TODAY’S DEVOTION (Thursday 17th September 2020)
“Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Luke 19:41-44 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 259TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
Today God has a word for us. Day unto day He reveals knowledge. It is the revelation of His word that is helping us find His ways and will for our lives. That is why God does not send prayer warriors when He wants to set men free, He sends word warriors like teaching apostles or prophets.
All we need, to be all in His will for our lives, is in His word. That is why when we listen to or read His word, we are to check out for His will or way for our lives. I urge us to look out for the same as we look at His word for our lives today.
To start with, I have come to discover that in the Christian life, if you do not know the God you are dealing with, you will bring in people who are not part of His plan for your life into your lives, most times through business, marriage, or in a quest to fulfill a ministry or calling.
In doing that, you may make the destiny mistake of sending away those God in His sovereignty, pre-planned to be part of your life.
Internal devils can be very hard to deal with, and internal angels very hard to come by. Many of us do not know that we can withstand a thousand devils outside our lives but cannot easily withstand one wrong man or woman inside.
If you bring one wrong person into your life through Business, marriage or ministry it will be difficult to easily deal with him or her. Samson was very strong in dealing with everyone who attacked him from the outside, but could not withstand one Delilah that attacked him from the inside.
You see, warriors are usually worn out and eventually brought down through internal attacks from wrong people they let into their lives unknowingly
When I teach on marriage matters, I usually tell the sons of the kingdom to become fully aware of God’s plans, routes, purpose, and assignment for their lives before taking a woman to the altar. I also advise the daughters of Zion to come into the full revelation of same before allowing a man to take them to the altar.
Yesterday God made it clear to us that no positive response to the word of the LORD no move of GOD in our lives. Positive response and schooling in the things of God goes together.
AFTER WE HAVE BEEN SCHOOLED, WE ARE EXPECTED TO RESPOND TO GOD POSITIVELY.
Schooling in the things of GOD makes you aware of things about this life and the life to come. It lightens up your spirit and shows you things you ought to do. Positive response is doing what the word says or shows.
Schooling in the things of God and positive response work together.
It’s like being in house that is planted with bombs and is about exploding, but you are not aware. Then someone enters into it, and shows you in details what is about happening. Then you respond to it by running out of the house or neutralizing the bomb to save your life.
That is what schooling in the things of GOD and positive response does to a man’s life.
Many people are in precarious situations that are likened to time bombs in the spirit. They are in wrong alliances they call marriage that will soon explode and destroy them completely. Others are yoked to sinful pleasures that are about boomeranging on them.
Many others are in jobs and other forms of economic, social, and religious relationships, that are not doing them any good and will soon explode into unredeemable circumstance in their lives. They call the wrong people “father in the LORD,” worship in the wrong Churches, sit under the wrong spiritual atmosphere for their lives and etc.
But through these devotionals the LORD has opened their eyes to see things about their lives that they know they need to do something about. If they do not rise up and respond positively, the house (their lives) will explode into flames with nothing to salvage.
Sadly, many will discover things that are not just right for their lives, and still be “playing the religious card” of going to pray about it, and waiting upon the LORD to act, while in actual sense the LORD is the one waiting for them to respond to the knowledge revealed to them and be saved.
SOMETIMES GOD WILL OPEN YOUR EYES TO SEE DANGER AND THEN LEAVE THE DECISION TO ESCAPE FROM IT IN YOUR HANDS.
If you are stupid about it and go play the religious card, you will be destroyed! In fact, you will come out destroyed with nothing to salvage about you. When it comes to divine restoration time is of the essence. A people who are not swift at responding positively to things that make for their peace, will never know peace!
Our devotional text today, is about a Jewish generation that came across the Prince of Peace Himself, but did not know how to respond to Him.
The Bible made it clear that He left His throne above, came to the earth, walked among them as Man, teaching and demonstrating Himself as the prince of peace, yet they did not respond positively to Him. In fact, they seized and killed Him. Apostle Peter put it this way,
“Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know —
Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; Acts 2:22-23 NKJV
As we can see in this scripture, these men came across the prince of peace Himself but did not recognize or respond positively to Him. They rather seized Him and put Him to death. But thank God, He used that to work out our redemption. Hallelujah!
There is a generation in the Church and the world today that specializes in attacking Sons of peace sent to them and putting to death what God sent to keep them.
They will fight any word God sends to wall them from sudden destruction. They will maltreat, ill-treat, malign, persecute and render hopeless people God brought their way to give them hope, treat them well, and raise or save them from something.
They will do all the evil they can muster to well-meaning people god placed in their lives, and when they loose them, they blame either the people or God.
You cannot receive and retain anything from God without taking responsibility to respond to Him swiftly, and positively by accepting things that make for your peace.
A MAJOR HIGHLIGHT IN OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT SAYS,
“Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.
For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side…”
I have come to realize that, prelude to any devastating attack of the enemy; God sends a word that make for our peace for us to respond to. And from our devotional text, it’s clear that the day that word come is called “Day of Visitation.”
Meaning, God does visit people with candy, snacks, or soft drinks. He visits them with words that contain things that make for their peace. He visits with a proceeding word most times just before the enemy comes. But if what is said to them is hidden from their eyes, they will be domed!
If He visits and we do not respond to His word positively, the next thing that will happen will be devastation. We will just plunge into the weapons of the attack of the enemy, and most times never recover from it.
Most times the things that make for our peace will always come before the attack of our enemy. They also come before divine recovery or restoration.
That is what makes Positive response a key to divine preservation. The question now is, how are you responding to things that make for your peace? How are you responding to preachers God sent to enhance your peace? Do you seize and kill them in your mind or mouth or you accept them as messengers of GOD?
How are you responding to revelations that make for your peace? Do you receive them, shout amen to them, then kill the flames they came with after that? How do you respond to a Husband or wife that makes for your peace?
ARE YOU KEEPING THEM OR KILLING THEM?
Most married men ill-treat and maltreat blessed women God gave them. I call such men a plague. The judgment of Nabal in 1 Samuel 25 will be their portion if they do not repent.
Most women also maltreat blessed husbands God gave them. I called those women “knives” and not wives. Any women who do not respond positively to a husband God bless her with, will end very miserably, except she repents in record time.
Now, let me advice those who are on the receiving side:
If you are yoked to A PLAGUE you call a husband or A KNIFE you call a wife and you do not respond positively by doing the necessary, you will never know peace; most times in this life and the life to come!
God does not yoke women to plagues called husbands, neither does He yoke men to knives called wives. If you are yoked to one, and religion tells you “IT’S GOD’S WILL,” and tradition say “IT’S OKAY” and you concur, you will never go unpunished!
What is the message this morning? The message is simple, how you respond to things that make for your peace will determine your end in this life and sometimes the life to come. Mary said to those who met her seeking for a miracle from Jesus, “WHATEVER HE SAYS TO YOU, DO IT!”
It’s my prayer that we begin to do whatever the Bible says to us, and whatever the men God trained, blessed, and sent (to us) may be saying.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION:
“But My people would not heed My voice, and Israel would have none of Me. So I gave them over to their own stubborn heart, to walk in their own counsels.
“Oh, that My people would listen to Me, that Israel would walk in My ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn My hand against their adversaries.
The haters of the Lord would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever. He would have fed them also with the finest of wheat; and with honey from the rock I would have satisfied you.” Psalms 81:11-16 NKJV