TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 24TH NOVEMBER 2022)
“Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was approaching.
Jesus looked up then, and seeing that a vast multitude was coming toward Him, He said to Philip, where are we to buy bread, so that all these people may eat?
But He said this to prove (test) him, for He well knew what He was about to do.” John 6:4-6 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 328TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
It is another day that the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it. Indeed, His grace have been sufficient. What a year it has been!
It does not matter what may be running your life, if the grace of God is not there, it could turn out to be a ruin to your life. God’s grace is the only fuel of divine destiny available to man. If it runs your life, except you have a bad attitude, nothing from hell can ruin your life. Our lives can testify because a lot has happened that would have grounded us, but His grace was sufficient.
Also, the response that our apostolic father, Paul, got from the LORD, when he was face to face with a messenger of Satan clearly proves that no force from hell can ruin a man’s life if God’s grace is running it. The Bible says,
“And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.
Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-9 NKJV
These are the kinds of scriptures that tells us how powerful the grace of God can be. Just as truth is the antidote of deception so grace is the antidote of all forms of attacks from hell.
THAT IS WHY JESUS CAME FULL OF GRACE AND TRUTH.
The Bible says;
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:14 NKJV
If truth becomes the foundation of our lives, grace will form the superstructure and the roof of our lives. That is why people who walk in truth, do not lack grace in their lives. It is those who detest truth that lack grace. They ultimately walk in disgrace. They become victims of deception and delusions.
It takes uncommon grace to survive uncommon adversaries and adversities, and one of things that the Church will face these end times is uncommon adversaries and adversities. That is why we cannot afford not to have our lives founded on Bible truths. We must detest anything that will make us to detest Bible truth, because our survival depends on it.
The Bible made it clear that God Himself will send them strong delusions, to those who do not love the truth. Sometimes He will do that by giving them what they want and not what they need. He will feed them with their own flesh and send leanness to their souls.
It has been 24 days since we started this 30-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on practical wisdom.
Yesterday we saw one beautiful definition of practical wisdom that shed more light on the subject. We saw that Practical wisdom for the child of GOD is not just the application of the knowledge of the Holy One to our everyday life, but knowing what is good, right, or best given a particular situation.
It is knowing the right thing to do in any situation of life.
The word made it clear that practical wisdom is knowing what right thing to do when you are face to face with lack, sickness, disappointment, marital problems, or when you are being tempted or going through the trials of faith.
BUT TODAY WE WILL BE LOOKING AT SOURCES OF PRACTICAL WISDOM.
I hope you are ready!
The first source of practical wisdom I want to bring to our attention is education. Education have been defined as the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction, especially at a school or university. Ordinarily, when one is thoroughly educated, he should walk in practical wisdom.
I wish it is possible to say getting educated is still a source of practical wisdom, but it is not possible to assert that. Because today we see people who are very educated but very foolish at the same time when it comes to the application of practical wisdom.
It is really sad to discover that so many educated people today lack practical wisdom. They have intelligence but no practical wisdom.
The reason is because the system these days has become so bad. It has become Godless and completely humanistic. It our bid to be wise, mankind has become foolish. That is why our Education systems no longer produce wise men and women. It just produces educated and most times very intelligent fools.
It takes God to shape a man’s wisdom and make his education fruitful, when it comes to dealing with real life situations. That’s is why if God is not at the center of an education system, whatever we may be learning will not make us wise practically.
God has to be there through the message of the Cross. We must not have education without God (who should be the foundation of our lives), else we will keep having drug addicts, miscreants and men and women with all kinds of vices and foolishness coming out of our schools as graduates, with beautiful certificates or even none in some cases.
Yes, if we do not have the message of the cross at the center of our education systems, we will be spewing out, at best, very educated minds who are only good at speaking big grammar and expressing themselves very beautifully but without the wisdom to deal with real life situations in your head.
Sadly, the very thing that should form the foundation of our education (the message of the cross), is what the world hates and call religion in most cases. It is despised, rejected and called foolishness by the so-called educated minds.
Now, if it was just the world treating the message of the cross that way, there would have been no much problems.
THE ISSUE IS, EVEN THOSE WHO OUGHT TO BE PREACHING AND LIVING IT ALSO DO THE SAME TO IT.
Many preachers do not even know what the message of the Cross is. That is why they preach the message of raising, breaking and silencing of altars, sowing seeds, tithing, and etc. They preach a deliverance without the deliverer and peddle so much that is not even part of the kingdom of God. When they establish campus fellowships and all that, they present religion to the students and under graduates instead of presenting Christ.
So, it is not just our so-called educated minds that are despising the message of the cross, even those who should be preaching it are doing the same.
If we keep removing God from the center of our education system by ignoring the message of the cross, we will keep having the same results that we are having through today. Our system of Education will not be able to impart us with practical wisdom. It will keep defeating us and showing us that God remains the one we should build its foundation on.
Our devotional text says;
“For the story and message of the cross is sheer absurdity and folly to those who are perishing and on their way to perdition, but to us who are being saved it is the [manifestation of] the power of God.
For it is written, I will baffle and render useless and destroy the learning of the learned and the philosophy of the philosophers and the cleverness of the clever and the discernment of the discerning; I will frustrate and nullify [them] and bring [them] to nothing.
Where is the wise man (the philosopher)? Where is the scribe (the scholar)? Where is the investigator (the logician, the debater) of this present time and age? Has not God shown up the nonsense and the folly of this world’s wisdom?
For when the world with all its earthly wisdom failed to perceive and recognize and know God by means of its own philosophy, God in His wisdom was pleased through the foolishness of preaching [salvation, procured by Christ and to be had through Him], to save those who believed (who clung to and trusted in and relied on Him).” 1 Corinthians 1:18-21 AMPC
Friend, according to this scripture, I want to submit to you that God will keep making the wisdom of this age nothing. He will keep baffling and rendering useless the learning of the learned, and cleverness of the clever.
YES, HE WILL KEEP FRUSTRATING, NULLIFYING AND BRINGING THEM TO NOTHING.
We will keep having great minds who cannot solve our problems but only complicate them. Until we make the foolishness of the message of the Cross the core of our lives, our education systems will not be able to offer us the ultimate help we need when it comes to walking in practical wisdom.
There is one more thing!
Apart from the Godless educational systems we have that is making it impossible for us to produce educated minds with practical wisdom, we also have another issue in our hands. We have people who only read to pass exams. They do not read to live a better life through the subject of their discipline.
For so many students who are pursuing undergraduate and post graduate programs, Knowledge is not acquired for application, knowledge is acquired for the acquisition of certificates. There is a difference between reading to pass an exam and reading to life the life. Most of what we have today is reading to pass an exam. It has not helped many. Which brings us to another definition of education.
The definition of education is not limited to the process of receiving or giving systematic instruction in a school of university it is also any other enlightening experience we go through in life. For instance, exposure is education. Traveling around, observing people, studying places, ways of life, cultures and meeting the highly or lowly placed is also education. If you do it with the Holy Spirit in your heart, you will withdraw so much practical wisdom form the experience.
I believe enough has been shared for the day. It is my prayer that we all make use of it to add to the building blocks of our faith in our quest for practical wisdom in Jesus precious name. Amen!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY!
“Now we have not received the spirit [that belongs to] the world, but the [Holy] Spirit Who is from God, [given to us] that we might realize and comprehend and appreciate the gifts [of divine favor and blessing so freely and lavishly] bestowed on us by God.
And we are setting these truths forth in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the [Holy] Spirit, combining and interpreting spiritual truths with spiritual language [to those who possess the Holy Spirit].” 1 Corinthians 2:12-13 AMPC