TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 8TH JUNE 2024)
“The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, Turned back in the day of battle.
They did not keep the covenant of God; They refused to walk in His law, And forgot His works And His wonders that He had shown them.
Marvelous things He did in the sight of their fathers, In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. He divided the sea and caused them to pass through; And He made the waters stand up like a heap.
In the daytime also He led them with the cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. He split the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink in abundance like the depths.
He also brought streams out of the rock, And caused waters to run down like rivers.” Psalm 78:9-16 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 160TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
The cry of the Spirit of the living God has been coming to us from day to day on this platform. We give God the glory.
The LORD has been speaking to us lately on fear matters. We have seen quite a few refreshing insights, padded with other deep scriptural revelations. To Him belong all the praise.
Fear can be good and fear can be bad. When it is good, it will result in a positive end, and when it is bad a negative end. For instance, the fear of jumping in front of an oncoming vehicle, will save your life. The fear of diving into an ocean, especially without a life jacket, might save your life.
There was a day a group of young men wanted to go for an expedition on the high seas. Few of their friends became afraid and backed out. The bold friends went and only one returned. Fear saved the ones that did not go. This is a very beautiful example of how positive fear can be.
I can’t forget how a man was saved from an air crash when he suddenly developed fear to enter the plane. He just gave his ticket over to someone else and decided to board the next flight. It was a local flight. That was how he saved his life. God can use fear to save our lives. I believe that was what He did in the life of this man.
Sometimes, it is good to back out because of fear, other times it is absolutely bad. It all depends on who is living in or with you. If God is living in or with you, then it is dangerous to back out of things that are His will for your life, out of fear.
We must know when to fear and when not to, in other to lead successful lives in a world full of fearful things.
We must know that there is righteous or godly fear, and there is unrighteous or carnal fear. Righteous or godly fear is an instrument of worship, but carnal or unrighteous fear is not, and should not have a resting place in our lives.
There is no place in God’s kingdom where carnal, ungodly, or unrighteous fear is entertained. I call all of those categories of fear, dark fear. One of the blessed words you see in the Bible are the words, “Fear not…” and that refers to dark fear; a kind of fear that brings one into destruction.
Dark fear is a kind of fear that brings a snare; it involves the fear of man, and fear for other things that ensnares a glorious destiny.
That is what God train warriors not to have, especially when preparing them for battle. It is a fear that has the capability to kill anyone before he or she gets to the battle field.
WHEN GOD WAS MOBILIZING JEREMIAH, FOR EXAMPLE, HE SAID TO HIM;
“But you [Jeremiah], gird up your loins! Arise and tell them all that I command you. Do not be dismayed and break down at the sight of their faces, lest I confound you before them and permit you to be overcome.
For I, behold, I have made you this day a fortified city and an iron pillar and bronze walls against the whole land—against the [successive] kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, and against the people of the land [giving you divine strength which no hostile power can overcome].
And they shall fight against you, but they shall not [finally] prevail against you, for I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.” Jeremiah 1:17-19 AMPC
If you look at this scripture intently, you will find God training His word warrior, Jeremiah, on how to carry the mantle of His word for his generation, to his generation, without fear. He was being trained to fight the enemy looking at God’s face, instead of their faces.
In simple terms, Jeremiah was being immunized against fear, by the LORD. Friend, we need this immunity to fight any battle for the LORD.
God charged Jeremiah not to look at the faces of those he sent him to. The reason is simple. There are things you should not look at if you do not want to be afraid in life, because fear is most times a child of a mental stronghold formed from things we have seen and heard.
That is why you must be careful what you see or hear.
Do not allow the enemy to speak into your ears or feed your eyes with anything he wants. It will form a dark fear in your heart, and a dark fear is not good for a Child of God.
The mental stronghold that creates a dwelling place for fear and the spirit that controls it, is formed when we hear things we should not hear, or see what we should not see. That was why God instructed Joshua to meditate in the book of the Law alone, and not in the capabilities of the people he was sent to fight.
JEREMIAH WAS BEING TRAINED TO DO THE SAME.
The LORD was training him not to look at the faces of the people. He was warning him of what will happen if he does. The LORD said he will become dismay, awestruck or afraid. The LORD wanted his eyes and ears, tuned to Him, His word, and His Holy Spirit.
No devil can demobilize you with fear, no matter how fearful and terrible they might look. If your ears are tuned to the LORD, and your eyes fixed on Him, things will be different for you.
For instance, if your ears are tuned to the LORD, while standing in battle for Him, and your eyes are fixed on Him, you will hear what the enemy may be saying to you through His ears, and see what the enemy might be doing or showing to you through His Holy eyes.
As a result, you will not be demobilized by fear. On the contrary, you will be aroused by faith.
There is this story in the Bible of the 12 spies Moses sent to view the land before they were to move in to possess it. The Bible says, ten of the spies, brought in an evil report, but two a good report.
The report that the ten brought was full of facts that they saw and heard through their own eyes and ears, instead of God’s eyes and ears. Sadly, the consequence was not good. It sentenced the people to 40 years of walking through the wilderness.
The lesson here is this, “fear can make you to keep doing things that prolongs your suffering, even after God may have terminated it.” Do not forget that!
There are people whose sufferings have been terminated by God who are still suffering in Life. They are still suffering because they are too fearful to step into the blessings that God has prepared for them.
