DAY 31: THE STAYING POWERS FOR REMAINING BATTLE-FIT

JUICY JULY 2024

THEME: MADE BATTLE-FIT

DATE: 31/07/2024

TOPIC: THE STAYING POWERS FOR REMAINING BATTLE-FIT

TEXT: PROVERBS 24:10; JOHN 21:15-17; MATTHEW 3:11; JOHN 14:15, 21, 23

BIBLE STUDY: JAMES 1

 

PRAYER

Praise the Lord for the testimonies. Ask the Lord to take all the glory for them. Ask that the Lord will glorify Himself the more in the lives of the testifiers. And that the Lord will give everyone heartily participating in the Juicy July Prayer programme great testimonies to the glory of His Name. Ask for your own testimonies also.

WELCOME BACK

Today is the last day of the Juicy July 2024 prayer programme. What a ride it had been! Oh, glory be to God.

I am certain that if you have been following Juicy July from the past, and you aren’t or haven’t been a BUD member in recent times, you will realize that this prayer took a totally different route from the usual more self-focused prayers. Oh yes! Discipleship did this to us and we are loving it. Even if we are to pray for ourselves, not for ourselves as an end but ourselves as a means to an end- the glory of the Lord alone!

As this Juicy July prayer programme is winding up however, there are two main things that you must start to pray for from now and forever- to constantly remain battle-fit!

We never should go to sleep and say ‘Oh, I had a prayer for 31 days. I am battle-fit! I am battle ready! My fingers are ready for battles and my hands for wars!’

No no no! The Devil would simply only laugh at you to scorn that way, sis- and also encourage you for making such an unwise conclusion.

You will never reap the dividends of prayers and fasting if after the ordeal, you dump the Lord of the harvest! You put Bible study away, daily devotion is thrown into the bin, faith and hope are buried etc. Oh, that’s a grave mistake sis.

This is the time the Lord is more attentive to you, sis. To see if the tears you sowed, the seeds, the affections you showed Him- if they were all true! If you really deserve the delivery of the loads of blessings.

So, dear sis, these two things I need to reveal to you today are what I call the STAYING POWERS FOR REMAINING BATTLE-FIT

If you lack these two staying powers, nothing, absolutely nothing can keep you in the Lord. You’d keep rising and falling.

And you cannot have one of them and leave the other. In actual fact, the Presence of one should give birth to the other. Unfortunately, this is the problem with so many in the church today. The lack of these two staying powers.

DEVOTEDNESS

Many of us say that we are devoted to the Lord. We talk about our devotion to the Lord as if it is really real. However, if someone says she is not obese, and she keeps insisting, the best thing is never to argue. The best thing is to get a scale and ask her to ascend it. Haha. The scale will settle the issue.

If someone says she is devoted to the Lord, the scale to place the person on is….. can you already guess it?

What is the thing devotion requires from any man?

If you say you are devoted to something, what is that primary thing it demands from you?

TIME!!!!

It is your TIME!

A devoted family man is a man who gives a lot of time to his family!

A devoted mother is something who showers time on her children!

Therefore, to be a devoted lover of the Lord means we spend a lot of time with Him.

Muslims dedicate about 10-15 minutes for five good times each day to talk to their god. That is devotion! 5 times a day and it shows greatly. Their foreheads show it, their words show it, their ‘anger’ at the ‘unbelievers’ shows it. That they have been feeding their time to some spiritual beings!

Also Read: GOD NEEDS MARRIAGES

However, an average Christian is not devoted and it also shows! Some godless pastors have crafted a simple Christianity for their members so that they won’t ‘stress’ themselves- the all ‘compassionate’ more than the Lord! They’d say ‘God understands, my people. Even if it is five minutes you can spend with God, He’s content with it. You can just mumble prayers to Him in your car as you rush out to work or just talk to Him in your kitchen. It’s alright’.

Oh really! And we keep wondering why we have dilapidated Christianity everywhere? No, we shouldn’t wonder! How can the Spirit grow when people only sprinkle their spirits every day in five minutes, (while doing other things) while they give the remaining 23 hrs, 55 minutes to other pursuits???

Oh what a fleshly generation!

Am I saying you can’t pray in your car and in the kitchen? Oh, you should know that’s not my emphasis! I do that every time. I believe a Christian should be praying every single time!!! However, all these ‘prayers’ that we do while doing other things should be EXTRAS!!!! There should be a separate, long, enjoyable time spent with THE SPIRIT BEING every day if your spirit must produce life!!

