TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 14TH October 2025)
“But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
“But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.” 2 Timothy 3:13-17 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 287TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
Today we want to look at the eternal blessing of searching the scriptures. It is my prayer that God will fire our faith and propel our spirits to go the direction of His will for our lives. Amen.
First, let me pay tribute to one of the uncommon spiritual fathers ever raised by the LORD in contemporary times. His type comes once in a generation.
I believe God used him to do things that are beyond some of the things that we read about in the God’s General Series. His name, Dr. Uma Upkai, a man who played one of the twin roles that propelled me to seek God’s power in 1992. This great legend of Pentecostal Power went to be with the LORD 6th October 2025, with the news just breaking out yesterday.
I believe they must have kept it wrap hoping he will return to life due to the few times he had made such trips to heaven and returned. He was a legend of true Pentecostal Power.
I have met this man so many times through His power packed Crusades that started opening up spiritual territories for the gospel in the Easten and Southern Part of Nigeria, from the 1960s to 1980s when I got to meet the grace He carried through those crusades. I did not say sorcery and charismatic witchcraft packed Crusades, but real Pentecostal power packed Crusades.
After a while of just seeing him afar off on those glorious platforms, the LORD granted me the favor to meet him at a very close range for the first time in 1999 when I went to him to commission our ministry, after few years of being a rural crusade evangelist.
I was privileged to spend a night with his Kids then in his home. He and Mama Uma Ukpai were not around. They let me in because God granted me favor. When he finally returned, we had a little chat, and I left.
THAT CHAT WAS ALL I NEEDED AT THAT TIME TO KEEP TRAVELING WITH GOD’S WILL FOR MY LIFE.
Dr. Uma Ukpai had a grace that was bigger than what the rest of the Nigerian Preachers, apart from Pastor William Kumuyi, has.
When it comes to the pure power of God, it was just him and this other Legend of faith, Pastor William Kumuyi, one can trust. They were the only once who moved in an unadulterated power of God. The rest adulterated it with syncretism.
By Syncretism I mean the combination of different spiritual or religious beliefs and cultures to create one new one and call it God.
The rest invented the use of the anointing oil, the use of magic wands, the use of Ribena as blood of Jesus, the bastardization of the Holy communion etc. and called all the mixture from the demon of deliverance God’s power.
I celebrate the life and times of this legend of the unadulterated Pentecostal movement in Nigeria, who stood tall with the raw power of God, and had our then young hearts witnessed moves of God that, if you did not see with your eyes, you will not believe that they could happen.
As God would have it, I met Him again early this year at the Transcorp Hiton hotel in Abuja. It was a destiny meeting for me. I thank God for His life and glorify Jesus Christ for helping the Cry of the Spirit Ministries to be moving on the wings of the Holy Spirit his ministry helped my young heart to see.
What more can I say about a man that most people in the present church only got to know in his last two decades on earth. His life and lips said it all.
I just hope there will be a book someday about this great legend of Pentecostal power in Africa. With all sense of responsibility, I want to say there is no man in the history of the Nigerian Church who ever moved in pure Pentecostal Power like him, that is aside the then Pastor Kumuyi.
His is of the extraction of the Assemblies of God Church, the same Church I sprang from. He is Our father so long as Assemblies of God is concern. He was known by every Assemblies of God church member. The rest just got to know him not too long ago.
WE WILL MISS HIM SO GREATLY AS ASSEMBLIES OF GOD CHURCH MEMBERS AND AS MEMBERS OF THE BODY OF CHRIST.
The purity of the Pentecostal Power He walked in had no use of Oil, water, Salt, and any of those things that the rest of the preachers of his time uses. He was already in Ministry before the likes of Pastor Adeboye, Dr. David Oyedepo, Bishop Wale Oke etc., got saved.
Though younger in age than Pastor Adeboye, he was the oldest Minister in the Reformation space of the Nigerian Church. He is the Elder of us all and will be missed. He fought a good fight, ran the race, and finished his course. May his soul continue to rest in the bosom of our LORD Jesus Christ. Amen.
This legend of faith and all of us from the Assemblies of God church are products of searching the scripture.
Friend, the eternal blessing of searching the scriptures cannot be discussed in a piece like this. It is something that we will never fully comprehend until we get to Heaven. But if you want to walk in God’s ways, His great power, the accuracy of His will, with a prefect understanding of the life patterns He drew for you before you were formed in your mother’s womb, you must search the scriptures.
If you want to find out what God’s plans for your life are, or the timing of things He wants you to do, you must learn to search the scriptures.
Searching the scriptures was one of the distinguished characters of those who gave their lives to Christ in the days of the early Church, and it remains so in every revival generation of our age and time. History has proven that whenever you see people leaving the noise of religion and pressing into the pages of the scriptures, a revival is either brewing or raging.
For instance, when the 1970s revival hit Nigeria, searching the scriptures was so entrenched in the faith of all who gave their lives to Christ that time that the acronym, SU, (or Scripture Union) was used to describe them.
IN FACT, THE REVIVAL WAS CALLED THE SCRIPTURE UNION OR SU REVIVAL.
A raging revival, spiritual landscape transforming reformation, the shutting down of the sin age in man, and the restoration of God’s glory, are all the eternal blessings of searching the scriptures.
They are products of the eternal life that hearts that are burning for God find on the pages of scriptures. Jesus said, “You search the Scriptures, because you think you will find eternal life in them. The Scriptures tell about me,” (John 5:39 CEV).
We are in a terminal generation, under the influence of the horrors of the last days.
The Bible says the wicked will do more wickedly in our days. But one major thing that will keep us victorious this hour, is searching the scriptures to find what it says about Jesus, because the more we know Him, the more we find what He wants us to do and how He wants us to live.
In what he wants us to do is the revival many need so that they will not slip into reckoning. In what He wants us to do is the reformation that the revived needs, so that they will not slip back to decay and be in danger of reckoning. Yes, in what He wants us to do is the shutdown of the sin age and the release of the glory of God upon our lives.
Friend, you will never live a meaningful life on earth if you do not live a life of searching the scriptures. Our devotional text today presents what we get from searching the Holy Scriptures as the only way to survive the season we find ourselves. A major part of it says:
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
When we search the scriptures, we find the doctrine to feed our spirits with. We also find the correction to apply to our lives, and the instructions in righteousness to follow on daily bases, all of that in the revelation of Jesus Christ that we encounter through its pages.
As we bring this to a close, understand that if the relationship between you and your Bible is poor, you will never walk in the eternal blessings of searching the scriptures shared with us this morning. God sent this word to quicken us to make our Bible our university of life where the lectures are guided by the Holy Spirit, if we have not.
This is why attending a Bible believing Church headed by a deep teacher of the word comes in, not people who steal teachings from others. It will help you a lot!
One of the safest things to do these days, if your faith is important to you, is to separate yourself from men and women of God who demonstrate power and prophesies without unfolding the deep things of God in the Bible to you.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“ Until I come, devote yourself to public reading [of Scripture], to preaching and to teaching [the sound doctrine of God’s word].
Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, [that special endowment] which was intentionally bestowed on you [by the Holy Spirit] through prophetic utterance when the elders laid their hands on you [at your ordination].
Practice and work hard on these things; be absorbed in them [completely occupied in your ministry], so that your progress will be evident to all.
Pay close attention to yourself [concentrate on your personal development] and to your teaching; persevere in these things [hold to them], for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.” 1 Timothy 4:13-16 AMPC
