Church, destroying our collective reputation as the Church of God.
A GENERATION THAT HOLDS ON TO THE PAST, WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO FINISH ITS COURSE IN GOD’S ETERNAL PLAN FOR IT!
It will become a dwelling place of every strange thing. We must learn how to serve God in our dispensation the way He wants us to serve Him; in spirit and in truth.
In matters of our every experience of life, People must learn how to say goodbye. Yes, we must learn to say good bye to the wasted years. Good bye to painful memories, good bye to dark sinful days and seasons of our lives. We must learn to say good bye to whatever does not glorify God.
It will help us to come quickly into recovery. On the other hand, we must also learn to say good bye to glorious accomplishments so that we can birth more glorious ones.
God designed the church to be a moving army. If we get to a particular peak in life and do not lift up our eyes to look for higher grounds to press into, we will begin to stink and sink.
Samson made a major mistake in this regard. He got to a particular success peak of his life, and stopped succeeding. That was why God decided to provoke Him into action by allowing His desire to move towards marrying a philistine woman.
During the period, things became so messy because he maintained the habit of stopping.
We cannot go into the details now, but understand that no moving army of the LORD can be capture by the enemy if it does not stop succeeding, pushing, fighting, purifying itself daily, resisting temptation, standing in faith and etc. We are only captured when we stop.
That is why in God’s kingdom, we don’t get ourselves stuck to a season of success (or even failure), we move on! That is the secret of unending strength from the LORD.
To fulfil a divine destiny, we will need constant pressing into things yet to be revealed or made manifest. We will need to be pressing into them from time to time until we empty God’s storehouse of predetermined things for our lives.
YES, GOD HAS A STOREHOUSE OF THINGS HE HAS PREDETERMINED THAT THEY HAPPEN IN OUR LIVES.
Our Job is to find them and live our days pressing into each one until all are fulfilled. The goal of each believer, should be to empty God’s storehouse of predetermined things for his or her life. That is the goal to live our days pursuing.
If we do not do that, we will be stuck to a season of life, and begin to either desire to die like Samson, or begin to see our carnal craving come alive, and someone or something to satisfy it for us. That is the reason generals in God’s army fall.
Take David for instance, he saw Bathsheba, the naked woman who trapped him into sin in a season when kings go to war. The Bible says,
“It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; and they destroyed the people of Ammon and besieged Rabbah. But David remained at Jerusalem.
Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold.
So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”
Then David sent messengers, and took her; and she came to him, and he lay with her, for she was cleansed from her impurity; and she returned to her house. And the woman conceived; so she sent and told David, and said, “I am with child.” 2 Samuel 11:1-5 NKJV
Everything you just read and what happened as a result is traceable to one season the King did not go to war; one-time great King David got stuck to a season of life. You know how the enemy took advantage of everything and almost wiped away great king David using the sword of his own son, if not for God’s covenant with him.
IT IS AMAZING HOW ONE CARELESS SEASON OF OUR LIVES CAN BE USED BY THE ENEMY TO WRITE A STORY OR PRODUCE A DARK SIDE THAT MIGHT NEVER GO AWAY.
This dark side of David which we are still reading today, would not have happened if he was in the battle field responding to the next thing God wanted to do with his life, he wouldn’t have seen a woman who was busy taking her bath from his pent house.
Our carnal desires will take the better part of us if we are not in the battle fields of our divine destinies fulfilling them.
Yes, they will take a better part of us if we do not spend our days submitting to the next thing God want to do with our lives after doing one successful thing with it. We will need a constant pressing into things yet to be done with our lives to lead a fulfilled life on earth.
We should never forget that Satan knows the power of bringing our momentum to a standstill. He knows the power of stopping you from living your days pursuing the fulfilment of God’s predetermined things for your life. He will even use a marriage, as good as that can be, or the pursuit of money or a career, to stop us.
Most of us in the faith today have been successfully stopped by the enemy.
That is why we are stuck and stinky in the spirit; we are always depressed, always dreaming, always wishing, always worrying, always in lack and hardship, always hoping for the better that has refused to come, not moving anywhere, just existing but not living.
We are thinking it is a curse or something. But we do not know it is the consequences of NOT living our days as we should. We do not know that we are suffering all that because the enemy has successfully put us to a stop.
We are in motion, but not progressing.
We are moving from one marriage problem or program to another, one poverty killing move to another, but are not moving from one realm of glory to another, from fulfilling one pre-determined thing of God for our lives to fulfilling another.
We are just in a motion induced by the life circumstances that surrounds us. We are making no significant progress. If we do not respond to this word now, it might be too late for us.
God sent this word to tell someone, “get up! move on to my next plan for your life. There are things I want to fulfill with your life. Find them by my Spirit, and live your days pressing into them.”
God wants us to be moving from fresh oil to fresh oil, and that will need a constant pursuit of unfulfilled things, and constant pressing into fresh dimensions.
If we make the pursuit of the things of men our constant pursuit, we will move from being gullible to becoming weary and then desperate. We will never enjoy God’s freshness.
If we constantly press into the things of GOD, through times on our knees, seeking the LORD and the revelation of what He wants us to do with our lives, even in fasting and prayer, and then moving to do them, even as we walk from one dimension of truth to another, we will not cease enjoying the freshness of GOD.
God wants your life filled with His freshness. He wants you moving in Heavenly freshness. You cannot afford not to! So, stop the stop!! Get up from your motion without progress, and keep moving!!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY.
“But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.”
“Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ”
“and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;”
“that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
“Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me.”
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”
“Therefore let us, as many as are mature, have this mind; and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal even this to you.” Philippians 3:7-15 NKJV