Daily Devotionals

You do not have to overthink the scriptures to realize that any city or community that is dominated by people whose lives are ordered according to the word of God will enjoy heaven on earth. Spiritual transformation should not start and stop with church growth. It should influence the culture, and families, transform the media and the arts. It should positively transform the economy. Think about it. Christianity produces virtuous people that are productive. They hate sin with a passion, and won’t commit crimes. They create wealth and economic growth through their productivity. If you believe God can save anyone and turn their heart away from sin. Why would you think it is impossible for your city to be dominated by people that are living right?

This is not just some grand theory. Communities, cities and nations can experience a positive economic turnaround. A well documented example of this is Almolonga, Guatemala. Almolonga is a village in Guatemala with an encouraging story of transformation. Before being visited by God’s power, it was a place overrun by fear, demons, poverty, idolatry, and drunkenness. It was reported that 90% of the 18,000 inhabitants surrendered their lives to Christ after revival broke out there. This led to a reduction in crime and social vices. The energy wasted on sin and crime was now channeled into productive endeavors. This transformed their economy. They now export their agricultural products to nations of the world.

The first step to transforming the economy of your world to reflect heaven, is to look inwards. If your world will not be better and more prosperous if more people behaved like you. This should call for concern and reflection. If you are failing in your duty to be a salt and light of your world. You cannot expect economic growth and miracles. Your world should be full of life, hope, optimism and energy that radiates from your spirit. Be open to the idea that the economy of your world will be better off, if you can make more disciples. Economic matters are productivity matters. And proper Christian training moulds virtuous people that are productive.

There are requirements for every kind of result, and if spiritual requirements are not met, nothing happens. Anyone that ignores the word of God and divine principles will be under the command and tutelage of those who have embodied those principles. As it is written, “I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father” (Galatians 4:1‭-‬2 ESV). If you refuse to turn away from the corruption and immaturity of the world, you will never outgrow this need for commands and tutelage. And you will never function as the salt and light of your world.

When the 400 years of slavery promised were up. It was up to Moses to step up, and work with God to liberate the children of Israel from Egypt. Moses could function at this level because he understood the character of God. The Psalmist wrote, “He made known His ways [of righteousness and justice] to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel” (Psalms 103:7 AMP). What we see is that God made His ways known (revealed his nature) to Moses. In other words, Moses got to know God in a personal way. On the other hand, the people of Israel only saw the workings of God. And Moses gave them a law (commands) to ensure they lived a life that was acceptable to God. The children of Israel saw the works of God, but Moses saw God.

God will empower and work with you when you are ready to embrace a higher level of discipline and responsibility. He uses the best of us to provide direction and structure to the rest of us. Babies and adults that refuse to grow up will be under the command and tutelage of those who have embraced this discipline. Undisciplined people are always under the care of someone more disciplined than them. In other words, if you do not live a Christ centred life by surrendering yourself to eternal truths. You will enjoy the works of God and marvel. However, you will never enjoy that fellowship and rapport with God. You will not see God one-on-one, he will continue to appoint baby-sitters (guardians and managers) over you.

There is a big problem with a religion that emphasises a God that serves you and grants you power, wealth and fame. A religion that centres around you and whatever you desire. It would seem like you are the centre of all worship and attention, displacing God at the centre. There is a problem when your God is nothing more than a wish granting fairy. When your prayer requests are nothing more than a giant list of things you want God to do for you, you know that you are missing the point. You are supposed to make God the subject of your devotion and worship. It should be about getting into alignment with the will of God for your life.

You are not ready to be the salt and light of your world until you understand this. It is not about riches or poverty. Fame or obscurity. Long life or short. Good health or bad. It is about living a life that is consistent with a reality that places service to God first. The best way to understand this, is by recalling the words of Jesus, “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33 ESV). Jesus calls you to a fellowship of service unto God. You worship God, you serve God and not the other way around.

There is a big problem if becoming rich and powerful is more important to you than pleasing God. Your goal should be to love the Lord with all your heart, with all your might. Get into the depth of the love of God, then your desires will be cultured by the breath of the Holy Spirit. It is at that point that you can watch your world. That is when God will be committed to granting your heart’s desire. Since your desires are now in alignment with his own. And you are no longer serving yourself or obsessed with your personal betterment. You are not ready for the things of eternal value until you get to that point where you put God first, others second, and yourself last.

