Ephesians 5:26 “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.”

DAILY READING; • 1 Corinthians 2; 1 Kings 15:1-32; Joel 2:12-32

Joseph Stalin, leader of the USSR, murdered millions of Christians, and destroyed many historical churches and cathedrals.
However the amazing fact about Joseph Stalin was that he once trained in a Seminary to become a priest. But along the way, he was wrongly influenced to abandon the path to priesthood.
Joseph’s mother, a devout Russian Orthodox Christian, had believed he should become a priest and in 1888, she enrolled him in a Christian school, where he did well and later won a scholarship to Tiflis Theological Seminary.
However, while at the Seminary, Joseph came in contact with a secret organization that began to turn him away from his Christian beliefs. Instead of studying the Scriptures as required by the Seminary, he began studying revolutionary materials, including the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.
He became so greatly influenced by these writings that he abandoned his study at the seminary, despite being an excellent student.
He refused to return home, but began working full-time for the revolutionary movement.
He became so radicalized that in 1907, he carried out a bank Robbery and stole 250,000 rubles (approximately $3.4m in US dollars) to help fund the revolutionary cause.
He came to be known as ruthless and adopted the name ‘Stalin’ which means ‘man of steel’.
Over the years, he rose through the ranks, until he came to power as the leader of the Soviet Union in 1927.
Under the reign of Joseph Stalin, millions of Christians and over 50,000 clergymen were murdered, many were tortured, including by crucifixion. Stalin turned Russia red with the blood of martyrs and murdered over 20 million of his own citizens.

Certainly, if Joseph Stalin had focused on his education in the Seminary and studied the Scriptures as required, he would not have ended up as a mass murderer.
As we go through life, we need to be careful about distractions and the things we grant access into our hearts.
When God says we should meditate on His Word day and night, it is because He knows there is a bombardment on our minds day and night.
We live in a world of influences. The things you read, watch and listen to, will eventually seek to control your thoughts.
And your thought to a large extent determines what becomes of you. Life is a reflection and summation of all our dominant thoughts. Certainly as a man thinks in his heart, so is he.

What we feed our mind is very critical to our lives. They can either assist or resist the fulfillment of our destiny.
This is why the Bible tells us to guard our mind with all diligence. We need to properly manage what goes in and out of our minds, to avoid derailment of God’s plan for our lives.
One sure way to guard our minds is through constant study and meditation on Scriptures. The Word of God is a fountain of life, where we daily take spiritual baths.

Ephesians 5:26 says “That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word.”

As we daily meditate deeply in the Word, wrong thoughts are dislodged from our minds and replaced with God’s thoughts.
Through the Word, we are influenced to begin talking and acting as God would.
God’s Word is full of wonders and the more we look into it, the more we are turned into living wonders.

Psalm 119:18 says: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law”.

Certainly, there are wondrous things in God’s Word.
Many of the great men and women who did great exploits in God’s kingdom all spent time with God in His Word until they were influenced to begin manifesting amazing miracles.
Therefore instead of filling our minds with the trash that dominates the world’s media, let us fill our minds with the treasures of God’s Word.
You can never go higher than your thoughts and life gives you only what you sow into it.
Therefore, Let us diligently sow God’s Word into our minds, so that we can reap a lifetime of miracles, signs and wonders.

PRAYER: Lord, Please enable me to take up the spiritual responsibility of diligently studying Your Word. As I study, please open my eyes to behold deep insights that will enable me to manifest Your signs and wonders in Jesus Name.
QUOTE
It takes a heart for God to make a mark in the sands of time. – WORDBITE 201.