TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 2ND NOVEMBER 2021)
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect,
to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.” Hebrews 12:22-24 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 306TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS.
Our God Is Faithful! I can’t be tired of saying that. Yes, our God is faithful, He is faithful, and will remain faithful. It is His faithfulness that we have fed on since January to this day. It is His faithfulness that we will feed on until we cross the threshold of the many years that are ahead of us.
In the New Year Prophetic Assembly of 2015, that is six year ago, the LORD spoke to us about “FEEDING ON HIS FAITHFULNESS.”
It was an unforgettable message that laid a prophetic foundation in the ministry. I knew in my spirit that a covenant has been established in our lives, and in the ministry. I knew then that for the rest of this mandate, we shall be feeding on God’s faithfulness. That is why the fruits of that message is still with us today.
It was a prophecy that was planted to be speaking all through the ages.
I believe the word and eternal God does not expire. Such prophetic deliveries do not expire; hence the prophecy is still valid. It has seen us through for six years now. Every other New Year Prophetic Deliveries we have heard was spoken as a fruit of that one.
To God be the glory in Jesus precious name.
TODAY WE WILL BE LOOKING AT THE BASICS. WE WILL BE FURTHER REFRESHING OUR MINDS ON GOD’S GRACE AND MERCIES.
I have come to realize that the most beautiful thing that can ever happen to a man is salvation experience. You may have experienced the best boat rides in the world. You may have experienced the best entertainment or financial empowerment in the world. Whatever glorious Mankind may have experienced in this life, is cheap compare to a genuine salvation experience.
That is what the unsaved presidents of the most powerful countries in the world have not experienced. It is what makes the poor and neglected who may have met the LORD the VIPs of God on earth, and those VIPs nothing before the LORD.
It is an experience that places the poorest of the poor on a pedestal that even the richest man in the world cannot acquire with all his wealth. It is a treasure that cannot be found in the riches places of the earth. That is what separates Sons of Light from sons of darkness.
That is what makes a man happy even when there is nothing to be excited about. It makes him supernatural in a very natural way.
Friend, the greatest encounter you can have on earth is a genuine salvation encounter. And that can only happen when you meet Jesus Christ personally.
The catalyst of a genuine salvation experience is a genuine salvation encounter. But it is not just an experience; it is a translation from one realm to another. Our devotional text calls that realm “Mount Zion.”
The mercy of the LORD is responsible for all genuine salvation encounters. It takes away the punishment for sins.
The Bible made it clear that without Salvation encounters, we are doomed. The fall of man placed the entire human race on the paths of eternal damnation. But God in His mercies, reached out to us through the death burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, making it possible or men to accept and live for Him as LORD and escape eternal judgment.
THE COMING OF THE LORD TO DIE ON THE CROSS IN OUR PLACE IS THE HIGHEST EXPRESSION OF GODS MERCIES UPON OUR LIVES.
It gave us a fresh definition of what God’s mercy is. It defines God’s MERCY as man NOT RECEIVING the punishment he deserves. It also gave us a fresh picture of what His grace is. It defined God’s grace as man receiving the salvation he does not deserve because of the death of Jesus on the cross.
In simple terms, if we look at the redemption story, we see two things. We see Mercy as man not getting what he deserves, and grace as men getting what he does not deserve. God’s mercy withholds the consequences of sin from speaking in our lives, while His grace gives us a pardon and power to go and sin no more.
Let me repeat again; God’s mercies will withhold the consequences of our sins from resting upon us. God’s grace will pardon us for them and then empower us to go and sin no more. That is why the grace and mercies of the LORD work together. They are known in Psalms as goodness and mercies.
The Psalmist said;
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” Psalm 23:5-6 AKJV
For us to remain in the House of the LORD (THE ACTIVE PRESENCE OF THE LORD) as the Older Son in the Story of the prodigal son, or to return home (HIS ACTIVE PRESENCE) as the prodigal son did when we fall into sin, we must know how to network with God’s grace and mercies through a life of genuine repentance from sin.
GOD’S VISION FOR SHOWING US MERCIES AND GRANTING US GRACE MUST BE UNDERSTOOD!
His vision is that we network with the two and come out of a life of sin and wickedness so that iniquity will not be our ruin. A people who do not know how to network with His grace and mercies through repentance, will eventually perish under the consequences of their rebellion.
Rebellion is when we keep living a life of sin and disobedience deliberately, after God has shown us mercies. It is when we behave like the harlot church, that is not interested in God’s righteousness garments but his miracles.
God understand when we are weak and still growing up in Christ. A weak and growing up will struggle with a life of sin; Heaven knows that. But when we are not even interested in living right, when all we want is to satisfy our flesh, hoping that nothing happens, we are not networking with God’s grace and mercies, and it’s going to destroy us.
God’s mercies will withhold the punishments or consequences of our sins from us until we respond to His grace. Sadly, when that happens some of us do not network with Him by responding to His grace after His mercies has withheld the consequences of our sins, even for many years, from us. You find many of us still in our wickedness until our sin begin to find us out.
This generation of believers do not know the mystery of a man’s sin finding him out. There is a way sin finds us out after a long time of ignoring God’s grace. The possibility of a man’s sin finding him out was revealed by Moses when He was giving a warfare charge to the Israelites. He said to them;
“…If ye will do this thing, if ye will go armed before the LORD to war, and will go all of you armed over Jordan before the LORD, until he hath driven out his enemies from before him,
and the land be subdued before the LORD: then afterward ye shall return, and be guiltless before the LORD, and before Israel; and this land shall be your possession before the LORD.
