TODAY’S DEVOTION (Friday 22ND October 2021)
And the Lord said, “Simon, Simon! Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.” Luke 22:31-32 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 295TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS.
Welcome to another glorious day for our LORD Jesus Christ!
Indeed, day unto day the LORD has been making His ways known to us through this platform. Sons of light needs a constant shine from their Father of Lights, Jesus Christ our Sun of Righteousness, to emit their own shine in a dark world.
Light represents divine illumination, Holiness of God, the Presence of God with you making things happen, Revelation knowledge, Values, virtues or Righteous deeds. While darkness is the opposite. If you walk in the ways of God, you are walking in light. If you walk in the will of God, you are walking in light. If you live in the presence of God, you are living in light.
Darkness do not happen to people who walk in light because even when it comes, the shine of God in their lives will dispelled it. That is why we do not cave in to Darkness. We shine out the light of God in darkness. One of the light to shine is the light of faith.
For the Sons of light, when darkness tries to happen to you through failed expectations, disappointment, death of a loved one, trial or temptation shine the light of faith against it.
When darkness tries to happen to you through people – when those you thought should help withdraws their help, those you are laboring to keep happy refusing to reciprocate; when darkness tries to happen to you by stirring people you blessed to reward evil for your good or stirring the spiritual lunatics to call you names that you are no, shine the light of faith – lift up your voice and say like Job, “my redeemer lives.”
Shinning the light of faith when darkness approaches is very important in the life of Sons of light. In the Kingdom of God, Faith is a shield we use in battle to quench all the fiery darks of the wicked one. We do not walk by facts; we walk by faith.
A Fact is the accurate description of a thing, but faith sees the unseen. It flows from what God says about the things that facts have accurately described. For instance, facts could say, “you are sick” but faith will respond, “by His stripes we were healed.”
Facts could say, “because you were not Educated, you do not qualify to be used of God.” but faith will come from the presence of the LORD to say, “God does not use the qualified, God qualifies the chosen and use them even if they are un-educated.”
GOD SAYS IN HIS WORD THAT “THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.”
But the faith to live by only comes from the presence of the LORD. It is not a psychological faith. If you try psychological faith, you will be destroyed by the enemy. Sons of light shines the light of the faith they got in the presence of God into darkness. They are men and women of the presence.
It was in the presence of God that Moses conceived the faith that made him a wonder in Egypt. It was in God’s presence he got the faith that parted the red sea. It was in God’s presence he got the faith that did unleashed the plagues on Egypt and her gods. Until you become a man or women of the manifest presence of God, you will not have the faith that produce wonders. You will just be operating a psychological conception that will do you no good, despite positive confessions.
You must understand that Faith is not a positive confession. You can be involved in positive confessions because you are panicking. Faith is a supernatural confidence in the word and power of God to do unusual that is born in us when we stay long enough in the manifest presence of God; it is a child of the manifest presence of God. That is why it does wonders!
If you will live by the faith that performs miracles and brings God down, you must be a man or woman who lives in the active presence of the LORD. You must never depart from the it like Cain did, or live a life outside it like many do today.
Sadly, many are living under religious spirits that is why their faith is not working! The Just shall live by the faith they got in God’s active presence. Not the faith born in them by some religious spirits using scriptures.
WE SHALL NOT LIVE BY OUR EDUCATION, AS GOOD AS EDUCATION IS.
We shall not live by our struggles, fear, pain, or anything negative. We shall not even live by our prayer, fasting, giving, singing, or going to church, as important as all these things are. We shall live by the faith we conceived in the active presence of the LORD.
If fasting, prayer, singing, going to Church or giving is done under the influence of the Holy Spirit, it will result in plating us in the active presence of God. But if done outside His propelling force, it will just be a form of godliness without power. You must avoid religion by all means when walking with God. Make sure your walk and talk with God is powered by the Holy Spirit.
It is the Holy Spirit that enables prayers, Biblical fasting, righteous or Spirit led giving, and live giving singing. Yes, the Holy Spirit is the one that should power every aspect of our Christian lives through His anointing in us.
God ordained three to four times or seasons in our lives for the incoming and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. It all begins with an incoming. The incoming of the Holy Spirit in our lives gets us a thirty-fold anointing. It is responsible for our salvation. The INCOMING prepares us for the OUTPOURING!
