TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Saturday 15th May 2021)
Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the [b]wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the LORD, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. Isaiah 55:6-9 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 135RD DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS!
One of the most beautiful treasure that exist in God’s Kingdom is the Mercies of GOD. Think for a moment, if God were not merciful; if He was like the god of thunder in Nigeria (a copy of molech, the god of destruction), or the Arabian gods and goddesses who show no mercy, mankind would have been doomed.
It is the mercies of the LORD that gives us a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and even a thousand chances to return back to God from a life of sin and wickedness. That is why it is important this morning to thank God for His mercies in our lives. He has been indeed faithful.
Our GOD is only God who do not deal with men according to their sins, but according to the multitude of His mercies. In most cases, it is our rebellion that deals with us according to our sins when it is punished.
I have come to discover that God does not punish sins as it seems, God punishes rebellion. The Bible says,
Blessed be the Lord, Who daily loads us with benefits, The God of our salvation! Selah
Our God is the God of salvation; And to GOD the Lord belong escapes from death. But God will wound the head of His enemies, the hairy scalp of the one who still goes on in his trespasses. Psalm 68:19-21 NKJV
This scripture tells us clearly that loads us daily with benefits and He manifest in our lives as a God of salvation, but people still go on in their wickedness and sins will miss all that, especially after being shown mercies by the LORD over and over and again and again. It is rebellion that makes people go one with their sins after being shown mercies by the LORD over and over again.
God does not punish us for our sins, because He has paid for every man’s sins. He has carried away our judgment. He will not punish man for what He has punished Himself for. That is why people no longer go to hell because of their sins. After the cross, people go to hell for rebelling against God’s salvation plan for their lives.
THE WORST GIFT WE CAN GIVE TO GOD AFTER SHOWING US MERCIES IS THE GIFT OF REBELLION.
Nobody who returns rebellion for acts of divine mercy will ever make it in life. Rebellion is a child of the spirit of lawlessness, the mystery of iniquity. Meaning if you are rebellious, you are being ruled by the spirit of wickedness.
Now, there are three types of benefits that exist in God’s kingdom for every man on earth. The first is miracles, the second blessings and the third covenant inheritance. God will never put a blessing or a covenant inheritance on anyone whose life is ruled by the spirit of wickedness. He may give them miracles out of His mercies but will never put a blessing or a covenant inheritance on them. That is why you see many toiling in life.
Toiling is usually a sign that one has not aligned with His maker in so many things. The spirit of wickedness promotes a life of rebellion; a life of not aligning with God and His ways, thereby making people toil.
It may interest you to know that God does not throw blessings from Heaven into people’s houses or lives. Every blessing in God’s kingdom is usually kept or hidden in His ways. In other words, He plants His blessings on the paths of His ways. That is why, if you want to experience the blessings God crowns years with, just make His footsteps your pathways. Walk in the paths of His ways and the blessings will be yours.
The Bible says
“You water its ridges abundantly, you settle its furrows; You make it soft with showers, you bless its growth. You crown the year with Your goodness, AND YOUR PATHS DRIP WITH ABUNDANCE. Psalm 65:10-11 NKJV
Read the part of this scripture that is capped again and again, and you will understand what we are sharing this morning. God’s blessings are found in His paths; the paths of His ways that drips with abundance. That is why you find people who walk in His ways, without rebelling against them, living naturally in God’s amazing blessings.
AND DO NOT FORGET, THE BLESSINGS OF THE LORD ARE THE PRESENCE OF GOD WITH A MAN MAKING THINGS HAPPEN.
That is the very environment you will live in if you do not rebel against the word of the LORD or resist the ways of the LORD.
You find people who walk in God’s ways blessed, even if they are living in caves, or wandering as destitute because of the trials of faith like the brethren in Hebrew 11.
When you stay around them, you touch the tangible presence of God. It is that tangible presence that defines the blessing in their lives.
It may interest you to know that the primary manifestation of the blessings of God upon us when we are being persecuted for our faith, is usually to keep our faith from failing, not necessarily to give us earthly things that we so need. That is why you find the brethren in Hebrew 11, wandering in caves, sawn into two, being destitute, but having their faith in God intact.
