FRIDAY- 2ND MAY, 2025
Happy New Month!!!
MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL - Olusola ADEJUMO
DON'T SHIPWRECK YOURSELF!
Acts 1:24-25, KJV
"24 And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, 25 That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place."
"Shipwreck" is a ship that has sunk or run aground so that it is no longer seaworthy; a ruined vessel or its remains. While this is a noun, the verb takes meaning from this same usage i.e shipwrecked! Figuratively also, 'shipwreck' means destruction; disaster; failure; ruin or an irretrievable loss. I'll like your sight to be directed to the last of those meanings - "irretrievable loss."
A new vessel, made and destined to sail the high sea can hit the iceberg, get damaged and be nothing but a shadow of itself - never sailing again. When this happens, we call such vessel a shipwreck. That is, a vessel that was once working but which suddenly met its end. You must ensure you don't become a shipwreck especially by your personal choosing. A lady can become a shipwreck by sleeping around until she attracts a notoriety that makes men shoo her away. In short, don't disqualify yourself from the race. You can still carry the anointing even when you've disqualified yourself from the race. You can still retain your skills even after losing your limbs with which to forge tools. All these are possibilities though the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Rom.11:29). However, this is a call to watch lest he that stands falls or disqualifies himself.
You can by your carelessness and your own allowing shipwreck yourself. Samson did when he started acting contrarily to instructions that could have preserved and protected his calling. There are certain things that can cause disrepute to an anointed minister in ministry. Money, women and fame can cause you disrepute and though the oil is still on you, people's estimation for you would have changed. If you fall into a well established adultery, people can forgive you but they'll sure change their minds concerning you. Immediately, their estimation that has been drawing your anointing would stop and it'll suddenly seems as if God is not using you for same people again. If you cannot plough through or endure until you breakthrough from this cycle of failure, you'll give up as a minister, call things irretrievable and eventually burst yourself open like Judas Iscariot did. As in, you might kill yourself as a way of escape from the embarrassment and shame that's now following you and the ministry.
Consider Gehazi! He shipwrecked himself. What shouldn't take him out took him out. All he eventually became was a mere story teller - doing so for bread (II Kings 8:4). Instead of narrating in the anointing or talk about his master as a testimony in his own teaching series, he was doing it in the king's palace after being pettily asked to talk and make Elisha's ministry known to the king. His covetousness costs him the anointing. Where Elisha could have pardoned him; he rather cursed him with leprosy, reaping the harvest of his greediness (II Kings 5:27). Eventually, he was disqualified from ministry and was nowhere to be found in or around it again. He shipwrecked himself! He caused his own very downfall.
Judas Iscariot also shipwrecks himself. In essence, he made himself of no use. What you must know is that you can make yourself unworthy of God's call. After his betrayal of Jesus, he was overrun by guilt. He did nothing but to commit suicide. Would this have happened if he had kept himself from covetousness? At day's end, the voice testifying against him says, "let us find another person to take the ministry that Judas Iscariot left to go to his own place."
Acts 1:25, KJV
"...that he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place."
What place did he go? The place of the dead! You must ensure you go no other place except to stay in the calling perpetually. You're meant to grow from strength to strength in the calling. The moment you go outside of that, you'll begin to diminish. When the Bible says, "the path of the just is as the shining light that shines more and more unto the perfect day" (Prov.4:18), it means you'll increase in strength in something you persist in and not in what you treat as a hit and run. So, don't go to any other place. Don't be found amidst those who shipwrecked themselves. Don't number yourself with the failed or the dead! Stay in the calling! Don't choose a contrary fate of being a broken or unyielding vessel who had to be turned to the potter's field. Yield today and walk the path of the calling in spirit and in truth!
PRAYER: Open my sight Lord to every agent, habit and act that's prepping me for a shipwreck.
1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN
Luke 24:36-53 & II Samuel 12-14
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