TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 16TH NOVEMBER 2022)
“Sing to God, sing praises to His name, cast up a highway for Him Who rides through the deserts—His name is the Lord—be in high spirits and glory before Him!
A father of the fatherless and a judge and protector of the widows is God in His holy habitation.
God places the solitary in families and gives the desolate a home in which to dwell; He leads the prisoners out to prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.” Psalm 68:4-6 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 320TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
The LORD God has kept us for 320 days of the year. We have just 45 more days to go, according to the Gregorian calendar. To Him belong all the glory.
However, according to the Jewish Calendar which we prophetically follow, we are already in the New Year and the year of Signs and wonders began two months ago. Indeed, the faithfulness of God towards us and His mercies are evident.
There is a role a man’s righteous walk with God plays in keeping him from evil, and activating blessings in His life, but if being alive was solely placed on a man’s righteousness or holiness, then there would have been no one alive today, because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and sin live in all of us even though not everyone is living in it.
The steadfastness of GOD and His marvelous kindness sometimes amazes me. Whenever I see His love in demonstration, His tolerance or what the Bible calls forbearance, I wonder at the depth of His love. You can see it in the Story of the prodigal Son and that of the woman who was caught in adultery and so many other Bible Characters that God demonstrated in.
The forbearance of God is what prevents Him from striking us with swift judgment whenever we do despicable things. It is a major offshoot of His love that is full of depths, widths and Heights. A love that was fully demonstrated at the Cross of Jesus Christ through His death, burial and resurrection. The Bible says;
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed,” Romans 3:23-25 NKJV
His understanding of what sin has done to us is the reason for His forbearance. The Bible says He is not a High Priest who cannot be touched by the feelings of our infirmities but was in all points tempted, yet without sin. His being tempted increased His ability to help us because that offered Him the opportunity, so to speak, to know what it means to live in a fallen nature.
God’s forbearance therefore, is the reason Christ was made the propitiation (satisfaction of GOD’s wrath) for our sins, by dying on the Cross and shedding His blood. In other words, it is the reason Christ received the full eternal punishment for our sins, so that we can receive the full deliverance from both its penalty and practice in this life, and its presence in the life to come.
OF LATE, WE HAVING BEEN LOOKING AT THINGS THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN TO US IF WE DO NOT WALK IN PRACTICAL WISDOM.
We have seen honor and few others. So for, its been a fruitful 30-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on practical wisdom, and today is the 16th day. The 15th day spoke to us about the Knowledge of the Holy One on having successful interpersonal relationships.
I sense we should still dwell on that today, because many need to come into this aspect of practical wisdom.
To start with, I want us to understand that the quality of our lives on earth will be greatly determined by God using the relationships He has placed in our lives. If you do not have a good network of divinely placed relationships in our lives, we will have problems in life; we will face things that there will be no one to help us come out from.
Life itself will be choking, hard and slow without the right people in it. Understand that we will need people from God to become prosperous persons in life.
Few years ago I said on this platform that you need a people to become a person; yes, the person God has created or predetermined you to be is not possible without appointed people. That is why those who are alone do not prosper accept if they are alone with God.
We ended yesterday’s devotional with the words of the Holy Scriptures in Genesis that says;
“Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
And the LORD God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Genesis 2:15-18 NKJV
One of the major knowledge of the Holy One on interpersonal relationships is in this scripture. The last verse of the scripture contains the wisdom of the Holy One on living a successful earthly life. It has to do with having the right people in our lives.
The word says it is not good to be alone.
Now, anything GOD says is not good, it is practical wisdom not to say “it is good.” If God say it is not good to be alone, do not say it is good to live in isolation. Foolishness is isolating yourself unnecessarily and still expecting good things to happen to you. They will never happen because good things come into our lives through appointed people.
AND UNNECESSARY ISOLATION WILL KEEP US AWAY FROM APPOINTED PEOPLE.
God may ask you to be alone for a season, and that will be to discover Him because in discovering Him, you will discover yourself and stumble into so much revelation. Now, the importance of that cannot be over emphasized because until you discover yourself, you will never know what someone GOD sent your way was sent to do in your life.
