TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 21ST AUGUST 2024)
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 TLB
WELCOME TO THE 234TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Today, God will be speaking to us through this platform on the mystery of living our days in sync with divine plans and counsels. As a beneficiary of this Bible truth, I know we are in for a great time with the word.
Get ready for a deposit of His Spirit that will make sure you take on another dimension in Christ.
The will of GOD for you and I is not that we live our lives according to the dictates of our hearts. In fact, people who lived their lives according to the dictates of their hearts in Bible days, frustrated the will of God for their lives, and plunged themselves into all forms of life problems.
The same is still happening today.
The will of God is that we live our days according to the dictates of His heart. The dictates of His heart are communicated to us by the Holy Spirit using the written word, the Bible. He brings to us what God’s plans for our lives are, and helps us to follow them.
You see, the best thing that will ever happen to you, is to discover God’s plans for your life and follow them. The Bible says, they are good. Hence you will never follow them and not have a very good life on this side of eternity.
Understand that the will of God for us is that our path be like the shinning light, that shines brighter and brighter unto a perfect day. However, that will never happen if we keep following the dictates of our hearts.
The Bible teaches that the heart of a man is not ideal to lead a man, because it is desperately wicked and deceitful, that who can know it. Except it is taken over by the Holy Spirit, people who follow something that is desperately wicked and deceitful, will never arrive at a glorious end. The word said,
“The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.” Jeremiah 17:9-10 NKJV
If you look at this scripture, you will realize that even God’s justice system grinds against the evil content of a man’s heart. It gives to all according to what their evil heart tells them to do.
IT PUNISHES THEM FOR FOLLOWING THE DICTATES OF THEIR EVIL HEARTS.
That is why our hearts cannot be evil and our lives good. No!! The life of anyone with an evil heart is usually sorrowful and painful. The Bible has stories of lives that were either destroyed or punished by the LORD for following the dictates of their hearts. Here is one of the scriptures that tells us that.
It says;
“But this is what I commanded them, saying, ‘Obey My voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be My people. And walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you.’
Yet they did not obey or incline their ear, but followed the counsels and the dictates of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.” Jeremiah 7:23-24 NKJV
This scripture tells us why people are backward in life. It tells us why so many are living backward lives. It did not blame it on monitoring spirits, evil foundation, or ancestral spirits. It did not blame it on evil altars, not raising an altar of sacrifice, or a voice crying against them from their village.
God blamed their backwardness in life on their loyalty to the dictates of their hearts, instead of the dictates of His own heart.
That explains why many have raised altars, silenced some, done what they call breaking of curses or evil foundation, followed all that their prophets and preachers have told them, without getting permanent help.
They are rather placed in a circle of going for deliverance, every now and then, making the preachers and their organizations rich and famous, by raising all kinds of altars of sacrifice, every now and then, asking them to dedicate this and dedicate that.
You cannot be free indeed applying the wrong solution to a life of backwardness. It will only result in the preachers becoming rich and famous. It will never change your life. It will kill you slowly until you either live that church or stop going to church at all.
If you live your days by following the dictates of your heart, you will never go forward in life but backwards. That is what the LORD says. Those who tell you to follow your heart, are killing you without killing you. So, stop listening to them.
Your life will take a great leap forward if you decide to live your days according to the dictates of God’s heart, instead of the dictates of your own heart. Which brings us to the mystery of following divine plans and counsels. Our devotional text says;
“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 TLB
As a teenager, I was taught by my teachers to value the plan of God for my life and not follow the dictates of my heart. I knew quite early that if I will ever succeed in life, if I will become anything on this side of eternity, I must find out what God’s plans for my life are and live my days accordingly.
To live your days according to the dictates of God’s heart, you must find out what His plans are. You must come into the revelation of the mystery of divine plans and counsels.
You see, there are three basic plans that are influencing humanity on our planet earth today; the plans of God, the plans of man, and the plans of the evil one (the devil). God wants us to live our days according to His plans.
The Bible sometimes call plans, “counsels.” It says, “the counsel of God shall stand.” Meaning, others may manifest, but will never stand the test of time. Only that of God will both manifest and stand the test of time.
The plans of God are the only ideal plans for us. They are the only plans on planet earth that has a glorious future for any man. The reason is because, man was not originally designed to live his days according to his plans for his life.
In fact, Adam was not created with his own plan. He lived for the plan of the LORD.
The only day he did his own thing, the only day he followed the dictate of his heart, he lost everything. He opened the flood gates of darkness on the human race. That is why people usually see sorrows and pain if they live their days not following the plans of the LORD.
True Christianity, is not receiving power from God to succeed in your own plans. That will be Christianity controlled by the spirit of Babylon. True Christianity is submitting your entire life to Jesus Christ and harmonizing it with His plans for your life.
THE RHYTHM YOUR LIFE WILL PRODUCE IF YOU HARMONIZE IT WITH GOD’S PLANS, INSTEAD OF THE DICTATES OF YOUR HEART, IS PLEASANT.
Two words we can use to describe it are, “peace” and “Prosperity.” Yes, because we live in an imperfect world there could be challenges, but the peace and the prosperity of God will always be available to deal with them.
Your security, prosperity, protection, significance, and success in life, are buried in God’s plans for your life not the dictates of your heart. What is buried in the dictates of your heart is the opposite of all that.
My own story is fascinating. We were born very poor and from very poor root. But our great grandfather was very rich, however, not with the prosperity of the righteous, so that was also poverty in God’s sight.
He died and left those who gave birth to those who gave birth to us, very poor. But what changed my story was not an altar I raised, or some mountains I visited. It is the plans of GOD for my life that I followed that changed everything.
It was not easy at first. There were times that it seemed I had missed it. But my convictions kept telling me things will change over time if I keep following the LORD.
Today, I can look backward to say, “it worth every price.”
Thank God that I learned the mystery of changing your life by stepping into God’s plan, early in life. Thank God I learned that Life outside God’s plans will be very horrible for me; thank God I learned that it could look beautiful at first, like it did for Lot, but will create sorrow for me at last.
Thank God I followed the LORD even when it never looked glorious.
Many do not know that God do not just intervene in things. He will first look into the situation to see if the people involved are in His plans for their lives. If they are not, it will be difficult for Him to change their lives significantly. That is one thing I learned as a teenager.
I learned that divine manifestations are unleashed after a people have been rooted in divine plans for their lives.
I learned that the Israelites were in Egypt for 400 years. They were in slavery like many other people were then. But God did not send Moses to those other people. He sent Moses to Israel alone, because they alone were in His plans for their lives.
As we bring this to a close, it is important to understand that the easiest way to terminate the works of the devil in your life, is to step into God’s plan for your life. Stop following the dictates of your heart, else you will keep going backward instead of forward.
That is the message!!!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR TODAY;
“The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nought; He makes the thoughts and plans of the peoples of no effect.”
“The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart through all generations.”
“Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He has chosen as His heritage.” Psalms 33:10-12 AMPC