THE CRY OF THE SPIRIT DEVOTIONALS – BY RICHARD E. S. TAKIM

TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 20TH FEBRUARY 2024)

“And so she departed, and went to the man of God at Mount Carmel. So it was, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to his servant Gehazi, “Look, the Shunammite woman!

Please run now to meet her, and say to her, ‘Is it well with you? Is it well with your husband? Is it well with the child?'” And she answered, “It is well.”

Now when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet, but Gehazi came near to push her away. But the man of God said, “Let her alone; for her soul is in deep distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me, and has not told me.” And she answered, “It is well.” 2 Kings 4:25-27 NKJV

WELCOME TO THE 51ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.

It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed because His compassion fails not. The eye-opening ministry of His precious Holy Spirit has been of great help to us all. To God be the glory!

One of the major killers of the present-day Church is Prophetic Blindness. That is what should make the eye-opening ministry of the Holy Spirit a must sort after in our age and time.

Prophetic blindness is a spiritual deficiency that prevents a Christian from picking clear prophetic information from God. It usually occurs when the veil of religion, the gods of this age, or one’s carnal nature takes the better part of his spiritual senses.

Obviously, the carnal nature of many of us in Church today has taken over the entire aspects of our spiritual senses.

As a result, over 90% have become prophetically blind. We have become so blind that we cannot even recognize the anti-Christ in many so-called prophets. We call their sorceries prophecies and divination revelation.

Most of us are so prophetically sick that we depend on others for the interpretation of our dreams; making some so called prophetic people our dream interpreters.

It is prophetic blindness that makes us marry the wrong people. It is prophetic blindness that makes us accept things that look promising only for time to prove us wrong.

It is prophetic blindness that makes a Christian venture into a business, invest all he or she has, but come out with nothing to show for it. If he was not blind, he would have known ahead that the Business will fail and not make any investment into it.

I have seen believers venturing into things that I prophetically sense will only blossom for a while then stop, not listening to wise counsel. Their blindness does not let them see what you may be seeing and saying to them.

It fills them with all the natural prospects the business has, but does not let them see the failure that will come thereafter.

AND WHEN YOU TRY TO HELP THEM, THEY WILL THINK YOU ARE NOT WELL INFORMED ABOUT THE BUSINESS.

Their carnal crave for whatever hope the business has, will prevent them from listening. I have had very bitter experiences with people who are so blind yet the think they are seeing. People like the Pharisees!

That is why as soon as I sense the Pharisee spirit in a person, I shut my mouth.

The prophetically blind are always arrogant. They are not humble in spirit; hence cannot be guided by the prophetic anointing from God’s throne. The Bible says only the humble will God guide in judgment or discernment, not the arrogant.

That is why you always find the spiritually arrogant blind to future disasters. Friend, at the root of every financial loss is prophetic blindness!

Yes, prophetic blindness is the reason for most of the financial losses we suffer as children of GOD. It is at the base of not just financial blindness, but poverty and lack.

The prosperity of the righteous is a major catalyst of a good prophetic eyesight. If you do not have it, just be sure that you will remain in either lack, financial hardship, or be seduced into the prosperity of either the wicked or a fool.

Prophetic blindness cannot only shut down the prosperity of the righteous, it also has a way of precipitating rebellion and a life of sin. There are two sets of people I want us to look into on that line of truth. The first is the first king of Israel called Saul.

His prophetic blindness made him rebellious and disobedient.

People who are prophetically blind are always rebellious and disobedient. Even when you explain things to them, especially the consequences of their actions, their blindness will not let them see what you may be saying. That was who king Saul was.

His blindness did not let him see the reward of faithfulness and completely obeying the LORD.

It did not let him see the curse of rendering unlawful sacrifices to God; it blinded him from seeing that the kingdom will be taken away from him if he fails to wait for Samuel to come sacrifice unto the LORD on his behalf.

He did what he ought not to do and lost the kingdom, because he was blind to what was lying ahead of him.

PROPHETICALLY BLIND PEOPLE WILL COMMIT SINS AT EASE BECAUSE THEY DO NOT SEE WHAT HARVEST THEIR SINS ARE PREPARING FOR THEM.

That means when people are blind prophetically, they will lose the sense of God’s judgment on sin, and come to a realm where they are made to believe that their sins have no consequences, or their sinful deeds are no longer sins.

