TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 24TH OCTOBER 2024)
“Therefore, I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air.
But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:26-27 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 298TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
We bless the God of Heaven and earth who has made it possible for us to be alive today. It is worth repeating that it is out of God’s mercies that we are not consumed.
One major sign of His faithfulness is we being in the last quarter of the year 2024, and peacefully so. Indeed, there is no ROCK like our God, who hides us from harm and keeps us saved from our enemies. It is His marvelous deeds that are responsible for our being here today.
We are hopeful of our immediate future because of what He has done in our recent past. You may not know your future, just walk with the GOD who lives in the future and all will be well. Yes, we may not know what 2025 holds, but if we walk with the GOD who lives in 2025, we are covered.
The best way to secure a glorious future is to walk with the GOD who live there. I am a testimony of this Bible truth. At a time, I thought my future was bleak and nothing will come out of it. Then I found out what the Bible says about the future of the saved and sanctified. It says;
“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.” Jeremiah 29:11-12NKJV
I found out from this scripture that all I need was to find the God who holds my future through prayers and walk with Him, by doing His will and walking in His ways, and all will be well.
Yes, I am to find His thoughts for my life, His presence for my life, and use an effective prayer line in the Holy Ghost to maintain my walk with Him. I discovered that the future is only bleak when we do not walk with the LORD who lives there.
From this scripture we can find three basic ways to walk with the God who holds the future. The first is intimacy with Him or His presence.
Yes, we are to be intimate with His presence, know and plan our lives according to His thoughts for them, and maintain a healthy prayer life. If we do that, we will have a glorious future.
PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY CAN CREATE A GLORIOUS FUTURE BY SOWING SEEDS ARE DELUDED.
Some are not deluded, they are just apprehensive. Friend, you may be apprehensive about 2025, maybe because of the things that may have happened to you in 2024, but the LORD has given you a key to having a secured and glorious 2025 – walk with Him.
When you walk with the God who holds the future, He will manifest His three names in your life in the 365 days of the year, or 366 if it’s a leap year. Among which will be a manifestation as the one to whom belong escapes from death.
Personally, I have escaped pre mature death several times in my adult life. I remember this incident that happened in 1999. I just turned 23 and have been in ministry since 1994. We were preparing for my official commissioning into ministry which was billed to take place the following year.
Then I decided to visit North Central Nigeria for a personal prayer retreat. That was when it happened. The incident did not just show me how caring God can be over our lives, especially in helping us escape premature death, but how He can use similar experiences to teach us lessons of life.
I was hosted by a beloved pastor who had visited our Church few months before. I took the opportunity to write my first book “Power to Become”. I usually visit the Church auditorium of one of the largest Churches in North Central Nigeria to capture the thoughts God was giving me for this book.
One day I finished writing a portion of the book and was on my way to the house of my host when this happened. I was walking by the road side to view the City when a passenger bus failed brakes and started coming towards me.
I saw it quick enough to jump away from this vehicle that had lost control.
Sadly, someone died in the vehicle but I escaped being killed. Then it downed on me that if our lives lack “brakes” we will be running out of control like that vehicle and always be making very fatal mistakes of life.
A life without brakes is sometimes worst than a vehicle without brakes.
THAT WAS THE LESSON THAT CAME OUT OF THE EXPERIENCE.
A vehicle without breaks could kill just one person but a life without breaks will always wipe out a generation. It will do things that unborn generations will be born to weep about.
That day I learned that to have a glorious future, we must know how to walk with God and learn to apply brakes in life. Mostly, the breaks of self-discipline. Whenever destiny people do not know when to apply the brakes of life, they will defeat their destiny.
God did not create anyone without brakes. Yes, we all have the brakes of life attached to our spirits, souls and bodies. It is called self discipline. People who do not know how to apply the brakes of self discipline will always have some forms of satanic oppressions to live with.
There is captivity in freedom. Indiscipline will make a man too free to be free from the yokes of his enemies. If you are not self disciplined, you are like a vehicle without brakes. People who lack self discipline always do not know when to stop; they do not know when to put their bodies under subjection and stop certain things that ruins.
For instance, if you lack self discipline you will always let your anger go out of control. You will let your sexuality go out of control. You will let your carnal desires go out of control. Sadly, most endemic problems of life are caused by a life style that let such things go out of control.
Most marriages break because couples lack the brakes of self discipline. Most businesses crumble for the same reason. Most Churches split for the same reason. Most youths destroy their future for the same reason. Most anointed pastors fall into the sin of adultery or fornication for the same reason.
God knows if we do not have self discipline, we will ruin ourselves. That was why he stirred Paul to write the blessed words we consider this morning as our devotional text.
It says; “…But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”
I have taught repeatedly that there are three basic needs of the flesh – food, sex and comfort. If we do not relate with them according to divine plan and pattern, any of them can destroy us.
MOST PERILS OF LIFE ARE TRACEABLE TO HOW MEN HANDLED THOSE THREE THINGS – SEX, FOOD, AND COMFORT.
Sex for instance, has become more of a curse then the blessing God created it to be in the life of so many, simply because of lack of self discipline. Homes have been broken by it, Children born outside family lines by it, lives destroyed by it, diseases transmitted into many by it.
We can go on and on!
If your life lack brakes as a Child of God you will never get to your glorious destination in God. Paul made it clear that if he did not apply the brakes of self discipline in his life even as a preacher; he will preach to others and be rejected before God!
In other words, he will not get to his destination; which is eternal rest with Christ.
Friend, are the brakes of your life functioning? Failed brakes are dangerous. Are yours functioning? Do you know when to put your body under subjection so that it will not rob you of great blessings?
If Samson had applied his breaks when he met Delilah, he won’t have died the way he died. If David had applied his brakes when his eyes caught a naked woman bathing, he would not have killed a man and married his wife. If Abraham had applied his brakes when Sarah his wife suggested that he go into Hagar her maid, there would have been no Ishmael in his life.
Do you have something your now battle with for not applying your brakes when you needed them? God sent this devotional to stir you to sit up, and also to receive mercy to come out of it.
Are you ready!
Now, bow your head in prayer and repent like Samson, David and the rest did. Ask the LORD to show you mercy and take away the pain that not applying your brakes may have created.
Ask Him to turn those scars into stars. Don’t forget, the sacrifices of God are a broken heart. A broken and a contrite heart God will not despise. Seek His mercy and He will give you a fresh start!
Also, if the brakes of your life are completely damaged; if you do not have self discipline, you can ask the LORD to impart it into you.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
“For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.” Ezekiel 36:23-27 NKJV