TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 3RD FEBRUARY 2023)
“Thus, it is written, the first man Adam became a living being (an individual personality); the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit [restoring the dead to life].
But it is not the spiritual life which came first, but the physical and then the spiritual.
The first man [was] from out of earth, made of dust (earthly-minded); the second Man [is] the Lord from out of heaven.
Now those who are made of the dust are like him who was first made of the dust (earthly-minded); and as is [the Man] from heaven, so also [are those] who are of heaven (heavenly-minded).
And just as we have borne the image [of the man] of dust, so shall we and so let us also bear the image [of the Man] of heaven.” 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 AMPC
WELCOME TO THE 34TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
Blessed be the name of the LORD who has given us another day! What an investment from King of kings and the LORD of lords! He is supreme beyond the level of human offenses. That is why we are alive.
If God take offense like we human do, then none of us will be alive. We are quick to anger, He is slow to anger. We are quick at hating one another, but His is slow at hating anyone. We are quick at forgetting the kindness of others, but He is not like that. We are quick at being disloyal, but He remains a loyal father no matter the circumstances.
If He were at the level of humans, there would have been no us. That is why He set Himself in Christ as our standard, but if He had stopped there, none would have been able to meet the standard. He met it in Christ, then poured His holy Spirit upon us, so that we will be able to meet it, as we walk with Him and Obey Him.
Yes, some are meeting His standards; His standard of love and interpersonal relationship, purity and ethics, repentance and getting back to righteousness, marriage and family life, and all that, but many are not, hence the problems in their lives. They are not meeting His standards set in the Bible, but aligning with Godless standards, set by the dark kingdom, for mankind.
It is my prayer that we all meet His standards in Jesus precious name. Amen!
God does not give His standards to the lost to bear. He knows they cannot. He will first bring them into His kingdom before giving them. He only gives His standards to those who fear Him. The purpose is that they may be displayed. When they are displayed, truth will be revealed and made known.
It will not just be made known but seen in the lives of men, resulting in liberations from sin, Satan and the evil and corrupt system of this world. That is why Christianity without standards, is a ploy to make sure people do not come to the knowledge of Truth (Christ). The Bible says;
“You have given a banner to those who fear You, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah
That Your beloved may be delivered, Save with Your right hand, and hear me.” Psalm 60:4-5 NKJV
The word banner here is the same as the word standards. The banners of the LORD are His standards. We are on a 28-day journey of faith on supernatural living; a very important standard for earthly life. God never created man to live naturally on earth. He created man to live supernaturally. You see that in the Book of Genesis chapter two.
The Bible says;
“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” Genesis 2:7 NKJV
The man God formed from the dust of the ground, and breathe into his nostrils, or super imposed Himself into him to become a living being, was not originally a natural living being, as we see today. He was a supernatural living being, who could enter into the water and name the animals in water without needing oxygen mask. He could ascend into the air, to meet and name the animals God assembled in the air for naming, without needing a plane or a balloon.
He could be in different places in less than seconds, and know things that happen anywhere on earth, without needing people to make calls, and send intelligence to him, the way intelligence officers will do to their bosses. He was not limited by space. He could walk through trees like a spirit, yet, he had a human body.
The Bible says;
“out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
So, Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.” Genesis 2:18-20 NKJV
There are few things we can see in this scripture about supernatural living. The first is, God is Spirit! He moves supernaturally! So, He did not bring the animals naturally to Adam. He brought them supernaturally. He did something supernatural in a very natural way.
The second is, for Adam to receive and name them, he had to be supernatural as well. You cannot walk with a supernatural God naturally. You have to be at His operational level to walk with Him, and that was the realm Adam stood to name the animals from, hence, none of the names he gave to the animals were changed. What the Prophet Isaiah would say many years later would prove how it happened.
The ancient voice of the LORD made it clear that God stood in Adam to call the animals by name. That was not a natural feat, that was supernatural.
We can also see that God never brought the fishes or aquatics to Adam, but he named them because such assignments are committed to Sons, and Adam was a son of God. The reason God did not bring them is obvious, no water animal can survive outside the water. That tells us how they were named; Adam had to go to the water to meet them in their environment. That was supernatural.
Do not forget, God gave him dominion over all the realms of existence on planet earth. The Bible says;
“So, God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” Genesis 1:27-28 NKJV
Adam, in the image and likeness of God, had dominion over the three realms of natural existence on earth; the air, the land and the water. Meaning he could enter into those realms and stay there for a while, or do whatever he wanted. He tapped into that dominion to name all the animals in water.
That should tell you how much we lost as humans when Adam broke the instruction of God and lost the garden. We lost so much supernatural abilities when man fell, and over the years were reduced to helpless beings, who now operate at the same level with animals.
Animals were the only creation limited by their environments, not mankind. That is why no land animal can survive in water except those with dual survival capabilities. No bird can survive in water, except those with same capabilities. The same is applicable to all water animals. None can survive in the air or land, except the few with dual capabilities.
Man was originally created to live an unlimited life on the face of the earth. But the fall changed all that, and brought us to animalistic limitations. Now we have to go scientific to live in the air, or in water.
Life can only be unlimited if you live it in the supernatural of God. Man lost all that when he was driven out of the Garden, in hope of his redemption. But thank God, today that redemption has been executed by the LORD Jesus Christ; the one the Bible calls the second Adam. And a pattern has been beautifully laid in Him, to bring us back to the supernatural life we lost in Adam; first in this age, second in the age to come.
