TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 2ND JUNE 2023)
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying:
“Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all these people, to the land which I am giving to them — the children of Israel.
Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Joshua 1:1-4, 8 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 153RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
We give God the glory for giving us another day! This is the day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it. Daily He loads us with benefits. May the benefits of today reach every one of us in Jesus’ precious name. Amen!
We thank God for His written word, the Bible. It is indeed, a book of life for this side of eternity. It is not like the Book of Life in eschatology (a book that will be used to determine the eternal destiny of people in the age to come), but a book that gives life to our faith, visions, walk with God, hopes, prayer and all we do as believers in Christ.
Our devotional text this morning has one key verse that we did not capture in it – a verse that is worthy of our attention. That verse says;
“No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.” Joshua 1:5 NKJV
Sometimes, you will never know how God will be with you until He points you to someone He has been with.
You will never know how He will fight for you until He points you to someone He has fought for. Yes, you will never know how He has forgiven you, or will provide for you, until He points you to someone He has forgiven or provided for, especially in His word, the Bible. That is why I call it the Book of life for us on this side of eternity.
Friend, if you have a destiny to fulfill, God would have to give you someone to look at, for you to know how He has decided to be with you.
For Joshua, that person was Moses, one we can say was his spiritual source or authority. For you and I, that person could be your spiritual authority or father. It could be anyone who has walked with God in the past or is walking with Him in the present.
In other words, you will need a person that will function as a pattern for you, so you can see things God wants to show you about your life or destiny, by just looking at the person’s life.
THE INTENT IS USUALLY FOR YOU TO BECOME WHAT HE HAS CALLED YOU TO BE.
God will have to stand on that pattern to be speaking to you, giving you direction in life or ministry.
In my beginning days of life and ministry, I had so many people who functioned that way in my life, some for one destiny season, others for more than one. For instance, at the start of my journey, it was my salvation and ministry fathers in the faith that He used.
If you have an assignment to fulfill in God, a destiny to bring forth, understand that there will be a person in your life that will carry the photograph of how God wants your life to be in His will.
Yesterday we looked at one thing that our divine destiny will need to be fulfilled, and we said, our divine destiny will need God given people to be fulfilled. One of such classes of people, is a man or woman whose life has been used by the LORD, to draw a pattern of how He wants you to live your life.
If you are too proud to submit, it would be difficult to tap into that dimension of God.
If you are humble, teachable, and submissive, you will always be blessed with such people in every season of your life. The Spirit of God will inspire you to find the details in their lives, very helpful. Yes, He will use them to play a major role in your life, not just the role of being a pattern to you, but the role of being a road map to follow, in order to actualize God’s predetermined plans for your life.
It’s been our season of looking into matters of divine destiny. Doubtlessly, God has been so gracious in releasing insights and things to absorb into our spirits these two days already.
TAKE WHAT HAVE BEEN COMING SINCE YESTERDAY VERY SERIOUSLY. YOUR DESTINY WILL NEED KEY KINGDOM PEOPLE TO BE FULFILLED.
Now, apart from needing people, your divine destiny will also need what I call “A DOING WORD FROM THE LORD” to be fulfilled. In other words, a word from God that we must be doing on daily basis until destiny is fulfilled.
Such words, are not just the common words we hear here and there. They are destiny words that if not obeyed on daily bases, no plan of God for our lives will be fulfilled, no matter how accurate or authentic it may be.
The Bible admonished us saying, “be doers of the word and not hearers only.” I believe this is not just referring to the everyday word we read or hear from God, but the very destiny related words that must be acted upon on daily basis until destiny is fulfilled.
When God was commissioning Joshua for ministry, one major instruction He gave him, is what our devotional text this morning captured. That is the kind of word am referring to – a word that a destiny person must keep acting upon, especially on daily basis, until destiny is fulfilled.
A major highlight of the text said;
“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8 NKJV
If you look at this scripture carefully, you will see the “DOING WORD” that GOD gave to Joshua, to be acting upon on daily basis, until his destiny was fulfilled. He obeyed, acted upon the word, until it was fulfilled.
