🎊🎉 *OPEN HEAVENS* 🎊🎉
*DAILY DEVOTIONAL*
_DATE: SUNDAY 16TH JANUARY 2022._
*THEME: RETURNING TO THE HOME CHURCH MODEL.*
*MEMORISE:*
Salute the brethren which are in Laodicea, and Nymphas, and the church which is in his house.
Colossians 4:15
*BIBLE READING: ROMANS 16:3-5.*
3 Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus:
4 Who have for my life laid down their own necks: unto whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.
5 Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Salute my well-beloved Epaenetus, who is the firstfruits of Achaia unto Christ.
*MESSAGE:*
The Home Church model is the oldest form of worship centers right from the Old Testament days. It should be recalled that what is now known as Abrahamic faith in at least three notable religions of the world started as a family mode of worship. The Bible tells of how the Abrahamic faith started within the household of Abraham in Genesis 18:19. It is equally interesting to note that when the New testament Church was born, it was within a household at the Upper Room (Acts 1:13). This was where all the earliest apostles were residing when the New Testament Church was inaugurated by the coming of the Holy Ghost.
“Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus:…. Likewise greet the church that is in their house…..” Romans 16:3, 5
Therefore, adopting the Home Church model is going back to the basic. The Home Church model has been proven to be beneficial right from the birth of the Church and all hostility from the world against it. The blessings accruing from the model is innumerable but we shall mention some of the spiritual ones today.
To start with, putting a church in your house in the form of a House Fellowship center is like putting the Ark of the Covenant there and it brings abundant blessing like in the case of Obededom. In 2 Samuel 6:10-11. Obededom became a national celebrity to the extent that even King David envied him and hurriedly took the Ark away from his household. The good news is that no one can take the Church away from you as long as you allow Jesus to remain in your house.
Corporately speaking, the home Church mode enhances all-round growth of the church. Spiritually, members of the House Fellowship and by extension, of the church are well-groomed since they would be properly taken care of. This model discourages the loss of souls in the multitude of the bigger mother-Church. As we can see from the scriptures we reviewed above, the Home Church model is a design from God and we must all return to it.
Beloved, decide to use your home as a sub-unit of the bigger Church today and you would be richly blessed by so doing, in Jesus’s name.
*PRAYER POINT:*
Father, please qualify my home to be a custodian of Your Church, in the mighty name of Jesus.
*BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:*
GENESIS 46-48.
*AUTHOR:*
PASTOR E. A. ADEBOYE
*HYMN 14: NEAR, MY GOD TO THEE.*
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee.
*Refrain:*
Nearer, my God, to Thee, nearer to Thee!
Though like the wanderer, the sun gone down,
Darkness be over me, my rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I’d be nearer, my God, to Thee.
There let the way appear, steps unto Heav’n;
All that Thou sendest me, in mercy giv’n;
Angels to beckon me nearer, my God, to Thee.
Then, with my waking thoughts bright with Thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs Bethel I’ll raise;
So by my woes to be nearer, my God, to Thee.
Or, if on joyful wing cleaving the sky,
Sun, moon, and stars forgot, upward I’ll fly,
Still all my song shall be, nearer, my God, to Thee.
There in my Father’s home, safe and at rest,
There in my Savior’s love, perfectly blest;
Age after age to be nearer, my God, to Thee.
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