TODAY’S DEVOTION (Wednesday 24th November 2021)
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 24:6
WELCOME TO THE 327th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS.
What a beautiful week that the LORD has given us! We are right in its middle. I believe it will be full of God’s mercy and marvelous deeds as we journey to the end of the days in the week.
I trust the Holy Spirit to keep giving us a word in season through this devotional, even as we eat what He has prepare for us today!
There are certain menus that look too good to be consumed. If you ask every one with a ‘degree’ in food consumption you will hear that. I use to have that degree until I lost it to maturity and praying and fasting. Today I no longer eat like I do when I was younger. But in my days of gluttony I knew there were certain menus that were too good to be consumed.
I remember one that I took a good picture of, before consuming. There was no Facebook then, maybe I would have posted it like many with that degree do today.
If you translate that into the realm of consuming the spiritual food of God’s word and promises, you will realize that there are certain scriptures about the rewards of a man’s walk with God that sometimes sound too good to be true. Scriptures like the scripture of our devotional text this morning.
It says
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Now wait a minute! The house of God is not a building but the place of His manifest presence. That means one can live in God’s manifest presence all the days of his life and see God’s goodness and mercies following to help him keep doing that.
That for me is too good to be true. But it’s very true!
When God’s goodness and mercies follow you, the curses of your father’s house will not follow you. There is no devil, evil, or successful satanic assault that will follow you if God’s goodness and mercies are following you.
THE REASON BAD THINGS FOLLOW PEOPLE IS REVEALED IN THAT SCRIPTURE – THE PEOPLE ARE NOT FOLLOWED BY GOD’S GOODNESS AND MERCIES.
That is why you find whatever is released from hell or their idolatry homes following them; they follow them into marriages and ruin the marriages; follow them into jobs and shut them down; follow them into fresh relationships and ruin them; they follow them even into ministry and shut down the success of their ministries; and the list goes on and on, bringing down any good thing that may be happening in their lives.
Christianity is not a religion. It is a life you live when following the LORD. When you start living that life, everything evil that has been following you, will stop following you. So if evil is following you, prayer is not always the answer but following the LORD.
Except if the prayer is to help you discern God’s ways and will, and follow them, prayer is not always the answer to issues like that. A Life carved out of following the LORD is the answer. That life is a product of the LORD being our Shepherd in everything we do; in every of our decisions. The Bible says;
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” Psalms 23:1-3 NKJV
It is when the LORD Shepherd us that His goodness and mercies follow us. God never created us to lead our lives with our finite minds. He created us to be led by His Holy Spirit; to be led by Himself. He created us to use His infinite mind in decision making.
Our spirits are infinite therefore we need His infinite wisdom to live, thrive and succeed on earth. God wants us to enjoy a constant flow His goodness and mercies in our lives. He wants His goodness and mercies to be what is following us not devils and evils.
AT THIS POINT, LET ME REFRESH OUR MINDS ON CERTAIN TRUTHS THAT WILL BE HELPFUL.
I have stated in so many teaching forums that God is in control but He is not in total control of everything. God delegated some controls of things in our lives to us; mankind, at creation, and since then has not taken them back. Has not been in total control of everything that was why man took a decision that sent him out of the garden of Eden and brought us where we are today!
God do not create robots, so He did not create us to be robots. He created us with a mind of our own and placed so much about our lives in that part of our creation. That is why our decisions have been our greatest destruction. Many blame the devil for what their decisions brought upon them.
Yes, the devil may have influenced us but we have the final say; we decide if we will follow his influence or not. We must understand that God gave us His Spirit and word to guide us in our decision making so that we will not make decisions that brings destruction. The LORD must be our Shepherd for our decisions to be right.
Talking about controls, there are two kinds; we have sovereign controls and delegated controls. God is in sovereign control of everything but not in delegated control. The two controls are different and are designed to play different roles in our lives.
Delegated control of the earth is under man, but the sovereign control is under God.
How we use the delegated control under us is what this message is all about. If we use it rightly, we enjoy the best of God. But if we use it wrongly we miss the best of God. There are no two ways about it. You use it rightly when the LORD is your Shepherd.
