Something wild happened to me last week which may help reinforce what I am about to share with you today. On Tuesday morning, I woke up feeling not exactly the best, I was feeling discouraged from waiting on God for many things. This day was somewhat peculiar because God had told me in February that I would receive one of those things on the 23rd of April. April 23rd was here and It seemed somewhat gloomy; this all the more fueled my discourgament. In moments like this, I have learned and I am conscious not to let it deteriorate into depression. Therefore, I resort to God for help. I either listen to a sermon or worship my way till I find strength to pray. On this day, none of this seemed to be working, so I turned to my bible. I turned on the audio of my bible and started to read the bible verses for the day and as the Lord would have it, I Kings chapter 17 came on. I Kings 17 says, “Now Elijah, who was from Tishbe in Gilead, told King Ahab, “As surely as the LORD, the God of Israel, lives—the God I serve—there will be no dew or rain during the next few years until I give the word!”
As the words came forth or rather as I heard those words spurr out from the bible, strength came from above. I became angry in my spirit, knelt on my bed and I burst out praying to declare manifestation of the good news that God had promised to arrive on that day. As I prayed, the Holy Spirit impressed on my heart strongly to dance and worship God with this particular medley by Minister Psalmos. I obeyed and I did so. The Holy Spirit impressed some more details in my spirit and I began to experience peace that surpasses all understanding. From there, I went about the rest of my day as planned only to receive a call from someone who should have gotten back to me on March 14 and I received my good news. It was no coincidence! I give all Glory to the Lord who led me by His Spirit to read I Kings 17, I thank God that by His Spirit and the power in His word, I was strengthened to pray through, to call forth what God had promised me. Although my mind and body were weak and wanted to do the opposite, wallow in self-pity, sadness, and defeat, Thank God I did not succumb. Do you know what is wild about my testimony? The next day I got a letter in the mail from the program that I was disqualified, the letter was dated March 25th. But praise be to God who heard my cry, and honored His words and mine on the 23rd of April. The call I got on April 23rd said I was approved, therefore that overruled the decision from March 25th. My dear friend, there is so much power in our tongue, so much than we give credit. I believe everything happened to point me to the goodness of my Jesus and other salient things. These things, I will try to capture in the blog post and I trust the Lord to elaborate on these things to you in Jesus’ name:
The Power of Life and Death lies in our tongues:
On that Tuesday, so many discouraging thoughts ran through my mind, so many! Praise be to God who did not allow me to voice them out. Unknown to many people, they have shaped or marred the cause of their lives by the words of their mouths. The Shunamite woman in the bible whose son had died shaped the future of her son with her words. Instead of cursing, swearing, or throwing tantrums, she confessed, “All will be well”, “All is well”. Indeed all became well for her and her son as prophet Elisha prayed for her son and he came back to life. I believe that the bible records her confession to teach us and remind us that even when there is a casting down, our confession should be there is a lifting up – Job 22:29. Furthermore, in our everyday lives, we should become accustomed to confessing only the true things, pure, noble and God’s word over our lives and situations around us.
Many times Prayers and declarations will bring forth God’s prophesies to the earth:
God is a good God and He can be trusted to do all that He says He will do for us. The real enemy is the devil who knows that God has beautiful plans for His children. However, the devil is clueless about the details of all of God’s plans, hence he keeps trying to frustrate the plans of God. He keeps throwing punches in the air, with the hopes that his punches hit the target. I mean look at how many battles King David had to fight before he comfortably sat on the throne he had been long anointed to sit on. Take a look at the ways the devil tried to use Joseph’s brothers to frustrate God’s plans for Joseph. We also see how the devil introduced a nonsensical policy to kill children from two years and under just because he was trying to kill the messiah. We can see God’s goodness in His speed to answer Daniel’s prayers; the bible tells us that from the first day Daniel had prayed-God answered him but the prince of Persia contended for that answer for days. Thank God Daniel kept praying for about 21 days to receive his answers. So you see, there is some of contention for the answers to our prayers but our weapons are mighty through God for the pulling down of those contentions in Jesus’ name.
We also see prophet Elijah who decreed that there shall be rain after a three-year drought. After he spoke these words, the bible tells us he bowed his head to the ground and prayed until he saw the rain come down from heaven. My dear, I pray that we are strengthened to pray until we see the things God has promised us.
The Holy Spirit is our helper, Every believer needs Him:
As the strength from heaven came upon me and I started to pray on that day, the Holy Spirit impressed in my heart the exact medley to worship God with and I strongly believe it was instrumental for the victory I received on that day. Even more so, He impressed in my heart other things that brought me peace on that day. The Holy Spirit is a believer’s advantage in this world filled with chaos and uncertainty. He wants to help us, He can guide us into all truths only if we receive Him and cultivate a genuine relationship with Him.