TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 22ND AUGUST 2023)
God was pleased with what they were doing and put his stamp of approval on it — quite a number of the Greeks believed and turned to the Master. Acts 11:21 THE MESSAGE
WELCOME TO THE 234TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS
For 234 days we have seen the faithfulness, mercy, and goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Oh yes, like we all sang on the day two of our Inhouse apostolic summit, we will keep singing of the mercies of the LORD, with our mouth we will make known His faithfulness to all generations.
God is doing something in this age and time. If you missed yesterday’s session, please get the message.
We took a prophetic ride through the global moves of God. You could find your role when you get the message. The LORD made us to understand His intent behind the word “break through” that came on Sunday. Though it is today that we will get the totality of it.
It is important that you know what your Heavenly Father is doing. If we know what our Heavenly Father is doing, we will know what we should be doing as His vessels on earth. The reason why Satan has kept many in ignorance of what the Heavenly Father is doing, is to make sure we get busy in our church activities but NOT in what we should be doing.
There is a difference between what one should be doing, and what one is doing. What you are doing could be very good in your sight and the sight of others, but that might be what you should not be doing.
Whenever we are doing what we should not be doing, we will lack God’s stamp of approval, even if it is bringing us success. Yes, you can be successful in what you should not be doing in God’s judgment. You will come to learn later, that success is not always a sign of divine approval.
You could be busy preaching a message that is giving you likes and views on social media, or a great success on earth, but that might NOT be what you should be preaching. Until you know what the Father is doing, you won’t even know what you should be preaching these end times.
There are people in ministry, for instance, whose job is just to be a witness and nothing else. But they will never know until they know what the Father is doing. Such people may not even get one like when they put their messages on social media, because no one wants to be warned about sin and its consequences.
FEW WOULD LISTEN TO A MESSAGE THAT IS SERVING AS A WITNESS AGAINST THEM.
So, most preachers will prefer preaching what religion approves not what they should be preaching, especially if they are called to preach the unpopular and unacceptable like John the Baptist, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, etc.
Child of God, until you know what the Heavenly Father is doing, you will not be able to get busy doing only what He approves.
Yes, you could be busy giving money for church buildings to be built, but because you do not intimately know what the Heavenly Father is doing, it will turn out on the day of reckoning that it is not what you should have spent that time doing.
You could be busy pastoring this church, pursuing this marriage, and even going for evangelism, but in God’s judgment that is not what you should be doing. Until you know what the Heavenly Father is doing, you will never know what you should NOT be doing as His child.
Jesus knew what He should be doing because He walked in the perfect knowledge of what the Heavenly Father was doing when He was here as man. One day, He looked at the people and said;
… “My Father has been working until now, and I have been working.” John 5:17 NKJV
The Bible says, “For this reason the Jews persecuted Jesus, and sought to kill Him, because He had done these things on the Sabbath.” In other words, He did what He should be doing, and the system moved against Him. The dark Church system will always move against you if you do what you should be doing like our LORD and Savior Jesus Christ did.
Religion will always celebrate you, if you do a spiritual work that they want you to be doing, even if it runs contrary to what you should be doing by God’s judgment. Yes, even if it lacks God’s stamp of approval, so long as it has their own stamp of approval, they will spread your message and open doors for you.
So, in John 5:16-18, the dark religious system sort to kill Jesus because He did what He should be doing, after seeing what the Father was doing. He did not do what they expected Him to do, which was not what He saw the Father doing.
YOU WILL ALWAYS DO WHAT RUNS CONTRARY TO A DARK RELIGIOUS SYSTEM AFTER SEEING WHAT THE FATHER IS DOING.
The system wanted Him to keep the Sabbath Day Holy by their own design. But He kept it Holy by God’s design. The Sabbath was a practice that was pointing out to the rest God was bringing to troubled souls. That day, a troubled soul got the rest, fulfilling the Sabbath in his life. That was what the Father was doing and that was what Jesus did. But the system was upset.
A failed or dark religious system, will always stick to shadows (use of water, salt, oil, etc. in prayer), human laws or religious rules, dark deliverance rituals, and all that, instead of God and what He is doing in the now. It will prefer keeping rules and doing rituals to what God wants done.
If you do what you should be doing in such a system, after coming into the revelation of what the Heavenly Father is doing, it will seek to kill you.
