TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 5TH JANUARY 2023)
He was king over Jeshurun when the leaders of the people assembled, along with the tribes of Israel.
“Let Reuben live and not die, nor his people be few.”
And this he said about Judah: “Hear, LORD, the cry of Judah; bring him to his people. With his own hands he defends his cause. Oh, be his help against his foes!” Deuteronomy 33:7 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 5TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
It was God’s servant of Blessed memory, Benson Idahosa (the only true papa in Ministry because of how many destinies he raised from the dust), who came with the revelation of having the LORD make decrees over His people at the beginning of every year.
Then men like David Oyedepo who he fathered, and whose ministries God used him to raise to stardom before our very eyes while alive, and the rest, took it and spread to all.
Though it has become a money-making tool for many greedy preachers, in the beginning it was not so. It was a very good thing because it aligned with the word of the LORD on receiving the coverage of blessings before embarking on a season of life; be it a financial season, a marital journey, one’s birthday, the beginning of a month, or the beginning of a year.
The decrees are like the Patriarchal blessings that Jacob placed on Israel at his exit from time. You remember all He said would go to shape the lives and destinies of the 12 tribes that sprang from his 12 sons; the very men who were there when he made the decrees.
From their lives, it is clear that such Spirit enabled decrees have capacity to shape the destiny of those who are under the particular mantle, mandate or ranking that received them from the Spirit.
They are made to prosper God’s mantles, mandates and people of different ranking in the LORD’s army, as they fight His battles.
You see, Israel was not just a nation, but a mantle carrying people, a mandate of God to the nations, and first in rank among nations in God’s ranking system. That is why GOD called them “my first born.”
THEY NEEDED THOSE DECREES TO FULFILL GOD’S WILL FOR THEIR LIVES AND EXECUTE HIS ASSIGNMENT.
They are church in the wilderness we are the post resurrection Church. They were our prophetic shadow or pattern, we are the fulfillment of the shadows they reflected and the patterns they prophesied.
Today, the apostles and prophets who heads local assemblies, spiritual families, and tribes, are the ones in position like Jacob, to sense what Christ, the Head of the Body has decreed at the beginning of a particular year, over the Assembly, spiritual family or tribe He has set them over as serving overseers to lead.
Their job is the sense, decree and push the people into the fulfillment of the decrees. For us, we sensed the words “Signs and Wonders.”
As the LORD will have it, He ushered us into the season with this 31-Day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on visionary living. Today is the 5th day of the journey. This is also a season that you can take out and fast as we journey along.
Talking about spiritual or divine declarations and decrees that should precede a year or season of Life, God was the first to start the culture in the Bible. After creating the earth and all in and around it for 6 days, He entered into a season of life and made the decree called “REST” over that season.
The Bible says;
“Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.
And God blessed (spoke good of) the seventh day, set it apart as His own, and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all His work which He had created and done.” Genesis 2:1-3 AMPC
God blessed or spoke good of the seventh day, by setting it apart as His own through the decree of rest that He made over it. However, it was not a natural day. It was a divine day.
WE HAVE TAUGHT THESE PROPHETIC TRUTHS FOR OVER 9 YEARS HERE IN KENYA.
Maybe let me reiterate them again. There are three categories of days; we have divine days, prophetic days, and natural days. God did not create the earth and all in it, or around it in six natural days as taught in schools, He created them in six divine days.
You find that only when you study creation with the Holy Spirit by your side. Natural days were created on the fourth day of creation. Prophetic days where created after the fall of man. They are basically to redeem mankind.
God would not have created the world in natural days because apart from the fact that they never existed when He started creation, natural days are too small for Him to live in. He created things in days that were big enough to accommodate Him; divine days and rested on the seventh day of the divine days. There is another mystery there which I will leave for another time.
The seventh day was His own season. He entered into it with decrees of rest. Entering season with divine decrees is therefor a Character of God. As we have already seen, that became a pattern for his people Israel many years later. Our devotional text speaks of another season of life Israel entered into in the days of Moses.
Moses had finished his assignment on earth as was on his way out of time when he made those decrees.
Jacob was the natural father of 12 sons. But Moses was the prophetic father of a nation with 12 tribes. Jacob fathered 70 people, but Moses stood on the foundation he laid as a patriarch to father an entire nation of over 3 million people. As a father of the nation, he needed to make those decrees because Israel was entering a new season of life after his departure.
The text says;
He was king over Jeshurun when the leaders of the people assembled, along with the tribes of Israel.
“Let Reuben live and not die, nor his people be few.”
