TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Wednesday 12th May 2021)
“Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said in his heart, “Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?” And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You!”
“Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac; I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.”
And as for Ishmael, I have heard you. Behold, I have blessed him, and will make him fruitful, and will multiply him exceedingly. He shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation.
But My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.” Then He finished talking with him, and God went up from Abraham. Genesis 17:17-22 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 132ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
You may be a hundred years Old or less, it is important that you do not take being alive this morning for granted. In times like this, it is important that we thank God for the air we breathe, the functionality of the critical and none critical organs of our bodies; our kidneys, our hearts, our lungs, and our cells etc.
Yes, when we wake up each morning, it is important that we thank God for the functionality of our body systems; we thank our LORD Jesus Christ for the keeping our respiratory, excretion, and reproductive systems functioning. It’s important we thank Him for our cardiac and all other systems that forms the physiological aspect of our lives.
Gratitude will change your life; especially gratitude to GOD. Ingratitude will destroy it. Beginning a day with gratitude opens that day up for us and brings us to the place of peace and joy. Then you add to it quality time with the word of the LORD (The Bible) or any other piece of knowledge that will help you understand it.
Personally, when we talk about the Bible, I want to say I don’t know what my life would have being without having it in my hands every now and then. To me it is a Heavenly compass for earthly travels. It has guided me so much and saved me from nay destructions.
I would have been long dead and gone if not for the Bible.
Some of the things this book has done in my life includes helping me to understand critical dreams, bringing me from a life of darkness, teaching me how to stand in the midst of temptation and trials, or how to get back anytime I fall into sin, iniquity or trespass.
It has been the secret of everything you see the LORD do in my life and through my life. It has also saved me from sudden destruction and delivered me from my enemies by not allowing me to be given over to their will. It has taught me how to walk in God’s will, fight His battles, reach out to the lost and dying, remain kind to people who hurt me badly, and etc.
THE HOLY GHOST HAS BEEN ILLUMINATING IT TO DO ALL THAT IN MY LIFE.
He has thoroughly made the book a source of Heavenly life to my earthly life.
His illuminations have made it a lamp to my feet in a dark world, and a light to paths through the evil and corrupt system of this world. Like David, I can say to the LORD, by His mercies;
“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through your precepts I get understanding; therefore, I hate every false way.”
I want to encourage you by this testimony, to make the Bible your source of Heavenly things, and the earth will be a walk over for you.
But this morning we are going to refresh our hearts with truths on having the right people in our lives. Having the Right people in life is so important to mankind that God had to pause His rest and come up with a Right person for Adam. That created the first kind of human relationship on earth.
The first kind of human relationship that was created was the relationship between a man and his wife. Then it gave birth to other forms of human relationships as children begin to come and the population of the earth begin to grow.
That is what makes family the first level of authority on earth, before even the Church. Sadly, many do not know this hence lifting the relationship with their pastor above the relationship with their wives of husband, fathers or mothers.
A preacher who is still walking in the ways of the LORD will help improve relationship between you and your family members. He will not kill it. But many, especially those who call themselves prophets and prophetess, are good at killing the relationship between husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, children and parents and etc.
YOU MUST BE CAREFUL OF THE SO CALLED SERVANTS OF GOD WHO ARE INDEED SERVANTS OF SATAN.
When it comes to marriage also, you must understand this standard of God. You must recognize that family comes before Church and make sure you do not marry a man who will not allow you to worship God like many women did. It could rob you of your salvation by frequently putting you in a place where you have to choose between your God and your husband.
The Bible made it clear that, except you are just cohabitating and the man is not your God given husband, if he says no, your God will not say yes. Only a “false god” will say yes when a God given husband says no. And come to think of it, no God given husband will say yes when God is saying no.
No God given husband will want to stand between a woman and her God. He knows the consequences; he could loose his life. No man stands between God and another person for a long time and survives thereafter.
