TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 21ST FEBRUARY 2023)
“If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats?
Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Psalm 50:12-15 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 52ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
It is a great day from our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ, the one the Bible calls the Day. He has been our king, our lawgiver, and our Judge, and has been saving us. Our being alive today is a sign and a wonder of His mercies and marvelous deeds. None of us deserve it.
Let me say something about gratitude at this point; when you always get from someone what you do not deserve, it is important that gratitude to the person, becomes your life style.
Let gratitude to GOD become our life style. Amen!!!
Today we will be visiting the school of gratitude. I hope you are ready. There is a lot to learn in that school, so long as leading a blessed and beautiful life on earth is concern. God has a lot to say to us this morning concerning it. May our ears be opened.
The first thing I want to bring to our attention is this, in the school of gratitude, it is important to note that in showing gratitude, the principle demands that we get from the person, or someone who knows the person, how best we can express our gratitude to the person.
You do not show gratitude to someone who gives you what you do not deserve in your own ways; that is, if you really want to leave a significant mark of gratitude behind.
Secondly, in the school of gratitude, we must understand that there are actions of gratitude that are not acceptable, and there are actions of gratitude that are acceptable; it all depends on who you are dealing with. Sadly, bad guys will do good things in our lives, and request for an expression of gratitude that is sinful, wicked, defiling and sometimes demeaning.
Any generosity that request for a gratitude that will defile you as a child of God, or strip you of your testimony as a Christian, was not a generosity in the first place, but a missile shot at you to ruin your walk with the LORD.
When good guys do good things in your life, sometimes it is important that you do not offer them gratitude your way. I can’t forget a young woman I once helped significantly (in financial matters), who weeks later, returned to my office to show gratitude by offering her body to me.
I WAS SHOCKED AND VERY UPSET; I THOUGHT SHE WAS AN AGENT OF THE DEVIL, BUT DECIDED TO CALM DOWN AND LISTEN.
It was not too long that we came into Kenya when it happened. So, I reasoned that, this may be God’s way of exposing the kind of captives and rot on ground; and understanding the depth of what the LORD brought us here to deal with, is important. So, I began to interrogate her.
Then in tears, she said to me;
“All my life, no man has ever given me something freely. I will be very hungry, and doing menial jobs with little or no pay, and at the end of the day cannot pay my rent. When I ask any man for help, they will want to sleep with me. Some will give me one hundred shillings, and then sleep with me for days, and some will promise but give me nothing, after sleeping with me.
You are the first man in my life to give me money freely. You gave me thousands of shillings freely, to start a business. So, I thought, how do I show you gratitude? Since I have nothing, I decided to offer my body.”
I could see the sincerity and the pain in her facial expressions. I could also see the moral decay she has accepted as the norm, all at the same time. Before I realized it, compassion filled my heart, replacing the rage. That must be the Holy Spirit, because the deep compassion I felt was not there in the beginning.
And then I said to her, “Jesus gave you the money, using me. He offers gifts freely to all who comes to Him. If you will surrender to Him, He will give you more gifts, but not necessarily through me.”
That was how the LORD reaped a soul into His kingdom. She had to give her life to the LORD, to show gratitude to Him, and not offer her sexuality to me as her expression of gratitude.
The import of this story, is not to show you how holy I am, neither is it to show you how depraved the woman was. The Bible says, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace. Every sinner is a prospective saint, and every saint is an ex-sinner.
I do not despise even the worse sinners, I try to help them the way I was helped, and is still been helped by the LORD. I also do not tolerate wicked people and rebellious folks, who refuse to repent. That day, I learned a lot about the culture of some young women on ground, and took a lot of caution. But I also learned something I consider a mystery in the school of gratitude.
She came to show me gratitude, but in her own way. Her own way is sin and defilement to me, but it was gratitude to her. I hope you understand me.
IN FACT, IT WAS THE HIGHEST FORM OF GRATITUDE SHE KNEW, BECAUSE THE MEN SHE HAD SLEPT WITH SAID SO.
But that was not gratitude to me; that was defilement and enticement into sexual sin. However, she never knew that, until we spoke. She felt, since even church people have slept with her, there was nothing wrong if I did it. After all, pastors where also doing it.
So, in the school of gratitude, you must not decide on anything you consider significant, the way she innocently did, and bring it to the person. You may end up offering the unacceptable as gratitude.
And, if the person accepts it, and you walk away, you will think you have shown gratitude while you actually did not. You will still miss the blessing of showing gratitude. That was the mystery that was unfolded to me that day!
Yes, there is a blessing that follow us, when we show gratitude to people who did good things in our lives that we do not deserve. But let us cross to the other side of the river. Let’s apply the mystery to our relationship with the LORD.
