TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 3RD NOVEMBER 2023)
“Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 307TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Blessed be the name of the LORD for the 3rd day of the 11th Month of the year 2023, according to the Gregorian Calendar. May the LORD remain exalted for ever and ever! Amen!
The race for another circle of time has started. If you are still in the euphoria of the new month, wake up. We need to get some wisdom to apply our hearts unto. God delights in filling our hearts with wisdom. That is why He has been speaking to us through the Cry of His Holy Spirit on this platform. This time around, He is speaking to us about Visionary Living.
People who succeed in life, do not live their life the way others do. In terms of drive, they are vision driven. Their conversation is visionary, their network of relationship is vision driven, their residency in nations is visionary; they do not just move into nations or cities for pleasure. They do not move in driven by emotions. They move in driven by vision. Today we want to refresh our minds of visionary residency. It is one of the most important catalyst of success by God’s design.
Now, in the school of residency or citizenship, there are people who just live in their nations and cities because that is where they were born. They keep living there, and end up growing and dying based on the fact that they were born there. But that is not too good for success.
Success in life is not a birth right but something you work out. You must be visionary to succeed. You could be living in a place because you were born there, but that will not guarantee your success in life. You must become visionary in your choice of residency. You must ask yourself, why you are in that nation or that city, and if the place is adding to you in life or ruing you completely. You must ask if the place is elevating you or burying you. Visionary residency is very important in life. It is part of visionary living.
Visionary residency is taking residency in a nation, city, town or village, not because you were born there, but because you will be made there. In other words, you went there because it has been revealed to you by the word of the LORD that you will be made in that place.
THE LAW OF VISIONARY LIVING HAS THE LAW OF VISIONARY RESIDENCY ATTACHED TO IT.
Visionary residency played a major role in the lives of so many people who became great in Bible days! You find God applying the law in His walk with some of the people He called and made generational colossus.
For instance, God applied the law of visionary residency on Abraham, a generational colossus. How did He do it? He made him to leave where he was born, to where he was made a father of many nations. His life tells us that visionary living, will involve visionary residency.
In the light of this, we can say, visionary residency involves moving away from where you were born, to where you will be made. Sometimes, it will involve moving from one nation to another, city to another, town to another, or one neighborhood to another neighborhood. Simply put, visionary residency is moving from where we were either born, or where we find ourselves, to where God has shown us to move into, either for a kingdom assignment or other kingdom purposes.
Understand that, if there is a vision to live for, there is a place to move into for that vision to be fulfilled. That place is not necessarily where we were born. It is where we would be made.
Our devotional text says;
“Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you.
I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Genesis 12:1-3 NKJV
There was no way Abram would have become Abraham in his place of birth. God had to move him. He had to move from a place of familiar territory to a place of unfamiliar territory.
THERE ARE PEOPLE WHOSE SUCCESS IN LIFE IS TIED TO THE SAME PRINCIPLE.
So long as they remain in their places of birth; neighborhood, villages, town, Cities, nations, and sometimes continents without a vision authenticating that God wants them there, they will never succeed in life. They would either have to move by the word of the LORD to a fresh place to succeed in life, or get a word from the LORD that authenticates that GOD wants them to remain in their places of birth.
Friend, you might never become anything in life without respecting the law of visionary residency. Now, as stated above, do not begin to think that every destiny must move from his or her place of birth, to another place to be fulfilled. That will not be visionary residency, that will be emotional residency. There is emotional residency, where you move from one place to another because you felt something strong. That might or might not help you in life.
Visionary residency is born of the Spirit of God not the flesh. It is not stereo typed. It is not something you see others do, and then you join them in doing it. Emotional residency is born that way. For instance, you here that this person or that person has travelled to the United States and is now sending money back home, and you also decide to travel. That has destroyed the salvation of many. They are in foreign lands living lives that will make sure they end up in hell when they die. But while they were here, they feared God!
You will not always need to move out for failure to move out of your life. Abram had to become a foreigner to fulfil his destiny, but Moses had a different destiny route. His destiny and success were tie to the place of His birth, Egypt. Even when he ran from it and went to stay in a foreign land for 40 years, he could only become a shepherd. He could not become what God created Him to be – a deliverer.
