TODAY’S DEVOTION (WEDNESDAY 8TH MAY 2024)
“We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.”
“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.”
“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen.” 1 John 5:18-21 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 129TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF IMPACT.
It’s been 129 days of receiving daily word from the LORD. We give God the glory for His marvelous works and glorious deeds in our lives.
We thank Him for the air in our lungs and the flow of blood in our veins.
Filling hearts with the knowledge of God’s will have been one of the purposes of the LORD’s mandate upon our lives. To those with the hunger to know God intimately, the mandate is greatly beneficial.
By God’s mercies, through this platform, the vision is being fulfilled daily in the life of those who are hungry and thirsty for righteousness, and we give God the glory.
We cannot afford to lead any other life other than a life governed by the revelation knowledge of God’s will. Not just His will, but His ways also.
This morning I want to take us to a well of truth that was dug some years back on divine backing. I believe we need to refresh our minds with this revelation today because there is so much happening that we just need God on our side to conquer.
God did not create the human life to be lived without Him. That is why any life that attempts to do so, comes under dark influences.
You need divine backing to live a successful and peaceful life on earth.
It is God’s will that Heaven stand by your side in all righteous things you set your hand to do. And that is what divine backing is. Anything we do without divine backing, will never lack successful demonic or human frustrations.
In other words, demons or humans will frustrate you greatly without God backing you in whatever righteous thing you set your hand to do.
In a season like this, when everyone is facing one challenge or the other, we need divine backing more than anything else. It’s my prayer that as we go back in time to drink from the well, there will be a refreshing for our souls. Amen and amen.
THE BLESSING OF DIVINE BACKING
I have come to discover that, in the battle of life, our enemies are not actually our problem. Lack of divine backing in our lives has always been the problem. If we can secure divine backing in anything we may be doing, God will move swiftly against whatever comes against us.
Divine backing is God standing by man in every endeavor of his life. It is supernatural support from a loving God to a people who seek Him. It is God standing by you as a ‘Mighty Terrible One’ (MTO) to help you come out victorious in the battles of life.
When Jesus was in the flesh as man, He never did anything without divine backing. He was able to raise the dead, heal the sick, come out of terrible storms, walk upon the water, and do all He did because the Bible says, “God was with Him.”
Divine backing is God being with you! It is God bearing you up in every step you may be taking, and helping you to run and finish your things so well and so strong.
For instance, concerning the redemptive sacrifice, the Bible made it clear that Jesus prayed and cried unto the Father (His source) with strong cries; the Bible says He cried to Him who is able to save Him from Death, and it activated the glory He had before coming into the world.
Being God in flesh, He did all that as man, basically to show us the way. The result was an awesome and amazing backing from the Throne of God; The Head office of our earthly lives.
The backing He secured made sure that Death could not hold Him captive.
On the third day, after His crucifixion and burial, He came out of the grave victoriously, freeing us from the pangs of spiritual, eternal and natural death forever. That is why today, we can celebrate Easter or Passover, depending on your religious persuasion.
To those who are saved and spirit filled, because of what Jesus did, death is no longer a threat but a horse to use in riding to the next life!
The point I am making is this; if Jesus needed divine backing to pass through all He passed through, and do all He did, we will be stupid not to crave for divine backing in anything we may be doing or may want to do.
IN THE WORLD WE LIVE IN TODAY, ANY RIGHTEOUS SEED CAN CRASH AND GET TERRIBLY BEATEN WITHOUT DIVINE BACKING.
The enemy will hinder him or her in all fronts!
You might be full of faith or the anointing, understand that you will not be able to do anything meaningful on planet today without God being with you. Yes, it takes divine backing to do anything meaningful on the face of the earth today.
We just had the 10th anniversary thanks giving service of our ministry in East Africa. We needed to thank God because the ministry is a product of divine backing. I remember when we first came, we knew no one. We were not sent by any missionary group.
It was (and still is) just us and God.
I remember worshiping in a particular Church to know how Christian worship is in the region, and meeting a couple that asked my wife and I what organization sent us when they got to know that we were here for ministry. We said “none!”
Then they exclaimed, “wao!!!… you will not be able to do anything meaningful here without foreign backing. That is terrible.”
Now, that meeting took place at a time when we have no money in our hands. We could not even pay our rent because all we came with was either stolen from us or taken from us because we thought people here will never do evil to servants of God.
So it left me very frustrated and discouraged. But then, I remembered what I said many years ago while preaching.
I remembered saying to an audience that “if God throws me into an Island with just my Bible and no one to support me, I will fill that Island with people and provision through prayer.”
So the Holy Spirit brought that word to me and pushed me to work it out. I understood prophetically, this place was that Island that has no human support for divine assignment for us.
SO, I MUST CARRY OUT THOSE FAITH DECLARATIONS I MADE YEARS BACK.
We bowed our knees to God who alone we had and still have.
Yes, we decided to seek the God who called and sent us to East Africa without external support from anywhere. We sought Him and listened to the little steps he asked us to take in response.
With a divine decree not to beg, borrow, or go into any business of stealing in the name of the LORD by asking people to raise altars and do all the money making nonsense most preachers do, we soldiered on, seeking Him to make way for us to preach His word and execute the apostolic mandate He brought us here to execute.
