October | 2012 | Open Heavens

He is All Glorious

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RCCG Open Heaven Devotion 2012 – Pastor E. A. Adeboye (ISBN: 978-36079-4-4)
Download Open Heaven – iOpenHeaven , www.m.openheavensportal.net
(Previously available online @: http://www.rccgna.org/Resources/BibleStudy/Devotionals.aspx)

Tuesday 30 October

Bible in one year: Psalms 109-113

HE IS ALL GLORIOUS

Memorise: Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Psalms 24:7

Read: Psalms 24:7-10

Everything about the King of glory is glorious. The Bible says the heavens showcase God’s glory (Psalms 19:1). When Jesus was born, the angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest” (Luke 2:14). God’s Son was reported to be full of God’s glory (John 1:14). What of His residence? 1 Timothy 6:16 says:

Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

He covers Himself with light as a dress. Everything about Him carries His glory.

When you see whatever He does or whatever comes from Him, you will see a mark of His glory on them. According to Ecclesiastes 3:11: He makes all things beautiful. Anything He does is simply perfect. When He heals, He leaves no scar behind unlike what we experience through medical science. You remember when He healed Naaman of his notorious leprosy? His skin became like a baby’s. There was no trace that he had ever been leprous all his life! (2 Kings 5:14). An African proverb says: When a mad man is cured, there will still be a little trace of madness in him. But this is not so with the King of glory. When He delivered the mad man of Gadara, who was somewhere at the peak of madness, He turned the man into an evangelist (Mark 5:1-20). Nobody will believe that it was the same violent mad man they had been fleeing from that was now bringing the good news of Jesus Christ to them. What of when He sets you free from slavery? You can be certain He will not let you go empty-handed. When He set the captives free from Egypt, He made sure they plundered the wealth of Egypt. All their unpaid wages for over 400 years were delivered to them in one night. In one night, the average Israelite, who was a poor slave, became a millionaire because the King of glory stepped in (Exodus 12:35-36). In your life, the King of glory will step in. Invite Him in to make everything about you glorious.

ACTION POINT:

Command every gate in your life to be lifted so that the King of glory may usher in an era of glory into your life.

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Power of a Seed

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Monday 29 October

Bible in one year: Psalms 106-108

POWER OF A SEED

Memorise: Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. Isaiah 32:16

Read: Isaiah 55:10-13

According to Isaiah 55:10, both seed and bread come from God. It takes sowing a seed to be able to get bread. Many people cannot access bread

and are starving because they either failed to sow their seed or ate them. Do you remember to sow your seeds? Another thing we learn here is about the power of a seed. There is tremendous power buried inside that tiny little seed you often look down on. When you plant a grain of corn or two, within a few months, the harvest can provide enough corn in the curbs to fill your stomach. This simply confirms scriptures that a seed will give you bread if it is sown.

Why do you have to sow your seed? It is to enable you realise its full potential. For every seed, the immediate potential is a tree and the remote potential is a forest.

Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. Isaiah 32:15

This implies that, what you need to change your entire destiny is how you handle your first seed and the subsequent seeds it gives you. In 2 Kings 4:1-7, a poor widow was disturbed by her creditors. ”What do you have?” Elisha asked her. “Nothing, but a pot of oil”, she replied. “That is a seed. Pour it out!” He said. She could have objected that she could not part with the only thing she had left. If she had, her seed would have been there but she would have lost her two sons to the creditors and she would have died in poverty. She did not know that in her seed, the pot of oil, lay the money to make her debt free. She did not know that in her seed was her dream of becoming a multi-millionaire, and a business tycoon. In her seed lay her future. Thank God she poured it out. Part with your seed today, because as long as you keep it in your bank account, it will not release its full potential to you. Your future lies inside your seed. This is why only the wise fellow will continue to sow at every point in time without complaining, because he or she knows what the seed can do for him or her.

KEY POINT:

Your seed is a means to convey you into your dream of a glorious future.

Love Birds 2

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Sunday 28 October

Bible in one year: Psalms 103-105

LOVE BIRDS – 2

Memorise: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. Genesis 5:24

Read: Genesis 5:22-24

True lovers enjoy each other’s company and fellowship. When one lover has the opportunity to spend time with the other and for any reason missed that opportunity, he will not feel comfortable. God loves to fellowship with man. This has been so from the very beginning. God created man to fellowship with Him. This was why He created man in His own image and likeness. He wanted fellowship from man and not from animals or inanimate objects. He enjoyed coming to meet and fellowship with Adam in the cool of the day. How He cherished it! It became a daily appointment He never missed. Then imagine His disappointment when He came one day to the same place of meeting in the garden and Adam was nowhere to be found. So He began to search for him (Genesis 3:8-10). In spite of Adam’s fall, fellowship was what made God to shed blood so that he could be forgiven. After that, God needed another person to continue from where Adam stopped. He kept searching until He found Enoch.

