DAY 23 (Saturday 23rd September, 2023)
Text: Luke 12:15, 1 Corinthians 15:19
Theme: YOU WERE NOT CREATED TO BE POOR
Memory Verse:“These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. 9 I know your afflictions and your poverty – yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. (Revelation 2:8-9)
Though there are ‘poor’ people all around us, the truth is that God did not create anybody poor. He created humans and gave everyone equal opportunities to be blessed. (Genesis 1:28) However, not everyone has taken advantage of these blessings. When God created man, He put His spirit in him and gave him dominion over everything He created.
Moreover, He blessed man and released upon him the dominion mandate to actualize his destiny. (Genesis 1:26-28) What that means is that man was configured from the beginning to have the capacity to overcome. God did not create any man to be poor, though many people are poor today.
This is what our memory verse aims to outline. Many people go through affliction and poverty – not that they were created to be like that, but rather because they have chosen to be so. By default you are rich, but by choice you are poor. What an irony!
Many people ignorantly believe that the unavailability of money in their hands or pockets make them poor. Therefore, when they do not have money, the conclusion is that they are poor irrespective of what God has deposited in them. And because of this notion, the drive to aspire becomes hampered. This is a wrong definition of poverty. By the standard of the world, money might mean everything.
This however, does not represent an ideal situation. What defines who you are or what you are going to become is the perception you hold about yourself.
Our lead text today (Luke 12:15) warns that our life as humans is not defined by what we possess materially. Instead our place in God’s scheme of things is tied to our relationship with Him. It is by the reason of this relationship that God sent His Son Jesus Christ to come and die on the cross of Calvary to redeem man from the judgment of death.
To further foster that relationship, Jesus Christ who was rich had to relinquish His riches and became poor so that we might become rich. What this implies is that by His⁰ death and resurrection, a spiritual transfer of wealth and riches, which makes every believer in Christ a potential rich man or woman, has taken place. By this divine empowerment, every believer receives the mandate to reach whatever height he/she chooses to attain which is in line with or according to His will.
Worship/praise God and then take the following prayer points:
1.Any stronghold of the devil established inside of me, catch fire, in Jesus name.
2.Any hypocritical behavior in my life as a Christian; be destroyed by the power of resurrection, in Jesus name.
3.Every plan of the devil to ensure that I miss the rapture; be resisted by the Holy Ghost, in Jesus name.
4.Father, give me a broken spirit and a contrite heart; make me to be spiritual and uproot carnality out of my life, in Jesus name.
5.O God, by your Spirit and power, uphold our G. O and Mummy in the Lord in righteousness till the end, in Jesus name.
