TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 10TH JULY 2022)
“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.
For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So then death is working in us, but life in you. 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 191ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
God’s amazing grace has run our lives for 191 days of this year. It is the first day of the week and it is important that we kick start it with the spirit of gratitude.
Yes, today can be another Time to sit down and count our blessings; if we do, obviously we will be surprised what the LORD has done this year alone.
Yes, we will be surprised at what the LORD has done in our lives this year alone. For instance, For some of us, it’s been 191 days of not knowing sicknesses or diseases.
Our God has kept us healthy and strong despite how hard we have been driving ourselves. For others He did not allow sins to sink then but convicted them and poured out His power to help then to go and sin no more.
What a mighty God we serve.
For many others it has been 191 days of mercies, forgiveness and God waiting on them to see if they will respond to Him with a life of purity, holiness and consecration. His patience has kept them alive not their prayers or anything else. By reason of what they have done, they should not be alive.
Counting our blessings and naming all the LORD has done in our lives can spark gratitude in our hearts; I mean real gratitude.
Now, sometimes it is also important to count our burdens. Yes, you heard me well, our burdens.
It is when we count our burdens and the challenges that we have gone through and come out well that we realize how strong our GOD has made us to be. Some of us carry burdens on daily bases; burdens that are capable of breaking us if there is no grace from the LORD.
When we count the challenges, we have gone through and come out well, and the burdens we carry on daily bases, we will realize how God’s internal strength is helping us to navigate through the season of life. We will see what we have been through and yet still alive. We will see what we carry daily and yet not broken.
THAT IS WHEN WE WILL REALIZE HOW GOD’S INVISIBLE AND INVINCIBLE POWER HAS HELPED US WITH MIGHT ON THE INNER MAN.
Often, you find one of our Apostolic fathers, Paul, praying for his spiritual children, asking the LORD Jesus Christ to, among other things, grant them, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might, through His Spirit, in the inner man.
We have seen our LORD and savior doing that and doing all of what he placed in the mind of Paul to pray for his spiritual children many years ago – we have seen all of them manifesting in our lives in our days.
The Bible says he wrote to the Church at Ephesus saying;
“For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” Ephesians 3:14-19 NKJV
As I look at the content of this scripture against the background of what Paul went through in life and ministry, I can clearly see how this great spiritual father was praying what God had accomplished in him into the lives of his spiritual children.
However, as earlier stated, our Heavenly Father has done in our lives what this great man of God prayed Him to do in the lives of his spiritual children over two thousand years ago. He has strengthened us with might on the inside and not allowed the life burdens we carry to sink us.
Which brings us to the miracle type we want to examine today!
Today is the 10th day of our 31-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on Miracles, signs and wonders. We have seen some miracle types that happen in God’s kingdom; we have seen what is called destiny miracles and others in previous devotionals.
But in the devotional of today, we will be looking at the miracle of sustenance.
THE WORD SUSTAIN MEANS TO STRENGTHEN OR SUPPORT PHYSICALLY.
In God, it sometimes manifest in the release of spiritual support and strength from the throne room of God. You find yourself surviving mysteriously despite the problems you may be going through.
The problem is there but it is not killing you.
Child of GOD, there are seasons in life when God will not take away a life burden from us but will sustain us in the midst of it. Not many of us understand God during those seasons. Most of us are blind and ignorant of the miracle power of God that is released to us during those seasons.
We are often blinded to what the LORD is silently doing by what the enemy is spectacularly displaying. It usually fills our hearts and do not allow us to see what the LORD is doing to make sure we are not destroyed by what the enemy may be doing.
There are people who have worked with God and have found themselves in such seasons. People like Job, Moses, and the nation of Israel in Egypt.
Job had a terrible attack from the devil that will not go away for a reasonable time. He had to comfort himself by saying “my redeemer lives.” The miracle of sustenance kept him in the midst of the trial, and helped him not to curse God or sin with his lips during the difficult days he went through.
Paul was caught up in the web of a messenger of Satan who was sent to him from hell to buffet him terribly.
HE WROTE TO THE CHURCH AT CORINTH SAYING;
“And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.
Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.
