FEAR THAT RAIDS
Matthew 14:22-33

“Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.” (Matthew 14:22) The disciples needed to get to the other side where Jesus wanted them to be. Jesus knew what it would take to get to the other side and what the other side had to offer for the disciples in order for them to continue in following Him. Jesus could not have been unaware of the storm ahead when He made them to go on before Him. In sending the disciples, the multitudes were not allowed. Whatever represents “multitude” in your life can trigger delay or hindrance in getting to the other side where He wants you to be. Did He call and send you? Are you in any storm yet? If you are not yet in the storm, the storm will come. It came for the ones that He made to go before Him. The storm that went for the disciples was not in the beginning of the journey, but rather in the middle of the sea. The only way of escape while in the middle of the sea and storm is in the hand of Jesus. “Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, ‘It is a ghost!’ And they cried out for fear.” (Matthew 14:25-26) Jesus did not delay in His response to their cry. “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.’” (Matthew 14:27) Jesus’ response was a sigh of relief that prompted Peter’s request for the permission to join Jesus in walking on the water. Operating faith and fear simultaneously is not a possibility. Jesus, having just showed up and letting them know that He was with them, was enough to terminate any fear or doubt. When we ignore His presence and make a choice to be afraid, we are consciously or unconsciously telling Him that we do not acknowledge His presence. Peter, while seeing Jesus walking towards him, decided to look into the challenges of the storm. “But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me!’”(Matthew 14:30) Peter operated in doubt. He was faulted with fear and right there, he withdrew himself from the presence of God. With fear, faith withdrew and Peter began to sink. He did not send them through the storm to sink them but rather to strengthen them. Do not be afraid in your storm. Faithful is He who called us and He will see us through.

Prayer for today: O Lord my God and my Father have mercy and let Your enabling Spirit allow faith to become a manifestation in my life.

ENTERTAIN NO FEAR
Jeremiah 42

Receiving and releasing the Word into your life will give you life. The word can be pleasing or displeasing at the time you receive it, but it will always deliver you in all your ways. When the Jews who were left behind after the captivity began to seek for a means of avoiding the challenges from the Chaldeans opposition, Jeremiah was consulted to inquire from God. “Now all the captains of the forces, Johanan the son of Kareah, Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiah, and all the people, from the least to the greatest, came near and said to Jeremiah the prophet, ‘Please, let our petition be acceptable to you, and pray for us to the LORD your God, for all this remnant (since we are left but a few of many, as you can see), that the LORD your God may show us the way in which we should walk and the thing we should do.”(Jeremiah 42:1-3) The remaining Jews after captivity (the remnant Jews) wanted to hear from God. The Jews promised Jeremiah before inquiring from God, “Whether it is pleasing or displeasing, we will obey the voice of the LORD our God to whom we send you, that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the LORD our God.” (Jeremiah 42:6) Jeremiah went before God and was able to receive a message for the Jews. The message for them was not to run and dwell in Egypt because they had set their faces to run to Egypt as a safe dwelling ground. God promised in Jeremiah 42:11-12, “Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; do not be afraid of him”, says the LORD, “for I am with you, to save you and deliver you from his hand. And I will show you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and cause you to return to your own land.” The Jews, however, did not listen to the message for them. The point here is that they were afraid and it is apparent from their case that to be afraid is to lose the presence of God that will deliver and show mercy. The Jews could not remain in the land just as God had sent Jeremiah to them. They were afraid and they eventually moved to Egypt. The Jews lost their ground and they could not retain the presence of God and as a result, they could not retain life. The remnant Jews disobeyed the Word of God. Egypt could not prevent them from dying by sword, by famine and pestilence. Obey His Word and you will live and not die. 

Prayer for today: I ask O Lord that You keep me from any mind blocking agent that can cause man not to receive and live by Your word.