And this he said about Judah: “Hear, LORD, the cry of Judah; bring him to his people. With his own hands he defends his cause. Oh, be his help against his foes!” Deuteronomy 33:7 NKJV
If you look at this text, you can see the rank God placed Moses to be able to carry his mantle and fulfill his mandate.
HE WAS GIVEN A RANK CALLED “KING IN JESHURUN.”
That was why the leaders, who were lower in rank assembled to him along with the tribes.
He was therefore in spiritual position to make those decrees.
Sadly, many who make such decrees over others in Church today either have no ranking to do that or have lost their ranks altogether due to careless living and perversion of the gospel. Sometimes you find people of higher ranking in the Spirit even submitting to them for such decrees due to ignorance.
It is important to know your ranking in the kingdom. Now, this is not about the pride and rebellion of not submitting to those GOD has made higher than you in the guise of us being equal in God’s kingdom. We are equal in fellowship and redemption rights but not in ranking so long as matters of mantles and mandate are concern. Let me leave that for another day!
Now, the best part for me in our devotional text this morning, basically because of what the Spirit of God have been saying to us recently, is the part that says “Hear, LORD, the cry of Judah; bring him to his people…” In other words, “send visionary relations from Heaven to him.” Hallelujah!
We have been looking at visionary living. Three laws of visionary living have been uncovered. The third is the law of visionary relations. Yesterday we shared few Bible thoughts on visionary relations from hell. Today we want to conclude this discourse with visionary relations from Heaven.
Visionary living involves choosing your relationships wisely. The Bible says;
“The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.” Proverbs 12:26 NKJV
IF YOU HAVE DESTINY TO FULFILL BE CAREFUL WHO YOU BRING INTO YOUR LIFE.
Samson, as we saw yesterday, was not careful about that hence opening the doors for a visionary relation from hell to enter his life.
Visionary relations from hell are usually determined do be our friends, but their long-term agenda is usually evil.
It is their determination that make us weak and vulnerable to them. Because when they are determined, they focus on fulfilling our immediate desires or meeting our persistent wants. But visionary relations from Heaven are different; they do not focus on our wants but our needs, especially our destiny needs.
They can sense when we are departing from the ways and will of the LORD and roar at us until we return to the LORD. They make us uneasy when they appear sometimes like Samuel was to Saul and Israel and Elijah was.
If you are Saul, you will not like them because they will trouble you with God’s will, being accurate in you walk with Him, being disciplined and all that. If you are Ahab, you will want them killed because they will not support any wickedness in your life or your affinity with any anti-destiny people. They will juts focus on making sure you are on tract with the LORD.
If you are Abraham, you will like them because they will urge you to walk before God and be perfect. They will also be like what the three friends of Abraham were to him. They will join forces with you to fight the battles of life and help you recover things that might have be stolen by the enemy.
If you are a David, they will serve like Jonathan to you. Some will be like Samuel, Nathan or Gad to you. As Samuel, they will anoint you with Holy Ghost dimensions to unleash your destiny. They will come as spiritual fathers or guides. As Nathan they will come in as Heavenly influences to help you finish well.
AND AS GAD THEY WILL BE WITH YOU DURING YOUR WILDERNESS EXPERIENCES TO MAKE SURE YOU GET THINGS RIGHT WITH THE LORD.
None of them will be happy with you if you leave the ways of the LORD and become immoral with a Beersheba or a Uriah figures in life. They will make sure you spend your days on the threshing floor until the breach is healed.
If you are in life circumstances that looks like the captivity of Israel under Pharaoh, like Moses, they will do things that will destroy the grip of Pharaoh over your life and change the circumstances; things that may sometimes, make the grip of Pharaoh very tough on you at first. You could hate them during that period but will come to sing their praise in the long run.
There is so much in scriptures about visionary relations from Heaven. We cannot uncover all of them here but what we must know is this, visionary relations from Heaven are sent to us according to our mantles, mandates and rankings in the Army of the LORD. They come to serve as helpers in the wars of life. Their destiny is only fulfilled when they help you to fulfill yours.
You will need them to become anything God may have called you to be. When we come back tomorrow, we will look at the kind of life to live to attract some relations in life.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Then some of the sons of Benjamin and Judah came to David at the stronghold.
And David went out to meet them, and answered and said to them, “If you have come peaceably to me to help me, my heart will be united with you; but if to betray me to my enemies, since there is no wrong in my hands, may the God of our fathers look and bring judgment.”
Then the Spirit came upon Amasai, chief of the captains, and he said: “We are yours, O David; We are on your side, O son of Jesse! Peace, peace to you, And peace to your helpers! For your God helps you.”
So David received them, and made them captains of the troop.” 1 Chronicles 12:16-18 NKJV