TODAY’S DEVOTION (Thursday 27TH August 2020)
“Better is a little with righteousness, than vast revenues without justice. A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:8-9 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 238TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF REJOICING
There is something that is brewing on our planet. Have you noticed that the riots and shootings that use to characterize African nations in election years has shifted to the United States?
Previously, we were the ones that were known for such uncivilized acts, and they come making peace. But now, it seems the devil has left our blessed continent to that part of the world. This alone is a shift. It has a reflection of a prophetic activity that is brewing.
Something from Heaven has hit Africa.
Many years ago, God’s voice Reinhardt Bonke came to Africa, and for many years he went from nation to nation on the continent, screaming the word of the LORD, “Africa shall be saved.” Now, God is moving us from, “Africa shall be saved” to “Africa is saved and will lead my last move on earth.”
Friends get ready because we are going to lead the last mass Evangelism that will usher in Jesus, KING of kings and LORD of lords. These are days to sit down and check out how you have fared in your walk with GOD. If you have not done so, please start now.
For this, and other reasons I would not like to state here, we will be sharing about the wisdom of planning in our devotional today.
Talking about planning, most people do not live their lives according to predetermined plans. This can be extremely dangerous, especially in an uncertain world like ours. We have been sharing about divine wisdom, I want to submit to you that Planning is part of divine wisdom.
One aspect of divine wisdom I see Bible characters display in their days, is the wisdom of planning their life according to God’s preplanned programs. They succeeded just because of that. Others placed themselves in God’s systems of supply and enjoyed His best on earth.
One way to plan your life is to place it in God’s system of supply. He planned creation to provide food for itself from a supply system that does not run dry. This system has its root in the Spirit (Holy Spirit) realm. We know it as “food cycle.”
I HAVE COME TO DISCOVER THAT SO LONG AS YOU ARE IN YOUR OWN FOOD CYCLE, YOU WILL NEVER LACK WHAT TO EAT OR GIVE TO OTHERS TO EAT.
That is why Jesus said to us “do not worry… Consider the lilies”.That means locate your own food cycle and position yourself there like the lilies, and you will never lack food to eat.
Friend, GOD planned the Sun to shine at certain time and the moon to come up at its own time so man can determine between days and night. He is the all wise GOD. Only fools see foolishness in what He does.
One day a little boy said to his father, “God is foolish. He did not position created things very well. Why should the big trees bear exceedingly small fruits and the pumpkin fruit grow from a very tiny plant on the ground?”
While he was still speaking a fruit fell from the tree they were sitting under fell and hit his head. Then he looked at the Dad and said “now I understand”
What happened?
He quickly realized if it were a pumpkin fruit that had fallen on him, he might have passed out. That was when he appreciated the wisdom of God.
Man was created in the image of God and if God is a master planner, we ought to be planners also like Him. Sadly, we only know how to plan evil instead of good. Most times, even planning against ourselves. We ought to be planners of good and not of evil. Because whatever evil or good you plan will one way or the other return to you.
I have come to realize that planning your life to line up with things that align with God’s pre-planned thing for your life is the most progressive way of stepping into a glorious future. Through planning, you can preserve your life.
You can plan a good health and great financial rest for your old age by being careful what you take into your system while you are young and investing towards the evening of your life.
It’s important to note that some people who suffer diabetes at old age did not plan their sugar intake at their youthful age. Some poor old people are old and poor because they never planned their prosperity while they were young. They squandered all they got in the morning of their lives, forgetting that it ought to have been invested towards the evening of their lives.
THE WISDOM OF PLANNING TELLS US THAT, WE SHOULD MAKE PROPER USE OF OUR MORNING, SO WE CAN HAVE A GLORIOUS EVENING.
Talking about financial prosperity, I want you to note that it is sovereign power from God that brings the prosperity of the righteous to the righteous, but it will take planning, based on revelation knowledge, to preserve it. Divine planning is also God’s way of terminating poverty. Everything about enduring riches in the Kingdom of God hinges on divine planning.
