TODAY’S DEVOTION (FRIDAY 28TH OCTOBER 2022)
Then the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the waters may come back upon the Egyptians, on their chariots, and on their horsemen.”
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and when the morning appeared, the sea returned to its full depth, while the Egyptians were fleeing into it. So the LORD overthrew he Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
Then the waters returned and covered the chariots, the horsemen, and all the army of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them. Not so much as one of them remained.
But the children of Israel had walked on dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
So, the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.
Thus, Israel saw the great work which the LORD had done in Egypt; so, the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD and His servant Moses.” Exodus 14:26-31 NKJV
WELCOME TO THE 301ST DAY OF OUR YEAR OF AMAZING GRACE!
We give God the glory for sleeping and waking up! Let all those who are living in perfect peace glorify God for His marvelous deeds. Peace is not something you can buy with money. It is a gift from God. It is one of the free essentials of life created by God for mankind.
For those who may be going through one issue or the other, I want to say trust the LORD to see you through.
Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers them from they all. The world is not a perfect place to live in, that is why we look forward to the new heaven and the new earth where righteousness dwells. We are looking forward to when this earth and the very heaven that surround it will pass away, and a new one will come.
The Bible speaks of a New Heaven and a new earth and the kind of peaceful and trouble-free life those who will be counted worthy to live there will experience. It says;
“Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also, there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:1-4 NKJV
This should be one of the reasons you need to give your life to Christ and led the very life of Christ on this side of eternity. There may not be a prosperous present life for the redeemed of the LORD, but there is a glorious future for them.
WE DO NOT GIVE OUR LIVES TO CHRIST BECAUSE OF EARTHLY BLESSINGS.
You can have earthly blessings without giving your life to Christ. Yes, you can get married, and enjoy your marriage life without giving your life to Christ. You can have all the money you want without giving your life to Christ. You can lead a peaceful life, free of demonic attacks without even knowing the LORD.
So, we do not give our lives to Christ to escape demons, or live blessed lives on earth. We give our lives to Christ because of the future God has prepared for those who give their lives to Christ.
Understand that all mankind does not all have the same destinations after death. Some will face eternal punishment.
We give our lives to Christ ultimately to be exempted from those who will face eternal punishment. There is a new Heaven and a New earth ahead of the human race. Surrendering to the LORD is the key to being part of those who will live there. Whatever earthly blessings that may result from it is an added advantage.
Yesterday we spoke of eternal success and temporary success; being in the new heaven and the new earth where righteousness dwells are part of eternal success. Earthly blessings that may result from giving our lives to the LORD and living His kind of life is the temporary success. It is temporary because it ends with time.
We have been on a 31-day journey of faith on the blessed Holy Spirit and have been taught so much by the LORD. The latest is the revelation of being gods of the Most High God on the face of the earth, and bringing his kingdom down and getting his will done on Earth as written in Heaven.
We saw how Joshua tapped into that dimension and spoke to the sun and the moon. It takes gods to speak to creation and have it implanted by God their Father.
THERE ARE NINE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT CATEGORIZED INTO THREE.
If the gifts become operational in our lives, they can help us be the gods that the Almighty God created us to be for Him on the face of the earth.
We have seen the first category – the revelatory gifts. Today we are picking up from where we stopped yesterday, the revelation of the power gifts of the Spirit (the second category of gifts). The Bible says;
“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit,
to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by [f]the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.” 1 Corinthians 12:7-10 NKJV
You can see the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit here.
The revelatory gifts which we have examined in previous devotional, are the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, and discerning of spirits. These ones help man to tap into a bit of the omniscience nature of GOD bringing him to the realm of a supernatural-knowing that only gods have.
That was the level of “knowing” that the wise men of Babylon spoke to Nebuchadnezzar about when they said they lack capacity to recall his dream and interpret it. The Bible says;
“The Chaldeans answered the king, and said, “There is not a man on earth who can tell the king’s matter; therefore no king, lord, or ruler has ever asked such things of any magician, astrologer, or Chaldean.
It is a difficult thing that the king requests, and there is no other who can tell it to the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh.” Daniel 2:10-11 NKJV
IN THEIR LIMITED KNOWLEDGE, THEY NEVER KNEW THAT THERE IS A god WHOSE DWELLING WAS AMONG THEM.
His name was Daniel. And when he showed up, he was able to connect the Almighty God (his source), recall the dream and interpret it. He did what only gods can do. He displayed a supernatural knowing that God wants you and I to come into by the revelatory gifts of His Holy Spirit.
Now, while the revelatory gifts of the Holy Spirit help us to tap into His omniscience nature, the power gifts help us unleash His omnipotent nature on earth. Omniscience means all knowing, and omnipotent means always powerful or all powerful. As gods of the Almighty God, we are to manifest a bit of these awesome attributes of our GOD.
