TODAY’S DEVOTIONAL (Friday 12th February 2021)
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.”
“And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.” Acts 4:13-14 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 43rd DAY OF OUR YEAR OF HIGHER HEIGHTS
Today marks the beginning of another weekend of the year. I trust God that you are doing great this morning. This weekend shall be for you a weekend of results and answers. I bless you today in the name that is above every other name – the name Jesus Christ, King of kings and LORD of lords. Amen and Amen!
In our devotional today, we will be looking at the issue of seeing the fulfillment of God’s word of promise in our lives. I hope you will find something to add to the building blocks of your faith.
Our devotional text today is part of an event that happened in the early Church. The event was the healing of a man that was cripple at the gate of the temple called beautiful. The healing broke all hell loose upon the apostles. It was a hell from the pit of hell but a hell from people who were supposed to celebrate with them; the spiritual leaders of the day.
I have seen what it means to have the Spirit and power of God moving to do things and some spiritual leaders standing to hinder. I have been rebuked and chastised by religious leaders for coming one sin; allowing God to use me, especially in the area of praying for the oppressed who ran to me for prayers. With the little I went through I can tell a little bit what the apostles saw that day.
One of the major areas those dragon men attacked that day was the education level of the apostles. They saw them as uneducated and untrained, not in ivory towers but in matters of the law of Moses. They just had the average knowledge that every Jew so have being were not trained to be Pharisees or Sadducees.
I have always said that God does not choose the qualified. God qualifies the chosen.
THIS STATEMENT IS TRUE OF ME AND EVERYONE WHO IS BEING USED OF HIM TODAY.
They were threatened and instructed not to preach the gospel again. But the men responded and the very words that formed a part of our devotional text were the result. But before we go into them, let me ask us a question.
Have you ever received a prophecy directly from the Spirit of God to your spirit, or through a true man or woman of God that never came to pass? I have! I guess many others have also. We all at one time or the other, got words of prophecies from the LORD that never came to pass. No because they were untrue, and it troubled us so much. Failed prophecies can be very painful.
Anyone who says failed prophecies do not trouble them is a liar; especially when they speak concerning our deliverance from some yokes, needed blessings or some major things God want to use us to do. We are all troubled when genuine prophecies concerning us fail!
Now, mark the word GENUINE because I am not referring to false prophecies or the things we just pick from realms that look God but are not God. Neither am I referring to the things our hearts prophesy to us or the ones some prophets and pastors prophesy upon us to look anointed or to convince us that our fat offerings are acceptable to ‘God.’
You know when you give some good money to a money controlled prophet or prophetess, it will stir his or her human spirit to bring out a prophecy. I am not referring to such prophecies.
Now, I am referring to genuine word of promise from the LORD that came to you either directly or indirectly. God wants every word of deliverance, blessings, lifting or visitation He sends directly or indirectly to us to be fulfilled. If He never wanted His words to be fulfilled, He will not send them.
God is not a talkative. He says what He means and means what He says. That was why when Zachariah doubted the word He sent through Gabriel in Luke Chapter 1, his mouth had was shut to prevent further things He may do or say that could hinder the word of the LORD from coming to pass in His life.
In fact, God deals with obstacles that man or devils try to put on the way of His word to hinder it from coming to pass; obstacles that are capable of preventing what He says from coming to pass in the lives of those He sent it to.
HE HAS A HISTORY OF DEALING WITH WHAT USUALLY SPRING UP TO HINDER THE PERFORMANCE OF HIS WORD!
Some of the obstacles that God has a history of dealing with are doubt and lack of Confidence in what He may have said. We must understand how severe He can be when we do or say things that may hinder the performance of His will or word. We can see how He shut the mouth of His priest to secure the performance of His word. It is obviously to prevent further confessions of doubts from coming out of his mouth.
There are confessions of faith and there are confessions of doubts. The confession you make as soon as a word proceed from God to you matters to Him.
In second Kings Chapter 7, a special adviser to the King of Israel on economic matters made a confession of doubt after a word from the LORD was spoken. And Elisha said to him, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
This man was not taught things you do not say when God has spoken. He was not taught the mystery of AMEN (let it be). He rather uttered confessions of doubts and got the fire and fury of God kindled on him.
The wrong time to make a confession of doubt is when a word has proceeded from the LORD to you, and the wrong place to do it is before a genuine vessel God used in transmitting such words to you. Don’t forget that, and do not mix it up!
