TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 19TH JUNE 2024)
Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
And Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar. Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go; perhaps the LORD will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So, he went to a desolate height.
And God met Balaam, and he said to Him, “I have prepared the seven altars, and I have offered on each altar a bull and a ram.” Then the LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”
So, he returned to him, and there he was, standing by his burnt offering, he and all the princes of Moab. Numbers 23:1-6 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 170TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, when men rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us quick, when their wrath was kindled against us.
Then the waters would have overwhelmed us and the stream gone over our souls. Blessed be the LORD, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our souls have escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers. The snare is broken, and we have escaped.
Our help has been in the name of the LORD. He has been our everything. Indeed, blessed are a people whose God is the LORD. Glory be to His great name. Amen!!
Today we want to look at the subject of the fires of righteous prayers. You know in Bible days, when people pray, especially over their sacrificial services to the LORD, a fire falls from God, as an answer to their prayers. That still happens today but not in a physical sense like it did then.
That which God does in response to our prayers is key to any answer we seek in prayers. So, this truth will be of help.
Yes, there is the fire of righteous prayers. God respond to our prayers in different ways, one is by sending the fire of His presence to our prayers. So, get ready as we look at some faith building truths on this important prayer matter.
To start with, we shared something about becoming a throne room Christian yesterday. Understand that the fire of His presence that God sends to us when we pray righteous prayers, has a role in helping us become God’s Throne room Christians.
Righteous prayers are not need driven, because the greatest need of a man is not money, fame, power or influence. Though many do not know this, that is why they are still not satisfied when they get all that. They had to use drugs alcohol and etc. to try to fill in the void.
THE GREATEST NEED OF A MAN IS NOT AN EARTHLY BLESSING, OR TREASURE.
The greatest need of a man is not even an opposite sex for a friend, a partner, as they call it, or a spouse. The greatest need of a man is the fire of God’s Presence. In other words, the manifest presence of the LORD. Righteous prayers make that fire of God’s presence always available in a man’s life, which in turn make other needed things available.
Righteous prayers are righteousness driven, not need driven. That is why they bring down the fire of God’s presence.
There is something about having the fire of God’s presence in your life, which I want to share at this point. Understand that the presence of the LORD, is the only treasure on earth that follows a man, from this life to the next life. No other treasure does or can.
Yes, money cannot follow you from this life to the next life. Jewelries, cars, houses, lands, certificates, clothes, and any other things that makes the earthly life blissful will never follow you to the next life. Only the presence of the LORD will.
It plays the role of keeping us safe and blessed in this life, and carrying our souls to the arms of the LORD at the end of our days. That is why when you have the presence of the LORD in your life, you are secured even eternally.
It is therefore important that you live your days pursuing only that which will follow you to the next life.
The beauty is, when you pursue it and possess it, it makes the earthly blessings that will not follow you, available to you for use while alive.
Wise Christians live their days pursuing and possessing this one treasure that will follow them to the next life; this one treasure that does not end in death; this one treasure that makes even the treasures they need in this life but does not follow people to the next life, available to them.
They spend their days pursuing or possessing the treasure of the fires of God’s presence through righteous prayers and righteous living.
Then they walk with it to give them the marriage they might need in this life, the money they might need, the jobs they might need, and every other earthly blessing that will not follow them to the next life, but is needed in this life.
Sometimes we are made to think it is people we need in life. Yes, we need people some times, because it is not good for a man to be alone, but we do not need people all the time. What we need all the time is God. He remains a Friend the sticks closer than a brother. He remains our only present help in time of trouble.
That is why you should always bow the knee in righteous praying asking for the fires of His presence to be burning in your life; the manifestation of His manifest presence.
AND WHY DID THE BIBLE CALLS GOD A FRIEND THAT STICKS CLOSER THAN A BROTHER?
You see, Good friends may stick to us in time of adversity. A loving brother or any other blood relative may stick to us in times where none wants to stay with us. But none of them can follow us to the gates of death and accompany our souls as it leaves our bodies to the great beyond. Only the presence of God can do that.
If we carry His presence and abide in Him, He will be with us in all times and even follow us through the gates of death, to make sure nothing goes wrong with our souls, and then take us to our eternal rest with Christ.
That is why I said the presence of God is the only treasure that follows a man to the next life and make sure He is submitted to the LORD Jesus Christ to spend eternity in His arms.