God could give you a job just for you to use the entire salary to create streams of income for yourself and become an entrepreneur. But if you do not sense that while you are on the job, and plan it out, you will move from that job to other jobs and remain a financial slave all your life. And if you are unlucky and find yourself in a Church filled with the leech spirit, you will be giving out what the LORD wants you to use in creating streams of income.
For the righteous, we can only plan out what God has pre-planned for us.
Everyone will run into trouble waters if we just sit down like the world does, draw out plans for or by ourselves, and take decisions based on that. It will remove God from the equation, and once the righteous remove God from the equation, he or she will become an equation of misery.
That brings me to the three categories or systems of planning in the school of planning.
We have the “human planning system” where men engage their minds to chart a course for their lives. Then we have “demonic planning system” where devils are engaged by men to chart the course of their lives. And finally the “divine planning system” where you engage the Holy Spirit to help you sense God’s plan for your life for the day, the month, or year and then engage your mind in turning what you sensed into workable steps.
For the righteous, decisions of life are taken based on the divine planning system. Your life will not be free from demonic attacks or destructive human errors if you fix it within the human or demonic planning systems.
FOR INSTANCE, EVERY DIVORCE CASE IS A PRODUCT OF A MARRIAGE OUTSIDE DIVINE PLANNING SYSTEM.
Every trouble home was instituted either through the human or the demonic planning system. Don’t you know that if you court or get married to a legally married man, or woman, you have keyed into, either the human or demonic planning system? Polygamy was not originally an plan of God. It was the family of Cain that started it.
If polygamy were God’s perfect plan or will, he would have created a thousand Eves for one Adam, and I promise, some of us would have beaten the record of Solomon, not because of any carnal reasons. We will do it JUST TO PLEASE GOD.
Yes, we would have married as many as possible so that we can make Heaven.
But Polygamy was not God’s original plan, and has not even become a marital plan in God’s Kingdom. Men took what was in God’s system, and fix it in their own systems, giving rise to all kinds of marriages in their own image and likeness.
Today we have the abomination of same sex marriages. Look at the broken lives that are littering all over because of the terrible things we are doing to ourselves.
Whenever you turn God’s things into your own image and likeness, pains are inevitable. And the only way out of such problems is to repent. Repentance in such situations would not just mean some mental change of mind but a going back to God’s order.
Every kingdom citizen knows that the safest place to be is in God’s planning system. Not human or demonic planning systems. A key highlight in our devotional text today says,
“A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”
I once heard a preacher in a pastor’s conference in Nigeria telling us “A man’s heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his paths. Keep planning your ways. Do not wait on God. Just go ahead planning, and God will direct your paths.” I tried that for the years that followed and suddenly found myself in the gates of the enemy. That was when I painfully discovered that we do not plan our ways in the flesh as the preacher urged us. It is dangerous for the righteous to go ahead of God in everything.
EVERY PLANNING IN GOD’S KINGDOM IS DESIGNED TO BE INITIATED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT NOT A HUMAN SPIRIT.
What the Bible calls “our ways” in that text (A man’s heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps), is a reference to the divinely predetermined plans and purposes for our lives that the LORD attached the flow of our earthly lives to in the Spirit realm. Those are the ways we are to sense in the Holy Spirit and plan them out. As we do that, God’s Holy Spirit will direct the implementation (our paths), bringing us to pre-planned success.
Friend, on principle, 2020 is already gone. Now, start looking into the heart of our Heavenly Father, and begin to sense the direction He wants your life to take in the coming year – year 2021. It will be the first year after this foundation year. It has its own package of things, that’s why we must do that.
Time has come to take our lives from the human or demonic planning systems and fix in the divine.
Sometimes we do not get into the demonic system by ourselves, but workplaces, Churches, governments, or institutions we find ourselves, especially the ones taken over by the demonic, has a way of pushing us into them. But if it is divine fulfillment that we are looking for, we must be courageous enough to break from such systems and place ourselves in God’s planning system. That is the wisdom of God for you today!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
“For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.” Jeremiah 29:11 AMP