Harvest of Righteousness

Friday 15 April
READ: Heb. 12:5-11
MORE LESSON: Prov.29:15

As a young man in secondary school, I never liked to hear the word “discipline” because usually it was used when you were to undergo punishment for an offence. You were disciplined with six or twelve strokes of the cane on your buttocks. You could also be asked to kneel down and raise your hands in the air for one hour, or to cut grass. At home, discipline was also not different. It was either you were deprived of your dinner or made to kneel down facing the wall, or forced to sit down inside the house while your mates played outside.
When I first read today’s Scripture passage some years ago, I was not comfortable that such a word is written in the Bible because of my concept of discipline. How can it be that the one whom God loves He chastises (disciplines)? Those who discipline us are never our friends, and we run away from them because we think they don't love us. If God will also punish me, why should I endure it and see Him as my Father? But with maturity and better understanding, I have come to appreciate this scripture and to understand that discipline is actually meant to make you conform to an order that will make your life meaningful. The rod was to drive away the “foolishness” that is bound in the heart of a child (Prov.22:15) so that wisdom can have room to thrive in the child. Discipline is meant to inculcate a behavioural pattern that will make you a better person to society and humanity in general. I have also come to know that those who disciplined us when we were young actually wanted the best of us to come to limelight. They did so because they believed in us and truly loved us. When you refuse discipline, you deny yourself of a training process. I believe that those who are robbers, vandals and perpetuators of violence on our streets today were either not disciplined (corrected, chastised) when they were young, tender and malleable, or that they did not take to discipline. Hence, they are what they are today.
God's chastisement is much more encompassing. The passage we read says: Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it : Heb 12:10 -11 (NIV). Note the following benefits of discipline from the passage and keep them in memory for life: 1) God's chastisement makes you share in His holiness. 2) It is a training that produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for you. Will you still resist discipline today?

Prayer/Action
* Lord, please forgive me of the sin of hatred towards those who disciplined me in time past and bless them.
* Lord, do not hold back Your discipline from me; help me to respond appropriately to Your discipline.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
Father, in Your mercy today, deliver me from indebtedness, in the mighty name of Jesus.

Covenant Advantage II

Sunday 10 April
READ: I Peter 1: 3 - 4
MORE LESSON: Eph 1:2-3

For every covenant, there is an advantage. Men in the Old Testament walked in covenant with God and they enjoyed the advantages. In the New Testament, we have a higher covenant of redemption where God has given up His only begotten Son to establish the plan of salvation for mankind. This covenant brings us into a more favourable position. It brings gain and benefits for man and brings man into God's own class. So the New Covenant is bringing God’s plan for man into eternal inheritance with Him, if man will accept the offer of His Son. Jesus said, You must be born again: Jn. 3:3. For man to access the eternal covenant, he must accept Jesus as his Lord and Saviour; and to such is given the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name (Jn. 1:12).
The covenant inheritance that God promised man can only be accessed through Christ Jesus. You need to become a child of God to enjoy the benefits of the covenants God has made with mankind. The Scripture says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you: I Pet. 1:3-4. Beloved, the hope of living again after this world is by the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And we who believe Jesus will be woken up into a special type of inheritance in Christ Jesus, which is quite different from every earthly possession and inheritance.
Apostle Peter described the inheritance we have in God through the Lord Jesus as “incorruptible” . This means that the advantage we have through the covenant of grace and redemption is uncontaminated, contains no error and can never be corrupted because it is reserved where moth and rust do not exist. It is also “undefiled”. This means that what we get in return for surrendering our life to Christ and by abiding by the terms of the covenant cannot be made filthy or dirty or polluted; it maintains its value and quality. It is also described as that which does not fade away. Our inheritance by the covenant does not lose colour or brilliance, freshness or strength and does not disappear or die slowly or vanish. Dearly beloved, you can see that the heavenly inheritance is far superior to the earthly one. So, nothing on earth is worth going to hell for. Remain in the covenant and enjoy its benefits eternally. The covenant puts a man in a vantage position in every of God's allocation. Remember, God is a covenant keeping God; He will never break His covenant with you.

Prayer/Action
* Father, thank You for bringing me into a covenant relationship with You.
* I receive the grace to fulfil the terms of the covenant and enjoy its benefits forever, in Jesus' name.
* There is an eternal inheritance reserved in Heaven for me.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
I decree every satanic baggage that has made my journey in life tough to be consumed by fire, in the name of Jesus.

