TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 16TH SEPTEMBER 2022)
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people; The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, Nor the voice of crying.
“No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days; For the child shall die one hundred years old, But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit; They shall not plant and another eat; For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, and My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain, Nor bring forth children for trouble; For they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.
“It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. Isaiah 65:17-24 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 259TH DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
One of the beautiful songs that our generation call “Old” is AMAZING GRACE. The generation of believers that experienced the birth of that song knew something about grace that we do not.
They sang;
“Amazing Grace, how sweet though sound. That saved a wretched like me. I once was lost but now I am found, was blind, but now I see.” Ands on and on they went.
Today, we either do not sing or mutilate it before singing it. The words “a wretch like me” have been removed in certain quarters that sing the song.
In fact, I heard a preacher saying God asked him to remove them.
That is why today our salvation is very questionable. We have so many unsaved saved people among us preachers, come to talk of our congregations, that are fill of empty people. People who are empty of Christ, sending a stench of sin, iniquity and trespass everywhere they go.
We are so full of pride that we forget that we are a wretched men and women. But those men humbled themselves under God and psalmed the beautiful song in meetings, at homes, and everywhere.
And because the Bibles says, “he who humble himself shall be exalted” they experienced the fragrance of God’s amazing grace as they sang the hymn. Their hearts were made tender by the LORD using the song. They were transformed into men and women who tremble at the word of the LORD and filled with indebtedness to God for their salvation.
Who will tell our generation that those hymnals are still relevant today?
Who will tell our generation that those men and women used that song to create pathways in the Spirit for the River of God’s presence to flow in and through them? Who will tell our generation that in singing those beautiful and Holy Ghost birthed songs, our spirits are elevated into the same rivers of the Spirit to experienced what they experienced in their days?
We should not forget Jacob; The Bible says he was escaping from his brother Esau when he ran into a portal that was opened by the meeting between Abraham his grandfather, and God.
ABRAHAM HAD STUMBLED INTO THAT HEAVENLY PORTAL AND SECURED IT FOR HIS SEEDS.
Jacob got to the same spot that day and had even much deeper encounter with the LORD than what Abraham his grandfather had. The Bible says;
“Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran.
So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.
Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
And behold, the LORD stood above it and said: “I am the LORD God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants.
Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you.”
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I did not know it.” And he was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” Genesis 28:10-17 NKJV
Like Jacob, it is God’s plan that we become adventurous in the Spirit, so we can stumble into portals that our fathers opened through songs.
I am not referring to those we call fathers today who have brought the Church to near apostacy and taken men and women from the faith that was once delivered to us to a strange Christian faith. A faith that uses oil, salt, magic wands, divination, sorcery, water, candles, and all that to summit the supernatural.
SOME OF THESE FATHERS ONLY SUCCEEDED IN OPENING THE PORTALS OF HELL OVER THE SOULS AND HEARTS OF MEN AND WOMEN.
That is why a lot of their sons and daughters cannot carry the abiding presence of the LORD. They are not functioning as temples for God in the Spirit. They function more as temples for devils, even looking for how to sleep with preachers instead of how to tap the grace of God through them.
Doctrines of men and devils have become what many are being fed on, further establishing the throne of Satan in churches.
We must divorce ourselves from some of these so-called fathers and go searching for Heavenly portals that real fathers who were here when those beautiful songs were birth, opened through their songs. We must not be like Isaac, who never traveled to look for such Heavenly gates in the Spirit’s realm of the earth.
Do not forget, Jacob’s father Isaac, was a quiet man and did not discover the place Jacob ran into even when it had been there for decades. He was not a traveling person, or let me say an adventurous man.
Remember he did not even consider marriage. It was his father Abraham that got him a wife.
Though he served according to his temperament and dug wells that his father Abraham had dug, which is also another significant thing, akin to searching for Heaven portals fathers opened in the realm of the Spirit in their own time. Like I earlier stated, our generation is plagued with spiritual fathers who are far from the “now” or “present tense” of GOD. You will understand me if you have been granted mercy to understand what the now of GOD means.
There are some who are very current. You enjoy God when you meet them. But most are very far. That is why many of us are not finding the very Christianity that was on earth in the days of our Bible fathers.
We need to journey into the Spirit realm to stumble into the Heavenly portals the fathers of that kind of Christianity opened, and begin to lead lives that flourish in the throne room presence of GOD.
If you look at Genesis 28 where we just read, you will discover that long before insecurity drove Jacob out of home, that place had been there. But it was not discovered.
IT WAS NOT DISCOVERED BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ONE WHO DECIDED TO ENGAGE IN SPIRITUAL ADVENTURE TO FIND SUCH REALMS IN THE SPIRIT.
I believe if they had engaged in spiritual adventure and find that placed, perhaps they would have gone to build their home there.