And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him. Genesis 5:24

In Genesis 5:22-24, it was repeated twice that Enoch walked with God. He walked with God for at least 300 years! The fellowship was so intense that God had to call him to glory to continue the fellowship there. During Sunday school, a child was asked to explain the story of Enoch and he said whenever God comes to visit Enoch, the latter will escort God. And when it is time for Enoch to return home, God will escort him. Then one day, they just kept walking until they got so close to Heaven that God told him not to go back. They walked together into Heaven. It may sound childish but any seeker of truth will know that this is a revelation from God. How is it with your walk with God? Do you have a regular time to fellowship with God? Some believers of several years do not have a standing altar of fellowship with God as a family. This is wrong. God wants to be intimate with you. Open yourself and family to God and create time for regular fellowship with Him.

PRAYER POINT:

Ask that every hater of God in your church and extended family be turned into a God lover.

Let Gift Reflect Occasion

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Saturday 27 October

Bible in one year: Psalms 100-102

LET GIFT REFLECT OCCASION

Memorise: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? Hebrew 9:14

Read: Hebrews 9:11-22

You need to understand one important fact about giving; which is that your gift must agree with the particular occasion for which it is meant. In Genesis 4:1-7, when two brothers came to offer to God, one was accepted and the other was rejected. Hebrews 11:4 says;

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

After the fall of Adam and Eve, God introduced them to receiving forgiveness through the shedding of blood. He demonstrated it to them and thereafter used the animal hide to clothe them (Genesis 3:21). They must have passed this information to their children. Cain and Abel would have been told of what to sacrifice to obtain forgiveness but Cain decided to do something else. He offered the fruit of the ground to God for the atonement of his sins. Ordinarily, if it were to be a regular offering, it would have been received but for sin, tubers of yam, fruit and other farm produce cannot atone. Moreover, the earth had been cursed and so tendering produce from a cursed earth equally made his offering unacceptable.

Just as Cain’s offering was rejected because it failed to satisfy the requirement for the atonement of sin, the offerings of many across the world today are still being rejected. If you give God money or material things or you sacrifice goat, ram, your body or any human being for the washing away of your sins, that offering will be rejected. Hebrews 9:22 says blood must be shed for sins to be forgiven, so Abel’s sacrifice and those done under the Mosaic covenant were accepted for the covering of sins only (Psalms 85:2, Psalms 32:1); that was why there was need to do them over and over again. But such shedding of blood could not wash away or take away sins (Hebrews 10:4); only the blood of Jesus can wash away sins (Revelations 1:5). He has brought a better covenant which He sealed with His righteous blood (Matthew 26:28). In some religions today, when someone sins and desires forgiveness, he or she will be served some penance – punishment. No penance can take away your sins! When such an individual dies, he will find that all the sins he was told had been cleansed were still intact. Only the blood of Jesus can save a soul. No ram’s blood can cleanse you from the slightest of sins.

KEY POINT:

The blood of animals cannot truly erase sins. Without appropriating the blood of Jesus, sinners will remain in their sins.

Focus on the Real Dressing

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Friday 26 October

Bible in one year: Psalms 97-99

FOCUS ON THE REAL DRESSING

Memorise: He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. Revelation 3:5

Read: Isaiah 61:10-11

The way you dress is the way you will be addressed in church and in the world. But it does not stop there; God is also concerned about what you are wearing spiritually. The day you were born again, God tore off your rags of sin and clothed you with a garment of salvation. God has the best sense of dressing you can think of.

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God: for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. Isaiah 61:10

At salvation, you were given the garment of salvation and a new man was created in you. This new man has the nature of God which is righteousness and true holiness, but you have to put on this new man as a rope over your garment of salvation.

And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Ephesians 4:23-24

How do you wear the new man? The answer is in verse 23 above: by renewing your mind with the word, by allowing the Word of God to have its way in you. The rope of righteousness marks you out as nobility and is a mark that you have appropriated the finished work of Christ in making you righteous at salvation and that you are bearing the fruits of righteousness (Philippians 1:11).

For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Also, after your salvation, God wants you to be decked in the jewellery of the Holy Spirit – mercy, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, etc. (Colossians 3:12-17; 1 Peter 3:1-7). Eventually, when we are to get wedded to Jesus, we will be wearing our robes of righteousness and He will put on us glorious jewellery like today’s reading says. Are you focusing on your spiritual dressing or on the physical? The Laodicean church focused on their physical dressing and became spiritually naked.

KEY POINT:

Outline the character you are manifesting that negates the nature of the new man in you.

Begin to renew your mind on each one by meditating on, confessing and praying the word of God concerning each of them.

