TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 10TH JUNE 2023)**
“Deliver me from blood guiltiness and death, O God, the God of my salvation, and my tongue shall sing aloud of Your righteousness (Your rightness and Your justice).
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You delight not in sacrifice, or else would I give it; You find no pleasure in burnt offering.
My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.” Psalm 51:14-17 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 161ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
We give GOD the glory for another day! Indeed, the LORD has been mindful of us, and that is why He has not abandoned us. He will never abandon us. He does not have such History, so He would not begin to create it with us.
He never abandoned Adam and Eve when they broke His word in the garden. He did not abandon the nation of Israel at any time. Whenever they became too rebellious for His liking, He would rather chastise them, but not abandon them. You will find Him moving kings and empires to enslave them for a season, as a way of bringing them back to righteous ways, but will never find Him abandoning them.
Sometimes He will even judge those nations, after using them. That is what you enjoy when you are in a covenant relationship with the LORD. He will never abandon you, no matter what you do. He will warn you, chastise you, and at worst, pass you through correctional judgments, but will never abandon you.
It is when you refuse all His moves, and build a terrible resistance against Him, that He would become quiet, and enter into a “watching-you” mode. He will be watching you in sympathy and compassion, waiting for you to at least come to your senses and return to Him. If you do not, He will watch as your sin, iniquity or trespass consume you.
That is why God used the generation of those who lived in Bible days to say to us;
“Do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, In the day of trial in the wilderness, Where your fathers tested Me, tried Me, And saw My works forty years.
Therefore I was angry with that generation, And said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, And they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’ ” Hebrews 3:8-15 NKJV
The hardness of the heart has been the undoing of mankind since the day we left the Garden of Eden. It is one-way men and women build resistance against this loving GOD who always wants to be with us.
IT IS ONE WAY WE FRUSTRATE HIS LOVE FOR US AND CUT OFF OURSELVES FROM HIS CARING HANDS.
To harden the heart means to stop having a kind of friendly feeling towards someone, or caring about the person. People harden their hearts against those they break up with. They enter into a mode of no longer being kind, or behaving friendly towards their ex for loss of feelings for them. They no longer care about them.
When you do it against your ex, there could be no problem. But do not try it on GOD, because He is not your ex, and should never be an ex to any human on earth. If you try it on Him, it will lead to spiritual and physical tragedies. At one time, the nation of Israel tried it on Him, and they went into a 70-year period of captivity. The Bible says,
“And the Lord, the God of their fathers, sent to them persistently by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and His dwelling place.
But they kept mocking the messengers of God and despising His words and scoffing at His prophets till the wrath of the Lord rose against His people, till there was no remedy or healing.
Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, old man or hoary-headed; He gave them all into his hand.
And all the vessels of the house of God, great and small, and the treasures of the Lord’s house, of the king, and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon.
And they burned God’s house and broke down Jerusalem’s wall and burned all its palaces with fire and destroyed all its choice vessels.” 2 Chronicles 36:15-19 APMC
As you can see in this scripture, one of the hallmarks of a heart that has become hardened against God is, it consistently mocks the messengers of God, and persistently despise His holy words in their mouth. It will scoff at His prophets or His prophetic finger until it unlocks the wrath of God; leading to serious life problems, because the Bible says, things will break out that there will be no remedy or healing for them.
SADLY, BECAUSE OF THE HARDNESS OF HEART OF OUR BIBLE FATHERS, A SERIOUS TRAGEDY OCCURRED.
The entire Jerusalem was destroyed, and the magnificent temple that Solomon built, with resources from the hard-working King David, his generals, and surrounding nations was burned to the ground. That is how our lives will be burned to the ground by the adversities of life if we develop a hardened heart towards God.
That is why I said, you could do it to your ex, but God is not your ex, so do not try it on Him. We are not designed to enjoy a peaceful life by having no care, concern, kind, or friendly feeling towards God. We will never come into His rest, having a heart that is hardened against Him. It is a terrible resistance that could ruin our lives forever.
Maintaining a heart that is not hardened towards God is a major secret of blessing, restoration, redemption, or breakthrough in God’s kingdom. You will enjoy the best of God if your heart is right. The Bible says God’s eyes are actually moving to and fro on the earth, looking for such people to show Himself mighty on their behalf.
