TODAY’S DEVOTION (Sunday 15th December 2019)
“Yes, in the way of your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for You; the desire of our soul is for Your name and for the remembrance of You.
With my soul I have desired You in the night, Yes, by my spirit within me I will seek you early; For when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.
Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness; In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.” Isaiah 26:8-10NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 349th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF GOING FORWARD.
Today we will be revising a truth that was published in time past on divine backing.
Whenever people stand in our meetings to Testify of the great miracles God is doing among us, some will turn and thank me for coming to Kenya. Others will do same for standing with them in prayers. While some others will so appreciate me that people forgot it was not me but GOD.
In as much as it is good to also allow the Donkey Jesus used in bringing a miracle your way to walk on the clothes you spread for Jesus, I want to say that I celebrate as much as the people because I see Jesus making statements in their lives and giving me encouragement to keep speaking His word to His people.
Severally I have said to me wife “the way GOD is backing us in this ministry I have come to realize the more how dangerous it is to go into ministry, marriage or any other thing in Life without divine backing.” He makes things so simple that you just watch in amazement while He bears you witness with Signs, wonders, and Miracles.
Indeed, anything that lacks divine backing will never lack demeaning troubles, struggles and toiling. It also reminds me of Peter in the Bible who toiled all night without catching a fish. But the few minutes Jesus backed Him up in His fishing business after he has backed Jesus up in ministry, he had the greatest catch of fish in his life.
If your life is full of struggles, toiling, and all the ills of this world, check whatever you may be doing or even where you may be living. It’s a sign that you lack divine backing.
WHEN GOD SHOWS YOU MERCY IN WHAT YOU MAY BE DOING, YOU BEGIN TO ENJOY DIVINE BACKING.
But because divine backing is a blessing only for those who are in divine will, God will never release mercy to manifest as divine backing in your life until you step into divine will. In other words, if your marriage is not within divine will, you will never see “GOD’s mercy” consequently it will be full of unquenchable troubles and all kinds of wars.
If your economic life is not governed by divine will and ways, you will be toiling all day or night, depending on what you may be doing. And if you finally get the money something will always happen to eat it up away. I have heard people call that a curse.
Yes, financial curses exist. They are responsible for poverty. But we must also understand that if a man’s ways please the LORD the curses on his life will be turned into blessings.
I think the real curse in people’s lives is not the presence of the curse itself but the absence of divine backing in their lives!
The reason for toiling all day or night and yet not coming out well economically is simple – we are not living our economic lives in symphony with divine will and ways. Divine backing is the missing ingredient in the life of anyone suffering any form of economic hardship. It is the missing link in the life of anyone who may having any of these questions.
- What in the world is happening to me?
- What am I not doing right in this ministry, marriage or business?
- Why are things no working for me?
Sadly, most preachers blame these things on curses and evil foundations. They are blind to the things of God hence teaching the things of Satan. The real curse in anyone’s life is the not the presence of any curse in his life but the absence of divine backing in his life. Nothing else!
I have come to realize that your “Christian mouth” may be full of prayers, positive confessions, and your hands full of giving but your life will still be full of troubles if there is no divine backing in it. That is why I teach that one must first secure divine backing before even opening his mouth to pray or confess anything positively. Life will remain negative (despite being positive) if there is no divine backing. And like we shared earlier, divine backing is a child of God’s Mercy released upon a life that is in symphony with divine will and ways.
A GENERATION THAT WANT TO SPEND THEIR DAYS ENJOYING GOD’S MERCY MUST LEARN TO SPEND THEIR LIVES WITHIN HIS WILL AND WAYS.
Talking about divine will and ways, I remember dedicating an entire month on that in one of our devotionals. God’s mercy cannot be released to back us in things that are not God’s will or done in His ways. God’s mercy does not manifest in lives that are doing things their own ways. The Church must understand that. Because of His just nature God does not release mercy on people who are doing things in their will and ways. That is why you cannot find Him pouring His mercy on the wicked.
The only act of mercy you see God pour on the wicked is the restraining of His Spirit not to judge them and the release of His word to exhume repentance from them. He does not show them mercy by solving their personal wickedness related problems.
For instance, here is a man or woman with another person’s wife or husband or even with a woman or man he did not marry in God’s will and ways having troubles in life, and trusting God for mercy to sought them out for him or her. The truth of the matter is it will never happen. God will never solve his or her problems even if he gives the greatest offerings or does the longest fasting in Church.
God is just! He does not justify the wicked. We must first repent of our evil ways and return back to him in repentance before we can secure His great mercies. That is one lesson you can glean from the story of the prodigal son. He did not remain in the land of his rebellion and sin when he needed mercy. He returned to the father before he secured mercy.
Many of us do not return yet we want GOD to have mercy on us.
You find people in their pools of sin and sorrows crying unto God to have mercy and take away their sorrows. It does not work that way. We will never secure it. That is why the message of repentance is what all suffering sinners need to be free from their sufferings. Not enemy killing, curse breaking, or seed sowing gospel. Until the sinner repents, he stands unjustified before GOD. Justification by faith is a child of repentance from dead works, not a child of reciting the sinner’s poem called “sinners prayer.”
WHAT IS THE MESSAGE OF OUR DEVOTIONAL THIS MORNING?
The message is simple. Life will be full of miseries if we do not have divine backing. And divine backing is not a child of prayers, fasting, or giving. It is a Child of GOD’s Mercy. GOD’s mercy is not a blessing Heaven places on everyone. It is a blessing Heaven releases on those who have repented of their sins.
In other words, God does not have mercy on the wicked. The Bible makes it clear that He is angry with the wicked every day. Not merciful on them! I am yet to see a place in scriptures where God spoke kindly to the wicked and all those who take delight in living in wicked ways. His just nature will never let that happen. He is merciful but at the same time just! Truth and mercy must meet for lives to experience divine backing.
Repentance activates His Mercifulness not to give us any judgment we deserve. Not repenting activates His just nature to give us what we deserve. Sometimes correctional judgments are released even while we are alive because if His judgments are not on the earth, the inhabitants of the world will not learn righteousness! That brings us to our devotional text this morning.
A major highlight of it says,
“For when your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness; In the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.”
It’s my prayer that GOD use this word to sustain you in your walk and talk with Him so that you will not be found following the counsel of the wicked, standing on the ways of sinners or seating on the seat of the scornful. In Jesus precious name! AMEN!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.
The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Psalms 1:1-6 NKJV