TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 25TH JULY 2022)
“In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.
The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.
He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him— the dark rain clouds of the sky.
Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.
He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy, with great bolts of lightning he routed them.” Psalm 18:6-14 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 206TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
This is the Day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it. Yesterday’s service was amazing. Indeed, in the presence of God is fullness of joy. At His right hand are pleasures for ever more. Not carnal pleasures, but Heavenly pleasures.
That is why when people find their place in God’s presence, they become passionate for the Heavenly and less concerned with the earthly. They find themselves setting their minds on Heavenly things and leading their lives according to God’s Kingdom culture.
The revelation knowledge of who God is becomes their ultimate desire.
You will never find them in synagogues of Satan called Churches, because they are a sheep type that hears the voice of Christ, and the voice of a stranger they do not follow.
Sometimes Sons of the Kingdom of God have wondered why there are many in Churches of perverted preachers? People have wondered why sorcerers, charlatans, and false prophets have huge followers? The reason is simple. Many are not saved but looking for the supernatural to arrest their problems.
They are not part of the Sheep of Jesus Christ that is why they are following the voice of strangers. Jesus said “My sheep hear my voice. The voice of a stranger they will not follow.”
The truth is, the number of people following heretic teachings, false prophets and all that is salted with the spirit of lawlessness, reveals the number of people who are going to hell from what has presented itself as the Church. And that should worry every true child of God.
One major thing that gets these lost souls entrapped in the dens of thieves called deliverance Churches and Prophetic Ministries is their search for miracles. If they were searching for God they won’t have landed there!
PEOPLE WHO LOOK FOR THE TRUE GOD ARE LIKE THE WISE MEN WHO CAME FROM THE EAST LOOKING FOR BABY JESUS.
They may branch into the house of Herod for a while but will not stay there. They will always walk away from the wrong place and meet God’s true messengers in the right place who will take them to the true God.
That is why if you find a so called Christian comfortable with wrong doctrines and false prophets and charlatans, be careful. That person is not saved! He or she is not yet part of the LORD’s sheep. They are still part of the lost sheep.
Sadly, from what the Bible says, Heaven will not be their home when they die.
God is mindful of us and want us to walk with Him not with falsehood, especially in matters of the miraculous. I believe this 31-Day journey with the cry of the Spirit on miracles, signs and wonders has helped some of us to understand what surrounds the miraculous in GOD’s Kingdom.
With few days to God, we decided to look at what the Cry of the Spirit of God is saying about the catalyst of miracles in God’s kingdom. Yesterday, we saw one catalyst, which is God’s mercy. Today we will be looking at the next.
I hope we are ready!
The next catalyst of miracles in God’s kingdom is called God’s faithfulness. Miracles of GOD’s faithfulness are performed as proofs. They come from GOD’s Throne to prove to GOD’s children, lost men, or rampaging devils that GOD is faithful. That He is faithful to His people, His will, His word or His promises.
Yes, Sometimes they are performed to prove that GOD is faithful to His promises. We can see that in the life of Abraham.
God gave him Isaac after all the Ishmael blunder to prove to him that He is faithful. The Bible did not even mention the Ishmael blunder when giving the final report of how God kept His promise to Abraham. It says;
“For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself,
saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.” Hebrews 6:13-15 NKJV
No word on the Ishmael blunder was mentioned here. What was mentioned was the demonstration of God’s faithfulness.
NOW, THERE ARE SOME TRUTHS TO GLEAN FROM THIS SCRIPTURE.
The first tells us that when God calls a man, gives him an assignment to pursue, or make a promise to him, He will not lay the condition for the fulfillment of the call, assignment or promise on the man if what is at stake is critical. He will lay it on Himself.
This is a huge revelation to sit down with and chew. We can even close the devotional here. God will make His faithfulness the condition for fulfilling critical callings, assignments or promises from His Throne.
That is why even when any man He may be dealing with walk away from Him, His faithfulness to Himself will remain in manifestation either by replacing the man or calling the man to order. All is geared towards making sure that the call, assignment or promise is fulfilled despite man’s unfaithfulness.
In Abraham’s case, He had to call him to order when the man allowed the Ishmael blunder to creep into the deal. The bible says after 13 years of silence, God appeared to Him and said;
“….. “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” Genesis 17:1-2 NKJV
In calling the patriarch to order, He had to change His nature figuratively by changing his name. God does not call men to order by just issuing commands to them. He calls men to order by changing their moral nature through impartations of His Spirit.
Sometimes the impartations comes in form of rebukes, correction, admonitions, words of exaltation and etc. Other times it comes through sufferings.
The life of Abraham shows us that when God make a promise to us, call us into ministry or give us an assignment to carry out with Him, He will not place the condition of fulfillment on us but on Himself.