HIS MERCY IS SURE
Psalm 23

“Pardon the iniquity of this people, I pray, according to the greatness of Your mercy, just as You have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now.” (Numbers 14:19) This is a prayer of intercession by Moses on behalf of the children of Israel after one of their rebellious acts that made God react against them during their wilderness journey. At any point in time, have you complained against Him or have you found yourself in a situation that is not well with the experience in your wilderness journey? It is worth it to pray the kind of prayer that Moses prayed because it was all written for our learning. Great is the faithfulness of God and He is abundant in mercy. In His hand is His mercy and He can choose to have mercy on us and He can also choose not to have mercy. However, He said in His Word that we should ask and not faint. When we ask constantly and consistently according to the greatness of His mercy, He will no doubt hear us from Heaven and His mercy shall be given unto us. The Psalmist knew to ask for His mercy when he prayed, “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; have mercy on me, and hear my prayer. (Psalm 4:1) The phrase “have mercy on me” should be an adopted signature tune for each and every believer. In the absence of His mercy, there could be a merciless destruction by the liar and his agents of wickedness. Just for His mercy alone, the Lord is worthy of great and mighty praise and adoration. He is a good God and His mercy endures forever. The Psalmist considered it as very important to acknowledge this fact when he repeatedly testified in the first verse of Psalm 106:1, 107:1, 118:1, 136:1, “…Oh give thanks to the LORD, for He is good For His mercy endures forever.” Indeed He is good and His mercy endures forever! It is His mercy that we need when all have rejected us as hopeless and condemned. The mercy of God is all that we need to consider us. “Have mercy on me, O Lord! Consider my trouble from those who hate me, You who lift me up from the gates of death.” (Psalm 9:13) God will not run out of mercy; except we run outside of His mercy. The Bible says His mercy endures forever. Can you trust in His mercy? Trusting in His mercy is trusting in His name because His name is merciful.

Prayer for today: Lift up your hand, pray and ask for His sure mercy. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” (Psalm 23:6)

COMBINATION THAT WORKS
Job 2:1-10, Acts 19:11-20

Good intention without integrity is the same as spiritual emptiness. For every man who wants to be good without having integrity of backing up their good intention, there will be nothing in place to move God. The American Heritage College Dictionary defines integrity as: “steadfast adherence to a strict ethical code; the state of being unimpaired; soundness; the quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness”. Can you imagine God testifying you as being a person of integrity? God testified on behalf of Job in Job 2:3, “Then the LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil? And still he holds fast to his integrity, although you incited Me against him, to destroy him without cause..” God, by Himself, qualified Job as a man of integrity. For God to have described Job as a man of integrity, Job must have walked the walk and lived the Word. He earned it all before God, but yet the enemy was accessible in touching him. At the time the enemy was allowed to touch Job, among all who should have been encouraging to Job and not be a discouragement was his wife. Job’s strength before God was his integrity and sadly it became the tool for his wife in her attempt to discourage him because she questioned Job by asking, “…Do you still hold fast to your integrity? Curse God and die!” (Job 2:9) Despite the discouraging statement by his wife, his integrity remained intact with strong intention. The wife was supposed to be a helper to him, but in his situation, however, she rather turned into discouraging him.Keep your head straight up and your eyes only unto God in your current situation. With steadfast intention, hold on to your testimony before God. Job did not waver but held onto his testimony of integrity. Like Job, it could be that your current situation is your way to be multiplied in the blessings of God. In the New Testament, the case of good intention with no integrity was that of the itinerant Jewish exorcists. The itinerant Jewish exorcists, “…took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, ‘We exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches’.” (Acts 19:13) These itinerant Jewish exorcists had the intention of casting out evil spirits, but the level of integrity that would cause God to look in their direction was absent from their lives. Faulting in the line of integrity does not require a big or consistent case of lying, but even a very simple and what can be considered as a minor lie is enough to disrupt your testimony of integrity.

Prayer for today: O Lord, help me and allow good intention and integrity to add up in making me a vessel of honor to the glory of Your Holy Name.

WHEN YOU DO…
Matthew 6

God is not a God of accident neither shall He bless anyone by accident. He will not give what belongs to the right hand to the left hand. Man makes mistakes and often blesses wrong people by mistake. God does have all of His Word laid out for us and none of His word will go back to Him without first performing what it set out to perform. He gave Jesus without any condition and He will not bless without meeting His condition for blessing. Jesus, when He saw the multitudes, gave the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12). In His Beatitudes, He clearly spelled out different things that need to be done in order to provoke a relevant blessing for what is done. Jesus stated in Matthew 6:6, “…When you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” Jesus was not giving a suggestion. It was not a request for “if you pray” but rather it is a command that ask for “When you pray”. His command has to be done for the blessing of having prayers answered by God. Among other commands that were laid out for the provocation of blessing were: “…when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.”(Matthew 6:2-4) Here, Jesus pointed out the blessing that comes for doing charitable deeds. It is not an option; it is a matter of doing and it will always be backed by blessing. Among His teaching, Jesus also brought it to our attention that, “…when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” (Matthew 6:16-18) Which of these three: fasting, praying and charity, are you actively doing with expectation for the manifestation of its blessing? It is important to do what He asks us to do and get its blessing. The Word of God is not a story but it is power to stir you for His glory.

Prayer for today: Lord I ask for the grace to constantly apply Your words of wisdom as they come to my heart.