Open Heaven 17 April 2023 TOPIC — Destiny Destroyers: Self-Justification
MEMORISE: “For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.” – 2 Corinthians 10:18 (KJV)
READ: John 9:40-41 (KJV)
40 And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these words, and said unto him, Are we blind also?
41 Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth.
BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: 1 Kings 21-22
MESSAGE:
Many a time, people have something in their lives that they know is wrong, but say, “It’s not too bad”. By the time you say it is not too bad, it means it’s already bad; you are just looking for an adjective to qualify ‘bad’.
In Genesis 9:20-25, Noah – that great man of God who survived the flood, must have had a habit of drinking just a little wine occasionally. Not too bad, right? However, one day, he took one cup too many and became drunk. When he woke up, he pronounced a curse on one of his three sons, saying he would become a servant of servants. He cursed his own legacy. Worse still is the second man with this same habit – Lot. In Genesis 19:30-38; Lot had just been rescued from destruction, but he too had the habit of taking just a little wine occasionally. His two daughters got him drunk and made him sleep with them one after the other and he produced children by them. When you go through the Scriptures to see these two families that he produced, you wouldn’t want to end up like them. One set were the Moabites (Genesis 19:37) and the second were the Ammonites – a people so terrible that they ripped open a pregnant woman (Amos 1:13). See what God had to say about them in Zephaniah 2:9:
Therefore as I live, saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, Surely Moab shall be as Sodom, and the children of Ammon as Gomorrah, even the breeding of nettles and saltpits, and a perpetual desolation: the residue of my people shall spoil them, and the remnant of my people shall possess them.
All these happened because Lot decided to drink just a ‘little wine’. Stop indulging your bad habits; stop justifying your evil actions. Don’t indulge in anything that is bad at all. Abstain from anything that does not glorify the Lord. Only then can your destiny really be secure in Christ. For some, it is secular music or unnecessary closeness to people of the opposite sex. That is all the devil needs to get you into fornication. Song of Solomon 2:15 says, “Take us the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vines: for our vines have tender grapes.”
PRAYER POINT:
Father, any little fox that can spoil my vine, please remove it now, in Jesus’ name.
HYMN 4: Be Glad In The Lord And Rejoice
1 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
All ye that are upright in heart;
And ye that have made Him your choice,
Bid sadness and sorrow depart.
REFRAIN:
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice!
2 Be joyful, for He is the Lord,
On earth and in heaven supreme;
He fashions and rules by His word;
The Mighty and strong to redeem.
3 What though in the conflict for right,
Your enemies almost prevail,
God’s armies, just hid from your sight,
Are more than the foes which assail.
4 Though darkness surround you by day,
Your sky by the night be o’ercast,
Let nothing your spirit dismay,
But trust till the danger is past.
5 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice,
His praises proclaiming in song;
With harp and with organ and voice,
The loud hallelujahs prolong!
