TODAY’S DEVOTION (SATURDAY 6TH JULY 2024)
“Of Naphtali he said: O Naphtali, satisfied with favor and full of the blessing of the Lord, possess the Sea [of Galilee] and [its warm, sunny climate like] the south.
Of Asher he said: Blessed above sons is Asher; let him be acceptable to his brothers, and let him dip his foot in oil.
Your castles and strongholds shall have bars of iron and bronze, and as your day, so shall your strength, your rest and security, be. There is none like God, O Jeshurun [Israel], Who rides through the heavens to your help and in His majestic glory through the skies.
The eternal God is your refuge and dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He drove the enemy before you and thrust them out, saying, Destroy! Deuteronomy 33:23-27 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 187TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Our GOD is worthy to be praised! He has given us another day to be alive. Another day in His appointed days for our lives; another day to serve our generation according to His will. Blessed be His Holy Name!
Today we will be looking at the fear of man. You know, the Bible says the fear of man brings a snare. None of us is designed to live our lives in a snare. You will never succeed in anything living your life in a snare.
So, it’s imperative that we look at this important subject. We will learn how to behave, and how not to behave.
Remember, God has been speaking to us on matters of prayers of late. He has shown us how much He wants us to be having answers when we pray to Him. But our behaviors can destroy our prayers if they are not structured according to His ways, will, or word.
To start with, the word snare means a trap. If you live in the fear of man; that is fear of what man can do to you, you are vulnerable to be ensnared or trapped.
The fear of man manifests in so many ways. It could manifest as an unpleasant feeling of threat or danger, pain or harm inflicted on someone by a bad parental experience, an incident with a person, a rape experience or a bad experience with a teacher, an uncle, aunt or any family or nonfamily member.
The fear of man has a way of crippling someone’s life. But when you come into the real presence of God, it disappears. You find the fear of man in marriages, families, places of work, or interpersonal relationships where manipulation, threats to life, or a dark worry of losing something is present.
In the case of manipulation, the manipulator will sometimes use threats or any other thing to make someone do something that is only beneficial to the manipulator. He or she will be controlling the victim and emotionally beating the person into a form of slavery that look like a submission box.
YES, THE FEAR OF MAN PUTS ITS VICTIM IN AN OPPRESSIVE SUBMISSION BOX.
That was what Jezebel did; first to her husband Ahab, then her household, and then the entire kingdom of Israel. She put all of them in an oppressive submission box. We still find the same spirit today working in people and doing the same thing through them.
In most households, you find it in wives most times, and mothers, or authoritative sisters, female authorities. You can also find it in few husbands, fathers, brothers, and male authorities. Whatever puts you in an oppressive submission box, is not God’s will for your life.
Jezebel successfully put her entire household, and the nation of Israel under the fear of man. They all lived in fear of what she could do to them. She used her witchcraft to achieve all that, to put them in her oppressive submission box.
There are mothers, wives of political leaders and even preachers who use charismatic witchcraft to do the same thing to their husbands or children. I once worked with a preacher who was very powerful in words and deeds, but lived like a chicken at home because of the control of his wife over him.
She literally put him in an oppressive psychological submission box.
He had no fear for any demon, but he feared his wife like a plague. No demon could put him in a snare. But the wife put him in one. That is what the fear of man does. Sadly, she enjoyed it until his ministry was destroyed.
There are also male authorities who use the same dark system to put people in a snare. The most successful way people put others in fear is the way of black witchcraft, like Jezebel did, or charismatic witchcraft, like king Saul did the day his son Jonathan ate honey.
The fear of man is also inflicted on you when the person knows a secret about you; either dark or not. Something you will not want anyone to hear.
There are people who hold very damning secrets about the lives of others that if they say them the people will be ruined. So, they use that to put their victim under control. They threaten and put them in fear.
You find this kind of snare in interpersonal relationships. Sometimes, some of us preachers do the nonsense to our members, which is very bad!
WE FORGET THAT GOD WILL JUDGE US SEVERELY.
In fact, most of us have made the Church a fear inflicting zone of the earth, which ought not to be at all. We forget that the Church has a LORD over it, and we will all give account of how we ran it to Him on the Judgment day.
