TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 3RD May 2023)
“He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness, and honor. Proverbs 21:21 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 123RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS & WONDERS!
Great are the mercies of the LORD towards us. Our lives testify of His great deeds and marvelous helps. The breath in our nostrils testifies of His power as one who holds the keys of hell and of death.
The health we have today tells those who care to listen that He is a great Healer. To Him belong all the glory for another great day that He has made!
Today, we are continuing our journey of truth with things we should never do when waiting patiently upon the LORD. We saw the power of the combine forces of the patience and purity of the saints.
The patience of the saints is a wonderful virtue that brings significant blessings if embraced with the purity of the saints.
Our lives will take a quantum leap forward at appointed times for our breakthroughs, if purity is added to our patience with the LORD. Do not forget, one of the blessings of the patience of the saints is the process it passes us through, to come to the place of eating our meat in due season.
In other words, receiving breakthrough when we are due or mature for it. That is why we should not mix it with sin, iniquity or trespass.
The blessing of our patience means so much to God than to us, because He sees things we do not see, and have a plan for it that we are not aware of. He said in His word;
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 NKJV
Even if His Holy Spirit may have said something to us, on what GOD want to do with our patience, this scripture made it clear that there is always much more in the blessing of our patience, than what may have been revealed. That is why we destroy an eternal program that would have involved us, whenever we are in a hurry, or whenever we mix impurity with our patience.
From the life and times of Abraham, it is clear that there are always things we will never know, as of the time God is initiating a patient walk with us, and might never know until we meet Christ in eternity. That is why whenever patience is required in our walk and talk with GOD, impatience must be eschewed, and purity embraced, to help us come into the blessing of our patience.
Abraham almost blew it while waiting for the promised child Isaac with the Ishmael thing, partly because he never knew the eternal importance of the blessing of his patience. Though in his days, what he had with Hagar was not considered a sin by the culture and system, because if your wife was barren, you could get another woman to have a child for her; it was like the surrogate system of today.
But Sarah, who was then Sarai, was not barren, so to speak. God just closed her womb for what He wanted to use it to do.
Abraham’s embrace of the culture of the day instead of the purity that his patience required, almost destroyed why GOD closed her womb temporarily; it almost destroyed the coming blessing of his patience.
God had to come in 13 years later, to request for perfection or higher level of consecration from him, thereby bringing Abraham into the covenant of circumcision. The Bible says;
“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, 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
This word was brought to Abraham, when he was Abram. The vision was to add consecration or purity to his patience, so that he will not ruin the predetermined blessing of his patience. The blessing of his patience was Isaac. Isaac was not just to be a child but a pattern.
But Abram never knew that. It was an eternal part of the blessing; a part he knew nothing about.
Isaac was to be a pattern of Christ carrying the cross, and offered to God as a sacrifice for our sins. That was why God said to Abraham after he was born;
…“Take now your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. Genesis 22:2 NKJV
The mountain he showed him, would later become the very spot where Christ was crucified. The area was first secured with the building of the temple of Solomon.
So, even the building of the Temple was prophetic. It was not just a project. The blessing of our patience may seem to be a natural project of God for our lives, but the Temple teaches us that it is always much more than a project. It would always have a prophetic part we know nothing about.
That is why the blessing of our patience, will always mean more to God, who always know the prophetic part, than to us.
Today, the mountain area where Abraham offered Isaac, is the very area where the empty grave of Christ lies, and where Golgotha and Calvary can be found – all depicting what the blessing of Abraham’s patience, meant to God’s redemptive plans and programs then – things Abraham knew nothing about.
Again, I repeat, the blessing of our patience with God and man, would always contain eternal purposes we know nothing about. Understand that, whenever we become too much in a hurry, or impure while waiting upon the LORD, we do not just destroy what God may have revealed, but what He will never reveal because of our lack of capacity to fully grasp – an eternal purpose of the blessing.
Embracing purity and patience is not actually about us, but about God. That is why it is an act of worship to the One and only True God.
Apart from Isaac being a pattern of Christ as our redemptive sacrifice, he was also a pattern of Christ in terms of the meaning of his name. His name means laughter; he was a pattern of Christ who was to bring Joy to the whole world.
The Isaac blessing that God gave to Abraham, tells us that when a man waits upon the LORD in purity, the blessing of his patience will always give him joy – sometimes for a life time, other times, from time to eternity.
For instance, many in ministry are either suffering, or enjoying the prosperity of the wicked, because they never embraced purity in their patience, while they were going through the formation of things God wanted to do with their lives. That is why we see all kinds of dark things in the lives of many of us in ministry.
Some others in the Christian faith are not enjoying their marriages because, they never waited upon the LORD with purity and patience while they were single. Who they eventually married, was attracted to them by the impurities in their hearts, not by God’s dealing in their lives. What many of us in Church have today is not an Isaac blessing, because there is no joy in our hearts.
Some waited, but their waiting was not perfect, hence having an Ishmael (job, friend, church, pastor, career, relocation plan, academic pursuit, etc.) that have become a pain in their lives. If a waiting is not perfect, the result that will come out of it will be painful. It will not bring the Joy and shalom God intended that it brings. Sadly, there are some impatient and impure waiters who will live with their pains for a life time.
God had called Abraham at 75, and given him a promise. He was to wait in patience and purity for 25 years. The prophetic reason was for him to reach the 100-fold mark pre-planned for the promise, because of the messianic implications of it. But the waiting was not perfect, hence all the Ishmael troubles Israel have today.
I tell people that the Isaac story was not written in the Bible to give greedy preachers what to use in twisting money from gullible church members, who want to buy blessings from God. Everyone knows the heretic phrase called “Isaac offering” that was invented by some preachers. That was not the purpose of the Isaac story. It was written to guide us in our wait upon the LORD, and to understand the root of our salvation.
What is the message of today? The message is simple.
If there is something you are waiting upon the LORD for; be it a promised blessing like marriage, a child, a family, a form of financial empowerment, a breakthrough, or the manifestation of a vision, a divine call, or any other kingdom matter, it will be required that you walk and live habitually before God and be perfect, blameless, wholehearted and complete.
In simple terms, it will be required that you follow after righteousness and lead a consecrated life habitually. Yes, it will be required that we follow righteousness all through without compromise. Our devotional text says;
“He who follows righteousness and mercy finds life, righteousness, and honor Proverbs 21:21 NKJV.
The text made it clear that if we add purity to our wait, following righteousness all through, we will find a great blessing at the end that will bring life and honor to us.
When God therefore give us a promise, instead of sitting down to worry how it will come to pass, we should patiently follow the LORD in purity, learning His statutes, rejoicing in the way of His testimonies, meditating in His precepts, contemplating in His ways, and delighting ourselves in Him.
It is my prayer that these words keep resounding eternally in our spirits, in Jesus precious name. Amen!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“Blessed are You, O LORD! Teach me Your statutes. With my lips I have declared All the judgments of Your mouth.
I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways.
I will delight myself in Your statutes; I will not forget Your word.” Psalm 119:12-16 NKJV