TODAY’S DEVOTION (Friday 4th July 2025)
“For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.”
“For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies.”
“Now those who are such we command and exhort through our Lord Jesus Christ that they work in quietness and eat their own bread.” 2 Thessalonians 3:7-12 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 185TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
This is the day the LORD has made; we shall rejoice and be glad in it. We bless the GOD of Heaven and Earth for the first BVS, (Believers Victory Summit) that has been ongoing. We have heard amazing things about what we face as believers and how to conquer them.
Now we know more than ever that we do not stroll into Heaven, we fight our way through into Heaven. I am the most blessed of His graciousness and kindness towards us. As I look at my life, I see His love and compassion holding me up even in the most critical moments of my life. I believe the same can be said of you.
The mercy of the LORD and His kindness has been the fuel of our life. If we are cut away from it, we will wither away. The Bible says we should keep ourselves in the love of God. In other words, we should not do things that will take us away from the covering zones of His love so that His mercy will keep fueling our lives.
On this platform, we have been savoring truths on what our divine destiny will need to be fulfilled. So far nine things have been uncovered to us. Today we will be looking at the tenth.
The tent thing your divine destiny will need to be fulfilled is hard work. Yes, hard work. Our devotional text is right on point on this.
I am yet to see anyone being used of GOD to do marvelous things on the face of the earth not working hard. Working with God requires that we work hard to catch up with His plans and programs for our lives.
JESUS SAID, “MY FATHER WORKETH HITHERTO, AND I WORK.” (JOHN 5:17 KJV)
Note what Jesus did not say in this scripture; Jesus did not say “My Father worketh hitherto, and I sleep or lazy about.” He said my Father worketh Hitherto and I work. If your desire is to fulfill your divine destiny you must work as God works.
God cannot be working, and you sleeping, and you expect His promises to be fulfilled in your life. He cannot be working, and you sleeping, and expect your Divine destiny to be unleashed. Divine destiny is released when you sense God working and you get up to join Him. You do that through spiritual sensitivity and swiftness.
Your divine destiny will need that kind of diligence to be fulfilled; a diligence induced by spiritual sensitivity and a desire to succeed against all odds.
If you are not diligent, you will never unleash the things God has buried in you. People who sleep and do nothing are sleeping away their destinies. Those who just eat without using the strength to pursue the release of their destinies or to die the necessary death to be what God created them to be, are eating away their destinies.
Do not be part of those who sleep and eat away their destinies.
Apart from being a hard-working person, there is a kind of diligence that is created by what you see the father do. It brings one to the place of working as the Father work. Destiny is released when we work as our Heavenly Father works. He will stir you to do something, or show you something to do, as you respond with all diligence, a glorious future will be born over time.
I call that keeping pace with God and not just working hard on any thing you find. You find the pattern in what God did with David in his battle with the Philistines in 2 Samuel 5.
THE BIBLE MADE IT CLEAR THAT DAVID KEPT PACE WITH GOD AND CREATED A VICTORY THAT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE.
You see the power of working as God works in that story. When David enquired of the LORD on how to go about the war, the LORD said to him:
“You shall not go up; circle around behind them, and come upon them in front of the mulberry trees. And it shall be, when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you shall advance quickly.
For then the Lord will go out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines” 2 Samuel 5:23-24 NKJV.
If David had gone to sleep after hearing the marching of the army of the LORD on the top of those trees, or if he had become lazy to move into battle and fight, there would have been no way he would have unleashed his divine destiny as a warrior of righteousness that very day.
If you do not add prophetic hard work to the release of divine destiny, you will never unleash your destiny.
Prophetic hard work is when you put all your energy doing the things God has assigned you to do on earth. I have said over and over that the only substitute for HARD WORK is HARD LIFE! If you do not embrace the principle of prophetic hard work in the release of your divine destiny, you will suffer the perils of a HARD LIFE.
Many are suffering today because they are idle and others lazy.
