TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 3RD AUGUST 2023)**
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. Philippians 4:6-8 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 215th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
The LORD is worthy of our thanksgiving, our praise, and our worship. He is worthy of our everything.
A song writer once said, “Who is like unto YOU, oh LORD, who is like unto YOU, Oh LORD, in all the earth, who is like YOU? Glorious in Holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders, hallelujah!” This song is so true in our lives.
We are alive today because of His marvelous kindness, mercies, power, and His kingdom that is doing wonders in our lives on daily bases. The wonder of being alive alone worth everyone’s attention. No matter what may be happening in your life, just know that God has been faithful because you still have a life.
Just get your heart filled with the thoughts of His faithfulness.
If you get your heart filled with thoughts of His faithfulness, it will kindle your heart with hope and faith for the future. So, instead of worrying about it, fix your gaze on His faithfulness and consistency to see you through what you may be going through.
His consistency and faithfulness in all we see Him do, is beyond the consistency and faithfulness that we have seen the sun display for generations. History has it that there has been no day that the sun has refused to give its light on the earth. In the same way, there has been no day we have not received mercies from He who created the sun to be that faithful.
The Bible says He does not deal with us according to our sins or mistakes, but according to His faithfulness. The sun reflects just a bit of that, because the sun has never dealt with the earth according to the sins of those living on it. No matter how wicked men have been, it has kept shining.
Just as it is the wickedness of men that destroy them even under the faithfulness of the sun, so our sins and mistakes find us out from time to time, resulting in lack, business failure, financial pressure, illnesses, destruction, wars, failure, toiling, curses, spiritual attacks, etc. even when God is not dealing with us according to them.
God, not dealing with us according to our sins, is an act of mercy that He seeds into our lives to bring forth the harvest of a life of repentance. In other words, when you see God not dealing with you according to your sins, He is saying to you, “repent of them.” The Bible says;
“If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.” Psalm 130:3-4 NKJV
WHEN GOD SHOW US MERCY, FORGIVE US OF OUR SINS, TRESPASSES AND ERRORS, IT IS A SEED.
We are expected to lead lives of repentance. It is important to understand that repentance remains the only hope for the sinner, under the sun of God’s faithfulness.
The LORD began this month by admonishing us no to worry. To worry is “to feel or cause to feel anxious or troubled about actual or potential problems.” God said we should not do that this month, or any other month. We should not live a life of feeling anxious about the problems we have or will have. It will not bless us. It will rather break us.
He made us to understand that no life can be changed or problem solved when one is feeling anxious or troubled about them. In fact, it will diminish one’s capacity to think productively and come out with a solution.
When Paul had a life-threatening situation at one time, he did not slip into worrying; he did not slip into anxiety, troubling himself about how the problem will destroy and cut his life short. The Bible says all that was on board that ship was plagued with that, as a result, they begun to think of killing all the prisoners on board.
When you worry, you think of killing what should be kept alive. You contemplate things that will lead you to make decisions, that might end up destroying you or someone else.
For instance, people have gone into dangerous borrowing because of worrying, killing a great financial future that is lying ahead of them. Some have sold their businesses out of worry, only to realize years later that what they were troubled and worrying about was not necessary. When you worry, you kill what should be kept alive.
People have killed their marriages because of worries. They have turned their homes into war zones, not because of what has happened, but because of what they worry is happening, or will happen.
There was this man who was driving his car and fighting to pick a call from his wife, because he worried that if he did not pick it, she might think he is with another woman. She had been very worrisome and suspicious of him cheating on her; and he was a quiet man who hate nagging.
SADLY, HE HAD AN ACCIDENT IN THE PROCESS, AND DIED INSTANTLY.
The woman heard the noise of the crash while shouting on the other end. She did not even understand that the crash was an accident and kept shouting even after it happened. Her worries, and his own worry, got the man killed.
It is not good to worry. Worrying has a way of creating dark imaginations in us. It has a way of making the religious or spiritual, conceive visions, dreams or prophecies that are not from God. The Bible calls those prophetic deliveries “visions of our own heart.” Worrying will make you conceive visions of your heart and claim God sent them to you.