Others are usually brought where they develop the notion that they do not need repentance from sin.

For instance, despite all that Samuel said to king Saul, his blindness could not let him repent or see the weight of his lawless actions. He would later go to consult a witch, revealing to us one of the ultimate curses of becoming prophetically blind.

Alliances with unclean spirits, dark mantles, and all kinds of dark people with an accuracy of vision and interpretation of dreams, but no true word or Spirit from GOD, is a curse that speaks in the life of prophetically blind people.

The Bible says when people are blind prophetically; preachers walking in false spirits will become their prophets and seers. They will become their acceptable prophets and preachers.

The word says;

“If a man walking in a spirit [of vanity] and in falsehood should lie and say, I will prophesy to you of wine and strong drink, O Israel, he would even be the acceptable prophet of this people!” Micah 2:11 AMP

When you are blind prophetically, lying prophets will become true to you.

You will be looking for God in dead places. You will be calling abominable preachers (prophetic witches and wizards, demonically induced seers, adulterers, fornicators, lesbians or gays in God’s garments) anointed of God, and warning people not to say anything against them.

GOD DOES NOT WANT ANY OF US TO BE BLIND PROPHETICALLY.

A good prophetic eyesight is the heritage of the righteous, and we come into it after having our heart circumcised by the word of truth and righteousness, and our spiritual eyes opened in the Spirit at all times.

The second set of people I want us to look briefly at, are the sons of Eli.

If you look at the lives of Eli and his sons (God’s priests at Shiloh), you will see another dimension of the curse of prophetic blindness; it made them corrupt, sexually perverse, and insensitive to the spiritual consequences of their wicked actions.

You see, when a man is prophetically blind, he will not be sensitive to what sins do to his soul.

You will see him committing it and thinking nothing bad is happening. Until he gets to a point of no remedy. That was the error of Samson. He only came to the realization of the consequences of his sins after he lost his eyes.

Sadly, even after his hair was restored, his eyes were never restored.

Satan will always want us blind to what our sins, prayerlessness, lack of time with God and His word, missing Church, etc. may be doing to us.

But there is another aspect of prophetic blindness, that is not a spiritual deficiency but God’s way of telling the great people He may be using, that they are still men. You find that in the stories of men like Elisha, whose bones brought dead men back to life.

That is what you find in our devotional text today. A major highlight in the text says;

Now when she came to the man of God at the hill, she caught him by the feet, but Gehazi came near to push her away. But the man of God said, “Let her alone; for her soul is in deep distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me, and has not told me.” And she answered, “It is well.”

If you read this scripture very well you will understand something significant – God hid from Elisha the situation the Shunammite woman was going through. That was not prophetic blindness but God’s way of telling both the woman and Elisha, “A prophet is still a man, not God.”

Sometimes premature Christians expects God’s servants to know everything hidden in the dark about those around them.

I have walked with great spiritual leaders who could not pick prophetically any information about the terrible sins those serving them were living in and marvelled why. But as I grew in Christian life and ministry I began to understand why.

First of all, God will always leave a mark in the life of anyone He is greatly using; a mark that will serve as a reminder that they are not God to be worshipped but just men to be honored. That was why He hid the information from Elisha.

Of course, an average person will want to worship a man that is greatly used, and build great expectations or faith in Him instead of God.

God’s way of preventing that from happening, is to hide some things from the men or allow one thing or the other to happen to keep reminding (him or) those he may be ministering to, that the men is still a man.

He should not be worshipped but honored!

But most times, God will not reveal the sins men who are around a man He may be using are living in because He is giving the people time to repent. That is why if they fail to repent, after a period of warning, like He did to Gehazi, He will uncover them before His servant, and that will mean judgment.

What is the message today? The message is simple, do not live in prophetic blindness as a Christian. Do not go into marriage, business, ministry, or pursue anything in life in prophetic blindness. It will ruin your life most times beyond repairs.

Ask the LORD for a good prophetic eyesight.

In a terminal generation like ours, one major thing Satan will do to keep us unprepared for God, is to throw us into a state of prophetic blindness, using the circumstances of our lives and the things our sinful nature crave for.

That was what Jesus warned us about! But we must rise to say no to the devil, and make sure we keep or heed to the warnings of Christ in the Bible.

MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.

For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Matthew 24:36-39 NKJV