VISITATION FROM ABOVE

steveezekiel - last month

5 THAT NIGHT THE LORD APPEARED TO SOLOMON IN A DREAM, and God said, “WHAT DO YOU WANT? ASK, AND I WILL GIVE IT TO YOU!”
6 Solomon replied, “You SHOWED GREAT AND FAITHFUL LOVE to your servant my father, David, BECAUSE HE WAS HONEST AND TRUE AND FAITHFUL TO YOU [God]. And you have continued to SHOW THIS GREAT AND FAITHFUL LOVE to him today by giving him a son to sit on his throne.
7 “Now, O Lord my God, you have made me king instead of my father, David, but I am like a little child who doesn’t know his way around.
8 And here I am in the midst of your own chosen people, a nation so great and numerous they cannot be counted! 9 GIVE ME AN UNDERSTANDING HEART SO THAT I CAN GOVERN YOUR PEOPLE WELL AND KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG. For who by himself is able to govern this great people of yours?”
12 I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU ASKED FOR! I will GIVE you A WISE AND UNDERSTANDING HEART such as no one else has had or ever will have!
13 AND I WILL ALSO GIVE YOU WHAT YOU DID NOT ASK FOR—RICHES AND FAME! No other king in all the world will be compared to you for the rest of your life!
14 And IF you FOLLOW ME and OBEY MY DECREES and MY COMMANDS as your father, David, did, I will GIVE you a LONG LIFE.”
1 Kings 3:5-8,12-14 (NLT)

• Every good and every perfect gift is from God. All that come from Him are good and perfect.

• He is a good and perfect God:
  "EVERY GOOD GIFT and EVERY PERFECT GIFT is from above, and comes down from the FATHER OF LIGHTS, with whom there is NO VARIATION or SHADOW OF TURNING" (James 1:17 (NKJV).
• Divine visitation is all about God's visitation:
  (i) God visited Abraham and Sarah (Genesis 18:1-15).
  (ii) He visited Daniel (Daniel 10:12).
  (iii) Jesus visited Zacheus (Luke 19:2-9).
  (iv) Cornelius was also visited (Acts 10:1-4).
• If God visited you, your life would never be the same.

• The state of your heart determines God's visitation in your life.

• If you despised God in your heart; what belongs to Him, or despise what someone is doing to honour Him, His visitation might farfetched in your life.
• Michal the daughter of King Saul, wife of David the king, despised David while praising and celebrating God—when the Ark of covenant was being taken to Zion, the city of David.
  BECAUSE of that act of Michal, she remained unfruitful, for the rest of her life (2 Samuel 6:20-23).
• God will honour whoever honours Him: "THEREFORE the LORD God of Israel says: ‘I said indeed that your house and the house of your father would walk before Me forever.’ But now the LORD says: ‘Far be it from Me; FOR THOSE WHO HONOUR ME I WILL HONOUR, AND THOSE WHO DESPISE ME SHALL BE LIGHTLY ESTEEMED" (1 Samuel 2:30 NKJV).
• If you honoured God in your heart, He will equally honour you, and the other way around, If your dishonoured Him, He also will despise you (Matthew 10:33; 2 Timothy 2:12).
• Some honour God with their lips, but their hearts are far away from Him (Isaiah 29:13,14).

• God's visitation.
(i) Those whom God visited in the Bible had a good relationship with Him. Their hearts to God were right. Though a number of them had their shortcomings, yet, they revered God, and had the fear of Him in their hearts.
(ii) One may be wrong in his or her head, but the heart of such might be right. God usually visited those who have a right Heart.
ZACCHEUS was not a holy person, so to speak, in the sight of Man, but Jesus visited him because his heart was right and longed to see Jesus (Luke 19:1-10). CORNELIUS was not a Jew, nor a believer in Christ Jesus, but God visited him because he wanted to please God; and God led him how he could Establish a relationship with Him (Acts 10:1-8).
(iii) God is not looking for those who are perfect, But those who long and yarn for Him, who wanted to see and know Him:
"WHEN Jesus heard it, He said to them, “THOSE WHO ARE WELL HAVE NO NEED OF A PHYSICIAN, BUT THOSE WHO ARE SICK. I DID NOT COME TO CALL THE RIGHTEOUS, BUT SINNERS, TO REPENTANCE" (Mark 2:17 (NKJV).

