Day 26 Undivided Service

Day 26

Undivided Service

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

(Matthew 6:24)

Undivided Service is the 18^th pillar

Undivided Service is the 18^th pillar that holds the temple of Truth!

Beloved, there is an illusion that comes from the bottomless pit straight into the pulpit which dares to defy God and contradict the words of our Lord Jesus Christ: that we can serve both God and money.  But this is a lie.  Men do not have the ability to focus on two things at once.  If your heart is totally set on serving God, you will not have time to chase money. The reverse is also true.  If your heart is set on money and being rich, you will not have time to serve God with all your heart. The devil knows that he cannot corrupt some godly men to stop serving God and lead them to serve money, so he created the ‘prosperity gospel’—supposedly serving God and serving money all at once.  But this will never work because it will require the compromising of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave a good confession before Satan:

“Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’
 Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, “You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.”  (Matthew 4:8-10)

My dear beloved, this would not be a real temptation to the Lord Jesus Christ, if that which the devil was offering was not in his power to give.

                                                                                                             

For it is written again:

“Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, ‘All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.’  And Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Get behind Me, Satan!’  For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”   (Luke 4:5-8)

Brethren, in the same way that the devil tempted our Lord Jesus Christ, even so, he is also after us, offering us that which he had offered the Lord Jesus.  Christ refused, and this is the example for us to follow. Even today the devil is saying to us:

“All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”  (Luke 4:6-7)

If riches, money, fame, glory, power, authority, and success are what your heart is seeking, I warn you, my dear beloved, be careful.  For the devil is watching all of us, and if you are yielding to these material things, the devil will make an offer to give you all your heart desires for one condition: that you serve him.  Oh no, the devil does not want you to leave the church, especially if you are a minister of the gospel.  Rather he will tell you what to do: to preach what people want to hear; to entertain the congregation; to make them happy; to tell them Jesus died for them so that they can be materially rich; to preach all things.  But he will tell you not to preach salvation through repentance, the power of the cross for deliverance from sin, and that the Holy Spirit was given to us to convict us of our sins and to teach us to cease to do evil and learn to good by the grace of God.

My dear beloved, this gospel as presented by the devil is very dangerous for the salvation of our souls, because it removes Christ from the center of our faith and replaces Him with material riches.  And yet, this is the gospel that is being preached by some very popular and very rich preachers.

What is it that the devil wants to accomplish with this?

“How you are fallen from heaven,
      O Lucifer, son of the morning!
      How you are cut down to the ground,
      You who weakened the nations!
        For you have said in your heart:
      ‘I will ascend into heaven,
      I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
      I will also sit on the mount of the congregation
      On the farthest sides of the north;
        I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
      I will be like the Most High.’
        Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol,
      To the lowest depths of the Pit.”  (Isaiah 14:12-15)

The devil desires to be like God.  He desires to receive worship.  He wants to be worshiped.  But he cannot achieve this by himself nor even with all his demons, so he has deceived some men to work for him, creating all sorts of religious systems all over the world that separate men from God.  But he is still not satisfied, because he cannot endure the legacy of Christ Jesus our Lord in our hearts, for though he has corrupted the world, there still remain some faithful to Christ Jesus our Lord: men who will not sell their soul for riches; men who refuse to serve money, but choose rather to serve God.

And the devil is angry with such men.  Why?

“Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

(Revelation 12:12)

The second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is at hand.  So the devil is using all his might to destroy the Church of God, which is pillar of the TRUTH that testifies against all his lies.

The devil needs men and women as his mouthpiece, for he cannot talk directly to us.  The devil needs other idols to receive worship, for he cannot be seen by us yet.  So he has set up his kingdom that elevates men to the level of God, and because of this the devil receives worship, for if you depart from God, you will worship the devil.  There is just no neutral ground.   But who is this man that the devil is using to accomplish his evil agenda before the second coming of Christ?

“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.” (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

“And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders.”  (2 Thessalonians 2: 8-9)

But who will believe the devil?

“And with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”  (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12)

My dear beloved, there are some men who think that they are equal with God, and they desire to be worshiped.  They go around deceiving the people for whom Christ died, and they have a very powerful system of support behind them. They will only succeed if we do not have the love of the Truth in our hearts. Let each one of us, therefore, study the Bible individually.  God will not leave us nor forsake us.  The Holy Spirit will teach us; however, we MUST have the love of Truth in our hearts; a love which comes by studying the Bible daily, in order that our minds may be able to test every spirit whether it is from God or from the wicked one, so that we may not be deceived:

                                                                                           

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”  (1 John 4:1)

Do not underrate them, my dear beloved, for this is a very powerful system.  Many of them are worshipping with us, but are not of us, for they are workers of the beast, to whom the dragon (devil) gave his power and authority.  They are in the church of God to lead us into joining them in worshipping the dragon (devil):

“So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?” (Revelation 13:4)

 “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”  (Revelation 13: 8)

But hear, oh spiritual Israel, the LORD our God is One.  And the LORD our God is commanding us:

“You shall have no other gods before Me.”  (Exodus 20:3)

Therefore, let us depart from such men and women, and serve the LORD our God with fear and trembling through our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave His life as a ransom for us to be saved.  The devil is trying to pervert the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, and we are having the symptoms of the Galatians:

 

 “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.  But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.”  (Galatians 1:6-10)

Finally, my dear beloved, fear not.  The LORD our God is with us.  And greater is God who lives in our hearts than the devil who is in the world. God has promised us, my dear beloved, that He will not leave us nor forsake us.  His protection and blessings will always be over us if we continue in the Truth.

Let us have the love of Truth in our hearts and continue in the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in all sincerity, who alone has immortality, who alone is blessed God forever.   Amen!

“Now therefore, fear the LORD, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD! And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  (Joshua 24:14-15)   Amen!

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, Amen!

Meditation:  I shall worship the LORD my God, and Him only I shall serve.

Prayer points:  LORD, please reveal Your Truth to me.  Give me the spirit of discernment that I may discern good from evil! I pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen!

Commitment:  I commit myself from today onwards to worship the LORD my God, and Him only shall I serve.  Amen!