TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 15TH JANUARY 2023)
“Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].
For by [faith—trust and holy fervor born of faith] the men of old had divine testimony borne to them and obtained a good report.
By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible.” Hebrews 11:1-3 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 15TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
It’s been God’s faithfulness all through and we give Him the glory for the 15 days of the year that we have seen already. We are confident that the rest of the days will be full of His mercies, compassion and all we need to thrive in a wicked and corrupt world in Jesus precious name.
As we can all see, today is the first day of another week of the year for those of us who are using the Gregorian Calendar. We call it Sunday. Many will be privileged to be in Church services across the globe today. It is my prayer that the God who came down as man to die on the cross will be our sun today. The Bible says;
“For the LORD God is a sun and shield; The LORD will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Psalm 84:11 NKJV
If the Sun is your sun it will just give you light, heat, or solar energy depending on the time of the day. If you have a farm it will supply through the process of photosynthesis what the plant will need to grow.
There are other things that the Sun can give if we have the technology to convert its energy into use but none can be compared to what will come to us if GOD is our Sun.
The Bible says if God is your Sun, He will make the Sun itself not to strike us by day and the moon by night but to serve us as commanded by His creative voice. If God is our Sun, He will continue to give us grace and glory and will never withhold any good thing from us.
May the LORD be our Sun this Sunday as we all assemble at His feet in our local churches in Jesus precious name. May we not find our feet within the gates of false anointing and mixed anointing. May our feet be at the gates of Zion this day, in Jesus precious name.
The Psalmist prayed saying;
“Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go through them, and I will praise the LORD.
This is the gate of the LORD, through which the righteous shall enter. I will praise You, For You have answered me, and have become my salvation.” Psalm 118:19-21 NKJV
THE CHRISTIAN LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL IF WE CAN FIND GATES OR HEAVENLY PORTALS IN THE SPIRIT WHENEVER WE ASSEMBLE IN FELLOWSHIP.
Yes, our faith will be full of fruits if we can find gates of sanctifying truths to go through each time we assemble. It is when we go through such gates of righteousness that our GOD can become our salvation.
We have been on a 31-day journey of faith with the Cry of the Spirit on visionary living and the LORD has been speaking to us.
Personally, I am still having the hang over of yesterday’s devotional. I do not know about you. There were so many lines that stood out as I wrote the things the LORD placed in my spirit to write. One that will ever remain printed in my heart is the devotional quote.
It says “visionary living is all about walking in the Spirit and seeing Him who is invisible, leading you through and through, until you get to the finish line of your life on earth.” That quote almost brought this 31-day journey to an end because of its weight. If we were in a church service, we would have ended the teaching there and gone home to chew on it for the rest of our lives.
When it comes to visionary living, you must learn to walk in the Spirit. If you cannot walk in the Spirit forget about Heavenly visionary living. You may be living visionary but GOD will not be involved. And cursed is any visionary living that GOD is not involved. You will just be laboring in vain and bringing forth for trouble that will speak either in time or eternity.
If you walk in the Spirit, you will be able to see Him who is invisible leading you through and through; through difficulties and the different seasons of life. He will lead you through adversity and prosperity, through strife and peace, through hard times and good times, through disappointments and appointments with destiny blessings.
Yes, He will be leading you through and through, until you get to the finish line of your life on earth.
SADLY, THAT IS THE LEADING THAT IS MISSING IN THE LIVES OF MANY.
That is why not many are living Heavenly visionary lives. It is missing because not many of us are walking in the Spirit. Most are religious and spiritual but not Spiritual. The two are not the same.
You can be spiritual and not Spiritual.
The first is from the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, the other is from the realm of the flesh that may have been touched by GOD’s presence but not changed.
The Bible spoke about a people who had the word that proceeded with GOD’s presence, never saw it profit them because it was not mixed with faith. It is when the word is mixed with faith that it can bring us to the realm of being touched and changed by the presence of GOD. It is when we mix the word of the LORD with faith that we can come into the realm where we walk in the Spirit.
To mix the word with faith is to respond to the word based on what it opens your heart to see or sense in the realm of the Spirit. Not just any spirit but the realm of the Spirit of truth.
You see, when GOD speaks or teaches, we see and touch things in the Spirit’s realm.
Mixing the word with faith is responding to what you saw when GOD spoke or taught. When we do that, we can do away with the flesh and walk in the Spirit. That brings us to the next law of visionary living – the Laws of Faith.
The laws of faith will make anyone visionary. They are a set of laws that are part of the most effective laws of visionary living.
Understand that visionary living is not possible without having the eyes of faith. The laws of faith can also be called the principles of faith. To understand the laws (or principle) of faith we must know what faith is and what faith is not.
Our devotional text says;
“Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].
For by [faith—trust and holy fervor born of faith] the men of old had divine testimony borne to them and obtained a good report.
