TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 25TH OCTOBER 2024)
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.” Psalm 40:6-8 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 299TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Personally, I owe the LORD a lot for all the mercies He has shown me this year. It pays to have your redeemer as your LORD. He will speak for you where you can’t speak for yourself.
There has been no time that God dealt with man according to his sins or wickedness, after the cross. He has always dealt with us according to His mercies. There are no words that can accurately capture the depth of His love, grace and mercies on this side of eternity.
It pays to walk with this loving Father, who sits in Heaven, beholds the earth and yet fills it with His presence just because of you and I. It pays to relate with Him as Father and partner with Him in the execution of His plans and purposes.
Truth be told, the best partnership in the world is not partnership with men but with God.
Yes, we need men to become men ourselves but if you partner with men outside God’s will for your life, they will fail you. The arm of flesh will always fail. That is why it’s important that one prepares their hearts ahead before doing anything with anyone. Know that the best of man is still a man and may fail. Partnering with GOD remains the best partnership in the world. When you take it deeper, it hits the realm of covenant.
Maintaining a covenant walk with the LORD is the best thing that can happen to anyone on earth. It is one of the most sacred forms of partnership anywhere in creation. It brings the kingdom, the power and the glory of heaven to men in dimensions that are uncommon to mankind.
That is why you read men like Abraham and the like in scriptures maintaining covenant walks with God and enjoying things that angels desire to look at.
ANGELS ARE NOT SONS, AND CANNOT COME UNDER COVENANT, THEY ARE UNDER COMMAND.
We can come under covenant if we wish and also operate under command. If you can operate with GOD by covenant and by command, you will become a spiritual force to be reckoned with on earth. That was who David was; one who walked with GOD based on covenant and based on command.
GOD was unconditionally committed to David by covenant, and amazingly broke out by his hands to deal with the enemy by command. By covenant the LORD said this concerning Him;
“I have found My servant David; With My holy oil I have anointed him, With whom My hand shall be established; Also My arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, Nor the son of wickedness afflict him.
I will beat down his foes before his face, And plague those who hate him. But My faithfulness and My mercy shall be with him, And in My name his horn shall be exalted.” Psalm 89:21-24 NKJV
And by command, the LORD said this to David;
“You shall not go up; circle around behind them, and come upon them in front of the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you shall advance quickly.
For then the LORD will go out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines.” And David did so, as the LORD commanded him; and he drove back the Philistines from Geba as far as Gezer. 2 Samuel 5:23-25 NKJV
David enjoyed amazing acts of God because he walked with God by covenant and by command. He tapped what angels desired to look at. The only area of wrong was when he followed the flesh like many of us do and caused the death of one of his greatest loyalists, after sleeping with His wife. Many of us have even done worse.
His covenant walk would later come to see him through. The Bible teaches that God’s covenant with David spoke His everlasting mercies upon him, at the instance of his repentance, and the breach was repaired.
BUT SAUL, IT WAS DIFFERENT. GOD STARTED WITH HIM BY COMMAND SO THAT HE COULD BRING HIM INTO COVENANT BUT THE MAN REFUSED.
Sometimes God might start a relationship with you by command, in order to bring you into the covenant. He will start by telling you what to obey, and when you grow up in faithfulness, you come to the place of the covenant where you enjoy uncommon blessings.
For Saul, his rebellious acts could not let Him follow God to the depth. He preferred sacrifices to obedience. He was like the Christian who preferred tithing and giving huge offerings to silence devils while he or she lived wickedly. He was like some of us who prefer singing in the choir, being ushers, preaching, praying, prophesying and being busy in Church, while we are very far from GOD.
The Church today has become more of Saul than ever.
We are plagued with preachers who press upon people to give all kinds of moneys to them in the name of God but the same people do not know God intimately. They worship and sacrifice money to the God they only know about, but do not know intimately. Some sacrifice to gods sometimes, gods of their prophets.
They are made to build Church buildings without building their personal walk with the LORD. They are made to raise altars of sacrifice and scammed through so many other wrong teachings because that is what keeps the preacher rich and relevant.
They are made to offer all manner of sacrifices instead of offering themselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to GOD.
Many have replaced a life of holiness, righteousness and truth with a life of giving, singing and being busy for God without living right. So many so-called believers are addicted to sex, drugs, gossips, lying, pretence, hypocrisy and all that.
We send a stench daily to God with our wicked lives and still expect life to be blissful. It does not happen that way!
You cannot be sowing to please the flesh and reap a glorious life thereafter. You cannot be sowing to please the flesh and not reap corruption, decay and the demonic. We go through all we go through because we send a stench to the throne of God with our bad habits.
WE DO NOT YIELD TO HIS HOLY SPIRIT TO CLEAN US UP AND BEAUTIFY US WITH THE GLORIES OF HEAVEN.
Most of us are just pathetic, despite what the LORD have been showing us. There is a loss of genuine faith in the lives of many. We now have a faith that cannot move mountains. It just builds mountains of sinful habits and constructs valleys of moral decay in our lives.
We prefer sacrifices and religion than genuine relationship with the LORD that forms godliness and moral excellence in our character. The singles are made to sacrifice all they can to get married, instead of being told the truth of the gospel. There is a lot of scamming and destruction in that area; a lot of make believes.
Yes, giving sacrificially is great and the kingdom of God depends on it. But stealing from people in the name of them sacrificing to the LORD to get a husband, a wife, a job, a house, a raise and etc. is unacceptable in God’s kingdom.
A preacher steals from you when he or she tells you to give this or that sacrificially to get this or that from the LORD.
Indeed, many have been made lovers of pleasure instead of lovers of God. The Saul kind of relationship with God, where sacrifices are better than obedience have been so entrenched that there are no words to accurately capture how bad things have become. But our devotional text this morning presents the divine position when it says;
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart.” Psalm 40:6-8 NKJV
While the preachers are desiring sacrifices from many, irrespective of who they are by nature, the Bible says God is not. His desire is that the ears of men be opened to His Spirit and that we all come into command and then the covenant, which is not what most of us pastors preaches.
For many preachers, the word “covenant” is a money-making tool kit where they pass an envelope or some numbers and ask you to send money to them. But to God it is sacred and deep.
As we bring this to a close, I want to submit to you that the purpose of the great commission is one. God needs a body that can come into command and then be ushered into covenant so that He can live in it.
IF ANY GOSPEL YOU ARE HEARING IS NOT MAKING YOU ONE, YOU ARE BEING SCAMMED.
You are being deceived. You must separate from that preacher, that church or that ministry.
Your soul is too precious to be spent in the wrong spiritual places. Do not allow sentiments to defeat God’s plans and purposes for your life. God wants you to be His body on earth, not just by faith, the way they treat it in Church today, but in real life; He wants us to be His blazing temples on earth.
Are you ready? It requires that you come into command, and then grow deep into the covenant like David did. When he did, he stepped into a blessing; he was given a son that God qualified to build a temple on earth. The LORD said to him;
“When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men.
But My mercy shall not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever.” ’ ” 2 Samuel 7:12-16 NKJV
We find Saul again in this scripture!
The Saul generation in every generation lacks the attitude that attracts and retains God’s mercies in the lives of men. It is a generation that cannot be made temples for God in the Spirit in reality, because it does not genuinely care about what the LORD care about. It is not a generation that can come into command.
There is so much in this scripture that we can’t uncover here now.
But the life of David teaches us that when we come under command and then into a covenant relationship with the LORD, our lives can become a temple for God in the Spirit. When our lives become a temple for God in the Spirit, He will begin to live in us to rule the earth and executes His end time redemptive plans for mankind.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY;
Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord,
in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22 NKJV