Now, dear sisters, here comes a question to you: How devoted are you to the Lord? Or better still, what are you dedicated to? What are you devoted to?

You see, you do not need to look too far to know what you are devoted to. It is just majorly to sit down and look at what takes the most of your time each day. That particular thing has your love, your devotion, your worship!

DIFFERENT PARTS OF A MAN

A person has three parts of her that fights for her time every single day:

• Her Mind
• Her Body
• Her Spirit

And you know the unfortunate thing sis, an average Christian devotes time to her mind and her body each day, more than to her spirit!

You try to do a run through of your daily activities and you will see that they are all contra-spirit.

You sleep for a whole 8 hours or maybe even 10. That caters to your body.

You spend another two hours doing hair care, skincare, dressing up, in the morning and evening before you sleep. That’s still catering for the body and 12 hours are gone.

You move to the kitchen to prepare food for you and your family, breakfast, lunch and dinner takes around two hours. Eating them takes around one hour. So, we have around three hours gone again, catering to our body needs. 15 hours gone on the body alone!!!

Then, we sit in front of our TVs and soak up on some Zee World, Nollywood, Bollywood and enjoy those ones for at least 2 hours. What the ungodly people in the movies teach us, we commit those to our memories, discuss them fight about them, meditate on them- building our minds so steadily. If you are asked to narrate the movies from the first scene to the last, ah, you won’t miss a line! About three hours dedicated to training the mind with gibberish. 18 hours gone, sis!

Then, we move to one book by one Pastor Mrs. Something that says ‘Don’t allow anyone step on you! 31 Steps to be an ‘ingullible’ Christian’. Then, you sit down with that one and pump up your mind some more for about three hours. When you are done, you move to social media to share your feat with them. You have read your 50th book in six months of the year. Then you share some of the ‘lessons’ from the Godless book and people say ‘Wow, so purposeful. I just want to love the Lord the way you do’. The way you do? What way? 21 hours gone, sis. Plus maybe the additional at least two hours you spend on social media reading status and soaking up things that don’t contribute to God or spiritual growth one bit!

These are apart from the classes you have to attend, the seminars, events, gossip-stands etc. Almost 24 hours gone doing completely nothing for your spirit! Then, you keep crying to God ‘Oh, Lord, let me grow spiritually. Please’.

But the next time His spirit says ‘Don’t see that movie, go and pray’, you roll your eyes and insist on your way.

You wonder why you are being defeated by addictions, manipulations, fears, sin, Satan, immorality, covetousness and all those?

You wonder why that young sister is able to ‘seem’ very spiritual. Well, TIME! Check that person’s life, while you were feeding on junks, she was feeding on life. And people that do naturalista-hair or skin can attest to the fact that what we eat in affects our glows and healths in these areas. That’s exactly the way of the Spirit!

Chris Delvan’s ‘Bringing Everything in Obedience to Christ’ says:

How can you walk when you don’t know the way of the wind How can you run when you don’t know the way of the Spirit how can you fly when you don’t know the way of the wind The power at work in you….

You tell me ‘How?’

You will be fleshly. You will be angry. You will gossip. You will keep malice. You will hate! You will go online and insult people directly or indirectly! You cannot just reflect Christ, sis. How can you? The Christ you haven’t learnt?

But when your spirit is well-fed, you will do spiritual things naturally and natural things spiritually! Your life will take a new turn.

The devil knows it actually. He knows if you can simply just devote time to the Lord, you will flourish, so, he ensures you don’t! He ensures to give you ‘bling-blings’. He doesn’t have issues with you actually ‘talking’ to God casually also. He knows those CANNOT amount to anything!!!! He only has issues with you communicating with God. I mean, having a two-way communication with Daddy- talking to God and having Him talk back to you! That, he won’t allow! And because that requires time, you agree with him and do a bare minimum Christianity with the Lord. That Christianity that does not sustain! Hmmmm, that will never make you battle-fit!

So, what’s this first staying power that keeps you glued to the Spirit everyday? That even as you go through the day, doing your secular job, classes etc, you are on fire?

Also Read: MAKE ME WISE, LORD!

LOVEST THOU ME MORE THAN THESE?

John 21:15-17 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs. He saith to him again the second time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep. He saith unto him the third time, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

This is the first staying power!! LOVE!

