TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 17TH MAY 2022)
“Beloved, do not be amazed and bewildered at the fiery ordeal which is taking place to test your quality, as though something strange (unusual and alien to you and your position) were befalling you.
But insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, rejoice, so that when His glory [full of radiance and splendor] is revealed, you may also rejoice with triumph [exultantly].
If you are censured and suffer abuse [because you bear] the name of Christ, blessed [are you—happy, fortunate, to be envied, with life-joy, and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of your outward condition], because the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of God, is resting upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified.
But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or any sort of criminal, or as a mischief-maker (a meddler) in the affairs of others [infringing on their rights].
But if [one is ill-treated and suffers] as a Christian [which he is contemptuously called], let him not be ashamed, but give glory to God that he is [deemed worthy to suffer] in this name. 1 Peter 4:12-16 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 137TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
May the LORD GOD favor you today. May His mercies and be our shield. May His compassion carry us wherever we go and fight our invisible enemies. May the wicked ones not prevail against any of us. May the glory of the LORD be our shelter and His anointing not cease in our lives.
May the LORD bind us together in love and may He unite our hearts to fear Him. May His truth be our buckler and His word a light on our path today in Jesus precious name.
God has been mindful of us, that is why we are still alive. He has been keeping us for Himself and sustaining us for His pleasure.
That is why if your life is not planted in the center of His will, nothing will be exciting about this life. It is the refreshing we get when we are in His will that is responsible for the peace, joy and amazing grace we enjoy.
Today is the 17thy day of our journey with the cry of the Spirit on practical Christianity. The LORD has been enlightening our hearts with amazing scriptural lights on the subject since the first day of this journey. Practical Christianity is what puts the difference between true Christians and false ones.
The Bible spoke about a Christianity that is just a form of godliness without power. It says;
“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” 2 Timothy 3:1-5 NKJV
What the Bible described in these scriptural verses is simply a spiritual plague that will break out in our days in the spiritual lives of many.
IT DESCRIBED THE SEASON WHEN THE PLAGUE WILL BREAK OUT AS THE LAST DAYS.
The last days are the last three days of the seven days of God. The last three days of the seven days of God are the last three thousand years of God’s redemptive plans on earth. We are right in those days. The first two of the days will experience a lot of these things, because the last day will be the millennium reign of Christ.
So, in our days, being part of the last days, we are going to see worse outbreak of this spiritual plague because there will be a near extinct of the true word of God as we are experiencing today.
Let me share a story with you. In 1966, Nigeria had a rough time with history. It all began when the injustice in the northern part of the country was not being addressed and some young army officers felt bad about it.
I watched a video one day where I saw and heard our first premier, who was from the northern part of the country, saying things that will make you ask if the rest of the country was a group of animals. That was the day I understood why there was a cry for justice by the Nigerians of southern extraction during those dark days.
The young military officers who felt bad about the whole thing would have address it in a better way but they chose the route of bloodshed; they carried out a deadly bloody coup that got our founding fathers killed. And that resulted in a civil war that lasted for some years.
The Eastern part of the country decided to secede from other parts but the national military made up of officers mostly of Nigerians from the northern part of the country and few from the western part refused to let them go.
It led to the death of millions of innocent men and women.
Finally, the war ended with a declaration of no victor no vanquish. But before them a lot of lives have been lost. That is why it is very important that leaders learn to settled their differences on tables of brotherhood or dialogue. For instance, those who have died in Ukraine never contributed to the decision that led to the war.
The innocent men and women who have lost their lives on both sides, did not sit with President Putin or Volodymyr Zelenskyy to contribute to discussions in their different palaces when exchange of words was ongoing.
LEADERS TAKE BAD DECISIONS BUT THEY ARE NEVER AFFECTED BY THEM.
It is only good decisions that affect every one of us. Any decision to go to war is a bad decision. That is my opinion. Any decision that will involve the death of people who were not on the tables of discussions when the dialogue that led to war was on is a bad decision. That is why leaders will be judged severely by GOD.
Each time I came across the profile of the Nigerians who died during the civil war I just see why our nation is where it is now. Great men and women who would have made the world a better place Died. Highly exposed, intelligent, gifted, educated, visionary and heavily wise people, both in our military and political landscape died in the civil war.
So, the war ended with the declaration of “no victor, no vanquish” but like I said earlier so many precious souls who never asked for the war where already dead by then.
However, History has it that some of those who died did not die by bullets or bombs. In fact, millions of women and Children of the Eastern extraction died in the war, but over 70 percent of those who die did not die because of bullets or bombs. They died due to malnutrition.
That brings us to the reason for sharing this story.
