TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 24TH August 2025)
“Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase: So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.” Proverbs 3:9-10 KJV
WELCOME TO THE 236TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
It is another week, and as God will have it, we are starting it in corporate fellowship as always. I cannot remember the number of years I have started my weeks in corporate fellowship or church service. I believe the same applies to you.
Thank God for the fulfillment of the Sabath in Christ and His resurrection that made it happen. Indeed, He has been mindful of us even while leading Isreal to do what they did.
Today we will be looking at the next thing our divine destiny needs to be fulfilled, and that thing is “honoring the LORD with our substance.” Yes, you heard me right. Honoring the LORD, not just with our lips but with our substance. That is one dying that many resist until they are manipulated by charlatans.
This is not a reference to some Sunday morning offerings, or tithes. This is much more than all that. It is committing all the LORD commit into your hands back to Him, by being at His beck and call or being ready to release substance to Him whenever He asks, not according to your standard but according to His standard.
You will always fulfill something in your destiny each time you do a giving that meets God’s standard. Such giving will bring pain or create sorrow during the process until our obedience is complete.
The giving is like when a woman is giving birth. We call that kind of giving in the apostolic “travailing giving.” The Bible described the rhythm with these terms:
“A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come; but as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.” John 16:21 NKJV
When you enter the season of this kind of giving, you will begin to go through what I call “prophetic labor pains.” You will come into a season of sorrow. The reason is because it is not just substance that will come out of you as you make the move to give, but a blessing that is trapped in you.
YOUR OBEDIENCE PULLS IT OUT OF YOU IN THE SPIRIT REALM, JUST AS A WOMAN’S OBEDIENCE TO PUSH HER BABY OUT PULLS THE BABY OUT.
There are significant portions of a divine destiny that can only be release through this system of God. That is why if you are stingy, selfish or too hardened to respond to God when He needs your substance, you will shut down things from happening. In other word, you will prevent you from becoming what God predestined you to be.
You will not be able to fulfill significant things God preplanned you to fulfill. The Bible says:
“But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. 2 Corinthians 9:6 NKJV
You find this scripture demonstrated in the life of an Old Testament seeker of God, Solomon.
He would not have unleashed his destiny as the wisest and richest king to ever live if he had not had the Gibeon encounter with God. It was an encounter that was created by His love for God expressed through the thousand animals he gave to God for sacrifice. That was what God wanted to do then. The Bible says:
“Now the king went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, for that was the great high place: Solomon offered a thousand burnt offerings on that altar. At Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, “Ask! What shall I give you?” 1 Kings 3:4-5 NKJV
In those days the people worshiped God using so many shadows.
The altar then was literal, today it is not. The animals then were necessary, today they are not. However, there is one thing that did not change, and that is the underlining truth demonstrated. If you honor God with your substance, according to His standard, you will pull a glory down that will pull a significant blessing from God to you!!
GOD WANTS US TO HONOR HIM WITH OUR SUBSTANCE, THAT IS WHY YOU SEE ALL WHO WALKED IN DIVINE DESTINY IN BIBLE DAYS DOING THAT.
From Noah to Abraham, down to the early church, people gave unto the LORD, honored Him with their substance, and saw things they never knew existed in their destiny fulfilled. Concerning Solomon, the Bible says:
Then God said to him: “Because you have asked this thing, and have not asked long life for yourself, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor have asked the life of your enemies, but have asked for yourself understanding to discern justice,
behold, I have done according to your words; see, I have given you a wise and understanding heart, so that there has not been anyone like you before you, nor shall any like you arise after you.
And I have also given you what you have not asked: both riches and honor, so that there shall not be anyone like you among the kings all your days. So if you walk in My ways, to keep My statutes and My commandments, as your father David walked, then I will lengthen your days.” 1 Kings 3:11-14 NKJV
Solomon would not have become most of what God predestined him to be without His sacrificial giving.
He was never asked by a prophet to give, neither was he told by any to raise an altar. If he was, I trust God would never have responded that way. Sometimes we give according to church standards or pastors lies and see nothing come out of it. We must be guided by revelation knowledge and a burden from the LORD if our giving will be acceptable to God.
Understand that our giving may be acceptable to the preacher, but until we are acceptable to God, we will still not be blessed. To be acceptable to God, our Hearts must be right, and we must meet His standard while honoring Him with our substance.
As we bring this to a close, let me reiterate again that, I have never seen a man or woman of destiny who does not honor the LORD with their substance fulfilling their divine destiny significantly.
THEY ALWAYS REMAIN STUNTED, STAGNANT, AND SOMETIMES UNCERTAIN. SOME COME OUT FRUSTRATED.
You will have to spend your substance in the direction of God’s plans and programs for your life to fulfill your destiny. Solomon saw that God needed some shadows of Jesus death on the cross demonstrated in the very spot He would later die and responded with much more than enough that as needed.
That is how to honor the LORD with your substance.
You will never become much in God if you do not push significant treasures from you to God, from time to time, according to His standard. When you give unto the LORD, it stirs something in the Spirit and unlocks what is buried in God’s plans for your life. That is what we can see in the life of Solomon, and in the life of the widow of Zarephath.
Whatever they got from their honoring the LORD with their substance, was part of their divine destiny. But it would not have been fulfilled if they had not given.
Your giving will always bring out a blessing God preplanned that you walk in on earth, if done to honor the LORD, especially in obedience to His will. Yes, if it meets His standard of honor, it will impact on your life greatly. That is the word of the LORD to us this morning!!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY
“And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me; and afterward make some for yourself and your son.
For thus says the Lord God of Israel: ‘The bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall the jar of oil run dry, until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth.’ ”
So she went away and did according to the word of Elijah; and she and he and her household ate for many days. The bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke by Elijah.” 1 Kings 17:13-16 NKJV
