TODAY’S DEVOTION (Thursday 20th February 2020)
“Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful.
Praise the Lord with the harp; Make melody to Him with an instrument of ten strings. Sing to Him a new song; Play skillfully with a shout of joy. Psalm 33:1-3 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 51st DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
Yes, the much-awaited Deep Impact Apostolic Summit begins today and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Hallelujah! I hope you are ready for a visitation from Heaven.
God is taking is from the days of divine visitation to the days of divine Habitation. That is the progression! I remember preaching about this in 2017. Please get the messages! There is so much to learn in God, so much to be revealed from the throne room and made part of our lives.
God is in a state of constantly being made known. He is under an eternal pressure to make Himself known. That is why knowing God will never come to an end. Even in the next life, we are going to spend eternity knowing Him. People who pursue His knowledge do not lack an outpouring of His marvelous presence because they are aligning themselves with God’s ultimate will for their lives.
God opened this decade for us with a strong prophetic word – YEAR OF REJOICING. I believe one of the reasons this proclamation was made is because there may be a plan of the enemy to make us weep this year. We cannot step into a new decade weeping except shedding the tears of Joy. The word was sent to neutralize the schemes of the evil ones against our lives.
Prophetic declarations sometime tell us what to expect from the camp of the wicked and stand against it. They give us the direction and plan of the Spirit even the evil one strikes. They tell us what God want to bring to pass in our lives as we position for it.
Now, one major way to position for divine promises is to spend our days pursuing the knowledge of the Holy One – the revelation knowledge of GOD! Our monthly apostolic conferences are basically to enable us to do exactly that – pursue the knowledge of the Holy One. I hope to see you join us participate in the February 2020 edition starting today!
NOW TO OUR DEVOTIONAL FOR THE DAY!
Praise on the lips of a pure heart is beautiful. To praise God simply means to affirm His works. You can praise Him through singing or just speaking. When we praise God, we move Him to get things done in our lives.
Praising Gad has a way of bringing things He started to completion in our lives. It has a way of getting pending promises of God performed. The reason is because it activates the presence of God. And when the presence goes active, promises of God can be performed. If there are, therefore, pending promises of God in your, it’s a sign that your praise life is very poor.
Many Christians live a very poor praise life. They do not affirm the works of the LORD in their lives. Their attention is always on what God has not done. If your attention is always on things that God has not done, it will be impossible for praise to break forth from your heart.
People who live a life full of praise to the LORD do not lack the moves of God in their lives. Many of us do not know that Heaven awaits our praise on daily bases. David says five times will I praise Him a day. Meaning, he spent his days affirming the works of God either in his life or the life of others through singing, poetry and other forms. No wonder he never lacked the outbreak of God in his life. We must do the same!
Sometimes it’s good to spend a whole week affirming the works of the LORD in your life or the life of others, praising God for who He is instead of asking Him to do things in our lives.
Here is a secret that should guide you, unfinished divine projects are finished when praise come out of the throne of our heart to the throne of the Most God. It is a major secret of everyone who walk with the LORD.
It pains my heart that I do not praise God enough. The few moments I do, I always see His marvelous acts. It’s good to study the word and pray but also good to spend quality time praising the LORD while in prayer and study. One thing about praising God, it can be done anywhere. So, we can fill our day with praise to our GOD.
My prayer this morning is that GOD will activate our praise life again. You can praise the LORD and watch Him move you from sickness to health, poverty to plenty, defeat to victory, bitterness to happiness, failure to success, faith to faith and glory to glory!
WE MUST LEARN TO WAKE UP EACH MORNING WITH WORDS OR SONGS OF PRAISE TO THE LORD!
He is a great King who loves hearing His “kids” rising early with words or songs of praise to Him. But the way our lives are programmed sometimes, we do not wake up with words or songs of praise on our lips, we wake up with worries in our hearts then storm the gates of heaven with our worries.
But God wants to hear our praise first irrespective of the circumstances we find ourselves not our worries. That is why His word says enter His gates with thanksgiving. Come into His courts with PRAISE not even with prayer and fasting as good as they are.
There is this dust of earthly worries that must not be allowed to rest in our souls or spirits each morning again. Yes, as we wake up God wants to hear our praise first in Heaven. But this dust fights us and prevents that from happening hence robbing us of things that only happen in God’s kingdom when our words or songs of praise are heard in Heaven every morning.
