TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Saturday 7TH August 2021)
“Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me,” Psalms 40:11 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 219th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
Some beautiful people I know are having their birthdays this month. Some one yesterday another today. I wish all a happy birthday. May the mercies of the LORD continue to shower upon you all in Jesus precious name. Amen and amen!
Now to our devotional for the day! In a world of uncertainties and uncontrollable evil, we need something bigger and higher to be preserved and kept from the unexpected. The Bible made it clear that if God be in the midst of us, we shall not be destroyed.
The greatest insurance of life is GOD in man. The emphasis of religion is God around man but the emphasis of true Christianity and the gospel of our LORD Jesus Christ is God in man.
In the beginning, God lived in man. He was not just around man. The portals of Heaven opened in man and around man. But the fall changed everything. That is why man became what he is today. Ecclesiastes puts it this way;
“For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun? For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.” Ecclesiastes 2:22-23 NKJV
Everything became vanity after the fall. But in the beginning, it was not so! In the beginning God lived in man making it possible for man to outsource His decisions from a world outside this world – the word of God’s glory!
We were originally designed to outsource our decisions from the Spirit of the living GOD not from any other place or realm. The Spirit of God is the Spirit that controls the world of God. When our decisions are not outsourced from Him, our lives will be hell on earth. When our decisions are outsourced from Him, it will put our lives in order and harmonize every step we take with GOD’s will and ways, leading to a blessed life on earth.
Actually, the essence of Christianity is synchronicity of a man’s life with GOD’s will and ways. When that happens our lives will become perfect in God’s sight!
THE BIBLE COMMANDS THAT WE BE PERFECT JUST AS OUR HEAVENLY FATHER IS PERFECT.
If it was not possible to be perfect, God would not have commanded it. For with God nothing shall be impossible. When God say we should be perfect, He means we should be mature and live in synchronicity with His will and ways. There is also a higher level of perfection we will enter into when we die.
God wants us to be very dangerous to the kingdom of darkness. And that can only happen when we are perfect; when our ways and will are in synchronicity with His ways and will.
I have come to discover that the most dangerous, effective and impactful Christians on the face of the earth and in the kingdom of God are those whose lives are in complete harmony with God’s will and ways.
When the Bible talks about the Crucified life, that is what it really is – a man whose aspects of life is in perfect harmony with God’s will and ways. Though the process of achieving that is usually very painful, but it is absolutely needful! Sometimes it will involve strict discipline from the LORD or those He has placed over our lives.
Jesus Himself, as man, had to be made perfect through what he suffered. There can be no synchronicity with divine will and ways without suffering, my friend. That is why we can only become perfectly synchronized with GOD’s will and ways by looking unto Jesus, who for the sake of the Joy that was set before Him, endured the cross and despised the shame.
Today, God has given Him a name that is above every name,
“that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is LORD!”
Hallelujah! There are no words that can accurate describe the glory we will have in our lives, in this life and the life to come, if we endure the pain of synchronizing and harmonizing our lives with God’s will and ways.
THE PAINS OF SYNCHRONICITY DO MANIFEST IN DIFFERENT FORM. IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT SURROUND EACH PERSON!
Sometimes when a Child of God is trying to respond to God and bring his life into harmony with divine will and ways, people who are not in God’s will and perfect ways will seem to be prospering and him diminishing. Indeed, it is usually not pleasant to see yourself going down and the wicked going up, especially in your days of synchronicity. That is one of the hardest points of the Christian life.
But when you look through and see that all is vanity, you will not be disturbed about it. There will be a relative tranquility in your spirit from the Holy Spirit.
Friend, there are days of synchronicity. During the days God will be passing us through what I call “School of Hard things.” It’s a period when the wicked will seem to be prospering while you diminishing.
For instance, people who do not know what you know, or fear God the way you do will seem to you to be having things easy. But you will be suffering and having things difficult and wondering, what in the world is happening to you?
You could even be tempted to think “Am I really on the right paths?” But the Bible says;
“When the wicked spring up like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever.” Psalms 92:7 NKJV
On the flip side of the coin, when the righteous diminishes and start going them for bringing his life into perfect harmony with God’s will and ways, it is for him to be lifted and made to flourish in due time. In God, the way up is down! That is why the Bible says;
“Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.
For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” Hebrews 10:35-38 KJV
I CAN STOP THIS DEVOTIONAL HERE BECAUSE THIS SCRIPTURE SAYS IT ALL.
What do we do when we are surrounded by innumerable evils for saying yes to Jesus? What do we do when the pains of synchronicity begin to spring up? The Bible says we should cast not away our confidence. That is what to do!
Our confidence is that faith that pushed us to respond to God in the first place. It comes from that personal revelation of GOD received through our walk and talk with Him. The Bible says we should not cast it away and the reason is simple. It has a great recompense of reward.
There is a secret I want you to learn as a Child of God. If Heaven gives you a MEGA promise, you can only receive the performance of that promise after you have done the will of God, not when you are doing it.
Our obedience must be complete for God’s word to be performed in our lives.
In other words, the manifestation of the reward of synchronicity with divine will and ways comes after we have done the will of God, not while we are doing it. The performance comes after the process not during the process.
The mistake many Christians make is to watch for the performance during the process, and when we do not see it, we lose hope and draw back. But during the process nothing happens. Jesus did not rise from dead the day He died. He was buried before He was raised. He had to endure the process of death for three days before He was raised.
It is the same principle god activates when dealing with us.
There is need for patience and endurance because the season will be over. When it is over, He that shall come will come and splash us with the reward; sometimes in this life and the life to come, and other times in the life to come alone.
I saw this in the life of the early Church. The Book of Hebrew made it clear that some died in His will and ways without receiving the promise in this life. But they got it in the life to come. God determines when to bring the reward of our commitments to Him not even our prayers or sacrifices. Our job is to remain unconditional committed to Him and keep saying like Job
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15 NKJV).
THE GREATER YOUR SACRIFICES FOR THE KINGDOM IN THIS LIFE ARE; THE GREATER YOUR REWARD IN THE NEXT LIFE WILL BE.
If God did not begin your reward here it’s because your reward there will be huge. He allowed John the Baptist to be killed by Herod to qualify him for five crowns in Heaven. Whatever God allows the righteous to go through in this life, it’s basically to qualify him for greater things in the next life.
That is why He has no pleasure in those who put their hands to the plough and then keep looking back. The Bible says they will not receive anything because they are not fit for the kingdom. And don’t forget it’s our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom; and we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39 NKJV)
That brings us to the faith position to take during the process of doing the will of God or synchronizing with His ways? Our devotional text for today says,
“Do not withhold your tender mercies from me, O Lord; Let your lovingkindness and your truth continually preserve me,” Psalms 40:11 NKJV
If you look at this scripture, you will see three things that must proceed from God to us at all times during the process of doing the will of GOD and synchronizing with His ways. The first is MERCY, the second LOVING KINDNESS, and the third TRUTH.
It pays to be planted in a Church where the three will be made to reach you from time to time. It pays to have a prophetic midwife positioned by Heaven in your life to be supplying these three to your spirit. Where you do not have one, like it happened to me years back, make sure you are spending countless hours with God in prayers daily. He will be your midwife Himself.
Seek Him daily for MERCY, LOVING KINDNESS and TRUTH. That is the message of today’s devotional.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOUR TODAY;
“For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
“For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.”
“And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.” Hebrews 6:10-15 NKJV