TODAY’S DEVOTION (Monday 22nd November 2021)
“I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations.” Psalm 89:1 KJV
WELCOME TO THE 325th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS.
We bless the God of Heaven and earth for giving us another day. It’s out of His mercies that we are not consumed. It is a beautiful thing to sing of God’s mercies with our mouths, and make known His faithfulness. It is important we do all that.
The LORD’s mercies have been the fuel of our lives. I believed strongly that it will keep fueling us all through the rest of this year.
It will keep us from the darkness of the rest of the year by illuminating our hearts with the LIGHT of God. Yes, it will help us break from snares and weaken the defenses of our enemies the way it did for David. It will deliver us form the pleasure and deception of sin and grant us a strong resolve for purity.
I love the book of Psalms for many reasons. One of it is how much it spoke about God’s mercies. One of the critical places made it clear that God does no deal with us according to or sins, but according to His mercies. The only way you miss His mercies is when you are still active in your sins. The Bible says;
“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.” Psalms 68:20-21 NKJV
His mercies are capable of helping us escape the terrible consequences of sin, as explained yesterday in our broadcast. The only thing we must know that continue in sin hoping God’s mercies will always show up is not helpful. It will bring into things that we may not be saved from because of our lack of repentance.
Lack of repentance makes the mercies of the LORD of no effect in the life of a person. In other words, if we continue in our sins, after being shown mercies, we are making God’s mercies of no effect in our lives. The vision of God’s mercies and forgiveness has always been to redeem us from moral decay. If we do not seek the LORD for that redemption after being shown His mercies, we are frustrating His grace.
DAVID WAS A MAN WHO HELPED US GREATLY TO GET ACQUAINTED WITH GOD’S MERCIES AND HOW IT WORKS.
Maybe because of His failures and how he made use of it not to go back to adultery again, after the Bathsheba issue. He was a man who spent his days seeking God’s mercies and singing of it – not just in time of falling into sin and turning from it but also in time of standing in righteousness.
A child of God must learn how to depend on God’s mercies in either season. We must know how to sing of the mercies of the LORD in our lives, sometimes without rhythms. We must learn how to meditate on how God forgave our sins cleaned our records and gave us a New Life to live. We must learn how to sing of the mercies of the LORD!
At one time David chose to sing it with these words;
“Oh, put God to the test and see how kind he is! See for yourself the way his mercies shower down on all who trust in him.
If you belong to the Lord, reverence him; for everyone who does this has everything he needs. Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry, but those of us who reverence the Lord will never lack any good thing.” Psalms 34:8-10 TLB
This is one of the many things David said about God’s mercies. If you look at this scripture carefully you will see the capabilities of God’s mercies and also understand that God’s mercies are not only needed when we fall into sin and repent from it. They are needed all the time, because when they are showered on us, we can get all we need. That is why we must sing of His mercies all the time.
From the life of David, it is clear that when we sing of God’s mercies in our lives, it will take care of Satan’s mess in our lives! A generation that sing other songs but does not know how to sing of the Mercies of the LORD may receive but will never be able to retain God’s mercy in their lives.
It’s important that we sing about the mercy of the LORD these last days of human history! Fresh portals of evil are being opened all over the face of the earth. It will take dimensions of divine mercies known in scriptures as “Great Mercies” to survive the season that is upon us!
THE BIBLE SAYS WE ARE OF GOD BUT THE WHOLE WORLD LIES UNDER THE SWAY OF THE WICKED ONE.
If the mercy of God does not surround us, our lives will be filled with the mess of our enemies. The mercy of the LORD is the most powerful force on the face of the Earth. It is more powerful than nuclear weapons, the wrath of our enemies, or the venoms of hell.
It is more powerful than the consequence of any sin a man has committed, is committing, or will ever commit. That is why as soon as a man repents of sin, the mercy of God will clean him up, take away the wages of his sins and dissolve the consequence completely.
Look at how God’s mercy took Saul from being the killer and terrorist that he was to becoming Paul the apostle of Jesus Christ. In spite of the blood of the saints he shed, he did not even earn a slap from Christ when He appeared to him on the road to Damascus. He was rather enlisted in the army of the LORD. That was great mercies!
