TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Friday 23RD April 2021)
“A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’
And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ Mathew 7:18-23 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 113TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
This is the days the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it.
Today we will be looking at something about the spirit of lawlessness. I hope you are ready. This is one subject that many of us believers either twist or know nothing about, but it rules our lives and places us on the danger of eternal fire.
To start with, God has always been loving and kind on our souls. And has always been severe on our rebellion and tough on our sin, iniquity and trespass. Most times it is the misrepresentation of who He is by us preachers that is responsible for the many who do not really know Him or what He thinks about our evil lives.
Sadly, a lot of us preachers do not know the LORD.
Many, like those people called prosperity or faith preachers, only know His acts and preach it all their lives, but they do not know His ways or His person. In a world where everyone is facing one problem or the other, most people will love hearing messages on God’s acts, and the preachers who wants crowds will camp on such messages.
But they grant people’s desires and send leanness to their souls. It is that leanness that many preachers know nothing about. They do not even know how it look like. It is very dangerous to lead a Christian life where all your desires are granted in exchange of fatness in your soul.
The consequence can be eternal.
Like the Israelites who first had that, you will leave Egypt but will never get to Canaan. In simple terms, you will give your life to Christ but soon yield to the spirit of lawlessness and miss Heaven thereafter.
When we become lean in our souls, we begin to yield to the spirit of lawlessness, the very spirit that will be responsible for the Christians that will be in hell.
THIS SPIRIT IS DANGEROUS BECAUSE IT ALLOWS YOU TO ENJOY OR DO MIRACLES IN THE NAME OF JESUS WHEN IT LIVES IN YOU.
It makes the pursuit of God’s acts your ultimate desire not the pursuit of His ways or person. It will allow you to be doing anything for the miracles and blessings in God’s kingdom but nothing to know God and His ways.
In fact, if you become a believer who is only interested in God’s way, it will begin to use religious people around to mount pressure on you. You will be accused of doing it too much, even the Church you now attend and the pastor of that Church will be defamed and called names.
I used the term “you now attend” because whenever you switch from being a Christian who seeks God’s acts to becoming a Christian who seek God’s ways, God will give you another Church or pastor.
This is how it happens; He will make where you are uncomfortable to you and begin to move you; the vision will be to bring you under a Church and pastor who will help you achieve your spiritual goal as a seeker of GOD’s ways, because that is the ultimate.
I have come to realize that for every ten churches on earth today, eight to nine of them are ruled by the spirit of lawlessness. That is how dangerous it has become.
I have seen this spirit use the financial inducements and aggressive evangelism of the preachers and Churches it rules to bring souls into those Churches and keep them there. It makes people need conscious instead of GOD conscious and uses the congregational greatness of some of the churches to keep souls TRAPPED in gates of hell.
It makes them comfortable with the acts of God and not interested in is ways. And believe me, when a believer begins to enjoys God’s acts, he or she will begin to think that is all in Christianity until adversity that their faith or church cannot handle strikes.
For instance, when you bring teachings on God’s ways that talks about moving from the use of oil, which was just a shadow of the Holy Spirit, to the Holy Spirit Himself, the substance, they will attack you with James 5:14 or Mark 6:12-13.
THEY WILL TWIST THOSE SCRIPTURES TO THEIR IMMEDIATE ADVANTAGE AND SHUT UP THE MOUTHS OF THE IGNORANT.
When you urge them to stop praying like the Heathen and hypocrites do and start praying like sons of God, they attack you. When you teach anything that has to do with the ways of God, they hold you in contempt. When you tell them matters of righteousness and holiness, you are in trouble.
When you tell them you do not need to give money for miracles, they come heavily upon you with twisted scriptures and hate you in the process. When you tell them do not sit under a preacher who lives in sin, they will tell you “we are all sinners, and that no one is perfect.”
Their best scripture is Matthew 7:1-2 which says,
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”
They twist it when you bring in matters of purity on the pulpit or pew.
But wait a minute, if the person leading me is living in sin, and I am living in sin, who then will help the other to come out of a life of sin? We do not even reason that way. That is how stupid this spirit has turned many of us into.
It has made many in Church today justifiers of the wicked and condemners of the righteous. But the Bible says;
“He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just, Both of them alike are an abomination to the LORD.” Proverbs 17:17 NKJV
We easily forget that it is holy men and women of God that led Israel even in the Old Testament, and holy apostle and prophets in the New. God has been so strong on matters of righteousness in the lives of preachers that He sometimes allowed strange fires to come out and consume those who choose not be righteous while ministering to His people.
BUT THESE SOULS UNDER THIS SPIRIT FIGHT EVERYTHING THAT IS TRUTHFUL IN GOD’S SIGHT, ESPECIALLY WHEN IT IS NOT TRUTHFUL IN THEIR SIGHT.
When you bring messages that will form Christ in them, like the mysteries of the seven classes of eternal life, you are detested and called names. The desire of this spirit is to keep their souls in the dangerous place of enjoying miracles, signs and wonders but not having an intimate knowledge or relationship with Christ.
This spirit is dangerous because it allows you to see God’s acts in your life or ministry, and make you believe that you are in tune with God despite the sins you may be living in. It is a spirit that plays down the severity of sin and make abomination look like just a weakness that God understands.
Sadly, that is what many preachers preach and that is what many believers wants to hear. That tells how this spirit even rules ministries and churches all over the world, placing the eternal lives of many in danger.
Whenever you hear a preacher play down on sin, he or she has caught this spirit. Whenever you raise the issue of righteousness in the Church and you point out to the scandals of a Church and you hear someone trying to shut you down, you have met someone under the spirit of lawlessness.
Whenever you hear someone saying this concerning sinful congregations, “if God is not in those Churches why are miracles and blessings flowing there?” you have met someone who is ruled by the spirit of lawlessness. If a preacher tells you, “if what I am doing is wrong, why is God still using me?” You have just met someone arrested by the spirit of lawlessness.
Our devotional text says,
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’
FROM THIS SCRIPTURE IS CLEAR THAT THE SPIRIT OF LAWLESSNESS WILL MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT WALK IN GOD’S WAYS AND WILL.
It will keep you in His acts, telling you that you are in His will and ways because of His acts that are present in your life, only for you to get to Christ after this life to be told “depart from me, I never knew you.”
I remember a preacher who was told by another to stop using the oil, and he responded “if God was not in it why is He healing people by it?” He responded using James 5 and mark 6. This was in the nineties, and they two of them are people we called fathers in the faith.
I marveled how one who is seen as a father of faith know nothing about the spirit of lawlessness. He did not know that the fact that God’s acts is in it, does not mean God is for it! The fact that God could use Judas Iscariot to raise the dead and cast out demons, did not mean God excused his wickedness and took him to Heaven. He went to hell.
For me, one of the most dangerous things on earth is to be used of God. It has a way of deceiving you if you are not walking in His ways.
Time to identity and get ourselves free from the spirit of lawlessness. Time to start checking our character fruits not God’s miracles in our lives. God will always perform miracles even for the person going to hell the next moment. It is by fruits that trees are known not by leaves. That is the word of the LORD of us today!
For many of us, God have not been dealing with us according to our sins. He has been slow to anger towards us, hence the miracles. But we must understand that it is a call to come up to the mountain of holiness and change our ways. It is important that we do not allow the spirit of lawlessness to seduce us into using the grace and mercy He has been showing us as an excuse for a continuous life of sin, iniquity and trespass.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE NE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“The LORD executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.”
“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever.”
“He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities.” Psalm 103:1-7 NKJV