Welcome to Day 2
Opening Prayer
Thank you Jesus for your love for us. Your love is larger than we can imagine. Your love is always exceeding our imagination. We are so precious to you that you bought us with your blood. Oh! What a price. We are not just any creature to you. You made us in your image and to be like you. Not only that, because of your love for us, you called us Son. We are not just any creature to you, you made us your son and now we can call you Father. You made us King and Priests to you because you love us. What shall separate us from your love? Nothing. Your blood redeemed us, your blood made us worthy. Your blood gave us access to the throne of Grace. Your blood separated us, set us apart. Thank you for the free access you have granted us to your mercy and grace, you said "come in, come and obtain mercy and receive grace to help you WHENEVER you need it" . Thank you because you are not that hard to find, you are not hard to please, you are not hard to know, you are not hard to relate to, you are always reaching out for us. Above all, thank you for your covenant of protection that you have made with us. You have built your wall around us, you have spread your wings to cover us, you have spread your banner of love over us, you have positioned us to be seated with you far above principalities and power, you have made us to be in the palms of your hands, you have made our walls to forever be before you; you have taken up the responsibility of protecting us. You never sleep nor slumber just because of us, Glory to your living name and living Word. We open our heart to see you, to learn from you, to hear from you tonight, every veil is taken away and we behold your love which cast out all fears in Jesus' name. Amen. Halleluyah
Discussion
Today, we will be reminding ourselves of our covenant of protection.
We will be discussing Ps 91 and we will start from v3 then end with verse 1&2. The focus for today is vs 3&4. Let me first of all state that, it is the desire of God that we are safe. Jesus said something very profound that provides insight into how God thinks. Sometimes it's good to see the Word of God from a level of abstraction and also from the granular level because they are laws. Jesus said
Lk 11:13 "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"
The major point here I will like to highlight is how Jesus drew a comparison between how we love our children and how God loves us. We love them so much that we want to protect them, how much more will our heavenly father want to protect us.
Many years ago, there was this distant relative we have who was a wealthy man. One night, his house caught fire and the man jumped up, ran to his children's room, took them to the bathroom and turned the shower on. He then ran to the kitchen to grab the keys to the house so they could escape. That story always remind me of the love of God. Jesus will say, if you being evil and imperfect know how to save your children first, how much more your heavenly father. We even see how animals protect their children, their family, some do these territorialism. Have you ever tried to steal the egg of a chicken when its incubating? How easy is it? Or you try to steal an eaglet from an eagle? Why do we then think God is not mindful of us? The one who said he knows every hair that falls off our head. He knows about it. So, it is important to note that He wants us safe.
Psalm 91:3-4 Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)
3 God will save you from hidden dangers and from deadly diseases.
4 You can go to him for protection. He will cover you like a bird spreading its wings over its babies. You can trust him to surround and protect you like a shield.
There are 2 things humans seek when they want to choose a deity.
First
Is this supernatural being ABLE to save me?
Does the deity have the ability to ensure I am safe?
Second
Is the deity WILLING to save me?
If you are able to save me and not willing to save me then I will still be unsaved or unprotected.
We know our God is able to do all things, many believers trust in His ability but we often question His willingness per time. More like, will he be willing to save me at a particular time? In the midst of car crash? In a country with lots of kidnappers? In the midst of a turbulent plane? Will He save me? Another set of Christians believe, (1) He is able, (2) He is willing BUT (3) the problem is always with me, will I be aligned? Will I be sensitive? Will I hear him? It's me. We will get to this #3 before the week ends.
So we see here that He is WILLING to protect us from hidden dangers. A version puts it as hidden traps. As we established yesterday, as humans we are limited in our knowledge. There are traps we may never know about. I heard the story of how a man who worked at the World Trade center was protected by God during the 9/11 attack. That is an example of a hidden trap. I encourage you to put specifics in this bracket of "hidden danger". This includes plane crashes, kidnapping, stray bullet (you can add more). If there are fears that have crossed your mind that fits into this, include it because we will be worshiping the God who is ABLE and WILLING to deliver us from them all tonight.
v3b. Deadly disease: Some of us live in an environment where deadly disease seem to be attacking everyone. Many of us know friends who have been diagnosed with breast cancer or close relatives, cancer is a deadly sickness, chronic conditions are included in this list. Name them because this covenant says He will deliver us from deadly disease (please insert specifics).
V4 says You can go to Him for protection. He WILL cover you. I like to watch videos about animals and one day, I came across this video of a mother eagle spreading her wings over its eaglets. I will be attaching the link to video at the end of the notes.
The last part of that verse says: YOU CAN TRUST HIM TO SURROUND AND PROTECT YOU LIKE A SHIELD. Who doesn’t like that? We can rest on that scripture! We can sing over that scripture! We can dance over that scripture! We can be excited over that! Who is excited over that? You can trust Him, you can count on Him, you can rely on Him, you can depend on Him. Like we established yesterday (please read if you haven't) the devil is constantly trying to cast doubt in our hearts about the scripture. He is saying, can you really trust him to protect you? He will give you examples, how about Pastor XYZ who died in a car crash, do you want to say you have more faith than him? How come he wasn’t protected? You will then say oh maybe he missed something or maybe his time has come and He will tell you "maybe you too will miss something or your time is tomorrow and you will be shot by kidnappers because it's your time". What a lie from hell... this verse is teaching us to cast not away our confidence, do not let the devil cast doubt in your heart, YOU CAN TRUST HIM TO SURROUND AND PROTECT YOU LIKE A SHIELD.
To-do Activities
Before we spend time worshiping God tonight, can you identify areas where doubts have been coming in? I remember a friend tell us that whenever he loses his peace, he starts to ask himself at what point did the peace leave me? And sometimes he is able to trace it 'oh it was when I got that phone call'. Atimes, films will give you a mental walk through of what it is like to lose a child. A friend told me how Nollywood can take someone on a mental journey of what it is like for your husband to cheat. Atimes, it's your favorite comedy show, maybe the AY show making jokes about kidnapping, they sell the ideas so subtle that after watching, you start to imagine yourself as being kidnapped. You can imagine what your mom will do when she hears, you can imagine your spouse' reaction and it gets to a point where you even start to talk it out that "if I am kidnapped..." Sometimes, it takes a month of meditation on God's Word to undo the unbelief released by a 2 minutes scene so you wonder if it's really worth it.
Please take out time to uncover the areas where unbelief is coming into your heart with regards to your covenant of protection. Is it the News? The social media? Is your heart spiritually healthy to keep up with such News now? Do you think you need to feed yourself more with the Word of God on protection? is your spiritual immunity against insecurity well boosted?
Feel free to share with us how you have been building trust in the midst of the uncertainties around you.
Resources
https://en.zooom.no/eagles-nest/live