TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 29TH JANUARY 2024)
“Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in God’s fear.” 2 Corinthians 7:1 Darby Translation
WELCOME TO THE 29TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
No doubts, God has been faithful to us! Our lives testify. For 29 days, we have slept and woken up in peace, and seen the next day with joy. Indeed, He has been faithful.
We have also seen the faithfulness of the LORD in the area of our devotionals. Daily, God has been giving us spiritual food and building us into His temple in the Spirit. If you are not following these devotionals faithfully, you are missing a lot.
Today, we will be highlighting some truths on spiritual pollution.
Actually, there are spiritual toxic waste that can kill God’s works and power in our lives. There are spiritually poisonous things that can leave us vulnerable in the spirit to devils.
They can suspend divine favour for a season and transmit sinful tendencies into our lives. They have what it takes to contaminate our faith and passion for God, and activate our flesh to awake to sinfulness.
These things are poisonous to our divine destiny.
That is why, at the root of every devastating spiritual attack on a destiny man or woman, is a spiritual pollution. Let’s take David for an example; before he ever committed adultery, he was polluted spiritually by what he saw.
The Bible says he looked at a woman that was bathing from the top of his palace and saw her nakedness and something was transmitted into him. And before you could pronounce the word J-e-r-u-s-a-l-e-m, he had gotten the woman pregnant and killed her husband to cover up. The rest is history.
SPIRITUAL POLLUTIONS ARE THE DRIVING FORCES OF EVERY SINFUL ACT.
The Bible says;
“To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattering tongue of a seductress. Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, nor let her allure you with her eyelids.
For by means of a harlot a man is reduced to a crust of bread; and an adulteress will prey upon his precious life.
Can a man take fire to his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” Proverbs 6:24-27 NKJV
David was badly burnt by his sin. But it all began when he looked lustfully at a naked woman and was spiritually polluted. Job was wiser. He said, “I have made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a maid.” If the same standard was lifted by David, he would not have fallen.
Warriors do not just fall into sin. They are first polluted spiritually over time. Spiritual pollution has a way of quickening or arousing our sinful nature to do evil.
It has a way of awaking us to sinfulness, especially in the area of sexual sins. The Bible spoke about us awaking to righteousness. But that is not possible when the flesh is awake to sinful living.
To be awake simply means to be alive or active.
The reason many of us struggle with sinful habits is because our flesh is active towards sin. When the flesh is dead or inactive towards sin, we will never struggle with sinful habits. We will never live in sin. That is why men like Paul will tell you,
“For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor” (Galatians 2:18 NKJV).
One way we build the things we destroyed – the sinful habits we destroyed – is by exposing ourselves afresh to spiritual pollutants. In other words, there is no way you will not transgress if you expose yourself to things that will spiritually pollute you like David did.
Sadly, the spiritual pollutions in the world today seem to be worse than the ones in previous generations.
Technology has multiplied and made them so close to us; we now sit with them, sleep with them, and keep them closer to us than ever before. And for most of us our smart phones have become weapons of Holiness destruction (WHD) in the hands of the enemy.
THAT IS NOT THE WILL OF GOD FOR OUR LIVES!
When we open up our FaceBook pages, there are chances that we will see some obscene images or read some words that quicken the flesh to sin. Many are hooked up to pornography by the power of YouTube.
It’s really getting messier down here. Divine destinies are at stake.
People now go to hell at a faster rate than before. As soon as Children are born, hell bound parents will register them for eternal damnation immediately using their smart phones.
That’s why sometimes I pray that the LORD suspends everything and come now to take us home. But how can He take us home that fast when His redemptive plans are yet to be completed.
There must be another way for the redeemed to be saved from these things while we wait, and that way is the way of living the crucified life by dying daily, like Paul did, and not getting polluted like David.
Paul wrote saying;
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 NKJV
This is the faith position we must take to escape these things. If we do not do that, we will become entangled again to corruption after escaping the pollutions of this world. The Bible says,
“For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.” 2 Peter 2:20 NKJV
From this scripture, it is clear that if we yield to the spiritual pollutions of this world, and get entangled in them again, our latter end will be worse than the beginning. We therefore need to embrace the life of dying daily that is painted in the lives of our Bible fathers like Paul, to stay saved.
BUT THAT WILL NOT BE POSSIBLE IF WE DO NOT LISTEN TO MESSAGES ON THE CRUCIFIED LIFE.
Sadly, messages on the crucified life no longer exist in the church today.
No book on it is on our shelves. We are full of books on deliverance, financial prosperity and making our marriages work but no book on living the Crucified life. We forget that Jesus’ prescription for a peaceful and prosperous life is not a deliverance or prosperity book.
Yes, Jesus never even prescribed a deliverance prayer, a silencing or raising of an altar, a sacrificial giving, or a mantle service for your peace and prosperity. Those are preacher’s prescriptions. The crucified life was what He prescribed for us to live a peaceful and prosperous life by His Spirit.
A crucified life will generate so much power that devils will not be able to come a hundred meters close our lives. It is full of freedom, faith, and the consuming glory of God. It knows no poverty or lack. It is beyond curses and satanic attacks.
A Crucified life does not expose its heart to spiritual pollutants. It is dead to sin and the satanic hence fighting them daily.
It does not sit before what does not edify. It is confined to deep intimacy with Jesus and dies daily to sin and all forms of carnal cravings. It does not fix its eyes on pornographic pictures or watch movies that activate sexual feelings.
Fasting, to a Crucified life, is a tool for serving God. It is an instrument of worship. The crucified life uses it very well to keep himself or herself spiritually planted on the mountains of God’s holiness.
No one leads a crucified life and not unleash his divine destiny.
It is the key to running the race that is set before us well, and finishing strong. Everyone who fulfilled their divine destiny accurately, embraced the Crucified life, everyone who did not, rejected the Crucified life.
For instance, Samson would not have been on the laps of Delilah if he had led the Crucified life. The brethren who brought in damnable heresies in the early Church would not have done so if they had embraced the Crucified life.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW TO LIVE THE CRUCIFIED LIFE, STUDY THE LIFE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE.
He was the pioneer of the crucified life in the post resurrection Church. Even Peter had to learn from him. In fact, the Bible made it clear that Jesus raised and fashioned him for us to have him as a pattern of the Christian life; that was after the 12 had slipped into Judaism.
What are we sharing this morning? The Bible says “glorious things are spoken concerning you O city of God.”
You are that City of God on the face of the earth. In other words, your divine destiny is pregnant with precious promises that are designed to be fulfilled in your life during your stay on this side of eternity. Some may have been revealed to you. That is why our devotional text today is saying to us;
“Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us purify ourselves from every pollution of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in God’s fear.”.
That means, the fulfilment of the precious promises that our divine destiny is pregnant with, is conditioned on us perfecting holiness in the fear of God. And that can only be done by purifying ourselves from every pollution of the flesh and spirit.
Are you ready to unleash your divine destiny? If the answer is yes, then make this devotional truth your meditation.
Decide to lead a Christian life that is separated from spiritual pollutions. And the only way to do that is to live the Crucified life that Jesus used Paul to fashion out for us.
You won’t fail in Jesus’ name!
THIS SCRIPTURE CAN BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.
For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.
For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works. Matthew 16:24-27 NKJV