But the Jesus system is always different. That is the system God wants you and I to walk in.
God wants you and I to be different. He wants us to be doing only what we should be doing, no matter the cost; and that will only happen when we come into the revelation of what the Father is doing.
Concerning the Pharisees, for example, Jesus said to them;
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Matthew 23:15 NKJV
This scripture contents the result of doing what religion wants us to do but not what we should be doing. When we do what religion wants us to do, instead of what the Heavenly Father desires, we will definitely succeed, but we will succeed in promoting the activities of the spirit of hell. We will end up turning places, people, systems, kingdom principles, and all about God, into what Jesus calls “sons,” or that which sprang from hell.
For instance, if we are in ministry, we will end up raising sons of hell as sons of GOD. If we are contributing to a building project, it will end up becoming that which sprang from hell. If we are singing a song, it will be an offspring from hell, even if the name Jesus is in the song, there will be no glory, just excitement.
YOU WILL NOT FAIL TO PROMOTE WHAT IS NOT GOD, BUT LOOKS LIKE GOD, IF YOU DO THINGS THAT LACK GOD’S TRUE STAMP OF APPROVAL.
A child of God therefore, who wants to do things that will attract God’s stamp of approval and bless him or her, must first know what the Heavenly Father is doing in our age and time, before embarking in any spiritual work, no matter the greatness or urgency of the call.
Let us look at something about God’s stamp of approval.
God’s stamp of approval is a major catalyst of supernatural blessing that we seem to have forgotten today. If the things you pursue in life lack God’s stamp of divine approval, you will struggle through life no matter how hard you pray, fast, give, attend Church, or serve men of God.
Sometimes you could get results, but because the result will lack God’s stamp of approval, everything will result in you loosing the most significant things of the Kingdom.
Moses, at one time got results, and very significant results; despite doing what God did not approve (smiting the rock), but the result hindered him from entering the promise land!
Results from things that lack God’s stamp of approval can be eternally dangerous. God did not design man to live a life that lacks His stamp of approval.
The first man lived in a realm where all he did was approved of God. When he was in that realm, God’s glory was constantly expelled upon him. Heaven and earth merged upon his life and there was no room for the satanic or demonic to express itself in his life. But after an eternal while, he walked out of that realm, and everything became bad.
The walk began when he did one thing that GOD did not approve, eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or the tree of sound judgment. If you read the book of Genesis Chapter 3 in a contemporary rendering, you will realize that he walked out of it when the serpent introduced Eve to what we know today as the New Age Doctrine.
THE NEW AGE DOCTRINE TELLS YOU TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND SEEK NO DIVINE.
It tells you that the solution of all your problems, lies within you, instead of within Christ in you. The doctrine is not familiar with the phrase, “Christ in you.” It makes man the god of his life; building him to seeks approval from himself when doing things and not from GOD.
The serpent literally asked mankind through the woman, to declare independence from God and start doing things without His approval. The result is what we see today; death, diseases, woes, wars, demons on rampage, eternal condemnation, failed relationships, poverty, suicide, drug abuse, criminalities, sufferings, broken homes, lives beaten down by Satan, etc.
Whenever a thing in your life lacks divine approval, it will never lack successful demonic attacks. Be it a marriage, a business, a ministry, a Church, a decision, a career, or whatever concerns you. It may have riches, fame and all that, but will also not lack demonic attacks.
Doing things that lack divine approval is one major reason for the earthly woes of mankind. Our devotional text said, “God put a stamp of divine approval” on what the early disciples did in Antioch and there was an uncommon breakthrough. Break through is a child of doing only the things that has God’s stamp of approval. If you do what does not have, get ready for a break down of life at a later end and not a break through.
The release of His glory upon us, leading to uncommon breakthroughs, is one way God approves a thing that pleases Him; be it a marriage, a business, a ministry, a career, a family, a spiritual life, etc.
If you are having sweat-less accomplishments, you are doing things that please God, but if you are struggling, you are not. You need to make adjustments and come out of the self-led life you are living, and embrace the God-led life we were originally designed to live.
MAKE THIS DAY YOUR DAY OF DIVINE ADJUSTMENTS! BEGIN BY PRAYING THE PRAYER OF DAVID;
“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.” Psalm 23:1-3 NKJV