TODAY’S DEVOTION (Friday 21st January 2022)
“Teach me Your way, O LORD, and lead me in a smooth path, because of my enemies. Do not deliver me to the will of my adversaries; For false witnesses have risen against me, and such as breathe out violence.
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living.
Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD! Psalm 27:11-14 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 21ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
Glory be to the LORD God who has given us great and precious promises in His word, the Bible. Things we have been seeing daily happen in our lives. The happenings are responsible for our being alive these 21 days of 2022. We God the glory for all these things.
His precious promises in the word are responsible for Him not giving us to the will of our enemies. They are responsible for making sure that the death wishes of those who hate us did not come to pass.
Yes, the wonderful promises of the LORD are responsible for the health we enjoy, the breath in our nostrils, the money in our pockets, the courage to stand strong in battle and all the beautiful things we see the LORD do in our lives. The Bible says;
“For all the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” 2 Corinthians 1:20 KJV
We may not have what people celebrate, if all we have are the promises of God, then we have everything. What people celebrate may disappear in a moment but what God promises can last for generations because its manifestation is perfected by time.
For instance, the nation of Israel is still here today because of what God promised Abraham. The church of Jesus Christ is still here today because of what God said to Abraham. Things have happened that would have wiped away both the nation of Israel and the Church, but none has succeeded. What God said to Abraham is responsible for all that. He said to him;
“And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” Genesis 12:2-4 KJV
None of the promises in this scripture is still pending, except the part that has to do with the ages to come. Time could not paralyze any of them through the rigors of history. Time only proved them to be yea and amen! Indeed, God’s promise are not killed by time.
His promises are rather processed, made to come to pass, and perfected by time.
IF A MAN MAKES A PROMISE TO YOU, TIME COULD KILL IT IN SO MANY WAYS. BUT IF GOD MAKE A PROMISE TO YOU, TIME CANNOT KILL IT!
Time can only perfect it! The only promise that time cannot perfect is a promise that is not genuinely from the throne of GOD. Some times a man makes a promise to you and he forgets he ever made that promise. That is time killing it. Sometimes time does not kill it be erasing it from the memory, it kills it by killing the resources that will bring the promise to pass, thereby demobilizing the promiser maker.
Most promise makers cannot become promise keepers because of the power of time over them or their promises. But out God is not like that. So long as His promises are concerned, the process of time remains one of the major assets. All through the Bible you see God making promises and handing them over to the time to bring them to pass.
When He visited Abraham in Genesis 18 and promised Him a son, He handed over the promise into the hands of the process of time saying;
…“I will certainly return to you according to the time of life, and behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son.” Genesis 18:10 NKJV
Indeed, time took the promise from God and process it. The result was Isaac. Not Ishmael. The Bible says;
“And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did for Sarah as He had spoken. For Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.
And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him—whom Sarah bore to him—Isaac. Then Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him.
Now Abraham was one hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, “God has made me laugh, and all who hear will laugh with me.”
She also said, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? For I have borne him a son in his old age.” Genesis 21:1-7 NKJV
If you ask me, I will say time is the most powerful partner of God on earth. It knows how to bring things to pass as stated by the LORD. It does it do perfectly and impeccably that you just cannot but laugh. That was why Sarah said “God has made me laugh.”
Ishmael was not a child of promise. He was not a product of God’s promises placed in the power of time. He was just a child of a man’s seed fertilizing a woman’s egg. He was just an ordinary child. You are either an extraordinary child or a child that is just a product of a man’s seed and a woman’s egg.
IT IS WHAT GOD’S PROMISES BRING FORTH ON EARTH THAT IS UNIQUE.
In our devotional yesterday, we spoke about walking in God’s plans after you have prayed. One major mystery you must fully grasp is the mystery of how God’s promises are process by time to bring them to pass. If you do not understand that, impatience will drive you away from God’s plans like it almost drove Abram away.
To walk in divine plans, you must understand that sometimes when God make a promise to you, He will hand over it’s performance into the power of time to bring it to pass. Time becomes an instrument in God’s hands whenever He makes significant promises.
So, if you do not learn how to walk patiently with the LORD, or wait patiently for His promises on your prayer knees, you may one day develop some thoughts or voices that you think is God, and walk away from His plans and programs for your life.
Our devotional text today says;
“I would have lost heart, unless I had believed That I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!”
Have God made a promise to you? Are you sure it is the LORD? If the answer is yea, then may I ask if you are losing heart already for not seeing His word come to pas sin your life. That is a sign that your confidence in God because of what He said to you is failing. You need not to lose heart.
Whenever we begin to lose heart, the flesh takes advantage of it and begin to make suggestions to us. Then we begin to listen and follow what it is saying without realizing it. Before you know it, an Ishmael will be born and begin to have his hands on everything; ruining everything we do. The Bible says his hands will be against everyone and everyone’s hands will be against him.
So, whenever you begin to lose heart on God’s promises, just get back to them and begin to pray and meditate on them. Declaring that God is able to do His word in your life, and that even if He refuse to do it, you still believe Him nevertheless.
Do not forget, the word says,
“Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD.”
So, when your heart or faith is failing, do not allow the arm of the flesh to begin to make suggestions to you like Sarah did to Abraham. Just rush to the prayer room and be with the LORD, the one who gave you the promise. That is how to remain in divine plan.
Do not forget, Sarai in the Ishmael story, represents the arm of the flesh. That was why Abram, as Abraham, did not consult her when going to offer Isaac. You do not consult the arm of the flesh when going on any worship journey with GOD. It will weary and influence you to terminate the journey.
The reason for that is simple; the flesh war against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh. They are antagonistic towards one another.
So, when the Spirit ask you to do a thing, do not consult the flesh. But when the flesh asks you to do a thing consult the Spirit. We are not born of the flesh, we are born of the Spirit. He should therefore be consulted before we carry out any instruction from the arm of flesh. I hope you understand me!
And He will always tell you “No! Do not follow the leading of your flesh. It will ruin you.” Whenever we do anything to please the flesh, we have sowed a dangerous seed for a dangerous harvest that only repentance can stop.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY
“Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant.
Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.
So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.” Galatians 6:7-9 NLV