DCLM Daily Manna 9 October 2021 — When Affliction Knocks
TOPIC:WHEN AFFLICTION KNOCKS
📜 TEXT:LAMENTATIONS 3:1-10📜
1 I Am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath.
2 He hath led me, and brought me into darkness, but not into light.
3 Surely against me is he turned; he turneth his hand against me all the day.
4 My flesh and my skin hath he made old; he hath broken my bones.
5 He hath builded against me, and compassed me with gall and travail.
6 He hath set me in dark places, as they that be dead of old.
7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
8 Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer.
9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
10 He was unto me as a bear lying in wait, and as a lion in secret places.
🔑📖KEY VERSE: “I am the man that hath seen affliction by the rod of his wrath”
(LAMENTATIONS 3:1).
Oswald Sanders said, “Suffering is the heritage of the bad, of the penitent, and of the Son of God. Each one ends in the cross. The bad thief is crucified, the penitent thief is crucified, and the Son of God is crucified. By these signs we know the widespread heritage of suffering”.
Also Read: Open Heaven 9 October 2021 – Eternal Damnation
Our text shows the lamentations of Prophet Jeremiah over Jerusalem. Israel sinned against God and He was not happy with the nation. As a result, they were conquered by the Babylonians who plundered the land and carried the people into captivity. For Jeremiah, afflictions had brought him low. He felt that God had hedged him in as an enemy because he had been sorely afflicted both in body and mind such that he was not able to discern any way of escape or deliverance since God had turned a deaf ear to his prayers. His neighbours made a laughing matter of his troubles and he was desperate for relief and deliverance.
Afflictions are not peculiar to Christians. Unbelievers and sinners also experience dark days. Backsliders too are not free from sufferings, especially because they compromised their faith. Afflictions have the capacity to affect every human being on earth no matter the country, or continent. But when afflictions hit us, we should go beyond complaining and look up to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith.
The prayer of faith will deliver from all forms of afflictions. If the affliction was as a result of sins committed, confessions of sins must first be made to God so that He can forgive. It is also important that we make our ways right with those we might have offended. God is merciful and He will surely forgive. Let us go beyond lamenting over afflictions. Pray to God today and He will deliver you.
✍🏽THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Repentance and prayer of faith are the panacea for affliction.
📜THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: ISAIAH 13-17📜
MEDITATION
THE MISSING ELEMENT OF SPIRITUALITY IN THIS GENERATION
1. The mourning of a righteous prophet
a. Jeremiah, no doubt, was one of the saints in the scriptures whose inner state of mind and passion are never hidden. He was called a weeping prophet.
b. The tears were not as a result of personal sins but rather due to national sins.
c. The text also revealed his inner afflictions and emotional sufferings as a result of the sins of Israel.
d. As a divine representative for his nation, his fastings, solitude, sadness, soberness, sufferings and oppositions as a result of his righteous stand and messages are expressed in the text as if they were brought on him by God.
e. Paul the Apostle summed it up: “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God”, 2 Timothy 1:8.
“Afflictions of the gospel” will always be experienced by saints with an attitude of non conformity to the world and mourning for sins
2. The blessedness of the mourning saints
a. The world happily, cheerfully, though ignorantly, celebrates their days into the gates of hell. There is always one thing or the other to celebrate.
b. The church of God is imperceptibly loosing her impact by importing many worldly celebrations and feastings into the church “to the glory of God”.👌
c. One of the beatitudes is the blessedness of mourning, an exercise that is no more common in the household of faith.
d. “Blessed are they that mourn” is not necessarily mourning for personal sins but rather mourning for the sins and godlessness in the community around and the world in general.
e. Like Jeremiah did, true believers should have the burden, the sorrow, the tears and the concerns for the perishing as evidenced by soberness, fastings, contending against sin and evils.
f. The rejoicing in the Spirit, as commanded in the scriptures, is a response to the fact that “your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20) and the fact that your mourning is bringing forth eternal fruits as comfort -“for they shall be comforted”.
g. Paul, like our Lord and Jeremiah, expressed his inner sorrow and anguish. Jesus was called “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grieves” for the sins of others; while Paul confessed that he ” have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart” for the unconverted Jews. Romans 5:2.
h. The world will only experience the real impact of the cross of Christ if there is less of celebrations and more of mourning in the Church.
Questions
a. Do you have sorrows in your heart for any unconverted relation?
b. Do you feel sobered and in anguish of the soul for the multiplication of iniquities and evils around you or you are nonchalant or part of the mess?
c. What definite efforts do you take to show that you are not comfortable with the evils going on around you?
d. Do you have the time to fast and pray for a change in your localities for Christ?
PRAYER POINTS
1.Help me to truly separate and hate the evils in the world in my heart🙏
2. Give me burden and sorrow for sins and evils around me🙏
3. Give me bowels of mercy and compassion that will readily fast and pray to see souls saved🙏
4. Lord, keep the church from worldly merriments that are against mourning and sorrow for sins🙏
5. Pray for grace to do the best in bring souls to the coming “showers of blessing” crusade🙏
HYMN
THE OLD RUGGED CROSS
1 On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
the emblem of suffering and shame;
and I love that old cross where the dearest and best
for a world of lost sinners was slain.
Refrain:
So I’ll cherish the old rugged cross,
till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
and exchange it some day for a crown.
2. O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
has a wondrous attraction for me;
for the dear Lamb of God left his glory above
to bear it to dark Calvary. Refrain
3. In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
a wondrous beauty I see,
for ’twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
to pardon and sanctify me. Refrain
4. To that old rugged cross I will ever be true,
its shame and reproach gladly bear;
then he’ll call me some day to my home far away,
where his glory forever I’ll share.
Refrain
DCLM Daily Manna was written by Pastor W. F. Kumuyi; is the founder and General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church situated at KM 42 on the busy Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Nigeria.
1. Admit that you are a sinner. "For all [humans] have sinned, and comes short of the glory of God....[and] the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Romans 3:23)
2. Repent now. "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out ...[for] if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness " (Acts 3:19, 1 John 1:9)
3. Believe that God loves you and Jesus died for you. "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet Sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)
4. Invite Jesus into your life through prayer of faith. Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me" (Revelation 3:20)