Our devotional text says;
“Thus, it is written, the first man Adam became a living being (an individual personality); the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit [restoring the dead to life].
But it is not the spiritual life which came first, but the physical and then the spiritual.
The first man [was] from out of earth, made of dust (earthly-minded); the second Man [is] the Lord from out of heaven.
Now those who are made of the dust are like him who was first made of the dust (earthly-minded); and as is [the Man] from heaven, so also [are those] who are of heaven (heavenly-minded).
And just as we have borne the image [of the man] of dust, so shall we and so let us also bear the image [of the Man] of heaven.” 1 Corinthians 15:45-49 AMPC
This scripture is full of living truths that we cannot glean on now. But one thing we can say is, it presented Christ as the second Adam; as one who came to show us how life was with the first Adam, especially, before the fall. That is why we can see all forms of supernatural living in God, looking at Christ, our own Adam.
Let me state that, there are two forms of the supernatural in GOD.
There is the supernatural in this age, and there is the supernatural in the age to come. But let us begin with the restoration of the supernatural in this age. The restoration of supernatural living in this age can be seen in the stories of the earthly life of Christ (that is, His life when He was physically on earth).
Jesus gave us a preview of how it was, when He came in as the second Adam; He walked on water, raise the dead like waking up sleeping men, opened blind eyes like a child’s play, healed all manner of diseases as easy as it was with Him. These dimensions of supernatural living He demonstrated before His resurrection, are the dimensions we are suppose to walk in after giving our lives to Christ. That was why He said;
“And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages;
They will pick up serpents; and [even] if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will get well.” Mark 16:17-18 AMPC
This scripture, and other related scriptures in the Bible, capture the restoration of supernatural living to us in this age. But there are scriptures that speaks about the restoration of supernatural living in the age to come; the second dimension of the supernatural that Jesus came to show to us as the second Adam.
One of them says;
“For while we are still in this tent, we groan under the burden and sigh deeply (weighed down, depressed, oppressed)—not that we want to put off the body (the clothing of the spirit), but rather that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal (our dying body) may be swallowed up by life [after the resurrection].
“Now He Who has fashioned us [preparing and making us fit] for this very thing is God, who also has given us the [Holy] Spirit as a guarantee [of the fulfillment of His promise]. 1 Corinthians 5:4-5 AMPC
We can see this dimension of supernatural living in Christ, when He resurrected from the dead.
This is the dimension all saved and sanctified believers in the early church craved for. The scripture said, they groaned under the burden, and sigh deeply to put off the body, which is the clothing of the spirit, so that what is mortal or what is of the dying body, may be swallowed up by life after their resurrection; the very life Jesus lived after His resurrection.
One day the disciples were in a locked room, in fear of the authorities, after the resurrection of Christ. Then He appeared right there in their midst. That He did, without opening the doors. He literally passed through the walls. This is a supernatural dimension reserved for the age to come.
There are few people who may taste it in this age; but all of us would not be able to taste it. However, when we all get to the age to come, we will be able to walk in it.
I want you to understand that the believers of the early church did not just walk in the dimension for the supernatural for this age, they looked forward to the dimension that was set aside for us all by God, in the age to come.
Like we stated earlier, that dimension was seen in Christ after His resurrection, and He displayed it before the disciples for 40 days so that they could see what was lying ahead of them in the age to come, and spend their days craving for it.
Doctor Luke was the one the LORD used to pen down the book of Luke for us. He described the very life Jesus lived after His resurrection, in these contemporary tenses; “many convincing demonstrations, unquestionable evidences and infallible proofs, appearing to them during forty days and talking to them about the things of the kingdom of God.”
What proofs or infallible evidences was Luke referring to? What things about the Kingdom of God did He talk to them? Which kingdom of God? The present one or the one to come?
Well, it is very clear that Jesus did not just appear to the disciples during the forty days to show them that He was alive, or He had resurrected. While that was the ultimate purpose, He appeared to them to show them how life after this life will look like; how the supernatural in the age to come will look like.
They saw it and spent their days craving for it, God wants us to also see it and hunger for it, He wants us to see the supernatural unveiled in Christ and the early church, especially the one for this age, so that we can begin to hunger and pressed into it. But we cannot see it until He reveal it to us. That is why we are on this journey.
May the LORD unveil it to our spirits and show us keys to unlocking it from time to time, as we journey along, in Jesus precious name.
Child of God, it is not God’s will, that some preachers be deities that believers run to for prophecy, miracle or whatever. That is not the will of God but that of the devil and the flesh.
The enemy knows that believers would not be able to individually come into the supernatural of God, living that kind of a life. Hence even raising his men to keep the church running after preachers for things that would naturally happen in their lives if they were living in the supernatural of GOD.
In God’s redemption plan, unbelievers should be the ones running to us for miracles and prophecies, the way you see so-called believers running after prophets and all that. Believers should not be the ones running after people they see as supernatural men or women of GOD, for feats of supernatural living.
It is my prayer that God will use this journey to bring every believer into the supernatural life we were supposed to be living. Amen!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“In the former account [which I prepared], O Theophilus, I made [a continuous report] dealing with all the things which Jesus began to do and to teach
Until the day when He ascended, after He through the Holy Spirit had instructed and commanded the apostles (special messengers) whom He had chosen.
To them also He showed Himself alive after His passion (His suffering in the garden and on the cross) by [a series of] many convincing demonstrations [unquestionable evidences and infallible proofs], appearing to them during forty days and talking [to them] about the things of the kingdom of God.” Acts 1:1-3 AMPC