TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Thursday 31st December 2020)
“And war broke out in heaven, Michael [the archangel] and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought, but they were not strong enough and did not prevail, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.
And the great dragon was thrown down, the age-old serpent who is called the [d]devil and Satan, he who continually deceives and seduces the entire inhabited world; he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying,
“Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom (dominion, reign) of our God, and the authority of His Christ have come; for the [e]accuser of our [believing] brothers and sisters has been thrown down [at last], he who accuses them and keeps bringing charges [of sinful behavior] against them before our God day and night.
And they overcame and conquered him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, for they did not love their life and renounce their faith even when faced with death. Revelation 12:7-11 Amplified Version
WELCOME TO THE 365TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
If you have the energy, you can begin this day with a shout! It is the 365th day of the set of days in the Gregorian calendar called 2020.
We started them 365 days ago, and today we are at the end. It is like driving through a very dangerous road like I did few days back and returning safely home saying “what a journey!”
Indeed, going through year 2020 has been a journey!
A journey full of detours and contours. It has been a journey of driving through and most times beside great rift valleys like I did for the first time in my life few days back.
I remember when the sensation that almost made me to drive into the great rift. I just had to apply my breaks and stopped at the center of the road when my wife was saying to me “look at that” referring to the great sight she was seeing.
She was talking about the great rift valley! No one told me I will meet such a thing on that trip. So I was not prepared. I just ran into them.
I would later say to her,
“I saw them with the corner of my eye and the geographical forces coming out of them hit me badly, affecting me on the wheels. That was why I stopped at the center of the road.”
“If I had taken my eyes off the road and look at them, we would have driven straight into them because the hands take the wheels where your eyes are.”
Today, as I look back to consider how we had journeyed through year 2020, I see similar events in my life and ministry. But this time they are spiritual.
It’s like God allowed me to go on that trip to help summaries how my spiritual journey through 2020 was. There were spiritual seasons this year that I was hit very hard by the unprecedented when I suddenly found myself in great spiritual rift valleys as well; things I never knew existed in certain people come out to hit me very hard.
During those dangerous moments, I almost drove myself, family and ministry into great spirit rifts. I felt like shutting down and retreating back home to live a normal life. I was tired of ministry.
But the Spirit of the LORD came through for me and helped me to apply my breaks and stop accelerating for a while. Then He helped me regained what was lost back, and propelled me to keep going forward.
It is the grace of the LORD that brought me to the end of this year. Am not saying it the way others do because sometimes we just say that to sound politically correct. I am saying this because that is what really kept me.
I BELIEVE YOU HAVE YOUR OWN STORY OF HOW THIS YEAR WENT FOR YOU TOO.
You can even present it more intelligently than I presented mine. But in the midst of it all, here we are on the last day of this triumphant and tumultuous year. I say thank you Jesus for seeing us through.
For the first time in many years, we will not be having a cross over night because we crossed in September October 2020. For the first time also we will be having a New Year Service on the 1st of January. It is like a season of first times.
The New Year Service will be coming up at 11 am tomorrow, and we are going to give time for testimonies. I hope to see you there to come share with us what the LORD may have done in your life this year.
Today the LORD laid a word in my heart that is expository.
He will be showing us how agents of the devil among us, tares among the wheat, enemies of the cross and impostors who we relate with either as pastors or fellow believers try to neutralize His word to prevent it from cutting through the hearts of men and bringing them to the knowledge of the truth.
The greatest fear of the devil is for humans to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Yes, he fears seeing you coming to the knowledge of the truth. Paul knew that very well hence making “bringing men to the knowledge of the truth” his greatest goal in life and ministry. That is also our goal at the Cry of the Spirit ministries. It is the goal of every apostolic hub.
Let me reiterate again that Satan’s fear is to see you come to the knowledge of the truth. He is not aid to see you rich or healthy so long as you will not come to the knowledge of the truth. He is not afraid to see you successful so long as you remain blind spiritually.
He is afraid to see you come to the knowledge of the truth. That is why he has some deceived souls in local Churches who helps him stop that from happening in your life and the lives of others.
If you want to make 2021 your year of sending fear into the spine of Satan and his cohorts, make the year your year of coming to the knowledge of the truth in all aspect of the Christian life and all practices you find in the Church.
You will be shaking the gates of hell, and see men in darkness treat you badly but you will also come into the fullness of the blessing of the gospel.
Yes, you will be experiencing out breaks of GOD in your life and unprecedented spiritual growth in your walk and talk with the LORD!
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO COME TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE TRUTH?
When we say “coming to the knowledge of the truth” we are not referring to coming to the knowledge of a selection of facts. The truth is not a selection of facts. The truth is a person. His name is Jesus Christ. He said I am the way the Truth and the Life. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth. In other words, the Spirit that reveals TRUTH.
Don’t forget, Jesus said when He comes He will testify of Him, not of demons; of Him! And who is He? He is the way, the TRUTH and the life. So as the Spirit of Truth He will reveal Christ to us.
So when we say, coming to the knowledge of the Truth, we are not referring to coming to the knowledge of a selection of facts. We are referring to coming to the revelation of Jesus Christ, in all aspects of the Christian faith and practices you see in the Church today.
We are talking about Coming to the revelation of what He is saying to us concerning the faith, the Church and its practices at the immediate present.
You remember the Revelation of Jesus Christ by the hand of John the beloved in the book of revelation and what He said about the Church. He is still doing that today. There are johns the beloved of our days too. When you come across them, you will hear things that will shock you the way the book of revelation is filled with things about the church that shocked them in their days.
Have you realized that not many preachers touches the book of revelation? That tells you the kind of Christ they are representing. If these people where dealing with the true Christ, they would not have avoided what He is saying about the Church.
