TODAY’S DEVOTION (MONDAY 24TH JULY 2023)**
“I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.”
“He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”
“I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.” Ecclesiastes 3:10-12 KJV
WELCOME TO THE 205TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF SIGNS AND WONDERS.
We thank God for giving us this day and for keeping us alive. This is the day the LORD has made, we shall rejoice and be glad in it.
Yesterday at the Cry of the Spirit Ministries, here in Nairobi Kenya, we did not have a service. While many people gathered at their different church centers for regular church services, ‘unfortunately’ for us, we did not have one. God said, “No! You are not going to have a service, you will have a storm,” and that was what happened.
His Holy Ghost storm came. It started at 8:30 am and ended at 4:15 pm.
We have seen amazing moves of God of different shades and depths, in the hundreds of services we have had as a ministry. This one came with its own unique shade and depth. It was a spiritual storm of God’s presence, that broke into our lives, through an outpouring of a kind that we have never seen before.
It moved from wave to wave, dimension to dimension, and all that.
We now understand what it means for angels to be screaming, “Holy, holy, holy,” in Heaven. They see and experience different shades and depths of GOD’s presence. We at the Cry of the Spirit ministries are being shown mercy by the LORD to have a bit of what those guys with Papa God up there have been having.
To God be all the glory! We will remain ever grateful to Him for making our time in His presence awesome. He has never allowed us to have one dull moment of service since we came to East Africa. There has been no service at the Cry of the Spirit ministry where things have been natural or normal.
We have had hundreds of services since 2013 when we came, and the LORD’s presence has always made them supernatural and unusual. God is not doing this because we are better than others, but because He is better than others. Hence, making the services what they have been.
IF YOU MISSED THAT SERVICE, YOU MISSED SOMETHING THAT ETERNITY CAME TO PUT ON YOUR LIFE.
In our devotional today, God wants to give us another dimension of knowledge. The scripture of our devotional text is about timing, and how God makes things beautiful in His time.
It is important to know that the plans of God for us are not in time but in eternity. In other words, they are not governed by our own time but His. Consequently, things do not leave Heaven to the Earth in our own time. They do so in His time frame.
That is why we are told in the Bible to learn to wait upon the LORD.
People who cannot wait upon Him will never have dimensions of His presence like those who do. Apart from the scriptures, even the lives of those who have gone ahead of us, teaches that one must learn to wait upon the LORD for one to become significant in life.
You see, if you will get anything significant from God, you must learn to wait for Him. Sadly, sometimes His time frame clashes with ours, and since many of us cannot wait, or know how to recognize or submit to God’s time frame, we end up losing whatever He came to bless our lives with.
That is why the Life of many Christians goes in a cycle and is stagnated. They do not know how to recognize God’s time of visitation or things that make for their peace. Neither do they know how to wait on Him. And instead of the prophets pointing this truth to them, they point them to the altars of their father’s houses and some devils.
Jesus Himself made it clear that many of us suffer and are stagnated in life because we do not know our time of visitation; we do not know when God has come to move us to the next level.
For instance, if those who missed the service yesterday were sensitive, they would not have missed it.
If they had known that yesterday’s service will be such a time of visitation, they would have come even hours before and waited. Sometimes our hearts are crammed with life worries that would not let us sense what God is about doing.
FORCING US TO MAKE DECISIONS THAT DEPRIVE US OF MARVELOUS THINGS GOD HAS PREPLANNED FOR US.
If we continue to lead lives that are not tailored around spiritual sensitivity to what GOD wants to do, we will keep suffering. Exaltations in God come in His pre-appointed times of visitation. And it will take the humility that brings spiritual sensitivity to wait for such exaltations. The Bible says;
“Be you humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in the time of visitation: Casting all your care upon him, for he hath care of you.” 1 Peter 5:6-7 Douay-Rheims
That brings us to the challenge every Child of God faces; how can we relate successfully with this God who does not live in our time but in His eternity?
The only way we can relate successfully with Him is to know His time of visitation and be ready for it. A people who do not know how to humble themselves, endure, accept, and then come into God’s time of visitation for them, will remain trapped in the perils of life.
Things can only be made beautiful in our lives in God’s time. If we cannot therefore humbly see, sense, and cease the moments, things will remain ugly in our lives. A Major highlight in our devotional text today says,
“I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made everything beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.”
