ESOCS Devotional 17 January 2021
TEXT: ISAIAH 2:12-22
MEMORY VERSE: “Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in abundance.” Isaiah 55:2 NKJV
Our memory verse today calls our attention to something that is very important. It is a call to reasoning: the need to think constructively and do the right thing. We are given the assignment to think objectively about certain things: life and existence, heaven, hell, our relationship with God, what should be our focus in the race for the kingdom of God, and what we should truly desire and strive to obtain, and many others. Essentially, God is telling us to set our priorities right. We should make the right choices and concentrate on the things that are profitable; things that would lead us to spend eternity with Him; things that edify the spirit, soul, and body; things that enhance living a life of integrity, purity, uprightness, forthrightness, propriety, and accountability towards God, a decent Christian lifestyle that is marked by Christian piety.
When we “spend money for what is not bread,” it means that we are wasting our time, energy, resources, gifts, and potentials in things that are not profitable in the Christian race. Such things are worldly, and do not help us to enhance or maintain a holy lifestyle. In the process, we are wasting God’s time with deliberate disregard and impunity. We are treating with utter contempt His word, His investment in us, which include the life and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ that He sacrificed on the Cross, the pains, degradation, shame, humiliation and others that He suffered for our sake. It show that we are ungrateful for the gift of our eternal salvation, His mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.
God’s word is calling our attention to the truth that we must reject and discard such attitude; and concentrate on the things that pertain to godliness, which are profitable. We should focus on the things that would help us become true Christians; things that would enable us produce the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22), and align ourselves with God’s will for us, which we must not resist (Gen. 50:19). Such things that would make us become like Jesus in our heart, mind, thought, attitude, inclination, and disposition are the things we should meditate. If we do so, we would not waste our time and life for things that do not give true satisfaction.
Read yesterday’s ESOCS Devotional here
The pleasures of this present world give a seeming satisfaction that is temporal. But when we consider the long-term consequences, which include the fact that they are sinful works, we would understand that they do not lead us to glory but eternal condemnation and damnation in the fire of hell. Therefore, we ought to be diligent to “… seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things [good and righteous blessings of God] will be added to [us]” (Matt. 6:33 ESV). The truth is that if we neglect to seek for the kingdom and righteousness of God in our manner of life, His blessings, peace, goodness, and precious gifts that only He can give would elude us (Jam. 1:17; Phil. 4:7).
Let us create in our hearts the hunger for the righteousness of Christ in us. Let us set for ourselves the target to be like our Lord Christ in our heart, mind, attitude, disposition, and all inclinations. If we pursue such goals with dexterity and zeal, we would succeed, for God supports such desires. We would carry in us the glorious identity of our Lord Jesus Christ. His purity would be in us; and when our heavenly searches our heart, He would not see any sin in it; rather, He would find our Lord Jesus enthroned and seated there, eating and dining with us constantly in holy, blissful, and sweet communion (Rev. 3:20). Such accomplishment is sweeter than honey and the honeycomb (Ps. 19:10). Think on these things.
CHALLENGES
What is your greatest ambition in life? Does it concern your life in eternity?
PRAYER POINT
Lord, teach me to make judicious use of my life and time on earth.
FURTHER READING: 1 Kings 18:1-6; Luke 1:26-38; Phile. 1:1-20
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ESOCS Devotional 17 January 2021