The power gifts that can helps us to unleash a bit of God’s omnipotent nature on the face of the earth are;
1. The Gift of Faith.
2. The Gift of Healing.
3. The Gift of the working of Miracles.
Let’s begin with the gift of faith. There is faith as a believe system that is formed in us when we study the words or meditate on it. But there is faith as a gift. That one is a direct product of the Holy Spirit that enables one to believe God for the unusual in very critical situations.
When this dimension comes on you, you begin to see the invisible and do the impossible at ease. Concerning Moses, the Bible says;
“By faith he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. By faith he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. By faith they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned.” Hebrews 11:27-29 NKJV
Clearly, the gift of faith was what manifested in the life of Moses and served as the secret to all the exploits He did in Egypt. It projected him high above and made him more powerful than the gods of Egypt. In fact, he, like any other redeemed person today, was the true god of the Almighty God in Egypt. The demons who presented themselves as gods to the Egyptians where false gods and had to bow.
Only the Almighty God can make someone a god for Him, and Moses was the one He made not the gods of Egypt.
THIS MADE EVEN THE JEWS TO FEAR MOSES TILL THIS DAY.
Our devotional text says;
Then the LORD said to Moses “Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the waters may come back upon the Egyptians, on their chariots, and on their horsemen.”
And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and when the morning appeared, the sea returned to its full depth, while the Egyptians were fleeing into it. So the LORD overthrew he Egyptians in the midst of the sea.
Then the waters returned and covered the chariots, the horsemen, and all the army of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them. Not so much as one of them remained.
But the children of Israel had walked on dry land in the midst of the sea, and the waters were a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.
So, the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.
Thus, Israel saw the great work which the LORD had done in Egypt; so, the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD and His servant Moses.” Exodus 14:26-31 NKJV
Joshua received the same gift from God through Moses, that was why He was able to speak to the Sun and Moon and they obeyed him. The Bible says Moses laid hands on him before stepping into glory. You cannot carry out exploits like speaking to creation using the faith that we grow by studying the word and excising same. You can only carry out such exploits by the gift of faith from the Holy Spirit.
Jesus was able to call Lazarus out of the grave by the same gift of faith. He touched a coffin and the body inside it came back to life. He made cripples walk and open blind eyes all by the gifts of faith.
Let me reiterate again that no one can do all that through the faith we grow over time. That kind of faith is to help us live the Christian life, but the faith that unleash such power is a gift of the Holy Spirit.
THIS BRING US TO THE SECOND POWER GIFT; THE GIFT OF HEALING.
This gift is the supernatural ability given to a believer by the Holy Spirit to minister different kinds of healing and restoration to individuals, either by laying on of hands, speaking, touching, or raising.
There is a healing we all experience through the common grace of GOD that may come when people pray but the gift of healing is different.
The gifts of healing is when the Holy Spirit heals someone of a disaster or infirmity (most times incurables) supernaturally, using someone amazingly. It cannot be controlled or fabricated. It just happens by His Sovereign will.
Also, let me make it clear that the Holy Spirit might give you the ability to heal in one situation, but that does not mean you can heal at will, neither does it mean that all you pray for will be healed. Like I stated, the gift of healing is basically to glorify Jesus not us. It is not to present us as miracle workers.
It remains a sovereign act of the Spirit that seeks to glorify Jesus. It is its counterfeit that glorifies men and can be used at will. That brings us to the gift of the working of miracles.
The gift of the working of miracles was also on display the day Joshua spoke to the Sun and the Moon and the day Moses parted the red sea. It was at work in all the plague Egypt saw by the hand of Moses. It manifested itself in Acts chapter 9 when people spoke to the dead generous woman, Dorcas, to came back to life. It followed the apostles wherever they went with the gospel.
The gifts of the working of miracles is a special ability to perform special signs that testifies to the GOD of the Bible as the one and only true God. You see it also in the calling down of fire by Elijah after the prophets of Baal failed. This is the gift that accompanies missionaries to remote places to make Jesus known. If you have this one, you can turn an entire city to the LORD.
The reason for classifying the gift of faith, healing and the working of miracles together is because they work together most of the time to deliver one result.
If God arm you with the three, there is no city under heaven you cannot bring to the LORD. The Church has abandoned its powerful weapons of exploits and gone for sorcery that is why our cities have not been turning to the LORD despite the power many preachers demonstrate.
It is time to get back on our feet and begin to carry out great exploits for our God. We pick up from here tomorrow!
LET THIS SCRIPTURE BE AN ADDITIONAL MEDITATION FOR THE DAY!
“Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.
Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.
For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city.” Acts 8:4-8 NKJV