TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 8th October 2023)
“My son, attend to my words; consent and submit to my sayings. Let them not depart from your sight; keep them in the center of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, healing and health to all their flesh!
Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.
Put away from you false and dishonest speech, and willful and contrary talk put far from you. Let your eyes look right on [with fixed purpose], and let your gaze be straight before you. Consider well the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established and ordered aright.
Turn not aside to the right hand or to the left; remove your foot from evil.” Proverbs 4:20-27 AMP
WELCOME TO THE 281ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS
It is the first day of the week, and we bless the LORD for arranging it that we spend it in His presence. Week unto week we have been seeing His mercies, and experiencing His goodness. Today again, we shall all assemble at His feet in our different churches to start the week on a very good footing. But there are two things; do not gather among the spiritually dead, and do not gather among the living without a genuine hunger for GOD. Gathering in the right place and hunger for God will be a necessity.
The Bible says;
“As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, “Where is your God?” Psalm 42:1-3 NKJV
This scripture is a beautiful expression of hunger for God. It painted a vivid picture of what the Psalmist felt when that beautiful feeling of divine hunger hit him. Friend, there are no words to capture what people whose hearts are hungry for God do. There are no words to capture what they receive from Him, especially each time they appear before Him.
Based on what I have seen in scriptures, when people who are hungry for GOD gather in the right places of worship, they receive and carry home much more than their finite minds can grasp. There are things we receive from God when we gather in the right places of worship (by His definition), with a deep hunger for Him, that our minds cannot even know. In fact, most of what we receive from God each time we come into His presence is not known to any of us. It is the little we know that we talk about.
But what we do not know, is usually heavier than what our minds do grasp during the services; yes, much more than what our mouths can even talk about.
IT WAS IN THE LIGHT OF THIS THAT I BELIEVE, DAVID SAID;
“Blessed is the man you choose, and cause to approach you, that he may dwell in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, of your holy temple.” Psalms 65:4 NKJV
Indeed, blessed is he or she that God chooses and causes to approach Him, because He will not leave empty handed. He will go home with two classes of deposits from GOD; the known and unknown. The known is usually talked about but the unknown is not. The known is what was revealed to our senses during the services, while the unknown is what was not revealed to our senses but entered our lives.
It is what is revealed to our senses we talk about. But what is concealed form our senses we cannot talk about. Yet, God will make sure it springs forth in our lives. The Bible describes these known and unknown BLESSINGS that come from God’s presence to us, as “The goodness of God’s house.”
That is why it is dangerous to worship in dark places by God’s definition. When a Church is rooted in dark things, like money making spirit, sorcery, divination or other human agenda, you will still get unknown and unknown things when you worship there. For dark churches, the unknown is always worst and always hidden. You will never see it until God open your spiritual eyes. The known will be good and appealing to the needs of the people, but the unknown will be destruction to the eternal lives of the people.
That is why God raises voices like us, to Cry against dark churches. We are called to bring the Cry of His Holy Spirit on such churches to our generation, the way Ezekiel, Jeremiah and etc. did in their days! We Cry based on the unknown things they transmit into people’s lives. The word Cry within Biblical or prophetic context, does. not always mean shedding of tears but lifting up your voice with a Spirit induced passion to speak the word of the LORD.
Sadly, those who contend with us do so, because they are blind to what the LORD has granted us grace and mercy to see. It is very important to worship only in the house of God, not in a place with the appearance of the house of God. The house of God is not a building but the place of His manifest presence. It is not run like a political party, money-making machine, metaphysical cult or etc. It is run as a ground and pillar of truth where the spirits of just man are made perfect.
SO, MAKE SURE WHERE YOU WORSHIP IS A HOUSE OF GOD NOT A TENT OF ROBBERS.
When we come into the house of God, the place of His manifest presence, where the spirits of just men are made perfect, we are bound to go home with the goodness of His manifest presence. Yes, we are bound to go home with a seed that is designed to manifest as awesome power or terrible things in righteousness in our lives.
The Bible further said;
“By awesome deeds in righteousness you will answer us, O God of our salvation, you who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of the far-off seas;” Psalms 65:5 NKJV
It is what we carry from the presence of God that later manifest as His awesome deeds in our lives, especially as we face the daily challenges of life. Meaning, if there is no true presence of God to tarry and wait in until something is conceived, received or deposited into our spirits by God, there will be no awesome deeds of God in our lives.
Isaiah puts it this way;
“He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall,
But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:29-31 NKJV
Many of us do not know that we serve a God who delights in giving power to the weak. The Bible says He gives power to those who have no might, and increases their strength. Meaning, the secret of unending strength in Christ, is to make God’s presence our dwelling place.
THERE IS NO ONE WHO COMES INTO GOD’S PRESENCE THAT GOES AWAY EMPTY.
God will give them power in every area of weakness, especially if they maintain the protocol of His presence. When we come into the presence of God, we carry blessings from Him that manifest as power in our days or time of weakness. The blessings will become an inner strength within us, thereby preventing hell from prevailing over us and making us to faint or withdraw from following Christ.
I want to submit to us today that there are two realms of human existence, or two realm people live their lives from on the face of the earth. The two realms are revealed in the scripture bellow. The Bible says;
“For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will you allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalms 16:10-11 NKJV
As we can see in this scripture, the first spiritual realm people live from is the realm of hell called Sheol. This describes a realm where the presence of God cannot manifest or does not exist. David said “For you will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will you allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” If people live their earthly lives from the realm of hell, they will experience corruption, moral decay and etc. They will experience corruption or decay or a drop down in their finances, marriages, and etc.
The second realm people live their earthly lives form is the realm of the manifest presence of God.
The Bible says; “You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore”
There is a generation that lives their lives from the manifest presence of God. It is that generation that receive blessings from the LORD each time they appear before Him. The Bible described the blessing as the “Fullness of Joy” or “pleasure at His right hand.” There is also the revelation of the right path to follow in life, in case one is on a cross road. The Bible says God do show His people the path of life in His presence. However, most times what He shows is not visible to our senses. It is just buried in us. We will require to go home and live spiritually diligent lives for it to become manifest.
I want to submit to you that if you add spiritual diligence to your life, you will see what God buried in your life, during an encounter with Him come to your senses. As it comes to your senses, it will direct you on what to do to succeed in life. That is how we come into realms where good things buried in our lives, are made productive in us.
When we come into the reality of those things, we begin to order our conduct aright and experiencing the salvation of the LORD. It have been proven in scriptures that there is no generation that orders it conduct alright, that does not succeed in life. May we all walk in the light of God’s word this morning, in Jesus precious name. Amen!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY
“O God, behold our shield, and look upon the face of Your anointed. For a day in your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.
For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Psalms 84:9-11 NKJV