TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 20TH JULY 2024)
“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.” ’
“And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.
And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.” Luke 15:18-24 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 202ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Glory be to the LORD God for bringing us to the 20th day of this beautiful but challenging month. We thank Our LORD and savior Jesus Christ, for giving us health, and keeping us alive. We thank Him for being our mercy seat.
In fact, personally, if God had not been my mercy seat, the enemy would have messed my life up badly. If you look at your life, you can say the same of yourself. Jesus Christ, Our God, Our King, and Savior, is our mercy seat, that is why the gates of hell has not messed our lives up.
Yes, many do not know that Jesus Christ is our mercy seat today. The mercy seat was in the ark in the days of Moses but today He is in our lives. Anyone who serve the mercy seat will have their lives filled with God’s mercies.
You do not lack mercy If the one you love and serve is the mercy seat. When it was being made in the days of symbolism, God said to Moses;
“ You shall put the mercy seat on top of the ark, and in the ark you shall put the Testimony that I will give you.
And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.” Exodus 25:21-22 NKJV
God spoke to Moses from the mercy seat. The mercy seat was in Heaven then but the type and shadow of it was on earth so that things will be on earth as written in Heaven. Today the mercy seat as earlier stated, manifest on earth as Jesus Christ, through whom the voice of the God came to man the way it came to Moses from the mercy seat. The Bible says;
“God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; “Hebrews 1:1-2 NKJV
In time past, God spoke to our Bible fathers in various ways; He spoke to them from His mercy seat in the ark that Moses made, but in the last days (the last three thousand years of the earth), He has spoken to us through Jesus Christ, who is Himself manifesting as Son.
Jesus Christ remains the last voice of God to the human race.
YOU WILL BE LIMITED IF YOU TAKE THE VOICE OF YOUR PROPHET AS THE LAST VOICE OF GOD TO YOU.
It is important to understand that prophetic ministry today is different. Everything changed with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Except you are dealing with a sorcerer or diviner, prophetic ministry today is the Testimony of Jesus Christ, who Himself is the Spirit of Prophecy, coming to us through mortal men.
That is why it will end up helping you understand the scriptures, and forming Christ in your hearts, instead of leading you to raise altars, sow this seed and that one, inciting you against your loved ones, or using water, salt, oil, and etc. in prayers.
Yes, it will not dwell on taking money from your pocket, or revealing who is killing you, but will dwell on getting you saved and keeping you saved.
Sadly, due to ignorance, so many have been forced to replace the voice of God in their lives with the voice of men. That is why you cannot see the manifestation of divine mercy in their lives.
The voice of God today is Christ, He is also the mercy seat. When His Spirit speaks to you, what He may be saying to you will be coming from the mercy seat, thereby filling your life with mercy.
If our lives are filled with God’s mercy, there is no force on earth that can mess it up. Not even the force of sin. The mercy of the LORD will always come to help us out of temptation. And if God finds anyone who has been overwhelmed by a sin and is crying for help, especially through fasting and prayer, the mercy of the LORD will be deployed to raise the person up.
It will come to the person as the voice of GOD, either warning, rebuking, or reviving the person so that his or her faith can be rekindled to get back to a life of consecration.
MEANING, NO LIFE THAT IS FULL OF GOD’S MERCY WILL PERMANENTLY LIVE A LIFE OF SIN.
God’s mercy will not let that happen. It is not a permission to sin but an empowerment to sin no more.
Apart from helping us to overcome the force of sin, God’s mercy also helps us to overcome the forces of darkness. If It fills your life, Satan cannot have you for dinner. To secure us from the evil one, God will get our lives filled with His mercy.
A life filled with God’s mercy cannot be successfully messed up by Satan. The Bible is full of men and women whose lives could not be messed up by the Devil because of the mercy of God that filled every detail of it.
Just as God’s mercy in our lives works to stop the force of sin from eating us up, so does it work to stop the forces of darkness from eating us up. You will never be messed up by anyone, if your life is filled with the mercy of the LORD.
For instance, when the devil wanted to use the insecurity of Balak and the greed of Balaam, the polluted prophet, to place a curse on Israel, the mercy of the LORD that filled their lives spoke and neutralized the prophet. The curse was a curse that would have wiped them away. But God’s mercy said no!!!
Now, when the polluted prophet saw it, he was so amazed and puzzled that he spoke saying;
“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 23:21-23 NKJV
This is exactly what will happen in your life if the devil decides to take advantage of your errors or sins to hurt and harm you, especially after you have cried unto God for mercy.
GOD’S MERCY WILL SAY TO THE ENEMY, GOD HAS NOT OBSERVED WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. SO, BACK OFF.
Friend, Numbers 23:21-23 presents one of the major blessings you will enjoy if God fills your life with His mercy. The enemy will not be able to find what to use against you because God Himself will not validate any iniquity to be in your life or any wickedness to thrive in your heart.
