31/01/2019
A song writer once said;
“Count your blessings name them one by one. Count your blessings see what God has done. Count your blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the LORD has done”
Indeed, if each one of us will sit down to count as the song says, it will change one’s perspective irrespective of what we may be going through now. God is real and great! Indeed, blessed is the man who strength is the LORD; who sets his heart on pilgrimage.
God in His mercies rescued us from sin and set our hearts on Heavenly pilgrimage. People who set their hearts on Heavenly pilgrimage walk in prepared paths in Christ Jesus – they see the finished works of Christ manifesting in their lives. That is our testimony!
This morning there is a word for us from the LORD. You see when the Bible says in Genesis 2 that GOD finished His works and rested, He truly rested and has not done anything else since then. The Only thing He has been doing since then is the ex*****on of His redemption plan for mankind. The beauty is that, even that has been completed. It was completed with the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Our Job is just to step into it and experience the blessing.
Friend, there is something many do not know about God! God finishes before He starts.
HE OPERATES THE EARTH IN A PRE PLAN SYSTEM. A FINISHED-WORKS SYSTEM!
In prophetic sense, if you want to experience Him and His marvelous works in your life, GOD will not need to do anything new. You are the one to do something new - something you have never done; something new. And that thing is leaving your own ways and stepping into His ways! The Bible 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
The first thing this scripture presents is the solution to whatever mankind (we all) may be going through - the solution to a life of poverty and reproach, hardship and toiling, sicknesses and diseases, spiritual attacks and pains, curses and sinful living etc.! It presents the solution to premature deaths, marital crisis, career crisis, Child rearing troubles, criminalities etc.
No matter what you may be going through, the solution lies in the scripture. It made so many things clear. It presents a walk in God’s finished works (ways and Old paths) as the key to turning our lives around. When we walk in God’s ancient paths, we enjoy His ancient miracles.
In other words, the things He did in Egypt and in the lives of those who lived in Bible days can be repeated in our lives if we walk in the very paths, they walked in.
Let me reiterate again that God does not do new things to fix lives. He has finished His works both at creation and on the cross. The last words of Jesus before He died where “It is finished” not “I am finished. “Everything is finished. There is nothing else left to be done!
No matter how much your life has been battered and you pray about it, He will not do a new thing to fix it. He has already done everything to fix it. They are contained in His pre-planned system. He will only send His Spirit and servants to help you locate that system and push you into it. If you do, your life will change! His pre-planned system is called His ways, plans, and Old paths.
The Bible says that is where the good way is – that is where rest lies. If you find it and walk in it, no matter the kind of devils that may be on your case, you will find rest for your soul.
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
THE SPIRITUAL POSITION RESPONSIBLE FOR MAN’S PREDICAMENT
Every human on earth is operating a spiritual position. The lost and the saved, the Christian and the Muslim, the Buddhists and the Hindus, the atheist and the freemasons, the animist and he who have no religion – everyone on the face of the earth is operating in a spiritual position – a way that seems right to their eyes. And the Bible says;
“There is a way that seems right to a man and appears straight before him, but at the end of it is the way of death.” Proverbs 16:25 AMP
That is why death has been on the paths of mankind. We follow ways that seems right to us and end up in terrible circumstances that sometimes lack redemption. In following ways that seem right to us we are telling the true God who was made manifest in Christ Jesus “we will not walk in your ways.”
Not walking in His ways is spending your days outside His finished works – things that were finished for your life both at creation and on the cross. And the Bible is so clear that if we spend our days outside His ways and Old paths, we will never find rest for our souls.
If you therefore see anyone who is suffering from any attacks of the devil, someone trapped in sin, sickness, financial difficulties and sorrows, going through one hard life or the other, you have found someone who may be walking in his own ways. There can be no rest for our souls in paths full of our own ways.
Rest can only be found for a troubled soul in God’s pre-planned operation system – a system that does not do new things in a man’s life; a system that only gets what God has finished from the foundation of the world done in a man’s life.
That is why a genuine preacher will not ask you to give him or her some money to solve your problems. Neither will he ask that you use water, Oil, mustard seed, incense or candles to pray and chase the devils out of your life. He knows it is heretic. Only false preachers do all these and even more. A genuine preacher will push you into the pre-planned program of God for your life to find rest for your soul and then train you to spend your days serving your generation according to the will of GOD!
THAT BRINGS US TO OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT FOR TODAY!
There is an Old path contain in it! You cannot serve your generation according to the will of God without walking in it. That was the paths that our father Abraham in the Old Testament and the apostles in the new walked it. It was the very way Jesus came to show and establish our feet on. Until we uncover and walk in it, we will never find rest for our souls.
Our devotional text says;
“Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart is set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring; the rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.” Psalms 84:5-7 NKJV.
That Old path is the path of spending your days on earth on Heavenly pilgrimage under the LORDSHIP of Jesus Christ – king of kings and LORD of lords. It is the path of knowing that you are a pilgrim on earth – a temporary resident. It tells you to make Jesus your LORD and savior and lead a Holy Spirit guided and fashioned life until your time on earth is over.
Our father Abraham followed this path under the lordship of the pre-incarnate Christ. The Bible made it clear that he spent his days waiting for the City which has foundation, whose maker and builder is God. That is the Heavenly City my friend.
If you read the Holy Scriptures further, you will find out that because of this faith position, Abraham spent his entire days setting his heart on pilgrimage, passing through the valleys of Baca or weeping and turning them into springs or pools of blessing. He went from strength to strength and became a father of many nations. Our lives will not be less fulfilled If we do the same paths!
Heaven is the best place to fix your eyes on while living on the earth. The reasons are obvious. That is where we came from and that is where we are going back to. We came from God and are going back to Him. So, its best we spend our days on earth with our eyes on where we will go when we die. Life in Heaven is part of the ages to come. And there are powers of the ages to come.
One major way we connect those powers is by doing just that – living a life of Heavenly pilgrimage on earth. When we connect the powers of the ages to come, it will generate so much supernatural forces in our lives that will make it impossible for shame, reproach, hardship, sin, pain, marital or financial crisis to chain us down. We will just find rest for our souls!
May God use these words to brighten up your day even as we say goodbye to the first month of our year of going forward! AMEN
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Hebrews 11:8-10 NKJV