“And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.” I John 5:14-15.
We will begin to walk out our destiny despite unwanted interruptions, unexpected detours, and unfortunate disappointments. With that said, Isaiah 55:10-11 reminds us that God’s word will never return void, null or invalid. Therefore, starting from today and the rest of our lives, I declare we are moving from glory to glory and anything we lay our hands upon shall prosper in Jesus’ name. Our dreams will not die. Our plans will not fail, our destiny will not be aborted and the desires of our heart will be granted today and the upcoming days to come.
Money and favor will know our names and addresses from now on. Our minimum will now become our maximum, our mess will now become our miracle, our test will become our testimony, and our stresses our blessings. Heaven has confirmed that our season of lack, sufferings, sorrows, and pain is ending because He that sits on the Throne has remembered us. He is removing the hardships and replacing them with joy, rest, strength, provision, promise, peace, and hope!
God’s Word will not return void. It is too powerful. When God said, “Let there be light,” the immediate result was that “there was light” (Genesis 1:3). When Jesus said, “Peace! Be still!” the wind ceased and the sea calmed (Mark 4:39). God’s Word will always prosper; God will succeed, and those who receive His Word will be overcomers as well (1 John 5:4).
(*Disclaimer: God has given us authority to decree and declare His legally and binding word over our lives and situations once we repent of our shortcomings and forgive others of their shortcomings!)
“God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through Him.” Can I get an amen!!! #NoCapp #Facts
Gracious and Merciful God, how I praise You for being a redeeming, transforming, and renewing God. Thank you for always being with me in my times of sorrow, need and hardship. Thank You for using my suffering, pain and even my failures for Your divine purposes. Thank You for taking that which was planted in tears and allowing it to be harvested with shouts of joy. Hallelujah, thank You for by Your grace You reversed all of my losses and turned them into delightful gains.
Father God, thank You for all the ways and many times you have done this in my life. I pray today for my family and friends who are presently planting with tears in their respective lives. Give them hope! Give them courage! Give them peace! Give them strength! Give them inspiration! Give them the reassurance of Your presence and lastly, give them confidence that You will work all things together for good!
O Lord, help them to be strong in their season of tearful sowing because it’s getting ready to end; and as it is written, declared and promised in Psalms 126:5-6, their time of joyful harvesting is right in front of them!! In Jesus’ turning bitter tears into joy name, amen and amen!
In this season, I know for many of us it may seem like our problems and disappointments are stacking up like bricks, but I want to encourage you to remember Elisha’s prayer for his servant penned in 2 Kings 6:17, “Then Elisha prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes and let him see!” The LORD opened the young man’s eyes, and when he looked up, he saw that the hillside around Elisha was filled with horses and chariots of fire.”
I believe it would be safe to say that neither of us has ever walked out of our front doors in the morning to confront an armed barbarian horde in the front yard waiting to do us bodily harm. However, we all know what it’s like to be suddenly confronted with a life-threatening virus that has barbarically and globally taken the lives of many helpless people. Therefore, we should be able to relate to the servant’s initial reaction to his seemingly deathly opposition.
This deathly crisis for both Elisha and his servant served for them back then and for us today a stark reminder that an all-sufficient God is able to meet any crisis we faced; and, that prayer is the passport that grants us access to the all-sufficient God!
Some of you might be thinking, “That’s nice, but prayer doesn’t work for me the way it apparently worked for Elisha. If only I could utter a short prayer and all my problems were instantly solved just like these soldiers were struck blind!”
If that’s you, let me encourage you to keep on praying. Jesus said in Matthew 7:7 NLT, “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”
Prayer replaces panic with peace, opens our eyes to spiritual realities, makes impossible things possible, and it is our weapon to win all of life obstacles, hurdles, difficulties, and challenges.
In Christ we have access to God as our all-sufficient treasure, waymaker, healer, peace maker, and comforter. If we will learn to consistently and relentlessly seek God as Elisha did and to faithfully pray as he prayed, we too will experience unexplainable victories, miracles and breakthroughs in our lives!!
In John 10:10 Jesus said, , “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.”
Many people including myself believe Jesus is only metaphorically referring to the devil and yes, this passage of text can be used in this context. However, Jesus is using thief and bandit as metaphors for the leaders of Israel in the Old Testament (Isa 1:23, Jer 2:26, 7:11, 23:30). In fact, Jesus was intentionally reusing an existing shepherd parable from Ezekiel 34. In Ezekiel 34, God condemns the failed leaders of Israel, who have stolen from the sheep, killed them and caused them to become scattered. God says that He will remove these hired shepherds and replace them with himself and David as shepherds. Jesus is doing the same thing in John 10. He condemns the leaders of Israel as thieves and points to himself as the only true shepherd.
