TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 5TH APRIL 2024)
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not! For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”
So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. Romans 9:14-16 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 96TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
God has been gracious to us! To Him belong all the glory!! His love, compassion, and faithfulness, are having amazing impacts on our lives.
We slept and woke up because of that.
If you think its easy to sleep and wake up, then go to the houses of those who slept but never woke up and enquire. To fall asleep could be your doing, but to wake up is not man’s doing.
Sleep is a semi death. It is not death, but a very small shadow of it. That is why if God did not protect you, someone can kill you while you are asleep; I mean someone as small as a little child. So, to wake up from your sleep is divine, to fall could be human.
Give God praise for giving you one more day, and there are many more years to come for you, because His plans for you are good and not evil. To give you a future and a hope. The Psalmist says;
“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 84:11 NKJV
May the LORD fill the rest of your days with good things from His throne. May nothing good be withheld from you. May He continue to be our sun and shield, and may He give grace and glory, in Jesus’ precious name!!! Amen.
When the LORD is our sun, divine health will become our portion. Divine healing will be the process of eliminating any sickness that attacks us. Yes, as our sun, He will move against diseases that move against us by rising upon us with healing in His wings, and keep us in divine health after that.
The Bible says,
“But unto you who revere and worshipfully fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings and His beams, and you shall go forth and gambol like calves [released] from the stall and leap for joy.” Malachi 4:2 AMPC
When healing come, fitness comes and the strength to leap for joy comes. Immortality is tasted and vitality restored.
That is why one of the major things you must always ask the LORD to be in your life, especially during your morning devotions, is to ask Him to be a sun and a shield to you and your family.
IT IS ONE PRAYER YOU MUST PRAY EACH MORNING AND EVEN AS YOU SLEEP!
As a sun He will heal you and keep you healthy, and as a shield He will protect you from all evil. Then you will find Him releasing His grace and glory to you. That is how gracious our God is.
When He releases His grace and glory to you, it will make your journey on earth easy and your walk with the LORD prosperous. His grace will be withholding any evil or punishment for sin you deserve, while His glory will be transforming your moral nature to go and sin no more.
Yes, His grace will be making sure that you do not reap corruption immediately whenever you sow to please your flesh, and His glory will be making sure you stop sowing to please the flesh so that you will not be destroyed suddenly.
Child of God, we all need the partnership of God’s grace and glory in our lives, because it is His grace that prepare men for His glory. Yes, we are prepared for the glory of living peacefully on earth and making Heaven at last by God’s grace.
His grace will be making sure that no legal right of the enemy in our lives remains legal and destroy us, while His glory will be making sure that no weapon formed against us prospers.
His grace will be helping us to repent of our sins, and His glory will be bringing times of refreshing for us from the presence of the LORD. However, the Bible says this is a package for those who walk uprightly!
In other words, it is a package for those who will go beyond the confession of faith to commitment to the faith. Confessing that you are a child of God without the commitment to God that is required, will not allow you to benefit from this partnership. It will make you a son of hell.
One of the ways you must commit, is by putting God first in everything you do on this side of eternity.
You must understand that our Salvation is a call to put God first, and that until our salvation encounter teaches or propels us to do that, there was no encounter at all.
GOD DID NOT CREATE ANYTHING TO COME BEFORE HIM, THE DAY YOU CREATE ONE, DARKNESS WILL BEGIN TO FILL YOUR LIFE.
God will be a sun and shield to those who are putting Him first in everything in life. He will always release His grace and glory upon their lives. No good thing will He withhold from them because they are putting Him first in their lives.
Putting God first was the first thing the nation of Israel was taught to do when they came out of Egypt. While in Egypt they had led lives of putting themselves first. But the Bible says, when they got to Mount Sinai, the LORD descended upon it and said to them;
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. “You shall have no other gods before Me.
“You shall not make for yourself a carved image — any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Exodus 20:2-4 NKJV
This word was a call for them, and by extension us, to live our days putting God first. It is God’s move to return man back to original intent because mankind was not originally designed to put anything ahead of or before God.
Each time man tries to function outside the design of putting God first, it has always resulted in diseases, wars, marital crisis, poverty, pain, death, and all kinds of evil.
They will not see God as a sun and shield, neither will they see His grace and glory released upon their lives. Good things will be withheld from them until they use other means to get them, resulting in more trouble. Friend, your life will be as glorious as God wants it to be if you live your days putting Him first in everything.
You will see Him putting you next to Himself in every matter of His kingdom as you put Him first in every matter of your life.
He will put you next to Himself as a sun and a shield the way He did Abraham in Bible days, and you will be enjoying a special grace and glory from His throne. You will suddenly realize that no good thing can be withheld from you. Hallelujah!!!
IT IS A VERY BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO LIVE IN AS A HUMAN ON EARTH AND GOD WANTS US ALL THERE.
He said in His word;
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” Matthew 6:33 NKJV
This scripture presents to us one way to put God first. That way is the way of seeking first His kingdom and His righteousness. But what does it mean to seek first GOD’s kingdom and His righteousness?
First, you must understand what the Kingdom of God is.
The kingdom of God is different from the kingdom of Heaven. The kingdom of Heaven is a place, but the Kingdom of God is God’s rule and influence over a territory, impacting it with His ways, His will, His plans, and His purposes.
It is God’s way of doing things. To seek the kingdom first, is to seek God’s way of doing things. It is to seek Him to fill your life with His influence, and impact it with His ways, His will, His plans for it, and His purposes.
To seek His righteousness, on the other hand, is to seek right standing with God, and that is to be done on daily bases, or in every decision of life we take. That is the kind of life people who put God first live.
When they live that kind of life, God will begin to put them next to Himself even in the release of mercies. They will be shown a mercy by the LORD, that others will only dream of, both in time and eternity. Our devotional text says;
“What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not!
For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion. So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy”
If you want to see this scripture manifesting in your life the rest of this year, spend each day putting God first. Follow what has been shared this morning, and the rest of the year will be the best of your years on earth.
It is a new day for you! You will not fail, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen!!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“For behold, the day comes that shall burn like an oven, and all the proud and arrogant, yes, and all that do wickedly and are lawless, shall be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.
But unto you who revere and worshipfully fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings and His beams, and you shall go forth and gambol like calves [released] from the stall and leap for joy.
And you shall tread down the lawless and wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, says the Lord of hosts.” Malachi 4:1-3 AMPC