TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 1ST JULY 2023)**
Then the Lord said to him: “Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria.
Also, you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place.
It shall be that whoever escapes the sword of Hazael, Jehu will kill; and whoever escapes the sword of Jehu, Elisha will kill.
1 Kings 19:15-17 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 182ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
It’s our season of considering matters of divine destiny, and God has been faithful in speaking to us about that. It’s a fresh month, but the fresh waters of God’s revelation on destiny matters that started flowing last month have not ceased flowing.
Hence, we will continue, and not stop because it’s a new month. After all, God doesn’t live in time. He lives in eternity and rules through time, so time cannot be a limit to the flow of revelation knowledge.
Friend, there is no better time to keep yielding to the blessed Holy Spirit, than to teach us in the direction He has chosen other than now. We are in the days where some are giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of devils. But we chose to give heed to the Spirit of Truth, and the doctrine of Christ.
One of the requirements is to keep yielding to the Holy Spirit, and remaining teachable under the tutorship of the Anointing of the Holy One that He has given us.
The seed of divine destiny is in everyone, but for many, it can never be activated, until they keep bathing their spirits in streams of revelation knowledge like this one.
We just have to keep our divine destinies kicking through a constant and consistent encounter with Christ. That is what makes salvation or personal relationship with Jesus Christ the first thing a divine destiny will need to be fulfilled.
I therefore welcome you to a new month with more matters of divine destiny up for learning. Unlike the month of June, we will have 31 days this month. It is important that we understand that days are seeds sown into our lives by God, basically, to help us bring forth works of righteousness.
In other words, to work the works of the LORD God of Israel, who created and planted us on earth at such a time like this.
Jesus says, “I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day for the night comes when no man can work.” If He lives in us, we will be driven to do the same.
THAT IS WHERE THE APPLICATION OF WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE IN THE RELEASE OF DIVINE DESTINY COMES INTO PLAY.
“Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times and strength of salvation” say the LORD. Meaning we will never be strong and stable in the release of our divine destiny without divine wisdom and knowledge about our divine destiny.
That is one of the major principles that make these flows of truth important.
Simply put, no one can work the works of He that called us out of darkness into His marvelous light, until he has received adequate wisdom and knowledge on his assignment. That is why God has been speaking to us about the things our divine destiny will need to be unleashed.
The vision is to arm us with the wisdom and knowledge we need to gain stability in matters of divine destiny and possess the strength of salvation we need to unleash it.
We have seen eight things our divine destiny will need to be fulfilled in previous devotionals. Today we will be highlighting the ninth. God has promised to guide us in ways we should go and never allow us to be in the dark. That, He has been faithful in doing through these devotionals.
The ninth thing our divine destiny will need to be fulfilled is a spiritual midwife. I have said it before that divine destiny is like a pregnancy. Once a woman is pregnant, the services of a midwife will become inevitable. Once you come to the revelation of divine destiny, the services of a spiritual midwife will become inevitable.
No pregnant women can midwife herself into delivery. In same way no Child of divine destiny can midwife himself into bringing forth his destiny accurately. We will all need the impartations, prophetic skill, and apostolic directives of a midwife.
We will need imputes of a midwife that God raised and assigned to us.
Our devotional text today is full of revelation and insights that we can even put in a book. But this is a devotional, so we will scoop just a little of what it contains; we will glean enough to start the day with.
FIRST OF ALL, GOD WANTED TO FINALLY ELIMINATE BAAL WORSHIP IN ISRAEL.
He had a plan! In that plan four men were involved. Three were pregnant with the seed of divine destiny. One was already unleashing his own both as a prophet and a spiritual midwife. His name was Elijah!
The ones that were pregnant with divine destiny needed him to midwife them to delivery but they were not aware of any of that. Their names were: Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha. These guys never knew their lives were pregnant with the contents of a divine destiny, hence they never knew they needed a midwife.
First, they needed a prophet to tell them that.
They needed an encounter with a genuine prophetic mantle to know that. Today, you will need an encounter with the Spirit of Christ; because God who in sundry times spoke to us by His prophets, has these last days spoken to us by Christ Himself. The Holy Spirit is the replacement for the voice of the prophets of Old.
That is why prophetic ministry after the cross changed. It is no longer the way it was in time past.
Sadly, there are so many believers who are not aware of these things, neither are they aware that they are pregnant with great things from heaven; great content of divine destiny. These class of believers need an encounter with the voice of the Spirit directly or indirectly to know. They need the true prophetic voices of the Holy Spirit to stop them by the way and reveal to them what heaven has impregnated them with.
They need Him to decode it to them, the names and nature of the prophetic babies (prophetic content) of their divine destiny. If that does not happen, they will defeat their divine destiny! That was the situation Elisha, Hazael, and Jehu found themselves.
