TODAY’S DEVOTION (THURSDAY 1ST JANUARY 2026)
‘I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze And cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, Am the God of Israel.
For Jacob My servant’s sake, And Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me.
Isaiah 45:1-4 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 01ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF STRATEGIC VICTORY
Glory to God for the New Year!!! “We are of the circumcision; we worship God in the Spirit. We have no confidence in the flesh. The LORD remains our shepherd; we shall not want. Amen and amen!!!”
Let me begin by wishing you a happy new year!! Like I have always said, to have a new year indeed, there must be a new you on daily bases. It is for that purpose that God sent His word to us daily, so that we may take the nature of the word instead of life in our Adamic nature.
It is of the LORD’s mercies that 2025 never consumed us, because His compassion fails not. Today, we can join the rest of the living to rejoice over God’s mercies and kindness. We know He allowed us to live to this year, not because we are more righteous than those who could not make it, but because of His mercies.
In fact, if you remember that those who are more righteous than you did not make it, that should make you tremble, fall deeper in love with the LORD, and fear God the more. God does wonders like that so we may fear Him and do His will.
He does those things so that we may ask Him, “LORD, why did you keep me alive?” If we do not ask, we waste the privilege and keep living the way we desire until the privilege no longer exists. It is when we ask Him such questions that we step into destiny or His greater purposes for our lives.
Most people who did great things for the LORD in their age and time, asked such destiny questions, especially after being kept alive from diseases, death or destruction.
CHURCH HISTORY IS FULL OF SUCH PEOPLE!! YOU CAN ADD YOUR NAME TO THE LIST BY BEGINNING THE YEAR WITH THE DESTINY QUESTION.
Your life will take a powerful turn forward, I mean in the right direction, if you spend hours every day or week, asking the LORD through righteous fasting and prayers to speak to you in His own way, why He kept you alive. Yes, a veil will be torn and a blindness removed.
Heaven will kiss the earth of your soul and things will begin to come to you from the Spirit that will shape your life powerfully.
There was a man who once asked the LORD to show Him why He was kept alive after a terrible accident, and the LORD took him on a trip to Heaven after months of seeking to know why. He will take days out every week to seek the LORD.
Sometimes he will be in prayer and biblical fasting for ten broken days seeking to know why the LORD kept him alive.
There was this time that he was told by the LORD to retreat in prayer, and He did. On the tenth day of the prayer, he was taken up into Heaven and had an encounter that shaped His life forever. He came out of that encounter knowing why his life was spared and gave birth to an outstanding ministry on the face of the earth.
Part of the things God began to do by his hands were miracles that involved limps, eyes and hairs growing up where they never existed.
God used him to re bring back to our age an apostolic mindset that was lost after the 1st hundred years of the church. You do not know what the LORD will use you to do if you will just be serious about asking Him why He kept you alive.
Many are just living aimlessly, without a greater purpose to live for. Your life must not continue that way this year. You are not an ordinary person. You are a blood washed new creature of the LORD called a son of God.
DO NOT BE PART OF THOSE WHO LIVE AIMLESSLY.
You will never know how your life will become if you use this period of the year to seek the LORD for the revelation of the eternal reason in time why you still have this life despite all you might have been through in life.
You will never know the devils you will be separated from, the sins you will begin to overcome, the prayer fire you will begin to walk in, the deliverances that will be happening through your hands, and the light and truth you will come into if you seek the LORD to know why He allowed you to cross into 2026.
There is a great future waiting to be unlocked on the other side of your life in time. The first step into it could be by you asking God the question of why you are alive. Destiny questions are so powerful in the Spirit that many have not realized.
Sadly, many go to seek prophets for answers to questions that they should seek God only. They will be given a new phase of life to live and instead seeking the one who gave them that life for the prophetic purpose of the survival, they will go seeking prophets.
I think someone need to think about all those who died last year and begin to ask “LORD, why did you keep me alive? You could have let me die also, but you kept me alive. Why LORD?” The reason for this counsel is because of what is expected of some of us in the New year.
This is prophetic! There are some in God’s kingdom that are yet to step into God’s greater purpose for their lives. God has designed that they step into it in 2026. Time is of the essence. If they do not step into it this year, it might never happen again. For them, 2026 is their appointed year, an appointed year for their appointed purpose.
You are one of them if this word is stirring something in your spirit.
Asking such questions, in spirit and in truth, prepares the heart to come into the revelation of that Greater Purpose. I believe the book of Isaiah chapter 6 did not just happen. Maybe it was a response to Isaiah’s desire to know why he was alive after the death of King Uzziah his uncle.
DO NOT FORGET, HIS UNCLE THE KING JUST DIED BEFORE THE ENCOUNTER CAME. THE BIBLE SAYS:
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”
Isaiah 6:1-3 NKJV
May this encounter be repeated in your life over and over again this year, in Jesus precious name. Amen!! In God, there are divine encounters that can only be unlocked through a deep prayer targeted towards finding answers from God. Isaiah’s encounter in this scripture is one.
God keeps us alive, as we watch others die (sometimes people who are better than us) or as we watch Him save us from things that can snap our lives away, not for entertainment but for his greater purposes. Isaiah seems to know that, hence seeking the LORD for the revelation of God’s greater purpose for His life.
God would answer him and he would go to become one of the most significant prophets of God in History. The Bible says:
Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying: “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.”
Isaiah 6:8 NKJV
I reiterate again that only eternity can tell the encounters that you will come into if you begin to ask God why you entered this year alive and well. Yes, if you begin to spend hours or days in prayers to ask Him why you are alive. Isaiah’s mandate came after asking the question. The result is relative. Meaning, what God did for one, He can do for others.
The Bible says a Seraphim had flown from the altars of God in heaven with a fire for purging to take away iniquity from him. The purification encounter was preceded by a deep repentance on his path. But all that would not have happened if he had not asked God why He was alive and his uncle dead.
GOD WANTS US TO TRAVEL ON A PATH THIS YEAR, AND HE WANTS THAT PATH TO BE CLEAR TO US.
The journey will begin when we begin to seek Him for a revelation of His greater purpose for our lives. Our devotional text is a promise from God to take care of 2026 for us. It says:
‘I will go before you and make the crooked places straight; I will break in pieces the gates of bronze And cut the bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, Am the God of Israel.
For Jacob My servant’s sake, And Israel My elect, I have even called you by your name; I have named you, though you have not known Me.
Isaiah 45:1-4 NKJV
Why is God making this beautiful promise to us? Is it for our pleasure and comfort? The answer is no!! It is for His pleasure and the advance of His will. I believe the promise will be fulfilled only in the lives of those who will live their days this year according to His greater purposes for their lives.
Probing on your prayer knees and study heart why He allowed you to see 2026 will help bring you into the center of His greater purpose and cause His Isaiah 45:1-4 Promise to be fulfilled in your life.
Child of God, this is the first devotional of the year. It is my prayer that the words of this devotional will remain strong in your spirit and lead you through each day, week and month of this year so that testimonies of strategic victories will remain visible in your life. Amen
Once again, Happy New Year in Jesus precious name!!!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY!!
“Therefore you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God, to walk in His ways and to fear Him.
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing; a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.
When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.”
Deuteronomy 8:6-10 NKJV
