TODAY’S DEVOTION (SUNDAY 12TH April 2026)
“Now his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit, and prophesied, saying: Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited and redeemed His people,
And has raised up a horn of salvation for us In the house of His servant David, As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, Who have been since the world began, That we should be saved from our enemies And from the hand of all who hate us,”
Luke 1:67-71 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 102ND DAY OF OUR YEAR OF STRATEGIC VICTORY
Today God want to speak to us about His verdict on those who hate us in our age and time. I believe He will do something in your life so that those who see it will glorify Him. Amen and amen. But we shall begin with some gratitude and life-giving truths.
It is a beautiful day from the LORD, and we thank Him for His mercies in our lives.
Day unto day, He reveals wisdom, and night unto night we see His kindness. Our lives are living proofs of the God we serve. He is the only God who came down from Heaven to become like us in order to save us from what is not like Him, the devil, our sin, and all fallen angels and consequences of having them around.
All we like sheep have gone astray, but He took the consequences upon Himself and brought us back into the covenant of His love.
Yes, it is a covenant, not just a salvation, that is why the gates of hell cannot prevail. It might fight, declare victory over us in any way, but before the dust is settled, the love of the LORD and His faithfulness will come into the theater of the war and bring us out.
The covenant is the covenant of grace, a covenant of ownership. He owns us and will not let any evil to befall us.
He is under a sovereign obligation to see that we are not under the yoke of sin and its consequences, or Satan and his demons forever. All He did in His first coming shows that. His death on the cross remains the strongest proof that He loves us unconditionally.
He said in His words:
“Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.”
John 15:13-14 NKJV
In other words, we can say greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for those who do whatever He commands them. This goes to show that only those who are sold out will enjoy the best of redemption blessing. Yes, you heard us, only those of us in the faith who are sold out, doing all He commands, are His friends.
ONLY THEY WILL ENJOY THE MOST OF HIS REDEMPTIVE BLESSINGS.
So, if we say we are saved, but living and walking in rebellion, knowing what He wants us to do and not doing it, we will shut the door against the blessing of having Him as our friend. We will never enjoy the most of what His death on the cross brought our way if we do not live the life of His friends.
The life of a friend of Jesus might be difficult in a world like ours, but it remains the best life to live. His grace is there to help us live it. Again, do not forget, His friends are believers who do what He says. A lot that He says are in the Holy Scriptures. Some of them reads:
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 NKJV
If we are not doing what Jesus says here, we are not His friends. If we do not rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in everything, sustain the fire or presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, treat prophecies with respect but test them before we believe, hold fast to what is good, and abstain from all forms of evil, we are not the friends of Jesus Christ.
We could be church members but not His friends. You will not enjoy the best of redemption because you are a Church member but because you are a friend of Jesus Christ. His friends might die but will live again, they may fall sick but will be back to sound health, they may be down today like Job but will rise again even stronger than before.
His friends calls, and He answers them. In fact, before they call, He answers, while they are still speaking, He hears. They would not need to go to any mountain to pray or seek God. They do not need to go for deliverance. He makes sure they are not in any form of captivity. His friends enjoys His best on earth.
His friends enjoys great angelic assistance. He could send His angels to them to either shut the mouths of lions on behalf of His friends, quench the violence of fire, rain down fire and brimstone upon their enemies, or do in their lives what will keep people asking, “what manner of man or woman is this?”
WE CAN SEE THAT IN THE LIFE OF ONE OF HIS FRIENDS CALLED PAUL, THE APOSTLE.
One day he was shipwrecked and cried unto Him for his life, with fasting, and He, Jesus, showed up and saved him. He saved him by sending an angel to tell him this, “Do not be afraid, Paul; you must be brought before Caesar; and indeed, God has granted you all those who sail with you.” (Acts 27:24) Indeed, things happened according to His words.
If you want things to be happening to you according to the word of the LORD, instead of the will of your enemies, live the life of the friends of Jesus Christ.
The Bible says things happened as the LORD had said and Paul and those God gave to his hands were found on the Island of Malta, but a snake came up to further disgrace him, by biting him to death, but being a friend of Jesus the venom of the snake could not kill him.
The heritage of friendship with Jesus stood for him. Those who saw it wondered what manner of man he was. They would later conclude that he was a god. They were right because a friend of God is a god; he is a god not to be worshiped but to offer worship to the LORD and display His kingdom, power and glory on earth.
The word says,
“But when Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and laid them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat, and fastened on his hand.
So when the natives saw the creature hanging from his hand, they said to one another, “No doubt this man is a murderer, whom, though he has escaped the sea, yet justice does not allow to live.”
But he shook off the creature into the fire and suffered no harm.
However, they were expecting that he would swell up or suddenly fall down dead. But after they had looked for a long time and saw no harm come to him, they changed their minds and said that he was a god.”
Acts 28:3-6 NKJV
The friends of Jesus are the only ones with this kind of Heritage not church members, as it were. It is great to be a church member, but if your membership has not turned you into a friend of Jesus, change your church. Look for the one that will turn you into one.
Do not stick there because of titles, tribal sentiments or positions. Move away!!
No evil befalls the friends of Jesus, and you will always see Him coming for them in one way or the other. He might not prevent evil from happening to his friends because we live in a wicked world, but He would always come to their rescue. If Paul was not walking in the heritage of the friends of Jesus, he would have died, either in the shipwreck or the snake bite.
ONE OF THE HERITAGES YOU WILL WALK IN IF YOU BECOME A FRIEND OF THE LORD IS THE HERITAGE OF HIS VERDICT ON THOSE WHO HATE YOU.
No one who hates you will be able to overcome or destroy you because of the verdict. The verdict puts the life of your haters in conflict with the LORD. We find it working for many of long before God spoke it through the lips of His servant Zachariah. We saw it in the life of Abraham, the first man God called “My friend” in the Bible and His seed, Isreal.
Abraham was told, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you.” This is your heritage if you are a friend of Jesus Christ. Isreal, was told, “I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.” That is exactly what we will begin to enjoy when we become friends of Jesus Christ, our LORD. It is a product of God’s verdict on our enemies.
Our devotional text tells us what the verdict is.
It says, “As He spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets, who have been since the world began, That we should be saved from our enemies And from the hand of all who hate us.” That is the verdict of the LORD on all who hate you. The verdict is clear, it says no one who hate you as a child of God, should be able to kill, destroy, or paralyze you in any way.
It says you should be delivered from their hands. Now, the question is, would you believe it? Would you believe what the verdict says or you will keep listening and believing in your haters? Again, the verdict is that we might be saved from the hands of all who hate us in this age, and eternally in the age to come. Will you believe it?
The just shall live by faith, you know. And blessed is she who believes, for there shall be a performance.
Time to believe the word of the LORD!! Time to fast with it, pray with it, consecrate with it, and run with it. If you believe, your faith will unleash God on your enemies. It will send a signal to the throne room, and you will begin to see the word come to pass in your life, in ways you have never seen before. Amen and Amen.
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!!
“Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].
For by [faith—trust and holy fervor born of faith] the men of old had divine testimony borne to them and obtained a good report.
But without faith it is impossible to please and be satisfactory to Him. For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].
Hebrews 11:1-2, 6 AMPC