If you consider yourself to be creative, and possess an incredible imagination. Then you will be able to relate with something Nikola Tesla penned down in his autobiography. For he explained that at some point in his life, “I thought and planned, and conceived many ideas almost as a rule delusive. The vision was clear enough but the knowledge of principles was very limited”. Without the knowledge of the principles, your creative spirit is handicapped, and unable to find expressions in the real world. This is the sole reason why your visions of flying cars, talking teddy bears, and billion-dollar companies are yet to become a reality. You are ignorant of the principles required to create them.

Your ideas are useless if you lack the intellectual framework required to build them out in the real world. Without a proper education, you cannot explore your creativity in a deep way. Santiago Calatrava is an excellent example of someone that is able to express his creative vision in great detail. This is because he is the rare artist who also equipped his spirit with engineering knowledge. Early in life, he discovered a book about the architecture of Le Corbusier, which persuaded him that he could be both an artist and an architect. As he began to design buildings, he realized he needed to acquire engineering knowledge, and so, he got a second degree in civil engineering. He evolved and became an artist, architect and engineer. This all added up to grant him the necessary powers required to conceive and build very unique structures.

Knowledge is the fuel for creativity. You cannot create from a place of ignorance, that is not how it works. You need to master the principles of your domain. There might be a need to master more than a single domain. For Santiago Calatrava, he could only build out his creations in the real world after he equipped his artistic mind with architectural and engineering principles. The Almighty God is all-creating because he is all-knowing. When you have deep knowledge about how things work, you will be able to tear apart and recombine as you want. Without this kind of knowledge, your visions of a better world will trouble you with no clear path to fulfilment and achievement.

There is nothing but frustration and vexation of spirit without visionary leadership, and strong governance. You cannot train yourself, you cannot bring out the best in yourself. You will need an external source of validation, and motivation, especially in the early years of your evolution. Leadership brings vision and perspective to the table. Governance empowers you to take charge of your own affairs by providing a fair and equitable platform for you to operate from. There is no other relationship as important as your leadership. Your leaders place a limit on how high you can aim in life.

The same talent and potential will achieve different levels of success depending on the leadership and governance provided. We can see this when we compare King Saul’s army, and King David’s army. King Saul produced a generation of men that were terrified of Goliath (1 Samuel 17:11). David on the other hand, did not only emerge victorious over Goliath, he also led a generation of giant-killers (2 Samuel 21:15-22). This gives you an idea of how different your life could be if you found better leadership, and institutional governance. Like Jonathan, son of Shimei, David’s brother, you might need to switch your leader for a more visionary one.

You have to be careful of the kind of leadership and institution you submit yourself to. Without good governance in the institutions you have submitted to, you will find yourself at the bottom of a pyramid scheme. Leadership should bring out the best in you. Governance should empower you to do your best possible by giving you a platform. If you do not find both, please, do not settle. Some institutions provide visionary leadership, but there is poor governance. Leadership without good governance will evolve into a tyranny over time. With everybody working for the betterment of the person at the top of the chain. You need visionary leadership to maximise your potential. And strong governance to empower you for the long term. You must commit to finding both.

Your biggest fear is that you are not powerful enough, smart enough, rich enough or connected enough to drive the changes you want. This is a common mistake. You should realise that when you respond to God, God will empower you. As it is written, “he gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength” (Isaiah 40:29). God can grant you the spiritual might, intellectual might, scientific might, technological might, industrial might, economic might, political might, governmental might and military might you need to succeed at whatever mission he has called you to do. The might of the Lord will come upon you when you act in the will of God.

Let us recall the words of Abraham Lincoln, “Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it”. When you commit to doing the right thing, the might you need will come. David was a shepherd boy when the anointing of a king came on him. The spiritual anointing might have been given to him instantly. However, he did not have the economic, political or military might required to operate as the King of Israel. God increased David’s might, he made a king out of him. If you are living right with God, the might will come upon you.

If you perceive that God wants you to operate as a salt and light of the world, all you have to do is accept the request. When you surrender to God. You will be able to use the power of God as your own. This is the secret of all achievement in God. You will never be able to run a divine assignment by your own strength, smarts or other resources. God will bring you to the place of humility to see that forces stronger than you are working for you. When you identify a need in your world, and you make yourself available to the Lord. The spirit will come upon you and you will get everything you need to get the job done.

This is a reminder about your number one goal as a watchman tasked with steering us towards a better future. You must be committed to growing everything that is of God in your world. You have to identify what is good about your world right now. And how better it can become tomorrow if one could focus on that. Your first instinct is usually to focus on the bad and the ugly, ignoring whatever good that is present. This is a mistake because focusing on the bad and the ugly will increase your pessimism. You start with a decision to focus on the good.

