TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 19TH JANUARY 2023)
My soul still remembers and sinks within me.
This I recall to my mind; Therefore, I have hope. Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassion fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the LORD.” Lamentations 3:20-26 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 19TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
If you are using the Gregorian Calendar, then it will make sense if we say it has been 19 days since the LORD brought us into a new year.
Yes, 19 days of His mercies, sustenance, peace, love, grace, word and treasures running our lives so that we might not be ruined.
We believe in the rest of the year we will be receive more glorious results in Jesus precious name.
And for those believers with the characteristics of starting their years with a season of fasting and prayers, may the LORD perfect His plans for your life as you seek. It is a beautiful character for a child of God to start any set of days with a season of fasting and prayer.
For some of us we do not consider January our first month of the year, that is why we do not do the traditional January fast like others.
For the purpose of proper planning, some of us consider the month of our birth the first month of the year to us. We call it “the beginning of the months” the way GOD called it when He made the month of Abib the beginning of months for Israel. That is when we do our own things with the LORD.
You can borrow a leaf from there because it is more important than the traditional first month of the years, January.
Your month of birth is more destiny connected to your prophetic destiny than the traditional first month of the years. If you make it your beginning of months the way people make January their beginning of months, you will see how your life will take a new dimension. There are significant Bible patterns to this but that is not our subject on this journey.
It’s been a 31-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on visionary living. Today is the 19th day of the journey of faith. Visionary living is living your life according to the plans and purposes of God for it.
In fact, we suggested that you make your birth months the beginning of months for your personal life, because it is more connected to your prophetic destiny than the traditional beginning of months, called January. I sense, we are calling on you to be come visionary in numbering your days.
BEING VISIONARY IS DOING THINGS IN LIFE ACCORDING TO YOUR PROPHETIC DESTINY.
Your prophetic destiny is the totality of God’s plans, visions, programs, patterns, and purposes for your life. It covers all of His predetermined life routes and goals and prophetic dealings for your life. If you number your days according to your prophetic destiny, you will make your birth month your beginning of months, and the last month to your birth month you end of months for each year. Like I said earlier, you can adopt that and see how things will turn out with you.
We have been looking at the laws of visionary living. We have seen the laws of visionary residency, visionary relations, visionary hearing and etc. The last law we saw was the law of visionary battles. Today we will be looking at another law of visionary living called “the law of God’s faithfulness.”
Visionary living is actually a product of answering the call of God upon one’s life. The call to live your life according to His plans and purposes for it. For every visionary life to be well spent, God’s faithfulness will be required. Without God’s faithfulness, nothing significant will happen in our lives.
The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:24 “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” Visionary living is leading your life according to God’s preplanned programs for it, or a Heavenly call upon it. Such life will either not be possible, or where possible will not be successful if GOD’s faithfulness is absent.
It is the faithfulness of God that will do all that God has preplanned to do in our lives. It is His faithfulness to the Heavenly call upon our lives that will add divine performance to all of His divine promises in our lives that constitutes the call. That is why the Bible says faithful is He who has called you, who also will do it. Until He does it, nothing significant will be achieved.
His faithfulness will make sure the vision He may have planted in our hearts, moves from the declaration to the manifestation.
THAT BRINGS US TO A BEAUTIFUL EXPRESSION OF THE LAW OF GOD’S FAITHFULNESS.
The law states that “if God governs your visionary life, He will be faithful to take it from its declaration to its manifestation, and from its manifestation to the finishing line, no matter what happens.” That is even when you stumble or fall.
In visionary living, you delight yourself in the ways of the LORD. As you do so, God directs and orders your steps to establish it.
As He directs and orders your steps to establish it, His blessed Holy Spirit will become involved in every of your life details. In other words, He will be busying Himself with every detail of your life through the word, the Bible. As that happens, hell will be raging against you, and the floods of the serpent spewed at you.
Now, sometimes, before we know it, we may fall into sin, iniquity, or trespass as a result, especially when the floods overwhelm us. That is when the law of God’s faithfulness will go active. It will bring the hand of the LORD down to reach out and grasp us in support and uphold us till we return to the paths we were before the fall. That is why the Bible says;
“The steps of a [good] man are directed and established by the Lord when He delights in his way [and He busies Himself with his every step].
