TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 19TH JANUARY 2025)
Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice.
When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. 2 Chronicles 7:12-16 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 19TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY.
When I was a Child in our local Church, I always look forward to Sunday services because of the wonderful and exciting services we usually have.
But deep down me I know I look forward to Sunday because it is the only day that all the members of our Church assemble to fellowship. It is like a gathering of a big family because of the kindred spirit that inhabited our hearts then.
The joy it leaves behind, the feeling of warmth it gives to our souls, and the spiritual impact it usually has on our lives, are what make my Sundays as a little boy. Thereafter, we go home telling the stories and looking forward to another glorious one.
I believe God poured down His mercies upon us each time we assemble like that. I don’t know who or where you may be reading this, I want to submit to you this morning not to forsake the gathering of the brethren if you have a Church.
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This morning we are visiting a well of truth on God’s mercy. Our devotional text this morning is taken from that well. It’s my prayer that you find refreshing for your soul in Jesus precious name. Amen!
One major call a God’s mercies places on people God have decided to show mercy is a call to prayer and deep repentance. This is very important. The Sons of Light must understand that. In other words, when the LORD says to you, “I will have mercy on you,” He has automatically placed a call to prayer and deep repentance upon you.
Your next move should be to start humbling yourself with fasting and prayers, seeking Him in spirit and in truth, studying His word to find Him, and taking away any unclean thing from your life and cleaning up. That is how you respond.
YOU RESPOND BY GOING TO THE PLACE OF DEEP REPENTANCE.
The reason for that is simple; sometimes, God’s mercy is not something you find when your heart has not experienced a very deep conviction. You will not even have a heart for it if your heart is not honest and true. God’s mercy is what you cherish and find when your heart has been touched by the Spirit of the LORD, or changed completely.
On this side of eternity, that change take place when we seek the LORD, sometimes by humbling ourselves in fasting and prayer. You see that all through the scriptures.
So, you don’t sit down waiting for God’s mercy, you stand up in prayer kneeling in deep repentance looking for it.
You don’t assume it has been released to you. Assumption is the mother of disappointment. You journey in the Spirit, in the place of prayer and deep repentance, and keep going until you find it. The first place I saw this was in the Biblical account of the dedication of the temple of Solomon.
The Man of God, Solomon, a King (according to the book of 1st kings and 2nd Chronicles) long before the madness of marrying many women, knelt down before God at the dedication of the temple and said,
“When they sin against You (for there is no one who does not sin), and You become angry with them and deliver them to the enemy, and they take them captive to a land far or near; yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried captive, and repent, and make supplication to You in the land of their captivity, saying, ‘We have sinned, we have done wrong, and have committed wickedness’;
and when they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their captivity, where they have been carried captive, and pray toward their land which You gave to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and toward the temple which I have built for Your name:
then hear from heaven Your dwelling place their prayer and their supplications, and maintain their cause, and forgive Your people who have sinned against You. Now, my God, I pray, let Your eyes be open and let Your ears be attentive to the prayer made in this place. 2 Chronicles 6:36-40 NKJV
WHAT CAN YOU FIND IN THIS SCRIPTURE? WE FIND SO MANY TRUTHS THAT WE CAN’T CHEW IN A DEVOTIONAL.
But the Bible clearly shows here that when a people who need God’s mercy do not seek it, they will never find it. They are to seek for it through prayers, born out of deep repentance. That is how they become men and women of God’s mercy.
The scripture described deep repentance as returning to GOD with all your heart and with all your soul in the land of your captivity. Meaning, their captivity will never be the focus during such prayer sessions but returning to God will be the focus!
The prototype of the place of God’s mercy in the days of Solomon was in the temple, and the King was telling God that each time His people are in need of His mercy, and they seek it in that place, they should find it.