The actions of this woman taught me that, you do not show gratitude to God your own way. You do not take any action you feel is great, and express it to the LORD as your gratitude to Him for things done. You could bring disgusting things, like what that lady brought to me, to the LORD.
In other words, you might end up offering the unacceptable as gratitude, and going away thinking you have shown gratitude. If you offer the unacceptable to the LORD, as an expression of how grateful you are to Him, you will still miss the blessing of showing gratitude to the LORD.
So, in showing gratitude to the LORD for all He is doing in our lives; especially, things we do not deserve, we must first seek Him or study His ways, His will and His word, to know what will be acceptable to Him and what will not, before offering anything to Him.
ISRAEL NEVER KNEW THIS AT A TIME.
There was a time the LORD was looking for righteousness from them, and they were busy offering Him sacrifices of animals and all that religion taught them, to show gratitude. It was during one of such times that He said to Saul, “Obedience is better than sacrifice; and to harken than fats of rams.”
At that time, He was looking for obedience, but Saul was busy offering him what he considered significant. There was a time Saul offered fasting to the LORD while the LORD was looking for repentance from him. That is what most of us do today!
Perhaps, why you are not living a blessed life is buried in this devotional.
What have you been giving to God as gratitude for all He is doing in your life? Have you been giving Him tithes while He expects truth from you? Have you been giving Him songs of praise as your acts of gratitude, while He expect a life of righteousness and purity from you?
We will never enjoy the blessing, if that is our worship position with God.
The next question is, what is the Blessing of showing gratitude to God? The blessing is an outbreak of the supernatural. Which brings us to another law of the supernatural of God, the law of gratitude. The last part of our devotional text says;
“Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.” Psalm 50:14-15 NKJV
In this scripture, we can see how the law of gratitude helps a child of God to walk in the supernatural of God. He said, “offer to God thanksgiving.” That is where the law is. It makes one’s prayer to be powerful enough to unleash the supernatural of God upon the person, or upon the goal of his or her prayers.
He made another statement that followed the one on the law of gratitude. He said, “and pay your vows to the Most High.” Within context, the gratitude God was calling for in the scripture, was not substance but faithfulness to Him. He said they should pay their vows.
MEANING, THEY SHOULD LIVE FAITHFUL LIVES.
That is why we said, under the kingdom law of showing gratitude, God will not always accept substance from us in our day of showing gratitude. Most times, He will prefer opening our ears to hear Him. In other words, He will prefer that we offer Him a listening ear as gratitude, not some huge material sacrifices. That is the law that governs gratitude in God’s kingdom.
I believe enough have been shared for the day.
As we bring this to a close, understand that most of the present-day preachers, will always emphasize that we give substance to the ‘LORD’ to show gratitude. But God will not always do that. Most times He will be emphasizing on we walking in His truth, while the preacher is emphasizing on our tithes, especially when we are living lives that are not in alignment with His will or ways.
You will find Heaven screaming on walking in scriptural Truths, and the pastors screaming on paying Tithes. You will find GOD demanding repentance as gratitude from people, but the preacher demanding for their money as gratitude. Sadly, the people usually bow to the preacher, since they are ignorant, making it impossible for the supernatural of God to break out in their lives.
To apply the law of gratitude in your quest to walk in the supernatural of God, you must know what the LORD wants from you as gratitude, at an immediate present, before showing Him gratitude.
Understand that it will not always be substance. Yes, the responsibility of feeding our pastor is on us, but we are not the ones feeding GOD. So, He will not always request for substance. A portion of our devotional text says;
“If I were hungry, I would not tell you; For the world is Mine, and all its fullness. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats?” Psalm 50:12-13 NKJV
This scripture made it clear that God will not always ask us for substance, because He does not feed on what we offer to Him like the gods of the nations do.
In the dark supernatural, you will need to give the gods substance to feed on, either for them to do something in your life, or to express gratitude for what they may have done. Sadly, you find that kind of spirituality in Church. It is one of the spiritualities of dark men of God among us, or those who have drank from their spiritual cisterns.
That is why you must be careful of preachers who always ask you to sow this seed, and sow the other seed, or spend on this Godless church project or the other one, to show gratitude to God for things done for you.
Friend, it’s been a 28-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on supernatural living. Today is the 21st day. May these scriptural insights and thoughts on the law of gratitude, help each and every one of us to walk in the supernatural of God, in Jesus precious name. Amen!!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; My ears You have opened. Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
Then I said, “Behold, I come; In the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your law is within my heart.” Psalm 40:6-8 NKJV