THE CRY OF THE SPIRIT DEVOTIONALS – BY RICHARD E. S. TAKIM

TODAY’S DEVOTION (Thursday 26th December 2019)

“Do not fret because of evildoers, nor be envious of the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” Psalms 37:1-5 NKJV

WELCOME TO THE 360th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF GOING FORWARD.

WE BLESS THE GOD OF HEAVEN AND EARTH WHO HAS COUNTED US WORTHY TO SEE ANOTHER YEAR END. I believe the LORD GOD will help us to have the last days of the year glorious and fulfilling. Yes, they could be evil doers on ground, but the Bible says we should not fret because of evil doers and we must decide not to.

I believe Our God will do great things in our lives in the coming year. That is why we believe Him to make it OUR YEAR OF REJOICING as He has said. If God do not do great things, we will not be able to make great impact in His kingdom. Do not forget, kingdom advances and the prosperity of all Kingdom visions and purposes depends heavily on the zeal of the LORD.

Now, when God want to do great things among His people, it is important that they learn to build their expectations within His will and ways. If they build them outside His will and ways, He will still do what He wants to do but they will not see it in their lives because they are not aligned.

The Bible says the expectation of the righteous shall not be cut off. The reason for that is simple. They shall not be cut off because righteousness means one is aligned with the will and ways of the LORD. And the expectation of the righteous are expectations that falls in line with God’s will and ways; that is why they are bound to come to pass.

But the expectations of the wicked are expectations that do not fall in line with God’s will or ways. The divine decree over them is that “they shall not come to pass. They shall be cut off.” The Bible says,

“For the upright will dwell in the land, and the blameless will remain in it; but the wicked will be cut off from the earth, and the unfaithful will be uprooted from it.” Proverbs 2:21-22 NKJV

If God does not allow the wicked to take root on earth or remain, how much more their expectations. That is why it is not safe to build your expectations outside His perfect will for your life. The world system may attack anything that is God’s will and seek to stop its advance. But the earth is designed to prosper all things that are GOD’s will, especially those that are running in God’s ways.

I want you to understand that Christians who do not understand that God’s will and ways are the governors of the manifestation of expectations will have a hard time getting into 2020 with joy. Trust me – some will even leave Church because of failed carnal expectations.

There are So many People who have build their hopes on carnal prophecies who will leave certain Churches by 1st January 2020 because those prophecies never came to pass. Especially prophecies on marriage. It will be so serious because they paid money (sowed seeds) for them to come to pass. Yet they never came to pass!

PROPHECIES FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF GREED ACTING UPON YOUR GULLIBLE HEART WILL NEVER COME TO PASS

You must understand that any preacher who only becomes high in spirit after people have given an offering or sacrifice to him or his ministry does not operate from Heaven. He or she operates from the flesh. Whatever may be prophesied to you under that stir will not be from Heaven. It will be from the fountain of greed and covetousness. So, when expectations for the year are built on such prophecies, and you go through the year with them, your faith will crash because nothing will come to pass.

For instance, there are Churches today whose pastors have told their members that they will get married, get jobs, or see some other forms of person expectations come to pass before the end of the year 2019, simply because they gave some money or satisfied the preachers one way or the other.

Others have been told by same spiritual leaders how they will have great financial breakthrough before the end of the year. As earlier stated, money is usually paid in form of sowing a seed to unlock the performance by the victims of the prophecies.

Sadly, the countless who have been made by this money controlled and carnality inspired spiritual leaders to build their expectations outside divine will and ways will just crash.

I have heard how Scriptures have been misinterpreted and false or demonic inspired prophetic similitude used, to coerce innocent souls to believe that some things (that God knows will never happen) will come to pass in their lives before the end of the year 2019. God is going to defeat those lies and rescue His sheep from the satanic snares they see as Churches, prophetic or deliverance ministries.

Obviously, there will be a crash of some people’s faith by January 2020. Jesus Christ is allowing that to happen so that false prophets will be exposed, and their victims delivered. He wants them to learn that until expectations are built on His will and ways, they will never come to pass.

There is no place in the Bible where a man took his carnal expectation to God through prayer, fasting or sacrificial through a so-called preacher and then God rubber stamps it with a miracle. Never! Indeed, our devotional text today screams “no” to that.

A MAJOR HIGHLIGHT IN IT SAYS,

“Trust in the Lord, and do good; Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness. Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.” Psalms 37:3-4 NKJV

Sadly, when people quote or preach from this scripture, they forget the first parts and just log on to the lasts sentence that says, “He shall give you the desires of your heart.” And that is the sentence upon which every failed expectation in Church today is built.

We forget that the heart of a man that has not been processed and filled with the Holy Spirit is desperately wicked. God does not grant the desires of such a heart.

And when the Bible says

“He shall give you the desires of your heart” it does not mean God will grant us whatever we desire or fulfill whatever we expect that He fulfill. It simple means, if we do everything that precede the “heart desire” sentence in Psalm 37:1-5 (trusting in the LORD, doing good, dwelling in the land or place of His will for our lives, feeding on God’s faithfulness, and delighting ourselves in Him) the Spirit of the LORD in us will shape what our hearts should desire and align it with God’s will.

In other words, God will grant us what our hearts should desire. It is the what He grants our hearts to desire that will be granted, not the ones we conceive by ourselves. I hope you understand me! Expectations must therefore be built on what He grants our hearts to desire.

The last part of our devotional text says, “Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” This is not referring to our “own carnal ways” but the very ways and plans of the LORD that we have made our ways and plans. Those are the ways or plans to commit to the LORD in prayer if we want our expectations to come to pass.

So, from all these scriptures it is obvious that God does not want man to be seen because man was not originally sourced in man. Man was sourced in God. God wants God to be seen in man. He does not want man to be seen in man. He never designed that to happen, hence did not design that our carnal expectations to be fulfilled.

HE ONLY DESIGNED EXPECTATIONS BUILT ON DIVINE DESIRES (THAT ARE GRANTED TO OUR HEARTS TO DESIRE) TO BE FULFILLED.

So, if any of your 2019 expectations was not built on desires granted your heart by God’s Spirit to desire, but on some things some prophets or prophetesses prophesied to you, bury it now before you crash by 31st December. God takes delight in fulfilling our expectations, but they must be in tune or line with His will and ways.

As you embrace this glorious day and Chew on God’s word, may Heaven’s glow beam in your spirit. May your heart react and push away anything that does not fall in line with God’s will and ways for your life, in Jesus precious name! AMEN!

MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY

“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

Cease from anger, and forsake wrath; Do not fret — it only causes harm. For evildoers shall be cut off; but those who wait on the Lord, they shall inherit the earth.

For yet a little while and the wicked shall be no more; Indeed, you will look carefully for his place, but it shall be no more.
But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. The wicked plots against the just, and gnashes at him with his teeth.

The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming. The wicked have drawn the sword.” Psalms 37:7-14 NKJV