You know Heavenly portals are place where eternity touch time, where the Spirit realm of God meet the spirit realm of man.
That is why people who live in places where Heavenly portals open live very blessed lives despite the odds that surround them.
For instance, Obed-Edom in the Bible received the ark to his home and a Heavenly portal opened over his household. The Bible says;
“So, David would not move the ark of the LORD with him into the City of David; but David took it aside into the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite.
The ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite three months. And the LORD blessed Obed-Edom and all his household.” 2 Samuel 6:10-11 NKJV
This scripture tells us that there is something that need to be opened over our lives for us to begin to lead blessed lives. That is what you need in your family for blessed things to begin to happened in your house. You need the opening of a Heavenly portal else life will remain difficult.
Our devotional text is about a life that will be lived in the age to come. But it contains a beautiful expression of what life will look like under a Heavenly portal. It says;
“For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; And the former shall not be remembered or come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create; For behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing, and her people a joy. I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people; The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in her, Nor the voice of crying.
“No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, Nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days; For the child shall die one hundred years old, But the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed.
They shall build houses and inhabit them; They shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit; They shall not plant and another eat; For as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, and My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
They shall not labor in vain, Nor bring forth children for trouble; For they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.
“It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. Isaiah 65:17-24 NKJV
Ad earlier stated, this scripture, though a revelation of life in the new Heaven and New earth where righteousness dwells, gives us a perfect revelation or description of how our lives will become when God open a Heavenly portal over us.
SOME OF THE THINGS THAT WILL BE HAPPENING IN OUR LIVES ARE AS FOLLOWS;
We will no longer labor in vain and bring forth for trouble, our offspring will be blessed, an atmosphere of blessing will be created around our lives (a beautiful atmosphere full of the sap of Heaven for our lives on earth), we will be able to build houses and inherit them, we will not die prematurely and etc.
Child of God, it is better to have a Heavenly portal open over us than to have the covering of an empty preacher over us. It is better to have a Heavenly portal opened you than to have anything else opened over you. You could be living on the streets, but when a portal of Heaven open over you, blessings will break forth in your life that will make it impossible to live on the streets.
You may have no job, when a Heavenly portal open over you, you will become an employer of labor within a short period of time. You may be sick and dying, but when a Heavenly portal open over you, healing will break forth.
The scripture of our devotional text further made it clear that the opening of Heaven portals over us is the reason for the manifestation of uncommon grace of divine attention. The word says,
“It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. Isaiah 65: 24 NKJV
Oh, how we need the grace of divine attention today. The word also said;
“They shall not labor in vain, Nor bring forth children for trouble; For they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.” Isaiah 65:23 NKJV
Sometimes you try your best to raise your kids but they end up turning into something else. If we do not have portals opened over us, we will just be laboring in vain raising them and bringing forth for trouble. That is why what the Bible says in our devotional text is important. As we can see, the text clearly states that the opening of Heavenly portal over us will make sure we do not labor in vain and bring forth Children for trouble.
IT WILL PUT A BLESSING ON OUR CHILDREN AND MAKE SURE WE LEAD PEACEFUL LIVES, WITH THEM BY OUR SIDE.
Child of God, the opening of Heavenly portals over us is one of the most important openings we need in life as Children of God. We may have any opening, but if we do not have this one, all others will be shut.
One reason why Balaam the false prophet, desired the death of the righteous is because of how the righteous die. Heavenly Portals open over us and our souls slip into Heaven through them.
The portals that open over us when we are dying are sometimes different from the ones that need to open over us for us to unleash our destiny. Other times the very ones that need to open for us to unleash our destinies and lead blessed lives on earth are the very ones that will serve and take us home when our time on earth is over.
We have been looking at the Cry of the Spirit of Biblical fasting.
One major thing a life of regular Biblical fasting does is the opening of Heaven portals over those who embrace that kind of life. How do you think Paul survived all he went through? If God had not opened a Heavenly portal over him through his life of fasting and bringing his flesh under subjection, he would have been killed by the first attack he had when he preached the gospel.
If that had not killed him because of the prayer of the brethren who surrounded him when he was stoned, the shipwreck would have. We need to lead lives of regular Biblical fasting, putting our flesh under subjection. It is a beautiful walk with the LORD that gets His portals opened over us.
I believe enough have been shared for the day.
As we bring this to a close, always remember that the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob teaches us that if a Heavenly portal has not opened over us, we will be plagued with difficult living.
We could have a great destiny, but we will not be able to unleash it until God open His portal over us. These men flourished in their age because Heavenly portals for their age opened over them. We can only flourish in the LORD when He open His portal over us!
MAKE THIS SCRIPTURE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
Those who are planted in the house of the LORD Shall flourish in the courts of our God.
They shall till bear fruit in old age; They shall be fresh and flourishing, To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” Psalm 92:12-15 NKJV