My prayer for any women is not to be put in a state where you have to choose between your so called marriage and your loving savior. Many in time past choose their loving savior over their so called marriages. But it was not a decision without a cost.
But there are preachers who teaches their ungodly female members to rebel against their ungodly husbands. That is what Satan wants. He does it using the spirit of Jezebel or the spirit of witchcraft. That is why I tell people marriage as not originally created for the ungodly. Adam was not ungodly when God created marriage. He was godly.
If you therefore, find yourself with an ungodly spouse, you created that, not God! So do not blame Him for your woes. If you are staying in the marriage, then you must submit to the person you gave yourself to as a husband.
God’s order remains, family comes first if there is godliness in that family. Any spirit that violates it is demonic.
The true Holy Spirit will move godly women to pray and bring the heart of their God given husbands into alignment with God, if it is not. When that happens, the man will submit to the LORD, and bring his carnal rule under God’s rule.
That is why it is good for a woman to marry a man who can hear from God or who can be made submissive to GOD through prayers, because, like the devil cannot be made submissive to God, some cannot be made submissive. They will only need to be casted out like the devil was casted out of Heaven.
THERE ARE ALSO CASES OF PARENT CHILD RELATIONSHIP, WHERE THE CHILD FINDS SALVATION AND THE FATHER OR MOTHER HAS NOT.
In such circumstances, the rule of our Heavenly Father stands taller than that of our earthly fathers. In other words, we pray for them and respectfully disobey any of their instructions that violates the word of the LORD. That further explains what Jesus meant when He said He has come to set the father against the child and the child against the father.
I remember a lady whose father asked her to sleep with her. She refused and the man began to curse and threaten, saying he is her father and all that. A man who wants to sleep with his biological daughter cease from being her father in God’s sight. The same is applicable to a woman who supports such abomination. She ceases to be the mother in God’s sight.
In other words, except they repent, none of them should be honored as parents. This is what Jonathan never knew hence dying with his father. You do not honor parents taken over by the spirit of wickedness to kill, steal or destroy like the devil. You cut ties with them in love; the purpose is to stay away and pray for their salvation.
When the kingdom of God advances to save a soul, all other kingdoms must be made submissive to the Kingdom of God. That is the redemption rule governing the great commission. If they do not, we cut ties with them in love and stay away from them. It is called separation.
Every relationship was created for man; no man was not created for relationship. Therefore, any Relationship that metamorphoses into a gate of hell, wisdom demands that you cut ties with it. The Bible says,
“The righteous should choose his friends carefully, For the way of the wicked leads them astray.” Proverbs 12:26 NKJV
This means we should walk in discernment in matters of relationship.
That brings us to a kind of relationship to be aware of as children of GOD. Permit me to call “the Ishmael kind of relationship.” We all know Ishmael and we also know Isaac. You find their stories in the book of Genesis 16, 17, and 21.
IN GENESIS 16 ISHMAEL WAS CONCEIVED AND BORN.
He was born out of pressure, because Sarah thought she might never have a Child. He was a Child of the craving of the flesh. That is why I tell people that Ishmael and Isaac are not of the same father.
Ishmael was conceived to satisfy the flesh; Isaac was conceived by the Spirit. Abram is the father of Ishmael and Abraham is the father of Isaac. We can go on and on.
Now, if you look at this scriptural truth, you will realize that Ishmael relationships are born the same way. They are born out of a desire to satisfy the craving of the flesh. They are not of the same spiritual source with Isaac Relationships.
Isaac relationships (especially marriages and certain spiritual fathers God brings into our lives) are born after a long wait or a long season of trial. They are born when a Child of God enters his or her hundred-fold place in the spirit.
They are usually born to fulfill a spoken promise of God in a person’s life. But Ishmaels are different!
For instance, today, a young man and a young woman will just meet themselves in an airport or in an aircraft that may be flying 13 hours to their destination, and suddenly fall in sexual love for each other. They stand the chance of bringing forth an Ishmael relationship.
