TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Saturday 24TH April 2021)
“And Hannah prayed, and said, My heart rejoiceth in the LORD, mine horn is exalted in the LORD: my mouth is enlarged over mine enemies; because I rejoice in thy salvation.
There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God.
Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength.
They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble.
The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up.” 1 Samuel 2:1-6 KJV
WELCOME TO THE 114TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
God has been faithful to us, to Him belong all the glory. He has enlarged our mouths over our enemies and not allow us to be silenced by their scheming.
This morning we rejoice in His salvation and marvelous helps. Amen and amen!
Our devotional this morning will be another stable on the table of Jehovah for us. Jesus said,
“man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
That was the creator of Heaven and earth talking. He just revealed to us to safest way to live in an evil infested world.
We believe this devotional has been coming to you as a proceeding word to live by. The statement is first about what to submit to on daily bases; the word of the LORD. People who submit to the word are submitting to God, and people who submit to God finds favor with Him.
That tells us that favor does not always come by giving a preacher an offering. There is nothing wrong with giving a preacher an offering if God has used Him to bless you, and if he is not an impostor or charlatan. God will bless those who bless His servants with great things from Heaven.
But there is a kind of Favor that can only be born as a result of total submission to God, His words and ways, His plans and purposes.
So when Jesus said,
“man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God”
He was first showing us what to submit to on daily bases, so we can find favor with God and also with men in our daily lives.
Concerning His early childhood as man, Jesus was made to submit to the authority Heaven assigned to Him. That authority was the authority of Mary and Joseph.
The blessing that followed was favor with GOD and with men. The Bible says;
“And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart.
And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” Luke 2:51-52 KJV
WHAT CAN WE GLEAN FROM THIS SCRIPTURE?
A lot, but let me say just one thing. If Jesus as man, needed to submit to authority to find favor with God and man, then we will be foolish to think we can lead rebellious lives and still find favor with God and man.
A lot of people do not have any sanctified authority in their lives to submit to, while some do but operates in silent rebellion looking like submissive Children of God! That is why their lives are full of hardship.
No submissive people go through hardship perpetually. There is too much hardship today. It’s therefore important that we look at matters of rebellion and submission this morning.
You see, there are four or five kinds of rebellion. But the worst of them is silent rebellion. It brings the consequences of rebellion upon people who present themselves as submissive to an authority, thereby confusing people who thought they were submissive to God.
No one will not be confused when you see bad things happening to outwardly good people. It is better to know that someone is walking in rebellion so that when the consequences come, we can know exact reason why things happened.
But if you have people who are operating in silent rebellion, and things begin to happen to them as a boomerang, we can’t tell why they are going through such things despite what we all know as their goodness and total submission to authority. That is why I consider silent rebellion as the worst form of rebellion.
The vision of every rebellion is to desecrate something God has consecrated and ultimately scatter a group God has united for a righteous course. It is to create division in people’s hearts by taking away loyalty from them, thereby taking away the followership of a righteous course.
When that happens, a people who are set in battle array by the LORD, can be stopped.
When someone who operates silent rebellion meets you, they will tell you things that will make you to start acting cold towards authority. They will draw you to some private prayers and discussions. Sometimes the journey of bringing you there is usually started by making you trust them as dependable allays; sharing things of common interest.
YOU MUST BE CAREFUL OF THIS KIND OF PEOPLE IN ANY CHURCH GOD PLANTS YOU IN.
Because when they succeed in making you cold towards an authority you were once enthusiastic about and fully respect, you have taken on their spirit.
When you take on their spirits, an evil portal will be opened over your life. It will begin to shut down God’s blessings in your life.
Sometimes it can be so strong that even after you disconnect from them, the spirit they transferred into you will still be silently there, stopping your blessings. You will never again be able to receive blessing form God through the authority they made you to become cold towards.
At that point, you have just been sealed and locked up in a psychological prison that will prevent you from receiving good things from the LORD because you are no longer ordering your conduct aright.
The Bible says,
Whoever offers praise glorifies Me; And to him who orders his conduct aright I will show the salvation of God.” Psalm 50:23 NKJV
It will be difficult to be seeing the salvation of God in critical areas of your life because you have just being made a carrier of another spirit; this time a portion of a human spirit that spoke to you. Only confession and genuine repentance can help.
You must meet leadership to confess all you said about it in repentance, or all that was told you about it. That is how you will experience a refreshing of the Spirit to be free. Confession in repentance is like vomiting the content of your spirit out so that you may be free.
