TODAY’S DEVOTION (Tuesday 16th November 2021)
“I was also blameless before Him, and I kept myself from my iniquity. Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His sight.
With the merciful You will show Yourself merciful; with a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless;
With the pure You will show Yourself pure; and with the devious You will show Yourself shrewd. For You will save the humble people, but will bring down haughty looks.” Psalms 18:23-27 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 319TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS.
God has been so faithful and gracious to us that is why we are alive this day. We have been kept by the power of God’s mercies and His unfailing love.
Indeed, if the LORD should mark iniquity, none shall stand. But there is forgiveness with Him so that He may be feared; in other words, so that we will not continue in our wickedness and be ruined by it.
Let me state something here about being ruined by our wickedness.
You see, our dispensation is not like that of Noah before the flood. While the devil could hold sway in the lives of men then, he cannot now. The reason being that Jesus has died on the cross.
The ruin of men today, is no longer the devil as it seems but our sins, iniquities, and trespasses. And it is not the sin, iniquity or trespass that God has forgiven us that destroys you but the ones we are repeating.
There is danger in the repetition of wrong doing and sinful conducts. Yes, we generate a destructive force or power in the spirit realm into our lives when we repeat our sins. That is why persistent unfaithfulness is very destructive, especially after God has forgiven us of the sins, iniquities or trespasses that we committed, and prevented the consequences from coming upon us for a while.
One of the most powerful statements Jesus made in His conversation with the woman that was caught in Adultery was “go and sin no more.” In other words, do not repeat your sin of adultery again.
MOST TIMES, WE ARE NOT RUINED BY A ONE-TIME SIN, WE ARE RUINED BY THE REPETITION OF OUR SINS.
At one time Jesus healed a man of a terrible diseases and later met him somewhere and said to him,
“Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”
That was in Luke 12 verses 14. It is the sins we go on repeating that brings destruction upon us not the ones we have been forgiven.
The destruction comes suddenly; it comes at a time when we think whatever you we may be doing no longer matter to a merciful God because He has been merciful, and because no immediate consequences or punishment has come upon us. It is called the deception of sin.
A lot of us are caught in the deception of sin. We do very bad things and God forgives us and we take it for approval of our wrong doings and continue. Then suddenly the destruction we have generated by the power of the sins we are repeating starts speaking into our lives.
That is when you see drama in Church. You see people praying against all kinds of enemies as being responsible, breaking all kinds of altars and raising some. You find people embracing the heresies of altar breaking and silencing, redemption of first born, anointing of houses and cars, breaking of pots and all kinds of witchcraft. You find them falling into the traps of heresies that makes preachers rich.
Your life is being destroyed by the bad things you are repeating not the demons around. It’s the bad things that generates the forces of destruction that brings the demons to ruin your life. You may not like what am sharing with you this morning, but we all must wake up from our slumber and stop repeating our sins.
We must understand the power of repeating a sin.
We must stop frustrating the mercy of God; we must stop using it as an incentive for the repetition of sins, a stay in iniquity, or a life of trespass. The Bible says iniquity will not be our ruin. If iniquity will not be our ruin, then we must stop repeating it. We must stop persisting in our unfaithfulness.
ON THE COST OF PERSISTENT UNFAITHFULNESS, THE BIBLE SAYS;
The word of the LORD came again to me, saying:
“Son of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it.
Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness,” says the Lord GOD. Ezekiel 14:12-14 NKJV
Scriptures like this should make us fear God. Sadly, Ignorance and lying teachings about the books of the Old Testament will not let people study passages like this. But we forget that all of the New Testament is a product of the preaching the early Church preached form the Books of the Old Testament.
None of them preached from the set of books we call “New Testament” because none existed then. They all preached from the Torah or the Law, the Prophets, the Psalms and other books of the Old Testament. Jesus Himself preached from Isaiah in His first sermon in the Temple.
From Ezekiel 14:12-14, it is clear that persistent unfaithfulness can be very costly. It stirs the arm of the LORD against a man; the very arm that should have blessed him will begin to break him. The very presence that should have raised him, will begin to erase him. That is how costly persistent unfaithfulness can be.
