Today’s Reading:
Matthew 12:43-45
“Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out, and when he comes, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished” (v. 44)
The spirits that are not clean or holy, are unclean and belong to the devil, acting as his agents. The Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit, the third in the Godhead. Man is made up of three parts – spirit, soul, and body. The “Soul” is where the mind (thinking), feelings and desires reside in man. It is, therefore, not surprising that the soul is regarded as the “battlefield” of good and evil since both positive and negative activities are initiated in it. While God encourages positive thinking, feelings and desires to be done in the soul, the devil encourages the negative. The agents of the devil employed for the negative activities include - unclean spirits, demons, principalities, wicked spirits, rulers of darkness, powers, and human agents.
A man is, therefore, either filled in his soul by God and his influence or by the devil’s agents. This means there is no void (emptiness) in a man’s soul. When some Scribes and Pharisees wanted Jesus to give them a sign, to prove that He was who He claimed, He was, He went on to describe to them the typical activity of an unclean spirit. He said that when an unclean spirit residing in a man goes out, perhaps cast out by God’s power, it roams through a dry (barren) place looking for rest and finds none. It would appear from the account in Mk 5:1-9, of the unclean spirits, named Legion and its mates, who were cast out by Jesus from a man living among the tombs, that they naturally look for “bodies” to live in/occupy. They asked to be sent into a herd of pigs feeding nearby. The unclean spirit in verse 44 of the Reading went back to where it had come out, to re-occupy it.
As earlier said that there is no void in a man’s soul, when the unclean spirit returned (v. 45) and found it unoccupied, it not only took over but also brought in seven more wicked spirits with it. The man’s state was worse than before. The need for a man’s soul to be guarded and completely filled with God and his activities cannot be over-emphasized. The occupants should include the Word, prayer, praise, worship, thanksgiving, services of the kingdom and giving to the lives of others. As a child of God, in the event that unclean spirits are invited into the soul through sin, especially fornication and adultery, there is a need for remorse, repentance and seeking forgiveness from God. When forgiven, the unclean spirit needs to be ejected/forced out and its place filled up with the appropriate Word of God and living in the Holy Spirit.
If Jesus referred to that generation, more than 2,000 years ago, as wicked, one can just wonder how this current perverse and very exposed generation can be called. The believer has the responsibility to consciously guard his soul, and completely allow God’s full occupation.
CHRISTIE KUPOLUYI
Prayer:
Father, I thank you for creating each of us with spirit, soul, and body, in Jesus name.
O Lord, thank you for your sacrifice which gave salvation to our souls, in Jesus name.
Father, teach us to guard our souls against all the influences of the devil and his agents, in Jesus name.
Every activity of the devil’s agents is terminated over lives and in our nation, in Jesus name.
Father, let there be a harvest of souls from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, in our nation and the world, in Jesus name.
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