It was a process they went through to qualify for eternal things that some of us may never get when we get to Heaven.
Those who are not persecuted for their faith, you find that tangible presence making things happen in their lives. You find them in the blessings of the LORD that makes one rich and adds no sorrow. You see their marriages blessed, their finances blossoming, their health very strong and all that.
Why? Because they are walking in the ways of the LORD where the blessings are planted. When you walk in the ways of the LORD (the only place God’s blessings are planted), you will find yourself stumbling into the manifestation of the blessings in those pathways from time to time, and watching your life move from glory to glory.
If your life is therefore troubled, do not look for a preacher who will ask you to sow a seed, come for deliverance, or do any of those things they ask people to do. Look for a preacher who will teach you God’s ways, and help you to walk in them. God said in His word;
…… “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. … Jeremiah 6:16 NKJV
YOU DO NOT GO TO THE PREACHER ASKING HIM TO TELL YOU WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR PROBLEMS.
If you do that, you are calling for sorcery and divination. Only sorcerers and diviners tell people who is responsible for their problems; the spirits in them uses then to do that to create disaffection in families.
Jeremiah 6:16 makes it clear that we should go to preachers or join a Church to ask for the old Bible paths where the ways of the LORD are, so that we can walk in them; thereby finding rest for your soul.
That is why, when you find a preacher or Church that teaches God’s ways and helps people to walk in them, you have found a spiritual helping hand from the LORD. Go there and sit to learn and keep learning God’s ways and walking in them, until you come to the realm of understanding where you will find yourself stumbling into manifest blessings in seasons.
There is another aspect of Jeremiah 6:16 that we need to uncover and understand. We can only find it in the full text. The full text says;
Thus says the LORD: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. BUT THEY SAID, ‘WE WILL NOT WALK IN IT.’ Jeremiah 6:16 NKJV
Read the aspect of the text that is capped over and over again.
If you do, you will find out that our problems in life are not really devils or any other thing. Our problems in life lies in us putting up a WE-WILL-NOT-WALK-IN-IT resistance against the LORD.
So many of us know how to resist the ways of the LORD because of the ignorance created or mindsets carved by the spirit of wickedness in our hearts. We give so many subtle reasons why we cannot do this or do that thing God said in his Holy Word (the Bible) should be done.
We say, “ah! The ways of God are very high.” In fact, we blame the preachers or teachers of those ways and accuse them of making them high. But we forgot that God Himself said His ways are high.
Our devotional text said
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.
THE WAYS OF GOD ARE HIGH BECAUSE OUR LIVES ARE DOWN.
If you will need a crane that is very high to lift up a sinking car from the ocean, you will need the ways of God that are very high to be lifted out of your sinking life. That is why when a man resists to walk in the ways of the LORD but goes about asking for prayers of deliverance and receiving it, he will find himself sinking further and further in life; he will never find a true rest for his soul.
The first part of our devotional text says,
“Seek the LORD while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts…”
You do not go seeking for prayers without forsaking your ways (the very ways that have destroyed your life), or your thoughts (the very thoughts that turned your life into what it is) and find help from the LORD.
If God forbid you find yourself in the hands of money spinning preachers, they will milk you dry in the name of the LORD until you hate anything called Church.
Your help remains in finding a preacher who will teach you God’s ways and sitting under him, no matter how high those ways are to you.
The truth remains, if God’s ways are too high for you, it is because you are too deep in your problems and need urgent help from the LORD. When you are down, you see everything up there as high. Like the car, you will need a high crane to be rescued, you will need to walk in the high ways of the LORD to be free.
The clarion call this morning is that we forsake our ways and thoughts and embrace God’s ways and thoughts. To get a spiritual authority that understands God’s ways and sit under and learn. It is a call to make the LORD alone your light and salvation. Hallelujah!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY:
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?
“When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh, My enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell. Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war may rise against me,
“One thing I have desired of the Lord, that will I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple.”
“For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret place of His tabernacle He shall hide me; He shall set me high upon a rock.”
“And now my head shall be lifted up above my enemies all around me; therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises to the Lord.” Psalms 27:1-6 NKJV