Wisdom demands that we pay the price that will be necessary to have the presence of GOD in our lives. And one of it is the price of bowing the knee to pray righteous prayers.
Moses was one man who spent His days talking to God always.
If you read the story of his life in the first five books of the Bible, especially from Exodus, you will discover that the man survived through righteous prayers. He was always in communication with the LORD, not asking for any earthly thing but for the manifest presence of the LORD, or matters that revolved around his divine assignment.
During one of the righteous prayer moments he had with the LORD, Moses said to Him;
“Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight. And consider that this nation is Your people.”
And He said, “My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”
Then he said to Him, “If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? So we shall be separate, Your people and I, from all the people who are upon the face of the earth.”
So, the LORD said to Moses, “I will also do this thing that you have spoken; for you have found grace in My sight, and I know you by name.” Exodus 33:13-17 NKJV
WHAT WE JUST READ IN THIS SCRIPTURE, IS AN ASPECT OF RIGHTEOUS PRAYERS THAT HAS THE CAPACITY TO BRING US INTO GLORY DIMENSIONS.
If you want the glories of God’s manifest presence to be burning in your life, you do not need too much complicated prayer grammars. You do not need anyone to send prayer points to you. Just have a simple heart that is hungry for it, and pray. God will respond if you persist.
He said we will find Him if we seek Him with the whole of our hearts. Moses sought Him with the whole of his heart and found Him.
Can you see the flow of conversation and what Moses was asking for? He did not ask God for houses, death of enemies, or even healing for His trouble marriage, even when his wife was away at that time because some disagreements happened on his way to Egypt, and his marriage became sick.
He did not ask for the mundane or carnal. He asked for the presence of the LORD.
I reiterate again that righteous prayers are not prayers that are motivated by the carnal or mundane. They are prayers that are motivated by the most ultimate need of a man in a trouble world like ours. They are prayers that are motivated by the need to have the manifest presence of the LORD in our lives.
Moses knew what the presence of the LORD can do hence asking for it to be his companion. If we know what the presence of the LORD can do in our lives, we will make it our greatest pursuit in prayers.
Sadly, we see prayer as a means of forcing God to give answers to our carnal needs. We do not see it as a means of being shaped in God’s manifest presence until we can carry it wherever we go.
THAT MUST CHANGE.
We must begin to pray righteous prayers, by staying in God’s presence until we completely decrease and He increase in our lives. Changing in God’s presence must become our reason for prayers, not meeting our carnal needs.
I have said it repeatedly that prayer does not move God, because God has been on the move even before the earth was created. The Bible says, the Spirit of the LORD move upon the waters. So, He has been on the Move. Prayer only moves us.
Prayer moves us to change us. It is when we are changed in His presence that our lives will begin to experience changes. That is when our circumstances will begin to change.
So, your vision for prayer should be “change in His presence,” and nothing else.
When you become changed in His presence, you will unlock a grace that will put you at a level where curses, spells, premature death or sudden destruction will never happen in your life. You will operate at a level where evil conspiracies of dark men and women will not work in your life. Which brings us to our devotional text.
The text said;
Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”
And Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar. Then Balaam said to Balak, “Stand by your burnt offering, and I will go; perhaps the LORD will come to meet me, and whatever He shows me I will tell you.” So, he went to a desolate height.
This was a spiritual conspiracy that would have wiped away Israel. But it never worked because of where Israel was operating from.
The nation carried the fire of God’s presence on their lives that manifested as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. That was the fire that responded to Balaam and neutralized him and his altars.
You are the next on God’s list. You only need to become a man or woman of righteous prayers; one who enters the presence of the LORD to be changed by it, not to make carnal requests.
Yes, you might need to present what might be ailing you to Him, but your vision for doing so should be, “LORD, I want to be changed by your presence.” If your vision is to be changed by His presence, within a short season of consistency, you will step into a higher grace; a grace that makes sure no sorcery or evil succeeds against you.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?
Behold, I have received a command to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot reverse it. “He has not observed iniquity in Jacob, nor has He seen wickedness in Israel. The LORD his God is with him, And the shout of a King is among them.
God brings them out of Egypt; He has strength like a wild ox. “For there is no sorcery against Jacob, Nor any divination against Israel. It now must be said of Jacob And of Israel, ‘Oh, what God has done!’ Numbers 23: 19-23 NKJV