TODAY’S DEVOTION (Saturday 6th September 2025)
“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.'” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.” Revelation 14:12-13 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 249TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF VICTORY
On the 16th of September this year, it will mark 10 years of Cry of the Spirit daily devotionals. I give God the glory for giving me the grace and peace to write His word daily for ten years.
If I tell you, it has been easy, I will be lying. It has not been easy, but it is worth every bit of the price that has been paid, because of the souls that I believe overcame sin and Satan and made it to Heaven at the end of their days because of the devotionals.
Some of these precious ones who are now in the cloud of many witnesses courtesy of the devotionals, I know personally, thousands of others I do not know. The LORD helped me to be steadfast, and the steadfastness helped these precious souls to make it to Heaven at the end of their days on earth, because they read the devotionals daily, and many others are on their way there, when they fulfill their God appointed days on earth.
Today’s devotional is being written from a height of 40,000 feet above sea level, on my way back from Manchester, the United Kingdom. I have gone there for the work of the King of kings, and I am glad He enabled me to put this word down from that height.
Many years back when I tried to leave Africa to America to go based our ministry there, the LORD stopped me with this question:
“Do you want to take the gospel to the world, or you want the gospel to take you to the world.” I opted for the latter after His clarification.
Today that prophecy has been fulfilled repeatedly.
THE FREQUENT JOURNEYS HAVE EXPANDED BY VISION AND STRUCK ME WITH MORE BURDEN FOR THE LOST IN THE NATIONS.
I had viewed a part of Europe from that point through the aircraft window a few times, and have had some deep thoughts about human life, the end of the age and the number of nations and cities under darkness, kept in spiritual prisons by the laws of their nations that attract sever consequences if broken.
I said to myself, today we can fly on aircraft for global missions, but our fathers could not. However, they had more results than us. They made sure true revival and Christianity got to us, but with what we are all witnessing today, I don’t know if the next generation will have Christianity.
We are leaving them a form of godliness without the power of the crucified life.
Those who pride themselves as fathers of faith or fathers of the land today, and their spiritual sons and daughters are adulterating what the fathers of the early church handed over. In fact, even the things that men of the age and time of Haward Carter handed over, seems to be no more.
The crucified life they lived is now lost completely in so many churches. If the LORD does not leave us a remnant, it will be terrible.
Like I said earlier, writing the devotional has not been easy, I will share some of the challenges I had to trust the LORD to help me overcome on the 16th, but today is not the first time I have written the devotional from this height.
I started flying first class or business class when I learned that there were facilities I needed to write and post the devotional right on time during trips that took me from one time zone to another.
I never planned to write the devotional from this height. Not even did I envisage that I will write and publish God’s word while on a plane, no not at all. But necessity was laid upon me; the need to get the word to the harvest irrespective of the time, the place and the circumstances I find myself made that happen.
TIME HAS ALWAYS BEEN OF ESSENCE.
Whenever God want to put His word seed into the hearts of people, those He has given the seed to plant must be ready to plant them in and out of season. Yes, they must be ready to plant them from any height, any depth, or any life situation they find themselves.
We are Sowers, and if we do not sow the word seeds, the LORD of the Harvest has given us to seed into hearts for their redemption, we will be liable. That has been my drive. The ultimate vision of God for mankind has been to grant us rest from the days of adversity, a rest that can only come by His word.
Yes, a word must proceed from God daily to us so that we might have that rest.
Jesus said, “come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” He then said, “take my yoke upon you and learn of me, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” You will find that in Matthew 11:28-30.
There are three categories of rest you can find in Christ. I don’t know which one you have found. The first comes after salvation. It is rest from the guilt, consequences and injuries of a life of sin, iniquity or trespass. Its manifestation begins as peace of mind.
This is the rest that frees you from the curses of life, including any curse or evil that has been in your bloodline. It delivers us from all that the enemy might be holding against us and thrust us into the shalom of God for our lives. It is not transmitted by religion, churchianity or any form of deeds. It comes by genuine salvation experience, a salvation with conversion.
In fact, our journey into God begins with this rest. It is a rest that all without the LORD look for. It is the rest that even some of those who are in church but without the LORD look for.
THEY LOOK FOR IT BECAUSE THEY HAVE NOT YET FOUND THE LORD.
You see them in prayer mountains, valleys, caves, at any meetings etc. looking for the rest. You find them running after prophets for prophecies and looking for deliverance by any means just to find that rest. But the Bible teaches that it comes, not by doing any of that.
Some have thought it to be a product of reciting the sinners’ prayers. But it does not come that way. It only comes by renouncing the sinner’s life.
Sadly, people are made to give all kinds of offerings, raise altars, sow special seeds, go on lengthy fasting, etc. just to get this rest, a rest that can only come by renouncing the sinner’s life. To renounce the sinners’ life, a word that you must obey, meditate on or feed your soul with must come from the LORD to you daily.
Then there is the second kind of rest. This is the kind that Job came into after his season of trial. The Bible says God restored to him all he lost; He restored double to him. In fact, his later end was better than the beginning. That is how this kind of rest looks like. It was a rest Israel could not enter.
God took them out of Egypt to bring them into this rest so that they may do His will, but the Bible says they could not enter due to disobedience. It comes after a long or short season of obeying the LORD, and walking with Him, sometimes with no fruits to show aside your confidence in Him.
This rest also comes by fully following the LORD and enduring the consequences. Paul entered it severally due to the many trials and challenges he faced doing divine will. At one time he said, “death is working in us and life in you.”
This is the rest we call the rest of the righteous. It comes after you have either overcome a test, persecution, rejection for the Gospel’s sake, maltreated, ill-treated, doubted and reproached, or after a long or short season of temptation or trial.
IT ALSO COMES AFTER A SEASON OF WARFARE OR SEASON OF A SACRIFICIAL ACT OF WORSHIP LIKE GIVING YOUR TIME, TREASURE OF TALENT.
The Bible describes this rest as joy that comes in the morning after sowing with tears. It is a rest that comes after consistently obeying the LORD, standing for His course with tears, enduring persecutions, suffering ridicule, reproach or shame.
The early church had this kind of rest repeatedly due to the repeated maltreatments they faced. They lived in an age when the world was not worthy of them. The three Hebrew boys entered this rest when they were thrown into the fire. It consumed the flames. This is the rest that consumes evil flames. Hallelujah!!
Daniel entered it after facing the ordeal of the Lions. It is a rest we all need so that we will not be arrested by the horrors of the last days. The last rest we find in Christ is the rest in our devotional text; a rest God gives us in the afterlife. The text says:
“Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.
Then I heard a voice from heaven saying to me, “Write: ‘Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.'” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labors, and their works follow them.”
This was the rest the early fathers look up to in their days, not what the present crop of aged men paraded as fathers are looking up to. Except for very few of them, so many look for financial rest not the final rest. If you are not looking for this rest, you will care less about God’s ways, His truth, His will or eternal things.
This is one rest to look for if you do not want to be arrested by the perils of the end of time, the love of money or the deceitfulness of riches. It is one rest that if you look for, you will not live a church life calling it Christian life. You will live the crucified life.
Child of God you will become part of the harlot Church, if you do not look forward to this rest. I wish we can write more, but this is just a devotional, and we believe the message has been passed.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY.
“I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom:
Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.
But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:1-5 NKJV
