TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 9TH JUNE 2022)
“Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:25-32 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 160TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
This is the day that the LORD has made. We shall rejoice and be glad in it.
From sun rise to sun set, the faithfulness of our GOD has been un-matching. He has showed us mercy, kindness, taken away our judgment, sent His word to our spirits each day, enabled our physical bodies to heal of any diseases and etc.
Indeed, as a father pities his children, so the LORD pity those who fear Him.
Obviously He has no rejects in His kingdom, except those who chose to say or sit away from His manifest presence. All that the world calls rejects becomes great assets when placed within His plans and purposes. That is how our God is.
I remember my one little story. I was one of the rejects as called by the world. My family is polygamy so my mum’s children were not considered part of the star seed of Takim. I do not want to go into details but if you are not considered a star seed, you will not even be educated. You will be left to struggle on your own, which we did. But it was in that struggle we found God.
Few years after discovering how beautiful my life will become if I plant it in the center of God’s plans for my life, the stone that was rejected became a corner stones (Not the Chief corner stone because only Jesus can have that title. No one else can have it).
My life is a message that God has not rejects in His kingdom. Only those who chose to stay away from Him will live like rejects. All those people call rejects are potential assets in His kingdom. They only need to find His plans for their lives and limit themselves to it.
We have been looking at the Cry of the Spirit on fear this month, and today is the 9th day of the journey. It is part of God’s plans that we do not walk in fear, that is why the spirit of fear is not one of the gifts of the Spirit, except for the fear of the LORD. The Bible says “God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of sound mind.” The classic edition of the amplified version put it this way;
“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.” 2 Timothy 1:7 AMPC
WHAT GOD HAS NOT GIVEN US, SHOULD NOT BE FOUND IN OUR LIVES!
The scripture says He has not given us the spirit of timidity, so it should not be found in our lives. That is why you cannot find any who walked with or in GOD having the spirit of fear, timidity, or cowardice. From Enoch and Noah, who lived in dangerous times of the Nephilim, to Abraham, to David, and to the apostles, you will never find anyone in cringing, shrinking, submissive or fawning fear.
So, the spirit of fear is not one of the gifts of the Spirit. What the Spirit of God enables if we become intimate with Christ; what He enables if we do not grieve or wound Him, is the spirit of power, love, calm, and well-balanced mind and discipline. Especially in the evil day!
It is when we grieve or wound the Holy Spirit that we do not see or experience any of that in the evil day or in our Christian lives.
Every virtue of the Christian faith cannot be created in us by us. It can only grow out of our lives by the enabling grace of the Holy Spirit. But when we wound Him, grieve Him, or quench Him, we will not see any of the Christian virtues we saw in the lives of our fathers in our own lives.
We will not be able to walk in holiness, purity, or righteousness. Consequence, we will have our lives filled with fear and all kinds of spiritual pollutions.
Sadly, so many of us are the way we are because we have a good relationship with God the Father, but do not have any good relationship with God the Spirit, and God the Son. It is God the Spirit and God the Son that makes relationship with God the Father meaningful and even possible.
For instance, most people on earth call on God and seems to have great relationship with Him. You see it in how some fast, others pray, some others go to their temples regularly to offer service and worship, but you cannot find them in relationship with God the Spirit and God the Son (Christ). That is why we have so many religions and gods.
If we live our Christian lives that way, we are not better than the idol worshiper. Everyone talks about God (God the Father), but not everyone is in Him. The reason is, You can only be in God (God the Father) if you are in Christ (God the Son). And you can only be in Christ if God the Spirit lives in you.
THEREFORE, WE WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO HAVE A MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD, WITHOUT THE SPIRIT OF GOD IN OUR LIVES.
We will not be able to have a supernatural life with God (God the Father), if the life of Christ (God the Son) is not in us through the power and presence of God the Spirit in our lives. We will just have a form of godliness without power.
That means a healthy, clean and true relationship with the Spirit of GOD is a necessity not an option. Our devotional text says;
“Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. “Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.
Let him who stole steal no longer, but rather let him labor, working with his hands what is good, that he may have something to give him who has need.
Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:25-32 NKJV
The message in this scripture centers on how not to grieve the Holy Spirit. I believe this is part of the messages that we preachers should be teaching and living on daily bases. But we have failed, hence having a group of believers who are mindful of not grieving those who they depend on but are not mindful of not grieving the Holy Spirit.
The scripture admonished us not to grieve the Holy Spirit and went further to show us the things that if we do, we grieve Him. They include lying and not speaking or walking in truth, anger out of control, stealing, laziness (not working with our own hands but going about begging or looking for who to borrow from), corrupt communications out of our lips, walking in bitterness, wrath and the like.
