TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 12th NOVEMBER 2023)
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.
A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Mark 4:35-41 NIV
WELCOME TO THE 316TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
The faithfulness of God indeed reaches the skies, that is why with all the airplanes in the sky and all our journeys in the sky, we are still alive.
David said “where shall I go from His presence?” Indeed, where shall we go from His presence? Even in the deepest parts of the seas, or the loneliest parts of our roads, His presence is still there to protect us from all evil and to watch over us as the apples of His eyes.
The best refuge still remains the LORD, especially when He manifest as the Rock of Ages, who cleaves for us, to hide us from the fires of the evil one.
God has declared the next year to be OUR YEAR OF IMPACT. We have decided to walk through the year, not fixing our hearts on what our enemies may be saying or doing, but on what the LORD is saying and doing in us and for us.
The Bible says, “He will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Him.” Yes, God will keep us in perfect peace.
So, when the enemy comes like a roaring lion, to make himself, his agents or his works our attention, we will resist him in all fronts by fixing our minds on what the LORD is doing or saying.
He knows that once he becomes our attention, we can no longer be kept in perfect peace by our LORD. We will lose our minds that was supposed to be on GOD, opening up our lives to his attacks. Sadly, many of us believers fall into this trap of his. That is why the word of Isaiah, must be our focus in crisis moments.
Let me repeat that scripture again. The Bible says;
“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3 NKJV
Friend, do not allow the devil to steal your attention. God will keep us in perfect peace only when that did not happen. Yes, He will keep us in perfect peace only if our minds are stayed on Him; and Satan knows, hence doing things to get our minds on what he is doing instead of on our GOD.
YOU WILL NEVER BE ABLE TO TRUST GOD OR LIVE A LIFE OF FAITH, IF YOU ARE PAYING A RAPT ATTENTION TO WHAT YOUR ENEMY IS SAYING OR DOING.
Friend, the enemy know how to function like a roaring lion, and he does it intentionally. You will never be able to live a life of faith paying attention to his roars through his agents or your haters. A life of faith is only possible when our minds are stayed on God.
That is when he can keep us in perfect peace.
That is why the first word that will come out of the mouth of God to you when you are in trouble will be, “fear not.” Here is what He said to Jehoshaphat and the entire nation of Israel, when an alliance of five kings moved against them. He said to them;
….‘Do not be afraid nor dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God’s. Tomorrow go down against them. They will surely come up by the Ascent of Ziz, and you will find them at the end of the brook before the Wilderness of Jeruel.
You will not need to fight in this battle. Position yourselves, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD, who is with you, O Judah and Jerusalem!’ Do not fear or be dismayed; tomorrow go out against them, for the LORD is with you.” 2 Chronicles 20:15-17 NKJV
I do not know the battles you are going to face in our year of impact, but I know the God who will be available to face those battles for you. Take this word from GOD to Jehoshaphat as your own words, and stand on them in your darkest hour any time any day during the year. And the same God who stood in for them will stand in for you.
Do not forget, we are dealing with the Same God, and are the extension of their faith in Him. So, the glory of the LORD they saw is still available to us. The Bible says all that happened to them is an an example for us. And that they were written for our admonition.
We can stand on them to unlock similar moves of the Spirit in contemporary sense.
AN EXAMPLE IS SOMETHING THAT IS TO SERVE AS A GUIDE, OR SOMETHING THAT IS TO BE IMITATED.
If you imitate examples, you get similar results. It is therefore important that we stand on the very faith they stood on in our days of adversity, so that we will not faint but fly or soar above the storms. The Bible says;
“If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” Proverbs 24:10 NKJV
It will be impossible to faint in the day of adversity, if we stand on the scriptural examples, or admonitions of the heroic stories of the Bible men and women, who were on earth before us. Fixing our minds on them, especially in time of trouble, is one way our minds can be made to stay on the LORD.
That is also one way to be visionary in warfare and not allow the diversionary tactics of the devil steal your vision.
We have been on a journey of faith with the Cry of the Holy Spirit on Visionary living.
We have seen some laws of visionary living; namely, the laws or residency, the laws of visionary hearing, and the law of visionary relations. We have also seen the law of finding what to die for, and the laws of walking in the visions and revelations of the LORD.
Visionary living will help us survive the storms of life. That is why having the eyes of vision in the midst of a storm is very vital. It will help you sense what is coming after the storm and act wisely.
It is that principle that helps us to understand that no storm will not become a calm if we are visionary in life.
If you are visionary, with the eyes of vision, you will be able to see beyond the storm and be stable in the midst of it. The eyes of vision are the eyes of faith. It elevates our spirits to see life after the storm. When that happens, we can become strong, hopeful and full of faith having seen or sensed the victory that lies ahead of us.
It takes men of vision to go through the storms of life and come out well. Job was one of them. In the midst of his storm, he said;
“I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth.And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19:25-27 NIV
It takes a man with the eyes of faith that still sees in the midst of a terrible storm, to speak words like this.
