TODAY’S DEVOTION (Monday 3RD January 2022)
“Those who do wickedly against the covenant he shall corrupt with flattery; but the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.” Daniel 11:32 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 3RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
It’s important that we thank God for the first three days He has already given us. We have not seen any thing evil these three days.
Our God has shown us mercies, taken care of us and manifested as our refuge these three days. I believe what GOD has done for us these three days is a pointer to what to expect the rest of the days.
I admonish that whatever good thing we may have done these three days; prayers, fellowships, devotions and faith portions taken, it’s important that we continue the same way for the rest of the year.
For us at the Spiritual Family of the Cry of the Spirit Ministries, we have decided to keep building our lives around the presence of GOD; yes, around the blessings of His Kingdom power and the glory of God! That is the only insurance we have for the year. The Bible says;
“But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” 2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV
We want to have more of God this year. Yes, we want to see more of His power, Kingdom and glory. We want to see dimensions we have never seen before. We want to taste graces we have never tasted and experience blessings that angels desire to look.
We want to keep beholding as in a mirror the glory of the LORD so that we keep getting transformed form glory to glory! We have come to discover that what we build our lives around will ultimately affect us negatively or positively, hence making these destiny decisions as a spiritual family.
WE WANT TO ENCOURAGE YOU TO JOIN US IN THIS JOURNEY.
Life can be ‘terribly’ shaped by what we build ourselves around. For instance, if you build your life around pornographic pictures – motion or static – no amount of prayer will be able to save you from sexual perversion. If you want your life to be clean, you must become careful what you build your life around.
Our characters are shaped by what we build our live around. If you build your life, as a man, on the habit of looking at the backside of women and their secrets parts, you are bound to commit something sinful. If you do the same as a woman, looking at men lustfully, you are bound to live a life of sexual sins.
You just have to disconnect from things that will pollute your internal life this year because the year is a year of battle. If you do not, you will plunge yourself into things that you will not be able to handle. You will be self-inflicted with curses and unnecessary sorrows.
The principle of “what a man builds his life around” is one principle that many do not consider in life. Hence the self-destruction. People become what they build their lives around. Satan knows that hence using it to ruin our lives.
He will make you build your life around people who hate God maybe because of some money you get from them, hoping to make you hate GOD too. He will make you build your life around those who turn their back on the gospel, so that you will become like them. He will use certain earthly benefits to make you build your life around those who are not interested in becoming deeply committed to GOD, to make you like them.
THESE ARE SOME OF HIS DEVICES YOU MUST NOT BE IGNORANT OF THIS YEAR!
The Bible says we should not be ignorant of his devices. Many go studying his depths while God says we should study his devices. His depths and his devices are not the same. His depths make you powerless in the spirit, but knowing his devices, especially in the language of the Spirit, makes you wiser than your enemies. David said;
“How I love Your Law! It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, For they are ever Mine.” Psalm 119:97-98 NASB
Unlike the enemy, God will make you build your life around God chasers so that you become like them; people who will want to have nothing less than the glory of God. He will have you build yourself around there so that you become like them.
He will have you build your life around churches that are full of truth instead of hypocrisy, sexual purity instead of defilement, and truth instead of lies, so that you can become what He created you to be.
You must be careful of the Church you attend this year. Churches will have a lot to do with how the lives of men and women who build their lives around them will turn out this year.
People must understand that if they build their lives around churches that function like the gate of Heaven on earth, a portal of heaven will be opened over their lives, causing the presence of God to rest upon them, to make good things happen in their live. If they also build their lives around churches that function as the gates of hell, a portal of hell will also be open over their lives causing the spirit of hell to rest upon them to make bad things happen in their lives.
THAT IS WHY WHEN IT COMES TO MATTERS OF CHURCH, WE MUST NOT BE SENTIMENTAL BUT SPIRITUAL.
We must be truthful and Biblically balanced. The mantra that says “no church is perfect” that is being used by the derailed, to keep innocent souls in gates of hell, must be resisted this year else you find yourself in terrible realms of the year.
If you truly understand God’s definition of perfection, you will know there may be no perfect church in your judgment but there are churches God is using to perfect people in their walk and talk with Him. That is the kind of Church you need this year.
The spiritual content of anything we build our lives around will be made manifest in our lives. We absorb whatever we expose ourselves faithfully to, either good or bad. Our spirits are like soft materials that absorb the spiritual content of whatever we hang around – clean or unclean. That is why any generation that will not hang around the true God will have devils hanging around them.
Our devotional text said,
“those who do wickedly against the covenant shall the devil corrupt.”
Doing wickedly against the covenant is the present spiritual plague plaguing many in the Church today. Our generation does not even know that salvation is a covenant seal and a call for a covenant walk with God. And there are four basic covenants to build our lives on as Christians. The first is the covenant of grace.
The covenant of Grace and redemption demands that you build your life continuously around Jesus Christ, His word and His Spirit.