In 1 Kings 13, the Old Prophet for instance, worried that his influence in the city was destroyed when the young prophet from Judah came with a word from the LORD. That led him to saddle his donkey and go deceive the young man to come eat in his house, which was against God’s instruction. The Bible says he even conceived a supposed word from the LORD, which never came from Him. That was how he made the young man to disobey God and die.
Here is the Bible account of what the old man’s worries and insecurities did; how it made him conceive a lying prophecy that got the young man killed. The Bible says;
He said to him, “I too am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.’ ” (He was lying to him.)
So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house, and drank water. 1 Kings 13:18-19 NKJV
The question now is, why didn’t the young prophet know the old was lying to him? The answer lies in his sense of value and respect for the old. He never believed a father could be wrong, or even lie under God. He was trained to believe that way, just as many are being trained today to believe that their spiritual fathers cannot be wrong.
This is one of the Bible stories that makes me warn people against spiritual fathers who have lost out with the LORD. They will bring messages that God never gave them, and because of respect and honor, we will follow them, only to be eaten by lions (evil) many years to come. The Bible says;
“So it was, after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet whom he had brought back.
When he was gone, a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey stood by it. The lion also stood by the corpse.
And there, men passed by and saw the corpse thrown on the road, and the lion standing by the corpse. Then they went and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.
Now when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard it, he said, “It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord. Therefore the Lord has delivered him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to him.” 1 Kings 13:23-26 NKJV
IF YOU READ THE ENTIRE CHAPTER, YOU WILL DISCOVER THAT THE YOUNG PROPHET DIED BECAUSE HE WORRIED ABOUT FOOD AND WATER.
He worried about food and water hence going for it when presented with it, because you do not go for what you are not worrying about. But at the start of his ministry, God had warned him not to eat, or drink in the place he was sent to.
In other words, He was warned not to worry about food or drink while on duty. He was to wait upon the LORD by obeying that word, and paying the price of discipline. But he did not. His worry for what he was asked not to be worried about made him vulnerable to the deception of the old prophet (the spiritual father of the land).
Today, young preachers are being slain on the altar of the deception of the fathers of their lands because they worry about food, rent, success, and money in ministry. They worry about becoming famous, traveling everywhere, or having pulpits to stand and preach from; things Jesus warned us in Matthew chapter 10, not to be worried about as His servants.
It is very dangerous for spiritual or religious people to worry about the wrong things. If you worry about the wrong things, you will leave the paths God has pre-planned for your life. You will become vulnerable to deception.
Like we can see in the life of the Old Prophet, it is clear that even today, worry has made many spiritual people to tap into the false prophetic anointing, hear voices, see visions, and have dreams that are not from God, but from their hearts.
That is why we cannot be genuine Christians and be worrying about the wrong things. Our worry has to be on the right things.
Worrying about the wrong things will ruin our spiritual intel, because it has a way of creating a past that never happened, a present that does not exist, or a future that is not real and will never be real. When you worry about the wrong things, you develop motion pictures in your imagination that are not true about people, places, situations, or circumstances.
When you worry about the wrong things, the enemy can tell you a lie about someone or something that you will believe.
Talking about marriage one more time, there are spouses who have even intentionally killed their spouses because of worry. They poisoned them because they worried that they were cheating on them, only to regret their wickedness. Sadly, there are those who did the same but did not even regret about it.
WORRY CAN TURN YOU INTO A MURDERER OR A BEAST. SO, IF THE LORD SAYS WE SHOULD NOT WORRY, FRIEND WE SHOULD NOT.
I can’t forget a man who used to always beat the wife for worrying that her lateness from work was born out of a man she was seeing. Everyone who knew that was not true hated the man and the consequences of his worry was loss of his home. The marriage ended and he went on living a miserable life with another woman, who later killed him.
Worry for the wrong things will make you do wicked things to yourself and others. It can make you mean and hateful.
The Bible says when the people contemplated killing the prisoners, Paul decided to do what our devotional text says we should do in place of worry – prayer. The text says;
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. Philippians 4:6-8 NKJV
What can you see in this text? The text says instead of worrying about the wrong things, we should pray. It did not just say pray, it also said, we should think or meditate on the right things. Then it went further to define them.
It says, *whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, *we should think on those things.
I believe the LORD has spoken to us this morning. It is my prayer that we all heed to His word and come up into worship dimensions that are free of worrying for the wrong things, in Jesus’ precious name. Amen!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. John 14:1-3 NKJV