TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 25TH FEBRUARY 2024)
“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”
“No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven.”
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:12-15 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 56TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Today we will be looking at how God restores a man or woman back to days of prosperity, peace, progress, and all the good things you can think of. Are you ready?
To start with, understand that God is not a mean and wicked deity out there, who does not care about what men, sinful or righteous go through. First of all, He is our Creator and it is an obligation for the Creator to care about His creation.
The Bible is clear on how God cares for even the smallest plant on the face of the earth or the smallest fish in the ocean. It is also clear on how God cares for the smallest bird that fly the skies, or from plant to plant. God Himself said;
“Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” Matthew 6:26 NKJV
Sometimes when you read words like this, you think they do not include you. Child of God they do not just include you, they are referring to you, especially if you have been following God from day to day as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
If God cares about you, understand that when you are going through pain, diseases, lack, poverty, captivity, the perils of sinful living, and any attack from men or devils, God cares about it and He wants you out as quickly as possible.
The fact that He allowed men and women in the Bible to go through certain things, does not mean He sanctions our sufferings and attacks from the kingdom of darkness.
The Bible says many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers them from they all.
There is Deliverance in Christ because God does not sanction captivity of any kind. There is healing in Christ because God does not sanction illness. There is sanctification in Christ because God does not sanction a life of sin and wickedness.
There is peace and rest in Christ because God does not sanction a life of crisis and restlessness.
So, the fact that God’s process for Job was for him to go through the furnace of losses and the most painful suffering a man can go through is not a sanction of suffering on the righteous or anyone.
YES, GOD DOES PUNISH SIN AND WICKEDNESS AS THE JUDGE OF THE EARTH
Also, sin and wickedness can bring suffering and destruction to people, but none of that is God’s will. In fact, I have seen many under the perils of their sins and wickedness accusing God of putting it on them.
I think our generation needs to be taught again and again about the consequences of sins, and how it destroys. Only when a man comes under the blood of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit can he be free.
So, God does not take delight in our calamities, neither does He rejoice when anyone, sinner or saint, is going through the perils of life. Except He is dealing with the rebellious, whenever any man falls into anything in life, God’s first move is to bring the person out not to blame the person.
We must be assured of His love, unchanging mercies, compassion, and tender heart towards all mankind. Yes, when He shows grace to the wicked and they do not learn righteousness, then grace will be withdrawn from them. But he remains the God of all grace and mercy. Hallelujah!
So, when he wants to rescue a man who is trapped in the perils of life, someone under intense attacks of the enemy, will He ask the person to raise an altar, sow a seed, give sacrificially, go to a mountain to pray, use water, oil, etc.? No!
How does God restore a man or woman back to days of prosperity, peace, progress, and all the good things you can think of? Let the Bible give us the answer.
First of all, it is important to understand that, the dispensation of shadows called the dispensation of the law has its own system, and if you will not tap into the demon of deliverance that is at work in many churches today, you must understand that.
There is a process for the restoration of any man in our dispensation; the dispensation of grace. That process is in one of the prophecies of Isaiah.
That process is the process of destroying the yoke with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, which is no longer oil in a bottle but a special empowerment that the Holy Spirit brings to all who come to the LORD.
The Bible says;
“It shall come to pass in that day That his burden will be taken away from your shoulder, and his yoke from your neck, and the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil.” Isaiah 10:27 NKJV
If you are a lazy Christian who does not study the Bible, you will straight away take the last sentence of this verse to mean the anointing oil preachers’ smear or pour on people.
YOU WILL NOT EVEN REALIZE THAT JESUS, EVEN BEFORE THE CROSS, NEVER SMEARED ANY SICK PERSON WITH OIL.
It was the disciples who prayed for people with oil before they encountered the Holy Spirit in Acts. Some will use James 5:14-16, to verify their smearing of people with oil.
I did a five series on the oil thing, and will ask that you request for the messages. It is titled “GOD’S REPLACEMENT FOR THE ANOINTING OIL.” You can call +254791333111 for further information.
The Bible says Jesus healed all that were sick by His word and touch and casted out demons by the same means. The one time you find Christ using clay to heal blind eyes, was a sign for the release of eye-opening (Apostolic) ministries that are coming, which are here now.
That was why our fathers never used clay to heal anyone. They got the message. Neither did Peter smear anyone with oil again, because the Holy Spirit gave Him the anointing to heal by His presence and prayer only.
Spiritual yokes before the cross were broken by the glory of the LORD.
So, if you are a lazy Christian, who only depends on what the pastor says, instead of doing comparative study of the Bible, you will never come to the knowledge of the truth of the last sentence in Isaiah 10:27.