Though he falls, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord grasps his hand in support and upholds him.” Psalm 37:23-24 AMPC
Sometimes, it is not even sin, iniquity, or trespasses that we fall into. We just become weary and begin to make bitter complains against God and against His process for our lives. That is also when the law of God’s faithfulness goes into effect. Its goal is to make sure our visionary lives are not truncated by us or by hell. It is a law that guarantees that we get to the finishing line like Paul got to when he said;
“I have fought the good (worthy, honourable, and noble) fight, I have finished the race, I have kept (firmly held) the faith.
[As to what remains] henceforth there is laid up for me the [victor’s] crown of righteousness [for being right with God and doing right], which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me and recompense me on that [great] day—and not to me only, but also to all those who have loved and yearned for and welcomed His appearing (His return).” 2 Timothy 4:7-8 AMPC
WHEN GOD STARTS A JOURNEY WITH YOU, THE GOAL WILL ALWAYS BE TO TAKE YOU TO THE FINISHING LINE NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS.
That was why Samson had a come back that made sure he fulfilled his call even at death. The finishing line is the place of fulfilling your call and making sure you have done more for the LORD at your death more than at any other time.
God’s purpose for stipulating the law of His faithfulness is for the purposes of bringing us to the finishing line. He is more glorified when we get to the finishing line. So, it is not about us but about Him. Which brings us to the second law of God’s faithfulness.
That law states that “God’s commitment to His vision, calling or purposes in our lives is always for His name sake not for our sake.”
God is the one who will remain glorified if we finish well and strong, hence making sure we do.
He will be more glorified if we are not left in our fall (sins, iniquities and trespasses) but assisted to return to Him through repentance, and back to our feet through a renewed commitment, hence making sure that happens. He did that for Abraham when he was Abram.
The Bible say after 13 years of silence due to the Ishmael error, God had to return to him to say;
… I am the Almighty God; walk and live habitually before Me and be perfect (blameless, wholehearted, complete). And I will make My covenant (solemn pledge) between Me and you and will multiply you exceedingly.
Then Abram fell on his face, and God said to him,” Genesis 17:1-3 AMPC
Off course, if you were Abraham you will fall on your face too because it had been long the LORD spoke to Him. It is this law of God’s faithfulness that do not let God abandon us in our pools of rebellion, sinful living, or overwhelming floods of the enemy.
OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT SAYS;
My soul still remembers and sinks within me. This I recall to my mind; Therefore, I have hope.
Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassion fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the soul who seeks Him.
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly For the salvation of the LORD.” Lamentations 3:20-26 NKJV
If you understand the law of God’s faithfulness, no matter what you may have done, you will run back to Him like the prodigal son, seeking mercies of Him to return to the Father’s house.
This devotional text made it clear that the mercies that the law of God’s faithfulness unleash upon His own are new every morning. That is why it is important that we learn to wait for His salvation no matter what happens in our lives in the course of visionary living.
You may abandon God and walk away from Him, but so long as the Sun still shines in this dispensation, God will not abandon you. His faithfulness will keep His Holy Spirit coming after you. It is a mystery how He keeps coming after us after all the evil we may have done against Him. He came after Adam after he ate of the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
He will always come after us.
Child of God, it is amazing how He keeps showering His presence upon our lives in hope that we will turn over to Him each time we walk away from Him. Indeed, like the late Billy Graham once said, “no one can exhaust the patience of God. No, no one!”
I pray that the LORD uses these thoughts to keep us in the faith, in righteousness, in holiness and in His vision for our lives, falling back to the law of His faithfulness to get back to our feet each time we stumble in Jesus precious name. Amen.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are vain (empty and futile—only a breath).
Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the man whom You discipline and instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law, That You may give him power to keep himself calm in the days of adversity, until the [inevitable] pit of corruption is dug for the wicked.
For the Lord will not cast off nor spurn His people, neither will He abandon His heritage.
For justice will return to the [uncompromisingly] righteous, and all the upright in heart will follow it.” Psalm 94:11-15 AMPC