TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 7TH FEBRUARY 2024)
“For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.”
“For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies.”
“Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.” 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 38TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
This is the day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it.
Day unto day we have been seeing His goodness, kindness, mercies, healings, restorations, deliverances, refreshing, and compassion. They are all part of the rain of His faithfulness; the most powerful rain on earth.
That rain fell on David and his lineage for generations, after Samuel, a powerful ancient spiritual midwife, positioned him for it. It produced a generational covenant that contain a generational vow that the lineage of David enjoyed, for a significant amount of time.
Part of it says;
“If his sons forsake My law and do not walk in My judgments, if they break My statutes and do not keep My commandments,
Then I will punish their transgression with the rod, And their iniquity with stripes.
Nevertheless, my lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him, Nor allow My faithfulness to fail.
My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness; Psalm 89:30-35
The implication of the content of this vow is this, even if someone in David’s lineage do something that is similar to what Saul did, or even worse, what David did with God will make God to chastised that person but not withdraw His mercies from the person.
That was why people like King Manasseh, one of the great grandsons of David, who brought the worse for of Satan worship in Israel, and made them do things worse than what Ahab did, was chastised terribly but not destroyed by God.
THE COVENANT REMAINS THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF WALKING WITH GOD.
The best of God is enjoyed when we walk with Him based on covenant platforms produced by the rain of His faithfulness in our lives. When His rain falls upon us until it produces a covenant in our lives, we see things in Him that no other people can see.
Sadly, Saul could not enjoy that rain because he never allowed Samuel, God’s midwife for his age and time, to position him for it.
Saul resisted all efforts Samuel made to help him unlock his destiny, and find a peg in the place where the rain of God’s faithfulness can be falling on him.
In the same way, there are people who are resisting the Holy Spirit and the men He has placed in their lives, to position them under the rain of His faithfulness for our age and time.
There are those who are serving God in the gross darkness of religion, who will never be positioned at all because of the dark anointings they are working in. God’s will is that we all be positioned and blessed, because there are things we will not be able to come into, and victories in spiritual warfare that we will never see, until we are positioned.
May the Holy Spirit give you a spiritual authority that knows these things to position you, and may you have the willingness and submission to be positioned, because both will be necessary.
Let me reiterate again that, if the rain of God’s faithfulness falls upon your life, and you know how to behave under it, it will not just cause the blessings of God in your divine destiny to spring forth and blossom, it will unlock a covenant from God, that will sit on your lineage for a significant amount of time.
The raisers and silencers of altars, and users of oil, water, Salt, prayer clothes, sodas, Ribina, etc. have shut so many from this rain. They have kept many souls in the outer darkness where this rain is either not known or possible.
THAT IS WHY JESUS IS RUSHING INTO THOSE DARK ASSEMBLIES CALLED CHURCHES TO RESCUE HIS OWN.
Your divine destiny will need a spiritual midwife to be fulfilled because a spiritual midwife will position you in the spirit to enjoy the rain of God’s faithfulness. The rain of God’s faithfulness will be required for you to move from the declaration of your divine destiny to the manifestation.
It’s been our season of considering matters of divine destiny, and God has been faithful in dishing out life giving truths to us; precept upon precept, line upon line, containing the revelation of the things our divine destiny needs to be fulfilled.
Today we are going to look at the next thing, and that thing is called diligence or hard work. Actually, being diligent and working hard is one way to behave under the rain of God’s faithfulness.
You will never see the rain doing much in your life if you do not work hard and diligently in the pursuit of your divine destiny. There is no one that God has used to do marvellous things on the face of the earth that did not work hard along with God to get those things done.
From Adam to Noah, and from Abraham to Jesus, and to the early Church, they all worked hard under the rain of God’s faithfulness to unleash their destinies.
When it comes to life under the rain of God’s faithfulness, you must learn to be diligent and work hard, because the only substitute for hard work is hard life. Jesus Himself said,
“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work” (John 5:17 KJV).
Now, it is important to note what Jesus did not say in this scripture. He did not say “My Father worketh hitherto, and I sleep.” That would have been lazy of Him. He said, “my Father worketh Hitherto and I work.”
People Who sleep while God wants them to be up on their feet, working along with Him, will never fulfill their divine destinies. Those who are busy here and there, doing no significant thing that is related to their divine destiny, will never fulfill it either.
You may have a clear vision of what God wants you to do, if you do not put hard work in doing it, you will never see it fulfilled. Divine destiny requires hard work to be fulfilled.
IN THE RELEASE OF DIVINE DESTINY, HARD WORK OR DILIGENCE IS NOT AN OPTION BUT A NECESSITY!
Yes, fulfilling God’s pre-planned program for your life, will involve sensing the actions the Holy Spirit wants you to spend each day taking, and taking them diligently or painstakingly, until you become all He has designed or pre-planned you to be on the face of the earth.
No lazy person has ever fulfilled a glorious destiny.
Lazy people have a life that is full of excuses. They have a life full of complains. They can’t sense what God wants them to spend their days doing and do it. Even if they do, they will never do it. What they are very good at, is sensing obstacles to point out and excuses to give.
Most of them are terrible pessimists and not progressive optimists.
They make great mountains out of very little hills, and create huge valleys out of very little contours on the pathways of life. They cannot partner with God to do anything significant, that is why God also do not involve them in doing significant things.
Do not be lazy in the release of your destiny. Learn to sense what God is doing from time to time and be swift in doing it on earth.
Stop waiting upon the LORD the lazy way. Waiting upon the LORD is not being idle and hoping things will change in the direction of what God may have promised. Genuine waiting has no idleness or laziness in it.
Everyone who ever waited upon the LORD in Bible days either waited after they have worked hard, or waited while working hard. None waited in laziness or idleness.
God hates laziness and eliminates idleness wherever He sees it. The Bible is full of unkind words for idleness! In fact, a major highlight in our devotional text says,
“..If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies.”
But the reverse is the case in many places. People who are not willing to work are the greatest eaters among us. They trouble us to give them this and that, begging and begging but not willing to sweat it out and succeed in life.
Child of God, God cannot bless any people who are lazy. The release of your destiny will require a lot of hard work from you.
PAUL WROTE TO THE CHURCH AT THESSALONICA SAYING;
“For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.” 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9 NKJV
You will not be able to release your destiny if you are not willing to work with labour and toil night and day like Paul did. You will not be able to release your destiny if you do not add hard work to your Christian life.
Like earlier stated, everyone who ever walked with God was a warrior not some lazy pigs. Abraham was a warrior, Jacob was a warrior, and Isaac was a hard-working farmer who could re-dig wells that his father dug in time past.
If you read Genesis 26, you will discover that the Philistines blocked the wells not once. But he dug them again as often as they blocked them. He matched every attack of the devil with hard work, and God blessed Him.
If he was lazy and weak, they way many of us are today, he would have said “let’s forget about the wells. What is lost is lost!”
What is the message this morning? The message is simple. If you will fulfil your destiny, you must work hard and be diligent about it. Under the rain of God’s faithfulness, hard work and diligence will bless you. That is the message.
MAKE THESE SCRIPTURES AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
“He who has a slack hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a wise son; He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.” Proverbs 10:4-5 NKJV
“The appetite of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the appetite of the diligent is abundantly supplied.” Proverbs 13:4 AMP
“The thoughts of the [steadily] diligent tend only to plenteousness, but everyone who is impatient and hasty hastens only to want.”
“Securing treasures by a lying tongue is a vapor driven to and fro; those who seek them seek death.” Proverbs 21:5-6 AMP
“Do you see a man diligent and skillful in his business? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.” Proverbs 22:29 AMP