TODAY’S DEVOTION SATURDAY 20th DECEMBER 2025)
“Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:31-32 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 354TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
It’s the last month of the year and the last days of the month. God has been faithful and merciful, keeping us all through this year with His unfailing love, kindness, and compassion.
Our gratitude will remain His because our lives are His own.
As the owner of our lives, He has given us another day to live, improve our walk with Him, and touch the lives of others as we march towards the final moments of His redemptive plans for mankind!
One way we can touch the lives of others is by making them disciples of Christ, after we ourselves have become one, because one can only give what they have. Our devotional text this morning reminds us of our primary calling, which is to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
Yes, our primary redemptive call is that we be Disciples of Christ not just Church members. Thank God some once heretic preachers seems to be waking up to this reality, and believers too. It stinks to just be a church member. The higher glory of church membership is to be a disciple of Christ.
A disciple is a student or learner. God wants us to take a learning posture under Christ our teacher, LORD and Savior. He did not come as man to die for us so that a religious people can emerge, He came to redeem a people who forever will be learners of who He is; both in time and eternity.
If your church is not therefore making you a disciple of Christ, your church is shortchanging you. You will never know how bad that is until you step into the next life.
There are things we do in this life that we may never know how eternally dangerous they are until we step into the next life. It is only when we read and believe the Bible that we can see the light of how eternally dangerous some of the things we do and not worry about are.
For example, the lies we tell, sexual desires we nurture and sometimes practice, spiritual indiscipline, hypocrisy, bitterness and unkindness, following false preachers who work outstanding miracles, pastors sleeping with members and members sleeping with pastors, and lots more.
THESE THINGS ARE THINGS SOME WILL ONLY FIND ETERNALLY CONSEQUENTIAL WHEN THEY FIND THEMSELVES IN HELL IN THE NEXT LIFE.
Yes, many of us do not know that there are things we are doing now that will take us to hell fire when we die. We do not know because we have been consumed by the pleasure of those things.
One of them is being a church member instead of using church membership to become a disciple (learner, or student) of Christ.
The Bible made it clear that we will spend eternity knowing GOD and fulfilling His eternal purpose for creating mankind. That is why we are called to begin the journey here by using church membership to become disciples, students or learners of Christ. Sadly, most of us in Church today are yet to respond to the call.
We are yet to respond to this call because being a disciple is not just joining a local Church. Being a disciple requires much more than that.
Jesus made it clear that becoming a disciple involves taking our cross daily and following Him.
Yes, when you become a disciple, you will find a cross you need to carry daily to follow the LORD. You find that cross only when you become a disciple of Christ, because learning Christ helps us see things we should never do again, things we must pay the price in time to achieve in eternity.
The cross also has the price of saying yes to Jesus in spirit and in truth, and with the whole of your being and living as part of it. It involves the burdens of making His true will, your only will on the face of the earth. The cross also constitute dying daily to the works of the flesh, the works of the devil, and the influences of the evil and corrupt system of this world.
WHEN YOU BECOME A DISCIPLE, YOU WILL BEGIN TO FIND THINGS THAT MAKES YOU HEAVEN UNWORTHY AND DIE TO THEM.
You do not find those things when you are just a Church member. As just a church person, you may be taking things for granted, thinking the love of God will see you through to the gates of Heaven, not knowing it has already seen you through.
You only need to accept it by paying the price of carrying your cross daily and following the LORD, the very price you are refusing to pay.
The cross constitutes much more than one can imagine. It all depends on how deep you went into the things of the flesh, the world or the devil before meeting the LORD. That is why God supplies His Spirit without measure to help us be disciples of Christ on earth.
Understand that nothing in God is by power or might. Everything is achieved by His Spirit! His Spirit will have to work with us until His words abide richly in us!
Don’t forget, the word is who Christ Himself is because the word became flesh and dwell among us, and we beheld His glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
A distinguished character of a disciple of Christ is the royal habit of giving the word of the LORD double, or even triple, attention. This is because a true disciple’s desire is that the word of the LORD dwells richly in Him or her. That he or she live a life that retains God in their knowledge, and Jesus Christ who He has sent.
The Bible teaches of a generation of God’s wrath; a generation that do not retain God in its knowledge. The judgment of God on that generation is that they be given over to their depraved minds to become their lord, doing things that are not convenient, but hell bound. A disciple saves himself from becoming part of that generation by living a life that retains God in his knowledge.
To retain God in your knowledge broadly means to actively choose to keep God’s truth, character, and presence central in your mind, and life, rather than letting society’s distractions or worldly desires push you about. It involves diligent prayer, studying of the scriptures, meditating on God’s word and living by its moral conditions instead of the conditions of a carnal mind.
THAT IS THE DEDICATION YOU FIND IN A DISCIPLE OF CHRIST.
You also find a Crucified life in a disciple of Christ. Part of the crucified life is the life of dying daily to expel the power and the glory of God on earth for the purpose of changing lives. It is a life you live to perfectly outsource Heaven to the earth.
These are some of the reasons you see a disciple of Christ living a life outsourced from Heaven. Jesus says disciples are not of this world. That was not just a statement. That was a description of the kind of life disciples are called to live, a life that is not outsourced from the accursed world, but from Heaven.
For instance, if we commit a sin, we have outsourced something from this world. Sin is an act we commit when we outsource behaviors, desires, and passions from this world. When we outsource our passions, desires and behaviors from Heaven, we do not commit sin, we live right. It’s as simple as that.
Outsourcing Heaven to our earth will fill our earth with the Holiness, righteousness, peace, glory and essence of Heaven.
Yes, it will fill our lives and the lives of those we deal with, with all that exist in Heaven, and since sin does not exist in Heaven, it will create a life of purity and holiness in us, replacing the life that was shaped with things we outsourced from the accursed world before meeting the LORD.
The call remains, be a disciple of Christ, not just a church member. That is the word of the LORD to us this morning. Make it part of your 2026 plan to either be a disciple of Christ indeed or remain a disciple of Christ indeed.
As you pass through this day, I want you to take time out to absorb this message. It is the key to the very life God wants you to live in 2026 and beyond.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!!
“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.” “He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
John 12:24-25 NKJV
