Wednesday 27th March 2019 Prayer Devotion
Scripture Reading:- Judges 7:1-25
Topic:- What God Abhors [1]
Text:- Judges 7:1-2
By Gbile Akanni:
I remember many years ago, I was crying to God for anointing. I had contracted a burden for God to revive His Church. I used to ask, “Is it impossible, O God, for You to raise men in our land who will teach and get Your people back on their knees?”
After many years of such praying when I thought God was already pleased with my life, I was praying again when He said something that baffled me . . .
He said, “Yes, I have heard you and I will use you, but I’m reluctant yet because I abhor betrayal of trust. I have put my power in the hands of many people before you but they have betrayed my trust. Even if I will use you, I will first of all test you by putting you on probation.”
After twelve years of continual preaching from one village to another; from one meeting, one conference, one campus . . . to another, I was praying again one day when God said: “In the past twelve years, you have been on probation. I am beginning now to think of trusting you.”
I was taken aback. I said, “You mean for twelve years You have just been watching me? With all the preaching and traveling, I have been on probation?” Then I discovered that many times, what makes God to withdraw from committing Himself to a man is not just what that man has already done or what he is currently doing but what he is likely to do in the near or distant future.
So when I ask you to pray, I am not just asking you to think of the mistakes of your past. Yes, you have to cry to God and ask for forgiveness even for those ones. But I want you to go beyond that. I want you to say something like this . .
“God, I don’t know myself. I don’t know those things that have been planted in my life which have not yet manifested today, but may manifest in the future. LORD, please, point at them and help me to uproot them that I may become useful in Your hand, in the name of Jesus.”
When God desires to use a man, the crucial thing He checks again and again is the quality and condition of heart that that man carries. He must test and examine the disposition of that heart in many and diverse situations of life. He does not trust a life until He can trust his heart. So, if you want to commend yourself to God, what you must first check and work upon, is the integrity of your heart.
Prayer Points:-
1. Lord, prepare me, a sanctuary, pure and holy, tried and true, with thanksgiving, I will be a living, sanctuary, for You, in the name of Jesus Christ.
2. Oh Lord God, I surrender to Your total will for my life, revealed myself to me that I may follow You intimately henceforth, in the name of Jesus Christ.
3. Oh Lord God, Your standard for me is to make heaven and reign with You in Your kingdom at the end of my life, help me by Your grace and fire, in the name of Jesus Christ.
Happy Mid-Week!
