What you should not do
when you receive a promise from God
As children of God, God loves us and gives us promises because the thoughts he has for us are of good and not of evil to give to us an expected end (Jer 29:11). This is something that we know as believers. We are sometimes eager to get God's promises, we are quick to receive good prophecies with our hands wide open but there are certain things that we should be careful about so as not to delay or hinder that promise, we will be looking at some of them below.
1. Don't be complacent: Don't feel you have arrived when you have not, whenever you receive the promise of God, you have a responsibility to stand up in the place of prayer, don't assume it is done and dusted, when Daniel read and understood that the number of years told them by the prophet that they would spend in desolation was nearly approaching he stood in the place of prayer
(Dan 9:2-4) "In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
3 And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:
4 And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made my confession, and said, O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments"
This is not the time to fold your hands as believers, wake up to responsibility in the place of prayer and fasting, as we see in the case of Daniel he rose up in the place of prayer and even added fasting
2. Avoid Sin: The second thing to do is to avoid sin, sin can cost you your inheritance, for the Children of Israel during the time of Moses, God had Promised to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey but what happened a journey that was supposed to take them eleven days took them forty years just because they lived in sin, in that same Daniel 9 you will see from verse 5 that Daniel had to ask God for the forgiveness of sin because he was well aware that they had sinned and this can infact cause delay (Dan 9:5) "
5 We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from thy judgments". Daniel was very wise to have recognized that sin could be a cause for their delay and he didn't want to spend more years in captivity so he turned to God, if you know that your ways are not right with God even though you have received his promises don't be too proud to turn to him and ask for forgiveness, the bible says even though your sins are as red as scarlet he will make them as white as snow
3. Obey the instructions that comes with the promise: One thing is this God hates disobedience, he hates rebellion, disobedience was what caused Saul's untimely death, you have to do your best to carry out the instructions that God gives you along with the promise, every promise of God has an instruction, when God promised Abraham that he would give him children as much as the number of the stars there was a clause "If you obey me" for every promise there is an instruction, God can use his prophets to give you instructions make sure you carry out that instruction as seen in Dan 9 vs 6, Daniel pointed out something in that scripture (Dan 9:6) "Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land." Daniel was quick to point out that they did not obey the prophets, the prophets in those times were God's mouthpiece and if you did not obey them you did not obey God. Are you carrying out the instructions given to you by God concerning his promises? The instruction is not what brings the result but the obedience, when Naaman was told by Elisha to bath in the river Jordan seven times, it was not the river that would do the work of cleansing but his obedience.
When you observe to do these written above you are sure to see God move in your life in a way that will surprise you with a testimony.
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