Now, if you look at the content of the verse, you will discover that Joshua’s success in the release of his divine destiny was not anchored on sowing financial seeds into another ministry. It was not anchored on even prayer and fasting – as good as it is to pray or fast. It was anchored on doing the word of the LORD.
Now, don’t get me wrong, giving money to push the kingdom of GOD forward, or praying and fasting for the same, is very important. But when it comes to the release of divine destiny, one’s life must be attached to a *“DOING WORD”*from the LORD.
Sadly, lying preachers have reduced everything to giving some money, but in the beginning it was not so. If you give money towards the work of GOD, fast and pray, but live a life of rebellion (a life that is not in harmony with the word of the LORD for your life, or with your prophetic destiny),there will be no progress.
DESTINY IS UNLEASHED THROUGH IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE TO THE VOICE OR WORD OF THE LORD.
The message here is, it willtake a doing to unleash divine destiny and have good success, not just a hearing. In other words, if you do not add Holy-Spirit-led-scriptural-based-actions to your divine destiny, it will not be fulfilled.
It is people who do the word of God, that end up changing the world for God. It is people who walk in complete obedience, to the voice or word of the LORD, that will be remembered for the great things God used them to do. It takes total obedience to the voice and word of the LORD to unleash your divine destiny, or move it from the declaration to the manifestation.
When Saul, the first king of Israel became king, prophecies made it clear that his Kingdom was to continue to the next generations. That was his prophetic destiny.
He was favored by the LORD to be Israel’s first King and lead them, maybe, from generation to generation. But that divine plan for His life was not fulfilled. He killed it using the internal power of rebellion. He was not part of the breed that could do the word of the LORD. Hence, losing everything!
The first word God gave him to do, was an instruction to wait for seven days at Gilgal, until Samuel the prophets comes to establish his kingdom over Israel. He actually waited, but could not complete his waiting.
The worse thing about his waiting was him going ahead to do a sacrifice that only a prophet was ordained to do. That was how he began to cancel his divine destiny. The next word He could not do was a command from GOD to him, to completely annihilate the Amalekites. God had sent Samuel to him with this instruction;
“Thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt.”
“Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and do not spare them. But kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel, and donkey.'” 1 Samuel 15:2-3 NKJV
But this again he could not do. He obeyed the LORD but partially. Partial obedience is no obedience in God’s justice system.
IT IS ACTUALLY DISOBEDIENCE IN HIS SIGHT.
If you obey the LORD partially, or do his word partially, you will leave gaps for His enemies to stand and hinder His kingdom at a later date. That is one of the many reasons God does not count partial obedience as obedience.
Men may count it so but God does not count it so. Don’t forget Isaiah says “as the Heavens are higher than the Earth, so are His ways higher than our ways.”
What is the message this morning? The message is simple! Your divine destiny, is full of divine instructions to be obeyed, and divine commands to be executed. If you do not develop the mindset of swiftly doing the word of the LORD, you will abort God’s plan for your life, and come to a tragic end like Saul. That is the message!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
Now the word of the Lord came to Samuel, saying, “I greatly regret that I have set up Saul as king, for he has turned back from following Me, and has not performed My commandments.” And it grieved Samuel, and he cried out to the Lord all night.
So when Samuel rose early in the morning to meet Saul, it was told Samuel, saying, “Saul went to Carmel, and indeed, he set up a monument for himself; and he has gone on around, passed by, and gone down to Gilgal.” Then Samuel went to Saul, and Saul said to him, “Blessed are you of the Lord! I have performed the commandment of the Lord.”
But Samuel said, “What then is this bleating of the sheep in my ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?” And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites; for the people spared the best of the sheep and the oxen, to sacrifice to the Lord your God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.”
Then Samuel said to Saul, “Be quiet! And I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night.” And he said to him, “Speak on.”
So Samuel said, “When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?
Now the Lord sent you on a mission, and said, ‘Go, and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.’ Why then did you not obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil, and do evil in the sight of the Lord?”
And Saul said to Samuel, “But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and brought back Agag king of Amalek; I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites.
But the people took of the plunder, sheep and oxen, the best of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal.”
So Samuel said: “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams.
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, He also has rejected you from being king.” 1 Samuel 15:10-23 NKJV