When God speak, He speaks from opened portals of Heaven. It is those portals that release the power to perform what He says. They make it possible for the word to come with an inherent performing power. That is why Isaiah wrote saying;
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, But water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV
THE WORD OF THE LORD DOES NOT RETURN TO HIM VOID;
Our words may return to us void but the word of the LORD cannot return to Him void. In simple terms, the word of the LORD does not lack the power to perform itself in the lives of people. Any confession you make therefore, at that place and time that the word of the LORD is being released is a confession being made under an opened portal.
Now, a confession of doubt will shut the portal over your private life and prevent the word from coming to pass in your life. That is why it is dangerous not to control both your mouth and your thoughts during those moments.
Sometimes confessions of doubt are not made verbally. They are made internally.
Some paradigms that prevent a genuine word from God from coming to pass will just react within us at the time of hearing the word. That was what happened to Zachariah and the economic adviser to the King of Israel. It’s just that they voiced it out. But there are those who do not voice their thoughts out.
The point is, either you voice them out or not they carry the same sentence from God.
God hears unspoken words louder than spoken words because He is more interested in what goes on within us than what goes on without. In one of our devotional quotes I did said that “What goes on in our hearts sound louder in Heaven than what goes on in our mouths.”
A major highlight in our devotional text today has something interesting that is worthy of consideration. It says,
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.”
Before Jesus left, He had told these men that signs shall follow them. That in His name they will heal the sick, raise the dead, cleans the lepers and bring timely interventions to many. That was a prophecy. But it never came to pass in a large scale until they spent time with Jesus.
YOU DO NOT NEED AN EDUCATION TO WALK IN SIGNS AND WONDERS. YOU NEED TIME WITH JESUS TO WALK IN SIGNS AND WONDERS.
Spending time with Jesus turned these men who were un-educated and untrained in matters of religion into super men; it turned them into miracle workers as the LORD had said. That gives us one major key to use in turning prophecies into manifestations. And that key is BEING WITH JESUS! Hallelujah!
In other words, being a man or women who spends his or her days on the prayer knee is the key to seeing what God may have spoken directly or indirectly to you come to pass! Every authentic prophecy is a call to the prayer room. If you do not treat prophecy that way, a lot of things God says to you will never come to pass.
We need to wake up from slumber and realize that if God speaks a word of prophecy to us, He is sending us to the prayer room to wait on Him until His word come to pass. That is why only those who wait upon the LORD see His word come to pass.
Waiting upon the LORD is not being in a state of inactivity as it sounds, but being on the prayer knee until the word of the LORD come to pass in your life.
Child of God, the only person to be with after God may have spoken to you is Jesus not a pastor or prophet Heaven may have used to say that word to you. You must learn to be with the LORD after a word comes to you from Him. That is who to allow what He may have said come to pass in your life.
Sadly, most of us run after the vessels God may have used to be with them instead of running after the presence of Jesus to be with Him, consequently defeating the word of the LORD for our lives.
You could start drinking from the fountain of the vessel God may have used to speak to you if he or she has a ministry, but the only one you truly need to run after and be with until the word comes to pass is Jesus Himself.
If we take our eyes of us, and fix them on God’s redemptive plans for mankind, we will realize that many prophecies about major moves of God on earth have not being fulfilled because there are no people to lock themselves up in prayer until the come to pass.
THAT IS WHAT EVERY CHILD OF GOD IN THE PRESENT DAY CHURCH SHOULD BE MOSTLY CONCERNED ABOUT.
I once shared how I read a book that said, before men and women like Katherine Khulman, Charles Finney, Maria Woodworth Etta and the likes sprang up, people locked themselves up in chain prayers and prayed some scriptural prophecies into performance. They did that for 100 years.
Meaning they prayed until they died handing over the prayer mantle to the next generation, who also prayed and died handing over the same passion to the next generation. And it went on and on until God’s word came to pass.
And permit me to add that the kind of prayers you pray to move prophecies from the realm of promise to the realm of performance is not the one you pray with prayer books but with the prayer spirit. It is the one you pray with the prayer spirit.
The rule remains unchanged. Deep must call unto deep. The burden of seeing that word come to pass must be the reason behind the prayers. That is the only way you can stay strong and long enough on your prayer knees until you travail in the spirit and bring forth, like Zion.
Child of God it is time to shake off the dust of spiritual laziness and start traveling on your knees to bring forth what the LORD may have spoken to you in the ear. It is time to travail until every child (prophecy) spoken to you is born (performed).
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“A voice of noise from the city, a voice from the temple, a voice of the LORD that rendereth recompence to his enemies.
Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child.
Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children.” Isaiah 66:6-9 KJV