Anything short will expose you to the corruption of the devil. That is why we can find holy people become unholy and sinless people become sinful; because they did not spend their days hanging around Christ after being washed from their sins and made holy or sinless.
Sadly, so many believers today are heading for hell, deceived that they are heading for Heaven. The reason for this is simple; they have been corrupted by the devil for not keeping the covenant of grace.
If you do not keep the covenant of grace you will lose your salvation.
Many think they cannot lose their salvation. This is one of the most terrible deceit being spread. The Bible says we shall reap if we faint not. That we should work our salvation with fear and trembling. Jesus Himself said in the book of Revelation that Heaven is for overcomers; those who got saved and kept the faith.
NOT THOSE WHO DRAW BACK INTO A LIFE OF SIN AFTER SAYING THEY HAVE GIVEN THEIR LIVE TO CHRIST.
Very few can realize when they have lost their salvation. Many cannot realize! You find them singing for God during service and singing on the beds of sexual immorality for the devil after service. You find many crucifying Christ again and causing his heart to bleed without even realizing it.
Yet singing “I am a friend of God.” A friend of God hangs around God not sin!
The Bible made it clear that the fruit of hanging around God is holiness – a life of no darkness because God is light (holy) and there is no darkness at all in Him. But it’s not so in the lives of even those who claim to be hanging around God – moving from prayer forest or mountain to another!
You find us preaching and praying on Sunday even against sin, and forget all we said to God on Monday while lying on the laps of other men’s wives or husbands, or with single men or women who have no respect for values and morality. The covenant of grace is bastardized by our spiritual rascality and recklessness!
We commune with God at noon and commune with Satan at night.
We say we are “born again” but our lifestyles defy our claims. We profess to know God, but in works we deny Him, being abominable, disobedient, and disqualified for every good work. We spend hours with movies but cannot spend a minute with Jesus.
We spend hours with men of God but cannot spend even 10 strong minutes with the God of men. We make practicing prostitutes and husband snatchers ushers and pastors. We make unrepentant thieves, adulterers, liars, and cheats Church Elders. We now have gays called men of God, lesbians called women of God, with a distorted view of grace in our spirits.
DOING WICKEDLY AGAINST THE COVENANT IS THE REASON FOR ALL FORMS OF SATANIC DEFILEMENT IN THE CHURCH TODAY.
Whenever you do wickedly against the covenant of grace, you will be DISGRACED BY THE DEVIL. Whenever you do wickedly against the covenant you become food for your enemies. Instead of being the head, you will become the tail, instead of your enemies running in seven ways each time they come against you, you will be the one running.
If you truly take stock of the life you lived last year, you will realize that they enemy had upper hand wherever you did wickedly against the covenant. But you can make this year a year of “doing righteously” for the covenant.
You may ask how? Our devotional text gave us the answer. It says,
“But the people who know their God shall be strong, and carry out great exploits.”
Hallelujah!
To know God, is much more than having head knowledge of Him. The word “know” in Daniel 11:32 is the same word that was used when the Bible said AND ADAM “KNEW HIS WIFE”. The result was conception. It is a word that denotes intimacy – it calls for spending time with God until conception take place in our spirits.
It calls for hanging around God until we conceive the riches of His grace, the riches of His glory, and the riches of His mercies in our spirits. Only then can we begin to do exploit.
Hanging around God was the ultimate passion of Christians of all ages who carried out great exploits for God! It took them from ordinary men to extraordinary men. Today our extraordinary men and women are sorcerers and diviners called prophets. They hang around witch doctors and come out with all kinds of lying wonders to astonish the innocent!
But I studied the lives of extraordinary men and women who lived in the last two centuries – women like Katherine Khulman, Maria Woodworth Etta, Amie McPherson, and so forth. Men like Smith Wigglesworth, Charles Finney, Lester Sumrall, and the like. They all had one thing in common; “hanging around God, His word, and His Spirit” was it. That was what made them extraordinary. That was what powered them to do exploit.
OUR GENERATION HAS REALLY LOST IT. TODAY WE PREFER RUNNING AFTER FAMED PREACHERS INSTEAD OF GOD.
We prefer hanging around men and women who are financially successful instead of God. That’s why we are powerless. That is why many struggle with terrible sins like masturbation, lesbianism, homosexuality, and etc. That is why many cannot be free from ancient devils, curses and deadly diseases.
You don’t break these things by sowing seeds, drinking oil or giving any sacrifices to a prophet. You break from them by hanging around God under the spiritual tree of your spiritual father!
Christianity is a life of Christ designed to spring forth from Christ in us on daily bases. It is what spring from God on daily bases that make our Christianity true. True Christianity is not a religion but a Heavenly life on earth. Hanging around God is the only way you can have the Heavenly life on earth.
That is why we do not get tired of conferences and long Sunday services at the Cry of the Spirit ministry. We love hanging around God! And this year we will spend more time doing that!
Make the rest of this year a season of greater glory by determining to be a Christian who hangs around God! Begin the adjustment today. That is why God sent this word your way!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.” Acts 4:31 NKJV