LET ME NOT DEPART FROM YOU LORD
Proverbs 9

Proverbs 8:13, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.” Indeed, the identity of an evil one is to have no fear of God. How much of His fear do you carry in your life? The fear of God is way of life. “In the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge.” (Proverb 14:26) Confidence: to have a full trust; belief in the power of God or reliability on what God can do. Confidence is rooted in how we fear God. God is indeed a refuge; a strong and might tower for the ones who believe in Him. To fear God is to believe in God and to fear God is to serve Him. Search your heart and identify if the fear of God is actually in you. “The fear of the LORD is a fountain of life, to turn one away from the snares of death.” (Proverb 14:27) Evidently, not having the fear of the Lord is to be a living dead. How can a creature not fear His Creator? How often have you been in a creative position, but not having the needed patience, destroyed your creation to re-create because it did not come out the way you intended for it to come out? God is a good and exceedingly patient God who put everything in place for us not to die, but rather to have life in Jesus Christ. It is good to actually consider the way that leads to life. Proverbs 19:23, “The fear of the LORD leads to life, And he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.” There are different ways of living life but the way of God is to abide in satisfaction where lack is strange and the evil one is constantly being denied. Jesus Christ made us to realize that He is the only way to life when He stated in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” The only way is Jesus because inhabited in Him and to the ones that accept Him is the good way, truth and life. By this virtue, it can be concluded that it is wisdom to fear God and it is not enough to celebrate Him when there is no fear of Him. Proverbs 9: 10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” Only conscious foolish ones and unconscious foolish ones will want to leave life while living outside of the fear of God.
Prayer for today: Do not turn away from doing me good O Lord. I ask that You plant Your fear in my life so that I will not depart from You.

NO COMPLAIN 
Psalm 119:1-48

It is written, “We give thanks to You, O God, we give thanks! For Your wondrous works declare that Your name is near.” (Psalm 75:1) Testimonies of God are everywhere and the works of His hands are His testimonies. Looking around is evidently enough to be giving Him thanks and adoration. It is not the time of the year for rendering complain unto the name of God. Also, there is no time in time to be rendering unto Him complain. Acts of complaining are acts of self-destruction, and termination. Can you make sure that nothing is testifying against you before God? The children of Israel, due to their incessant complaining against what God was doing in their life, God responded in Numbers 14:22-23, “Because all these men who have seen My glory and the signs which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have put Me to the test now these ten times, and have not heeded My voice,  they certainly shall not see the land of which I swore to their fathers, nor shall any of those who rejected Me see it.” God promised to take them to the Promised Land. He showed them great and mighty signs in Egypt, and on their way out of Egypt. The signs and wonders of God are His testimonies. “The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.” (Psalm 19:8) His testimonies are more than enough to transport believers to the Promised Land. Are you constantly meditating on His testimonies? The Psalmist knew what he was doing by virtue of his confessions in Psalm 119:2, “Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, Psalm 119:14, I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies, As much as in all riches, Psalm 119:24, “Your testimonies also are my delight and my counselors, Psalm 119:46, I will speak of Your testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. The testimonies of God are all the things that He has done, and the things that He is doing, and the ones He will do. His testimonies are worthy of mediation. What are the testimonies that you are carrying? What are the testimonies of your heart? The testimonies of God provoke faith. Hebrew 11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Let today be your day of meditating on the testimonies of God. How can we explain it? A journey of 11 days went for 40 years. Fear God and you will not fail.

Prayer for today: Return, O Lord my God, deliver me! Save me Lord for your mercies’ sake!

FOUR DAYS LATE
John 11:1- 44

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”(John 11:25-26) Jesus’ statement is a known truth and not just a truth to only know about. Whatever truth you know is the one you have received. What you receive is what you will believe. What you believe will determine what you become. Jesus made the above statement when he found out that Lazarus was dead and had been in the tomb for four days. Martha approached Jesus trying to remind Jesus that the power of resurrection is limited to only the last day when she said, “…I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”(John 11:24) It does not matter when and what has been pronounced dead in your life because resurrection is not limited to the last day. Jesus paid it all on the Cross of Calvary! All that Jesus asks for is to believe what He has come to offer us. After Martha had listened to hear what Jesus had to say, she received, believed and acted on the Word and the Bible says, “…she went her way and secretly called Mary her sister, saying, ’The Teacher has come and is calling for you.’ As soon as she heard that, she arose quickly and came to Him.” (John 11:28-29) Today Jesus is still in the business of resurrecting what the enemy has interrupted with death. Jesus is still in the business of reversing all that the enemy turned to be irreversible in your life. Jesus will uproot and terminate all that the enemy has planted to terminate and destroy your life. Jesus said that He is the resurrection and life because resurrection and life is a combination of the purpose of His agenda. Without His resurrection, there would have been no life. Also, the life He came to give is life with abundance. Jesus approached the tomb and commanded the stone to be taken away not because He could not have commanded the stone to roll, but He wanted them to do their part which was to believe. Right after giving the command, “Jesus said to her, ’Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?’ Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying…” (John 11:40-41) Do you have any stumbling stone that is denying your resurrection? If you will raise your faith, you will resurrect from the grip of the wicked. Faith is the cause: works are the effect. Work the Word by believing and you will come forth like Lazarus did when Mary and Martha worked the Word.

