Knowledge of The Future Is Not Our Guide; Let God Guide You

I don't know if you have noticed but the desire to know the future is getting stronger than ever before even amongst believers and people are consistently being ripped-off and destinies are being destroyed for this reason. As with the current trend in life of getting everything instantly, we also have a problem of not wanting to "wait on God"anymore. We want everything so fast that God had better say everything about the future at the point we need the information and He had better be fast about saying it. We have forgotten that waiting on God is also an indication of the fact that we look to Him as children waiting on their master which said act reminds us of who we are and how much we need or are dependent on Him. Again, who knows, maybe we just don't want to be dependent on any other being anymore because we feel more powerful when we feel we are self-reliant.

Psalm 123: 2 "We keep looking to the LORD our God for his mercy, just as servants keep their eyes on their master, as a slave girl watches her mistress for the slightest signal."

This seeming impatience which is actually one of the devices of the enemy to ruin our lives, has become the downfall of several believers today. I don't know about your area but in my geographical location, it honestly is. Believers now go from place to place, night vigil to night vigil, church to church seeking to know the future which has led many astray. I have seen the lives of many true believers destroyed for this reason; many have been deceived into accepting the voice of the stranger as the voice of God. What makes it really confusing is when one sees people who had known the voice of God and followed it deceived into following the voice of the stranger all because they were desperate to know the future. I accept that it will make life easier for everyone if we only know what to expect but God has not made it so. He says we only know in part. Moreover, we must always remember that our walk with God is a walk of faith. God has never deceived us about that. He wants us to trust Him, who knows everything, enough to place our life in His hands. If we know everything, it ceases to be a walk of faith? 

1 Corinthians 13: 9 "Now our knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture!"

2 Corinthians 5: 7 "For we live by believing and not by seeing."

Any prophet that pretends to have a full picture of your life is a liar. Please run away from him. If you give him money, you are not sowing a seed but paying a man to ruin your life. This craze for knowing the future is so strong that even the true servants of God who sit in the office of the Prophet are sometimes put under intense pressure to become fore tellers. Please do not let anyone use you in the way God has not ordained for you to be used. If you abuse your gift, the anger of God will be against you and it is not an excuse that some other people pressured you into doing the wrong thing. We just must stop looking for that which God has chosen not to reveal for a period and work with that which is revealed. I am certain that God will not withhold from us, any information we need to succeed. Moreover, the nearer we draw to God, effectively communicating with Him, the more information we are able to receive from God as to how to successfully go forward in life. 

Deuteronomy 29: 29 “The LORD our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions."

I honestly believe that if we effectively and fully work with the revealed things, we will fulfill our destinies. Unfortunately, instead of working with what is revealed, we waste our time and energy trying to get that tiny piece of the jigsaw that God has chosen to withhold and this has cost many their souls. There is no need to be so desperate to know everything when we walk with the one who knows it all and who will never leave us. As long as we are with Him, we are safe. He is the God who ensures that those who allow Him hold their hands, get to their predestined end. He never leaves us without that information we need to succeed which is why He says His sheep hear His voice because He leads them by His voice.

Call To Effective Prayer In These Perilous Times

There is no doubt that believers need to pray. Just learning from Jesus who gave Himself to prayer, the bible is replete with stories of Him going away to pray on several different occasions. I believe all these documented accounts are for our benefit - to provoke us to pray. Jesus Himself admonishes us to pray and never to get tired of praying. Indeed Jesus told the parable of the unjust judge just to let us know that heaven definitely does not mind hearing our voices as often as possible though some people would like to have us believe the opposite. Furthermore, the parable lets us know that it is not unusual or strange for a believer to get tired of praying when it appears the answers are not coming and He said we must not to give up even when we feel like doing so.

Luke 18: 1 "One day Jesus told his disciples a story to show that they should always pray and never give up."

One thing I can say for believers who reside in the same geographical location as I do, is that they pray. Apart from all the uncertainties and challenges we face that would make any normal person pray, in most pentecostal churches in our area, we are taught to pray and pray aggressively such that this spiritual exercise even takes on a very physical dimension. We totally shake our heads, bodies, clap our hands and so on. I guess satan knows from looking at us, that whilst the fight is spiritual, if he wanted to make it physical we won't be caught unprepared. Some of us even have mountain tops where we go to pray, just like Jesus did, ensuring that we are close enough to heaven as we possibly can get when we pray. Let me add please that a number of these people have had their prayers answered. So by all means, if any of these things I have described will help you, go ahead and do them. My intention is not demean any of them.

James 5: 16 "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results."

The real issue though is this - where are our hearts when we make these many prayers with all that physical intensity? What is the state of our hearts and how sincere are we? Please let me reiterate that I have no problems with all the physical expressions and/or manifestations, but is that physical intensity an expression of what is going on in inside you? Fervency in prayer has to begin on the inside and has a lot to do with the state of one's heart. At the risk of being accused of being judgmental, I would like you to honestly ask yourself if the heart with which you approached God has ruined your "fervent prayer" even while you were still physically fervent? Why do we want to waste all that physical energy when we know that nothing is happening in the spirit realm? It is time to be honest with ourselves as we come to the place of communion with God.

Luke 18: 11 "The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed this prayer: ‘I thank you, God, that I am not a sinner like everyone else. For I don’t cheat, I don’t sin, and I don’t commit adultery. I’m certainly not like that tax collector! I fast twice a week, and I give you a tenth of my income."

We have shared the parable of the Pharisee and the publican for so long that we seem to have lost the essence of it and started to act like the Pharisee ourselves. Remember the Pharisees prayer was ignored by God. His words gave expression to the state of His heart and God obviously despised what was revealed. We need to pray now more than ever before but please let us pray prayers that God would hear and be moved to answer. The world appears to be upside down; whilst it has been said that these are all signs of the end times, God's desire is that Jesus finds faith when He returns but if we continue like we are will He? I personally think it is time to be very serious and stop playing games. Unsuspecting Christians are captured and killed in various parts of the world; some are even beheaded: it will be sad if one believer was killed because our prayers were not effective and lacked the capacity to cause God to move to answer. My point is this, it is time to do all that we need to do to make our prayers effective.