HIS GREATEST ACHIEVEMENT IN A FOREIGN LAND WAS BECOMING A HUSBAND AND FATHER. THAT WAS ALL.
God had to meet him when he was 80, and asked him to return to the place of his birth Egypt, to be made the deliverer he was born to be. So, there are destinies that need to live their place of birth before they can succeed, and there are people who need to return back home to succeed. Visionary residency is you sensing which part is yours.
It is you knowing by the word of the LORD, if you becoming significant, successful, or fulfilled in life, is tied to your place of birth like Moses, or a foreign land like Abraham. One thing you must avoid is allowing circumstances or the flesh to choose for you were to reside in life. Do not allow emotions to choose your residency like Lot did.
Lot’s success in life was tied to him residing with Abraham, which is another form of visionary living. But he mismanaged his relationship with God’s appointed man for him, Abraham, and decided to reside in a place his emotions guided him to reside. Emotional residency actually ruined Lot, because he lost out at the end.
The Bible says;
“And Lot lifted his eyes and saw all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered everywhere (before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah) like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt as you go toward Zoar.
Then Lot chose for himself all the plain of Jordan, and Lot journeyed east. And they separated from each other.
Abram dwelt in the land of Canaan, and Lot dwelt in the cities of the plain and pitched his tent even as far as Sodom. But the men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful against the LORD.” Genesis 13:10-13 NKJV
Lot lifted up his eyes to decide in the flesh where to live, and the signs he followed looked promising, but time proved him wrong. The Bible says he saw a place, and his heart told him, “that is the Garden of Eden.” Then his emotions approved it. But the end result was very bad. His success in the place did not last for long.
War would later break out, he would become a captive, and everything he had gathered in life would be lost. Abraham would later go to rescue him, but sadly, he would not correct his ways and reside with Abraham. He would rather go live in the corrupt cities of Sodom.
WHEN GOD’S JUDGMENT WOULD STRIKE THE PLACE, LOT WOULD LATER FIND HIMSELF WHERE NO ONE LIVED.
God wanted to prevent that by choosing for him where to reside, but in his typical nature, he opted for a place that seemed good in his sight. God wanted him to live with a person, but he chose to live in a place. That was His error. That could be your error too.
Friend, there is an aspect of visionary residency where God will design that you live with someone, the way He designed Lot to reside with Abraham. It may not be in the same house but under the person’s wings. If you mismanage that relationship, and allow your emotions to give you another option, you will suffer for the rest of your life.
Lot would later loose his wife, and entire material wealth, and even made to impregnate his two daughters. That was pathetic! You will always see what God never designed for you happening, if you follow your own ways in choosing where to reside. As we bring this to a close, understand that visionary living will involve visionary residency. There must be a voice, a leading, a mission, or a word of the LORD at the Centre of your choice of where to reside as a child of GOD.
You do not allow circumstances or emotions guide you on where to reside. As we can see in the life of Lot, his life started going down when he left the path of visionary residency, and embraced the path of emotional residency. Then he became a captive, and ended very badly. That will be our story if we do the same. The law of visionary residency is the first law of visionary living. There are others. We will pick up from there tomorrow.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
Then Lot went up out of Zoar and dwelt in the mountains, and his two daughters were with him; for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar. And he and his two daughters dwelt in a cave.
Now the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is no man on the earth to come in to us as is the custom of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve the [f]lineage of our father.”
So they made their father drink wine that night. And the firstborn went in and lay with her father, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.
It happened on the next day that the firstborn said to the younger, “Indeed I lay with my father last night; let us make him drink wine tonight also, and you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve the lineage of our father.”
Then they made their father drink wine that night also. And the younger arose and lay with him, and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.
The firstborn bore a son and called his name Moab; he is the father of the Moabites to this day. And the younger, she also bore a son and called his name Ben-Ammi; he is the father of the people of Ammon to this day. Genesis 19:30-38 NKJV