TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 23RD April 2026)
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” Matthew 7:11-12 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 113TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF STRATEGIC VICTORY
God is faithful! He is faithful even when we are faithless. It is His faithfulness that has kept all of us these days. I believe His faithfulness will keep us for the rest of the year.
This morning we are going to travel back in time to visit another well of truth dug in August 2016 on Right Relationships, that is almost 10 years ago. Our devotional text today has an underlining truth uncovered in that well. Truths from God’s eternal heart are eternal. The Holy Spirit has a way of breathing into Bible truth to make them living again.
He has a way of breathing into truths to minister to us at the point of our needs. He has a way of taking us deep into ancient truths to bring out a word in season for us. That was how He took our fathers in time past into ancient prophetic truths that gave them words in their season to deepen their walk and talk with God. I believe strongly that it’s our turn.
Bible Truths that are revealed by the breath of the Almighty are not just to educate us but to challenge us into new kinds of life that God wants us to live. They are not just to enlighten us, but to lighten our hearts with the Heavenly light that is required to deal with any darkness we may be in.
Yes, they do not just set us free but gives us what to use in setting ourselves free, because in most cases, we are the ones to set ourselves free, else we will not be free. Bible truths ignited by the Holy Spirit are sent to do just that in our lives.
It’s my prayer that you find what to use to set yourself free, and that God minister deep things to us as we draw from this well of salvation. Amen and Amen!
THE ALMOST 10-YEAR-OLD DEVOTIONAL
It’s being our season of looking at truths on having Right Relationships. It has been intense truths. The intensity reveals the heat in the throne room on this issue is destiny related. If we do not separate from the striga or strange men and women in our lives, we may be done away with.
In other words, if we do not separate from them, they will separate us from the life that God has given or pre planned for us to live.
I perceive that so many souls have just few months, or years to live the kind of life God wants them to live, except they get out of wrong relationships. God wants us out of anything that is wrong because it is delaying his program for our lives and reducing our days on the face of the earth. But this morning we will be going a step further in this discourse.
The two scriptural verses that constitute our devotional text today are rich in truth and wisdom. Jesus Himself – the creator of heaven and earth – said those words when He was physically on earth. The first verse encourages us to seek the LORD for good things (though the book of Luke will further reveal the desire to receive the Holy Ghost to be what Christ meant). It says,
“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!”
This verse tells us the importance of prayer in receiving good things from the LORD. It tells how eager God is to release into our lives whatever will help us fulfill our divine destiny in Him.
Doubtless, Right Relationships are very important to the release of our destiny. They are one of the “GOOD THINGS” that the LORD is ever ready to give to us. He knows they will help us in unlocking our destiny and taking us from the declaration to the manifestation of His word in our lives.
I SEE A KEY TO APPLY IN OUR QUEST FOR RIGHT RELATIONSHIP IN THIS SCRIPTURAL VERSE – THE PRAYER KEY.
A woman of God who is currently full of Right Relationships in ministry shared how she got there. She said there were years in her beginning days that she spent months and sleepless nights seeking the LORD for Right Relationships. She truly sought the LORD all those years and today the fruit is everywhere on the face of the earth.
She also told us what spurred her into such travailing prayers.
For years she suffered rejection from people. She will pay a lot of prices to reach them with the word, but when she finally does, they will treat her like a trash for the trash can. It continued for a while and grew very terrible when those who finally became her friends turned out to be strange and wicked men and women. That was when she realized that the enemy was at work.
You see, in the kingdom of God if you have not sown enough prayers into the prayer veils in the hands of God’s angel that stands before the golden altar in Heaven, you will not reap good things in life.
So, she went after God in prolonged and travailing prayers. She made up her mind to pray until her life was filled with Right people who will stay and help her fulfill her ministry. And God answered her, confirming the first verse of our devotional text.
But I have also come to discover that prayer alone does not bring and keep Right Relationships. Prayer or divine favor will bring the people we truly need, but prayer and favor alone will not keep them. Proper conduct or good behavior is what keeps them in our lives.
NOW, WHEN WE SAY PROPER CONDUCT, WHAT KIND OF PROPER CONDUCT ARE WE REFERRING TO?
The second verse in our devotional text has the answer. It says, “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” What can we glean from this scripture? So much! But let us limit ourselves to this spirit of this devotional.
This scripture made it clear that “Right Relationship begins with Right conduct.” If we do to others what we wish that they do to us, it will expose the wrong relationships in our lives and attract the Right Ones to us. Like, attracts like, in the spirit.
If you do to others what you wish that they do to you, you are a Right Relationship.
If you become a Right Relationship to those who do not fall into the line of strange or wicked relationships, but are not adding anything to your life, at least at the moment, doing to them the good things you wish that they do to you, maybe when they become strong, God will take the wrong folks away from your life and give you Right Ones.
In other words, who you are will attract your kind to you. It’s as simple as that. If who you are not is attracted to you, he or she will not stay for too long. But if who you are is attracted to you, the Relationship will be long. Becoming a Right Relationship to all you relate with is therefore a major key to having Right Relationships in your life after the prayer key.
It will destroy the power of anyone functioning as Satan’s killer machine in your life. Time to be your brother’s keeper, and not your brother’s killer.
THIS MORNING, I WANT US TO CHECK OURSELVES AGAIN; ARE WE OUR BROTHER KEEPERS OR ARE OUR BROTHER KILLERS?
The Bible says woe to the world because of offenses for offenses must come, but “WOE TO THAT MAN BY WHOM THE OFFENSE COMES.” Brother keepers have the distinguished character of doing to others what they wish that others do to them.
People who touch them do not get sick, they get healed, and that can be explained in many ways.
For instance, when you touch them by getting married to them, you will stay married to them because of the bliss they will be generating into your life. You will see marriage as one of the greatest blessings from God to man.
Sadly, many cannot say so concerning who they are married to because the very people they call wife or husband are not their brother’s keepers. They do to their mate what they do not wish their mate to do to them. People are sick of life because of the men and women they touched by getting married to them.
I ask again, are people who are touching you getting sick or getting healed? Are your words ministering grace or pain to those who hear you converse?
What do you do when you are provoked? Do you become a wild animal, or you keep your cold to remain a son of God? If the answer to all these is negative (and even more), you are a wrong Relationship not a Right one!
No one who is a wrong relationship to another has the right to complain to God or anyone of anything a wrong relationship may have done in his or her life. In other words, you stand disqualified from deliverance from the spiritual siege of wrong relationships if you yourself are a wrong relationship to anyone.
A generation who will not do to others what they wish they do to them will never receive right and retain Right Relationships from the LORD. Prayers help us to receive them, but doing to them what we wish that they do to us is what retains them in our lives. That is the message of today’s devotion.
YOU CAN MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
Give to everyone who asks you, and when someone takes something that is yours, don’t ask for it back. Do to others what you would want them to do to you.
If you love only the people who love you, what praise should you get? Even sinners love the people who love them. If you do good only to those who do good to you, what praise should you get? Even sinners do that!
If you lend things to people, always hoping to get something back, what praise should you get? Even sinners lend to other sinners so that they can get back the same amount!
But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without hoping to get anything back. Then you will have a great reward, and you will be children of the Most High God, because he is kind even to people who are ungrateful and full of sin.
Show mercy, just as your Father shows mercy. Luke 6:30-36 NCV