He would later spend his days in remembrance of God’s great mercies in his life. You see that in the letters he wrote to the Churches he opened or fed. I don’t know what you did in the past and repented of, God sent me with this word to tell you this;
“For a mere moment I have forsaken you, but with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; but with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you,” Says the Lord, your Redeemer. Isaiah 54:7-8 NKJV
Sadly, those who do not understand mercy live in their sins persistently and still hope they will make Heaven. That is why it is important that we sing of the mercy of the LORD; learn how it works and live with a perfect understanding of its operational codes.
IN THE SPIRIT IT IS THROUGH SINGING THAT WE UNDERSTAND THINGS SOME TIMES.
There is so much we can sing of the mercies of the LORD! It is the trumpet that reveals to us about hell, God’s approaching judgments, and His salvation plan for mankind. It is the escape route from hell, evil works, evil workers and all that sin and Satan brought into the human race.
It is the reason mankind is still alive today. It is the reason hell will not have all of us when our time will be over. It is the reason most of us that have lived a life of sin and wickedness, repented. It is the reason we will smile before the throne of God in Eternity and say, “Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross for us” in the next life.
The mercy of the LORD is the reason we disobey God brazenly, end up in terrible consequences, and then cry out to Him for help and watch Him come with a helping hand to save us. The mercy of the LORD is the reason a young woman will abort unborn babies all her youth, become repentant about it, and end up with a beautiful family with beautiful kids to show.
As mentioned earlier, it is the reason a religious terrorist like Saul became Paul the apostle. It is the reason an adulterous king like David, repented and retained his status as a man after God’s heart. If you hope in God’s mercy you will not GIVE UP on God but you will GIVE IN to God and watch Him save you.
The goodness about God’s mercy is that it cannot expire. It is people that frustrates it and ends up in hell or terrible circumstances. The mercies of the LORD are new every morning because great is His faithfulness, and God is still working on man’s redemption form moral decay using its power.
No sin or satanic act is strong enough to weaken it. It cannot lose its force on you if you seek it daily with a humble and contrite spirit. The Bible says;
“The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” Psalm 51:17 KJV
No man can expire God’s mercy or weaken it. Men can only abuse it, maltreat it, reject it until it cannot fulfill GOD’s redemptive work in his life, leading to terrible consequences. That is the reason for world woes and eternal damnation. No man will be in crisis or hell if the mercy of the LORD is accepted, properly understood and handled.
That is why we must sing of the mercies of the LORD as our devotional text today admonished us!
As you pass through this day, and for the rest of your life, do not forget to sing of the mercies of the LORD. The word sing also implies having a fresh mindset because of revelation acquired. Do not forget to receive and retain God’s mercy daily. And the only way to do that is to humbly ask for it every day of your life, and to humbly live for it all the days of your life.
Sadly, God do withdraw His mercy from people. He withdrew it from Saul but did not withdraw it from David or his seeds. Why? Saul like many of us today, knew how to “receive” God’s mercy but do not know how to “retain” it’s work in his life.
If you know how to receive God’s mercy but do not know how to retain God’s mercy, it will be withdrawn from you. You must understand that!
You retain God’s mercy by walking in love and compassion towards others the way God walks towards you. You retain the mercy of the LORD by extending forgiveness to all who offends you and either repents of it or not.
We do not retain God’s mercy by walking in un-forgiveness, not repenting of our sins, living in malice and retaining people’s sins against us. We do not retain God’s mercy by asking that our enemies fall down and die! That is why Jesus said in Matthew 5 that we should love our enemies.
We retain God’s mercy by being merciful towards others all the time. The Bible made it clear that
“Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy” (Matthew 5:7)
May the mercy of the LORD not be withdrawn from you like it was withdrawn from Saul. May he LORD take you further and teach you more about mercy and how to retain it. May the LORD expose to you any areas you are ill-treating His mercy and forcing Him to withdraw it from you. In Jesus precious name! Amen
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“I will be his Father, and he shall be My son; and I will not take My mercy away from him, as I took it from him who was before you.” 1 Chronicles 17:13 NKJV