TODAY’S DEVOTION (Saturday 26th February 2022)
“I implore Euodia and I implore Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord.
And I urge you also, true companion, help these women who labored with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and the rest of my fellow workers, whose names are in the Book of Life.
Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:2-7 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 57th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE
We bless the LORD God, creator of Heaven and earth for another day. His Spirit is indeed giving us life and His breath sustaining us in a world that seems out of control!
From the days of our fathers to our days, God’s amazing grace have been the fuel running God’s kingdom matters on earth. It ran the lives of our fathers in their days of persecution and rejection as documented in the scriptures. That was why they made it. One of them said;
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.
We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed—
always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.” 2 Corinthians 4:7-10 NKJV
When the demonic gain control of institutions and government, you find them unleashing hell on godly people or nations. The breed of believers who lived in the days of 2 Corinthians 4, had so much to contend with. That is why you find scriptures like that in the Bible.
But what was it that kept these breeds of believers going despite facing things that some of us may only read about till our days are over? It was God’s amazing grace running through their lives. If God’s grace run through our lives, there is no evil from hell that can over run our lives.
I want to encourage believers all over the world, especially our brethren in Ukraine, to look unto Jesus for grace to overcome the trial of this hour. I believe if the fullness of God’s grace run through their lives in this moment of adversity, it will be a work over for them.
WHEN THE DEMONIC GAIN CONTROL OF MEN, IT USES THEM TO PARALYZE GOD’S WORK OR ELIMINATE GOD’S PEOPLE.
For instance, the persecutions of believers we read that is going on in China, Nigeria and other hot zones of the earth requires GOD’s amazing grace for survival.
Life can be difficult when the dragon moves against you using human government or any other institution. Which was exactly what our fathers experienced. But the grace that manifested then, can still manifest today if we locate the very faith positions, they LOCATED in the Throne of Grace and fill our hearts with the sound messages they filled their hearts with.
Like we saw yesterday, there is so much that is under the control of the evil one; so much to bring under GOD’s control on our prayer knees. Now, it is not just in time of persecution that God’s grace is needed, it is needed even in our everyday lives.
That brings us to our 28-day trip on prayer matters. It is through righteous prayers that we tap into God’s grace, not by giving money to an acclaimed preacher. It is through righteous prayers that we obtain mercy to find grace in time of need. A major part of our devotional text says;
“Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;
and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4: 5-7 NKJV
As we get closer and closer to the end of days and the coming of the LORD, there will be so much that will make hearts troubled and anxious. If we do not learn how to be gentle and let our request known to the LORD, by prayer and supplications, life will be unbearable.
FROM YESTERDAY, WE STARTED LOOKING AT HOW TO BRING THINGS UNDER DIVINE CONTROL THROUGH RIGHTEOUS PRAYER.
We saw the first key; praying from the realm of a perfect understanding of what the will of the LORD for your adversity or given situation is. We also understood that to bring an adverse situation under control, the will of God must be prayed into it, that is why we must understand what it is, at an immediate present, before rising up in prayer! The Bible says;
“See then that you walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5:15-17 NKJV
Let me reiterate again that the first step to take if you want to bring a situation under divine control is not to pray but to understand what the will of the LORD is. It is after that that you can pray.
And if you are highly inflammable in the Holy Spirit, it will not take you even ten minutes to know what the will of the LORD is, and then stand in faith to pray it into the situation. But if you are not the type that can be highly inflammable in the Spirit, we outlined ways to know what the will of the LORD is in our devotional yesterday.
One of it is the revelation of GOD’s promises in His written word about a given situation one finds himself.
Meaning, if you are caught up in a situation that is under demonic control, and you want to bring it under divine control, you must search the scriptures to know what the written word says about it if you do not know it already. You must not be lazy. Lazy people will be silenced by the enemy even when God is ready to abundantly help them. The Bible says;
“You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.” John 5:39 NKJV
Sadly, some people do not search the scriptures when adversity comes, they go looking for prophets to search their lives with divination. They are ignorant of the fact that it is not with the vision the prophets see about them that they should approach God in prayer, it is with the ammunition of God’s written promises.
