TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 3RD SEPTEMBER 2023)
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He guards all his bones; not one of them is broken.” Psalms 34:19-20 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 246TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS
There is a song we used to sing, in our local Assemblies of God Church in Abuja Nigeria, many years ago. It says, “When I think of the goodness of Jesus, and all He has done for me. My very soul shall sing, Hallelujah! Praise GOD for saving me!”
How beautiful it is to start a day with a song like that, irrespective of what might be happening to you. You could be feeling hopeless, poor, depressed, discontented, or unworthy, recounting the goodness and doings of the LORD has a way of changing things.
You see, thoughts are designed to determined feelings. That is why it is important to be mindful of what you think. Waking up to think of God’s goodness, and all He has done for you, has a way of lighting up your day. It takes care of your feelings and make them beautiful and
pleasant.
A pleasant feel is a sign of a shift in atmosphere. Atmospheres experience a shift for many reasons. One of it is because of the presence of an invisible being, either dark or divine. When it is divine, it sends a pleasant and peaceful feel into your emotions. A deep sense of rest enters your spirit, and healing or some other forms of miraculous moves of God could even break out.
Now, when we begin to think of God’s goodness, and what the LORD may have done in our lives, or the lives of others, His presence will begin to permeate our atmospheres, spiritual or natural, or even both. The reflection of the shift, usually occurs in our spirits and souls, resulting in a peaceful and pleasant feel, that replaces any hopeless and depressing feeling.
THIS MORNING, WE WILL CONTINUE WITH OUR DISCOURSE ON SCHOOLING IN THE THINGS OF GOD.
Ignorance comes when we ignore knowledge, and knowledge comes when we ignore ignorance. You become one when you ignore the other. I hope you understand me. The fastest way to recover from anything in life is to be schooled in the things of God concerning that thing! I am yet to see someone walking in the ignorance of the things of God, recover from anything.
I am yet to see restoration come through the ignorance of the things of GOD. Job was restored after being schooled in the things of GOD; that is right in the furnace of the afflictions he suffered. That is why, no matter what you are going through, if you are going to break through, you must not depart from a schooling or learning posture.
Understand that, if there is no schooling in the things of GOD, there will be no restoration. When Job was going through his sufferings (his terrible health and economic situation), he was receiving lessons from God too. The lessons were what kept him. They helped in keeping His faith intact. They were the reason he recovered and got all restored to him.
His own was a school of hard things. A school of hard things is schooling in the things of God in the midst of suffering and adversity. He said with his own mouth.
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Job 42:5-6 NKJV
This statement came after days of lessons in the school of hard things that God passed him through. It brought him to the very place where schooling in the things of God always bring people to – the place of repentance.
Yes, if you find yourself always repenting, then you are in a school; a school of the Spirit where people come into the knowledge of the things of GOD. Students of the things of God always find something about God they have to repent about.
To repent begins with changing what you think. When you become a student of the things of GOD, you will begin to change what you had thought about GOD, as you come into fresh knowledge of who He is. That is why, when you hear people saying, “we do not need to be repenting every now and then,” just know that they are learning nothing fresh in God.
WHEN YOU LEARN SOMETHING FRESH IN GOD, YOU CHANGE YOUR MIND CONCERNING WHAT YOU HELD ON TO BEFORE – YOU REPENT.
The word “repent” simply means, a change of mind that leads to proper alignment with God. It is usually the product of a deep school session with God. So, when people say, “we do not need to repent over and over,” they are not students of the things of GOD. None of them is schooling in the things of GOD.
Before his predicament, Job learnt about GOD through others. But during his predicament, he learnt about GOD by himself. That is what happens to every child of God. Your intimate knowledge of God increases when you turn any adversity you might be going through into school sessions – sessions of schooling in the things of God.
That is why discipleship is the best form of living. It prepares you for but the rainy and blessed days. In another perspective, it seems God allowed the devil to take all that made Job’s earthly life beautiful to get his attention. In other words, to have him schooled in His things – fresh things Job would not have grasped if he was in his prosperity.
It’s amazing how God will allow the devil to take away our joy, finances, children, mothers, fathers, jobs, happiness and all that make life a meaning, in a moment, just to get our total attention to be schooled.
A generation of righteous men and women who do not know that the purpose of the afflictions of the righteous is schooling, and coming out of it seeing God, or having all distances between us and God eliminated, will fail. As earlier stated, for Job, it was a school of hard things.
