TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 21ST JUNE 2024)
“Then answered Peter and said unto him, Declare unto us this parable.
And Jesus said, Are ye also yet without understanding? Do not ye yet understand, that whatsoever entereth in at the mouth goeth into the belly, and is cast out into the draught?
But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man.
For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies:
These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.” Matthew 15:15-20 KJV
WELCOME TO THE 172ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
The LORD God has been mindful of us, yes, He have been merciful upon us. He has given us another day to be alive. He has enabled us to see another beautiful day created before the foundation of the world.
To Him belong all the glory!
When I look at my life, and the lives of many others who have sat before me over the years, either for counseling or prayers, I just see the greatness of a God who believes in immortal, despicable, and abandoned men and women, despite their state, morality or level of education.
I have found Him to be the God who believes that we can make it if we allow Him to pour His Holy Spirit upon us and guide us through life, no matter what may have happened to us.
Ordinarily, when the worst happens to us, friends and family give up on us.
I have been there when everyone thought mine was over and buried. Many others have been there and many are still there now, but God does not write us off when the worse happens to us. He comes with a redemption plan.
That is why the Bible says;
“For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.” Ecclesiastes 9:4 NKJV
Yes, there is hope because, there is a Great God who believes in everyman, even more than anyone can fathom. He knows that no matter what might have happened to us, if only we will allow Him to put us in His redemptive plans, all will be fine.
It’s just that not all will gather the courage to follow Him as He leads them out of the woods of life that they have wondered into. The cross of Jesus remains the life insurance of all who will come and allow Him to lead; yes, all who will come to the LORD, abandon their ways and follow the ways of the LORD.
NEVER FORGET THAT A BATTERED LIFE IN GOD’S REDEMPTION PLAN IS A BLESSED LIFE IN THE MAKING.
Sometimes, even when life disappears from our nostrils, God do believe in some people enough, to bring them back to life, so they can amend their ways and live right before Him before they finally die to spend eternity with Him.
Though not everyone sees that happen because of the absence of intercessions and other factors that we may not comprehend on this side of eternity, the truth remains, God is the only person who believes in a man more than anyone on earth.
The woman that was caught in adultery knew this better after her ordeal. I believe she never went back to adultery after that day, because Jesus spoke to her in power saying, “neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”
We can say He looked at her and said, “Because I believe in people, and because I have seen repentance in your heart, I will not condemn you, go and sin no more, so that what I believe about you can be made manifest.”
Yesterday we shared a word that brought us to the door step of the mystery of hearts. Hearts! Hearts! Hearts! The most important part of a man to consider in the school of righteous prayers is a man’s heart. Our devotional text holds a great secret on hearts.
God’s greatest focus when dealing with us is our hearts. If we are living in sin and need a change, God works on our hearts to effect the change. If we are being prepare for kingdom service and need training, God trains us by passing us through processes that will effect a change in our hearts to make us fit for His use.
If God wants to empower us to become effective in prayers, He focuses on our hearts.
When it comes to relationship between a man and God, it is all about the heart. Men have the character of looking at outward appearances but God looks at the heart because our outward appearances are signs and symbols of the kinds of hearts we have.
Those who have the heart of nudity will dress nude and those who have the heart of modesty will dress modestly. If the heart is righteous, the prayer will be righteous and earth shaking, not just head shaking.
While there is nothing wrong with shaking our heads while we pray, it’s a matter of temperament, the most important thing to shake in prayers is the gates of our enemies. God wants us to possess them.
BUT IT CAN ONLY BE BY RIGHTEOUS PRAYERS AND RIGHTEOUS LIVING.
It is clear that our hearts and their hearts are not the same, because if we have the very hearts they had, we will have the same results in prayers that they got. From Christ Himself to John the beloved, they did things that our generation are not even interested in.
Indeed, they had a heart that we lack.
For instance, Jesus spoke to the wind and it listened. He walked on water. He raised the dead like waking someone from sleep. He controlled weather and saw the thoughts of men afar off before they even manifested. Above all He knew no sin. That was not from the kind of heart we all have today.
He opened blind eyes without publicizing it. He cleansed lepers and did so much. In fact, it was very easy for Him and He thought it can be the same for all of us when He said;
“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” Matthew 10:8 NKJV
Can you see how easy it sounded on His lips? I have wondered about this command all my Christian life. Sometimes one would ask, “what was the LORD thinking when He said that? Does it mean we can do that as easy as He stated it?”
Yes, we can if we have the same heart that He got in His days.
A heart that commands divine attention and move Heaven to change earth. He raised the bar Higher when He said greater works shall we do, than what He did. And that was after praying a prayer that caused amazing change. If we should check ourselves, have we done even 10 percent of what He did?
Your guess is as good as mine!
INDEED, THE HEART OF CHRISTIANS OF OUR GENERATION IS NOT THE SAME WITH THE HEART OF THEIRS.
Heart transformation is all we need now. We must begin to ask ourselves why they got results that we are either not seeing or faking?
Yes, you see the faking of the dead being raised, the blind seeing, the lame walking? We even pay people to pretend to be deaf and dumb and speak by our prayers. What our fathers got by the arm of the LORD, we are getting by a deceiving spirit or sorcery.
Our hearts are not the same with theirs, and that should trouble us. It should trouble us because even the Heaven they are now may not be the Heaven we will be. Meaning, we may end up in hell.
These words of truth and reason can only be ignored by one who is not mindful of eternal destiny. The main reason why they had hearts we do not have is because they operated a Holy Spirit that many of us do not have. They did not use oil the way we do or water or salt in prayer.
They never touched sorcery like many preachers do today. They walked in Bible truths we ignore today, gave their lives to sound doctrines we call judgmental and all kinds of nonsense.
Consequently, we now have hearts that are very far from theirs and can not see the results they got in prayer. That is the mystery of hearts.
You will never get the result that Jesus and the rest of our fathers got until we have the heart they had. Our devotional text has so much to say about the mystery we are sharing about. It talks about things that proceeds from mouth as directly from the heart. He said;
“But those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart; and they defile the man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are the things which defile a man:”
This scripture is not just about defilement but about the power of what lies in a man’s heart.
It is the heart content of a man that influences what comes out of his mouth in prayer. The generation of the post resurrection apostles and our LORD and savior Jesus had things in their hearts that made their prayer lives the way we saw it. And gave them the results they got in prayer.
The apostles for example got their heart content from encounters with the LORD Himself, and the demonstration of the Holy Spirit of God that they saw and witnessed.
If we want our hearts to be filled with the content it needs to help us connect Heaven with righteous prayers, there are practical steps to take. Those are the steps we will be seeing from tomorrow. May this word be a seed sown into a hungry and thirsty heart.
I commend you to GOD and to the words of His grace, which are able to build you up and give you an inheritance among they that are sanctified by faith in Christ Jesus.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY!
“A sower went out to sow his seed: and as he sowed, some fell by the way side; and it was trodden down, and the fowls of the air devoured it.
And some fell upon a rock; and as soon as it was sprung up, it withered away, because it lacked moisture.
And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprang up with it, and choked it.
And other fell on good ground, and sprang up, and bare fruit an hundredfold. And when he had said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.
And his disciples asked him, saying, What might this parable be?
“And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand. Luke 8:5-10 NKJV