But if you are a Christian who does comparative study of the Bible, you will quickly know that, the sentence was referring to a spiritual fatness those who come into the house of the LORD to be taught or fed with the living word of God, will grow into.
The amplified version of the same scripture put it this way;
“And it shall be in that day that the burden of [the Assyrian] shall depart from your shoulders, and his yoke from your neck. The yoke shall be destroyed because of fatness [which prevents it from going around your neck].” Isaiah 10:27 AMPC
This rendering of the same Isaiah 10:27, puts it clearly that the LORD was not referring to olive oil, when He said, the yoke of the Assyrians over Israel will be broken because of the anointing oil.
THAT SCRIPTURE WAS ORIGINALLY REFERRING TO THE YOKE OF THE ASSYRIANS, AN EMPIRE THAT TORMENTED ISRAEL AT ONE TIME.
So, you cannot imagine the Israelites being smeared with olive oil to be free from it. It does not make sense.
The phrase “the anointing oil,” clearly does not refer to the oil in the hands of your oil using preachers. They have deceived the Church for too long misinterpreting that scripture.
The phrase refers to a fatness that will prevent the yoke of the Assyrians from remaining over Israel; which originally was a prosperity God later released and used in breaking the hold of the Assyrians on Israel.
Today, that prosperity is the prosperity of the soul that makes it impossible for satanic yokes to remain over our lives; a prosperity that the Anointing of the Holy Spirit brings. That prosperity of the soul, is also called “the fatness of our souls.”
Yes, a fatness that comes from the things of God that the Holy Spirit has taught or helped one to experience. It has a way of establishing the governing influence of God over our lives.
Once that influence is over our lives, our story will change.
So, if you are looking for healing, deliverance, restoration, peace, from Jesus Christ today, or you want your glory days to return after a season of losing everything, look for that fatness that the Holy Spirit brings. Yes, seek the prosperity of your soul.
Yokes of the evil one are permanently broken from our lives when they can no longer go around our necks. The fatness in our souls is what makes it impossible for them to do that.
So, seek a preacher who will feed you the living word of GOD, until the enemy can no longer feed on you. A beautiful portion of our devotional text says;
“If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” John 3:12 NKJV
When Jesus came, He was speaking earthly things. That was why they came in parables. Yet, those earthly things were very high-class revelations that form the bases of our faith today.
Sadly, most of us preachers do not even teach them. Most use the Bible to practice dark things from the kingdom of darkness calling it deliverance, leaving people more confused and oppressed than before.
But there is another class called Heavenly things; those are the things that the Holy Spirit was given to open to us, and He has done that already. There are preachers who are blessed by the LORD with such high-profile revelations of the Kingdom of God.
LOOK FOR THEM AND SIT UNDER THEM, AND YOUR LIFE WILL NOT REMAIN THE SAME.
Personally, I have discovered that, any preacher who is truly called of the LORD, and has not polluted his or her mantle, the Spirit of God will be using such a fellow to bring this Heavenly things Jesus spoke about to those who sit under him to be made disciples of Christ.
He will be speaking things that are capable of unleashing the power of the cross upon the lives of men and women.
So, if you are part of any church, ministry or preacher, who does not hold such high-profile revelation, the word of the LORD for you this morning is this;
“Arise ye, and depart; for this is not your rest: because it is polluted, it shall destroy you, even with a sore destruction.” Micah 2:10 KJV
I have come across so many lives that have been destroyed, and minds made insane, by the practices of preachers with polluted mantles and graces. This are not days to assume that where every two or three are gathered God is there.
You must arise and depart from places where the Holy Spirit of Christ is not teaching through the preacher.
If you do not depart, very soon you will adapt to the spirit of falsehood in that place, and no longer see anything wrong with the devils they may be worshiping. You will become spiritually blind and come into sudden destruction.
The Bible made it clear that prophets who walk with a false spirit will become your best preachers on earth. So, arise and depart. You will never find full restoration or rest in such places. That is the word of the LORD!!!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY;
Get out of here, the lot of you. You can’t take it easy here! You’ve polluted this place, and now you’re polluted — ruined!
If someone showed up with a good smile and glib tongue and told lies from morning to night — ‘I’ll preach sermons that will tell you how you can get anything you want from God: More money, the best wines . . . you name it’ — you’d hire him on the spot as your preacher!
“I’m calling a meeting, Jacob. I want everyone back — all the survivors of Israel. I’ll get them together in one place — like sheep in a fold, like cattle in a corral — a milling throng of homebound people!
Then I, God, will burst all confinements and lead them out into the open. They’ll follow their King. I will be out in front leading them.” Micah 2:10-13 THE MESSAGE BIBLE