TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 14TH AUGUST 2022)
“Behold, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, who by night stand in the house of the LORD!
Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD. The LORD who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion!” Psalm 134:1-3 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 226TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
This is the day the LORD has made. We shall rejoice and be glad in it. The LORD our God in the midst of us have been mighty. He has saved, He has delivered and is still saving and still delivering.
To Him belong all the glory!
Today we will be looking at the secret of blessings in God’s kingdom. I hope you are ready!
You see, a lot have been taught and a lot have been said on what the secret of blessings in God’s kingdom is. A lot of doctrines of devils have been presented as the secrets of blessings. Some of us preachers have assimilated and also forced into the saints so many antichrist doctrines that we believe to be the secrets of blessings.
Today we have those who believe that they have to raise an altar, break one, or silence the other to be blessed. Others believe that they have to sow this seed or do this and do that to be blessed.
Some others have been trained to engaged non-scriptural practices in search of blessings from God. They have been made to drink olive oil, wash their feet, use water in prayer and practice all kinds of Charismatic and black witchcraft in the name of receiving blessings from GOD.
There are people who have even stripped themselves naked at the command of preachers because they were told “if you obey anything that the man of God say, you will be blessed.”
Others have not just stripped themselves naked, they have sole they entire wealth and given to churches at the instance of preachers who said to them they will be blessed if they do so.
Some of us preachers have not helped either. We have made so many believe that they have to serve us to be blessed. So, you find many of us using scriptures to condition the blessings of God for His own on us; especially on how they serve us. Leading to a lot of hero worship among the saints.
YOU WILL HEAR THIS ONE SAY “I AM FOR APOLLOS,” AND THE OTHER, “I AM FOR PAUL.”
We make them believe that if they worship and fight for us, they are actually fighting for God and that God will bless them. But as one of our apostolic fathers will ask;
“Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” 1 Corinthians 1:13 KJV
Indeed, no preacher was crucified for anyone, so God will not rush blessings to your house because you served a preacher.
In fact, you may even be cursed if you lie for us, cover our wickedness and do the abominable on our behalf. God will only bless those who serve Him by serving His servants, not just any who serve His servants. I hope you understand me.
There is a difference between serving God’s servants and serving God by serving God’s servants.
If you just serve God’s servants, you will be at the will, control and most times carnal influence of the servant of God you are serving instead of GOD. That is when you may do a wicked bid, lie for him or her, and do all sinful things you can with or around him or her.
This happens among servants of GOD who have fallen away from GOD.
In case one is serving those, who have not fallen away, you will find yourself attacking them with lies, and doing them much evil if you are just serving them instead of serving GOD by serving them.
Those who serve God by serving His servants will be like Obed Edom who kept the ark of the LORD in his house. They will be blessed for doing so. They will condition their blessing on the one who was crucified for them; who they now serve by serving His servant.
You must understand that if you condition your blessing on serving a man or woman of GOD who was not Crucified for you, while serving the man or woman, you will never be blessed. You must condition your blessings on the integrity of the GOD you are serving by serving the man if woman of God.
BUT WHAT IS THE ULTIMATE SECRET OF BLESSINGS IN GOD’S KINGDOM?
Is it serving God by serving a man of God? Let the scripture unveil more truths to us!
You see, most of us preachers have made our members believe that serving, worshiping and even sleeping with us is the secret of their blessings.
We have made them believe that even lying for us, covering our wickedness and doing our dirty things is what will bring blessings on them. Hence raising an army of sons of hell who fight for us but have no relationship with the LORD!
I want to submit to us that the secret of blessings in God’s kingdom is none of these things. In fact, our devotional text says, “God will bless us out of Zion.” There is a truth buried there.
We must understand that in God, blessings are not something we force ourselves to get. God showed us through His encounter with Jacob that it is not something we get by wrestling with GOD.
You will discover in that story that wrestling with God all night for a blessing did not earn him any. The Bible says,
“Then Jacob was left alone; and a Man wrestled with him until the breaking of day. Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him.
And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.”
And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Then Jacob asked, saying, “Tell me Your name, I pray.” And He said, “Why is it that you ask about My name?” And He blessed him there. Genesis 32:24-29 NKJV
AS, WE CAN SEE IN THIS SCRIPTURE, ALL THE NIGHT WHILE HE WAS BUSY WRESTLING WITH GOD, HE GOT NOTHING.
If blessings come by wrestling with God then he would have gotten them in the middle of the night at the height of the wrestling. But he got them at the break of the day when the Angle touched the heap of his bone to break him. He broke him to stop him from wrestling with him.
In other words, it was when he was stopped from wrestling with God and made to start reasoning with Him that he got the blessing. But before he got to the place of reasoning GOD had to break him, moving him from being a wrestling vessel to becoming a broken vessel.
Brokenness represents a process God will pass a candidate of blessing through to achieve total surrender. Because the key to the blessings is total surrender to the will and ways of the LORD.
That story teaches that total surrender to the will and ways of the LORD is the secret of blessings in God’s kingdom. We must move from wresting to reasoning with GOD to be blessed.
Which brings us to the subject of our 31-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit; do not forget, we have been looking at the cry of the Spirit on spiritual fathering that is built around the tree of life.
One of the major assignments of spiritual fathering that evolves around the tree of life, is to bring sons to the place of total surrender to the will and ways of the LORD.
This they do by teaching them how to reason instead of wrestle with God, especially in the night seasons of their lives. They teach them how to be servants of GOD who by night stand in the house of the LORD.
The word “night” has nothing to do with day out but a season of weeping; because weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning. The ability to stand in the house of God (a realm of God’s manifest presence) in our season of weeping is, sometimes, a heritage from fathers who themselves have stood.
Our devotional text says;
“Behold, bless the LORD, all you servants of the LORD, WHO BY NIGHT STAND IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD! Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD. The LORD who made heaven and earth bless you from Zion!” Psalm 134:1-3
I CAN’T FORGET MY OWN NIGHT SEASONS THAT CAME UPON ME IN KENYA, AND STILL COME FROM TIME TO TIME.
I have always remembered how my spiritual father stood in his own days during those moments. Amazingly, I have found God using the heritage to keep me on my feet also.
As we bring this to a close, I want us to understand that moving from weeping in the night to joy in the morning, does not depend on God all the time, but on how we stand with God all the time. Because, before God it is finished.
That bring us back to what Jacob did in his own night season; he wrestled.
God used the story to teach us that we do not need to wrestle with Him when we are in our night season because He is not our problem. We only need to reason with Him.
A night season for the child of God come to deliver blessings, because all things work together for our good. But if we are not broken enough to reason with God during the season, we will lack the surrender to receive the blessing the season came to deliver.
Being in a spiritual fathering system that is built around the tree of life will give us the spiritual muscle we need to reason instead of wrestle with GOD in our night seasons. That should tell us why the prodigal son, of all places, decided to go back to his father house in his night season.
A fathering system built around the tree of life is the place to go in your night season.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.”’ Luke 15:17-19 NKJV