Spiritual Chokehold

Daily Scripture Threshing for Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Today’s Text: Proverbs 20:24-30

Key Verse: Proverbs 20:27 (ESV): “The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord, searching all his innermost parts.”

Eric Garner’s last words were “I can’t breathe.” He was the unarmed African American who was killed in 2014 after being put in a chokehold by a New York Police Officer. When a person can’t breathe, the pressure begins to build deep inside. Their lungs begin to desperately gasp for oxygen, and struggle to pump but they can’t because all what fills those lungs are captive air held up without oxygen in the cavities. Except the one in this situation receives urgent help, death is inevitable.

In both biblical Testaments, spirit is often associated with breath because we live by the breathe of God. That is why, except revived, a person who stops breathing is dead. Both languages of the Bible—Hebrew and Greek—use similar connotations for breath and spirit. When we are alive towards God, and can breathe in the things pertaining to Him, His (God’s) spirit in us endows us with abilities and faculties for perception, memory, insight, imagination, wisdom, reason, revelation, righteousness, and exploits.

That is why the influence of the Spirit of God is great in any man who is alive towards God. The power of their conscience is active and is able to exercise and follow spiritual reasoning. Any believer who feels this is not true for him may be in a spiritual chokehold and is unable to breathe. Today’s wisdom text is profound. God’s breath (spirit) in us, as God’s dear children, is the lamp of the Lord, it helps us search or discern all the innermost parts of his being.

Quote for the Day: “Stagnant and dull spiritual life is an evidence of a believer under satanic chokehold." (Simon Olatunji)

Prayer: Dear Lord, please let me hear Your call. Open my ears to hear Your voice. Sensitize my heart to Your Spirit's conviction. I don't want to be a dull child, whose soul is choked by life’s lusts and struggles. Help me O Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen.

With all my love and prayers,

Rev Simon Wale Olatunji, Ph.D.

Your Darling Bishop (DaBishop)

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[Daily Scripture Threshing is a devotional guide of The House of Prayer Evangel Church USA distributed for free use by individuals, small groups, families, and Christian churches]

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