Many believers who are going down in faith, or coming under successful oppression of the enemy or those who are being captured by the gates of death, hell and grave, are not failing because of the bullets and bombs of the enemy but because of spiritual malnutrition.
Some are given good spiritual food but they are refusing to walk in the light of it, while others do not even have spiritual food to feed on. They just go to church, sing, dance, jump, enjoy the social atmosphere created by their well-polished pastors but no good spiritual food to feed on, hence breaking down whenever Satan considers them.
WE ALL NEED GOOD SPIRITUAL FOOD TO BE GOOD AND VICTORIOUS CHRISTIANS!
If you are therefore, not in a Church that is feeding you with what come out of the mouth of God in the Holy Scriptures; the deep things of God, you will never have the moral fiber for practical and victorious Christian living these trouble times.
Just as hunger and lack of natural food of nutritional value led to the dead of women and children in the Nigeria civil war, so can lack of good spiritual food lead to the spiritual death of believers and even spiritual diseases.
The Nigerian history has it that diseases broke out and killed the women and children who died due to malnutrition. That tells us that Lack of proper feeding can lead to an outbreak of pestilence. It should therefore help our spiritual understanding.
What we read in 2 Timothy chapter three will be a product of lack of proper spiritual food, among other things. It clearly states that there will be an outbreak of moral failure in a time of great spiritual stress and trouble that will be hard to deal with, and hard to bear.
That as a result people will be self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate desire for wealth, proud and arrogant, contemptuous and boasters. It says there will be abusive people who blaspheme and scoff at the things of God. There will be those who will specialize in disobeying their parents, for no just cause.
There will be a lot of moral failure; people will be profane, unholy, ungrateful, without natural or human affection. People will be callous, inhuman, relentless in admitting no truce or appeasement, making conflict difficult to settle. They will be slanderers, false accusers, trouble makers, immoral, lovers of sensual pleasure, inflated with pride and etc.
These things to me sound more like spiritual diseases; an outbreak that will greatly be caused by the near extinct of sound doctrine or good spiritual food.
The fearful thing here is this; You cannot be caught in any of these and make Heaven. And because death is inevitable, making Heaven should be the goal of every human on the face of the earth.
THE CLASSIC EDITION OF THE AMPLIFIED VERSION OF THE BIBLE PUTS THE SCRIPTURE THIS WAY;
“But understand this, that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble [hard to deal with and hard to bear].
For people will be lovers of self and [utterly] self-centered, lovers of money and aroused by an inordinate [greedy] desire for wealth, proud and arrogant and contemptuous boasters. They will be abusive (blasphemous, scoffing), disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy and profane.
[They will be] without natural [human] affection (callous and inhuman), relentless (admitting of no truce or appeasement); [they will be] slanderers (false accusers, troublemakers), intemperate and loose in morals and conduct, uncontrolled and fierce, haters of good.
[They will be] treacherous [betrayers], rash, [and] inflated with self-conceit. [They will be] lovers of sensual pleasures and vain amusements more than and rather than lovers of God.
For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them]. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 AMPC
The last verse says “for although they hold a form of true religion, they deny and reject the power of it. They are strangers to the power of it.” The power of the Christian faith is Christ Himself. He must be at the center of your life if you are a Christian.
It is dangerous to be a Christian with other things at the center of your life. You will prioritize them above God.
OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT SAYS;
“Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.
For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:20-24 NKJV
There are people who make their education the center of their lives. There are those who make other things of no eternal value the center of their lives, yet they called themselves Christians.
Sadly, So many of us do not really know who a Christian is. A Christian is not he or she who goes to church but he or she with Christ, the wisdom and power of God, at the center of their lives.
That means if you are a Christian, you cease to exist. Your interests cease to exist. Your passions in life cease to exist. Your carnal desires cease to exist. In other words, your entire life come under the control of the Holy Spirit and your will and decisions under the Lordship of Christ. That is why Christians live different lives.
True Christianity has Christ, the wisdom and the power of God at the center of it. It has Christ sitting in men’s hearts, building, animating, activating, powering, keeping them alive in the Spirit and making them what He wants them to be, and who He is, through intimacy with them and quality spiritual feeding.
The best way to lead the Christian life therefore is to have Him, come into your life to stay, in other to dine with you regularly and you with Him. Then you will purchase the gold He offers without money, and eye salves you need to see. Then you will not be lukewarm but will have Him at the center of your life.
I pray that you hear His knock at the door of your heart this morning through this word. I pray that you hear His voice and open the door, so that He might come in to begin a fresh Christian life with you; a type that only spring from the stand point of Him dinning with His own, and His won with Him.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“And to the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write ‘These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God:
“I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither [k]cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.
Because you say, ‘I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked— I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see.
As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore, be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.
To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” ’ ” Revelation 3:14-22 NKJV