IF WE DO THESE THINGS, WE GRIEVE THE HOLY SPIRIT.
And once He is grieved, His works comes to an end in our lives. Once His works comes to an end in our lives, we begin to walk in our old ways and living in fear. That is when fear becomes a personal sword that we use against ourselves.
In spiritual warfare, the most dangerous sword is not the one the enemy use against us, because the sovereign arm of the LORD protects us from that. The most dangerous sword is the one we use on ourselves.
Sadly, that sword is not in the hands of the enemy. That sword is in our own hands; our flesh and carnal desires.
When we grieve the Holy Spirit and quench His works in our lives, we begin to walk in the flesh and carnal desires. The sword of fear will begin to ruin our lives. It will begin to take us away from the realms of faith, progress and exploits. We must learn and make sure that we keep the works of the Holy Spirit alive. That is the only way to lead a fruitful and effective Christian life.
You see, we are in warfare on planet earth. We need the Spirit of God alive and well in our lives instead of wounded and grieved to overcome the war.
If you look at what our father, apostle Paul, said about spiritual warfare, you will realize that spiritual warfare is a battle of swords and shields. But the Bible calls the sword we use in spiritual warfare “the sword of the Spirit.” So, if we grieve the Spirit how is He going to put His own sword in our hands to use against the enemy in the evil day? It will be impossible.
That is why many believers find themselves helpless in time of need. You find many resorting to calling on people they consider more powerful than them or looking for a prophet, an apostle or spiritual father who can offer a magical prayer to meet their need in the evil day.
But that is not Christ’s design for His church. So, it ought not to be so! The Bible says,
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Ephesians 6:10-11 NKJV
EACH INDIVIDUAL MUST KNOW HOW TO PUT ON THE WHOLE AMOUR OF GOD IN THE EVIL DAY.
Each individual must be strong in the LORD for themselves so that when the evil day comes, they can deal with it without calling on anyone. We only meet to share the testimonies. Not to share prayer points.
But if we do not lead lives that keeps the works of the Holy Spirit alive in us, if we lead lives that grieves Him, we will always be calling on others to pray for us in the evil day. We will become dependents of some prophets, defeating GOD’s plans for our lives, as His church on earth.
I think the only thing we should spend our days doing on earth after giving our lives to Christ, is developing, cultivating and sustaining a powerful, clean, fruitful and effective relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Yes, it is to spend the rest of our days not grieving Him. That is how we will unleash our destinies and become great by God’s definition of greatness.
Sadly, many do not want to discipline their lives and stop grieving the Holy Spirit. They do not even know that there is something called “grieving the Holy Spirit,” hence leading very powerless and fearful lives.
Prophets and prophetesses have called getting them angry grieving the Holy Spirit. Pastors have called not tithing or sowing seed grieving the Holy Spirit. But all that is nonsense. Many others have called disappointing their expectations of you grieving the Holy Spirit. Spiritual people have manipulated many with that term. But none of that is a grief to the Holy Spirit.
There is so much but I believe the LORD God has spoken to us this morning. Few lines have been shared that if we sit down with, we will become better and more effective Christians in a perverse and crooked generation.
Satan will only succeed against us if we lead a life that grieve the Holy Spirit.
Know that we can never be strong in the LORD in the evil day if you do not lead a life that is always mindful of what the Spirit feels about it’s actions and deeds before the evil day.
As we bring this to a close, I want to submit that I have come to realize that every warrior of righteousness who was highly inflammable for GOD on the face of the earth, was mindful of what not to do that will grieve the Holy Spirit.
We cannot be strong in the LORD, neither can we be able to put on the whole amour of God if we live lives that grieve the Holy Spirit. I want us to understand that it takes mostly swords and shields to stand against the wiles of the evil one. In fact, there are more things we do with the sword of the Spirit than with any other pieces of amour.
Understand that the amour of God has so many pieces. And every pieces of the amour are important for battle, but we do most of our battles in the spirit with swords and shields. But if we grieve the Holy Spirit every now and then, how can we have the swords and shields for battle? How can we have other pieces of the amour active in our lives?
The shield is called the Shield of faith. Once it is there fear cannot be there. But once it is absent, fear will come. The importance of this is simple; let us be mindful of what the Holy Spirit feels about our actions. Let us not do things to grieve Him.
If we want to be strong in faith, if we do not want to lead a life of fear, if we want to be strong in battle and be able to use all the pieces of the amour of GOD effectively in the evil day, we must learn how not to grieve the Holy Spirit. That is the message!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AND ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God; praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints-
and for me, that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” Ephesians 6:10-20 NKJV