TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 20TH JUNE 2023)**
“But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things, for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things; so the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel.” Joshua 7:1 NKJV
“So the Lord said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff.
Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies but turned their backs on their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you.” Joshua 7:10-12 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 171ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Obviously, the days appointed for human life seem to be running faster than ever. I can’t believe that we have just hit the 171ST day of the year.
This on its own, is a message that the earth as we know it will soon be no more. Bible prophecy has it that, there will be a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. What God is executing now, is the last phase of His redemptive plan for mankind, to bring the saved and sanctified to that earth. He is doing a quick work that will be cut short and finished in righteousness.
We have been looking at matters of divine destiny. Yesterday was the day two of our 2023 Destiny Matters Power Conference. We looked at few kingdom truths on destiny matters. We discovered that there is natural destiny and there is divine destiny.
Natural destiny is guided and controlled by factors like place of birth, where one grew up, education or lack of it, natural upbringing and values in life (either negative or positive). It can also be controlled by people’s relationship with the dark world. When it’s controlled by that, events that will be happening in a person’s life, will be organized or orchestrated by a mixture of natural and demonic factors.
But divine destiny is exclusively guided and controlled by the LORD. Among the many details we saw, we discovered that natural destiny can be manipulated by the devil, but divine destiny cannot. Natural destiny is man-made, and sometimes demon induced, but divine destiny is God-made.
Divine destiny has no place for the devil. It operates from realms where the devil has no access to.
On this platform, we have shared some snippets of what our divine destiny is. We have said, among other things, it is the reason why we are on earth. But that definition sound more like the definition of a divine purpose. Yes, a man’s divine purpose is part of his divine destiny, because divine purpose is a pre-determined event that God organized, before the foundation of the world, that it happens in a man’s life.
SO, YOUR PROPHETIC PURPOSE IS PART OF YOUR DIVINE DESTINY.
By definition, the phrase divine destiny describes the course of events in our lives as organized or structured by GOD, to fulfill the purpose or purposes He wants us to fulfill on earth, or to play a role or roles He wants us to play in His eternal plans for mankind.
Such events include, encounters with Him, our salvation, a marriage born or ran by a Holy Spirit led decision, a job provided by the LORD, becoming a member of a church through divine encounter, pursuing a career under the strict guide of the Holy Spirit, etc.
The events are usually structured by GOD, in such a way that you end up fulfilling a divine purpose or playing a role in God’s eternal plans for mankind, after they may have happened to you. These are the things we opened up on the second day of the conference with.
We also defined what it means to fulfill your destiny.
You can get all that from yesterday’s message. One part that stood out is the necessity of divine presence to the release of divine destiny – because the events have to be orchestrated or organized by God. So, you and I will always need His presence to see them happen. We will never experience them outside His manifest presence.
Outside His manifest presence, we will step down into the realm of natural destiny; a realm that can be controlled by man or devils.
This is where you find people God destined to be great, becoming small, or becoming great in the kingdom of darkness or men instead. You find gospel artists that God destined to sing for Him, choosing rather to pursue a natural destiny of entertaining those who are trapped in the evil and corrupt system of this world, and making a fortune out of it.
I am told that most of the leading secular artist from Nigeria all began in the Church. I believe they were destined by the LORD to bring honor to His name, but chose a different path, and are now fulfilling a natural destiny, that has made them stars of the dark kingdom. You can only fulfill a divine destiny when you are filled and guided by God’s divine presence.
ANYTHING OUTSIDE THAT WILL BE NATURAL AND SOME TIMES DEMONIC.
Understand that, whenever you choose to pursue a natural destiny, you will never experience the fulfillment of divine destiny. The events that would be happening in your life will never be organized or structured by God. They will be organized and structured either by you, or man-made systems and strategies, or demonic forces contracted due to the desperation to succeed, etc.
People have actually become great through the pursuit of natural destinies, but they missed out in matters of divine destiny. The Michael Jacksons of this world, the Hitlers of this world, the great but godless kings, authors, inventors, military men and women of this world, and many more whose stories litters our history books.
Sadly, most of them are in hell today!
Every human has to choose which destiny they want to fulfill; is it natural or divine. One has no guarantee of eternal rest with Christ, but the other has. One will be exalted among men, but it will be abomination in the sight of God. The other could be diminished among men, but will be celebrated in Heaven.
