TODAY’S DEVOTION (TUESDAY 13TH SEPTEMBER 2022)
“Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron:
And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel.
For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me. I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:” Isaiah 45:1-5 KJV
WELCOME TO THE 256TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
This is the Day the LORD has made, we shall Rejoice and be glad in it. The LORD is our Judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our King; we are confident that He will save us!
We give God the glory for giving us another day. Indeed, it is the Spirit of the LORD that has made us, and the breath of the Almighty that have been giving us life. We sleep and wake up because the LORD kept us. The Bible says;
“There is no one like the God of Jeshurun, who rides the heavens to help you, and in His excellency on the clouds.
The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms; He will thrust out the enemy from before you, and will say, ‘Destroy!’ Deuteronomy 33:26-27 NKJV
This scripture has been a manifestation in our lives.
From January till date, God have been ridding the Heaven to help us. If you have Someone who is beyond anyone or any created thing on your side, it does not matter who may not be on your side.
If you have the eternal God as your refuge, you will be careless of the plans of the enemy against you. If you have the everlasting arms of God underneath your life, you will always see Him thrust out the enemy before you and saying “destroy;” in any spiritual combat you may find yourself.
GOD is the God of gods and LORD of lords. That does not mean He created them. The Iniquity that was found in Lucifer and his subsequent fall was what created them. So, when the word say “God is the God of gods,” or “LORD of lords” it means He is superior to anything or any individual presenting himself or itself as a deity.
Pharaoh tried it and Egypt could not recover. No one who tried to be a deity ever succeeded because there had been a decree long before the ages began that prohibits it.
That decree made it impossible for people or any other created thing to be like God.
THAT WAS A SECRET LUCIFER DID NOT KNOW WHEN HE DECIDED TO BE LIKE THE MOST HIGH.
Our devotional text contains the secret. The secret is a decree GOD made in the eternal past that found itself in the mouth of His prophet in an eternal present. That decree was the reason he was ejected from Heaven and casted down beneath.
God in His mercies screamed it through the mouth of Isaiah to the human race. A major portion of the text says;
“For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me:” Isaiah 45:4-5 KJV
If you look at the entire devotional text, you will understand that the precious words that were spoken had to do with an ancient king who was to come and be used of the LORD to facilitate the return of Israel to their land and the rebuilding of the temple, and etc. his name was Cyrus.
However, hidden in those words that the LORD sent to him was an eternal decree that was made long before there was any creation; a decree that prohibits anyone from becoming God besides God. The decree says “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.”
As we can clearly see, this decree was made long before time or any creation was. It was just that God decided to spew it through Isaiah years after time had begun.
You see, God foreknew there will be kings that will try to become deities in time, that is after being exalted. He knew that there would be devils that will enter into mortal men to proclaim themselves to be God. He knew creation will somehow be worshiped instead of the creator. He is omniscience and knew there will be a time in creation when even His position, as the One and only true God, will be contested for.
SO, BASED ON HIS FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THE FUTURE, HE MADE THAT DECREE TO MAKE SURE NONE OF SUCH SUCCEED.
That is why all through human and celestial History, we have seen spirits and people rise and proclaimed themselves to be God, and amazingly you fine people believing them either for a short or long while, but thereafter you look for them but cannot find them.
They will just be wiped away like pieces of dirt on a glass window.
Friend, if you look at world history, you will find out that there have been no one who have successfully reigned as King of kings and LORD of lords, from age to age like Our God. Everyone who attempted did not make it. Like lucifer, they all were brought to ashes, and GOD alone remain standing. Reestablishing that eternal decree “besides me there is no other.”
If you look at the dramatic fall of some, you wonder what really happened? Because they looked infallible and eternal in influence. No human forces could have brought them to nothing. The forces that brought them to ashes were from Heaven.
It may interest you to know that just as we have special forces in human government that protects the authority and person of the president from having another president in the same nation, so do we have a special group Heavenly forces around the throne of God that make sure He alone is God and remain God.
Their job is to execute or uphold the decrees of the LORD that prevents the successful rise of false gods and neutralizes devils behind such manifestations. One of the Bible portions you find this is in the book of acts. Bible History has it that there was a Roman authority who decided to bear the title of King of Kings and LORD of lords.
He became so powerful that one day people gathered and subtly proclaimed him to be GOD. That was the last day he saw the sun.
THESE SPECIAL HEAVENLY FORCES THAT ARE IN-CHARGE OF PROTECTING GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY MOVED SWIFTLY TO NEUTRALIZE HIM.
The Bible says;
“Now Herod had been very angry with the people of Tyre and Sidon; but they came to him with one accord, and having made Blastus the king’s personal aide their friend, they asked for peace, because their country was supplied with food by the king’s country.
So on a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat on his throne and gave an oration to them. And the people kept shouting, “The voice of a god and not of a man!”
Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died. But the word of God grew and multiplied.” Acts 12:20-24 NKJV
The collapse of false Gods always leads to the advance of God’s kingdom. The Bible says the word of the LORD (not the personality of a man of GOD or some spiritual fathers, but the word of the LORD), grew and prevailed.
I think if you are wondering why our God does not tolerate rivalry, you have juts seen it. It hinders you and I from getting the best of him. He is not doing that for Himself because the reason for such developments is actually to steal the soul of His creation or sons and daughters. He does that to defend us from the evil one.
You see, once His word grows and prevail, we will begin to progress and prevail also.
Now how does this apply to our 30-day journey of faith on Biblical fasting? So much. There is fasting at advance level where your personal needs are not the reason for your fast but kingdom needs.
One of the major kingdom-needs that will drive people to fast this end time will be the need to reestablish the reign of God, as King of kings and LORD of lords over territories where His influence over the hearts of men may have been diminished or neutralized.
When false gods and lords rise, truth will fail, and those who depart from error will make themselves preys. The authentic gospel will be trampled underfoot and the influence of God, over the hearts of men as the one and only true God will begin to diminish.
PREACHERS WILL BECOME MORE RESPECTED THAN GOD HIMSELF.
Men will begin to camp in shadows instead of the substance of the shadows. They will prefer symbols to the substance, enthroning falsehood in the body of Christ. The church will be rich in material things but very poor in spiritual things. Scandals will be rocking preachers and people will no longer want to hear anything called Church.
Sadly, we are in the very season where these things are happening.
God is calling on you and everyone of us to begin to serve Him with our fasting. To begin to call on Him to bring down falsehood and the false gods and lords in His Church so that His true gospel will once again grow and prevail.
It is my prayer that we will begin to redirect your fast to this purpose. That we will no longer allow the mundane to fill our fast but this kingdom burden for the now.
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR YOU TODAY
“And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds.
Also, many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted up the value of them, and it totaled fifty thousand pieces of silver.
So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed. Acts 19:18-19 NKJV