TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 16TH FEBRUARY 2025)
“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” Psalms 90:12-14 KJV
WELCOME TO THE 47TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
It has been 47 days since we stepped into this year. We have over 318 more days to cover. “How many of these 47 days have I lived a holy and righteous life?!” That is the question I chose to ask myself, and I want to extend it to you.
How many of these days have you lived a holy and righteous life?
Christianity by original design ought to be a journey that is full of days, then years of living right before God. It is not a rise and fall and fall, and keep falling, life of faith. It is a life of faith that calls for daily righteous living, by the enabling grace of God.
So, I ask again, in the 47 days that we have seen, how many of these days have we lived pure and holy lives before the LORD? For many of us, none! For others, just a few. However, in His mercies God kept us all regardless, hoping we will change. Child of God this God is worthy of our worship.
The Bible teaches about numbering our days. For me, one way to number our days so that we can apply our hearts to wisdom, is by checking how we live each day. Did we live to please God, or we lived to please the flesh. A generation that does not know how to number their days with the aim of applying their hearts to the wisdom of the just will be too foolish to be saved from the hands of their enemies.
It will be devoured by the perils of life. Your life will only appreciate by the wisdom of God (the wisdom of the just) that you apply to it daily, not the wisdom of men.
The Bible talks about GOD turning us to the wisdom of the just. Because shortage of that wisdom is the reason for the shortages, we suffer in life, shortage of peace, prosperity, and even the manifestation of GOD. It is the reason for broken homes, broken hearts, broken dreams, persistent poverty, successful satanic attacks, and incurable diseases.
IT IS THE REASON FOR ALL PERILS IN LIFE.
For instance, it is lack of the wisdom of the just that will make a man leave his wife and go after other women or a woman leave her husband and go after another man and bring so much trouble to their families. I came to realize that some of the people who do that are not bad but have been influenced.
There are a lot of good people who are pushed to do very bad things because they do not have the wisdom of the just. There are a lot with very good hearts, but very wrong heads when it comes to the issues of life.
The Bible made it clear that adultery is a sign of foolishness, because it will always result in self-inflicted wounds spiritually or physically.
It is lack of the wisdom of the just that get people involved in self-destructive things like sexual infidelity, stealing, corruption, not accepting Christ as LORD and savior, clubbing, drunkenness, prodigal living, insubordination, rebellion, betrayal, wickedness, stinginess, hate, gossip, taking other people’s wives or husbands, etc.
The only way to restore permanent peace to a troubled life is to get it founded on the stone of the wisdom of the just. Anything short will just bring temporal peace.
Some key highlights in our devotional text today say ““So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” The other says, “O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days”
If you look at the order, you will realize that until hearts are applied unto the wisdom of the just, God will not satisfy us early with His mercy. To apply your heart unto this wisdom is go through the lives of the just ones who lived before us, see how they walked with God and apply it to our own lives.
LIFE IS FULL OF EMOTIONAL, SPIRITUAL, AND PHYSICAL INJURIES.
Sometimes, wisdom from these just men who lived before us is the only “medication” to use in applying to those injuries. Their lives contain the divine wisdom to use in leading our lives.
For instance, if you have been leading a life of broken marriages; if you get but do not stay married – Deliverance ministers will blame it on a curse in your father’s house or some demons. That is ignorance on fire. Marriage was designed to be initiated, built, and sustained by divine wisdom or the wisdom of the just.
That means lack of divine wisdom is the reason many get but do not stay married, not the presence of some curses or evil patterns in a household. There might be a pattern in how homes break in a family, but the pattern is always carved by lack of the application of the wisdom of the just in the married lives of people.
Check all the families with records of people getting but not staying married, you will find out that they all lacked the wisdom of the just which was why they lost their marriages.
Sadly, some will not even agree with the scriptures. They will still blame curses for what foolishness did and keep giving money to prophets to break what does not really exist, then is why the consequences will remain.
Application of divine wisdom to everyday life is the missing ingredient in the life of many. Not what perverted prophets may be saying!
Sadly, there is so much application of the wisdom of men and other destructive things to the injuries of life. There is even the application of foolishness to the injuries of life – the foolishness of heaping blames on others, becoming hateful and malicious, and wanting revenge etc.
SOMEONE WILL USE FOOLISHNESS TO DO SO MUCH DAMAGE TO HIS OR HER LIFE AND THEN BLAME IT ON THE DEVIL, OR OTHER INNOCENT PEOPLE.
If we do not make up our minds to apply our hearts unto divine wisdom, the Bible made it clear that the mercy we all need from God will keep eluding us. It is important to understand that God’s Mercy is not as free as many teach. God’s Mercy is conditional.
The Bible teaches that if we cover our sins we will not prosper, but if we confess and forsake them God will have mercy. That is a major condition for receiving God’s mercy. It is also conditioned on applying our hearts unto divine wisdom, the wisdom of the just.
We all need God’s mercy. But we will never swim in it living in foolishness. Especially the foolishness of repeatedly living in sinful habits and thinking it does not matter, or the foolishness of repeating our sins and asking God to forgive us all the time.
The Bible made it clear that it will destroy us.
The wisdom of the just demands that we ask God in prayer and fasting for the power of grace so we can have dominion over our carnal passions and put them under control. If Jesus while in the flesh needed to fast for the same reason, then we will be stupid not to fast for the same reason.
We must use intensive fasting and prayer to receive dominion over the sinful flesh and put the sanctified human spirit ahead of the body of sin. It is dangerous to put the body of sin ahead of the sanctified human spirit.
It will lead to a frustration of the grace of God.
Some of us are living in secrets sins just because of that. We live in the foolishness of repeating our sins and confessing to God, then going back to them again, just because of that. But the Bible teaches that we should put our bodies under, so that we will not be cast away or disapproved before God in the day of judgment.
GOD WROTE BY THE PEN OF APOSTLE PAUL SAYING,
“But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.” 1 Corinthians 9:27 NKJV
If we do not do the same as end time saints, we will allow the foolishness of putting the body of sin ahead of the Spirit to destroy even our salvation. As we embrace this day, make this devotional your meditation! You will gain a heart of wisdom if you do.
Any area of your life that is under persistent problems is the very area of life you lack the wisdom of the just to apply to. In other words, lack of the wisdom of the just is the reason for the problems you may be facing right now, not really the devil. If you become wise, you will neutralize His activities in your life.
The wisdom of the just has been certified by Heaven and earth as the most potent weapon of war in the KINGDOM of God. That is why the first answer God gives to our prayers is impartation of the wisdom of the just. He will first give us the wisdom to apply to our troubles when we ask Him for help, before doing any other things that may be necessary.
Most times, it is the application of the wisdom that came to us in prayer that we will need to use in meeting the need that took us to God in prayer in the first place, not any other move of His. It was in the light of this that He spoke through Jeremiah saying;
‘Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.’ Jeremiah 33:3 NKJV
Again, I commend you to God and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among they that are sanctified! Amen.
LET THIS SCRIPTURES BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY.
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.”
“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.”
“For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” James 1:5-8 NKJV