TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 17TH JUNE 2023)**
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.”
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalms 23:5-6 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 168th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Blessed be the LORD God who daily loads us with benefits. Day unto day He utters speeches and night unto night He reveals wisdom. He has been so mindful of us, we give Him the glory.
He said in His words, “Glorious things are spoken of us.” Some of them are things we are predestined to become on this side of eternity. To have glorious things, spoken or prepared beforehand to be made manifest in our lives, is one of the beautiful reasons why one needs to walk in divine destiny.
It is when we walk in the divine destiny that we spend our days according to those glorious things. It is when we walk in the divine destiny that we can walk out of spiritual, financial, or moral captivities.
Walking in divine destiny is walking away from paths where destruction meets men. It is walking away from paths, where premature death, fatal diseases, lack, poverty, satanic bondage, etc. meet people. It is dwelling in spiritual zones where God’s goodness and mercies fall upon you all the time, to water your life and make it bring forth blessings, like the rain and snow fall upon the earth.
Our devotional text says;
“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.”
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalms 23:5-6 NKJV
If you want God to be preparing a table for you in the presence of your enemies, anointing your head with fresh oil, causing His goodness and mercy to be falling on you, and watering your life (with the aim of causing Heavenly blessings to spring forth), stay within the dwelling, or habitation of your divine destiny.
Limit your life within the circumference of your divine destiny, and do not allow anything to take you away. That is one way we can live a blessed life in an accursed world.
DO NOT BE MISTAKEN ABOUT IT; IT IS A HUGE BLESSING TO WALK IN DIVINE DESTINY.
Apart from the rain of God’s goodness and mercies that falls on us, walking in divine destiny will help one to walk away from sin, iniquity and trespass. It will help one to straighten their ways with the LORD. It will help us change the moral stories of our lives, and even the economic stories, etc.
It will bring the bad and the ugly to an end and help us step into the best and beautiful. That is why, there is no way life remains the same, if you find your destiny pathways and embrace them with the whole of your heart.
By God’s design, we are to prosper within the boundaries or habitation of our divine destinies; within its route, program, process, vision, purpose, and all that. The day we walk away from them, we will begin to diminish and die. The prodigal son comes to mind here.
He walked away from divine destiny when he left the father’s house. We can find a template for our lives in his story and tell why good or bad things might be happening to us.
The Bible named his story, “the parable of the lost son.”
That alone makes it clear that if any thing seems to be missing in our lives, we should not go looking for it, because we are the ones who are actually missing. We have left our destiny places, pathways, dwellings, pursuits, visions, plans, or routes, hence the missing blessing or prosperity. We need to go back there.
The lost son, also called the prodigal son, left home (his destiny path) with so much wealth. But after a short while, things went bad with him. Things went so bad that he began to eat with pigs. He thought he could sustain the wealth he took from his destiny place. But sooner or later, he found out that money and all that relates to our economic lives or make this life beautiful, cannot be sustained outside the boundaries or habitations of our divine destiny.
Whatever divine destiny gave you, only divine destiny can sustain.
Nothing from our divine destiny will remain if our hearts become proud and we walk away from our destiny paths or dwellings. The story of his life made it clear that, it is our destiny and the power in it that sustains our moneys, and all that generates it for us.
The wealth of the lost son was all gone few seasons away from home. Everything good in your life that you may have received because you walked in your destiny, will go away from you after few seasons of being away from your destiny habitation, routes, or pathway.
The lost son never knew his wealth was a product of his being within the habitation of his divine destiny and that walking away from it, tantamount to bringing all the wealth to an end.
HE NEVER KNEW IT WAS JUST A MATTER OF TIME.
Friend, I consider it important that you look into this story intently. Like I stated earlier, we can find a template for our lives in his story, and tell why good or bad things are happening to us. The Bible says;
Then He said: “A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.’ So he divided to them his livelihood.
And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want.
Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything.
“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!
I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.” ’
“And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet.
And bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to be merry.” Luke 15:11-24 NKJV
From this scriptural passage, it is clear that as soon as the lost son was found, everything that was lost in his life returned.
THE LESSON HERE IS CLEAR.
As soon as we get back to the habitations of our divine destinies, whatever may have been lost in our lives would be found. Things get missing in our lives when we become missing in matters of our divine destiny. But as soon as we are found in them, the joy, peace, prosperity, progress, celebrations, or bliss, that may have been lost in our lives, would be found.
This story also teaches that life is easy only when we walk within our destiny. It could be tough sometimes, but we would always come out victorious. It also teaches that restoration is a major blessing of return to destiny places. We will not just be restored, but will always defeat the plans of the devil for our lives when we return to our destiny people, places, paths, etc. like the lost son did.
Friend, spend your days on earth walking in your destiny.
If you walk away, please return. Know the content of your destiny and always stay with the people, places, or pathways of life, that align with it. The right people, places, and pathways will be people, places, and pathways that align with the content of your divine destiny.
The content of our destiny are the visions, divine programs, divine routes, divine processes, divine patterns, etc. that are related to why we are here on earth. It also includes the potentials the LORD buried in our lives to help us actualize why we are here on earth. Identify the people, the places, Bible patterns, and life pathways, that align with it and do not walk away from them, no matter what.
I believe enough has been shared for the day, but there is one more. We have been looking at some of the things that our divine destinies need to be fulfilled and I want to submit to you one that is very visible in the story of the lost son – the gift of new beginning.
Your divine destiny will need the gift of new of fresh beginnings to be fulfilled.
Imagine a life without the opportunity to start all over again. It will be terrible. God created the earth and blessed it with the gift of new beginnings or fresh starts. That’s why we have trees that grow, die, and grow again. The earth is survivable because of the gift of fresh beginning. If there was no gift of fresh beginning, there would have been no earth, as we know it today.
Your destiny will need the gift of new beginning to be fulfilled. When we come back tomorrow, we will look deeper into how this gift can help you come into the fullness of God for your life, irrespective of what you may have done.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead,
I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14 NKJV