Disappointments, satanic provocations, failed expectations, sin, evil thoughts, strife, lack of true encounters with God, bad marriage and family life, terrible economic situations, lack of revelation and a host of other things has a way of stealing the garment of praise from us and replacing it with the spirit of heaviness.
Satan will fill our hearts with things that will affect our praise life. He will make us do praise only in Church and live praise-less lives at home. That kind of Christians life will not bring us into the fullness of the blessing of praising GOD in words or songs.
Our devotional text this morning says, “Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful.” That to me is a message that can change our lives forever.
PRAISE FROM THE UPRIGHT IS BEAUTIFUL!
The Bible did not say complains from the upright is beautiful. It did not say worry from the upright is beautiful. Sometimes we worry about so many things. But like Jesus said to one of the Sisters of Lazarus, only one thing is needful. And that is sitting at the feet of Jesus to either learn from Him, pray to Him, or praise Him for works in your life or the lives of others. We can even praise Him for His creation.
Friend, this morning God wants you to add a praise life to your walk and talk with Him. Will you? God wants righteous praise to be proceeding from our lips to His throne from day to day, either through our words or our songs. If there are divine promises that are pending in our lives, praise could be the only key we need to unlock them.
Praise moves God to enforce His will in our lives. In moves Him to enforce His will on earth as written in Heaven. It has a way of neutralizing the forces of darkness and rendering even curses of no effect.
It is important that we understand this beautiful kingdom activity perfectly.
Thanksgiving is appreciating God for His works, but Praise is affirming God’s works. To affirm is to announce, to assert, to verify, to confirm, to state, or verify.
It’s beautiful to wake up in the morning, especially amid the unwanted, and start announcing, asserting, verifying, or stating God’s works to Him in words or songs. That is praise! When you do that amid suffering, persecution, or an unpleasant situation, it becomes part of what is called sacrifice of praise. And that is powerful!
Many times, God allows the enemy to attack so we can offer Him sacrifices of praise. He is God of sacrifice. People who understand this live sacrificial life.
The God we serve loves His Children offering Him sacrifices because sacrifices unlock greater things for us from Heaven. They move Him to push significant things into our lives. I have seen God push greater glory into the lives of people in response to their sacrificial living.
THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM WHAT PROPHETS DO WITH PEOPLE.
It has nothing to do with what many charlatans tell people to do in the name of deliverance. How they tell them to raise a higher sacrifice than that of their enemies to obtain deliverance. That is not it.
Now, begin to praise God! If it will be a sacrifice to do that then you are in the right position for greater glory! Make your mouth an instrument of praise this morning and the rest of your life.
Verify His faithfulness in your life even if things look sad.
Announce His mercies in words or songs this morning even if you are not in position to do that. Your healing is in your praise, your breakthrough lies in your praise, and your deliverance lies in your praise.
Praise is a tool of divine visitation in the Kingdom of God. Make use of it this morning and the rest of your life.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOUR DAY!
“Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God; For it is pleasant, and praise is beautiful.”
“The Lord builds up Jerusalem; He gathers together the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
“He counts the number of the stars; He calls them all by name. Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.”
“The Lord lifts up the humble; He casts the wicked down to the ground.”
“Sing to the Lord with thanksgiving; Sing praises on the harp to our God, who covers the heavens with clouds, who prepares rain for the earth, who makes grass to grow on the mountains.”
“He gives to the beast its food, and to the young ravens that cry. He does not delight in the strength of the horse; He takes no pleasure in the legs of a man.”
“The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His mercy.”
“Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem! Praise your God, O Zion!”
“For He has strengthened the bars of your gates; He has blessed your children within you.”“He makes peace in your borders, and fills you with the finest wheat. He sends out His command to the earth; His word runs very swiftly.”
“He gives snow like wool; He scatters the frost like ashes; He casts out His hail like morsels; Who can stand before His cold?”
“He sends out His word and melts them; He causes His wind to blow, and the waters flow.”“He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and His judgments to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any nation; and as for His judgments, they have not known them.”
“Praise the Lord!” Psalm 147: 1-20 NKJV