By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God, so that what we see was not made out of things which are visible.” Hebrews 11:1-3 AMPC
THERE IS SO MUCH HERE BUT WE WILL SEE HOW MUCH WE CAN COVER.
This scripture defines faith as an assurance or a confirmation of things that have become real to our spiritual senses but are yet to come into natural reality; in other words, are yet to become visible. They only register in our hearts as convictions born from real spiritual facts that have been revealed to our spiritual senses.
Genuine faith will perceive as real facts things that are not yet to be revealed to our natural sense. It will create an assurance or a confirmation that functions as proofs of the existence of spiritual things that are bound for the earth or that are exclusively for Heaven.
The scripture also presents faith as a title deed of things hope for.
A title deed is a legal document that constitutes one’s right of ownership to a piece of land. There are two expressions of faith I saw in the lives of our early fathers; I saw the faith to receive and the faith to reject. The definition of faith as a title deed is the faith to receive.
From all these definitions we can clearly see the first set of truths we can consider as the first law of faith. We can see the first law of faith in the definition of faith as a title deed.
A title deed is what gives one a right of ownership or possession of a land. Faith gives us the right to own or possess in the natural realm what may have been revealed to our spiritual senses in the Spirit’s realm; be it a miracle, a blessing, a ministry, a child, a house, a car, a family, a wife, a husband, a job, a great future, a certificate, an anointing from GOD, a spiritual gift, or any other thing of earthly or eternal value.
ONCE IT HAS BEEN TOUCHED BY OUR SPIRITUAL SENSES IN THE SPIRIT’S REALM, AND WE CHANGE OUR ACTIONS TO MATCH OUR BELIEF, IT CAN BECOME OURS IN THE NATURAL REALM.
For instance, if you are childless like Abraham was, and God speaks to you that He will give you a child, and you see the child in the Spirit’s realm and touch the child with your spiritual senses, it will make you to begin to act on earth like you already have the child. That is faith!
If you remain persistent, even if the child is not physically there, one day your body will touch the power of GOD, and that child will be born. For some people, it will be like Hannah, it will not just be one Child, it will be many children.
You find in the woman Hannah in 1 Samuel chapter one touching her child, Samuel in the Spirit realm before the Child was born to her in the natural realm. In fact, children were born to her after that encounter. It was the same thing that happened to Elizabeth; Zechariah her husband, touched their child John the Baptist, in the Spirit’s realm before he was born.
The same thing happened with Mary; she touched all the angel said to her with her spiritual senses in the Spirit realm before the miracle of immaculate conception took place. When she touched it, she said to the angel, “let it be unto me according to your word.”
When you touch such things, you do or say something. That is what faith is; taking corresponding actions after seeing and touching things in the Spirit. That is why the Bible says faith comes by hearing. If you have not heard or seen you cannot have faith.
Under this law of faith, until you have touched it in the Spirit realm, it cannot be born in your life. You must go beyond hearing and come to the realm of touching or seeing what GOD has said or is saying to you, and that happens through meditation in His word.
That is why genuine faith is not a mental assertion but a child of a divine pregnancy of what you have touched with your spiritual senses in the Spirit’s realm.
Meaning, you cannot be spiritually dead or blind and operate in a miracle producing faith.
YOU CAN ONLY OPERATE IN TRUST IF YOU ARE SPIRITUALLY DEAD OR BLIND; AND TRUST GIVES YOU HOPE BUT NOT MIRACLES.
Yes, trusting in God and His word will not give you what you trust God for but will bring you to the realm of faith; the realm of becoming alive in the Spirit and terminating your spiritual blindness to catch with your spiritual senses what you trusted GOD for. It is faith that will finally deliver it to you!
So, the journey begins from the realm of trust which is a natural realm. As you keep trusting and doing what the word calls for, you will one day come alive in the Spirit and be thrusted into the realm of faith.
That was what Hannah did. The Bible says she kept trusting God for a child and coming to Shiloh for years, until she entered the realm of faith on a particular day. That was when her miracle was delivered to her. Trust will make you obey God.
Obedience will help you to come alive in the Spirit and step into the realm of faith. Faith will deliver what you trust God for to you. That is how things work in this law of faith.
There are other laws of faith but we cannot cover them today. I believe enough have been shared already. Understand that Visionary living is not possible outside the realm of faith. It is a life that is based on the laws of faith. And we have just explained the first law.
May the LORD grant you understanding in Jesus precious name! Amen!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“ And it happened, as she continued praying before the LORD, that Eli watched her mouth.
Now Hannah spoke in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, “How long will you be drunk? Put your wine away from you!”
But Hannah answered and said, “No, my lord, I am a woman of sorrowful spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor intoxicating drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.
Do not consider your maidservant a wicked woman, for out of the abundance of my complaint and grief I have spoken until now.” 1 Samuel 1:13-17 NKJV