He woke up one morning, and by evening none of what He woke up with was around. It was all buried – Children, streams of income, friends, the love and care of a wife and his health. But it enrolled him into a school, to bring him into afresh knowledge of the things of God.
It also eliminated the distance that existed between Him and God. That was why He said, “I use to know you be the hearing of the ear. But now, my eye sees you.” There was no longer a distance between Job and God.
Many believers today, maintain distance relationships with God and expect Him to bless their lives. God cannot bless the lives of those who are far from Him. You would have to come close or forever remain that way. Some stay far and spend their day sending people to go meet God and collect their blessings for them.
THEY SEND PREACHERS AND SOME OTHERS.
Yes, the Bible says we should pray for one another, but there are significant blessings that will never come your way except you kill any distance that exist between you and God. There are blessings that will never come your way, except you stop placing some preacher to function as the one to go between you and God.
When God want to change that system of Christianity in your life, He will allow hard things that no one can pray you out of to happen to you. He will bring you through a season of adversity that you can only come out from if you get enrolled in the school of the Spirit and start learning the things of God.
He will bring you into a season of pain that you must remain faithful and loyal enough to be seeking Him, and the knowledge of who He is, with the whole of your heart. That is the only way you can end up being blessed at the end like Job, by coming into the rich fulfillment of your adversity. David said,
“For You, O God, have tested us; you have refined us as silver is refined. You brought us into the net; you laid affliction on our backs. You have caused men to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; but you brought us out to rich fulfillment.” Psalms 66:10-12 NKJV
Sadly, many who are in this season of GOD are in wrong churches, where the things of GOD are not taught. They are rather listening to dark teachings.
They are being passed through deliverance rituals; given this prayer to pray, this oil to use, this salt, water, candle, or prayer clothe to pray with, or this perfume or miracle agent to use. But they are not really having a problem. They are only being passed through a season by GOD. That is why you will never find any of them coming into God’s rest for them.
What they ought to do is to turn their adversity into a school session; a season of being schooled in the things of God.
Child of God, there is a “school of hard things.” It is part of God’s redemptive plans for us all. It is part of the schools of the Spirit. This is one school in the spirit with no human teacher: just you, your GOD and your pains. This is deep my friends. It’s not a truth for the carnally minded. It is a development process for the Spiritually minded.
FURTHERMORE, THE PSALMIST SAID.
“You have shown your people hard things; you have made us drink the wine of confusion. You have given a banner to those who fear you, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” Psalms 60:3-4 NKJV
From this scripture, it’s clear that the prophetic purpose for attending this school is not just to bring us to rich fulfilment, but to make us a banner or standard for a generation. You will never do significant things in God without quality time in the school of hard things.
Over ninety percent of my ministry flows from the spiritual fountain that was created in me when I spend years learning, and crying unto God, in His School of Hard Things. No one with a true apostolic voice really got it in the place of comfort. There is a death for any delivery that will transform moral landscapes.
When you are admitted into this school, prosperity will never be in sight, yet God’s manifest presence will be in your life. It will be there, just to protect the bones of His plans for your life from breaking, and to use your pains to bring you to the place of deep repentance in Him – the place of having your eyes opened to see Him in the fullness of His glory. Hallelujah!
Some of us just came out of it; others are yet to even come into it. While some others are currently in it. It is a scary school to attend but you will always graduate with rich fulfilment.
Our devotional text says,
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He guards all his bones; not one of them is broken.”
The first time I read this scripture, I wondered why God will allow affliction to come upon the righteous. It is comforting to be suffering for your sins. At least you will take solace in the fact that you caused your problems. But to be suffering with no sin to tell you, “I am responsible for your problems,” like Job suffered, can be very painful. And the Bible says many are such afflictions. But the difference is, the LORD delivers us from them all. Hallelujah! That is the school of hard things!
As we bring this to a close, understand that there are things we will never learn about God in a teaching service. We will only learn them in God’s School of Hard Things. People who are ignorant of this, will hardly come into divine restoration. If Job had not caught the revelation and saw God in His time of learning (through hard things), he would not have ended the way he did.
What are we saying this morning? There is a blessing we cannot pick from any place in God except in His School of Hard Things. There are dimensions of us that will never come out except we have passed through this school. That is the very dimension that creation is waiting for, according to scriptures.
I pray for you today that you will not be part of the generation that will give up on God when He admits you in His school of hard things.
I pray that the Holy Spirit use this devotional to preserve your relationship with God. Amen!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURAL PASSAGE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY:
“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
“For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.” Romans 8:19-23 KJV