TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 23RD FEBRUARY 2023)
“But I am the LORD your God, Ever since the land of Egypt; I will again make you dwell in tents, As in the days of the appointed feast.
I have also spoken by the prophets, And have multiplied visions; I have given symbols through the witness of the prophets.”
Though Gilead has idols—Surely they are vanity—Though they sacrifice bulls in Gilgal, Indeed their altars shall be heaps in the furrows of the field. Hosea 12:9-11 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 54th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS!
We have been celebrating signs and wonders since the year started. For us it’s going to be 54 days of signs and wonders indeed by the end of the day.
The kingdom of GOD is the best place to be, because it is a unique kingdom. Someone may ask, how?
Well, there are so many reasons; one of the reasons is because it is the only kingdom on earth where victory is declared, before a battle starts, or warriors launch out against the enemy.
In this kingdom, we do not fight to obtain victory. We fight because we have obtained victory. Christ has done it for us; we only fight to obtain what He has done. The Bible says;
“For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” 1 John 5:4 NKJV
The victory that people who are born of GOD celebrate is behind the testimonies of signs and wonders we are enjoying this year.
One of the major Testimonies of Signs and Wonders that I have received from the people of GOD in our Church, is the Testimony of how a woman’s daughter would have been crushed by a vehicle.
The LORD sent the message ahead to her through a vision, and she stood in prayer to obtain victory over death. It worked. When the day would finally come when the enemy wanted to take the girl’s life, there was indeed an accident, but she escaped death.
In sharing her testimony, she said to me, “indeed it’s our year of signs and wonders.”
In the Cry of the Spirit, we do not make carnal charismatic noise, when people buy cars. We do not ask them to bring it for dedication, sow a seed of dedication, or have oil poured on it. That is the spirituality of greedy dark men and women of GOD.
But we are experiencing miracles and people are buying cars. I just received a beautiful Testimony this week.
Yesterday, I received another testimony of released of a financial entitlement of one of us that was withheld. He said he opted not to go to court but to present the matter to GOD.
He said one day, I called people out for prayers of financial miracles. After that prayer, the money was released.
Child of God,
“God is not a man that He should lie, or the son of man that he should repent. Has he not said it, and will He not do it?”
There are also testimonies of spiritual restoration and revolution. One beautiful one happened last Sunday; a group of first-time worshipers (or visitors, as we call it), received the Baptism and infilling of the Holy Spirit during the service.
They seem to have been craving for it for a long time, hence coming to our service to get it.
It happened without me laying hands on them. Christ laid His hands on them. I consider this a major sign and wonder because of its eternal relevance.
Moves of God with eternal relevance, are the most significant moves of God on earth.
Most times they are done based on God’s sovereign will. The preacher would not have to lay hands on them.
In fact, in the Cry of the Spirit, God does not wait for hands to be laid on people. He just moves in the lives of the people, and we see them slain in the Spirit.
After which, they wake up healed, delivered, refreshed, renewed, revived, reinforced, empowered, or baptized in the Holy Ghost, or filled with the Spirit, or thoroughly blessed by the LORD Himself.
GOD’S END TIME HARVEST PLAN IS A VERY BEAUTIFUL ONE.
Part of the plan is to establish Churches that are completely free of the dark supernatural; places where He would have to be coming upon the people by Himself, to fill them with what the Bible calls “the fullness of God.”
This is because of the horrors of the last days that mankind would have to contend with, in our age and time.
The fullness of God is His will for your life. You do not need oil in a bottle. That is not the fullness of God. You do not need holy water, that is not the fullness of God. You do not need incense or candle, that is not the fullness of God. You do not need to be served unholy holy communion, that is not the fullness of God.
You do not need to be scammed through the “raise an altar” faulty deliverance prescriptions, that’s not the fullness of God. You do not need to take a prophet or prophetess to the village for anything. All those things are the practices of the dark supernatural or faulty deliverances in church.
God’s prescription of faith for you, your family, or friends, who are in need of spiritual intervention, is what the Bible calls, “the fullness of God.” When you have the fullness of God, all tears from suffering, oppression, demonic attacks, and etc. will be wiped away.
The Bible says;
“And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:3-4 NKJV
This scripture is one of the Bible prophecies that will be fulfilled in the age to come. But it has a revelation of how our lives will become, when we possess the fullness of God.
The word made it clear that when we possess the fullness of God, the Tabernacle of GOD will be with us. He will dwell in our lives, and make us His people; that is, before principalities and powers, and all forms of spiritual wickedness in high places. Hallelujah!!
THEN HE WILL WIPE AWAY EVERY TEAR FROM OUR EYES.
He will bring us to the place where there will be no more death, as in moral corruption in our lives, or premature termination of our lives. There shall be no more sorrows, no crying, and no more pain. The hurts of life will still be there, but His refreshing presence will be stronger on us than the hurts.
The Bible says, the former things will pass away.