Surrounded By God

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Thursday 25 October

Bible in one year: Psalms 94-96

SURROUNDED BY GOD

Memorise: As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever. Psalms 125:2

Read: Job 1:8-11

Although traditionally, mountains refer to problems, yet to protect His own, God takes on the form of a mountain. Psalms 125:2 says:

As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever.

When God surrounds your life with His presence as a mountain, you become immune to all attacks of your enemies. It is not that they won’t try: they will but their attempts will fail. Although many believers take for granted that they are under God’s protective cover, especially because it is not physical or tangible to them, yet it is very visible to their enemies, especially those who operate in the negative spiritual realm. For so long, Satan desired to harm Job but could not because of this protective wall he called an hedge.

Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land. Job 1:10

The enemy knows the areas God’s protection covers in the lives of believers. They know the areas that are exposed, which is where they would normally attack. If you are toying with sin, you are gradually exposing yourself to the enemies. From the reply of Satan, he must have been frustrated in previous attempts to harm Job. He must have wondered: ”How come Job is just enjoying all God’s blessings and I can’t even touch him?” It was another case of Daniel in the lions’ den. He could touch just anybody else but not Job. As long as you are under the protective cover of the Lord, the enemies will be frustrated concerning you. They will look for every opportunity to strike at you but finding none, they will attempt to distract you from the path of holiness into sin. If they can succeed in getting you to sin and especially to secretly continue in that sin, God will withdraw and they will take over. Ensure you remain under His cover, living holy before His presence.

PRAYER POINT:

Father, grant me the grace to remain under Your cover.

The Forbidden Meat

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Wednesday 24 October

Bible in one year: 2 Thessalonians 1-3

THE FORBIDDEN MEAT

Memorise: We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. 1 John 5:18

Read: Daniel 6:13-24

One of the most incredible promises God has given to His children capable of raising our expectations to high heavens is in Isaiah 49:24-25. In this passage, the Lord speaks about recovering a prey from the predator, and setting the captive free. If a hungry lion was to grab a goat, would it be possible to recover it? Ordinarily, this is impossible. But God says He can make it possible and He is keeping true to His Word. When Daniel was thrown into the den of hungry lions, who would have believed that he would come out alive? He was considered dead and buried in the stomachs of the lions but he surprisingly came back to life. Imagine Daniel sitting at a corner in that den staring at the lions and the lions staring back at him! What would be going through their minds? They might have been thinking, “We thought they gave us this big meat having starved us for so long, only to be told that we cannot eat the meat that is in our house!” As mighty and hungry as the lions were, Daniel came out of their den alive and unhurt. The truth is, if God says you are not meat for your captors, there is nothing they can do to you.

Have the enemies spiritually turned you into meat and eaten your flesh expecting you to die by the following morning? The Lord is saying, “You are not their meat and they cannot do you anything.” They have a shocker coming: the one they thought they had eaten and whose obituary they are expecting is coming out to greet them and to outlive them! You will outlive your enemies! Those who are planning your burial, you shall attend their funeral. Also, have you used your own mouth and hands to enter into a covenant with the devil making you a lawful captive? And now the devil is saying you are going nowhere, after all you came on your own volition? The good news is that you are going out free and there is nothing the devil can do to you. Run to Jesus today and accept Him as your Lord and Saviour. Thereafter, stick with Him.

PRAYER POINTS:

Pray that henceforth anywhere believers are taken for ritualistic purposes, they will be totally inedible, unusable and their presence will set the shrine of satanic activity on fire. Pray that the Lord will send His angels to free believers in such evil camps.

When Anointing Overflows

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Tuesday 23 October

Bible in one year: Lamentations 3-5

WHEN ANOINTING OVERFLOWS

Memorise: But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way. 1 Corinthians 12:31

Read: 1 Corinthians 12:27-31

God’s outpouring of the anointing is to the point of overflow (Psalms 23:5). God is not a miser; this is why we should never be miserly when it comes to the things of God because it is not in our nature. If you are stingy or tight-fisted, you will make God to be what He is not towards you. In 1 Samuel 16:1, God asked Samuel to arise and fill his horn with oil. The question is: How many people was he going to ordain? Just one, yet God asked him to fill his container with oil. It is then not amazing that even though covetousness is a sin in every other area, God says, regarding spiritual gifts, it is allowed (1 Corinthians 12:31). Put simply, you are free to thank Him for what He has given to you and tell Him, “Lord, I like the particular gifts of God operating in brother so and so. Please give them to me”. You can ask for the grace on other men and women of God too. Concerning His gifts, there is no limitation. How much of His gifts have you received?

