TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 5TH AUGUST 2023)**
“Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord; Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me,” Psalms 40:11 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 217th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Today is the fifth day of the month; we thank God for His grace and for what the number five represents in our lives, as the redeemed of the LORD. It is the number of God’s amazing grace in the language of God’s signs and wonders.
In a world of uncertainties and uncontrolled evil, we need something bigger and higher to be preserved and kept from the unexpected, and that thing is God’s grace. It is God’s grace that puts Him in the midst of us, and helps us not to be moved when the uncertainties and the evil of our world rocks our lives in any way.
It is the same grace that helps us not to worry. Due to the impact of the fall of man, I do not think it is possible to obey any part of God’s word if there is no grace from Him to obey it. That is why Jesus came full of grace and truth, and that is why wherever He manifest, people will experience grace and truth. They will hear sanctifying truths and receive the grace to obey and walk in them.
Grace and truth put God in the midst of us. The Bible made it clear that if God is in the midst of us, we shall not be moved. That simply means, God in man is the greatest insurance of life. The emphasis of religion is God around man, but the emphasis of Christ is God in man. He died to make us temples for God in the Spirit.
It is important to note that in the beginning, God lived in man. He was not just around man; from the day He superimposed Himself in man and man became a living being, He was in man, and man was in Him. The portals of Heaven opened in man and around man.
BUT THE FALL CHANGED EVERYTHING. THAT IS WHY MAN BECAME WHAT HE IS TODAY.
Ecclesiastes puts it this way;
“For what has man for all his labor, and for the striving of his heart with which he has toiled under the sun?
For all his days are sorrowful, and his work burdensome; even in the night his heart takes no rest. This also is vanity.” Ecclesiastes 2:22-23 NKJV
Everything became vanity after the fall. But in the beginning, it was not so! God created man to serve as His dwelling place on earth. At the same time, He created man to outsource his decisions from Heaven. He designed our lives to prosper only when we outsource our decisions from His Holy Spirit, and not from any other.
If our decisions are not outsourced from Heaven, our lives will be hell on earth. Decisions determine destinies. God could predetermine that our lives be glorious, but our decisions destroy everything. That is why, no matter how powerful you are in prayers, if you are not making the proper decisions, your life will still be a misery on earth.
Proper decisions are decisions outsourced from Heaven; they are decisions influenced by the Holy Spirit and GOD’s Holy Word. They are humbling and sometimes painful to the flesh, but are necessary. When our decisions are outsourced from Heaven, it will put our lives in order and harmonize our actions with God’s will.
Do not forget, God’s will remains the most secured place on earth. Once your life is in harmony with it, you will be secured. The Bible says those who do the will of God will abide forever.
The essence of Christianity is synchronicity of a man’s life with God’s will and ways. When that happens, our lives will become perfect in God’s sight! The Bible commands that we be perfect just as our Heavenly Father is perfect. If it was not possible to be perfect, God would not have commanded it. For with God nothing shall be impossible.
When God say we should be perfect, He means we should be mature and live in synchronicity with His will and ways. He is not referring to perfection in Holiness. We can only come into that when we die in Christ Jesus, because perfection in holiness is coming to the realm where sin no longer live in us.
So long as we are in this world, sin will live in us.
IT IS JUST THAT WE WILL NOT BE LIVING IN IT DUE TO THE WORK OF GOD’S GRACE IN OUR LIVES.
Not living in sin, is a sign of salvation. It makes you righteous and pure, but does not confer on you the spiritual quality of perfection in Holiness, because sin still lives in you. It is when we get into the other side of life, in the presence of the LORD in Heaven, that we will enter into the realm and life of perfect holiness.
While we are in this world, as the light of the world or City set on a hill that cannot be hidden, God wants us to live separate from the corruption of this world and to be very dangerous to the kingdom of darkness; and that can only happen when we are perfectly in synchronicity with His will and ways.
I have come to discover that the most dangerous, effective, and impactful Christians on the face of the earth, and in the kingdom of God, are those whose lives are in complete harmony with God’s will and ways. When the Bible talks about the Crucified life, that is what it really is – a man whose every aspect of life is in perfect harmony with God’s will and ways.
Though the process of achieving that is usually very painful, but it is at the same time very needful!
Sometimes it will involve strict discipline from the LORD or those He has placed over our lives. Jesus Himself had to learn obedience through what he suffered. There can be no synchronicity with divine will and ways without the suffering that comes from doing His will and aligning with His ways.
This is not a reference to religion induced sufferings.
That is why we can only become perfectly synchronized with God’s will and ways, by looking unto Jesus, who for the sake of the Joy that was set before Him, endured the cross and despised the shame. Today God has given Him a name that is above every name, “***that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is LORD!” ***Hallelujah!
There are no words that can accurately describe the glory we will have in our lives (the honour, the power, and impact we will make) in this life and the life to come, if we endure the pain of synchronicity and harmonize our lives with God’s will and ways. The pains of synchronicity do manifest in different form.
IT ALL DEPENDS ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES THAT SURROUND YOU!
Sometimes, when a Child of God is trying to respond to God and bring his life into harmony with divine will and ways, people who are not in God’s will and perfect ways will seem to be prospering, and him diminishing. Indeed, it is usually not pleasant to see yourself going down and the wicked going up, especially in your days of synchronicity. That is one of the hardest points in our days of synchronicity.
