TODAY’S DEVOTION (Friday 26th November 2021)
“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 329th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS.
Welcome to another great day from the LORD. It’s been our month of God’s mercy, and I want to repeat and reiterate that GOD have been faithful to us.
We keep getting what we do not deserve and seeing what we deserve being taken away from us by God’s mercies. We get the favors we do not deserve but watch the punishment and consequences of sins withheld from us, so that we may repent and not be consumed or ruined. The riches of GOD’s grace and mercies are really unsearchable. The Bible says;
“What if God, wanting to show His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,
and that He might make known the riches of His glory on the vessels of mercy, which He had prepared beforehand for glory, even us whom He called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles?” Romans 9:22-24 NKJV
It is a work of God’s Amazing Grace to see His wrath withheld from us and His mercies poured upon us. Indeed, we are not just enjoying the riches of His grace and mercies, which are making us vessels of Mercies on daily bases, we also enjoying the riches of His glory.
It has transformed us beyond what words can capture and disappointed the devil who pushed us to sin hopping our God will destroy us like he did with the nation of Israel before the cross – a nation that was carried and guided by the glory of the LORD!
That phrase the glory of the LORD stirs so much in our spirits. I think we should share some truths I will like to call “matters of God’s glory.”
It is important to note that the flow of the spirit of glory was the current mankind was plugged into at creation, that was why he was the most powerful being on the face of the earth after God. Until sin came into the human race, mankind was, plugged into this current, and was Spirit filled or God controlled.
I USE THE PHRASE “SPIRIT FILLED OR GOD CONTROLLED” FOR LACK OF BETTER TERMS.
The proper sentence should have been “Mankind was God filled!” He was God’s dwelling place or abode on the face of the earth. In simple terms God lived in him! The story of creation clearly revealed that Man was designed for God to live in. In other words, God created man to live in man and rule the earth from Heaven through him. That was the vision of the almighty for mankind.
However, the fall changed everything. But the vision did not change.
That is why when you look at the redemptive plan of GOD for mankind closely, you will discover that it is driven by the same vision. And that is, to have God back in man.
In God’s view, if you say you are born again, you are simply saying that this vision has been fulfilled in your life. You are saying God has reentered you and is again living in you like He did in Adam. That implies we live in GOD not in the sin living in us and waiting for our final redemption.
Sadly, that is not the case in the lives of many of us. So many who claim born again today live in sin and dine with Satan. Paul wrote to Titus saying, “They profess to know GOD but in works deny Him.”
In our devotional text today, Jesus made it clear that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. And if we keep His commandments, we will be provoking divine love. When divine love is provoked, God will come to make our lives His special abode or dwelling. Hallelujah!!!
Many do not know that receiving God’s mercy and embracing salvation is one thing, and retaining it is another. It is through a onetime submission to God’s word that we receive Mercy but it will take a constant submission to His word to retain it. That is why keeping the word is very important.
TO KEEP THE WORD IS WHAT IT MEANS TO SUBMIT TO IT. SO JESUS SAYS IF WE LOVE HIM, IT WILL SHOW IN OUR LEVEL OF SUBMISSION.
In other words, our obedience or submission is proof that we love Him. The result of that is the retaining of His mercy in our lives until, and the coming of He and the Father come to make our lives their home. That is a return to Genesis Chapter one and two – The God Head dwelling in us again like He did Adam.
I want to submit to you that the most terrific man on earth is a man whose life has become the dwelling place of the Godhead!
The call of Christ to a life of obedience and submission to His word, goes against the pseudo grace gospel that preaches the opposite; a gospel that deletes constant submission to God’s will, ways and word through deep repentance.
They preach against keeping God’s commands saying we are not under law. And such gospel will never allow the purpose of salvation to be made manifest in your life. It will never allow your life to become the home of the Godhead like God pre-planned. That is why people have grown from supposed Children of God to actual sons of hell; the spirit of hell that is good at counterfeiting spirituality, lives in many people we call Christians today.
The manifestation of God’s ultimate vision in His redemptive plan for many acclaimed Christians is yet to take place.
Jesus made it clear that the proof of genuine love for God is a life of total submission and obedience to His will and ways. Meaning, if we say we love God but our lives are full of rebellion to His written word, revealed will or established ways, we are deceiving ourselves.
We will never be able to provoke divine love, and never become a dwelling place for Him on the face of the earth like Adam was.
This morning, God is calling your attention to the things that truly matter in the faith. You were never designed be a religious being, that is why authentic Church service was not designed to be a religious show but a means of having the ultimate vision of God for your salvation fulfilled.
IT’S IMPORTANT TO SEVER TIES FROM ANY CHURCH THAT IS NOT MAKING YOU A DWELLING PLACE OF GOD IN THE SPIRIT IF YOU TRULY LOVE YOUR SOUL.
True prophetic and apostolic emphasis is that man become God’s House again. True Christianity is driven by this same vision. Until the vision is fulfilled in your life God’s redemptive plan for you is not yet fulfilled.
Any Church experience therefore, that is not making you a dwelling place of God in the Spirit, is an experience that is shortchanging you. Go back and seek God again, else you will be damned in the Day of Judgment. That is the message of today’s devotion!
Church experiences these days no longer produce Christians who tremble at the word of the LORD. It now produces acclaimed Christians, making the loudest noise in Church, demonstrate a spirituality wrapped in deception. It is not producing people who tremble at the word of the LORD! That is why devils are on rampage against many.
We tremble at the word of our enemies, and any word preached about voices crying against us from our villages, or devils up against us in our father’s houses but many do not tremble at the word of the LORD! Hence not walking in His ways.
Until we begin to tremble at the word of the LORD, we will never have Heaven’s attention. And a people who do not have Heaven’s attention will always be defeated by the perils of life and will never become God’s home on earth.
May the Lord help us to hear what the Spirit is saying today to the church, and to the individuals in the churches!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY.
Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. Where is the house that you will build Me? And where is the place of My rest?
For all those things My hand has made, and all those things exist,” Says the Lord. “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word. Isaiah 66:1-2 NKJV