TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Monday 14th December 2020)
“Jesus answered, if a person [really] loves Me, he will keep My word [obey My teaching]; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home (abode, special dwelling place) with him.” John 14:23 AMP
WELCOME TO THE 348TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
God has given us another day to rejoice in His faithfulness, amend our ways where necessary, serves our generation according to His will, fear Him and depart from evil. It all depends on where each of us are this morning.
To some, it is s day to just rejoice in his faithfulness. But to some others it is not just a day to rejoice in His faithfulness but amend our ways. If our life styles fall short of his righteous standards, today is a day to amend our ways. If we are living or falling in sin every now and then, today is a day to amend our ways and stop that kind of life.
There are also some who do not just need to rejoice in God’s faithfulness today, but to cultivate a genuine fear for Him. The fear of God seems to have departed from so many of us. We now do things without thinking about judgment and accountability.
If we lead Christian lives that are not mindful of the judgment day, there will be no fear of God in our lives. If you are not mindful of giving account unto God or the coming Judgment Day, what you need to do today is to wake up and begin to cultivate a genuine fear of God in your heart.
If we do not fear God, we will embrace sin and forget about being accountable. If we do not fear God, we will act callously and wickedly. We will embrace what He hates and celebrate what He despise. If we do not fear God, we will be twisting scriptures to our advantage and turn things into our image and likeness.
If we do not fear God, we will not walk in His ways. We will not even see anything wrong with what is wrong and abominable in His sight. If we do not fear God, we will hear His word with one ear and allow it to go out of us through the other ear.
It is the fear of God that kept men and women who walk with the LORD in righteousness. It us the fear of God that makes them sober and vigilant, watching out for spiritual pollution and making sure it does not get into their souls.
Painfully, I want to say if we do not fear God we will find ourselves leading Christian lives that are comfortable in doing the very things that prevent souls from making Heaven. Yes, a lot of us are doing things that prevents people from making Heaven and still saying Heaven is our home. The Bible says;
“Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate [by perversion], nor those who participate in homosexuality,
nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers [whose words are used as weapons to abuse, insult, humiliate, intimidate, or slander], nor swindlers will inherit or have any share in the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 Amplified Version
THESE ARE SCRIPTURES THAT SHOULD MAKE US TREMBLE.
If we do not have genuine fear for GOD, we will be doing all listed here and hoping to make Heaven. We will be sexually immoral, living in adultery, perversion, homosexuality, stealing, greedy, drunkards, using words as weapons to abuse, insult, humiliate, intimidate and slander, and still be calling ourselves Christians.
We will be swindling people their treasures and seeing it as nothing. We will be doing things that are very wrong and still claiming, I have done nothing wrong. We will be living in denial. It is lack of genuine fear for God that carves such a sinful life style for us and gives us a version of Christianity that will not end us in Heaven.
If we do not fear God we will hate rebuke and correction. Sometimes we will not hate them, but we will not submit to them.
Yes, we will love every rebuke from the LORD and even be grateful for them but will never use them to amend our ways. We will still go on with our sinful lives despite the rebukes and corrections of the LORD. We will not turn from our wicked ways. We will allow the pleasure of sin to keep driving us, without caring about what God feel or what His word says about it.
We will not care about the judgment attached to our sinful ways!
A life that ignores God’s rebukes and correction will be destroyed by the power of his or her sinful life. It will bring the person to the place where God will no longer be answering when he or she calls. The Bible says,
“Because I called and you refused [to answer], I stretched out my hand and no one has paid attention [to my offer]; And you treated all my counsel as nothing and would not accept my reprimand,
“I also will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when your dread and panic come, when your dread and panic come like a storm, and your disaster comes like a whirlwind, when anxiety and distress come upon you [as retribution].
“Then they will call upon me (Wisdom), but I will not answer; They will seek me eagerly but they will not find me, Proverbs 1:24-28 Amplified Version
FRIEND, THE WORST PLACE TO LIVE ON EARTH IS NOT IN A SLUM, BUT IN A REALM WHERE GOD CAN NO LONGER ANSWER YOUR PRAYERS.
I have been there and know what I am talking about. It is the worst place to live an earthly life from. It is the place of closed Heaven. No prayer can be answered in such a realm.