Friend, when you come to the revelation of Jesus Christ, it will throw you into a rude shock. You will discover that so many people in local churches today have been dealing with the false Christ not the Christ of the Bible; a dangerous trend that the Spirit of Truth wants to stop, but with stiff resistance from the army of Satan among us.
I was shocked to discover how those who constitute the army of Satan among us, use scriptures to resist and prevent men and women from coming to the knowledge of the Truth on Christianity today and its practices.
IT IS SADDENING TO SEE EVEN ONE PERSON WHO PROFESS CHRIST FIGHT FOR THE ENEMY OF THE CROSS!
So many times they have accused the voices of those God may be using of either condemning or criticizing others. It is like looking at Jesus as He screams at the Pharisees for their hypocrisy and saying, “You are condemning and Criticizing those who were here before you. You are jealous of their success.” That will be absurd.
Instead of trembling at the word of the LORD, these people are rather building a resistance against it, and using verses from the Bible to say things that look logical to the ignorant basically to neutralize the truth. How else, do you think these men and women are revealing who they really are other than in doing this?
Their resistance and responses further tells us who they represent; it tells us that they represent the enemy who hates seeing men and women coming to the knowledge of the truth. Indeed, they will grow worse and worse as the Bible says, and sink deeper and deeper into delusions, while those appointed unto salvation keep experiencing deliverance.
Our devotional text is full of both prophetic and practical truths to mine. But we are not going into them because they cannot be mined in a devotional. But permit me to bring to your attention a portion of the text being used by some depraved minds to resist the truth. The portion says;
“Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom (dominion, reign) of our God, and the authority of His Christ have come; for the [e]accuser of our [believing] brothers and sisters has been thrown down [at last], he who accuses them and keeps bringing charges [of sinful behavior] against them before our God day and night.
This scripture is being used by the depraved to say, the voice of truth and the prophetic finger that is helping us to come to repentance and reformation, by pointing our destructive sinful behaviors to us with the aim of provoking repentance, is doing the ministry of the devil; the ministry of the accuser of the brethren.”
THIS IS A DUMMY THAT WAS COOKED BY SOME PREACHERS MANY YEARS AGO.
I know some of the very preachers, both in Nigeria and the United States, who cooked this dummy and sold to the Church. I still remember their messages; I remember what they said about the prophets God used to help us to stand in righteousness when we were coming up.
They said Satan was the one using them to accuse the brethren. They said that because God was using their fiery voices to expose sin, and strip deception and wickedness in the high places of the Church, the way He used Ezekiel to see and shout on the housetop the abominations in the temple.
The funniest thing is, most of the preachers I know who preached and said the fiery prophets were doing the ministry of the devil (the ministry of accusing the brethren of their sinful behaviors), have terrible scandals in their ministries.
We all knew they were putting up a defense to cover their secret sins or that of their donors that were being exposed by the Spirit of the LORD, through these fiery apostolic and prophetic voices.
Sadly, these preachers stirred their followers to say the same things and even wrote books that had such dummy in them. Consequently, the lives of their members came to a halt spiritually. But they progressed financially, using the members’ tithes and offerings.
Today, many of these preachers are just struggling to be alive Spiritually and in ministry. One has lost so many things that make life blissful.
Friend, God do judge blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. That is why you must be careful.
The ministry of the accuser of the brethren is not what God’s prophetic voice is doing. It is not God taking over and perfecting the spirits of just men with power, justice and might to declare to Jacob his wrong doing and Israel his sin.
You don’t call the prophetic finger that is exposing sin and wickedness in the Church to provoke repentance, an accuser of the brethren. That will be calling God an accuser of the brethren.
It will be like looking at Micah, standing before the people in his days, filled with power, might and justice by the Spirit of the LORD to scream at the sinful behaviors of the people, and calling him an accuser of the brethren.
It will be like looking at John the beloved, who was given messages to take to the seven Churches in of the book of Revelation, and saying his is criticizing or doing the ministry of accusing the brethren. You will be a dummy to do any of that.
We can go on and on, but this is a devotional, not a book!
Do you want to know what the ministry of accusing the brethren look like? Look at what the enemy said about Job to God? That is the ministry of accusing the brethren. Look at what happened in Zechariah chapter 3. That is the ministry of accusing the brethren.
Also study God’s response to it. He admonished Joshua the High priest to put on the garment of righteousness to prevent the devil from bringing charges in the spirit realm against him.
However, all that could only happen before the cross. Now, it is no longer possible for Satan to enter the throne room and accuse us before our God. What he does now is to use people, like the ones saying we are doing the ministry of accusing the brethren, to defame us among men so that they will not come to the knowledge of the truth.
As we bring this to a close, I want to submit to you that we should not forget the purpose of the scripture. We should not forget why God inspired the Holy scriptures, and why He inspires hearts to see what He has inspired in the Holy Scriptures.
The Bible says God inspired the Holy Scriptures for the purpose of (among other things) bringing a conviction of sin, pointing out and correcting the errors in what we call the body of Christ, and restoring obedience and commitment to His ways.
Today, as year 2020, comes to an end, we must make up our minds to spend the rest of our days pursuing Christ and His Holy Spirit so that the purpose of the scriptures will be accomplished in our lives. As we do that, we will see amazing outbreaks of God among us!
See you next year!
MEANWHILE, LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU!
“All Scripture is God-breathed [given by divine inspiration] and is profitable for instruction, for conviction [of sin], for correction [of error and restoration to obedience], for training in righteousness [learning to live in conformity to God’s will, both publicly and privately—behaving honorably with personal integrity and moral courage];
so that the [a]man of God may be complete and proficient, outfitted and thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 Amplified Version