Prayer for today: Deliver me in Your righteousness and cause me to escape; incline Your ear to me and save me in Jesus name.

ARE YOU HIS PEOPLE?
Exodus 8

When it was time for God to bring the children of Israel out of the bondage of over four hundred years, His acts of protecting His people were profoundly glaring. In the whole land of Egypt, Goshen, the place where His people were inhabited, was protected from ever destruction of plague. Exodus 3:22-24, “And in that day I will set apart the land of Goshen, in which My people dwell, that no swarms of flies shall be there, in order that you may know that I am the LORD in the midst of the land. I will make a difference between My people and your people. Tomorrow this sign shall be. And the Lord did so…” God alone is God and He will do what He says He will do. All through the time of plague, His people did not suffer because He made a difference between them and Egyptians just like He promised. The same God then is still the same God today and He is still making difference between His people and the people of hard heart. You need to sincerely ask yourself if you are one of His people. Are you His people? That been said, you might be interested to know if your church going or your knowledge about the Bible is enough to qualify you as one of His people. Who are His people? Psalm 149:4, “For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the humble with salvation.” Evidently, taking pleasure in His people is separating them from eminent danger or destruction like He did for the children of Israel during the plagues that forced Pharaoh to let them go and serve. Psalm 147:11, “For the LORD takes pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy...” Without any iota of doubt, His people who He separates are His people and they are the ones He takes pleasure in. Clearly, the psalmist has now made us realize that the ones who God takes pleasure in are the ones who fear Him; they are the ones who are qualified as His people. Do you have the fear of God? Having the fear of God is not attainable through determination because determination will fail. It failed Peter when he denied Jesus three times. (Matthew 26:69-75) Do you desire to fear God? When you desire to fear God, He will deposit it in you. He is a good God and will not force Himself on us. God promised in Jeremiah 32:40, “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from doing them good; but I will put My fear in their hearts so that they will not depart from Me.” God wants to make a difference between us and the ones who are not for Him.

Prayer for today: Lord, deposit Your fear in me and let me not depart from You. Let Your fear overtake my life. 

LORD HAS THE FINAL SAY
Exodus 1, 2

Whatever the enemy has put in place to break you, God is not limited from using it to make you. The Bible records that a new king came to power in Egypt who did not know Joseph. The king not knowing Joseph inculcated inside of him the fear of the growth of the children of Israel’s population. As a result of fear, he devised and passed a law that put the children of Israel under the affliction of taskmasters. What God builds, no man can put it down. Pharaoh’s effort to terminate the growth of the children of Israel by increasing their affliction resulted in their multiplication. The appointed taskmasters’ effort failed and the direction to midwives to kill every male son did not reduce nor deny what God had in plan for the children of Israel. Indeed, God is true to preserve and deliver His own. Are you one of God’s own? How you live the life that He has given you is a determinant to your preservation and deliverance. Pharaoh, having tried what he knew to reduce where God is increasing made a new command, “So Pharaoh commanded all his people, saying, ‘Every son who is born you shall cast into the river, and every daughter you shall save alive.’” (Exodus 1:22) It was after this new command to terminate the growth of the children of Israel that Moses was born. Despite the wicked agenda of Pharaoh, the birth of Moses was not accidental and it was in due season. Instead of Moses being turned in to the law for execution through drowning in the river as commanded by Pharaoh, his parents chose the same river as his deliverance route. At a certain time after he was born, “…when she could no longer hide him, she took an ark of bulrushes for him, daubed it with asphalt and pitch, put the child in it, and laid it in the reeds by the river’s bank.” (Exodus 2:3) It was in the same water that Moses was picked up by the daughter of the chief commander Pharaoh. Evidently, it was God at work that delivered and preserved Moses for his divine assignment. The command to die in the river could not touch Moses in the river. Pharaoh did not only fail to kill Moses but rather passed to raise him up and make him ready for God’s glory. Moses, who was to be dead by water, was saved through the water and the one that passed the law also named him saying, “Because I drawn him out of the water.” (Exodus 2:10) All that the enemy has set to use in breaking you will rather make you. Every hand that has gone out to destroy you will rather deliver you for the glory of God. God alone will always have the final say.

Prayer for today: In every area of my life Father, cause Your will to have its way in my life.