TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 26TH APRIL 2024)
“Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go.
“Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” Isaiah 48:17-18NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 117TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
It’s a good thing to give thanks to the LORD for bringing us to the end of another week in this great year. We do not deserve it! To Him belong the glory.
Can you sit down and count your blessings, can you sit down and count the things the LORD has given you this year that you do not deserve? Life, health, healing, jobs, provisions, forgiveness, mercy, kindness, protection, direction, peace, victory in warfare, and etc.
When God gives you what you do not deserve, it is a seed. The harvest that should come out of it is a life that pleases Him.
Understand that when God keeps giving a man what the man does not deserve, and the man keeps responding by living a life of sin, iniquity, or trespass, one day he will fall into judgment.
The evil or bad things he deserves will begin to break out in his life; they will break out in such a way that even prayers cannot take care of.
Sadly, our generation is full of people who do not return a good harvest to God for the seeds of mercies, kindness, and goodness He sows into our lives. We have become like the Bible tree that was planted and expected to bring forth good grapes, but it brought forth wild grapes.
A person who keeps bringing forth the unwanted, after being given things they do not deserve, will one day begin to get the judgment they deserve. This is a rule that is applicable to all of us.
Yes, they will one day enter the season of reaping the consequences of their bad decisions without remedy.
That is why we must ask the LORD, “What do you want me to do?” each time He gives us what we do not deserve. His goodness should propel us to look into our lives and begin to perfect our ways.
It should make us look into our habits, our passions, our desires, and all that is not good in His sight, and begin to amend them, using His grace upon our lives.
When He showed His goodness to Abraham, He instructed him saying, “walk before me and be perfect.” Then He brought him into a covenant, the covenant of circumcision.
THAT IS THE PATH THE LORD HAS CREATED FOR ALL WHO ENJOY HIS GOODNESS, A PATH WE MUST ALL FOLLOW.
We must begin to deliberately commit to a life of purity whenever we get what we do not deserve from the LORD. God’s goodness will never cease from our lives, if we return what He expects from us each time we experience it.
You can live in a circle of God’s goodness, if you keep consecrating and returning a life that please Him each time He shows you His goodness. He said in His word,
“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.
O LORD of hosts, Blessed is the man who trusts in You!” Psalm 84:11-12 NKJV
Good things cannot be withheld from people who are living lives that please God. They could face persecutions, trials, rejection, and etc. but at the end of it all, no good things will be withheld from them, because they walk uprightly before God.
An upright walk is what the LORD expects from us after showing us his goodness. If we give Him that kind of walk each time He shows us His goodness, we will end up living in a circle of God’s goodness.
May you spend your days in a circle of God’s goodness.
May none of us return the unwanted to the LORD after seeing His goodness in our lives. May none of us use His goodness as a fertility for sin, and all kinds of evil. May His power break out in our lives and take down every life He does not want.
Someone must take this word today as a word from the LORD for them.
If we do not take rhema words that come our ways like this, as a proceeding word from the LORD, we will not live lives that will be peaceful and blessed in a trouble world.
Most preachers have anchored blessings in God’s kingdom to some seeds that must be sown to them, but blessings in God’s kingdom or a life of peace in a trouble world, is a child of how we respond to God’s goodness in our lives, and how we align with His word.
YOU SEE, WHEN GOD SPEAKS, EXCEPT TO HEAL IT, HE DOES NOT SPEAK TO THE BODY OF MAN. HE SPEAKS TO THE HEART OF MAN.
He speaks for a change; a change in life style and way of living. If we do not make the changes over time, we will miss great blessings no matter what we give to any preacher as seed.
Then we will come to a place where a life of peace and prosperity is no longer possible.
Sadly, that is where many are living presently; and the so-called deliverance ministers blame it on some altars, curses in their fathers houses, and etc. They do not blame anything on people harden hearts, biblical illiteracy, and rebellion towards God, which are the main causes of all our problems.
They create blames that will result in people giving them monies for deliverances and doing all they say. Our devotional text says,
“Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you by the way you should go.
“Oh, that you had heeded My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.” Isaiah 48:17-18NKJV
The first portion of this scriptures shows that, God cannot be leading you in the way you should go, and you following, without you coming into great profits for following the LORD. This morning He has led us in how to handle His goodness in our lives. Are we going to follow?
He said if we do, we will reap the profit of living our lives in the circle of His goodness.
The second portion of the scripture is a lamentation of God. It shows us how God laments each time we do things that prevents Him from establishing us in perfect peace; and one of those things is a life in the circle of His goodness.
A lamentation is a passionate expression of grief and sorrow. The scripture shows us the grief and sorrow God expresses each time we do not let Him bring us to the place of perfect peace.
GOD DOES NOT JUST SIT IN HEAVEN MINDING HIS AFFAIRS, WHILE WE SIT ON EARTH MISSING HIS BLESSINGS AND PLANS FOR OUR LIVES.
He is right here with us; right here on earth by His Holy Spirit and Holy Word to help us walk in the fullness of His intentions and blessings for our lives. How do you expect Him to abandon even the worse sinner, having paid the price for the person’s restoration to holiness, purity, and righteousness on the cross?
How do you expect Him to behave when we lose the Heavenly things, He so desires that we walk in? That scripture says He laments. He expresses a passionate grief and sorrow for it.
For lack of better terms, I will say God desperately want us all in the circle of His goodness. He wants our lives to be lived within that Circle. But are we willing and ready to pay the price?
In God’s kingdom, significant things are products of great prices the righteous pay. Are we willing to go the way of the righteous?
Are you willing to follow the word of the LORD this morning? Are you willing to make the life changes that this devotional calls for? How will you be treating God’s goodness in your life from today?
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US.
“Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn My hand against their adversaries.
“The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever. He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat; and with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.” Psalms 81:13-16 NKJV