Act on the Promises

Transcript

Good morning and greetings in Jesus’ name

Welcome to this amazing new day. Welcome to every beautiful and blessed plan that the Lord has prepared for you. He has not purposed for you to fail. He has not purposed for you to end up in destruction. He has planned your victory even before you were born. He has planned your future to be a blessing even before you did anything to deserve it.

Let me read out a scripture from 1 Chronicles, Chapter 27 and verse 23

The Bible says, and David had not taken up their number from a son of twenty years and under, for Jehovah said to multiple Israel as the stars of the heavens.

So, this is talking about a time when David was taking up the census over the entire nation of Israel. And the one group of people that he excluded from that count is those that were twenty years or less than twenty. And the reason the Bible says is because God had promised to this nation that “I’m going to multiply the children of Israel as the stars of heavens”. Can you imagine trying to count the stars that are in the heavens? The more you count the more you discover. With all the technology that we have today, with all the advancement in astronomy, the scientists and observers are still trying to figure out how many stars or planets or galaxies are out there. And they’ve still not been able to see the full extend of all the universe – forget about trying to count it, they’ve not even been able to see everything. And that was the promise upon the nation of Israel – that the children of Israel are going to be as numerous as the stars of the heavens. And now here is David, he is trying to take a census and purpose is probably he wants to know how many people can fight, how many people can really work, how many people can provide for the nation, how many people can pay taxes – all those things may be running in the back of his head when he is asking for this census. And yet when it came to those that were under twenty, he said that I don’t want to count them because of this promise that God has given us.

This is not even a promise God gave to David. God gave this promise to Abraham, the forefather of the nation of Israel. Now David, he refrains or restrains, he limits what he wanted to know, what he wanted to do because of a promise that God had spoken over the nation. And I’m sure each and every one of us have promises, have declarations, have so many faith statements that we’ve clung on to. But the real question is, when you have to make practical decisions and choices and do things that are going to affect your daily living – some of you may be at the verge of making a financial decision, someone else maybe at the verge of making an academic choice, someone else may want to take a decision in terms of what kind of ministry the Lord is calling you to – but the real question here is are you mindful of what God has promised over your life? Do you also calculate everything that God has planned to bless you with? Do you also calculate all those blessing the Lord will pour into your life?

One of the best ways to check you heart and check your choices and decisions is to take out the prophecies and declarations or the promises the Lord has given you; out of the equation and see if the choices would look any different, see if your decisions would be any different. And if you’re going to do the same thing without the promises and if you’re going to do the same thing with the promises of God, then I think those prophecies, those declarations, those blessings that God has promised to you is not making any practical difference in your life. It is not helping you to live for the Lord, it is not affecting your life here on the earth, it is not affecting your marriage or your children or your finances or your career – and that is a big problem. Because we may think that we believe what God has spoken to us but we’re not living a life that is in alignment with our belief system. Our belief is only in our head and very distant from the realities we’re living in every day.

Here David, he could have said “this is a promise given to Abraham, it was centuries ago”, “I don’t know if Lord really still wants to do it today”; he could’ve had numerous reasons why he can overlook that one particular promise God has given to the nation of Israel. And yet to chose to value, he chose to honour, he chose to celebrate, he chose to infact restrain himself, build a boundary around himself so that those promises of God can be acknowledged and honoured when he is taking up the census.

My prayer is that today the Lord will remind you of prophecies of faith declarations, of promises that have been spoken over your life. Some of them you may not remember, but your parents may remember. You may not remember, but your children or your spouse may remember. You may not remember, but you pastor or your prophet or your leaders may remember. I want you to go and search out those things that the Lord has promised concerning your marriage, concerning your finances, concerning your businesses and begin to make life choices. Change your choices, change your decisions in accordance to the promises that God has spoken over your life. Change your lifestyle to accommodate what God has spoken, what God has promised. And I believe the Lord is about to bring certain promises to its fulfilment in the next season. But it requires somebody who will actively participate and actively partner with the work of God here on the earth. And I believe it’s going to be you. Let’s pray together

Father we thank You for this revelation, we thank You for speaking to us and we thank You for showing us how we need to act out in accordance to the promises that You’ve given us. To really believe it, to really restrict ourselves or change our choices based on what You have promised us. We yield ourselves completely to you. In Jesus name we pray, Amen