Once iniquity cannot be found or wickedness validated, there will be no witchcraft that can work against you. The Bible says “For there is no sorcery against Jacob, Nor any divination against Israel.”
That will be the heritage that you will be made up of.
The most powerful life on earth, therefore, is a life filled with God’s mercy. It cannot be neutralized by its enemies. It cannot be destroyed by the destroyers form the Kingdom of darkness. It cannot be cursed by any one on earth.
Friend, get your life filled with God’s mercies and your life will not be at the mercies of your enemies. And that you do by allowing the voice of Christ to be the governor of your life. Which brings us back to the mystery of the shout of the king in Numbers 23:21.
The polluted prophet who became a sorcerer in that scripture said, he could not place a curse on Israel because the shout of a king was among them.
That shout was the shout of God’s mercies. If Christ is in your life, guiding your ways, that shout will be heard in your life also when witches move against you, because His mercies will be in your life.
The proclamation from Balaam shows us that if our lives are governed by the voice of the LORD, they will become a dwelling place of the shout of the king. God’s mercy will fill every detail of it, making it impossible for curses to be placed on us.
Like I said in one of those services, I have been cursed by so many who feel uncomfortable with the word of the LORD on my lips, but none of what they said has worked in my life.
One of the pastors who ‘cursed’ me many years ago was caught with human parts and his church closed down by the government.
YOU DO NOT CURSE PEOPLE WHOSE LIVES ARE FULL OF GOD’S MERCY AND SEE YOUR WORDS COME TO PASS.
If you are troubled by curses or any other forces of darkness, you will need a spiritual father who will teach you how to make your life the dwelling place of the shout of a king using the eyes of the LORD.
I know that for some, the phrase “spiritual father” is a manipulation tool because of what they have gone through. But the Bible teaches that spiritual fathers are the will of God.
It also teaches that spiritual fathering will only fulfill God’s will in our lives if it revolves around access to the tree of life. The tree of life today is Jesus. When spiritual fathering revolves around Him, it will help us to have our lives governed by His voice.
We will be taught and trained to follow the voice of the LORD wherever it leads. We will be trained to hear God ourselves and follow Him, the way our Bible fathers did. That is how fathering helps to get every detail of our lives filled with God’s mercy.
Sadly, there are many with spiritual fathers whose lives are not governed by the voice of Christ but the voice of their dark, heretic or fallen spiritual fathers. Such people will never enjoy the heritage of getting every detail of their lives filled with God’s mercies.
A spiritual fathering that revolves around the tree of life will make the voice of Christ the governor of a man’s life, filling every detail of it with the mercies of the LORD. That is why when life becomes unbearable, go to where you can find spiritual fathering that revolves around the tree of life, or the Throne of God.
That is the type that has no manipulation in it. All you will see is the spiritual freedom you need to serve the LORD. Our devotional text is about a man who knew where to go to when life become unbearable.
A major part of the text says,
“I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him…” Luke 15:18 NKJV
The father’s house is where to go to when things become tough with you, and it is the place to remain in, if you do not want them to return back to being tough. If you read the whole of Luke 15 from verses 11, you will discover that the older son had no tough times in his life because he remained in the father’s house.
The younger one had because he left.
The story of the two sons in that parable has a lot of lessons for us. That of the younger son teaches that if things are tough with you, it is a sign that you are away from the Heavenly Father’s house.
TO CHANGE THEM, YOU MUST RETURN TO THE FATHER’S HOUSE.
While that of the older son teaches that if you remain in the father’s house, it does not matter what might be happening on earth, you will just be fine. His mercies will fill every detail of your life, making everything fine with you.
Yes, you will be very fine and not have to suffer any losses, go through bankruptcy, experience the shame of eating with pigs and etc.
The Father’s house today is not a building but a realm of the Spirit where the manifest presence of the eternal God, our Heavenly Father lives. It is a realm. And it is very possible for us all to live in it, because the Holy Ghost is the present custodian of that realm.
If you have an ideal spiritual father, He will teach and train you to live in that realm. The problem we have had in recent times, is the plague of a generation of fathers who do not even know about the realm, hence teaching us to raise altars, silence them, use oil, salt, water, candles and all that to pray.
Obviously, the Church is plagued today with a spiritual fathering system that is governed by the demon of deliverance, the spirits of Baal, Asherah, Molech, Tammuz, Babylon and etc. Many destinies are being ruined in the name of spiritual fathering because of that.
Child of God, our God wants us saved from this spiritual plague.
Let me say this in conclusion; one of the greatest miracles that happened to my walk and talk with God was the turning of my heart to my spiritual father in 1993. It changed my life forever.
My prayer for you today is that the LORD will turn your heart away from every fallen, dark, demonic, or heretic fathering system, (If He has not done so already) to a spiritual fathering system that revolves around the tree of life. Amen!!!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY!
“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
And he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.” Malachi 4:5-6 NKJV