GOD LEADS
Exodus 13:17-22

God alone is the Leading Leader who will not fail or abandon His own children in our time of challenging journey. God is the way and the truth that places those who go by His way on a right footing. When God leads, there is no shortcut or cutting short, but the journey can be shorter than expected when there is no rebellion and/or an act complaint. The children of Israel, coming out of bondage of over four hundred years, could not make their long journey short because of their rebellious act of complaint. Exodus 13:17, “Then it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, “Lest perhaps the people change their minds when they see war, and return to Egypt.” No matter how long a journey is or how challenging such journey can be, when you let God take the lead, the journey will eventually turn out to be like the shortest journey that has ever been made. When God decides to take you through a journey, any attempt to take a shortcut will eventually cause the one on the journey to be cut off short. That is to say: avoid a shortcut so that you will not end up being cut short and not get to the expected end. He that created the whole world that inhabits different ways and locations surely knows the way to avoid and the ways not to avoid. Why worry about how long the way ahead is going to be or worry about why you have been in the journey for what seems to be such a long way? Here with the children of Israel, God deliberately choose to lead the children of Israel in the way of life and not of war. No one among the children of Israel, not even Moses, could have seen the better way than the Only One who is called the Leading Leader and the Almighty God who never fails. When God took the leadership role concerning which way the children of Israel were to go, it was the longer road not the shorter one. It was a way that was to keep them from losing their mind by what they saw. God avoided the land of the Philistines that was near, “So God led the people around by way of the wilderness of the Red Sea. And the children of Israel went up in orderly ranks out of the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 13:18) God knows what He is doing concerning the journey you are in and concerning the challenges that seem to have no end in your life. Just because you know that He knows, you can consider your way safe and secure. Today, if you will learn from the children of Israel who left Egypt, you will know not to be rebellious in the way He is leading you or else you will be cut short from getting to the expected end just like those who left Egypt. Be content trusting God on your journey because it is well in the Name of Jesus.

BLESSING OF GOD
Joshua 14

Jesus Christ, the very love of God, came without any condition. He came in love for love that we may have life and have it through His salvation plan. The blessing of God is the one that came with the condition that has to be in place before the blessing is manifested. God will always give His word and back it up by bringing it to pass. This is what makes Him the One and only true God. After forty years, the plans of God were still pending for Joshua. Joshua 14:7 – “I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart.” Caleb had remained in the walk that he was walking before God gave His word of blessing to him. Before He promised to bless you, have you been taking a conscious step in the direction of His word while you are waiting for the blessing? Are you still walking His walk? Have you taken any step to violate His promise? Caleb did not digress but rather progressed in walking the walk that moved the hand of God to what was promised for him. When it was time for the manifestation of the promise of God for Caleb’s life, he was still walking in the center of God’s assignment for his life. Are you in the center of His assignment for your life? It is never too late to call on Him and ask for His mercy if you have stepped outside of His line that leads to the center of His blessings for your life. After forty years, His plan for Caleb did not change one bit. God and only God can be so perfectly constant and consistent in delivering all He has promised to do. God will not only bless, but His blessings always come without any iota of pain or regret. Proverbs 10:22, “The blessing of the LORD makes one to rich, and He adds no sorrow with it.” When it was time for Caleb to inherit and possess all that the Lord had promised him, he was as strong as he was when the promise was made mentioned by God. After forty years, Caleb was so sure of his strength that he testified, “As yet I am strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both going out and coming in.” (Joshua 14:11) After forty years, nothing was on ground to rob Caleb of the Lord’s promise of blessing neither was there any reason that made him to receive what the Lord had for him in pain and/or grief. The word of God is true and His promises always come without sorrow. Has the Lord promised and not yet done it in your life? He is a faithful God and He will never fail to deliver except there is a failure in your receiving department. Play your part and God will act His word and do His part.

