29
Jul
Job 42:5
“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You.
You may have heard of God from a friend or colleague. Perhaps you continue to hear of Him in church services on Sundays. Like Job, you say to God, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear.” But God also wants you to be able to say to Him, “But now my eye sees You.”
When Job told the Lord, “My eye sees You,” he was not saying that he saw God physically. He was referring to the moment when he had a personal revelation of God.
Why was it so important for Job to have a personal revelation of God? You see, God wanted Job to know that without a personal revelation of Him, the devil could easily steal from him. But from the moment that Job had a personal revelation of God, things got a lot better for him, with God restoring to him double of everything that he had lost. (Job 42:10–16)
There was a lady who was separated from her husband because he had an affair with his colleague. But when she came to our church and began to have a personal revelation of God’s personal love for her, she believed God for the restoration of her marriage by the end of the year. She did not just hear of a God who “so loved the world”. (John 3:16) She came to know the God who so loved her!
Not long after that, her estranged husband started dating her and was soon falling in love with her all over again. God also “took care” of the other woman—she resigned from the company. And on the first of January the following year, the couple moved back into their matrimonial home, their marriage now built solidly on God!
My friend, when you are reading your Bible or hearing God’s Word being preached, and suddenly you exclaim, “I see it, Lord!” that is when your personal revelation of God has come. And you are now in a position to receive all that He has for you!
Thought For The Day
When you have a personal revelation of God, you are in a position to receive all that He has for you!
You are your No 1 teacher, you are your most intimate and trusted teacher.
You have yourself around with you perpetually. Others may teach you and leave you to yourself but you personally go into the sphere of practical action and experience to authenticate what you have learnt and make appropriate adjustment.
No one will ever get all of the time to sit down with you all of your life time, only you can do that.
Accept responsibility. Be your personal teacher
25
Jul
Genesis 8:4
Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
For 40 days and nights, it rained so hard that the whole world perished, except for Noah and those who were with him in the ark. At the end of 150 days, on the 17th day of the seventh month, the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat.
In Hebrew, the word “Ararat” means “the curse is reversed”. The waters of judgment receded, causing the ark to rest on the mountains of Ararat, on new ground where the curse is reversed. And it happened on the 17th day of the seventh month on the Feast of Firstfruits—the exact date that Jesus rose from the dead 4,000 years later!
When Christ rose from the dead, we were raised together with Him. (Colossians 2:12). We who are in Christ our true ark stand on resurrection ground where the curse has been reversed (Galatians 3:13), where diseases, poverty and failures have no right to operate!
A church member shared how God delivered him from cervical spondylosis, a medical condition which causes the neck section of the spinal cord to deteriorate. An X-ray taken four to five years back showed that that area of his spinal cord was deteriorating fast. He was in pain and had to take medicine to manage the condition. And whenever he had a relapse, he would get depressed.
During his last relapse, he went to the doctor, trusting God that he was already healed, had another X-ray taken and was given some medication. He took the medication, still believing God that he was healed. The following morning, the pain in his neck was gone and he was able to turn his head. When he finally collected his X-ray results a week later, his doctor actually told him that his spinal cord looked better than the doctor’s own! The doctor was very surprised because patients with this condition usually don’t get better. God had reversed the curse of cervical spondylosis for him!
My friend, as a believer, you are on no-curse ground. You stand in the blessings zone where it is very easy for God’s blessings to rain all over you!
Thought For The Day
We stand on no-curse ground where diseases, poverty and failures have no right to operate!
For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.
—1 Corinthians 14:33 KJV
There is nothing wrong with pondering some things in our hearts, as Mary did when the angel of the Lord told her she would give birth to the promised Messiah (see Luke 2:19). Many times it is while we are pondering or meditating on something that God gives us revelation or understanding. It is one thing to ponder, but another thing to worry.
When we are pondering, in a sense we are praying, “Lord, I don’t know what this means. I don’t really understand it. I need some direction.” However, when we are worrying, we are trying to figure things out on our own, and we often end up confused about what to do. As soon as you become confused, you have stopped pondering and started worrying and reasoning. Seek after peace, not confusion, because God is not the author of confusion.
Power Thought: It is God’s will for me to have peace and not confusion.
God is never haphazard, he prepares people for the assignment He has prepared for them.
Ever before your assignment is revealed to you, God keeps preparing you.
Even before you are born He takes you through different situation, phases and stages of life as part of the preparation.
This is to build in you the capacity for the assignment.�
God will never assign you until He has prepared you.
Also, the phases of the assignment assume new level to the proportion of enhanced preparation. So, to keep preparing is to keep increasing your opportunities to serve
Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip.
Hebrews 2:1
Something very serious has been happening to the Body of Christ. We’ve often let the things which we have heard—the message of faith and righteousness—slip.
I’m not just talking about those believers who’ve been so surrounded by religion that they’ve never heard about the power that’s theirs in Christ Jesus. I’m talking about those of us who have heard the Word and have known the thrill of living by faith.
In my own life, for example, there were times when I’d pray for healing. I’d say all the right words, “Thank God, I believe I receive…” and all that. But inside I’d be thinking, I wonder why God isn’t healing me?
You see, even though I’d said that I believed I was healed, I hadn’t really. I’d staggered at the promise of God, believing what my body told me instead of the Word of God.
I don’t care how long you’ve been a believer or how long you’ve been practicing the principles of faith. You can easily slip into unbelief about the promises of God. And, when you do, it will cost you dearly.
“But if slipping into unbelief is so easy,” you may say, “how can we avoid it?”
