TODAY’S DEVOTION (Friday 17th April 2020)
“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,” 1 Peter 1:22-23 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 108th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
We bless God, creator of Heaven and earth for bringing us into another glorious weekend in this special month – the month of April. I believe we are purifying ourselves by obeying the truth that God is revealing to us on this platform.
It may interest you to know that in the Kingdom of men, detergents are used to keep clothes clean, but in the kingdom of God it is sanctifying TRUTHS that God uses in keeping hearts clean. Just as detergent will do clothes no good until they are used, so also sanctifying truths will do our hearts no good until they are obeyed.
It is not when truths are heard that things happen, it is when they are obeyed that things happen. Yesterday was a sad day for me because of what I shared about one of the young women I placed on my special list of warriors. I do not know if I will be able to shake that off. I never knew all I was teaching and instructing she was not obeying. Because she could not obey the truth, she ended up obeying her lust.
Am still in a state of prophetic lamentation. I pray the LORD visit and pull her from the path of life she has just created for herself. If we do not obey the truth that we are taught, we will end up obeying the devil or our flesh. There can be no middle ground.
But my greatest worry is the number of others who are still hiding their sins. I saw a vision that scared me. Many have been placed in the gates of death in the spirit realm by their secret sins and personal wickedness, and that is all over the world. Very soon, we will begin to see young people dying at an alarming rate.
But God does not want this to happen, hence sending the word. Please heed the word and clean up your secrecy. Let the wicked forsake his wicked ways and the perverse one his thoughts. Let us all return to the LORD for He will abundantly pardon us.
LET US CULTIVATE THE HABIT OF PURIFYING OUR SOULS AND HEARTS BY OBEYING THE TRUTH.
I am deeply persuaded that God has taught us so many things through these devotionals this month. If you put the word of the LORD shared so far to work from this week, your life will begin to take a glorious leap forward.
The Bible indeed said wisdom makes a man’s face to shine. If wisdom makes a man’s face shine, truth makes a man’s heart glitters. You must understand all that. Truth that will make your heart glitter must be obeyed not just heard. If you hear but do not obey, you will grow from a Child of God to a son of hell.
Truth obeyed purifies the heart, wisdom applied makes a man’s face shine. That is one of the secrets of the Christian life.
The word face in that scripture refers to a man’s countenance. Your countenance is your facial expression. And we all know that if your heart is sad your facial expression cannot be bright. So, we can say wisdom makes a man’s heart happy, but truth obeyed makes the happy heart pure. Your heart can be happy but not pure. And do not forget, it is not when your heart is happy that you will see God. It is when your heart is pure that you will see GOD.
The Bible says blessed are the pure in the heart for they shall see GOD.
If you are pure at heart you will see God breaking out to bless you in all fronts. So, wisdom gives you what brightens your heart, but truth obeyed purifies your happy heart to see God. I hope you understand me.
Now what truth purifies the heart and what wisdom brightens the countenance of a man? The answer is simple. The wisdom that brightens a man’s countenance is not demonic or human wisdom but the wisdom from above, and the truth that purifies the heart is Bible Truth.
BOTH ARE FROM THE THRONE OF GOD.
Now, if human wisdom has not been polluted, it is not totally wrong. But even in its purest form it can be extremely limited and powerless in handling certain problems. That is why divine wisdom is supreme. People who do not make room for it will always be found in the perils of life!
Every living soul must begin to crave for the wisdom from above and Bible truths powered by the testimony of Jesus Christ. Yes, that is part of what is required for the now. Getting both begins with surrendering your life truly and totally to Christ, with a readiness to follow His ways.
This is different from joining a church. It is getting into the Kingdom of God and living according to the ways of the LORD.
Actually, that is what BEING BORN AGAIN is all about. It puts you in Christ not just in Church and puts Christ in you not a set of rules to obey. It makes Christ the center and ruler of your life, leading to a righteous life before God and men. It is a product of a genuine encounter with the Spirit of Jesus Christ that places you on the path of hearing and obeying the truth.