But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out. Numbers 32:20-23 AKJV
IN THIS PLACE THE PEOPLE WERE BEING TOLD TO SUBDUE THE NATIONS WHOSE LANDS THEY WERE ASKED TO GO AND OCCUPY BY THE LORD.
Moses told them that if they do not, it will be counted as sin to them and their sin will find them out. But for us today, God is not talking about we subduing some lands. If you read that’s scripture with the Testimony of Jesus Christ in your heart, you will understand that God is referring to us subduing our flesh.
We are to subdue our flesh whenever God’s mercies withhold the punishments of our sin from us. If we do not, we will continue to live a life of sin and one day our sin will find us out. When sin finds out, death and destruction will result. That is why it is important that we learn how to respond to God’s grace after His mercies has withheld the consequences of our sins from us.
Those who do not, will get to a season in life where they will begin to go through the perils that occurs when a man’s sin finds him out.
There are people today who do not deserve having children because of what they did when they got pregnant, maybe out of wedlock; but God has withheld that consequences of their sin from them. There are men today who do not deserve a wife because of what they did with the hearts of the young women who loved them unconditionally. But God has withheld that consequence of their sin from them.
There are women who do not deserve a husband because of what they did with the loving ones God gave them. Others do not deserve a husband for breaking the homes of others. But God has withheld the consequences of their sins from them, waiting for them to respond to His grace with a life of repentance, so that times of refreshing can com form the presence of the LORD to them.
There are people who do not deserve having a job because of what they did with the ones they once had. There are people who do not deserve Heaven because of what they did to the preachers God sent to them. But God’s Mercy has withheld the consequences of their sins and wickedness from them.
MERCY IS INDEED NOT RECEIVING WHAT WE DESERVE SO THAT WE CAN RECEIVE WHAT WE DO NOT DESERVE.
Some on the planet today do not deserve year 2022 because of what the devil did with their lives in 2021. They yielded to him and he used them to successfully perform his three fold missions of killing, stealing, and destroying. But God say “I will have mercy.” In other words, “I will withhold the consequences of their sins from them so that they can see even many years to come.”
The vision is that they respond to His grace with a life of genuine repentance.
Our devotional text tells of the Blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel that spoke in Genesis chapter 4. The first time I heard that I asked myself what is the blood of sprinkling really speaking.
Now I know it is speaking mercy, among other things. It is telling God to withhold the consequences of our sins from us so that His grace can keep working on us until we achieve a life of moral excellence and Godliness; the very life Jesus came to die on the cross for us to achieve.
The Bible says,
“To Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.” Hebrew 12:24
The blood of Abel spoke vengeance. And that was justifiable because Cain never repented. But the blood of Jesus speaks mercy today. And will keep speaking that until the Day of Judgment. In the Day of Judgment, it will no longer speak mercy but justice – which will mean final punishment for all un-repented sins.
The blood of sprinkling is actually the blood of Jesus that was sprinkled on the altar of GOD in Heaven the day of His resurrection. It cancelled the consequence of sin, the legal rights of the devil over us, and everything that may be speaking against us in the spirit realm.
PAUL, IN HIS LETTER TO THE COLOSSIAN CHURCH, CAPTURED IT THIS WAY;
“And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.
Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.” Colossians 2:13-15 NKJV
But all these was done so that we can respond to the grace of God and begin to live godly lives on earth. These are the scriptural revelations that make God’s Mercy the greatest utterance in Heaven and on earth. It is the only utterance that you need to be free from ancestral forces, evil foundations, generational curses and etc. not the utterances of “sowing seeds.”
It is the only utterance we need to be free from whatever we or our fathers did, not the utterance that tells you to take prophets to your village. It is not even the utterance of the prophet who speak into your life.
I don’t care who may be speaking into your life, if the blood of Jesus has not spoken into it nothing about you will change. Your past will keep killing your present, making sure you did not step into your future. It is when the blood speaks that consequences of sin are withheld not when prophets speak.
And when consequences of sins are withheld, God is saying come into repentance by responding to my grace. The Bible says;
“For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men,
teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;
looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Titus 2:11-13 AKJV
When we respond to God’s grace over time, we will come to the place of not leading life of sin again, because it will impart us to deny ungodliness, worldly lust, and strengthen us to live soberly, righteously and godly in this present age, looking for the blessed and glorious appearing of Jesus Christ.
Someone may ask, “what is the first step to responding to God’s grace?” Repentance is the first step. This may involve the confession of sin to the right which could be God or men, depending on the type of sin. And then following it up by renouncing the sin and bringing your flesh under subjection.
There is a righteous act that can help us to stem the tide of a life of sin when God’s mercies are withholding the consequence of our sins from speaking in our lives. It is called putting the flesh under subjection. Paul called it “buffeting the flesh.” We do that, among others ways, by not giving it an opportunity to bring us to the place of satisfying its desires.
We can go and on, but like I always say, this is a devotional and not a book. But take time out to study how to buffet your flesh, because everyone has his own war. Studying your own and learning what to do will help you greatly.
MAKE THIS WORDS OF PAUL AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“ Do you not know that in a race all the runners compete, but [only] one receives the prize? So run [your race] that you may lay hold [of the prize] and make it yours.
Now every athlete who goes into training conducts himself temperately and restricts himself in all things. They do it to win a wreath that will soon wither, but we [do it to receive a crown of eternal blessedness] that cannot wither.
Therefore, I do not run uncertainly (without definite aim). I do not box like one beating the air and striking without an adversary.
But [like a boxer] I buffet my body [handle it roughly, discipline it by hardships] and subdue it, for fear that after proclaiming to others the Gospel and things pertaining to it, I myself should become unfit [not stand the test, be unapproved and rejected as a counterfeit]. 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 AMPC