THE AMMUNITION OF GOD’S WRITTEN PROMISE IN SCRIPTURE ARE MORE POTENT THAN ANYTHING A PROPHET MAY SAY TO YOU!
It is with them that we wage war in the Spirit and bringing what is under demonic control under GOD’s control. That is why if you are ignorant of what God’s promises says concerning the situation you find yourself, you will be without ammunition in your day of adversity.
If you read the books of the Old Testament you will realize that our fathers neutralized the demonic and brought so much under divine control standing on written promises that came to them expressly by the Holy Spirit.
Jehoshaphat comes to mind here. In his day of adversity, he stood on the written word previously spoken to Solomon by the LORD when the temple was dedicated. It came to him that Day as what I will call “flames of the Spirit.” The Bible says, he stood before GOD with the flames of those words in his spirit and said;
“Are You not our God, who drove out the inhabitants of this land before Your people Israel, and gave it to the descendants of Abraham Your friend forever?
And they dwell in it, and have built You a sanctuary in it for Your name, saying, ‘If disaster comes upon us—sword, judgment, pestilence, or famine—we will stand before this temple and in Your presence (for Your name is in this temple), and cry out to You in our affliction, and You will hear and save.’
And now, here are the people of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir—whom You would not let Israel invade when they came out of the land of Egypt, but they turned from them and did not destroy them—
here they are, rewarding us by coming to throw us out of Your possession which You have given us to inherit.
O our God, will You not judge them? For we have no power against this great multitude that is coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are upon You.” 2 Chronicles 20:7-12 NKJV
If you have the knowledge of the word, you can identify in the scriptures where and when GOD made the promise this king stood on to seek GOD for the situation that he found Himself to be brought under control that day. He reminded GOD of what He said to Abraham and ended up with the promise He made to Solomon.
THE RESULT WAS AMAZING!
God sent a prophetic word, then unleashed so much power upon the enemies of Jehoshaphat that it took them days to gather the proceeds of the intervention they got from the Throne room. The story of Jehoshaphat is one of the many faith building stories in the holy scriptures that teaches us about the subject of bringing things under divine control by standing on what God have said to talk to Him.
We have said that if you stand on what God have said, with the Holy Spirit in your life, you are standing in His will, hence your prayers are answer bond. Jesus used the same ammunition in His day of temptation when He said to the evil one “It is written…”
To find help in the day of trouble, and bring things under divine control, there are people who resort to the prayers of the heathen where what sound like prayer points are downloaded from the internet and spoken like incantations. That will not help you! It could hurt your spiritual life severely, especially when you end up touching the demonic in your quest to touch the divine.
Standing on the revelation of divine promises to pray may bring divinity down in ways you cannot imagine. With the Holy Spirit in your life, you can bring any situation that is under the control of demons into subjection, and place it under divine control, using the power of the prayer knee if you stand on the revelation of divine promises.
Now, mark my words; I said revelation not education.
The truth is, as earlier shared, we may be educated on divine promises but until the insights comes to us as Spirit and life at an immediate present, standing on them to pray will yield no result in our lives. In other words, what you know about what God may have promised in His word, will not unlock any power as you kneel in prayer talking to Him about it until it comes to you as Spirit and life. Jesus said;
“It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63 NKJV
When God animates His written promises with the flames of His Holy Spirit, they become spirit and life. It is when we stand on such words of promises (spirits and life) to pray that we pray the will of God into our problems and see God bring things under control. Paul spoke to Timothy saying;
“This charge I commit to you, son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare,
having faith and a good conscience, which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, 1 Timothy 1:18-19 NKJV
I will pick from here tomorrow because enough have been shared already; enough to meditate and build your prayer life on.”
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, being tempted for forty days by the devil. And in those days, He ate nothing, and afterward, when they had ended, He was hungry.
And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ”
Then the devil, taking Him up on a high mountain, showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. 6 And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give You, and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.
Therefore, if You will worship before me, all will be Yours.”
And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’”
Then he brought Him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here.
For it is written: ‘shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you,’ and, In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a tone.’ ”
And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt he LORD your God.’ ” Now when the devil had ended very temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. Luke 4:1-13 NKJV