Isaiah said He will make the lives of such people His home on earth. Satan is the last person who wants to have your life as a home for God on earth because it will paralyze His activities in the earthly realm. God uses those who He lives in, to paralyze the activities of the devil in the earthly realm. The Bible says;
“Thus says the Lord: Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool. What kind of house would you build for Me? And what kind can be My resting-place?
For all these things My hand has made, and so all these things have come into being [by and for Me], says the Lord. But this is the man to whom I will look and have regard: he who is humble and of a broken or wounded spirit, and who trembles at My word and reveres My commands.” Isaiah 66:1-2 AMPC
We have been looking at things that our divine destinies will need to be fulfilled. One of them is a heart that is not hardened towards God. That is why we are looking at it this morning. A heart that has not lost the feeling of kindness, friendship, or concern for God and what He is saying will tremble at His word.
HE WILL HAVE A HUMBLE AND BROKEN SPIRIT, THAT TREMBLES AT THE WORD OF THE LORD AND REVERES OR FEARS HIS COMMAND.
Child of God, you will never fulfill your divine destiny with a heart that is hardened towards the person who is in charge of your destiny, GOD.
We have seen how our divine destinies will need to be carried the way a woman carries a pregnancy, from start to finish. But if your heart is hardened towards God, you will never be able to carry a pregnancy from the LORD in your spirit, from start to finish.
Understand that your divine destiny is full of prophetic pregnancies, plans, and purposes of God, that need a heart that is right towards Him, to be fulfilled. Those pregnancies include God’s visions, goals, and dreams of your assignment in His end-time plans.
Friend, there is a need to protect the pregnancies of your divine destiny, and one way you do that is by walking with God with a heart that trembles at His word, and making sure your heart is not hardened against the LORD, in any way or at any time, no matter the circumstances that surround your life.
God will need a heart that is not hardened towards Him to walk with and bring things from Heaven to the earth. That is why He said in His word;
“Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23 AMPC
Things about your destiny flow from the Throne Room of God to the throne of your heart, for onward delivery to the earth. That is one reason why our hearts must not be hardened towards God. Understand that, when it comes to the release of our destiny, the heart of the matter, is always the matter of the heart.
ONE OF THE BEAUTIFUL PORTIONS OF OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT SAYS;
O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Your praise. For You delight not in sacrifice, or else would I give it; You find no pleasure in burnt offering.
My sacrifice [the sacrifice acceptable] to God is a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart [broken down with sorrow for sin and humbly and thoroughly penitent], such, O God, You will not despise.” Psalm 51:13-17 AMPC
The blessing of having a heart that is broken before God at all times, not necessarily with the sorrow of sin, but the desire for more of God, is having God by your side at all times. You will never see Him abandon you. The text says, ***“a broken and a contrite heart .. such, O God, you will not despise.” God will not abandon you if you are carrying what He will not despise. *** His presence will be adequately available in your life.
I believe the message of today has been passed.
No one can fulfill a divine destiny with a heart that is hardened towards God. It will eliminate the needed presence of God, and plunge one’s life into turmoil. Always remember that it is the quality or density of the presence of God that you carry, that will determine how your life turns out. Yes, it is the density or quality of the presence of God you carry that will determine the fulfillment of your destiny.
Once again, your divine destiny is full of things God want to perform in and through you on earth. But if you do not have an adequate presence of God for it, most of what the LORD revealed to you will never be performed.
He said to Jacob in the days of the Bible, “I will be with you, and I will perform all that I have spoken to you.” That was all Jacob needed, and that is what you and I need today; God being with us.
I have always said that if God is present, it does not matter who is absent. It is His being with us that results in the release of destiny. However, a heart that is not hardened towards Him will be required.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY!
“And Jacob left Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and stayed there overnight, because the sun was set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down there to sleep.
And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it!
And behold, the Lord stood over and beside him and said, I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father [forefather] and the God of Isaac; I will give to you and to your descendants the land on which you are lying.
And your offspring shall be as [countless as] the dust or sand of the ground, and you shall spread abroad to the west and the east and the north and the south; and by you and your Offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed and bless themselves.
And behold, I am with you and will keep (watch over you with care, take notice of) you wherever you may go, and I will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done all of which I have told you.
And Jacob awoke from his sleep and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place and I did not know it.” Genesis 28:10-15 AMPC