The anointing of God can come so mightily with such great overflow that you might not even comprehend how and where it should be used. Sometime ago, while travelling to the Far East, we briefly stopped in Dubai. I was sitting at the airport and a lady and her daughter probably from India or the Philippines passed by. The little girl looked at me and waved and I waved back, but her mother was pulling her away. Suddenly, she tore herself from her mother, ran to me and kissed my hand and ran back to her mother. The girl saw something her mother could not see. Similarly, on our way to Israel one day, we were in London waiting to board the plane. Then a rabbi, one of those who were specially dressed, was walking by my side and looked in my direction. Suddenly, she began to bow to me even though I too had to bow in return. She saw something. When the anointing of God is overflowing, anything can happen through the anointed. Do you desire an overflow of His anointing? Are you ready to pay the price? How much time can you make available to your God? Are you prepared to set aside all distractions and wait on Him?

ACTION POINT:

Ask that God will so fill you that He will use you to do the impossible.

Open Heavens 2012: Seed or Harvest

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Monday 22 October

Bible in one year: Lamentations 1-2

SEED OR HARVEST?

Memorise: Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. John 12:24

Read: John 12:24-25

Wisdom for financial breakthrough teaches that: although God gives seed to the sower, He also expects the sower to sow and not eat the seed.

Now he that ministereth seed to the sower both minister bread for your food, and multiply your seed sown, and increase the fruits of your righteousness; 2 Corinthians 9:10

You must realise that there is no child of God without a seed. But you may say,

”I have no money and therefore I have nothing to sow”. You are wrong. If you have no money, you may have something more valuable than money. Look at your hand, heart, intellect, abilities and talents, time, what you have in your house, your academic training, your mouth to preach and win souls, etc. There is no one without a seed. When God provides you with a financial blessing, say your wage, salary or profit from a business, that provision has a seed in it. If you spend everything, you will harm yourself.

That financial provision – salary, wage, profit or salary raise is some kind of harvest. God expects that the harvest you take today will give you larger harvests tomorrow. When you receive your harvest, pay your tithe, sow your seed and use the rest. The seed you sowed, in the process of time will be multiplied and will be able to fetch you bread – food and not just seeds alone. If you don’t sow your seeds, they remain alone but when you sow them, they will be given an opportunity to say, “thank you for parting with us”. They will give you a harvest that will yet give you more seeds to sow. John 12:24 says:

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.

You can decide to keep your corn with you, eat it and starve or sow it and expect a harvest. Many believers today are poor because greed, gluttony, impatience, ignorance and lack of faith made them to eat their seed with their harvest. Now you know better, simply obey and things will change.

ACTION POINT:

While the fruit of some fruit trees are sweet, the seeds are bitter. Eat the fruit, sow the seed.Seeds are not meant to be eaten or else they will bring bitterness into your taste buds.

Open Heavens 2012: Love Birds 1

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Sunday 21 October

Bible in one year: Psalms 91-93

LOVE BIRDS – 1

Memorise: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. Mark 12:30

Read: Matthew 17:1-5

The psalmist spoke about the thirst of his soul in Psalms 42:2:

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

Thirst and hunger are common to man. Thirst however is a stronger need than hunger. It is possible for people to fast for 60 days without food, but extremely dangerous to do so without water. Thirst is a very powerful feeling which comes from within (Judges 15:18-19). When you are really thirsty, the pain or discomfort of thirst can override every other pain. For instance, after being beaten and wounded, Jesus was nailed to the cross. He did not cry for any of those pains, He cried for water (John 19:28). There is a thirst that no water can quench hence, the Lord Jesus Christ invites all those who are truly thirsty to come to Him (John 7:37-39). If you have really fallen in love with God, you will know that there is a thirst inside of you which only Jesus Christ can quench. There is a void in every man that only the Creator can fill. Has He completely filled the space He originally reserved for Himself within you?

But why was the psalmist seeking and thirsting after God? His next statement says it all: ”When shall I appear before God?” This tells us that he was not seeking God for ordinary water, wealth or position but for fellowship. One thing lovers enjoy is each other’s company. Lovers enjoy fellowship. There were two very close friends who understood friendship in real terms. When one of them visits the other, time would slowly ebb away without them noticing as they enjoy themselves talking about different things. By the time they verify the time, they would realise it is already late in the night. The host will see off his visitor almost at midnight with their chat continuing along the way until they arrive at the house of the one being seen off. On arrival, the one who just got to his house will escort his visitor off again until they mutually agree on parting ways at midway to both their houses. At the end of it all, they would both arrive in their respective houses in the early hours of the morning. If you truly love God, you can experience something like that. Peter, James and John tasted a little of it and they did not want it to stop.

PRAYER POINT:

Lord, let the love between You and me be so strong that we become inseparable.

Open Heavens

Open Heavens Devotional

Monthly Archives: October 2012

He is All Glorious

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Power of a Seed

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Love Birds 2

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Let Gift Reflect Occasion

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Focus on the Real Dressing

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Surrounded By God

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The Forbidden Meat

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When Anointing Overflows

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Open Heavens 2012: Seed or Harvest

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Open Heavens 2012: Love Birds 1

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