If you want to fulfill a divine destiny, then you must make having the presence of God in your life, and allowing Him to fill and guide you your ultimate desire. You must avoid all Achan tendencies for they will expel us from the presence of the LORD, and bring us to the natural plane that can be plagued with death, destruction and all that.
That brings us to our devotional text for the day. The text says;
“But the children of Israel committed a trespass regarding the accursed things, for Achan the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took of the accursed things; so the anger of the Lord burned against the children of Israel.” Joshua 7:1 NKJV
“So the Lord said to Joshua: “Get up! Why do you lie thus on your face? Israel has sinned, and they have also transgressed My covenant which I commanded them. For they have even taken some of the accursed things, and have both stolen and deceived; and they have also put it among their own stuff.
Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they have become doomed to destruction. Neither will I be with you anymore, unless you destroy the accursed from among you.” Joshua 7:10-12 NKJV
IN THE DAYS OF THE BIBLE ACHAN WAS A PERSON, BUT IN OUR DAYS ACHAN IS A TENDENCY; A LEANING TOWARDS A PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTIC.
There are characters that would not allow the presence of the LORD to rest upon your life for the release of your destiny. If you lean towards them, you will be expelled from the presence of the LORD; I mean, His active presence. We can find those things in what Achan did.
The question now is what did he do? The Bible says, he committed a trespass. Trespassing, is one thing we should not lean to as Christians. One trespass can bring a decade of ruin to our lives.
What is trespass? Trespass is going beyond the restrictions of the Almighty. The Bible is littered with such restrictions. There are sexual restrictions, moral restrictions, restrictions on the use of the tongue, restrictions in the areas of marriage and family life, restrictions in how to serve the LORD, and how not to serve the LORD.
There are a whole lot of restrictions. But many in our age and time are not aware. Either you know them or not, the rule remains the same. It makes it clear that if you want to live under the shadow of the Almighty, do not go beyond the restrictions of the Almighty.
Whenever we go beyond the restrictions of the Almighty, we lose His shadow or active presence in our lives. When we lose His active presence, it will affect our divine destiny, and bad things will begin to happen to us. The glorious things God had organized and structured that they happen, will no longer happen in our lives, leading to bareness, toiling, retrogression, stagnation, suffering, etc.
We can trespass in so many ways. For instance, God said in His word, we should not be yoked together with unbelievers. If we therefore go yoke with them, especially through marriage, we have trespassed, and His active presence in our lives could be lost. The events He organized and structured before the foundation of the world to happen to us, would never happen. Consequently, we will not be able to fulfill any purpose He may have created us to fulfill.
GOD ALSO PLACED RESTRICTIONS ON SEXUAL RELATIONS.
If you read Leviticus 18 and other related scriptures, you will see the restrictions. If we go beyond them and begin to have sex with whoever we are attracted to, we are going beyond the restrictions of the Almighty, and we will lose His shadow in our lives.
Also, if we go beyond the restrictions He placed on property ownership, and begin to take what belong to others, the same thing will happen to us. When we take what should be dedicated to the LORD, like Achan did, it is trespass and it will ruin badly; we will end up loosing the active presence of the LORD, thereby loosing the manifestation of things GOD has structured that they happen to us.
The Bible says Achan stole something from the treasures that the LORD has said should be dedicated to Him. He touched something that belonged to Babylon. The result was expulsion of Israel from the presence of God. Whenever we touch the spirit of Babylon, we will lose the Spirit of GOD; we will be expelled from the shadow of the Almighty.
Achan today can also be a person with the inclination or tendencies of the behavior of the Achan of the Bible. If you expose your life to such people, they will make you do things that will expel you from the active presence of God; the shadow of the Almighty that you need in order to see things that He has structured to happen to you, happening to you.
There are things that when we do, will not just affect us, but many others, it depends on who we are and what role we are playing in God’s end time plans, or in the lives of others. The Bible made it clear that Israel dispensed so much glory when they had no Achan in manifestation. But when they did, they lost it. Their enemies became too strong for them.
Friend, our enemies are only as powerful as the absence of God’s glory in our life. In other words, the absence of God’s glory in our lives is the reason our enemies are more powerful than us. We must therefore, get back to the shadow of the Almighty! We must get back to where our enemies will be trembling before the presence of God we carry. It is part of our divine destiny!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR TODAY;
“Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the God of Jacob, who turned the rock into a pool of water, the flint into a fountain of waters” Psalms 114:7-8 NKJV