Making the world a better place requires a lot of understanding and cooperation. You might spearhead the change we want, but you cannot do it alone. Therefore, your commitment is to try and identify everything that is of God in your world and have goodwill towards them. Inasmuch as Jesus condemned the perceived hypocrisy of the scribes and Pharisees, he still recognised that they represented the office of Moses in his days. And that their teachings had some value (Matthew 23:1-3). Jesus also requested that the person healed of leprosy present themselves in the temple to the religious authorities as demanded by the law (Matthew 8:1-4).

Think about the current state of your world. Identify whatever is of God. Identify what is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent or praise-worthy. Prayerfully consider how such things can grow. You must operate with the understanding that the good and bad are driven by people. If you are serious about a positive future for your world, you cannot be passive about it. You must be active in your task to steer your world towards a better future. Do not be too lazy to take a stand. Your world does not have a positive future if you do not take the responsibility of protecting and growing everything that is of God.

Economic downturn and recessions are more common than most people realize. You are going to experience a handful of them in your lifetime. This is not just a third world problem. While a country like Nigeria is going through its worst economic downturn in four decades, we should note that since World War II, the USA has experienced 12 recessions. That works out to an average of one every six years. There will be good times, and there will be bad times. There will be times of economic growth and prosperity, which will be followed by a season of drought.

It is a spiritual matter. Something we are yet to completely understand. You cannot beat it into submission, you must learn how to manage your situation. The Book of Proverbs talks about how the ant prepares for winter (economic downturns) during summer (economic growth). With a little warning that “poverty is coming” (Proverbs 6:8‭-‬11). It is a good idea to live with the mind-set that “winter is coming”. It does not matter how long the good times last, another season will bring tests, trials and a downturn. The bright optimism of the day soon gives way for the dark pessimism of the night. You cannot avoid this.

There are some key learnings from the biblical story of how Joseph governed in Egypt and guided them through an economic downturn. You learn to be disciplined in any season of life – whether good times or bad. With a focus on your productivity at all times. You cannot stop the forces of the universe from switching the times and seasons. However, you can control your own productivity and discipline in any season of life. You go through your night/winter seasons with an understanding that joy comes in the morning. And during the day, you work to store up ahead of the unforeseen. So, keep building with the long-term in view. This night will not last forever, but you can emerge stronger than ever.

You should take a clue from Job; to love everything God loves, and hate everything he hates. It is not enough to love what God wants, you also have to hate and move against what God hates. As a watchman, you must oppose and fight any appearance of evil within your world. This is something that attracts the anointing to your life. As it is written, “you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions” (Psalm 45:7 ESV). When you love righteousness, but are indifferent about wickedness and iniquity. You will compromise your faith.

The watchman that will steer us towards a better future must understand their role in eliminating wickedness and indiscipline. We have an incredible list of people who took a stand for righteousness and justice, even when they are not personally affected by the outcomes. People powerful enough to fight oppression, wickedness, and injustice are also powerful enough to ignore the problem. Jesus did not need to die for your sins. Gideon did not need to wage the war against the Midianites. He had more than 10 servants, wheat and bulls at his disposal. You would see that he was not doing badly in a run-down economy. William Wilberforce fought against slavery, when he could have easily ignored it.

The Apostle John wrote, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 ESV). There should be this consciousness that your kingdom assignment begins with the destruction of the works of the devil. You cannot negotiate a deal with the devil and forces of debauchery, perversion, and poverty. It will not work. It is up to you to identify the issues, persons and institutions holding back your world from becoming all it could in God. Then, in the place of prayer, you oppose and demolish those strongholds. When you take authority in the spirit, you will then be able to eradicate in the real world as well.

If you have a vision for the betterment of your world. You must commit to put in the work required for you to reach your world. Jesus was clear about the scope of his earthly ministry, saying, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 15:24 ESV). And he went all out to ensure that he reached everyone within his world. You need to gain clarity around the scope of the world you want to influence. Will you light up your town, a larger city, your country or your industry?

There is a lot to learn from the way citizens of the USA take responsibility for the world. They are always willing to reach the whole world with their ideas, products and services. When they invented the Internet for example, they recognised its ability to change the world. And they did not rest until those ideas and solutions were made available everywhere in the world. You know the world would be worse, if the Internet was never exported to the nations of the world and confined to the USA. Your ideas can have a similar effect on the world. Be brave enough to push them globally.

Jesus noted that people do not light a lamp and put it under a basket. If you are the salt and light of your world, your goal is to find a vantage point from which you can reach your world. You must be conscious of the need to reach everyone within your world. You need to map out your world and draw up a plan to reach it. Your message, your products and services must reach your world. Do not be content to labour for daily bread and call it a day. Be clear about the impact your work can have in your world and commit to do it.