TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 26TH JANUARY 2024)
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.” Genesis 28:15 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 26TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Glory be to the LORD God of Israel, who is also the LORD of the New Testament Church, for keeping us alive to see the 26th day of the year. It is out of His mercies that we are not consumed, for His compassion fails not.
As I have always said, there are so many things that are against us the redeemed of the LORD. The Bible says, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers them from they all.
If there were no redemption and deliverance programs in God’s kingdom, the afflictions of the righteous would have been consuming the righteous from day to day, leaving none of us on the face of the earth. But thank God, that is not the situation.
God is keeping us alive because He is an investor and we are His investment. He will always protect His investment, which we are.
There is so much He has put in us that needs to be revealed so that His redemptive plans for mankind can be executed. There is so much in our destinies that needs to be fulfilled.
That is why destiny matters should be the reason for our living from day to day, not the meeting of our human needs. There is so much the LORD has declared in our lives that needs to be made manifest. Yes, so much. And when it becomes manifest, it will meet our human needs.
Sadly, so many of us are still very far from the manifestation of things the LORD has declared in our lives. We need to successfully move from the season of declaration to the season of manifestation, and this year could be it.
However, if there is one thing we will always need, to move from the place of the declaration to the place of the manifestation, that thing is sensitivity to the presence of God.
A people who cannot sense the presence of GOD or any other eternal realities necessary for the fulfillment of their divine destiny or the manifestation of what God might have declared in their lives may never come into the manifestation.
THAT IS WHY SATAN LOVES PUTTING US IN A STATE OF NO SENSITIVITY TO THE SPIRIT OR PRESENCE OF GOD.
The word of the LORD for our lives must be fulfilled. Our destinies must not remain hanging. I am persuaded that someone is going to break free from certain shackles this year, mount up with wings like eagles against all odds, and reach out to fulfill divine destiny. That person could be you!
The greatest desire of the evil one is to make sure that you live a life that is not fulfilling God’s plans for it.
Only then can he stop God’s kingdom advance through you and multiply iniquity on the face of the earth. Satan’s greatest dread is men and women who are walking in spiritual sensitivity, accurately walking in their divine destiny, and seeing what God declared over their lives coming to pass.
He fears such people, and hence would not want you to be part of them.
Actually, it takes spiritual sensitivity to accurately walk in or execute a divine destiny. Spiritual sensitivity is to us spiritually what the natural senses are to us physically.
If you are not sensitive to the Spirit, you will not know when God is doing what. You will not be able to network with angels or the glory of God to unleash your destiny or see the things God declares over your life come to pass.
You will be taking decisions that will put you on separate paths with the Holy Spirit, and reduce God’s moves in your life. Lack of divine sensitivity is one reason many do not fulfill their destiny or see the word of the LORD come to pass in their lives.
The fulfillment of our divine destiny or manifestation of things declared over our lives will require an ever-abiding presence of God on us, to shape our perspectives daily and empower us to be what God has said we should be.
It will put God’s worker-angels to work in other to help us against evil forces and make it possible for us to unleash His glory in our lives, and do it in such a way that we can successfully move from divine declarations to divine manifestations.
IT WAS IN THE SPIRIT OF THIS THAT GOD SAID TO JACOB,
“Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”
You must believe this word to the point of personalizing it. Make it one of your words for the year 2024. Jacob is no longer here; you and I are here. So, the word is for us. It is assuring us of divine presence for the year.
Divine presence is the greatest asset of divine destiny. If you do not have it, you will be doomed. But if you have it, you will be lifted irrespective of who may or may not be in your life.
Men who know how important divine presence is to divine destiny will prefer men leaving them and God staying with them, than God leaving them and men staying with them. They will prefer losing sponsors and financiers to losing the presence of God.
They do not trade “time with God” with “time with men” even if it will earn them money.
To them, if God is present it does not matter who is absent, and if God is absent it does not matter who is present. They know how to do away with people who want to remove God’s ever-abiding presence from their lives without sentiments, no matter how rich, well connected, or close they are.
They will look around them to spot people with the Achan spirit, and if they find them, they will readily move them out of their lives without sentiments.
Now, to those who may not know who Achan was; Achan was a man in the days of Joshua who knew how to send God’s manifest presence away from his people.
He was gifted at doing what God says should not be done especially in critical seasons when the glory is needed. His specialization was to do things that will make the manifest glory of God disappear from the lives of destiny people, and leave them with no divine helping hands to unleash their destiny.
There are such people in every Church or Assembly of God’s people today. You could even be yoked to one, maybe because of the money, honor, or any other thing you are getting from him or her.
This breed of people may love you but they also know how to bring and retain devils in your life.
THEY KNOW HOW TO BRING DEVILS BUT DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BRING AND RETAIN GOD’S PRESENCE IN YOUR LIFE.
Like I stated, many men and women of divine destiny are sadly yoked to this kind of people spiritually and otherwise.
They have them as husbands, wives, Children, business partners, sponsors, pastors, prophets, Bishops, etc. That is why their lives are not experiencing the glory of God.
If you will enjoy the presence of God, if you will see the manifest glory that your destiny needs to be unleashed, you must have the courage to tell Achan to go away from you. God’s manifest presence will never be felt where Achan dwells.
He abandons people who are yoked together with men and women who are good at touching the accursed things. That is where spiritual sensitivity comes in.
If you are not sensitive, you will not be able to locate your Achans and do away with them. Not just that, if you are not sensitive in the spirit, you will not even be able to sense the presence of God, consequently not be in the know of the Achan phenomenon.
I know that phenomenon is strange to 90 percent of present-day Christians because most of us lack the spiritual senses to know or sense the manifest presence of God. We are not into that kind of Christianity. To many, religious noise and shouts in Church are the presence of God.
Friend, for the ever-abiding manifest presence of God to be with you, spiritual sensitivity to the presence of God must be developed. One thing that it will help you to do is this, it will help you sense the Achans around you and deal with them scripturally. That is the message of today’s devotional.
My prayer for you is that you open your spirit to see what the LORD is saying to you this day.
You may be worshiping in an Achan Church, married to an Achan man or woman, or working in an Achan place, or doing some other things with Achan people, the rule remains, if you will see God doing what He says He will do in your life, you must develop a faith position to overcome the Achan dimension.
It’s influence over you must go away.
Many know about Lot because of what he did to Abraham, but very few know about Achan. Achan is more dangerous than Lot!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY.
“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
“Then Joshua, and all Israel with him, took Achan the son of Zerah, the silver, the garment, the wedge of gold, his sons, his daughters, his oxen, his donkeys, his sheep, his tent, and all that he had, and they brought them to the Valley of Achor.
And Joshua said, “Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day.” So all Israel stoned him with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones.
Then they raised over him a great heap of stones, still there to this day. So the Lord turned from the fierceness of His anger. Therefore the name of that place has been called the Valley of Achor to this day.” Joshua 7:24-26 NKJV