Peter and the Lord

Peter was a very good friend of the Lord Jesus Christ. He followed him everywhere. He witnessed deep things with the Lord Jesus like spectacular testimonies and the transfiguration. He had professed love for the Lord very vehemently before and always acted as if he did love the Lord. And of course, he humanly did have feelings for Him, you know.

However, just before the Lord was crucified, he had betrayed the Lord three times!

He had been so proud, self-sufficient, prayerless- always sleeping when the Lord took him aside to pray with him. Yet, he could fall so cheaply before two women and a man who had confronted him about being related to Christ. His spirituality was proved to be obviously zero.

Yet, when the Lord was to leave, He wanted to hand over the church to him. But he had a problem with his spirituality. He was concerned with how he would fair when He was gone. So, it took just a question asked three times to break Peter’s spiritual ego:

The Critical Question

What was that question?

LOVEST THOU ME MORE THAN THESE?

The Lord Jesus knew that one simple question would be sufficient. If that question found a true response, everything else would automatically follow. “Lovest thou Me more than everything and everyone else?”

And before you confidently, like Peter, say ‘Oh, I love you, Lord,!’; ‘Ah, I love You Jesus, I can die for You!’, pause to think deeply. Don’t just spew the words out of your mouth carefully.

Lovest thou the Lord more than every other thing?

Sign of True Love

How do you tell that a child loves his parents? How do you tell that a wife loves her husband? I am not talking about services yet. What the Lord is expecting from us primarily is not our service but our love. Where there is true love, service will flow spontaneously. When a child loves his parents, service will flow spontaneously. When a wife loves her husband, service will flow spontaneously!

So, don’t talk about services yet. Those aren’t really proof of love. And this is why you’d see some people laboring in services for the people they thought they deeply loved. After a while, if the love isn’t reciprocated or appreciated, they’d turn away, recount all the services they had rendered, and suddenly become so distant and alien to the person they had supposedly loved. That was not a true love to start with!

So, what is that one true sign that would make people say: ‘Oh my my my, this child loves his mum!’?

Proof of Love in Scriptures

Let us now check the Scriptures to see what the Lord says proves that we love Him.

Let us look at John 14:15, 21, 23:

• 15: If ye love me, keep my commandments.
• 21: He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
• 23: Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

So, from here, it is clear that the proof of our love is simply our obedience!

A child cannot profess to love his mum with tears and so many gifts in his hands when he had just flaunted her rules of not leaving the house without her permission or spending from her card carelessly.

Your husband says ‘Don’t buy that thing’ but you desire the thing and you bought it. Then, you come back to sing love songs to him? Oh, that’s not love.

A wife tells the husband that she does not like it when he chats late into the night with church sisters, laughing and giggling together, leaving her all to herself. But he doesn’t stop. At midnight, when she has started to find her sleep and his own chats have started to die down, he’d then roll over to her and start planting kisses all over her face, professing his love. What sort of a love is that?

The Love of God

1 John 5:3 says: For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

Loving Jesus is not merely a feeling; it is an active, abiding, ongoing relationship of following and obeying our loving Master.

If we love the Lord, we will obey Him!

We are finding it difficult to obey the Lord, why? Because we do not love Him!

The problem is not with our determination or with our personalities or temperaments. The problem is with our hearts! We do not love the Lord!

1 John 2:3 says: And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments!

Heart and Obedience

But wait, before you think ‘Oh, okay, so, what are some of the commands of the Lord, let me start trying to obey all of them’, Wait!

This is not what this is about! It is not necessarily about obedience now. The aspiration now should be treating our hearts and getting it ready to love! Obedience will flow out naturally if only we would love!

See, your heart has a throne. There is someone or something seated so authoritatively there. You live for that person. You love that thing! It could be your parents, your siblings, your marriage, your spouse, your children, your career, your dreams and visions, your ‘purpose’ etc.

God isn’t saying you shouldn’t love those things. He is simply saying He wants to be the one on that main and only throne of your heart. That place that controls your passion, sleep, substance and so on, He wants to be the One in charge there!

Lovest thou me MORE than this?

That was a comparative statement.

Peter do you not love me more than this fishing?

Many have love for the Lord, but they love other things more. Other things are the ones in control but sometimes when they see the Lord peeping down at them again, they feel His warmth.

Till when would that sustain you?

You can’t grow with that. You can’t influence others for Christ with that kind of love. You cannot even win the Lord’s trust with that kind of love!

I do things for Christ in church.

I give my tithe and offerings.

I wear customized ‘Abba’s lover’ top everywhere.

My Bible is my pillow.