Some are suffering because their hard work is not guided by the Spirit of the LORD; it is not prophetic in nature. Others are suffering because they are waiting on God to move while they sit in idleness looking for who will bear the responsibility of their life. When you ask them, they will say they are waiting upon the LORD.
But you cannot wait upon the LORD in Idleness, neither can you be waiting for God to move while you are not moving along with Him doing something. Waiting upon the LORD does not denote sitting without doing something. God hates laziness. The Bible is full of unkind words for Idleness!
IN FACT, A MAJOR HIGHLIGHT IN OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT SAYS
“..If anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. For we hear that there are some who walk among you in a disorderly manner, not working at all, but are busybodies.”
If you look carefully, you will realize that people who are not willing to work are the greatest eaters among us. They trouble everyone to give them this or that and pick offence if you do not. God cannot bless any people who are that lazy my friend.
The release of destiny requires a lot of hard work, prophetic hard work. We see that in the verses that preceded the one highlighted above. Paul wrote to the Church at Thessalonica saying:
“For you yourselves know how you ought to follow us, for we were not disorderly among you; nor did we eat anyone’s bread free of charge, but worked with labor and toil night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, not because we do not have authority, but to make ourselves an example of how you should follow us.”
You will not be able to release your destiny if you are not willing to work with labor and toil, night and day, like Paul did. You will not be able to release your destiny if you do not add prophetic hard work to your Christian life. Understand that everyone who ever walked with God was a warrior not some lazy people.
Abraham was a warrior, Jacob was a warrior, and Isaac was a hard-working farmer who could re-dig wells that his father dug in time past. If he was lazy and weak, the way many of us are today. he would have said “let us forget about those wells. What is lost is lost!”
Sadly speaking, there are a lot of lazy people in the ministry and in our local churches today, that is why we have prophets and pastors who do not work hard in the word and doctrine to form Christ in people but spend their days doing secular jobs with some prophesying money from people’s pockets.
We have so many who are always begging and refusing to do anything reasonable with their hands.
THE AMAZING THING IS THEY ALL CLAIM TO BE HEARING FROM GOD.
Some even claim God does not want them to work. How can the God who is working ask you not to work? He will only change your jobs and not eliminate your work. You find this all through the Bible.
That is why the first word that came out of His mouth to Adam had the word WORK in it. So, if the voice we are hearing has no work in it, and our economic lives are going down, we should check the source.
Others claim to be hearing from God but are either lazy or stealing by tricks from others. How can you be hearing from God and be a thief or a lazy one? How can you be hearing from God and be running greedily after people’s money and asking them to sow seeds instead of looking for what problem to solve for God to bring you some money?
People who hear from God are always busy and are full of integrity.
The voice of the LORD has a way of putting the economic downtrodden to work. It has a way of putting our hands on the plow of saving souls, hence saving us, not on the plow of begging for food etc.
People who hear from GOD are usually busy doing what they heard from Him, saving this soul, pursuing this business, solving this problem, putting things in kingdom order, obeying the last command from the throne room, etc. They do not sit down looking for the next person to defraud with a “thus says the lord.”
The message this morning is, if you will fulfill your destiny, you must work hard in a prophetic direction. There is no middle ground. You must not be lazy and idle. That is the message.
MAKE THESE SCRIPTURES AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY:
“He who has a slack hand becomes poor, but the hand of the diligent makes rich. He who gathers in summer is a wise son; He who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame.” Proverbs 10:4-5 NKJV
“The appetite of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the appetite of the diligent is abundantly supplied.” Proverbs 13:4 AMPC
“The thoughts of the [steadily] diligent tend only to plenteousness, but everyone who is impatient and hasty hastens only to want.”
“Securing treasures by a lying tongue is a vapor driven to and fro; those who seek them seek death.” Proverbs 21:5-6 AMPC
“Do you see a man diligent and skillful in his business? He will stand before kings; he will not stand before obscure men.” Proverbs 22:29 AMPC