The Bible teaches that the church should be a place of the fear of God, a place of holding men who have labored in the word to produce impact in others in high esteem, and a place of the worship of God. It should never be a place of the worship or fear of men.
The Bible also teaches that the Church should be a place of security for the vulnerable. It should never be a place of using the vulnerability of people to put them in oppressive submission boxes. It should never be a place where you find the fear system in operation, apart from the fear of the LORD.
Sometimes the fear system is not used by preachers on anyone, but you find it used by those who influence the lives of the preachers on the preachers.
They put the man or woman of God in an oppressive submission box. I have seen that where Church elders determine how Church should be run, and where rich church mebers try to influence things because of their riches.
It has a way of crippling the work of the LORD and paralyzing things.
But a preacher who stands before God like Elijah cannot be put in any oppressive submission box, he or she cannot be controlled by the fear of man or any other kind of fear. Only the fear of God controls them. That is why you find Elijah hated by Jezebel.
She hated him because she could not control him.
Any Church leader, system, or person with the Jezebel spirit will hate, demonize, and vilify whoever they cannot control. Yes, they will brand them names and make people hate them because they cannot be put in an oppressive box.
God wants us to operate outside the dark fear box. That is why if we can stand in His presence like Elijah did, we will be operating fearlessly.
In other words, we will contact a grace that will make it impossible for anyone to put us in a fear system. In His presence, the fear of man is broken and the fear of God established in hearts. That is why you will never find anyone in the Bible who could stand in His presence fearful. Even if they were chickens like Gideon, they will become lions like David.
IT IS THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD THAT HELPS A MAN LIVE HIS DAYS OUTSIDE THE FEAR SYSTEM.
It has a way of putting our hearts in order, filling it with faith in Christ, and establishing the fear of the LORD in it. Once your heart is full of faith and the fear of the LORD, the fear of man will not be able to lay hold on you, even if it’s a Jezebel system that is trying to inflict you with it.
We must all understand that our lives can only be blessed when we operate in the fear of the LORD, not in the fear of man, and seek to become men and women who can stand in the presence of the LORD.
Yes, God wants you and I to live our days like the Bible men and women, who could stand in His presence like Gabriel, and spark His moves among men and women. Are you ready? That is the only way we can be satisfied with favor and have our feet bath in the Oil of the Holy Spirit.
A part of our Devotional text says;
“Of Naphtali he said: O Naphtali, satisfied with favor and full of the blessing of the Lord, possess the Sea [of Galilee] and [its warm, sunny climate like] the south.
Of Asher he said: Blessed above sons is Asher; let him be acceptable to his brothers, and let him dip his foot in oil.”
Dipping feet in Oil is not a literal thing. It is a type and shadow or a metaphor for walking in the exceeding blessing of the Holy Spirit, and flowing in God’s surpassing grace. That is what God wants for our lives.
So, let us seek to become men and women who stand in His presence. Our feet will become dip in the oil of the Spirit if we do. We will be satisfied with favor like Naphtali. Yes, God’s surpassing grace and exceeding blessings will be flowing in our lives and making it impossible for any to put us in an oppressive submission box. That is the word of the LORD!!
Friend, if we follow this word, it could make people with the Jezebel spirit to hate us like Elijah was hated, but that will not put our lives in any danger that the LORD cannot save us from, neither will it be a disadvantage to us.
As we seek to walk in this new word, we should behave ourselves properly while having people’s secrets in our hands. We should not seek to use the secrets to manipulate them into an oppressive submission box. That will be witchcraft.
We should rather bury their secrets in our hearts and decide not to be an instrument of oppression.
Do not forget, God hates witchcraft. Yes, He hates witchcraft in any form because it contests with His glory. Get the book “OVERCOMING WITCHCRAFT BY THE GREATNESS OF GOD’S POWER” from our ministry’s resource center, and find more secrets.
You can reach us through this line; +254791333111 or +254706370793.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
And the angel answered and said to him, “I am Gabriel, who stands in the presence of God, and was sent to speak to you and bring you these glad tidings. Like 1:19 NKJV