I read through daily devotional guides daily.

I share Bible verses on my status everyday.

Yeah, even demons can do these! Hahaha, for real, it doesn’t mean you love the Lord.

If He tells you ‘Don’t buy that thing. You don’t need it?’ Do you obey?

If He tells you ‘Don’t respond rashly to that people who has treated you so unfairly’ Do you obey?

If He tells you ‘There’s no need to share that on social media.’ Do you obey?

Love your neighbor as yourself!

Submit to your husband as unto the Lord!

Train up your child in the way he should go- the way of the Lord obviously!

Do all without complaining and murmuring! Pray without ceasing! Rejoice always! Deny yourself! Prefer others to yourself!

Yeah, all the general instructions in the Scriptures and the specific ones that the Holy Spirit brings to you every day, how do you respond to them???

Do you obey them? Do you feel really sad and broken and sad when you flaunt those instructions?

Also Read: THE BATTLE OF TONGUES

Love as a Staying Power

Love!

Love will make you crave for time with the Lord. It will make you seek His Voice. It will make you ask for His Will in everything. It will make you like Christ!

And this is a staying power! If you see someone who loves the Lord, it shows!

Manifestation of God’s Love

And you know what He says about that person???

…he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him!

…my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

We will get the love of the Father, the love of the Son and in the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit!!!! He will manifest Himself to us. He will show us the way of the winds! He will reveal things to us. He will fight His wars through us!

Oh how amazing!!!

God’s Need for Love

So, sis, GOD NEEDS YOUR LOVE. And this means, your TIME! And this means, your OBEDIENCE!

No, how can you start to love the Lord???? Hmmmm…..

Dear sisters, this is the second staying power. He is the One who makes love even possible in the first place.

The Spirit as the Second Staying Power

It is not by power, it is not by might but by my what, sisters???

Spirit!!!!

THE SECOND STAYING POWER

You know what the Lord told the disciples after they had failed Him? Oh yes! All the disciples failed Him! One, despite all His warnings, betrayed him and sold him to the enemies. The other, the one who the church was to be handed over to, the one who seemed closest to the Lord denied Him, not once or twice- thrice! The others fled and went to hide.

So, Jesus knew the church couldn’t stand on the emotional kind of love they had for Him. That natural love had to be reinforced and turned into zeal and passion. And what could make that happen is GOD IN US! The third Person of the Trinity would have to go inside of them to empower them to LOVE and OBEY THE LORD!

That is our POWER actually!

Our GRACE!

Our ABILITY!

Our HELP!

We cannot do a successful Christ journey without the Holy Spirit. Never!

Speaking in Tongues and True Spirit

And no, I am not talking about speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues is very powerful but the Devil has hijacked this also for his own glory. So, we have so many prostitutes, speaking in tongues. You would see someone in harlot clothes spewing tongues. The same HOLY spirit?

I heard of a ‘pastor’ who after committing immorality with his fiancée, he’d say, ‘So, let’s begin to pray in the Spirit’ and as they do that, he’d tell the ‘guilt-struck’ lady, ‘You see, we can still pray in the Spirit. He’s not left us’

Ah! Oh my!

You will also see women who speak in tongues in such a way that Heaven would almost fall during the ‘morning devotion fights’ with their husbands. Speaking in tongues and insulting their ‘heads’.

Speaking in tongues and keeping malice!

Speaking in tongues and becoming more like Satan and the world.

No way! That is not what praying in the Spirit does to a man, therefore, since that thing they are manifesting is contrary to holiness, it is NOT of the Spirit of the Lord God Almighty!

Endowment with Power

Now to my point. When Jesus was to go, He had to tell these failing disciples what to do!

‘And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high…’ Luke 24:49

As you are making a decision to love the Lord, obey Him, follow Him, do His Will, you cannot do it by your strength, power and determination, sis. You will fall and get discouraged along the line. Tarry ye till power comes!

Continue praying till power comes!

Do your daily devotion until power comes!

Fast until power comes!

Retreat till power comes!

Deny yourself till power comes!

Continue to Cry Out to the Lord for Power

Continue to cry out to the Lord for power, sis.

And you can see I am talking about ‘power’, right? This is majorly for people that I assume are already filled with the Holy Spirit. They are to keep exercising the spirit till power comes.

You need to keep pulling the lever of the generator or turning the key until the power comes on!