The LORD said,
“I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine on it, and cut off man and beast from it.”
Meaning, spiritual famine is the first cost of persistent unfaithfulness. The bread of the word will become polluted and cut off, leaving the souls of men famished.
Sometimes it is not a spiritual famine that comes immediately, but a natural one; economic hardship. Because when God stretch forth His hands to cut of supply and send famine, we will not see GOD’s miraculous provisions again. And do not forget, we prosper by the arm of the LORD. When that arm is no longer working in our favor, then we are in trouble.
The scripture made it clear that Persistent unfaithfulness can prevent us from enjoying the good things God has stored up for us on earth for us.
The repetition of sins, a stay in iniquity, or a life of trespass can keep one out of the reach of provisions from unexpected ends. It can cut off our supply form God, and prevent anyone from enjoying the prosperity of the righteous, leaving them at the mercy of the prosperity of the wicked.
WE MUST STOP RUINING OUR ECONOMIC LIVES BY REPEATING OUR SINS OR BEING PERSISTENTLY UNFAITHFUL.
Sadly, the cost of repetition of sins or persistent unfaithfulness does not stop there. The Bible says it can even paralysis the power or effect of intercessory prayers.
We must understand that the believers on earth are surviving by the intercessions of Jesus Christ and the participation of His chosen ones to join in it. If we now led lives that are persistently unfaithful unto God; a life hallmarked by the repetition of sin, it will paralysis the power of intercessions. It will make it impossible for any prayer to walk in our lives.
The word says;
‘Even if these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they would deliver only themselves by their righteousness,” says the Lord GOD.
This should explain why simple prayers are no longer working for so many people in Church today. They have to be told to do one thing or the other to be free from what simple prayers can get any man or woman from.
They have to be told to have their feet washed, take holy communion over and over again, use this water, salt, or raise, silence of break that altar or break that pot for miracles to happen.
It is clear that Persistent unfaithfulness has shut down the power of simple prayers in the lives of so many, and instead of the Church repenting, we are rather keying into charismatic witchcraft to solve our problems.
We key into shamanism and import all kinds of occult practices into the faith in the name of praying deliverance prayers. The prayer of the wicked is still an abomination in the sight of God. The prayer of the one who repeats his or her sins, will never attract Heaven’s attention; except there is genuine repentance.
WE MUST STEP INTO A LIFE OF PERSISTENT RIGHTEOUSNESS. WE MUST STOP SOWING TO PLEASE THE FLESH IF WE ARE TIRED OF REAPING CORRUPTION.
A major highlight of the text says,
“With the merciful you will show yourself merciful; with a blameless man you will show yourself blameless; with the pure you will show yourself pure; and with the devious you will show yourself shrewd. For you will save the humble people, but will bring down haughty looks.” Psalm 18:25-27
It is the nature of our hearts that determine the moves of God in our lives. The heart of persistent faithfulness will be requiring this end time. The heart of persistent unfaithfulness will not be required because it will get our lives consumed with grief.
Chose to be persistently faithful to the LORD. Chose not to remain among those who repeat their sins until there is no more remedies.
The Bible says,
“With the merciful you will show yourself merciful; with a blameless man you will show yourself blameless; with the pure you will show yourself pure; and with the devious you will show yourself shrewd. For you will save the humble people, but will bring down haughty looks.”
I reiterate again that it is the nature of our hearts that determines the power of God and His amazing moves in our lives. Chose to have the heart of the persistently faithful; a heart that is humble, merciful, pure and blameless, not a heart that is dubious and wicked.
A Dubious heart will keep repeating sins and siting people in scripture. If it is the sin of sexual immorality, David with Bathsheba and Solomon with his thousand women will be their standard. They will keep living in sin and saying, “they are human.”
God sent this word to stir us up this morning. Those of us who are repeating our sins are being reached with the love of God this morning; warning us of the danger lying ahead. Are we going to heed the warnings of the LORD or we are going to allow this pass us too? The decision is ours to make!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place.
But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy. 2 Chronicles 36:15-16 NKJV