The word “travail” in this scripture simply means God-given task. It has nothing to do with suffering or adversity. The Bible was referring to what God has assigned us to do within our own time frame. And that to me is to discover His time and align to it – align to its demands. Or in other words, respond to it!
God’s time comes with deliverances to receive, blessings to collect, instructions to obey, visions to pursue and execute, plans and purposes to make our goals, etc. That is why His time is called the “day of visitation.”
I BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED IN OUR SERVICE YESTERDAY WAS A SET TIME OF VISITATION FROM THE LORD FOR SOME OF US.
Such times are usually full of divine moments; divine moments full of throne room capacity to eliminate any residues and impacts of any demonic or flesh and sin moments one might have had to sense and see through the eyes of faith and cease swiftly.
One thing about divine moments is that when they come and we do not see, sense, and cease them, they go back to eternity living us dry. That is why many of us are still stagnated in life.
Don’t forget, until things constantly leave Heaven to the earth of our lives, we will never go forward in life. Most times, the time they do so is called God’s pre-appointed times (or God’s days of visitation, or divine moments). Such deliveries from Heaven do not come in our time. That brings us to the second truth we can glean from the same devotional text.
It says “He hath made everything beautiful in his time:”
Why is God’s time so powerful? It is powerful because that is the only time, He moves to make things beautiful! If you wait for Him in your own time you will never see Him.
For instance, many are still single today because they do not understand this mystery. They thought it was God’s time to get married when they met a particular man or woman and started courting or dating them. Eventually, things turned out sour, leaving them still single – even worse than they were, before the relationship.
The Bible spoke about an evil time. It says,
“For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, Like birds caught in a snare, So the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.” Ecclesiastes 9:12 NKJV
What is an evil time? There are two basic times in the scriptures, God’s time and our time. In God’s time, He makes things beautiful, but in our time He does not. The Bible calls God’s time “beautiful” and calls every other time “evil.” An evil time, therefore, is a time that is not God’s. It could be ours, that of our loved ones, or that of the devil, but it is not God’s time.
The single lady or young man, who thought it was time to get married, but ended up becoming a single mother or single father, missed God’s time. They took their decisions or made a great move but in an evil time, hence the consequences.
EVIL TIMES ARE TIMES SATAN USES TO ENSNARE US AND DEPOSIT SOME ISHMAEL’S IN OUR LIVES.
No one can happily pass through this world doing things in “an evil time.” That was what Jesus as man knew, hence waiting for “divine timing” for every healing He gave, every dead He raised, and every move He made. He did not even submit to death until it was time. Anytime outside that would have been “an evil time.”
And if Jesus had died in an evil time, He would have still remained in the grave to this day.
If therefore you want to move forward in life, you must be sensitive to God’s time or pre-appointed moments. You must walk in the revelation we just shared. You must cease doing things in your time because your time (or that of any other person who loves you) is an evil time. Only God’s time is beautiful.
Things will always be ugly in your life if you keep doing them in your own timing and praying or trusting God to take care of you like many of us do. God will never take care of you if you do not recognize His timing for you and align to it. Friend, it is better to get married in a beautiful time than in an evil time no matter what the time promises. It is better to get rich in a beautiful time than in an evil time.
The Book of Ecclesiastes chapter 3 tells us the two basic types of timings on the face of the earth. It tells us that there is a time to sow and a time to reap. If you sow when you ought to reap or reap when you ought to sow, your financial life will remain ugly.
It also tells us of a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing. Meaning, there are seasons to socialize and seasons not to socialize. If you socialize when you ought not to socialize you will plunge yourself into things that even prayer may not save you. Knowing God’s timing for things is the best way to lead a Christian life!
Sadly, Satan has a way of making an evil time look beautiful and attractive to us, consequently impregnating us with the urge to move into things thinking it’s God’s timing. The attack is basically to make us miss the blessing. But I trust God has made someone wiser today.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
Now as He drew near, He saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If you had known, even you, especially in this your day, the things that make for your peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes.”
“For days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment around you, surround you and close you in on every side, and level you, and your children within you, to the ground; and they will not leave in you one stone upon another, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” Luke 19:41-44 NKJV