TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 7TH NOVEMBER 2024)
“So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”
Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”
He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.
So now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.”
And Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear! Genesis 4:6-13 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 312TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Day unto day mankind gets closer and closer to the final consummation. Sadly, there is a lot of prophetic ignorance on these things.
Many are not aware of the imminent consummation of all things prophesied in the Holy scriptures. Our personal needs consciousness has blinded us and limited our vision from seeing what we ought to be seeing about the final moments of the earth.
My heart is saddened by the Prophetic ignorance of the Church. We have become as blind as the world.
We grope in spiritual darkness like the lost; exception of the religious things we do and say, there is no much difference between us and them. We allow winds of doctrines to blow us around like they do today, instead of sound doctrine; the prophetic wind of the Spirit of truth.
That is why we find most of us, present-day believers, going through what the lost go through, with many of us even becoming as eternally damned as they. But the mercies of the LORD are from everlasting to everlasting.
If we will make use of them and wake up from this slumber now that it is day, things will be different, because the night comes when no man can work. And that night is fast approaching!
When it finally comes, mankind will know that they have been deceived not making Jesus Christ and eternal things their greatest attention in this life.
Mercy of the LORD has been our focus on this platform of late.
Yesterday, we shared about the power and impact of divine backing. We discovered that it is one of the blessings that God’s Mercy places on us.
Today the LORD will be taking us a step further, but not further than refreshing our minds on more life-giving truths on God’s mercy.
Repeatedly, we have said, “God’s Mercy is a Seed! It is more of a seed than a need.” I want to reiterate that again in today’s devotional. The Bible teaches that if such truths are not reiterated again, and again, they will slip away from our busy minds.
YES, GOD’S MERCY IS A SEED. IF YOU UNDERSTAND IT THAT WAY, YOU WILL MAKE THE MOST OF IT.
There are few people in Bible days whose lives has a lot to teach us on this. Cain is one of them. If Cain had known that God’s Mercy is a seed, he will have made a good use of it and raise seeds of righteousness on the face of the earth instead of the evil seeds he raised.
As you might have known, the people God regretted creating in Genesis Chapter 6, were offsprings of Cain. If their ancestor Cain had made use of God’s mercy when it was available to him, they would have been no Nephilim on earth, and no such judgment.
Though we are consumed by the need for God’s mercy, but God’s mercy is not just a need, it is also a seed. The seed nature of God’s mercy, places a responsibility on the subjects of His mercy.
In fact, the offspring of Cain we are talking about, actually received a deposit of God’s Mercy when God raised Noah to preach to them.
God used that preacher of righteousness to seed His mercy into their lives, giving them a chance to escape judgment, like we are being given today. But because they did not see it as a seed, they could not make use of it.
In fact, they did not even see it as a need because they never believed Noah. They mocked at him and never trusted His words. That is what happens to any Godless generation whose heart is hardened towards the word of the LORD.
The truth is, if you do not see God’s mercy as a need, you will care less about God; and if you see it as a need, but did not see it as a seed, you will never be saved from what GOD sent it to save you from.
At this point, let’s back track a little and look at the life of Cain again.
Our devotional text presents the story of a man who sinned against God by violating offering principles. When God rejected his offerings, it was an act of mercy. There are people God will reject their offerings and yet they will not even know. The pastor will accept it, but GOD has rejected it.
But God was so merciful on Cain that He told him that his offering has been rejected, and also intimated him on why it was rejected. However, instead of making use of that seed of mercy from the LORD, by repenting and making his ways right before the LORD, he moved further into sin.
FINALLY, HE KILLED WHO GOD GAVE HIM TO KEEP – HIS BROTHER.
The Bible says,
Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?”
He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.
I have said this repeatedly that if you are not your brother’s keeper, one day you will be your brother’s killer! If you are not keeping or caring for someone who need help from you, automatically, you are killing the person. God might raise someone else to care for them, but your actions will be judged, somehow.
A generation that do not make use of God’s mercy will move from sin to sin and from wickedness to wickedness, and sometimes it will be doing so on its knees, asking God for mercy and forgiveness.
When Cain was chastised by the LORD with a rejection of His offering, he did not make use of God’s mercy that manifested as a divine rebuke. As we have all known, he went ahead to kill his brother and the blood of his brother began to cry against him from the ground.
When mercy came again to reveal to him the consequences of his sins, his response became more terrible. He again did not make use of it to repent but rather did what many of us do when we commit a sin, and the mercy of God come to show us the consequences of our actions, so that we might repent!
He said to God, “My punishment is greater than I can bear!” He spoke as if God was the cause of His problem. He felt justified of his wicked actions.
In other words, he was saying to GOD “I deserve mercy irrespective of what I may have done!” That is the worst way to relate to GOD. We do not deserve mercy if there is no repentance from sin and wickedness!
Like earlier shared, Cain’s offspring will later grow up to destroy the fabric of moral life, filling the heart of GOD with so much pain, and bringing about the first global judgment of God on sin and wickedness.
THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DO NOT MAKE GOOD USE OF GOD’S MERCY; WE COME UNDER JUDGEMENT.
Every human must understand that God’s Mercy is a seed not just a need! If He sows it in our lives, and we do not allow a harvest of repentance to spring up from us, we will never escape what He seeded it into our lives to save us from.
Sometimes God will seed mercy into our lives to save us from earthly perils like premature death, natural disasters, demonic attacks, lack or poverty, sudden destructions, unknown enemies, sicknesses or diseases. Other times He will seed it into our lives to save us from eternal perils like eternal judgment; which is an eternal life in hell fire.
Let me reiterate again that, if God “seed” mercy into our lives and we do not allow a harvest of repentance from sin and wickedness to spring up from us, we will not escape what He seeded that mercy into our lives to save us from.
Finally, I want to let us know that we are in the days of God’s mercy – that is as many of us that are alive. Very soon the curtain will close on each and every one of us and mercy will be over. We will come face to face with GOD to answer before HIM.
It’s my prayer that GOD will take us further individually and show us more things about His mercy being a seed so that we can allow it to bring forth the required harvest in our lives! Amen.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.
Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?
Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.” 2 Peter 3:8-13 NKJV