If they are religious, they could interpret the fall as divine and call it “love at first sight.” Yes, there could be “love at first sight” but the only problem is which kind of love are we talking about?
Most of what we call love at first sight is actually lust at first sight (sexual love).
THE DESIRE TO SLEEP WITH A SEXUALLY LOOSED PERSON YOU JUST MET, SAT TOGETHER AND CONVERSED WITH, CAN BE SO STRONG.
Many Church youths today will take it to be a move of the spirit, and go ahead to sleep with the person, validate their actions, and met their pastor to join them together.
Sadly, most marriages are contracted based on that. That is why they fall at the slightest marital pressure. There are few marriages today that can withstand marital pressure. A little provocation, the man or woman is with another man or women. The Bible made it clear that any house build on sand will fall.
Lust cannot withstand marital pressure. It takes love to withstand marital pressure.
Most marriages are actually children of Ishmael relationships. That is why there is no peace. The man and woman got together not to form a family, but to satisfy their sexual desires, and the result is all the children they have today.
They told themselves during those moments, “You are so good. What will my life have been without you?” But now they are wishing themselves death. Nothing can be established on an Ishmael foundation; not even a marriage. That was why God said to Abraham that His covenant cannot be with Ishmael.
He will never put a covenant on what is born in the flesh, be it a marriage or a ministry. That is why many marriages have no certified covenants from God. Hence, not protected from the evil one.
It is the covenant that protects our marriages and the families created by those marriages from the evil one. If God cannot put a covenant in it, even if a preacher prays for it, the marriage will lack divine insurance, exposing the family to curses and generational bondages.
Sadly, it will come crashing down one day, exposing the children to all kinds of predators.
GOD WILL NEVER PUT A COVENANT IN WHAT IS BORN OF THE FLESH.
Abraham, the friend of God had tried to intercede for Ishmael to become the child of promise. He wanted to sue His friendship with God to convince Him to put a covenant on Ishmael. But God told him, “honestly, it’s not possible. All things are possible with me but not this one” so to speak.
A major highlight in our devotional text puts it this way;
….And Abraham said to God, “Oh, that Ishmael might live before You! Then God said: “No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac;
….. My covenant I will establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to you at this set time next year.”
Then He finished talking with him, and God went up from Abraham.
Form the truth in this scripture, we can see that if you build anything on an Ishmael relationship and it comes down crashing, no amount of prayer can save it. Ishmael will never become the Child of promise because what is born of the flesh is flesh.
An Ishmael marriage can never be a blissful marriage because what is born of flesh is flesh. An Ishmael Church ministry can never be an authentic Church ministry because what is born of flesh is flesh.
God will never extend the covering shelters of His covenant on any things that is not born of the Spirit; not even a business, a land, a house, a car or etc. That is why when they come under attack, prayer fasting or whatever we do cannot save them.
The worst thing about an Ishmael relationship is that if God smile on you and finally bring your Isaac, the Ishmael you produced by walking in the flesh, will keep giving your Isaac a tough time. That is why God will never extend His covenant to it. Covenant protects things on the face of the earth for generations. God will not want an Ishmael to enjoy that.
The only solution to Ishmael, especially after your Isaac is born, is to do what Abraham did – send him away! Surgery is better than tragedy!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY:
“So the child grew and was weaned. And Abraham made a great feast on the same day that Isaac was weaned.”
“And Sarah saw the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, scoffing. Therefore she said to Abraham, “Cast out this bondwoman and her son; for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, namely with Isaac.”
“And the matter was very displeasing in Abraham’s sight because of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Do not let it be displeasing in your sight because of the lad or because of your bondwoman.
Whatever Sarah has said to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac your seed shall be called. Yet I will also make a nation of the son of the bondwoman, because he is your seed.”
“So Abraham rose early in the morning, and took bread and a skin of water; and putting it on her shoulder, he gave it and the boy to Hagar, and sent her away. Then she departed and wandered in the Wilderness of Beersheba.” Genesis 21:8-14 NKJV