MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL - 28/01/2025

TUESDAY - 28TH JANUARY, 2025

MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE - Olusola ADEJUMO

ACCEPTED IN THE BELOVED - Fitted For A Manner Of Life Series 015

Deuteronomy 23:1, KJV

"He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD."

Going to the Old Testament, we see that castration is a thing of shame and public disgrace. This might be due to the fact that Yahweh's law encourages procreation and marriage. In the Old Testament, there are a number of verses that hint at this disfavour of eunuchs. 

First is the one quoted above which is our anchor verse. Anyone whose testicles has been crushed or his manhood chopped off is not to join the congregation of the Lord. Also, in Leviticus 21:20, we have a reference to anyone with "a crushed testicles" who's not allowed into the priesthood. All these establish the fact that eunuchs are not verily favoured in the Old Testament. Though some found good positions as attendants and top officers serving great kings, yet they're still regarded as "half men" by their societies because they neither could reproduce or father. As such, they're largely disfavored. 

However, this disfavour becomes favour in the New Testament. First, there's an inclusion and an acceptance in the beloved, Jesus Christ. In Acts 8, we read of an Ethiopian eunuch who came to Jerusalem to worship. This man serves under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. On her way back to Africa, he reads the book of Isaiah and is eager to have understanding on what the passage says. God, who sees every human's heart sent his way Philip, the evangelist who expounded and interpreted to him Isaiah 53. From there, Philip preached Christ to him. Later on, this man was accepted into the fold when he was baptized by immersion. 

We therefore see through this that the former wall built to exclude eunuchs have being pulled down. In the beloved - Jesus Christ, the rejected or cast away finds acceptance and friendship. 

On another note, Jesus speaks favourably of eunuchs in Mathew 19:12 when He tells his disciples that, "except to those it is given." Those are the people who can live as eunuchs. Here, Jesus listed three categories of eunuchs. He speaks of the metaphoric one who might choose not to marry for the kingdom of heaven's sake. In this way, Jesus redeems the general public image of eunuchs as it hints high consecration for a divine service. Redemption is nothing short of this. And even to the other two categories of eunuchs, the fact that Jesus exhort that it's better to stay single like them or any of the three paints a good picture in favour of eunuchs. 

Are you there with a problem that seems irrecoverable? You are accepted in Jesus Christ. If medical help and healing have failed, don't forget that before God in heaven, we'll all be clean, devoid of all our infirmities. Redemption has raised us back to perfection however. We are all accepted in the beloved and are brethren either free or slave, sick or healthy!

PRAYER/CONFESSION: I am (mention your full name). I am weaned of every inferiority complex but emboldened with my superiority complex in Christ.

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN 

Matthew 19:16-20:1-16 & Exodus 15

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MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL - 27/01/2025

MONDAY - 27TH JANUARY, 2025

MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE - Olusola ADEJUMO

IT IS CALLING FOR THOSE WHO CAN ACCEPT THAT SAYING - Fitted For A Manner Of Life Series 014

Matthew 19:12, KJV 

"For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it."

Do you believe with me that it becomes calling and a way of life for those who can accept that saying? The saying to remain unmarried, single or a celibate. 

If we should look at the Old Testament, several of the eunuchs there were castrated for a singular purpose. To serve as attendants in the king's palace without distraction but loyalty to the king. In the book of Esther, we have someone like Hegei, a eunuch. II Kings 20:18 also predicted some certain sons or descendants of Hezekiah serving as eunuchs in slavery in Babylon. Popularly, eunuchs served in ancient culture around palaces, courts and harems. Little wonder, it was an eunuch who was posted to see to Xerxes' harem of women in the book of Esther. 

One of the major reasons why they were castrated is to fit them or get them ready and focused for a profession. Does that amaze you? So that they'll not serve with unfaithfulness, they're either castrated or their male organ chopped off. With this, they can follow with focus the call of their vocation that's on them. 

You may not be a physical eunuch. No injury might have been inflicted on you for the purpose of serving as a perpetual slave or attendant somewhere but I want you to take the manner of life of eunuchs and their consecration on you. Because of their emasculation, infertility or abolishment of their male power, they become focused and undistracted. Without physically harming yourself like eunuch's, discipline yourself in this year 2025 to have their focus, attention, loyalty and pursuit of goals towards what you have discovered as your life's purpose. This is the key to success. If you can pursue like the eunuch your goals without distraction, you'll delight God Almighty for having eaten the meat of He that sent you and finishing it (John 4:34). 