Covenant Advantage 1

Saturday 9 April
READ: Gen. 17:1-9
MORE LESSON: Gal. 3:18

Every agreement made is for a purpose, whether it is between man and man or between man and God. Whenever the greater enters into an agreement with the lesser, it is for a particular advantage. It could be for protection, increment or blessing. Whenever the lesser goes into a covenant agreement with the greater, the lesser is lifted. A covenant puts you on the same platform with the person you have made the covenant with. This is the reason why when God wants to bless men, He cuts covenant with them. Looking through the Bible, both in the Old Testament and New Testament, we see time and again God entering into agreements with His children. We see God giving a blessing with a condition, and there are several of such covenants in the Old Testament.
The first is the covenant of Eden where God asked man for one thing-obedience. The Edenic Covenant is a pre-fall agreement between God and man, where Adam was promised blessings if he would comply with the terms of the covenant. This is expressed in Gen 2:15, Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. God gave Adam the blessing of everything on the earth but Adam broke the terms of the covenant. God had to look for another means of entering into another covenant with another generation. Remember that for every man that God enters into a covenant with, there is an advantage he enjoys.
God located Abraham and made a covenant with him, And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly: Gen 17:2. Abraham kept the covenant of circumcision and was willing to sacrifice his only beloved son as an expression of his loyalty to God's covenant. This is the reason he became so great and exalted today among all peoples. I call on you to walk in a covenant relationship with God and partake of the advantage in it. The highest covenant you can partake in is the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. The New Covenant is the basis for all biblical covenants that God made with individuals like Noah, Abraham, David and so it is superior to them all . The New Covenant is designed to bring man into a restored relationship with God through the death of Christ and obedience to God's Word. It is time for you to stick with the New Covenant in Jesus Christ and begin to enjoy all the advantages in it.

Prayer/Action
* Pray that the covenant of God will speak for you in every area of life.
* Pray for the grace to be faithful to the terms of God's covenant.
* Ask for the covenant advantage to distinguish you in destiny.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
Father, today, turn every wilderness in my life to a stream of waters and my dry land into springs of water.

Pleasant Places

Friday 8 April
READ: Psa. 16:1-6
MORE LESSON: Psa. 78:53-55

Today's reading is a psalm of great encouragement to the saints of God. The saint of God is the one who has believed and received the Son of God and is following Him (Jn.1:12). To such people the Lord gives them the experience of pleasant places in all vocations and endeavours of life. Another version puts Psa.16:6 this way: Fair places are marked out for me, I have a noble heritage. God marks out specific places for His children. These are ordained, appointed, set out places and in such places His children thrive and flourish. Even if it is in the desert, when God is the one who marked the place for you, prosperity will locate you there. If you want to be successful, happy, joyful and fulfilled, locate God's marked place for your life.
There are several reasons why men fail and do not have the experience of pleasant places.
1.) When you are not in God's marked place for you; labouring in another man's field brings no harvest. Locate your field.
2.) Laziness can make a man miss pleasant places experience, Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come as one that travelled, and thy want as an armed man: Prov.6:10-11. Sometimes laziness has a spiritual root. The force of the evil one must be broken in order to come out of apathy, drowsiness and laziness.
3.) Pleasant places can also be missed because of ignorance of what is yours, what to do and how to do it. You must know what is marked for you as your portion and go for it, The Lord shall open unto you His good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand; and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow: Deut.28:12. God has a good treasure for you; pray that your eyes will be opened to it. Take your place by knowledge; no man is greater than what he knows. Add value to your life by self- development, train up and increase your capacity.
4.) Pleasant places can be missed because of wrong company (I Cor. 15:33).
5.) Pleasant places can be missed by refusing to seek the Lord. Seeking the Lord brings a man into the experience of pleasant places, And he sought God in the days of Zechariah, who had understanding in the visions of God; and as long as he sought the Lord, God made him to prosper: II Chron.26:5. Here is a king who was just sixteen years of age but entered into the experience of pleasant places because he sought the LORD. Seeking the Lord gets God to work for you in this world and you enter into pleasantness effortlessly.

Prayer/Action
* Lord, let the lines fall unto me in pleasant places and give me a good portion.
* I reject the attitude of laziness, drowsiness, etc that makes me miss my pleasant places.

PROPHETIC PRAYER
Agents of spiritual slumber and compromise, get out of my life now, in the name of Jesus.