IT TAKES A VISIONARY PERSON, WHO IS STILL VISIONARY REGARDLESS OF A STORM, TO SPEAK SUCH WORDS.
He said “after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God.” He was confident because it was what he had picked with the eyes of his faith in the midst of his storm.
He went on to say “I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!”
From this statement, it is clear that with his visionary capacity, Job saw beyond his storm and spoke things that came to pass after his storm.
In prophetic description, we would say, “Job looked beyond his storm, and saw a beautiful life. Then he reached out to it in faith, and pulled it into his storm. His storm could not withstand it. The storm died as a result, giving way to the life Job saw.”
I hope you understand.
That is how the LORD wants us to lead our lives. He wants us to lead visionary lives that are strong enough to help us quench our storms.
Sadly, most of us in the present church or crowd, are like the disciples of Jesus in the boat who were weak in vision. In the midst of their storm, they could not see the peace and calm that lied ahead. They just panicked, and went calling on Jesus to wake up.
Now, there was nothing wrong with them calling on Him for help. What was wrong, was them not being strong enough to deal with the storm themselves.
From the different account of that story, it seems Jesus wanted them to quench the storm using their eyes of faith. But they could not. He then arose and did what they were supposed to do.
He looked into the storm with the eyes of faith and called what He saw on the other side of the storm into the storm, and it manifested. When it manifested, the storm died instantly. The Bible says fear struck the poor disciples who had not seen such before.
IT WILL STRIKE ANY ONE OF US MY FRIEND, IF WE WERE THERE.
Our devotional text captured the event in these terms;
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.
A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” Mark 4:35-41
GOD wants you and I to be men and women who can look into the storms of life with a strong visionary eyesight, and call what we see at the other side into the present side, so that the storm can die.
There is one more person I want to bring to our attention who did the same; the man Paul. He was a man who knew how to be visionary in the midst of his storm. Here are the words he spoke in the midst of his storm.
“Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.
So, we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 NIV
You can see what happens when we are visionary even in the midst of our storms. We will not loose heart if we are visionary in the midst of our storms. Satan would want us to lose heart so that he can have us, but with visionary living we cannot lose heart.
THERE IS ONE MORE THING I WANT TO SHARE. THE STORMS OF LIFE HAVE A WAY OF DEFINING PEOPLE NEGATIVELY.
They have a way of turning very happy and great people into sad and bitter people. But if we are visionary, that will never happen. Our storms will never redefine who we are. Our storms will never turn us downwards, but upwards. So, it takes having good vision in the midst of a storm, not to be defined by it.
Most people lead lives that are defined by their storm, making them to develop a negative opinion about life or attitude towards certain people, places, or purposes, because of what they may have gone through. That is why they transfer the after effects of their storm on others.
You find hurting people bleeding emotionally and not being able to control themselves. You find them senselessly and fatally hurting even people God sent to heal them of their hurts. Sometimes, its like a dog biting its helper.
That is not the will of God. He wants us to be visionary even in the midst of our storms so that our storms will not define us negatively. We must learn to see the calm that is on the other side, and not just the crisis that is before us.
If we are visionary in the midst of our storms, our storms will never define us. We will rather define them, and make them an instrument for unlocking eternal weights of glory from God.
Now, if I say it is easy to be visionary in the midst of a storm, I will be lying to you.
Such faith positions are not possible by might or by power but by the Spirit of the living GOD. You must be a prayerful person who is in constant touch with the Holy Spirit and constantly filled with God’s holy word to be visionary in the midst of a storm.
God made a promised that His Spirit that is upon us, and the words He has put in our mouths, will never depart from us or from the life of our children. The reason, among other kingdom intents, is to make sure we can remain visionary in the midst of our storm.
I BELIEVE ENOUGH HAVE BEEN SHARED FOR THE DAY.
The message today is simple. God wants us all to be visionary in our Christian lives.
He wants us to be visionary in the midst of storms so that our eyes will remain on the things that are not seen, and our attention not taken by the things that are seen in the midst of the storm.
The Bible says the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen (in other words, things lying beyond our storms) are eternal.
Meaning every storm has an expiry dates, no matter how terrible and destructive it might be. Therefore, the wisest thing to do, is to always fix our eyes on the expiry date of any storm. We should remove our eyes from the manufacturing dates of our storms.
Sadly, whenever trouble comes, our visions are usually too weak to pick its expiry date in the Spirit, leaving our hearts established on its manufacturing date. That is when investigating the course of the problem comes in. That is when blame games are played.
Understand that, you will never come out of a storm whose manufacturing date is what occupy your heart. You will only come out if the expiry date has been established in your heart and made visible to you.
The expiry date of a storm cannot be established in your heart or made visible to you, if the eyes of your faith are blind. Faith must be consistently kindled in your heart by the flames of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy truths of God’s word.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR US TODAY.
“The Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who repent of their sins,” declares the LORD.
“As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the LORD. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the LORD. Isaiah 59:20-21 NIV