TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 21ST MARCH 2024)
Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.”
And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, saying, “Father, if it is your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.”
Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
When He rose up from prayer, and had come to His disciples, He found them sleeping from sorrow. Then He said to them, “Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.” Luke 22:39-46 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 81ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
Believe it or not, this date is not new. There have been such dates before since time was created. What is new is the day itself.
Dates are simply numbers given to days the earth has never seen and will only see once. That is why, there could be another 21st of March, but there will never be a day named 21st of March again. Another day will be given that number.
Now, due to the urgency of the hour, I perceive our devotionals this week should be on personal prayer; that is why today’s devotional will be a follow up on yesterdays.
Yesterday, we saw that we are in a special season; the Passover season – a season set aside to mark the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, His burial, and glorious resurrection.
The season is prophetically known as “Passover season.” Though most traditional Christians named it after the heathen name for it “Easter Season,” it remains our Passover season. A season God passed us over eternal death.
The season should not be embraced like the Heathen and unserious Christians embrace it. They use it as a time for holiday and family meetings, or get together. They do not tap into the spirituality of the season.
It is very important that it be considered a solemn season by everyone who call upon the name of the LORD.
The season should be a season of reflection and revelation on the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus; because it is a season the Passover portals of glory will open in the Spirit realm, over those who will step up in faith.
THAT IS WHY I CALLED ON EACH BELIEVER TO ENGAGE IN PERSONAL PRAYERS, ESPECIALLY TRAVAILING PRAYERS.
Our devotional text today is another Passover scene where Jesus was found agonizing in prayer in the garden shortly before He went to face the sufferings of the cross.
Jesus was about facing the cross, but He had to face God first through personal travailing prayers. The lesson here is, do not face the cross of life, or any challenge that might be standing before you, until you have faced God.
That is how people who depend on God behave.
If we have not faced God in deep prayers as believers, we cannot face the challenges that are attached to our divine destiny with deep commitment, and come out victorious. We will always fail. We must understand that facing God first brings victory even before the fight.
In simple terms, it helps us to win before engaging in battle, by giving us faith capacity to win despite the odds.
It builds in us the capacity to face the attacks of the enemy, or the rigors of life. It gives us the faith and fire capacity to face the challenges of unleashing a divine destiny, or the cost of carrying out a divine call successfully, as we live our days.
Many have not understood the capacity building ability of right Prayers. That is why they pray empty prayers.
Yes, right prayers have a way of helping us to build spiritual capacity in the spirit. That is why, we find ourselves getting on to the prayer knee like dying lambs, but getting up from it like conquering lions.
Prayer is indeed a spiritual capacity building agent.
We are often influenced by the flesh, the world, and the devil, to go against God’s will for our lives, resulting in sinful habits and all that. But with spiritual capacity built in the prayer room, we can conquer these forces.
That is why people, who do not spend time with God each season, primarily to build capacity before facing their days, will have a record of dark things they are participating in, or demonic attacks they are suffering.
JESUS KNEW THAT SPIRITUAL CAPACITY WAS ALL HE NEEDED TO FACE THE CROSS.
He knew that was all he needed to withstand the pain and shame of carrying the cross and bringing redemption to a lost world, hence entering the prayer room. One of the benefits of personal travailing prayers therefore, is the release of impartations from the Holy Ghost, resulting in spiritual capacity to face a challenging world.
The second truth we can glean from our devotional text today on prayer, lies in the product of spirit led travailing prayers; which is the bringing forth of a divinely predetermined future.
It takes prayers to move things from Heaven to the earth – effective fervent prayers of a righteous man, will make it possible for tremendous Heavenly things to be born on earth.
Jesus actually died, got buried, and resurrected in the garden during that prayer time before going out to actualize it in the City of Jerusalem. This mystery must be understood.
He got everything accomplished on His prayer knee before going out there to actualize it.
Friend, what you have not gotten on your knees through travailing prayers, you will never get on your feet through diligent work. The only way not to labour in vain, is to bend your knees to pray out a thing before going out there to work it out.
That is the secret of exploits in the Kingdom.
For instance, if you want to get married, especially after God has revealed everything about it to you, the next place to enter is the prayer room to process and move everything from promissory or visionary note to performance.
Whatever God may have revealed to you, is as good as a promissory note. Do not just sit there in excitement expecting it to happen. Enter the prayer room and travail in personal prayers until you see it performed in the spirit realm. That is when it will happen in the natural realm.
After you have seen it in the Spirit realm, you can then go out to actualize it. Anything outside this process will never bring what you saw to pass.
EXPECTATIONS TURN INTO DISAPPOINTMENTS BECAUSE PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW THIS.
Many have lived their days sitting on amazing prophecies, significant visions and revelations from the LORD for their lives for years without seeing anything close come to pass. They know how to receive prophecy, but do not know how to travail in prayers for them to be made manifest.
We are a prophecy seeking generation but not a travailing prayer generation. That is why we have not seen greatness being born. Until we add travailing prayers to our prophetic promises, they will never come to pass.
If you are called into ministry but you are not living a life of travailing prayers with the word of prophecy God may have spoken to you, you will never be able to unleash your ministry. You will live in a misery all your life.
Great ministries are lying today in the graveyards, because the people with such terrific mandates and mantles, did not move into the prayer room to birth them on their knees after being called into ministry.
Some just started the ministry without doing so, and became a misery consequently, and then died, while others did not even attempt at all.
It is through travailing prayers that we turn visions into reality, purposes into performance, and mandates into ministries. If you have a divine call, but do not wake up in travailing prayers, you will never see what God may have spoken to your ears come to pass.
Living a Christian life or ministry from the prayer room is an apostolic culture that our Church generation has forgotten. But that was what kept the early Church on fire.
We are the next on God’s list!
As you make this season a prayer season, let these devotional truths be your meditation.
Make the prayer room your dwelling place. Start living your life from your prayer knees not your feet. And always remember, until you have knelt before God, you will never be able to stand before men. They will always trample on you.
LET THIS SCRIPTURAL PASSAGE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION
“But we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.” Acts 6:4 NKJV