Friend, there are days of synchronicity. During those days God will be passing you through what I call “School of Hard things.” It’s a period when the wicked will seem to be prospering, and you diminishing.
For instance, people who do not know what you know or fear God the way you do will be prospering and having things easy. But you will be suffering and having things difficult and then be wondering what in the world is happening? You could even be tempted to think, “Am I really on the right paths?” But the Bible says,
“When the wicked spring up like grass, and when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever.” Psalms 92:7 NKJV
On the flip side of the coin, when the righteous diminishes and start going down, especially for bringing his life into perfect harmony with God’s will and ways, it is for him to be lifted and made to flourish in due time.
You see, in God, the way up is down! The way up is not up, but down. Except the seed of corn fall and dies, it will abide alone.
Whenever God want to promote you, you must become that seed of corn that falls and dies. During that time, you will diminish and the wicked will prosper. But it is for a season. Just as Jesus diminished and the pharisees who hated his ministry prospered, but it happened just for a season.
During our falling down and dying season for the purpose of greater impact and fruits in God’s kingdom, our haters will prosper, but we will diminish, and that will continue until the process is complete. Once it is complete, we will come into the prosperity of the process, which is much fruit or much success.
THAT IS WHY THE BIBLE SAYS, WHEN THINGS ARE NOT OKAY WITH YOU;
“Cast not away…. your confidence, which hath great recompence of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.
Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” Hebrews 10:35-38 KJV
When we started this month, the 8th month of the year, the prophetic word that came to us from the LORD was, “Do not worry, count your blessing.”
Sometimes, prophetic words like that come to prepare us for war, or for unpleasant things. They come to usher us into a season when the seed of corn must fall an die, so that it will increase in kingdom impact after the process.
What do we do when we are surrounded by innumerable evils for saying yes to Jesus? What do we do when the pains of synchronicity begin to spring up? The Bible says we should cast not away our confidence.
Our confidence is from that revelation and faith that pushed us to respond to God in the first place. The Bible says we should not cast it away, and the reason is simple – it has a great recompense or reward. That is why we must continue and not stop!
There is a secret I want you to learn as a Child of God. If Heaven gives you a MEGA promise, you can only receive the performance of that promise after you have done the will of God, not when you are doing it. Our obedience must be complete before God’s word can be performed.
In other words, the manifestation of the reward of synchronicity with divine will and ways, comes after we have done the will of God or after we have been synchronized; not while we are synchronizing. The performance comes after the process not before or during the process.
The mistake many of us in the faith make is, we watch for the performance before or during the process, and when we do not see it, we lose hope and draw back. But before or during the process nothing happens. Jesus did not rise from dead before or the day He died. He had to die, and be buried before He was raised. He had to endure the process of death and burial, all spanning for three days before He was raised.
IT IS THE SAME PRINCIPLE GOD ACTIVATES WHEN DEALING WITH US.
There is need for patience and endurance because the season will be over. When it is over, He that shall come will come and splash us with the reward. Sometimes in this life and then the life to come, but other times in the life to come alone. I saw this in the life of the early Church. The Book of Hebrew made it clear that some died in His will and ways without receiving the promise in this life. But they got it in the life to come.
It is God, who is in charge of times and season, that determines when to bring the reward of our commitments to Him not even our prayers or sacrifices. Our job is to remain unconditionally committed to Him, and keep saying like Job,
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15 NKJV).
The greater your sacrifices for the Kingdom are in this life, the greater will be your reward in the next life.
If God did not begin your reward here, it’s because your reward there will be huge. He allowed John the Baptist to be killed by Herod to qualify him for five crowns in Heaven. Whatever God allows the righteous to go through in this life, it’s basically to qualify him for greater things in the next life.
That is why He has no pleasure in those who put their hands to the plough and then keep looking back. The Bible says, they will not receive anything because by doing so, they made themselves unfit for the kingdom. And don’t forget, it’s our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom; and we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul (Hebrews 10:39 NKJV)
That brings us to the faith position to take during the process of doing the will of God or synchronizing with His ways?
Our devotional text for today says,
“Do not withhold your tender mercies from me, O Lord; Let your lovingkindness and your truth continually preserve me,” Psalms 40:11 NKJV
If you look at this scripture, you will see three things that must proceed from God to us at all times, especially during the process of doing the will of GOD and synchronizing with His ways. The first is “mercy,” the second, “loving kindness,” and the third, “truth.”
It pays to be planted in a Church where the three will be made to reach you from time to time. It pays to have a prophetic midwife positioned by Heaven in your life to be supplying these three into your spirit.
Where you do not have one, like it happened to me, make sure you are spending countless hours with God in prayers. He will be your midwife Himself. Seek Him daily for Mercy, loving kindness, and truth. Then spend quality time studying His word, and all will be well.
I pray that you give these precious words double attention. I request that you copy and keep them in your archives because you will need them whenever you become weary on this race, and you are in need of strength to keep the faith, the fight, and the fire burning.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR TODAY;
“For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister.
And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.”
“For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.”
“And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.” Hebrews 6:10-15 NKJV