The realm is usually a consequence or result of not giving God’s rebukes and corrections the attention they deserve. And it is lack of genuine fear for God that brings a man or woman to the place if not giving God’s rebukes and corrections the attention they deserve.
For those of a with no genuine fear for God, today is given to us by the LORD to repent from our sinful lives and begin to cultivate genuine fear for GOD. There are things that will help us cultivate the fear of God. Some of them are the revelation of hell, an understanding of the justice system of God his judgment on sin and wickedness.
Encounters with His Holy Spirit will also help us to fear God. Having people who fear God in your life can be an added advantage.
Anything may depart from our hearts, we must never allow the fear of GOD to depart. When it departs, we will no longer be able to repent genuinely when we sin against God. We will be like Saul, who never truly cared about what God was saying even when he claimed he did, hence killing His priests.
You see, there is no force on earth that can destroy a man’s relationship with God like the force of sin and rebellion. That is why, like our devotional text says, obedience and submission to divine will and ways remains the greatest expression of LOVE for God in the kingdom.
When we express our love for God that way the presence of God will increase in our lives. Jesus says Our Heavenly Father will love us and they will come to us and make Our lives their home, abode, or special dwelling place.
Meaning, the sign of that a man or woman is truly living right cannot be found on our lips but in our lives. Do we carry the true presence of God in our lives? Are we His dwelling place in the Spirit? Do we carry the false presence claiming we are saved? Those are the questions to answer!
THE CHRISTIAN FAITH IS A CALL TO BATTLE. THE BIBLE SAYS,
“Fight the good fight of the faith [in the conflict with evil]; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and [for which] you made the good confession [of faith] in the presence of many witnesses.
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and [in the presence] of Christ Jesus, who made the good confession [in His testimony] before Pontius Pilate,
to keep all His precepts without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,1 Timothy 6:12-14 Amplified Version
We are called to fight the fight of faith and lay hold on eternal life. Meaning, eternal life does not come cheaply. We must fight to have it!
The word says fight the good fight of faith in the conflict with evil; take hold of eternal life. Evil will put up a resistance against us, and prevents us from having eternal life. We must use the grace and mercies of God in our lives to fight the evil. We must seek keep all precepts, teachings and principles of Christ without stain or reproach until He comes to take us home.
There are four major things that constitutes the forces of evil that we must fight on daily bases if we will lay hold on eternal life, and keep God’s standard without stain or reproach until Jesus comes to take us home. These forces are the very forces that hinders us from living a life of submission and obedience to God’s will and ways. The forces are;
1. The Force of the flesh:
2. The force of set mentalities:
3. The force of the pressure of this world:
4. The force of demonic spirits:
The Bible says we must fight them with all weapons within our disposal; especially the weapon of the word and prayer. The early Church gave themselves entirely to prayer and to the ministry of the word and had sufficient fire power to deal with these forces.
The spent time in fasting and prayers, seeking the LORD for mercy and grace to overcome these forces and live true to the faith. That was why they refused to accept any deliverance that will lead to compromise. They were able to stand in the face of the fiercest attacks of hell on their faith.
They successfully put their flesh under subjection. They willingly offered their bodies as a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to God. The kept GOD’s precepts without reproach as a result of their dedication to the LORD.
If we do the same we will be able to stand like they stood!
We must contend with the same forces, using the grace of God upon our lives. If we do not contend with them, we will submit to them and become damned, like the enemy wants. The vision of the enemy is to use these forces in taking us to his final abode.
His final abode is not a seven star hotel in Dubai or anywhere in the world. His final abode is not a mansion in heaven. His final abode is the lake of fire! That is where he wants to take each and every one of us to. But with the fight of faith, we can stop him. With the fight of faith, we can allow God make us what He wants us to be, thereby defeating the devil completely.
May the Lord help us to hear what the Spirit is saying to us today!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“I counsel you to buy from Me gold that has been heated red hot and refined by fire so that you may become truly rich; and white clothes [representing righteousness] to clothe yourself so that the shame of your nakedness will not be seen; and healing salve to put on your eyes so that you may see.
Those whom I [dearly and tenderly] love, I rebuke and discipline [showing them their faults and instructing them]; so be enthusiastic and repent [change your inner self—your old way of thinking, your sinful behavior—seek God’s will].
Behold, I stand at the door [of the church] and continually knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him (restore him), and he with Me.” Revelation 3:18-20 Amplified Version