You must understand that God delegated some of the control of the earth or your life to you for proper management. He designed that you manage so many aspects of your life under His leading or Shepherding.
YOU MUST THEREFORE UNDERSTAND THAT THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS IN YOUR LIFE THAT GOD WILL NEVER DO. YOU ARE TO DO THEM!
He has made His wisdom and Himself available to guide you in doing them. Even if you spend a whole year in dry fasting asking God to do the things that are in your delegated control to do, He will never do them. In fact, He will send someone to terminate the fast so that you will not die in foolishness.
For instance, God may help you sovereignly to find a spouse and get married, but your decision will be required for you to talk to the person. God could help you with grace to stay married but your decision will be required for you to make use of the grace to stay married.
You make use of the grace to stay married by following His truths for staying married in all your decision making process while in your marriage. The truth of GOD’s word on staying married is divine wisdom. You find it in scriptures.
Economically speaking, God may help you get to where riches are but may not help you to gather them into your life. You will have to use His wisdom to gather the riches into your life.
If you get married but do not use divine wisdom or the Bible truth on staying married, you may lose your marriage. If you come into where riches are and you do not use divine wisdom or scriptura truth to gather them into your life, you will see so much resources around you but remain poor for being foolish.
Divine wisdom or scriptural truths is the instrument for managing delegate control. That is why you must be studying your Bible daily and attending a church that teaches the word not the one that uses and twist the scriptures.
If you lack scriptural wisdom in your decision making, the delegated control given to you by the LORD will become either useless or destructive.
Here is how it works, “Prayer is the use of delegated control to talk to God to do what He is designed to do. Divine wisdom is the proper application of scriptural truths in our everyday life, in our use of delegated control to get moving on in life, doing only what is delegated to us to do.” I hope am making sense!
WHEN WE READ THE BIBLE, WE FILL OUR HEARTS WITH WORDS THAT THE HOLY SPIRIT CAN USE IN HELPING US MAKE PROPER DECISIONS.
When we do not, we leave our kinds vulnerable to the spirit of error. Which is what is guiding so many people today. The Bible says;
“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” Romans 6:13-14 NKJV
The decisions that are governed by our carnal nature or what the Bible calls “the flesh” are responsible for all our destruction. The spirit of error makes us follow those decisions taking them to be divine, but at the end of the day they produce very unpleasant results described as death.
It is when we are led by His Spirit that we put to death or silence the leading that proceeds from the flesh.
God wants us to be led by His Spirit; as many as are led by His Spirit, they are the sons of God. In other words, as many as are Shepherd by the LORD, they are the sons of GOD. But until we fill our minds with the word of the LORD from the Holy Scriptures, an accurate Shepherding or leading will not be possible. The Bible says;
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the LORD.” Colossians 3:16 NKJV
In simple terms, God wants us to be accurately directed in all our decision making process. And for that to happen, we must fill our minds with the word of Christ, and let it dwell in us richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in palms, hymns and spiritual songs. Hallelujah!
Divine direction is God way of helping us walk in divine wisdom. It has a way of turning things around in our lives. That was why Mary once told those who sat around Jesus in need of a miracle in John chapter 2
“Whatever He tells you to do, do.”
What is the message of this word today? The message is simple. Your life and my life today, are products of the accumulated decisions we took yesterday. If we do not like what we may be seeing, we have a chance to change things.
We must begin to make the right decisions under the LORD. We must allow the LORD to become our Shepherd in spirit and in truth so that His goodness and mercies will begin to follow us instead of the bad things that may have been following us.
Let us begin to free our decisions from the influence of the flesh and begin to make them under the influence of the Spirit and the word of the LORD.
If you can bend our spiritual ears and minds to the LORD every now and then, and allow ourselves to be influenced by the word in His heart, then use His delegated control in our lives according to His influence as we make our decisions, things will be different.
Yeah, though we may walk in the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil, because His presence will be with us to make the difference. God’s manifest presence follows those who follow Him. If your decisions are products of His influence in your life, you will not lack His manifest presence in your life. His goodness and mercies will be following you all the days of your life!
May this day be a blessing in Jesus precious name! Amen.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION;
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.”
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalms 23:4-6 NKJV