TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 9TH DECEMBER 2023)
“And he hastened to take the bandage away from his eyes; and the king of Israel recognized him as one of the prophets.”
“Then he said to him, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because you have let slip out of your hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people.'”
So the king of Israel went to his house sullen and displeased, and came to Samaria. 1 Kings 20:41-43 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 343RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Welcome to another great day of the last month of the year.
The book of proverbs 5:1-2 says, “My son, pay attention to my wisdom; Lend your ear to my understanding, that you may preserve discretion, and your lips may keep knowledge.” (NKJV)
This morning God is saying to us “My Sons, pay attention to My Wisdom.”
If we actually lend our ears to understanding all the LORD have been sharing with us from the first day of this year, we will preserve discretion and our lips will keep knowledge.
Today we will be refreshing our minds with Bible truths on the subject of Relationships.
Many people are under the pressure of hellish circumstances foolishly.
They are under the pressure of such circumstances because they are hooked up to wrong relationships in marriage, economy, ministry, church, social life and etc., yet expecting right things to be happening in their lives.
I grew up to discover that, if you are hooked up to a hellish person asking God to move in your life to save you from all he or she may be doing to you, God will not move. You are the one that will have to move away from him or her.
But religion does not let some make that destiny or freedom move.
It is not just religion, but lack of revelation knowledge of scriptures too. It will not let us make the freedom or destiny move. Consequently, bringing swift destruction to ourselves.
There was a time that my life and ministry was under siege.
During that time, I learnt that if your life has been under a siege, your breakthrough sometimes lies in walking away from the wrong people, no matter the cost on your life.
It does not lie in sowing financial seeds to supposed miracle workers, or receiving special prayers from dark men of God.
GOD IS SADDENED BY THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE ON PATHWAYS OF HELL BECAUSE OF WRONG RELATIONSHIPS.
He is saddened by the huge number that is suffering just because they are with the wrong people; not even with devils, but wrong people. There are those who He even gave right people to, but they do not even recognize it.
Having God given people but not knowing it, and having the wrong people in life will leave us with the same results. Both circumstances are not good.
On having wrong people, I want to submit to us that wrong people can be worst than devils because, you can cast out a devil in minutes but cannot cast out a wrong person, sometimes even in years.
So, God wants everyone out of the snare; and today we will be going a step further with Him on this important subject.
To start with, I want to submit to you that there is a group of God’s kingdom citizens that the devil is taking advantage of because, they do not understand the rules that govern the kingdom they belong to.
First of all, I want you to understand that if your salvation is genuine, you were translated into a kingdom by that encounter, not a human religion or Church system.
The Kingdom of God though spiritual in its nature and dynamic in its advance, is more real than the kingdom of men.
It has rules that govern its citizens. Those rules are not church rules but God’s rules.
For instance, Church rules may say before you get married, you must sow this seed and that seed to your pastor or prophet, and even if you are already sleeping together no problem.
But God’s Kingdom rule says you do not need to sow any seed to anybody to get married and you must keep the bed undefiled.
Sex is after, not before marriage because it is a consummation of a covenant. Having it before marriage is sinful because you are consummating nothing. We can go on and on.
Though that was not the original intent of Christ for establishing the church, Church rules are different from Kingdom rules.
THEY OUGHT NOT TO BE, BUT SADLY THEY HAVE BECOME.
Secondly, the tradition of men is different from the tradition of God. For instance, in some traditions, a man can marry as many wives as possible, but in God’s tradition, as depicted in His original intent for marriage, one man one wife.
In some tradition, what your family says should be respected more than what anyone including God may say.
But in God’s tradition, what He says is higher than what anyone may say, even if the person is a prophet, and should be respected as such.
So, the rules of the Church (especially the present Church) and the tradition of men, are different from that of God.
Genuine salvation encounter, is actually a separation from the traditions and rules of men, to that of God’s kingdom. It is a call to govern your life strictly by the rules and traditions of God’s kingdom, not a mixture of what men are saying and what God is saying.
