TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 28TH FEBRUARY 2024)
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.”
“And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.” Acts 4:13-14 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 59TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Let everything that has breath praise the LORD who lives forever; yes, the one with no birth day and will never have a death day.
He is alive and so full of life. Where He lives, death does not exist. He is immortal, and remains the source of the immortality we will come into at the end of time.
We give Him all the glory for keeping us alive, and from time to time, helping us to share a very small atom or percentage of the immortality He has, by His Holy Spirit.
It has been a season of mysteries for us on this platform. The Bible says it is given unto us to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God.
There are kingdoms and realms of spiritual and natural existence. Every kingdom has its own mysteries, and every realm its own glory. Ours is the Kingdom of God and the realm of God’s glory.
it is given to us to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and live from the realms of His glory. Yesterday, the LORD spoke to us about the mystery of the sabbath and the sabbath day.
Miseries are consequences of so many things. One of it is the ignorance of the mysteries of God’s kingdom.
If you are ignorant of the mysteries of God’s kingdom and desire to grow spiritual, you will begin to operate the mysteries of other kingdoms, especially the dark kingdom. That is why we have sorcerers who parade as men of God in church today.
Sadly, many in church today, live by the mysteries of other kingdoms and realms outside God’s glory. That is why you see them pray with salt, water, oil, clothes, stones, swords, liquids, fruits, money, rings, naked at night, and etc. They do that standing on certain twisted scriptures.
THAT IS WHY WE ALSO HEAR TEACHINGS LIKE, SPIRIT HUSBANDS, REDEMPTION AND DEDICATION OF THIS AND THAT ON THE LIPS OF MANY.
Most of the mysteries in God’s Kingdom are the policies and principles of the King of the kingdom of God, Jesus Christ. If we do not live our lives by them, we will lack the power and progress of the Kingdom of God in our lives.
If you lack the power and progress of the kingdom of God in your life, you will never lead a victorious life on earth. Our fathers in the early church, led victorious lives because they never lacked that power.
Even when most of them were termed uneducated, since the Greek educational revolution happened in their days, they were never disadvantaged.
While the Greeks where inventing ideas, making scientific and technological findings, that became the foundation of some of the things that are shaping our world today, they were birthing a move of God that has rescued so many souls from hell, and shaped the world in ways that are far more than what the Greek philosophers and scientist did in their days.
Their lives tell us that God does not choose the qualified when doing anything on earth. He qualifies the chosen, by making sure His kingdom power and progress is always at work in their lives.
This is by no means demeaning the near immortal power of good and sound godly education.
If God chooses you and you are educated, you will be more effective in your assignment when He adds His kingdom mysteries and power in your life, than he or she who is not educated with same grace dimensions.
No matter the case, both the educated and uneducated can both be effective weapons in the LORD’s hands if they remain humble and submissive to Him and seek Him daily with all their hearts.
Yes, so long as both are prisoners of prophecies, they will carry glory dimensions in their lives.
Today we want to look at matters of prophecies; things that have been spoken into our lives that should be fulfilled.
To start with, let me ask, “Have you ever received a prophecy that never came to pass?” I have! I guess many others have also. Most of them sometimes came by the mouths of happy men and women of God, who wanted to show me that they are prophetic, but ended up saying things God never sent them to say to me.
Anyone who says failed prophecies do not trouble them, is a liar; especially when they speak concerning their deliverance from some yokes, blessings, or some major thing God wants to use them to do.
I AM NOT TROUBLED WHEN PROPHECIES FROM THE HEARTS OF FALSE PEOPLE FAIL, BUT I AM TROUBLED WHEN GENUINE PROPHECIES FAIL!
Mark the word “genuine” because I am not referring to false prophecies or things picked from realms that look God, but are not of God; realms like the second Heaven.
Neither am I referring to the things that some prophets and pastors prophesy upon us to look anointed or express that our fat offerings are acceptable to them. You know when you give some good money, to money-controlled prophets and preachers, it would stir up a prophecy.
I am not referring to such prophecies. I am referring to genuine word of promise from the LORD that came to you either directly or indirectly.
God wants every word of deliverance, blessings, lifting, or visitation He sends directly or indirectly to us to be fulfilled. If He never wanted His words to be fulfilled, He would not have sent them in the first place.
God is not a talkative. He says what He means and means what He says.
That was why when Zachariah doubted the word that He sent through Gabriel in Luke Chapter 1, his mouth had to be shut. He became dumb. To whom much is given, much is required. Zechariah occupied an exalted office and the office had no place for doubting God.
That teaches us to be careful what we say after God has truly spoken to us. There are confessions of faith and there are confessions of doubt. The confession you make as soon as a word proceeds from God to you matters to Him.
IT WILL DETERMINE IF THAT WORD WILL BLESS YOU OR BREAK YOU.
Here is a mystery of the Kingdom you must understand when it comes to genuinely hearing from God.