TRUST NOT RUST
Joshua 14

Trust is easier said than done among the believers and non-believers. Trusting God is not to rush, but rather to rest on the promises of God that never fail. Trusting God in the absence of nothing can be challenging and trusting God when time is absolutely not on our side can be exhausting. Trusting on God for a way where there is no pathway can be exceedingly stressful. However, in the journey of life and through the wilderness of life, the only way out to the expected end is rooted in trusting God to show up at every juncture where there is no sign for survival. Caleb and Joshua were the only survivors among thousands of the children of Israel who left Egypt going towards the Promised Land. Both Caleb and Joshua were able to survive because they saw hope where there was no hope. They remembered what the Lord had done and that provoked in them what the Lord was and is capable of doing. As a result of their conviction, they took an odd stand among their brethren who failed to see hope. Purpose in your heart today that it will not matter if you are the only one who takes a stand, even among thousands, on the promises of God to bring to manifestation the Word of His mouth. Caleb stated in Joshua 14:7, “I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart.” In this statement of Caleb, it cannot be confused that trust is heart activated and mouth driven. Trust is not just a thing of the mouth, but it is also from the heart. If it is not rooted in the heart, it will not stand no matter how loud or consistent it is being voiced out. The people who went to spy the land with Caleb and Joshua failed to trust in the heart and did only from the mouth. Caleb testified, “Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God.” (Joshua 14:8) Trust will not only deliver needs, but it will also bring preservation that cannot be substituted in any way neither can it be compared in any form. Because he was able to trust, it became possible for Caleb to wait and not waste in the promises of God. He was kept by God based on the level of his trust in what God can do. Joshua 14:10, “And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the LORD spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old.” Caleb was able to testify to the grace of preservation because he trusted in God. There is no other way out to the expected end but only trusting in God. Until trusting God graduates from your mouth to the heart, you are only operating in your own understanding.

IN SEEING AND HERAING
Matthew 27:38-44

Functioning with a dull heart leads to nowhere but death in the physical and/or in the spiritual. Pharaoh, King of Egypt, did not operate from a wise heart. He saw all the moves of God’s hand yet he could not see through all for his people not to suffer untimely deaths. When you see your deliverance, will you not make a move in the direction for restoration? Matthew 13:15, “For the heart of the people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.” Most times what a man sees will determine what is received. What hearing brings forth also will determine its being received. The grace to become is in the ability to see, hear and to receive. Today, take a position to see or hear then receive the Word of God and believe it to become what the Lord wants for you. To reject the Word is to take a position of death. Jesus died for kingdom criminals (sinners) so that we all could become kingdom-bound. Many today continue to take the position of kingdom criminals because they cannot see or hear what Jesus came to say. Matthew 27:38, “Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left.” At the time He went to the cross, Jesus was positioned in the center of two criminals (sinners). The criminal on each side saw and heard what Jesus was representing in different ways and that determined what became of them. One of the criminals saw Him as a criminal like himself while the other heard and saw Him as one who could deliver Him and set Him free at the end of his race. The two criminals represent those who are seeing and hearing the Gospel and yet not receiving Him while the other criminal represents those who are seeing, hearing and receiving to become saved. All who have chosen not to accept Christ have taken a step in agreement with the criminal who refused to see and hear in order to receive Jesus and become heaven-bound. Which step have you been taken as a believer? To have heard and seen what the Gospel is about and yet walking in the way that seems right but is not the right way is a way to self-destruction. As there was no way for any of the two criminal to take a middle ground while they were on the cross with Him, then so there is no way for middle ground today. What is your decision? Jesus will come back and what you have seen and heard is what you have received and it will determine your belief. There is no faking or middle ground. Today, see, hear, receive, believe and become a Kingdom of God candidate.

DO NOT
Romans 12

Paul, the apostle, begged and appealed to the brethren when he wrote in Romans 12:1-2, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” The same word that Paul wrote to the brethren is still speaking to every believer today. Paul’s statement came in two parts that cannot be separated one from the other. Which of the two are you doing or paying attention to? Is it presenting yourself as a living sacrifice that you are paying attention to or is it avoiding to be conformed to this world? If a believer is presenting himself as a living sacrifice but having areas of conformity to the world, it will not add up. It adds up when a believer is able to present himself as a living sacrifice that is reasonable and that same believer is also not conforming to this world. Going to the place of worship, getting busy in the business of the church are not the only measures of what a reasonable service represents. Serving God requires giving it all to God and without giving it all, it will fall short of a reasonable service. Giving it all is a full obedience to the Word of God as commanded. If it were not possible to give all, God would not have required it for a reasonable service. Keeping malice, bitterness, anger, lying and deception are all ways of conforming to the world. To maintain good works will retain man from not being counted as one who conforms to this world. What part of this word is not understanding to every believer who has escaped the pollutions of this world? 2 Peter 2:20-21, “For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. 21 For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them.” There is no going back after having known Him as the Lord and Savior. All who have known Him and gone back into the world would have so much to answer for because Peter also made it clear when he stated that it would have been better not to have known the way than knowing the way and having fall back into the entrapments of the world. Where are you now in your walk with the Lord? Consider a reasonable service and do not to conform to this world. There is no turning back but the blessing is only in going forward. God will have mercy in Jesus name Amen.