Being Like Jesus

PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 30, 2023. Topic: THE LOVE OF THE FATHER Bible Reading: Luke 15:11-32 Verse for Meditation: Romans 5:8 TPT But Christ proved God’s passionate love for us by dying in our place while we were still lost and ungodly. The theme in Luke 15 is about ‘the parable of the lost’; the lost sheep (Lk. 15: 3-7), the lost coin (Lk. 15:8-10) and the lost son (Lk. 15:11-32). And all three stories reveal how the Trinity desires to bring people back through the Son, by the Spirit to the Father. The Son came as a Shepherd, seeking and sacrificing to find the lost sinner. The Spirit seeks the lost sinner like the woman searched with the light of illumination for the lost coin until she found it. And the Father welcomes the returning sinner back to His house. It is the work of the Trinity to bring us back to God. The introduction to these parables was when the Pharisees and the scribes began to complain when they caught Jesus among the tax

  PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 29, 2023. Topic: THE WRATH OF GOD Bible Reading: Genesis 6:1-9 Verse for Meditation: Colossians 2:9 NKJV For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Just to reiterate what was shared yesterday, every sin committed has its consequences, but that is not God punishing the believer. Every of His punishment was dealt with in Christ, and what He did is so powerful enough to reconcile us with God. The Bible says, “... He [God] forgave all [past, present and future] our sin.” (Col. 2:13 Parenthesis Mine). Yet as God’s children, we are chastised but through His Word. I have heard some folks say that God allowed certain things to happen to us in order to teach us a lesson. That is not true, His Word is sufficient enough to teach us. Those negative circumstances may occur because of the fallen world that we live in or as a result of the fallen man (E.g. sickness), or as a result of committing a sin, or our ignoran

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 28, 2023. Topic: THE CHASTISEMENT OF THE LORD Bible Reading: Hebrews 12:1-11 Verse for Meditation: Hebrews 12:6 NKJV For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives. Questions related to the chastisement of the Lord have been quite difficult to answer because many of our experiences have led to a subjective view about God and His Word. I was once like that until I started to see God and His Word through the lens of Christ and a proper interpretation of the Scripture. To interpret the Scripture properly, you must first read the text in context, then look out for the mode of communication used (the language used, and if it was used figuratively, check out for the figurative expression and meaning), and the culture (also the time). Then finally pass it through the lens of Christ, because the Scripture is about Him. So the questions, “do my difficult circumstances indicate that God is mad at m

PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 27, 2023. Topic: RELIGION III (RELIGIOUS SPIRIT) Bible Reading: Revelation 2:1-7 Verse for Meditation: Revelation 2:4 NKJV Nevertheless have this against you, that you have left your first love. God’s initial plan for the church of Jesus was not denomination but unification. When you study a bit on church history you will discover that the major reason for such denomination is as a result of a subjective interpretation of the whole truth in the Bible. For example, the teaching of the election of grace has become a theological debate between the followers of John Calvin and the followers of Jacobus Arminius. The reason for such theological debate is because the whole truth in the Bible has not been properly interpreted objectively and in context. Yet we thank God for what He’s doing in our churches and that all the church believe in one gospel- Christ’s crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. At least t

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 26, 2023. Topic: RELIGION II (CHRISTIANITY) Bible Reading: Matthew 23:1-13 Verse for Meditation: Mark 7:9 MSG He went on, “Well, good for you. You get rid of God’s command so you won’t be inconvenienced in following the religious fashions! Many believe that Christ’s earthly ministry led to the starting of a new religion; some materials have it documented that Christianity emerged from Judaism. That looks true, but actually religion was never God’s plan to man; His plan ever since was to establish a relationship with man. Thus the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ was to oppose man-made religion and to explain the Law, that it was all about a relationship all the while. When God gave His Law to the Israelites, His desires was that they “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Deut. 6:5; Matt. 22:37). “Love” speaks of relationship. Obedience to all the other commands