You can be in the dark all through the night and there won’t be light in the room even though there is electricity supply. Oh yes! You will need to stand up and stroll to the switch and then put it on. Power is restored then! Stop having the Holy Spirit in you, without engaging Him. Power won’t come that way!

For Those Without the Gift of the Holy Spirit

But for another category of people, they do not even have the gift of the Holy Spirit yet.

‘….He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.’ Matthew 3:11

We have two baptisms here. The first is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. The second is the Baptism of Fire. I have discussed the one of fire! That’s the power.

Now, this baptism of the Holy Spirit precedes the baptism with fire and it is supposed to be emphasized from the very beginning of a Christian life.

If you study the book of Acts, you’d realize that almost immediately a soul has been saved, what follows is Holy Ghost Baptism!

Sometimes, even before water baptism!

This is to let us know the significance of this Baptism in our Christian journey. Ideally, we don’t have to wait for ten years after salvation, seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit. As soon as we are giving our lives to Christ, we are supposed to be released into the Hands of the Holy Spirit until the fire falls. This gap in the process of living for the Lord has made so many Christians powerless for many years.

When the Holy Spirit and fire come, we will witness huge hate for sin, Satan and his works and a gigantic love for and obedience to the Lord!

Rounding Off

These are two staying powers we all need after this Juicy July programme. A genuine love and obedience to the Lord Jesus which only the Holy Spirit produces in us!

Oh, how I pray that Lord gives you an understanding of what I am talking about in Jesus Name.

But it needs time, sisters. Intimacy needs time. If a couple wants to have intimacy, they’d love to put their kids to sleep earlier, send everyone to bed and then get ready for a great time. That is how it should be with the Lord. We send off all distractions, lock the doors from the back and bare it all. Before you know it, as the Holy Spirit broods on us daily, something will be going on on our inside. And before you know it, life breaks forth!!!

We are empowered for Holy Living! We are empowered for life! We are empowered for battles! We become weapons of war in God’s Hands!

Conclusion

How amazing, sis!

This is what I am leaving you with today as July ends. Stop complaining that you are failing spiritually until you have given at least one hour (Matthew 26:40) to the Lord every day for a month.

Yes, challenge yourself to it. Do it for love and He will take over from there if He sees your commitment. If you can do ‘No soda challenge’, ‘Daily Fruit Challenge’, ‘A book a day challenge’, sisters, challenge your spirit also!

If you keep devoting your time to your body and mind, in the days of hot battles, I tell you, you will shamefully fall flat. Only the man who has invested in his spirit stands tall in the day of adversity.

If you fail in the days of adversity, your strength is small! Your spirit is small! Yor spirit is sickly!

Strengthening for Battle

Warrior, strengthen your hands and fingers for war with these two staying powers- for the Lord has a lot to accomplish through you!!!

Take some time to meditate on this hymn before you pray:

Take time to be holy, (Invest time. Spend time) speak oft with thy Lord; (Pray every now and then) Abide in Him always, (Be led by Him. Stay grounded in Him) and feed on His Word. (Become a lady of the Word of God. Stop living on Shawarma alone!!!) Make friends of God’s children, (Forget Godless friends who only drain your spiritual fire. Ask God for your Jonathans, your Davids. Fire begat fire) help those who are weak. (Now, begin to serve the Lord in the capacity He’s assigned you) Forgetting in nothing His blessing to seek. (In absolutely everything, seek Him! Don’t forget to lift a single finger without His leading- not His backing, sis!)

We Christians do not need God’s backing. We need God’s leading! Backing means we are the ones in charge and our Father just signs and gives us covering. No! Everything should come from Him, we say ‘yes’ and then, follow Him. In this order lies our covering.

Take time on your own to look at the other stanzas before you go on:

Take time to be holy, the world rushes on; Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone. By looking to Jesus, like Him thou shalt be; Thy friends in thy conduct His likeness shall see!!

Take time to be holy, let Him be thy guide. And run not before Him, whatever betide. In joy or in sorrow still follow thy Lord. And looking to Jesus still trust in His Word.

Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul. Each thought and each motive, beneath His control; Thus led by His Spirit to fountains of love, Thou soon shall be fitted for service above.

If you do all that we have learnt today and all that the lyrics of this powerful hymns have instructed, THOU SOON SHALL BE FITTED FOR SERVICE ABOVE!

THOU SOON SHALL BE FITTED FOR BATTLES BENEATH!

THOU SOON SHALL BE FITTED FOR HOLINESS WITHIN!

THOU SOON SHALL BE FITTED FOR GLORY WITHOUT!