PRAYER: May I run the race set before me with patience and void of distraction.

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN 

Matthew 19:1-15 & Exodus 13-14

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MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL - 25/01/25

SATURDAY - 25TH JANUARY, 2025

MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE - Olusola ADEJUMO

GIFTED FOR CELIBACY - Fitted For A Manner Of Life Series 012

I Corinthians 7:6-7, ESV

"6 Now as a concession, not a command, I say this. 7 I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another."

If you've followed me till now, you'll understood that we started out discussing, "except those it is given to." "Those it is given to" in the words of Jesus are those who could stay without getting married due to some certain reasons. Don't forget we interpreted what it means "to be given to." It means "to be enabled or conferred upon." If you have not been made after the manner or likeness of he who it is given to and who by makeup can remain single or a celibate, we concluded you cannot live that life, walk that road or embrace such calling, manner or disposition of life. 

It ain't Jesus only who affirmed that. In the explanatory reading in I Corinthians Chapter 7, Paul agrees with that also. While he advises that all people could be and remain like him - an unmarried; he however recognizes the impossibility in that when he says, "but each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another."

It means while Paul wanted everybody to be single and a celibate like himself, he recognized the fact that they might not be gifted or made for such a life as himself. And indeed, what you're not gifted or equipped for, you can't do. One of the marks that you're not called where you're claiming you have call is not having equipping with gifts or abilities there. You can't say God has called you to teach and the Bible is dead to you. If the Spirit of God that brings illumination and quickening is not attending to you, then you should test your foot somewhere else. You might be called but it may not be to teach in particular. 

Paul recognizes the fact that for anyone to be fitted for any manner of life or embrace a particular manner of life, he must first of all be gifted or enabled towards it. 

Paul is a gifted celibate. I could have become one basically because I love the indoor and like staying alone. Though I'm married, I just like being alone. That's why I could sit to produce a devotional monthly. I don't have a great network of social life. While I check on my flock, I'm not the type of pastor that wants to develop overly social relations with people. I have stayed home for a week before without touching the corridor of my house let alone stepping outside the compound's gate. I stay at home a lot if there's no ministration or public business. As a matter of fact, I do encourage my wife to travel or go check on her family. I don't mourn when she's away as long as I have my Bibles, kind of books I like to read and would be let alone to continue fellowship with God and ministry. That's why most of the celibates in history are introverts. They are mostly melancholy or phlegmatic. If they ever come from other temperaments, it must have been tempered to be a kind of recluse or instilled with ability for loneness. So, it takes a gift, an adjustment to a manner of life or an enablement for anyone to live a particular manner of life.

Quoting Paul again, he says, "if anyone thinks that he is not behaving properly towards his betrothed, if his passions are strong, and it has to be, let him do as he wishes: let them marry - it is no sin. 37 But whoever is firmly established in his heart, being under no necessity but having his desire under control, and has determined this in his heart, to keep her as his betrothed, he will do well" (I Corinthians 7:36-37).

We can see two types of people here. First is the man (and likewise woman we should reckon) who cannot have his desires under control. That inability to have his desires under control may mean he's not gifted or called to be a celibate. However, the other brother (and likely a sister we may reckon) who has his heart made up and his desires under control would pass as a potential celibate and may not have a reason to marry because his passions are not driving him too hard. So, I will not advise you to remain a celibate unless you personally have grace or the gift to put your desires under control. Gift is what makes anyone do supernaturally or extraordinarily what others (without same gift) can't do. Gift is our edge over others in what we specifically and individually are called to do. If there's a life without gifts, what he does or claims to do will be with friction and it won't be appealing to anyone because it won't look effortless. Covet the gift for anything you want to do or are called to do! Once it's replicated, you'll know smoothness and ease. Only then will you tarry long in doing that thing and rejoice in doing that. Why many people who are not gifted for celibacy have made shipwreck of their faithfulness and ministry claiming they have such call is because they were not made for that life. We didn't read that Jesus struggled with his emotions or that Paul was immoral. Those two that we know as pure celibates did well managing their emotions though they had their manhood intact and could engage like any healthy and proper male. Don't deceive yourself, don't go to any Bible School or join some denomination in Christendom to take celibacy upon yourself if you're first not called into it. If you do, you'll fail and embarrass yourself secretly even if we don't know about it. 