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 25, 2023. Topic: RELIGION I (INTRODUCTION) Bible Reading: Colossians 2:6-10, 20-23 Verse for Meditation: James 1:27 NLT Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you. According to some estimates, there are over 4,000 religions, faiths groups, and denominations that exist around the world today. Yet there is no universally accepted definition of the term, “religion” as there is no straightforward meaning. Some cultures view religion entirely separately from individuals or society. Others don’t distinguish those concepts enough to consider “religion” a meaningful category. A general definition of religion can be distilled from these widely varied experiences as “a range of social-cultural system connected to spiritual and/or supernatural components that uniquely impacts the adherent’s worldview, behaviour, belief,

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 24, 2023. Topic: WEALTH AND RICHES Bible Reading: 1 Timothy 6:3-11, 17-19 Verse for Meditation: Psalms 112:3 NKJV Wealth and riches will be in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. We don’t give so that we can be blessed, because we are already blessed (Eph. 1:3). In fact when we give, it shows that we are more blessed (Acts 20:35), but definitely not more than God; our giving to God is a way of worship. We don’t give so that we can have more, because we already have all things in Christ (1Cor. 3:21; 2Pet. 1:3). We give because we love God! The Bible says that Abel gave a more acceptable gift than Cain by faith (Heb. 11:4), so our giving is an expression of our faith. And the Bible also says that God rewards the faithful (Heb. 11:6). So there’s always a reward for giving out of love and faith (For example in Proverbs 3:9-10). But our eyes are not on the rewards but on the rewarder; this is what it means to

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 23, 2023. Topic: DURABLE RICHES Bible Reading: 2 Corinthians 8:1-15 Verse for Meditation: Proverbs 8:18 KJV Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness. I had a dream in 2021 where I was beaten and I woke up with scars. That’s a spiritual attack, isn’t it? And in about three weeks later I had another dream where I was almost choked to death and in reality, I was battling with sleep paralysis for some minutes. And the causes of sleep paralysis were not what I faced prior to that time. That’s another spiritual attack, isn’t it? Then early this year I had a dream when I was dreaming in that dream, in that dream death was planned for one of my relatives, so I woke up in that dream and was praying against death when a voice asked me if I was praying against death because I had that dream? That was a distraction for me to leave praying for what was important; the salvation of souls. That the devil g

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 22, 2023. Topic: TRUE RICHES Bible Reading: Matthew 6:19-34 Verse for Meditation: 1 Timothy 6:6 NLT Yet true godliness with contentment is itself great wealth. About sexual temptation, if you are struggling to break free, you must first be saved so that you can be given the Holy Spirit to empower you to live above sin. But breaking free and living constantly above sin; especially sexual sins, it take discipline and consistency. You don’t stay fit on the first day you go to the gym to work out; it takes consistent exercise and discipline to achieve that, so does exercising ourselves towards godliness (1Tim. 4:7). When you fall, you need to rise again to continue with the exercise. It was a constant practice that made that sexual habit called addiction. So you need to deliberately keep at it constantly till the appetite to sin dies. Spiritual attack is real, but what we call spiritual attack is actually a lack of knowle

  PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 21, 2023. Topic: WINNING THE WAR AGAINST JEZEBEL IV (OVERCOMING SEXUAL TEMPTATION) Bible Reading: Proverbs 7:1-27 Verse for Meditation: 2 Timothy 2:22 NKJV Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Sex is good but only in the confinement of marriage. God who gave that instruction is all wise, and you cannot be wiser than Him. Most of the problem we are facing in our world is as a result of violating God’s principle of marriage. For example, some of the effects of forceful single parenting has led to increase in poverty, drug abuse, unwanted pregnancies, and has caused poor behaviour and bad societal relationship like lack of trust, low self-esteem, depression and emotional instability. Children raised by forceful single parenting are seven times more likely to be involved in a crime. Some people may feel like to opt in for the withdrawa

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 20, 2023. Topic: WINNING THE WAR AGAINST JEZEBEL III (SEXUAL SIN) Bible Reading: 1 Corinthians 6:13-20 Verse for Meditation: 1 Corinthians 6:18 NLT Run away from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. All forms of sin is grievous and offensive to God, but have you ever wondered why many preachers talk more on sexual sin as though it is like the unpardonable sin? You’d have to understand their hearts before you could understand why they talk the way they talk. It is not the unpardonable sin, instead it is the only sin that the Bible emphatically says that is against our own body. In John 8, a woman who was caught in the very act of adultery was brought to Jesus, and instead of Jesus to condemn her, He showed her mercy and spoke the words of grace to her, “Go and sin no more.” So sexual sin can be pardoned. And before I delve into this