God responded with what our devotional text says to us today. A major highlight of it says,
“When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
A generation that will not seek God’s mercy, through a prayer KNEE that is born out of deep repentance, will perish in the mess of their sins and attacks of their enemies. If you want to be a man or woman of God’s mercy, you must be a man and woman of deep repentance. Nothing less!
Your giving is great but you must be a man or woman of deep repentance. Your serving in church is great, but that will never replace the need for deep repentance in your quest to be a man or woman of God’s mercies. Deep repentance is the greatest key in the school of God’s mercy.
IT HELPS US TO STRIKE THE LOINS OF THE MERCIFUL FATHER, SO THAT WE CAN OBTAIN THE MERCY WE NEED TO FIND GRACE IN TIME OF NEED.
Before God responded with those gracious words in our devotional text, the singers who gathered at the dedication service to sing unto the LORD, caught the revelation of the atmosphere of “Enduring Mercy” that had filled the Temple, and sang to our God, the gracious and merciful One, saying, “For the LORD is good and His mercies endure forever.”
May God give us fresh gospel singers who will not be singing according to their pockets but according to the atmospheres of GOD!
Solomon dedicated the Temple in an atmosphere of Enduring Mercy. God wants us to live our days in 2025 in an atmosphere of enduing mercy. He wants the atmosphere of enduring mercy to fill your home, your business, your place of work and etc.
The singers made us to understand that in that atmosphere, mercy does not come to an end. Their song revealed to us that the GOD we serve is one whose mercies endure forever. But the revelation of how to access that mercy did not come until GOD Himself spoke the very words that are captured in our devotional text. I call it God’s response to Solomon’s prayer!
That response made it clear that those seeking His Enduring Mercies can only find it when they seek it in deep repentance. I am sharing all these to tell us that mercy is not assumed, mercy is sort for until it is found, and you begin to experience your life changed.
God’s design is that local churches should help us find His mercies.
Sadly, there are local churches where people do not find God’s mercies and grace when they go there, hence seeking dark deliverance, raising or silencing altars to be free, or taken to mountains to pray. In most, they find lawlessness and sinful living that is not punished, and calls it God’s mercy or grace.
Ordinarily, God’s true mercies, that can only be found through deep repentance, should be found in any local Church or gospel ministry. But that is not so because most local churches today, have become synagogues of Satan, or spiritual cities of refuse.
HENCE YOU FIND PEOPLE THERE WHO ARE BEING PURSUED BY AVENGERS NOT FINDING SPIRITUAL REFUGE THERE.
If God’s mercy is in a local Church, you will not be allowed to live a reckless life or any life that will make you a prey to the enemy. You will enjoy rest on every side without sowing a seed like they call it.
But when it is not there, if the counterfeit is there, you will find preachers requesting for money from suffering people for every miracle or deliverance they need. They will be told to do things to get whatever they want from God; there will be all sorts of deliverance inventions for money purposes.
Where GOD’s mercy does not exist, men will be seduced by prophetic witchcraft and hoodwinked with on-point revelation and misinterpreted scriptures to sow money for their breakthrough, but where it does exist, breakthrough comes by the blood of Jesus.
Very few really know that God’s mercy does not need our money to set us free. That is why they fall victim of lying wonders and preachers.
There is a place in the spirit where God’s mercy can be found and there is a place where it cannot be found. You must understand that if you want to live your days in 2025 as a man or woman of God’s mercy.
If a local church is not connected to the Throne of Grace in the Holy Ghost, do not be part of that place. Deliverance will be by deliverance inventions like use of salt, water, oil and etc. But if it is connected to God’s Throne of Grace, the mercy of God will be present to bring deliverance to the captives without the use of any of the instruments of magic mentioned earlier.
It’s a New Day for someone who will wake up this morning from spiritual slumber and make the right decisions so that 2025 will be a different year for him or her. May the LORD grant you LIGHT and UNDERSTANDING in Jesus precious name! AMEN!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” Hebrews 4:15-16 NKJV