They were all successful in what they were doing; the other two were successful military Officers – generals and commanders of the armies of their respective nations.
ELISHA WAS A SUCCESSFUL MECHANIZED FARMER.
But like some of us now know, success in the wrong assignment will never lead to a divine fulfilment of one’s destiny. In God, we are called to die fulfilled, not successful the way the lost world defines it. The two are different.
Hazael, Jehu, and Elisha were destined to die successful, in their respective ventures before their call came, but not fulfilled. However, God in His infinite mercy stepped in to tell them they were pregnant and decoded the pregnancy to them by sending Elijah. Elijah’s assignment was to function as both a prophet and a spiritual midwife to these pregnant people.
A major highlight in our devotional text today says;
“Go, return on your way to the Wilderness of Damascus; and when you arrive, anoint Hazael as king over Syria. Also you shall anoint Jehu the son of Nimshi as king over Israel. And Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel Meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place.”
If you read this scripture carefully, you will discover a word God used on all three pregnant people. That word contains the specific job God assigned Elijah to do in their lives. That word is “Anoint.”
He was told to anoint each one of them to be what God has destined them to be! The word anoint, does not just imply pouring some Olive Oil on someone’s heads, as a symbol of the Holy Ghost. It holds deeper things than that. Hidden in it, are two important aspects of equipping, that every Child of divine destiny must go through, under the ministry of his or her God given prophetic midwife, to unleash his or her destiny.
The word anoint practically means point out their destiny to them; tell them what I have called them to do, train them to grasp it, and then commission them to do it. That was what God meant.
Sadly, Elijah succeeded in doing all that only to Elisha. He did not anoint the rest.
When Elisha would be commissioning them much later to unleash their destiny, it was too late for them to be trained the way he was trained. They had to be commissioned as untrained and untamed men. The result was not good. Jehu did well, but ended not too well.
HAZAEL, ON THE OTHER HAND HAD TO BECOME A PAIN TO ISRAEL.
They all had a glorious destiny, but lack of a proper prophetic midwife made them to release a destiny that had elements of darkness. That will be the lot of any man or woman of an amazing destiny content but without a proper midwife.
If you have a divine destiny to fulfil, you will need a prophetic midwife to help you fulfil it. You will need a Paul as a Timothy or Titus, or other people whose divine destinies he midwifed. Do not allow pride, ignorance, or arrogance make you think you do not need a man of GOD sent to you just for that purpose.
What are we saying this morning? The message of our devotional this morning is simple; your divine destiny will need a spiritual midwife to be unleashed.
It will need an Elijah to train you in the school of the Spirit and commission you into your assignment. If you try to pursue divine destiny without a midwife to help you, your destiny will never be release accurately. What happened to Hazael and Jehu may happen to you!
The primary purpose of what we call fathering, is for the ministry of spiritual midwife to be unleashed to a people pregnant with the contents of a divine destiny, so that they can release their destiny. Sadly, that is not what we see today.
Most spiritual fathers can not accurately tell what their spiritual Children carry. They do not know the blueprint of God for their lives. Hence misleading them ignorantly and terribly. Yes, they assign them jobs to do in Church and sometimes people to marry to increase the statistics of those they wedded, but do not know God’s blueprint for their lives like Elijah knew for Elisha.
I have seen some so-called spiritual fathers who actually use marriage, as good as it is, to ruin the lives of men and women of great destiny.
Like apostle Paul did many years ago, permit me to say, *“there are no many fathers” today. *We just have many instructors and ‘boy’ leaders, forcing people to call them ‘papa.’ We do not have many fathers.
When I say boy leaders, I am not referring to chronological age. David was older than Saul in spiritual matters. Boy leaders, are spiritually immature Church leaders, who force believers to treat them as spiritual fathers, but have no strong content to serve as a midwife to them.
That is why a boy leader will never be able to equip you to fulfill your destiny. Just as King Saul could not serve in the destiny of David, a boy leader would never be able to serve as a prophetic midwife for you. He or she will waste you away.
You will need a David, with capacity to turn debtors, discontented people, and distressed souls, into warriors, in a short time of 13 years.
If you will fulfill your destiny today, walk away from Saul and go meet David in the wilderness. David was a catalyst to the release of divine destiny. But Saul was not. He wasted the lives of the 3,000 men God touched to joined and strengthen his kingdom on the day of his manifestation.
Child of God, there are no many fathers these days. So, you will not need a Saul, but a David. Saul had a towering figure of a responsible spiritual father, but he was not. But David had none, yet he was the one.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR TODAY;
I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you.
For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Therefore I urge you, imitate me.
For this reason I have sent Timothy to you, who is my beloved and faithful son in the Lord, who will remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach everywhere in every church. 1 Corinthians 4:14-17 NKJV