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 19, 2023. Topic: WINNING THE WAR AGAINST JEZEBEL II (STRONGHOLDS) Bible Reading: Revelation 2:18-29 Verse for Meditation: Revelation 2:20 TPT But I have this against you: you are forgiving that Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is seducing my loving servants. She is teaching that it is permissible to indulge in sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. Spiritual warfare is basically a fight for the knowledge of the truth. The greatest offensive weapon of the devil is ignorance; our greatest offensive weapon is the knowledge of the truth that is in the Word of God. When Jesus was tempted of the devil, he overcame his temptations through the declaration of the Word of God. As important as prayer and fasting is, you still need the Word of God to overcome the devil. What are strongholds? Strongholds are not generational curses, but they are fortresses which figuratively mean wrong ideologies. The Bi

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 18, 2023. Topic: WINNING THE WAR AGAINST JEZEBEL I (SPIRITUAL WARFARE) Bible Reading: Ephesians 6:10-18 Verse for Meditation: 2 Corinthians 10:4 NKJV For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds. Winning the war against Jezebel? Are we to engage ourselves in any warfare? And who is Jezebel that we are to war against? The first place in the Bible where warfare is mentioned is in Isaiah 40:2. Isaiah 40:2 NKJV “Speak comfort to Jerusalem, and cry out to her, that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.” The first place where warfare is mentioned in the Bible was used in the context of an ended warfare because Jerusalem’s iniquity was pardoned. So does that mean that the moment we got saved, every kind of warfare ended? But Apostle Paul’s second letter to the church in Corinth, he mentioned the w

PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 17, 2023. Topic: LITTLE FOXES II Bible Reading: Genesis 13:1-18 Verse for Meditation: Song of Songs 8:4 MSG Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem: Don’t excite love, don’t stir it up, until the time is ripe—and you’re ready. We see in Genesis 12 of how God blessed Abram. In chapter 13, we see how Lot was blessed because of Abram. In chapter 14, we see how Lot lost all his possessions and how Abram helped him recover all; he lost all because at that time he was no longer with Abram. And we didn’t hear of Lot until chapter 19 when Sodom was destroyed, and this time he lost al without recovery. His daughters had incest with him and had children from him that ended up becoming Israel’s enemy. What can we make out of all these? Lot was blinded by his own lust and could not see beyond the natural, he saw that Sodom and Gomorrah was like the garden of the Lord. Sodom was appealing to his natural senses, though he chose to

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 16, 2023. Topic: LITTLE FOXES I Bible Reading: Judges 15:1-11 Verse for Meditation: Song of Songs 2:15 NLT Catch all the foxes, those little foxes, before they ruin the vineyard of love for the grapevines are blossoming! A little fox does not really seem all that dangerous, well compared to that of a bear or a coyote. Yet the little foxes are capable of doing terrible damage; they burrow and chew in a vineyard until the vines wither and become unproductive. The point of our verse for meditation is that just as Solomon and the Shulamite girl were beginning to enjoy each other’s company, she received word that foxes had gotten into the family vineyard, and she had to leave and tend to the problem. The little foxes are an example of the kinds of problem which can disturb or destroy a good relationship. Small things work over time to erode our relationship with God and with people, even the very cord of our faith. Matthew

 PHRONESIS DEVOTIONAL 30 DAYS DEVOTIONAL WITH PREACHER SAM September 15, 2023. Topic: SPIRITUAL MOUNTAIN II Bible Reading: Joshua 14:6-15 Verse for Meditation: Revelations 17:9 NKJV Here is the mind which has wisdom: The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sits. The second category is the Mountain of Influence. There are seven mountains under this category; the mountain of family; the mountain of economy and finance; the mountain of government; the mountain of religion; the mountain of education; the mountain of media; and the mountain of sports and entertainment (also called the mountain of celebrations). And the third category is the Mountains of Opposition that stand against the first two categories. Mark 6:23 NLT Then he promised, “I will give you whatever you ask me, up to half of my kingdom!” Children ask for bread, but sons ask for kingdom; this kingdom is the Mountain of Influence. And you can only possess this mountain by conquering it. You need to possess and