The Bible says His incoming will convict us of sin, of judgement and of the need to lead lives of righteousness, leading to our salvation. We then expected to use what it deposited in our spirits to start working out our salvation with fear and trembling.
Sadly, many joined the Church and where declared saved without this incoming of the Holy Spirit into their lives, consequently they cannot lead a Holy Spirit powered Christian lives. Their prayers, fasting, giving, going to Church and all that has not resulted in a life that is planted in the active presence of God.
If our salvation is a child of the incoming of the Holy Spirit, then the outpouring become very easy. The incoming enabled an initial Christina life, while the outpouring takes over from there to bring you into a highly inflammable Christian life. That aspect is what we call, “the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.”
THAT IS THE LEVEL WHERE WE CAN BUILD OURSELVES IN OUR MOST HOLY FAITH IN THE PRESENCE OF GOD BY PRAYING IN THE HOLY SPIRIT.
The Bible says.
“But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.” Jude 20-21 NKJV
The importance of the faith that is born in us when we spend quality time in God’s active presence is, perhaps, known better by the devil than the Children of God today. The fierceness of Satan’s attacks against our faith and the weak response we usually give to the need to spend quality time in God’s active presence for “faith building” proves it all.
Many in Church today will prefer spending time in God’s presence crying that He do this or that in their lives than build their faith. Others will prefer building their careers, businesses, fame, families, and all they desire without giving a thought to spending quality time daily with the LORD to build their faith.
We forget that when God says the “Just shall live by faith,” He made spending quality time daily in His active presence for faith building the most important thing in the life of a Child of GOD.
It is the faith we get from His active presence that will sustain our households, careers, businesses, families and all we desire in life. In simple terms, God designed that our lives be sustained by the faith that is born in us in His active presence. That is why Satan attacks that process ferociously. He could even give us a miracle to abort the process. Our devotional text today says it all.
Jesus said to Simon Peter,
“.. Indeed, Satan has asked for you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith should not fail; and when you have returned to Me, strengthen your brethren.”
The focus of God here was not to stop the attack but to sustain Peter’s faith. Before the Cross, they needed someone to pray that their faith remains because the Holy Spirit, the one who brings us into the presence to have the wonder working faith born in us, was not yet given.
It is when you do not have the Holy Spirit that you depend on people’s prayer to help your faith. But that kind of Christian life will ruin you these end time!
WE ARE LIVING IN VERY DANGEROUS TIMES, LET NO ONE DECEIVE YOU.
You will need to enter the presence of God yourself to secure your faith. You will need to be a man or woman of the presence to have the wonder working faith born in you.
When the Holy Spirit came upon Peter and the rest, they never needed anyone to pray that their faith failed not. They all could enter the presence of God individually and corporately to have the wonder working faith born in them. That is what the LORD is calling us unto through this devotional.
The truth remains, until your faith fail, your business will not fail. Until your faith fails your marriage or family will not fail. Until your faith fails your ministry or calling will not fail. You will need time in God’s active presence to keep your faith alive and well. To make sue you do not slip into psychological faith that ruins.
Peter before the cross had that kind of faith. It is only full of positive confessions without positive results. Sadly, that is the kind of faith many operates. The faith of positive confessions without positive results in life. But Jesus said to him, “before the cock crows once he will do it thrice.”
The faith of “positive confessions without positive results” will lead to one walking away from the LORD or denying him by slipping into a life of sin and wickedness that they will never see as sin and wickedness.
Apostle John spoke about things that can be seen, felt and touched in the spirit. That is the description of a faith that is born in the active presence of God.
It is a faith that comes from seeing from God; comes by touching and feeling things in God as you tarry in His active presence; things that have been created in Him, but not yet born on earth. Then you touch them, and move them, through Spirit led actions, from that realm to your life.
I believe God has spoken to you this day. It’s my prayer that You respond to His word by moving from psychological faith to the faith that can only come through quality time in God’s active presence.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, “Where is your God?”
When I remember these things, I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go with the multitude; I went with them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept a pilgrim feast.
Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance.
O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore, I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, And from the heights of Hermon, From the Hill Mizar.
Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. Psalm 42:1-7 NKJV