• What to do to experience God's visitation:
I. Preparation of the heart. If your heart is prepared and ready to receive Him—He will surely visit you.
a. Repentant heart or contrite spirit is required (Isaiah 66:2). If you had a repentant heart, and ready to accept your errors, God would have mercy and forgive.
b. Having a right heart means having a submissive heart; a heart that is ready to admit mistakes and errors; heart that is willing to repent and ask for forgiveness and God's mercy when he or she sees their errors (Psalm 34:18; 51:17; Isaiah 66:2).
c. Not a heart that is arguing, trying to justify the self, the wrong done, who refuses to accept what he had done wrong (1 Samuel 15:17-23).
d. The God we serve is the God of second chance. If you had lived a rough and dirty life, but genuinely repented when you come to Him, He would accept you and clean you up—make your life new (1 Timothy 1:12-16). And He afterwards gives you another chance (Galatians 1:13-16).

II. Forgiveness. If God had been magnanimous to forgive you, you also had to forgive others (Matthew 6:14,15; 18:35).

• Let go of whoever has offended you. If you had bitterness, unforgiviness against anyone, you cannot experience God's visitation:
  14 "FOR if you FORGIVE men their trespasses, your heavenly FATHER will also FORGIVE you. 15 BUT IF YOU DO NOT FORGIVE MEN THEIR TRESPASSES, NEITHER WILL YOUR FATHER FORGIVE YOUR TRESPASSES" (Matthew 6:14,15 NKJV).

III. Love for God, your fellow Believers, and other people; provoked divine visitation.

• If you love, you express it through Giving (1 Kings 3:3,4).
• Your love for God and other people ignites His visitation: "LET BROTHERLY LOVE CONTINUE. 2 Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing SOME HAVE UNWITTINGLY ENTERTAINED ANGELS" (Hebrews 13:1,2 NKJV).

IV. Giving. Solomon gave a thousand burnt offerings and God visited him (1 Kings 3:3-5).

• Your Seed provokes a divine visitation (1 Kings 3:4,5). If you can touch God's heart with your seed, He will surely visit you.

V. Obedience to God's instructions would also trigger His visitation.

• Being focus on your relationship and fellowship with God, and being faithful in the assignment which He has given to you, would also trigger His visitation.

VI. Prayer. Someone says: If God wanted to bless a group of people, in a special way, He will first of all set them to pray.

• John Wesley said It seems God is limited by our prayers, that He could do nothing for humanity unless someone asks Him:
  7 “BEFORE she was in labour, she gave birth; Before her pain came, She delivered a male child. 8 Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labour, She gave birth to her children" (Isaiah 66:7,8 NKJV).
• You cannot bring forth without travailing. Intercession precedes a visitation from God (Galatians 4:19).

• God has a plan, programme, concerning every individual Believer. Divine visitation is According to God's plan or programme for your life.

• If God had chosen to favour you, no one can stop it. When your time of visitation comes, no one can hinder it.
• God visited Abraham, and Sarah's Unbelief that could have ordinarily hindered God's Blessing in their lives, instead, triggered it.
• At the set time to favour you, God would cause things to work for your good. He would surely visit you, if your heart was right, but you have to be patient with Him.

• It is my prayer that you will not miss His visitation in Jesus' name.

• You will not be found wanting in your day of visitation in Jesus' name.
• Whatever God has not planted in your body, which is contrary to your health, such is rooted up in Jesus' name.
  Peace!