At this point, let us look at some Bible truths on being born again.
By experience and by revelation, I grew up to discover that born again is a shift in dimension that takes place when the incorruptible word of God pierce through a harden heart and gets the human spirits planted in Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
That places genuine born again outside the sphere of an empty religious experience, and brings it within the plane of a glorious encounter between divinity and humanity, that results in a dramatic turn around of a man’s life, from the ways of sin, Satan and the evil and corrupt system of this world to the ways of GOD.
That is why you find men and women who are truly born again not going on in their wicked and sinful ways. You find them living a life opposite what they usually do before. To this breed, born again is not a phrase you use in introducing yourself but a life to live.
Practically, a true born-again experience will turn a thief into the most honest person you can find. It will turn a sexual addict into the most sexually chaste person you can find. It will kill the power of sin and Satan in the life of a person and snatches him or her from the grips of hell.
I HAVE ALWAYS ADVICE PEOPLE NOT TO FALSIFY THE “BORN AGAIN” THING BECAUSE THEY WILL BE EXPOSED!
When you say you are born again and then go on living in sin, obeying the flesh every now and then instead of the truth, you lie. You are not born again. Genuine born again encounter will transform and impart you with the ability to walk in righteousness, follow the Holy Spirit, and spend your days seeking for the power of God to save others.
Born again also imparts us with what the Bible calls “the mind of Christ.” You cannot therefore claim to be born again and be walking in foolishness. Genuine born-again experience takes the spirit of foolishness away from a man. It gives you the seed of the “all wise God.”
A major highlight in our devotional text today said, “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.” Which leaves us with two kinds of born agains (if I may use that word).
I have said it before that there is “being born again of the corruptible word” and there is “being born again of the incorruptible word.” Both are remarkably similar yet quite different. If you say you are born again but you are walking in sin, yielding to the power of the flesh and that of the devil, you are truly born again, but you are born of the corruptible word.
SO MANY ARE BORN AGAIN BUT ARE BORN OF THE CORRUPTIBLE WORD NOT THE INCORRUPTIBLE WORD OF GOD HENCE LIVING IN SIN.
A pastor, who preaches anointed sermons, performs miracles but sleep with the girls and women in his Church claiming born again, is truly born again, but is born of the corruptible word. A man or woman who does well both in Church and on the bed of immoral brothers, sisters or prophets and prophetesses, claiming born again, is truly born again but is born of the CORRUPTIBLE WORD. The Bible made it clear that he or she will go to hell if they die that way.
Let me reiterate again that BORN AGAIN is not a song you sing. Born again is a life to live! If we will stop singing the song and start living the life, we will have our human spirits kindled to walk in divine wisdom and obey the truth. It is only those who are truly born again that can obey the truth, since the experience helps one to conquer the spirit of lawlessness.
When you become genuinely born again, the seed of GOD will enter your spirit and take residence on your inside, helping you to obey the truth and granting you access to the wisdom of God. In other words, a genuine born-again experience will plant a Heavenly seed in you.
John the beloved wrote about this seed when he said;
“Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for His seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has been born of God.” 1 John 3:9 NKJV
Being born again without being born of God is one of the horrors of the last days. I believe that was what General William Booth meant when he prophesied about a church generation that will be full of salvation without repentance. Sadly, a large percentage of men and women in church have fulfilled that prophecy. We have created a version of Christianity full of salvation without repentance. That is why we live in terrible sins, excuse ourselves claiming born again, standing on the false eternal hopes of the perverted grace gospel.
So many among the clergy and the laity are merely psychologically saved; they are not saved in their spirits that is why they cannot obey the truth or operate the wisdom of God! They lack the Heavenly seed that enables apprehension and comprehension of Heavenly things.
MAY THIS SCRIPTURAL PASSAGE FURTHER MINISTER TO YOU
“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
For it is written: “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”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.
Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.” 1 Corinthians 1:18-25 NKJV