THE CRY OF THE SPIRIT DEVOTIONALS – BY RICHARD E. S. TAKIM

TODAY’S DEVOTION (Friday 7th February 2020)

“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” 2 Corinthians 5:20 NKJV

WELCOME TO THE 38th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING

Sometimes I wonder what people really expect from God. I wonder why they treat Him and His servants like tools for the realization of selfish desires. God and His servants have been reduced to mare consultant clinics and hospitals.

Like I said yesterday, the ultimate calling of a minister of the gospel is to get people saved and sanctified for the next life. It is not just to heal and deliver people. If we are praying for people to be healed and delivered, it is to get them ready for the next life! It is to help them fulfilled their days and actualize their eternal destiny.

You don’t treat GOD like a dispensary. Dispensaries, clinics and hospitals are only important when people are sick. But once they are healthy, they are no longer important. You don’t treat GOD that way.

Sadly, to so many people, God and His servants are only important when they have problems. Once they are free from their problems, they disconnect from them. They are not even interested in the real reason God came down to establish such redemptive plan – getting ready for the next life.

To others, just as people move from one hospital to the other when they are sick until they find cure, so they treat Church, God and His servants; they move from Church to Church, pastor to pastor, and God to god to find cure. Sadly, many are finding none because you do not treat anything divine like a dispensary.

I used to define the Church to be a spiritual hospital and God the doctor and us the patients because of what Jesus said about the sick needing a doctor. But God brought me out of that when He gave me a deeper revelation of what Church is in the book of Ephesians. I discovered that Church is not a hospital. In hospitals no sick person has a true relationship with the medical personals.

THE RELATIONSHIP IS ALWAYS NEED BASED. AND AN IDEAL RELATIONSHIP IS NOT USUALLY NEED BASED.

If we reduce Church to be a hospital, we the patients and God the doctor, then we are not seeing things in God’s apostolic and prophetic perspective. That is why people do not have a relationship with God! They only have contact with Him.

I grew up to discover that genuine servants of God do not have time for people who treat God like a dispensary or doctor – people who want to make or keep contact with God because of their needs but not have and grow in relationship with Him. Only charlatans go for such people because they know the people are gullible and stupid and can be fooled easily.

Yes, they gain fame and fortune through them and carry out their deceitful practices successfully when they are surrounded by them using them as willing tools.

Come to think of it, no patient really has a relationship with a doctor, a hospital, clinic or dispensary. We all have contact with them not relationship. That is why no one has ever moved out of his or her home to go live in a hospital, clinic, or dispensary with a doctor or nurse forever.

God wants people who will live with Him not have contact with Him. That is why He is neither your doctor, nor His Church your hospital and servants the nurses. Moses called Him our Habitation and dwelling place. He said:

“LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” Psalm 90:1-4 KJV

Does this scripture from a man who saw God face to face present GOD as a doctor and His church a hospital? Obviously No! It presented God as our dwelling place. I think it is people who lack the revelation of who God is that say such nonsense like I use to say in time past. It is preachers that are far from God that calls Church a hospital.

Even when Jesus said it is the sick that needs a doctor, He was not making God a doctor and His Church a hospital, because the pharisees that He made the statement to where also sick eternally. He was rebuking their dangerous stance against His redemptive plans.

THE CLOSER YOU GET TO GOD TO BETTER YOU KNOW WHO HE IS.

This scripture did not even present God as a consultant of eternity affairs, consequently neither are His servants. He is our source and His servants His arm for returning us back to Himself – our dwelling place. It is where you live in the spirit that determine what happens to your life in this life and the life after death. If you are not living in God – our dwelling place – you will be sorry, especially after death.

So, if you are one of those treating GOD either as a clinic, a hospital, or a consultant, you will never make it in your walk with Him. There are realms of glory you will never come into or embrace and walk in. As a result, their will be no rest in your life!

Sometime ago I was worried about how I was being mistreated by certain people. I served them faithfully and did my best as God’s servant sent to them, but they returned evil for good and I was discouraged. I began to withdraw from serving people sacrificially. Then God met me and stopped me. Thank GOD He did! Because I would have not received any reward in Heaven if I had continued that way.

During the encounter He made me to understand that people treat us (His servants) and His Church the way they treat Him. I never saw it that way in my life. The Spirit of the LORD began to open my heart to see things in a different light. I began to understand that if a man truly loves the LORD, it will show in how he treats the LORD’s servants or His Church.

So, all who treated us that way were not sons and daughters of the Kingdom. They were just hypocrites. From that day the download of the mystery of Sons of peace began.

Friend, you cannot claim to love God and then treat His true servants and church badly. If you claim you love God but treat His true servants and Church badly, you do not love God. You are a hypocrite.

IT’S LIKE SAYING YOU LOVE A MAN BUT HATE HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN.

The same is applicable to submission and sitting under God’s authority. You cannot say you are submissive to God if you are not submissive to a His true servants or answerable to a local Church in GOD’s design. There are so many Christians who are not answerable to anyone. But they say they are answerable to God. That is a fallacy!

How can you be answerable to God and you are not submissive to any of His servants or committed to local church? You see, so many people are deluded. Our devotional text today says, “we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God.” That is what I am doing this morning.

Stop this foolishness you call Christianity. Be truly reconciled to God. True worshipers do not treat anything that carries the seal of God lightly. They sit under God given authority, by being submissive to a servant of the LORD and committed to a local Church.

The version of Christianity I see in the lives of so many today is in total conflict with the Christianity of the Bible.

You cannot serve God without having a pastor who knows you face to face over your life. You cannot serve God without being committed to a local Church. You cannot commit to a local church on face book, pay your tithes and offering through credit card, and follow the pastor up on television or radio WHEN YOU HAVE THE CHANCE of siting under Him and make it. You are just deceiving yourself.

God wants us to be reconciled to Him. If we are truly reconciled to God we will not engage ourselves in spiritual masturbation; where we sit all by ourselves, having a feel of God all by ourselves with the help of you tube, Television, Radio, or Face book, as good as these things may be, instead of coming to Church to sit and be fed.

Yes, we have people who cannot find a good church around, hence depending on true churches that are afar off using these media platforms. There is nothing wrong with that because it is better to depend on You Tube and Facebook in participating with a true Church than to be part of a synagogue of Satan. You will still experience God like Joseph did in Egypt.

BUT DON’T FOREVER SUBSTITUTE THAT WITH BEING PART OF A TRUE CHURCH.

Fellowshipping with other believers, and having a pastor called of God you are committed to (one who is not millions of miles away but there with you – someone who knows you face to face and sees you every now and then to check on your spiritual life) remains a Biblical key to making it to Heaven in the next life.

You do not attend Church because you like a church. You attend Church because it is preparing you for Heaven. It may be made up of a few people or thousands; if a Church is not feeding your carnal desire but is preparing you for Heaven, you have escaped the deceptions of the last days.

Am inviting you to Join us for our ALL-NIGHT PRAYERS today at our apostolic Center from 9pm. Your life will not remain the same as you join us to tap into God’s mercies on our knees. You can call +254 706370793 for further information.

LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!

“So now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all those who are sanctified. Acts 20:32-NKJV