Hebrews 4:11 tells us: “Let us labour therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.”
We must labor! Not by working with our hands and feet or struggling to get God to do something, but by spending time in God’s Word—hanging on to the promises of God by faith day after day. We must labor by hearkening to the Word and refusing to let it slip.
Don’t get casual about the Word. Don’t make the mistake of thinking, Oh I know all that faith stuff. I know how to receive my healing. If you do, you’ll slack off and one of these days the devil will catch you unprepared and steal you blind.
Instead, dig more deeply in the Word than ever. Labor! Be diligent to keep your faith from slipping—and you won’t have to fall!
Scripture Reading:
Hebrews 10:23-39
When man refuses to be ruled by the Spirit He is simply subjecting himself to slavery of the flesh and its appetites.
Carnality reduces man to a struggling captive instead of a ruling captain.
The law of the spirit sets free! Romans 8:1
Life in the Spirit is the believer’s security and safety.
Only those who are ruled by the Spirit can rule their world.
Be subject to the Spirit to make your world subject to you.
But this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:13-14
Spiritual bumps and bruises. Inner aches and pains that just don’t seem to go away. Most all of us know what it’s like to suffer from them but too few of us know just what to do about them.
We limp along, hoping somehow those hidden wounds will magically stop hurting, thinking that maybe (with a little extra sleep or an extra helping of dessert) that nagging sense of depression will finally disappear.
But does it ever happen that way? No!
I know. I’ve been there.
But thank God, I’m not there anymore. You see, over the past few years, I’ve faced some fierce spiritual battles. And I’ve found out those battles can leave you bruised and beat up on the inside just as surely as a fistfight can leave you bruised and beat up on the outside.
Before I was born again, I learned just how physically devastating a real slug-it-out kind of brawl could be. Yet as bad as I felt, a few days rest would take care of me.
The healing of a bruised and beaten spirit, however, doesn’t come that easily. In fact, the passing of time often worsens this condition. The reason is this: Instead of putting painful failures behind us, we often dwell on them until those failures become more real to us than the promises of God. We focus on them until we become bogged down in depression, frozen in our tracks by the fear that if we go on, we’ll only fail again.
But there is a way out. If depression has put you into a spiritual nose dive, all you have to do to break out of it is to get your eyes off the past and onto your future—a future that’s been guaranteed by Christ Jesus through the exceeding great and precious promises in His Word.
Chances are, that won’t come easily to you at first. Your mind has probably had years of practice in focusing on the past. Like an old horse that habitually heads for the barn, your thoughts will probably start galloping in that direction every time you give them any slack.
So, don’t give them that slack. Keep the reins tight. Purposely meditate on the Word of God. Replace thoughts of the past with scriptural promises about your future and be diligent about it. Then, instead of being a wounded soldier, you’ll become the conquering warrior God made you to be.
Scripture Reading:
Philippians 3:12-21
So do not worry or be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have worries and anxieties of its own. Sufficient for each day is its own trouble.
—Matthew 6:34
Someone once said that “Worry is interest paid on trouble before it falls due.” Trying to solve tomorrow’s problems today only steals the energy God has prearranged for you to enjoy today. Don’t waste your time worrying! It is vain and useless. Don’t be like the bassoon player who went up to his conductor and nervously said that he could not reach the high E-flat. His conductor just smiled and replied, “Don’t worry. There is no E-flat in your music tonight.” Many of our worries are like that—unfounded and unnecessary.
Worry is the end of faith, and faith is the end of worry. You can only be a confident woman once you remove fear and worry from your life, and it starts with prayer. Prayer opens the door for God to get involved and meet our needs. The apostle Paul said we are to be anxious for nothing, but in all things, by praying, we will experience the peace of God (see Philippians 4:6-7). He didn’t say in “some” things; he didn’t say in “one” thing, but he said in “everything.” Prayer must replace our worry.
Lord, I open the door and invite You into all the affairs of my life. I have needs that only You can meet, and I know it’s useless to worry about them. Today I commit my needs to You and will rest my faith in You. Amen.
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.
Acts 4:13
How would you like to be so full of the glory of God that it’s unmistakable to those around you? How would you like for people to be able to know just by looking at you that you’d been with Jesus? It’s entirely possible if you are born again and filled with the Holy Spirit. The same mighty power that changed you inwardly when you were saved can so revolutionize you outwardly that even strangers on the street will be able to see Jesus in you.
One of my favorite testimonies is the one Jerry Savelle tells of the time he was in a shopping mall with his wife, Carolyn. He was sauntering from one store to another, casually passing time until Carolyn finished her shopping.
A woman walked up to Jerry and said, “Will you pray for me?” Since he didn’t know the woman, he was puzzled. “Out of all the people in that mall, how was it that you picked me out?” he asked.
She said, “The Lord told me to come to this mall and someone would be here who could pray for me. I came here looking for that person. I noticed a beam of light. It would go into one store, wander around, then go to another store and wander around some more. I followed the light until I found where it was coming from—and it was coming from you!”
What was that light? The glory of God! It was shining from Jerry much like it shone from the face of Moses when he came down from Mount Sinai. And that radiant presence of God brought healing to that woman when Jerry prayed.
Just as the fact that Peter and John had been with Jesus was unmistakable, so was the fact that Jerry Savelle had been with Jesus when that lady walked up to him in the mall.
When you spend time with Jesus, it will be undeniable. His power and His glory will be reflected in you to the world. And His presence upon you will meet needs everywhere you go. Take time to be with Jesus today!
Scripture Reading:
Acts 4:1-20
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