His call for a righteous walk, prayerful life, spiritual discipline and ethical conduct is not for the assignment to be successful per say, but for us to remain part of it.
He can take His promise or assignment to David if Saul refuse to walk before Him and be blameless, just to make sure His assignment or promise in fulfilled. That is why redemption has continued from age to age despite the men and women who failed Him in their own times and seasons.
GOD IS FAITHFUL EVEN WHEN WE ARE FAITHLESS.
The Bible says;
“If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself. Remind them of these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers.” 2 Timothy 2:13-14 NKJV
Yes, we are to remind ourselves that God is faithful. We are also to remind ourselves that there is a lot of preaching that is ruining the eternal lives of people.
Yes, a lot of Preaching that encourages the use or sale of the olive oil, what they call holy water, or break through salt in prayer. A lot of Preaching that encourages the raising breaking or silencing of the so-called altars. Things that have ruined so many.
Preaching on evil patterns, and all the money-making doctrines on the lips of preachers are a very bad plague to the eternal lives of people. That is why we have been crying against such doctrines of devils all along.
But our concern today is on the first verse of the scriptural portion that says “If we are faithless, He remains faithful; He cannot deny Himself.”
God’s critical promises, callings and assignments are conditioned on His faithfulness not our faithfulness. If God withdraws and become unfaithful because we are unfaithful, He will deny Himself the fulfilment of His promises, accomplishment of His Assignment, or the execution of His mandates.
But God cannot deny Himself any of that hence either calling us to order or replacing us with someone who will be faithful to continue the job. That brings us to the life of David.
The Bible said God replaced Saul with David because David was found with a better heart than that of Saul.
DAVID HAD A HEART THAT WAS AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART. NOT EVERYONE CAN HAVE SUCH A HEART.
The Bible says;
“After that He gave them judges for about four hundred and fifty years, until Samuel the prophet.
And afterward they asked for a king; so God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of Benjamin, for forty years.
And when He had removed him, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.’
From this man’s seed, according to the promise, God raised up for Israel a Savior—Jesus Acts 13:20-23 NKJV
This scripture made it clear that David became Saul’s replacement because of the state of His heart. That was why He only failed God once, and that was in the case of Uriah’s wife Beersheba.
This scripture further reveals what the initial intentions of GOD for Saul were. His intentions, call upon Saul, or assignment was for Saul to birth a lineage that will bring forth the Messiah. But he could not because his heart was not after God, hence his replacement.
God replaced Him because God was committed to His assignment.
So we see a replacement in the case of Saul and a call to order in the case of Abraham. Saul was replaced after God’s attempts to use Samuel to call him to order failed to secure a listening ear.
God ‘s miracles that are conditioned on His faithfulness would later break out in the life of David after he became Saul’s replacement, namely the killing of the giant, the killing of the lion and the bear and other victories David saw in battle.
OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT CONTAIN THE VERY WORDS DAVID USED IN CAPTURING ALL THAT GOD DID IN AND THROUGH HIS LIFE BECAUSE OF HIS FAITHFULNESS.
It says;
“In my distress I called to the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From his temple he heard my voice; my cry came before him, into his ears.
The earth trembled and quaked, and the foundations of the mountains shook; they trembled because he was angry. Smoke rose from his nostrils; consuming fire came from his mouth, burning coals blazed out of it.
He parted the heavens and came down; dark clouds were under his feet. He mounted the cherubim and flew; he soared on the wings of the wind. He made darkness his covering, his canopy around him— the dark rain clouds of the sky.
Out of the brightness of his presence clouds advanced, with hailstones and bolts of lightning. The LORD thundered from heaven; the voice of the Most High resounded.
He shot his arrows and scattered the enemy, with great bolts of lightning he routed them.” Psalm 18:6-14 NKJV
The life of David teaches that men and women whose hearts are not after fame, money, attention, or any other earthly thing, are the best weapons in God’s hands. If they become battle weary or unfaithful in terms of moral uprightness, God will strengthen them or call them to order by transforming their moral nature, He will never replace them.
The heart of the matter is always the heart not the head. It may be easy to find someone who look like a morally upright person in Church but it is always difficult to find one whose heat is truly after God’s heart because many of us are merely hypocrites.
This end time will witness a lot of miracles by God’s faithfulness.
The reason is because of the critical end time assignments that will be committed to kingdom men and women. Loyal hearts will be needed. The Bible spoke about great signs and wonders that GOD will do to wrap up the sin age.
It is my prayer that you be part of the prophecy in Jesus precious name. Amen!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.
Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.
And everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the LORD has said, even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.” Joel 2:28-32 NKJV