In the kingdom of God, divine will is enforced not discussed. It is enforced on everything that concerns a son or daughter of the KING of kings and LORD of lords, relationships inclusive.
For instance, if God take a position on a relationship you may be involved in and you refuse to take that position along with Him, you will break from the Kingdom and no longer see its power and glory manifesting in your life.
Sadly, so many Children of God do not understand this, consequently sticking to even marriages that are clearly established on dark Church rules, and dark traditions of men.
There are people that God have asked to leave certain relationships; He did that by allowing those relationships crash into certain rocks of life, but they are still not listening; they are still praying about it.
It is foolish to be praying about what God has concluded about. It is foolish to be playing around things that God said we should move away from.
For instance, in the kingdom of God, when adultery set into a marriage, that marriage is over. But if the person involved genuinely repents, the marriage could continue.
BUT CERTAIN CHRISTIANS DO NOT TREAT ISSUES OF ADULTERY THAT WAY, HENCE BRINGING SWIFT DESTRUCTION UPON THEMSELVES.
I have seen couples killed by sexual transmitted diseases that they took from those they slept with outside their marriages. They left innocent children behind, as part of the consequences of the faithful not separating from the unfaithful.
Clearly, that would not have happened if the faithful had not refused to separate himself or herself from the unfaithful.
Sometimes, the faithful must know how to separate themselves from the unfaithful to save their lives; and that is not applicable to marriage alone.
However, let’s leave marriage matters for now, because relationship transcends marital boundaries.
There is pastor-member relationship; there is business relationships, and so on. The good news is, irrespective of the type of relationship, kingdom rules on all kinds of relationships are basically the same.
When God take a position concerning a relationship, and you refuse to take the same position with Him, your life will not know peace until obedience is complete.
In fact, like our devotional text pointed out, “Your life will go for the person’s life.” It is a kingdom rule.
One highlight of the text says;
‘Because you have let slip out of your hand a man whom I appointed to utter destruction, therefore your life shall go for his life, and your people for his people.'” 1 Kings 20:42 NKJV
This text teaches that if God take a position on a relationship, and we do not, even Heaven will turn against us. Our lives will go for the life of anyone we may be dealing with.
The vision of GOD in guiding us with such kingdom laws, is to separate us from wrong relationships, preserve our lives and where necessary, connect us to the right ones.
There is no place in the Bible where God asked a man to nurture a “wrong” relationship. He has only encouraged the nurturing of “young” relationships with great potentials to bless or build our lives.
THERE IS A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WRONG RELATIONSHIPS AND YOUNG BUT GOOD RELATIONSHIPS WITH WEEDS AROUND IT!
A wrong relationship is like a weed, and a good one (even though it is young) is like a seed.
We all know that no good farmer nurtures a weed.
Everyone nurtures a seed, and the reason is simple. A “weed” will always be a weed, and a “seed” a seed. It’s a matter of nature, or DNA, not circumstances.
If you change the circumstances of a weed by planting it in a more fertile ground and nurturing it, it will become a powerful weed, yielding other weeds to hinder your life.
But if a seed looks young, weak and dying, and you take it to a more fertile soil, and nurture it very well, it will grow into a very powerful yield for you, bringing joy into your life.
There are poor men who married very rich ladies, and through the care and nurture of those ladies, they became a great blessing to those ladies and their entire families.
But there are also poor men who married same type of rich, caring, and loving ladies, but became a curse to the ladies after receiving nurture.
I know one who started courting a younger lady, and brought his mother into the house, and killed the woman who took him from the gutters.
May God help us not to nurture weeds, because except there is a miracle from GOD, a weed will always be a weed.
So, no wrong relationship can become right through nurturing. Only right relationships can grow strong through nurturing.
I have learned that you will never be able to nurture a wrong relationship into a right one. It will maintain its state as a wrong relationship despite nurturing.
That is all we can take today!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood:”
“That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace:”
“That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store: that our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our streets:
That our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out; that there be no complaining in our streets.” Psalms 144:11-14 KJV