After a long while, divine backing breaks forth, and things began to change.
We begin to have instances where people we do not know came from far places to place money in our hands and went away. We knew only God can do that. A lot of other good things began to happen also, and the ministry began to grow, and grow.
We also had so many enemies who hated the righteous truths we preach, but God was with us. Today we can say, “Ebenezer, hitherto has the LORD helped us.” Truly, if God is not with you, do not attempt to do anything righteous. It will not work.
We now have so many friends, sons and daughters in the LORD, birthed by the Spirit of the LORD. Our lives and ministry here are a living testimony that “one with God is indeed the majority.”
What is the message of our devotional today?
The message is simple. Don’t go into anything without divine backing. If you step into a thing with all the human backing you need, you will achieve little or nothing.
But if you step into things with all the divine backing you need, you will achieve much within a short time.
With divine backing, you will not be running in your own strength. You will be running in the strength of the almighty. People will be wondering why you are making such great waves and gaining such great speed.
THOSE WHO ARE WISE WILL KNOW IT’S NOT YOU BUT SOMETHING AND SOMEONE BIGGER THAN YOU.
They will know it is GOD that is with you. I have discovered that a man who try to copy or compete with those God is backing will end up frustrating himself.
Like I said, we have had so many enemies. Recently someone told me how a preacher stood in his church and spoke so bitterly about me, and asked his congregation to pray against me and bind the spirit using me.
This is not the first time that is happening. I have heard and seen so many funny things said and done against us. Severally, preachers have gathered in their different pastors’ meetings to pray against us and issue curses.
The reason is simply because of the Sound doctrine the LORD has put on our lips, and the souls it is delivering from their manipulations, false teachings, heresies, false prophecies, charismatic witchcraft, stealing in the name of the LORD, and etc.
The word of the LORD on our lips, have set free so many believers who were deceived, reduced to money milking cows, raped, and destroyed by these preachers. Like Pharaoh who hated Moses, so they hate us and pray against us in their meetings. But none of that has worked because God is with us.
When you run against men, who are not running spiritually with their natural feet, but the feet of God almighty, you will just weary yourself. The race is actually not to the swift, and the battle not to the strong. It’s God’s backing that makes the difference in our lives or ministries.
Even if we leave this region today, we will be leaving in victory and joy of what the LORD has accomplished by our hands.
The landscape is changed, many sleeping giants of the LORD have woken up, bearing the same gospel He brought here by our hands. Kids are getting ready to become the next generation of church leaders, with truth in their hearts, and the Jesus is Enough Spirit.
I feel very fulfilled, but none of these would have been possible without divine backing!!
YOU WILL NEED DIVINE BACKING TO DO ANYTHING SIGNIFICANT IN A WICKED WORLD.
You will need divine backing to marry that man or woman or to succeed in that business or ministry. You will need divine backing to go through school and come out well. You will need divine backing to live in a foreign land like we do.
You will need divine backing to escape from the sword of your enemies.
There are no words to accurately describe what your life will become if you lack divine backing as a Child of God in whatever you may be pursuing to do.
Marriages will break down without divine backing; Businesses will fail without divine backing. Churches and ministries will fold up without divine backing. God will open a great door for you but without divine backing, you will not be able to enter.
The Bible says,
“For a wide door of opportunity for effectual [service] has opened to me [there, a great and promising one], and [there are] many adversaries.” 1 Corinthians 16:9 AMP
It’s impossible to deal with the many adversaries that surround divine opportunity without divine backing.
Friend, our present world is under the sway of the evil one. He will sway people to speak ill of you, hinder you from achieving, withhold good from coming to you, and build a wall of gossip, slander, evil report or etc. around you, basically to prevent those God may have raise to help you, from reaching you.
But if you have divine backing, none of that will stop you from succeeding. A major highlight in our devotional text today says;
“We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one.”
If you do not have divine backing in whatever you may be doing, the enemy will sway people against you, and there will be no help from God to enable you conquer them.
THE QUESTION NOW IS, HOW DO WE SECURE DIVINE BACKING?
There are so many ways in God’s word that we can use in securing divine backing. But the most powerful and effective way is to seek God’s will before doing a thing.
It’s easier to do what God has blessed than to do what you will need to pray for Him to bless. If you are not in God’s true will in whatever you may be doing, you will never secure divine backing.
Our coming to Kenya, East Africa, was not by human thinking or wishes.
God said to me clearly, “meet me in Kenya,” when I was resisting; that was after 14 years that the vision first came. I was resisting because I had wanted to go to the United States, and when He resisted me, I decided not to travel to any where again, but to remain in Nigeria to fulfill my ministry.
So, our coming was in His will, that is why He is backing us up.
As we bring this to a close, understand that, God will not back what He did not initiate. He will never complete what He did not start, and He will not prosper what is not programed in His will.
Jesus came into the world in God’s will that was why His prayers unlocked divine backing for Him. We came into East Africa in God’s perfect will. That is why He is backing us.
If you are not in His will, you will not see His backing. Become a child of God who seeks His will concerning anything before venturing into it. If you do, you will erase struggles out of your life.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?” Romans 8:28-31 KJV