PRAYER. Lay your hand on your head. Minister to yourself by calling and stirring every dormant gifts in you to work.

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN 

Matthew 17:14-18:1-14 & Exodus 8-9

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MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL - 23/01/25

THURSDAY - 23RD JANUARY, 2025

MORNING WINGS DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE - Olusola ADEJUMO

REMAINING A CELIBATE FOR HIS GLORY - Fitted For A Manner Of Life Series 010

Matthew 1:24-25, KJV

"24 Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: 25 And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS."

Do you know that Mary remains a virgin until she had given birth to Jesus? Yet, she was living with Joseph, the carpenter. Do you know that Joseph, the carpenter didn't for once decide to top the pregnancy of the Holy Spirit in Mary by sleeping with her even once before delivery. May God teach you anew so that you'll see again and again that it is possible to stay a celibate like Joseph, the carpenter even when you're surrounded by sexual temptations. May you not spoil yourself and become porous like a flung gate. May you maintain the consecration needed for the birth of your own "holy thing" too. 

When Gabriel, the attending angel appears to Mary, he announces God's plan to her and tells her she will conceive. Mary asks, "how shall this be seeing I know not a man." Gabriel assures her not to worry but tells her that, "the Holy Ghost shall come upon her and the power of the Highest shall overshadow her: therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). 

That makes Jesus' paternity God's or divine. If Jesus had been conceived through a man's sperm, Jesus wouldn't have been qualified to stand as lamb for the sins of the whole world (Matt.1:21, John 1:29). He would have been a blemished lamb and a sinner like any of us.   Don't forget, every human being born through the sperm of any man is a man conceived in sin. David affirms that in Psalm 51:5. To bypass that blemish was why it had to be by the Holy Ghost. This insemination that's going on in the medical world isn't new to God. God did the first one when He injected Mary and she conceived.

I might also make a thing of the word "overshadow." When a man lays on a woman in sex, he kind of overshadow her. It's therefore not strange that we are now reading that the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary. At that overshadowing, conception immediately happens and the blameless and sinless baby came to being. "Overshadow" here talks of a power eclipsing Mary or enveloping her. It is that power of the Holy Ghost that brought about the pregnancy. 

Now, of all the children of Mary, only Jesus had a different paternity. Joseph is only his step dad. God Almighty knows how unfortunate it is for anyone to grow up without a father so he raised a willing man in Joseph to fill in that physical gap on earth. 

The Bible then has this to say after all these had happened. "Joseph didn't know Mary until she has brought forth her first born." Let's ask, "who's Mary's firstborn if not Jesus?" This makes the explanation so far valid that only other children and siblings of Jesus have their paternity to be Joseph. But what I want to draw attention to is the fact that Mary had to remain a virgin for those periods. Don't forget that the Holy Spirit didn't have physical intercourse with her. So, the hymen or what have you was not in anyway broken. It became broken when baby Jesus passed through her birth canal and came out. It was after that, some days or months after that did what she and Joseph were dying for (sex) could then have been done.

So, we won't be wrong if we say Joseph didn't deflower Mary. Do you know who did? First and technically, the Holy Spirit who impregnated Mary and secondly and physically, baby Jesus who passed through and opened up her birth canal or matrix. 

Today, let us give a standing ovation to two of our brethren, Brother Joseph and Sister Mary who delayed gratification and didn't pollute or pervert the work God had started towards birthing the Saviour of mankind. It was a great and uncommon sacrifice. May many more be this consecrated for the greatness God wants to birth through them. After all, celibacy isn't evil or old school. It can be temporary and the Bible recognizes being a celibate until marriage. 

The Bible says in Hebrews 13:4 that "marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge." May you copy?

PRAYER: May I not destroy my (the) consecration that'll birth God's own holy thing through me.

1 YEAR BIBLE READING PLAN 

Matthew 15:29-16:1-12 & Exodus 3-5

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