Most have been sentenced to more years of suffering because they lacked the faith to step into prepared places.
Apart from fear having the capability to prolong one’s suffering, fear can also prolong a waiting season, or a season of divine process. For those who want to fulfill their destiny, I want to say, you cannot be in a waiting season for too long. Neither can you be under divine process all your life.
You must be bold and strong to be able to move from a waiting season to a season set aside for your manifestation. Yes, you must not be fearful if you will not stay more than necessary in a preparation season.
THE SPIRIT OF JOSHUA AND CALEB MUST BE CULTIVATED.
The two, Joshua and Caleb, brought a good report, that would have terminated their waiting season, and ushered them immediately into a glorious season for their lives.
Those ten spies saw the facts, the other two saw what was beyond the facts. They saw things through the eyes of the LORD, and heard through the ears of the LORD. That was the very training God also passed Jeremiah through.
It was to give him the ability to see the faces of the people through God’s eyes. The consequence of not doing so is usually not good.
The part of Jeremiah’s training that baffles me each time I read that scripture (Jeremiah 1:17-19) is the part that said to Jeremiah, “do not be dismayed and break down at the sight of their faces, lest I (GOD) confound you before them and permit you to be overcome.”
I consider this scary and very serious! You mean fear can make one lose divine backing, and hand him or her over to the enemy of his soul, or the enemies of God?
I can now see why the LORD takes time to build His warriors to lead lives that are not driven by fear.
Jeremiah was being told that if he becomes afraid and confused before the people’s faces, that will be the end of him, so to speak. Even God will fight against him. So, he had no choice but to be strong and bold.
God was like telling him, “if you want to work for me, it is better you die as a bold lion than to live as a fearful chicken. At the end of the day you may not even die, because I am by your side.” What a word!
Do not forget, it is easier to kill chickens than to kill lions. I have never seen a lion killed for Christmas. But Chickens are always killed while men are celebrating. That should tell you how vulnerable LIFE is when living like a Chicken.
Our lives are more vulnerable to death when we are fear driven, especially while in the battle field of life. Understand that no one can ever fight and conquer the battles of life walking in fear. It will demobilize them completely, no matter how equipped and armed they might be.
OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT IS ABOUT THE CHILDREN OF EPHRAIM.
They were men who were armed by the LORD to the teeth, so to speak. But when they came face to face with the battles they were called, trained and armed to fight, they were demobilized by fear. The text says;
“The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, Turned back in the day of battle. They did not keep the covenant of God; They refused to walk in His law, And forgot His works And His wonders that He had shown them.
Marvelous things He did in the sight of their fathers, In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. He divided the sea and caused them to pass through; And He made the waters stand up like a heap.
In the daytime also He led them with the cloud, and all the night with a light of fire. He split the rocks in the wilderness, and gave them drink in abundance like the depths.
He also brought streams out of the rock, and caused waters to run down like rivers.” Psalm 78:9-16 NKJV
This scripture made it clear that, the Children of Ephraim were demobilized by fear because they did not walk in the ways of the LORD. They did not tune their spirits to the ways of the LORD.
Earlier we had said, if your ears are tuned to the LORD while standing in battle for Him, and your eyes are upon Him, you will hear what the enemy is saying through God’s ears, and see what the enemy is doing through God’s eyes. As a result, you will not be demobilized by fear. Rather, you will be aroused by faith.
YOU SEE THIS IN THE LIFE OF GIDEON.
The Bible says;
“And so it was, when Gideon heard the telling of the dream and its interpretation, that he worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel, and said, “Arise, for the LORD has delivered the camp of Midian into your hand.”
Then he divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet into every man’s hand, with empty pitchers, and torches inside the pitchers.
And he said to them, “Look at me and do likewise; watch, and when I come to the edge of the camp you shall do as I do:
When I blow the trumpet, I and all who are with me, then you also blow the trumpets on every side of the whole camp, and say, ‘The sword of the LORD and of Gideon!’ ” Judges 7:15-18 NKJV
Faith entered Gideon when he heard through God’s ears what was said in the camp of the enemy. We will come into the realm of faith, and live our days beyond the reach of fear, if we learn to be hearing things through God’s ears.
It was the same key David used in dealing with all the enemies of the LORD that he fought. Hearing the enemy using God’s ears, and seeing him using God’s eyes kept him all through. That was why he never feared the enemy in battle.
You see that in the divine boldness and audacity he walked in when confronting the giant in 1 Samuel chapter 17.
It takes courage for a 17-year-old with no experience in war to confront a giant with years of experiences. There was no trace of fear in the life of the young David when he met the giant. Indeed, out of the mouth of babes and sucking infants, God has ordained praise because of his adversaries.
The nursing infant David got the courage from the countless hours he spent alone with God, beholding His beauty and enquiring at His Temple.
He was nursed by God’s side hence seeing the giant in God’s eyes and hearing what he said through God’s ears. If you want to be a fearless Lion instead of a fearful chicken in life, this principle of David must be embraced.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOUR LIFE TODAY!
“The LORD is my light and my salvation; Whom shall, I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, My enemies and foes, They stumbled and fell.
Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; Though war may rise against me, In this I will be confident.
One thing I have desired of the LORD, that will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD All the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple.
For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; In the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.
And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the LORD.” Psalm 27:1-6 NKJV