For instance, there are times GOD will send people in our lives to fine-tune our character or attitudes (from bad to good or from bad to best) so that we can be ready for His blessings. If we do not discover ourselves, we will never know we have such attitudes and that they need to be fine-tuned.
So, when the people show up in our lives, we will be resisting them and sending them away because we do not like how they are picking up on our attitudes every now and then. I hope you understand me.
Genuine closeness to GOD will reveal Him to you, and then reveal you to you, making you see the need for interpersonal relationships. Closeness to GOD should not give you a pride that shapes you to become blind to the importance of having people in life. That will be an empty religion not closeness to GOD.
Understand that no matter how close you are to GOD, you will still need interpersonal relationships to make the closeness meaningful. So, walk in the knowledge of the Holy One on cultivating and sustaining successful inter personal relationships even as you stay close to GOD.
Adam was in the realm of glory, yet he still needed an interpersonal relationship in another human, made suitable for him to become what GOD created him to be. Do not think that being close to GOD is enough. You will still need people who are suitable to you, men and women planted in your life by the LORD, who have been made adaptable and complementary for you to make your closeness to GOD meaningful to you.
There are so many whose walk with GOD and closeness with Him has not been translated into anything meaningful on earth. They look so degrading, detected, inglorious and very despicable despite their closeness to GOD. They are always in lack, always begging and always in debts despite their closeness to GOD.
BUT ONE ALSO DOUBTS IF THEY ARE REALLY CLOSE TO GOD OR JUST PLAYING RELIGION.
A genuine closeness to GOD should impart into us the character or wisdom to use in cultivating successful interpersonal relationships. It should not isolate us from people because we want to leave a consecrated and holy life. Everyone knows that with smart phones and other gadgets today, you can still live in sin even if you are alone. Being isolated will never make you holy. Or yes, it will not.
For instance, if being isolated makes one holy, there will be no masturbators in life. There will be no vain imaginations in life, and there will be no secret sin. All the priest and reverend sisters in monasteries will be holy angels. But the reverse is the case.
So many things that we see happen to people who cut themselves off from others to keep themselves pure, have proven that it is practical foolishness to isolate yourself from people to prevent contamination or from GOD given inter personal relationships because you do not want impurities.
We do not just cut ourselves from every human being on earth to keep ourselves pure, Do not forget, sin is living within every one of us. We spend time alone with GOD to build a strong spirit that will keep us pure even as we interact with people and maintain our interpersonal relationships.
Those who a close to GOD but far from divinely ordained interpersonal relationships (maybe because they do not want to contaminate themselves), are walking in foolishness not practical wisdom.
THEY WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TRANSLATE THEIR CLOSENESS TO GOD INTO SOMETHING MEANINGFUL FOR THEIR LIVES ON EARTH.
It is still not good for a man or woman who is very close to GOD or serious with his or her faith to be alone in life. We all need people to become persons that GOD has created us to be. That is the message of today.
Our devotional text says;
“Sing to God, sing praises to His name, cast up a highway for Him Who rides through the deserts—His name is the Lord—be in high spirits and glory before Him!
A father of the fatherless and a judge and protector of the widows is God in His holy habitation.
God places the solitary in families and gives the desolate a home in which to dwell; He leads the prisoners out to prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a parched land.” Psalm 68:4-6 AMPC
Genuine closeness to God will always translate into the right people showing up in your life. God will always place those who are close to Him in families so that they can be brought into prosperity. Let no one or spirit confuse you about that.
So, if your closeness to GOD is not translating into good relationships with fellow human beings or good people around your life, check what or who you are close with. It might not be GOD but something masquerading as GOD to you.
Our text says the true GOD places those who are in solitary in families or in a home where they are to dwell; the essence remains to bring them into prosperity. If the God you claim to be close with is not doing that, but telling you to stay away from every human being to avoid contamination, then you are in delusion.
Let no spirit tell you to be isolated to prevent contamination.
We were already contaminated through the fall of man. We only need to spend quality time with God regularly for Him to purify and keep us pure, and then receive the strength of spirit to remain pure even as we relate with others.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
He who willfully separates and estranges himself [from God and man] seeks his own desire and pretext to break out against all wise and sound judgment. Proverbs 18:1 AMPC