You can understand why the enemy will keep using religion and faulty deliverance ministers, to prevent people from coming to the fulness of God. You can see why you should not go for the oil, holy water, salt, or anything they offer, but the fullness of God.
Sadly, there are very few churches and ministers of the gospel today, who can disciple men until they carry the fullness of God like Paul did.
That is why they rather teach them to carry oil, raise altars, and perform all other faulty deliverance rituals. They rather teach them to carry what they call prophetic acts or similitudes in their hands, to solve their spiritual problems. They do not have the spiritual capacity to disciple them to carry the fullness of God in them.
That brings us to where we stopped yesterday.
We have been looking at the laws of the supernatural of God. Yesterday, we spoke about the law of divine partnership between divinity and humanity. The law explains how the supernatural of God, work with the natural of man to be made manifest.
We also said, the dark supernatural in Church hide behind what look like this law, to convince both preachers and their members that it is of GOD.
BUT HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?
It will tell you, “God needs the natural to demonstrate the supernatural; He needs the oil to put the Holy Spirit on you. He needs holy water, to do a miracle in your life. He needs some sacrifices from you, to send the deliverance you need and all that.”
While these things look sensible, they remain the dark supernatural way of manifesting itself in the church, because the God it refers to, is not the God of Heaven and Earth, but the god of deliverance, Baal.
It will take most of what it calls prophetic act or similitudes, from the Old Testament and standing on few verses in the New, to demonstrate itself. The reason is for people to accept it as God.
We have said over and over again, that if the dark supernatural in Church does not use the language of God to make itself manifest, it will have few or no follower among preachers or church members. But now it has so many followers because it is making itself known as God.
One of the scriptures it uses to do that is a verse in our devotional text. The verse says;
“I have also spoken by the prophets, And have multiplied visions; I have given symbols through the witness of the prophets.” Hosea 12:10 NKJV
It will use oil and say, “the is the symbol of the Holy Spirit.” It will ask you to bring sand from your village and call it a symbol or a point of contact. It will ask you to use photos as a similitude or symbol, because God said, “I have given symbols through the witness of the prophets.”
It will tell you, God needs the natural for Him to move, but will not tell you which God it is referring to.
Sometimes it uses the words, “use the oil” as a faith booster. It could be sand, salt, water or whatever. They will ask you to use them as faith boosters.
But in the supernatural of God of today, you do not use Old Testament shadows of Christ and the Holy Spirit as faith boosters. You use the word of the LORD that comes to you concerning an issue of life as a faith booster.
Do not forget, faith comes by hearing not by boosting it with oil, water, or whatever they call prophetic acts, symbols, or similitudes. The things they ask you to do and say “God told them to ask you to do them,” are not from the Almighty God but from the other gods in Church today.
Mostly, the god of deliverance, which has the demon of deliverance as its spirit.
I THINK, IDENTIFICATION OR DISCERNMENT OF GODS IS ONE MAJOR THING THAT THE CHURCH MUST LEARN TO DO TODAY.
The Bible says, “lords many, gods many…” We have heard of discernment of spirits but have not heard of discernment of gods. We need to walk in apostolic knowledge.
It is apostolic knowledge that can help us to discern the gods that are at work in Church today; the gods whose spirits are in church today twisting Old Testament scriptures to make us worship them.
If we do not walk in apostolic revelation knowledge of scriptures, we will be serving them, and having their spirits minister to us as the Spirit of the Almighty God, and there are eternal consequences to that. The Bible says;
“to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord, Ephesians 3:10-11 NKJV
This manifold wisdom of God is not the use of oil, holy water, salt, candle, incense in prayer, or the reckless and unholy serving of what they call “the communion,” and all that. This manifold wisdom of God is Christ in us the hope of glory; it is the manifestation of the fullness of God in man.
God’s servant apostle Paul was a preacher whose passion was to get the people of God filled with the fulness of God. That was why he never use oil in prayers or any of the gadgets you see preachers use today.
When aprons where taken out of him, it was not a doctrine but a one time move of the Spirit that was not to be repeated, hence not repeated. That is why you will never find it any where else in the Bible.
You will never find any preacher in the early church printing their photo or anything on clothes and giving out to people for miracles; you will never find prayer clothes made and sold to those in need of divine intervention.
You will find them focused on having the people filled with the fullness of God. Those are the kind of preachers we need today as spiritual fathers.
Yes, we need Churches headed by such preachers; churches where people come and have God pour Himself into their lives, until they carry His fullness.
The Bible demonstrated how passionate Paul was, in his quest to have people filled with the fullness of God. He was so passionate that 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
We can go on and on, but enough have been shared for the day.
Understand that the fullness of God is the answer to all your problems, not these things that are invented by faulty deliverance ministers. God wants you and I to be filled with all of His fullness so that we can function as His Tabernacle or dwelling place on earth.
Do not accept any other thing from your pastor (including me, if am your pastor), else you will be shortchanged.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
“Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God,
having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone,
in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:19-22 NKJV