And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 NKJV
You find God’s servant, Paul in this scripture enjoying the miracle of sustenance. The thorn in the flesh was not taken away from him, but it also could not kill him or fulfill its mission of limiting his ministry and preventing him from reaching the territories the LORD called him to reach.
He survived despite what it did in his life!
That is how the miracle of sustenance works. If you are surviving despite the troubles, just know that God is with you. God is not only with you when the troubles disappear, He is also with you when they are there.
The miracle of sustenance gives you strength and any other thing you may need in the midst of reproaches, infirmities, needs, persecutions, distresses and all we go through for Christ’ sake, not by taking them away but by helping us do great things and stay alive despite their presence in our lives.
I have seen this miracle in my small life over and over. Each time I look at what I go through every week and most times every day in life and ministry, in the battle front and other fronts, I marvel how I am surviving.
There are things some of us go through that we will never be able to share with anyone on this side of eternity until we go to be with the LORD. Surviving those things fills one’s eyes with tears in the secret place.
And seeing God do great things by our hands despite them, fills one with the awe of God, who has a history of demonstrating His greatest strength through us when we are either hard-pressed, persecuted, perplexed, or struck down.
THE MIRACLE OF SUSTENANCE HAS INDEED BEEN MANIFESTING ITSELF IN MY LIFE BEYOND MY WILDEST IMAGINATION.
I remember what happened to me in the cross over night last year. Two days to that night I was facing what no one will ever imagine that can happen to me because of where it was coming from. It continued until the new year.
While I was prophesying to people to gloriously step into a new year, my own life was in adversity. Only two people on earth knew what I was going through. One in Nigeria and the other in Kenya!
When they saw me minster in the cross over night, they all made remarks that tells me how we are stricken they were at what happened that night. They were shocked at the grace of God.
It was just last month I knew why those the enemy used that period did what they did. Satan will always fill people with fathom things to use in making your life hell on earth if you are working with the LORD. Sometimes it will be people no one on earth will ever believe can do such things to you!
Our devotional text says;
“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.
For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.
So then death is working in us, but life in you. 2 Corinthians 4:7-12 NKJV
There are many times that one has stood with death working in him to submit to GOD’s will so that life will work in others. The miracle of sustenance is one major miracle that God unleash to destiny men and women. If you understand how it works, you won’t complain when God allows you to go through hard things in life.
There is so much about this miracle, but let me close with what happened to the nation of Israel in Egypt. The Bible says when there arose a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph (who chose to expunge all that GOD used Joseph to do in Egypt), the entire nation was plunged into a 400-year period of slavery.
How they survived is what I am yet to fathom.
There was a time that Pharaoh had to deal with them terribly and ask that the midwives kill all of their male children as they were being born. But that never worked either. The miracle of sustenance kept them.
THE BIBLE SAYS THE MORE THEY WERE OPPRESSED THE MORE THEY INCREASED. HALLELUJAH!
If you are under the miracle of sustenance, what the enemy may be doing in your life will never diminish you. The more you are oppressed the more you will survive. It will be like, a death, burial and resurrection.
When the devil will be celebrating your destruction, that is when you will be rising in power and greatness. The Bible says if he had known, he will not have crucified Christ. The same heritage is what we enjoy in Christ.
There are people in God’s kingdom that I believe Satan is regretting of attacking and killing. I believe people like Paul, Peter, and the rest of the apostles. Their death sparked a move of God that got to us saved and today there are more believers all over the world than there were in their times.
The enemy thought by killing them, the Christian faith will come to an end, but here we are today!
I believe the message of today has been passed. The miracle of sustenance is what you should fix your heart on when going through tough times. It is one miracle that most time we do not know is happening when God release it to us.
No destiny man or woman will be able to fulfill their destinies without it.
It is my prayer that God use these words to keep building us up and giving us more kingdom treasures among they that are sanctified. Amen!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.
And he said to his people, “Look, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we; come, let us deal shrewdly with them, lest they multiply, and it happen, in the event of war, that they also join our enemies and fight against us, and so go up out of the land.”
Therefore, they set taskmasters over them to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh supply cities, Pithom and Raamses.
But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and grew. And they were in dread of the children of Israel.” Exodus 1:8-12 NKJV