It is these things that make me consider Silent rebellion as the most effective instrument in achieving the vison of rebellion in God’s kingdom.
WHEN PEOPLE YOU TOOK FOR SUBMISSIVE PEOPLE, COME TO IMPART THEMSELVES INTO YOUR LIFE WITH STORIES ABOUT LEADERSHIP, THEY MAKE YOU SHARE IN SOMETHING.
When they finally come under the consequences of operating in silent rebellion, you will never know they brought the problems upon themselves until God reveals.
Recent happenings in the Cry of the Spirit ministry proves God’s word right!
Since silent rebellion is a kind of rebellion that is not conspicuous, when people in silent rebellion come under the consequence of their wickedness, you will begin to feel unsaved because your reasoning will be, “if these ones that were this committed could fall, then there is no hope for us.”
In our own case, the strategy of the enemy was to use our ignorance of who the people really were to spread the thought of being unsaved, and use it to bring down the unity that God is building in the house, with the aim of pulling the house down completely and stopping the spread of the word to the nations.
Child of God, the virus of silent rebellion can bring down any purpose of God if He is not given the preeminence control over that purpose. God’s preeminent control over our ministry saved us.
If you look at Lucifer, his was a silent rebellion.
The Bible says “he said in his heart” not his mouth. That was why the angels that left with him did. They thought God was unfair to Lucifer since they never knew what happened took place in the inaudible realm of his heart.
They never knew it was a silent rebellion God was responding to when He moved to crush him.
If God had not spoken to me and made things happen, we would never have known that what happen in our ministry was the consequence of silent rebellion and hypocrisy of the highest order.
When you cover evil for too long it will become a curse on your life and cut your health down. It could even do things that are worst. That is why it is foolish to cover evil in the place where the glory dwells.
IN A GLORY ENVIRONMENT, YOU OPEN YOUR LIFE WIDE AND LET GOD CHANGE IT!
If silent rebellion could shake God’s kingdom in the eternal past, there is nothing it cannot do in any spiritual family or Church in the eternal present.
For Ananias and Sapphira God had to crush everything with death. But that does not make Him a murder, it only proves His LORDSHIP and authority as the Judge of the earth.
He does not move like Molech, the god of destruction. He simply withdraws His protection or answer to any prayer that may be said over the silent rebels and something else takes the people down.
Silent rebellion will not allow the prayers of your man of God to be answered on your life because it makes you an enemy of the God who answer His prayers. It will prevent the mercies of God from working out repentance in your life because of your continuous overestimation of self.
It will blindfold you until you come into things that will take away your life. God does not want that to happen hence sending this word this morning.
I want you to know that the God we serve will do anything to protect His redemptive purposes. He can even kill but not to destroy. He will kill to keep His purposes alive. Our devotional text tells us just that.
The text is about a woman of God who lived in the days of the Bible.
Hannah, the mother of the first prophet of Israel after Moses, was a unique woman who remained submissive to her husband’s authority despite what she went through in her marriage. She never entertained any kind of rebellion in her marital life.
Finally, God favored her with children, of which one became a move of God personified. Part of her testimony said,
“Talk no more so exceeding proudly; let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.
The bows of the mighty men are broken, and they that stumbled are girded with strength.
They that were full have hired out themselves for bread; and they that were hungry ceased: so that the barren hath born seven; and she that hath many children is waxed feeble.
The LORD killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up. 1 Samuel 2:3-6 KJV
I believe God sent this word this morning to tell us, “talk no more so exceeding proudly about sanctified authorities, and let not arrogancy come out of your mouth: for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed.”
This word is a warning about silent rebellion and over estimation of ourselves. These are the things that prevents genuine repentance from taking place in our hearts, thereby hindering times of visitation form the LORD.
It is time for us to stop going the way of Korah and Cain, who both operated silent rebellion against God. For the company of Korah, it became an open rebellion that cost even the lives of their children. Meaning, the consequences of rebellion can be generational.
May the LORD open your heart and eyes to find truths in this devotional to live by as you make this devotional your meditation for the day, in Jesus precious name! AMEN!!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION;
“Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.
For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Likewise, also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of [e]dignitaries.
Yet Michael the archangel, in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, “The Lord rebuke you!”
But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt themselves.
Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah.
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.
And on some have compassion, making a distinction; but others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.” Jude 1-4, 10-11, 22-23 NKJV