TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER 2022)
“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; 23 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 1:21-24 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 268TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
This is the Day the LORD has made, we shall Rejoice and be glad in it. What a mighty GOD we serve, Heaven and earth adore Him, angels bow before Him, what a mighty GOD we serve.
It is the first day of the week and we give God the glory for the perfect plan to start each week with fellow brethren in corporate fellowship.
But how was this divine plan hatched? I think we can start today’s devotional with that.
You see, When the LORD died, and resurrected on the first day of the week, the early Church did not catch the revelation of making that the day of corporate worship, they stuck to Judaism’s Saturday meeting.
It was when Paul the apostle came into the Kingdom that the revelation was caught put to work.
Do not forget, one of the assignments of Paul was to move the early church, from the remnants of Judaism that was left in it, to the purest form of the Christian faith Jesus birth.
That was why there was no use of Oil, Salt, water and all that in His ministry. The aprons that were taken from him with some have been standing in to practice charismatic voodo where not even prophetic acts, if you understand what Prophetic acts are.
He did not even say to those who took the aprons from his body “today is apron service, bring a seed for the prayer clothe” or any of such.
He taught the early Church to assemble on the first day of the week to celebrate the resurrection of the LORD! That was what made Sunday service one of the legacies of Paul.
LISTEN TO WHAT HE SAID ABOUT IT;
“On the first day of the week let each one of you lay something aside, storing up as he may prosper, that there be no collections when I come.” 1 Corinthians 16:2 NKJV
It began as a day of assembling to collect substance for the saints at Jerusalem, and became a day of corporate worship.
That is the kind of legacy people who are called by the LORD to shape the faith of others usually leave behind. I pray, if Christ tarries, we will leave behind a lasting legacy of what the faith ought to be when our days will be over. Amen.
Its been 23 out of our 30-day journey, and today is the 24th day of the special journey of faith on Biblical fasting.
The LORD has been enabling us to look at the power of an aspect of Biblical fasting called Absolute fast. We have seen how lethal it can be if done according to Scriptural pattern.
We have also addressed the mistake of using absolute fast to deal with problems that need no fasting to deal with.
We have seen that two realms influences our lives on earth; the realm of the natural and the realm of the spiritual, and that two sets of laws also govern those realms.
We have also seen that we cannot use fasting to deal with problems that requires the application of natural laws.
For example, if a health issue needs proper medical care to be taken care off, we cannot fix it by fasting for healing, we can only take care of it by going for treatment.
Now there are other kinds of fasting but before we move into that, let us look at how we can combine natural and spiritual laws to solve some of our problems as believers.
I have come to discover that there are some problems we face in life that require the application of both spiritual and natural laws to deal with. Such problems can be very fatal if one is walking in ignorance.
They come as one problem but with two faces, and they can come as health problems, marital problems, financial problem, or problems in our interpersonal relationships or other areas of life.
But irrespective of how they may come or what they may be, when problems come with the two faces of spiritual and natural causes, there is the tendency of understanding just one face and dealing with it, thereby not touching the other.
Sadly, people have died for that reason alone; they dealt with one face of their problems and got what looked like restoration or healing but dropped death suddenly for not knowing the other exist.
THERE WAS A STORY OF A MAN WHO WAS ADMITTED IN ONE OF THE BEST HOSPITALS AND WAS RECOVERING BECAUSE OF THE EXPERTISE OF THE DOCTORS THERE.
He finally fully recovered and the doctor certified him strong enough to go home. He got home looking very healthy and people celebrated. Then they went to bed that night, and after a while he screamed in his sleep and died. That was not natural.
It left people confused. Some even said, it was God’s will for him to die.
But that was not the reason he died. He died because the doctors took care of one face of the problem, without even knowing another exist. The spiritual that they could not take care of, took away his life even after the natural had been taken cared of.
That is the danger of solving just one face of a problem that has two faces.
Personally, I have prayed for people whose health was under intense spiritual attack. The LORD arrested the spirits behind the situation and they experienced the beginning of their recovery process.
But by the Spirit of counsel, we discovered that they still needed good medical care, and sent them to professional medical personnel. Within a short time, they were made completely whole.
There were also people who have financial problems who conceived workable business ideas. They fasted and prayed to arrest the unseen forces that have been making things not to work in their lives.
Then they went to search for all the principles that will help them succeed in the business and begin to apply them.
AFTER A SEASON OF PURSUIT, PRAYER AND FASTING, THEY TURNED THEIR FINANCIAL LIVES AROUND.
The theory of solving a problem without involving God, or involving GOD to solve a problem that He has already given you all you need (making His involvement unnecessary) is the reason for the death or destruction of men.
Here is the point; those who chose not to involve God are humanist, and will always fail when dealing with problems that have both the spiritual and natural angle.
Those who chose to involve God and forget their role in the whole process will always not get the results they may be looking for either, because they will take care of the spiritual and leave the natural angle unattended to.
That brings us to our devotional text.
The text says;
“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 1:21-24 NKJV
The reason Christ manifested as the wisdom and power of God is very clear in our devotional today. The power aspect of His manifestation deals with the spiritual part of a two-faces problem, while the wisdom part deals with the natural part of the Problem.
When Christ manifest as the wisdom and power of GOD in our lives, there will be no two-faces problem that can destroy us. Each manifestation will be there to deal with each face. That is why it is important to be filled with the wisdom and power of GOD.
I believe enough has been shared today!
As we bring this to a close, it is important to note that we will need absolute fast in scriptural design to operate in power, but to operate in practical wisdom, we will need to be educated in matters of practical wisdom, so that Christ can be manifesting in our lives as the wisdom and power of GOD.
Personal, I do not consider education unnecessary to living. It has never put a child of GOD at a disadvantage. We should never demonize education like many religious people do. Education, both in the kingdom of GOD and in that of men, comes through diverse ways and it is important.
May the LORD further establish us in Jesus precious name. Amen.
When we come back tomorrow, we will begin our journey into the remaining types of Biblical fasting.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.” 1 Timothy 4:13 NKJV