When God speak, He speaks from opened portals of Heaven. It is those portals that release the power to perform what He says. They make it possible for the word to come with an inherent performing power. That is why Isaiah wrote saying;
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, But water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV
The word of the LORD does not return to Him void; in other words, it does not lack the power to perform itself in the lives of people.
Any confession you make therefore, at that place and time is being made under an opened portal. A confession of doubt will shut the portal over your private life and prevent the word from coming to pass in your own life, but it will come to pass in the lives of others to show that God is faithful.
Sometimes confessions of doubt are not made verbally. They are made at heart, like when Sarah laughed. In her case, the word still came to pass because she was not the one God was dealing with. Abraham was, and Abraham never laughed.
Besides, theirs was a sovereign prophecy. That is another mystery of the Kingdom of God.
Sovereign prophecies do not need our faith or doubt for them to come to pass. They are determined in the office of the three that bear witness in Heaven, and confirmed by the three that bear witness on earth, hence bound to come to pass.
The point is, most of what we deal with today are not sovereign prophecies, but words from God that heavily depend on our faith to come to pass. We must therefore cultivate the righteous habit of keeping the faith, to see them come to pass.
Yes, religious and secular people might fight and prevent us from keeping the faith, but we must not give in. We must keep keeping the faith.
OUR DEVOTIONAL TEXT HAS SOMETHING INTERESTING THAT IS WORTHY OF CONSIDERATION ON MATTERS OF KEEPING THE FAITH.
It says,
“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.”
Before Jesus left, He had told these men that signs shall follow them. That in His name they will heal the sick, raise the dead, cleans the lepers, and bring timely interventions to many. That was a prophecy. But it never came to pass in a large scale until they spent time with Jesus.
Spending time with Jesus, turned these men, who were uneducated and untrained in matters of religion into super men; it turned them into miracle workers as the LORD had said.
That gives us one major key to use in keeping the faith until prophecies are turned into manifestations. That key is the key of being with Jesus. In other words, being a man or women who spends his or her days with the LORD through the prayer knee.
I submit to you that every authentic prophecy is basically a call to the prayer room. If you do not treat prophecy that way, a lot of genuine things that God says to you will never come to pass.
We need to wake up from slumber and realize that if God speaks a word of prophecy to us, He is sending us to the prayer room to wait on Him until His word comes to pass. That is why only those who wait upon the LORD see His word come to pass.
Waiting upon the LORD is not being in a state of inactivity as it sounds, but being on the prayer knee until the word of the LORD comes to pass in your life.
The only person to be with after God may have spoken to you is Jesus, not a pastor or prophet. Not even the person God may have used to help you hear that word.
Sadly, most of us run after the vessels to be with them instead of Jesus, consequently defeating the word of the LORD in our lives.
You could start drinking from the fountain of the vessel God may have used to speak to you if he or she has a ministry, but the only one you truly need to run after and be with until the word comes to pass, is Jesus Himself.
I once read a book that said, before men and women like Katherine Khulman, Charles Finney, Maria Woodworth Etta, and the likes, sprang up, people locked themselves up in chain prayers, standing on scriptural prophecies; they prayed those prophecies until they unleashed their performance on earth.
THE BOOK SAID THEY PRAYED FOR 100 YEARS.
Meaning they prayed until they died, handing over the prayer mantle to the next generation to keep praying. That generation kept praying until it died after handing over the same passion to the next generation. It went that way until God’s word came to pass.
Now, what kind of prayer do you pray, to move prophecies from the realm of promise to the realm of performance? It is not the type you see people pray in most churches today. It is not a prayer you pray with prayer books.
Such shallow prayers do nothing of such because some are even controlled by dark spirits in people’s hearts.
The kind of prayer you pray is the type we describe as, “Deep calling unto deep.” It is usually governed by the burden of seeing what God has spoken come to pass.
It is called travailing prayers. It involves a lot of spiritual pain and sacrifice most times.
Sadly, our church age does not know much about this kind of prayer.
This kind of prayer is not something you do in church and shout, but something you do in the Spirit, driven by a Holy Ghost passion to bring forth. It places us in a travailing posture that Elijah was placed before the rain fell.
That is the kind of prayer to pray if you want to unlock the performance of any prophetic word from the LORD that has been proven true to you.
I believe the message of today’s devotional has been passed. Be the doer of this word and not just a reader and your life will not remain the same.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!
Then Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is the sound of abundance of rain.”
So Ahab went up to eat and drink. And Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; then he bowed down on the ground, and put his face between his knees, and said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.”
So he went up and looked, and said, “There is nothing.” And seven times he said, “Go again.”Then it came to pass the seventh time, that he said, “There is a cloud, as small as a man’s hand, rising out of the sea!” So he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot, and go down before the rain stops you.’ ”
Now it happened in the meantime that the sky became black with clouds and wind, and there was a heavy rain. So Ahab rode away and went to Jezreel.
Then the hand of the Lord came upon Elijah; and he girded up his loins and ran ahead of Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. 1 Kings 18:41-45 NKJV