TODAY’S DEVOTION (Friday 18th April 2025)
“The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those who proclaimed it:” Psalm 68:11 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 108th DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
Today is good Friday! It marks the beginning of the commemoration of the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is a week that should rekindle a spark of our salvation because of the LORD did for us on the cross.
The story of Easter or Passover as we might call it, is the story of how God use one man, the man Jesus Christ, to change the world eternally.
Jesus Christ was not a mere man. He was Godman; in simple terms God who stepped down in form of a mortal man to deliver mortal men from the consequences of sin. When the angel of the LORD announced His immaculate conception and birth to Joseph, he said, “His name shall be called Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
The story of Passover or easter is the story of how Jesus saved us, His people from our sins. He went through a season of excruciating pain, bled all over His body from the beatings, bruises, nailing and crowning with thorns to deliver His people (mankind) from their sins.
He suffered all that to bring eternal redemption from our sins. The Bible says,
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted.
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, everyone, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” Isaiah 53:4-6 NKJV
This scripture contains the prophecies of all that Jesus went through over 2000 years ago. By today, over 2000 years ago, He was already one day in the grave. He would rise on the third day in power, declared to be the Son of God, so that He might turn the sons of men into sons of God.
HE WAS THE SEED OF THE WOMAN THAT WAS SOWN INTO OUR LIVES SO THAT WE CAN BECOME SONS OF GOD.
Right from the day God declared that the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent, to the day that the LORD declared on the cross, “it is finished,” the story of the greatest event or move of God’s on earth, tells us how God can use one man to change all men.
That tells me that God can use you if you will be available to Him. You may have made any mistake in life, people might have called you a mistake or an error, but that is not where your destiny lies. God calls you differently. He wants to mold and use you to His glory.
Do not forget that God use men to change men; He use men to visit men. He wants to use you to change men. He wants to use you to visit men. He used our LORD and savior Jesus Christ as the gift of man to men, and that is why we are celebrating His death, burial and resurrection this week.
When begin to use you, you will become celebrated by those He uses you to touch or visit. Get ready for a new you. You will be needed in someone’s life for that person to succeed in life. You will be needed in someone’s life for that person to become what God created them to be.
God created men to “depend” on Him for success but to “need” men to succeed. You are one of those God has created to be needed by someone to succeed. God created you to be an integral part of His success program for someone just as He created someone to be an integral part of His program for you.
Do not allow your history to define your destiny or identity. Seek the LORD and allow Him to lead you to that person or people He created you to be part of their life one earth. As soon as you find that person that God created you to be an integral part of their lives, and begin to serve or respond to destiny, your life will begin to pick.
At this point, let us refresh our memories on the importance of men in God’s program. You see, the devil is out against you because you are important to God and He is not. He is jealous because God counts you important to His programs on earth but expelled him from His scheme of things eternally.
OUR WARFARE WITH EVIL IS PARTLY BECAUSE WE ARE IMPORTANT TO GOD BUT SATAN IS NOT
God designed that His visions on earth be fulfilled by great men and women who love Him, not be demons or the satanic. Understand that you are important, and he is not, that is why he is mad. Your job is to continue loving the LORD and doing His blessed will.
The Bible teaches that without visions people perish, and without men like you finding their part in God’s eternal plans, visions perish. Visions and all divine purposes need men like you, who would have to find out God’s plans for their lives to be executed and completed.
Our devotional text said, “The Lord gave the word; great was the company of those who proclaimed it:” Anything the LORD will put in your heart to do as His child makes you part of the great company of people to perform His will. Yes, it makes you part of His great company of men and women on earth; people whose lives will worth nothing except they spend it doing the things assigned to them by the LORD Jesus.
So, it does not matter how your mother conceived you and what your life is right now, the seed or purpose of the LORD for your life has not changed. Understand that the condition of our birth, or our condition of living are too weak to alter our destiny. You are important. You are not an error, a mistake or whatever your history calls you.
You are a vessel of the LORD, created to be worked on, refined, renewed, molded, and made part of God’s eternal plans for mankind. Yes, you were created to be worked on by the Spirit of the LORD, refined in the fire created by His word and your response to it, and renewed and molded by His Holy Spirit.
The difference between the you of today and the glorious you that you are to be tomorrow lies in the principle of seed, time and harvest or death burial and resurrection, that you are to activate in your life.
THAT IS ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL LESSONS WE CAN DRAW FROM THE STORY OF PASSOVER OR EASTER.
Jesus as man came into time as a seed of God for our redemption, lived for the years He lived, and passed through the most horrible experience a man would ever pass through; but arose from death. Today He sit as the King of kings and LORD of lords. That is the same principle we are to activate.
We are to go through any process the LORD has prepared for us, no matter the cost. When we come out of it, we will step into the harvest of the process. The harvest will not be the old us but the new us. It will not be the version of us that people reject, people do not like, or do not want to do anything with.
It will be a version of us that is fair as the moon, bright like the sun, and glorious like an army with banners, with all the provisions and people we need in our lives.
Everyone will be given a process to go through to become who or what God has ordained them to be. For Samson, the process was that he lives his days on earth as a Nazarene, not like a regular Jew. He was to live his days keeping the Nazarene vow. But he terminated the process and fell into the hands of his enemy. That is not a story to repeat in our lives.
We are to live our lives according to the process of the LORD for it, and nothing else.
The process of God for Joseph was the word of the LORD trying or testing him with harsh conditions for 13 years; first as a commodity in chains, sold to the Egyptians, then as a success in the house of Potiphar, and after that a prisoner of righteousness in the prison of Egypt, where he was refined, renewed and molded into what he would later become for 80 years.
You have your own process.
The Passover or easter story tells us that there is a process. It tells us that except a seed of corn falls and dies, it abides alone. It tells us that there is a process.
The process might be painful, but it is necessary for the emergence of the new us. That is what each and everyone of us must find out and submit to. It is exactly what will take us from where we are, to where the LORD wants us to be.
As we bring this to a close, understand that God has called us to holiness and righteousness. That is His fundamental process for our lives. Every other one is secondary. That is what will lay the foundation for what He wants to do with our lives.
It is my prayer that we will not terminate this process and end up like one of the fallen princes in Jesus precious name. Amen!!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY;
“Moreover He called for a famine in the land; He destroyed all the provision of bread.
He sent a man before them— Joseph—who was sold as a slave.
They hurt his feet with fetters, He was laid in irons. Until the time that his word came to pass, The word of the Lord tested him.
The king sent and released him, The ruler of the people let him go free. He made him lord of his house, And ruler of all his possessions, To bind his princes at his pleasure, And teach his elders wisdom.” Psalm 105:16-22 NKJV
