Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. (Psalms 23:4)

The Old Testament often pictures God of Israel as Shepherd. The Shepherd is the one who would guide, lead, protect, feed and comfort the flock. On the other hand, sheep are rather frightful animals; easily startled. The Psalmist (David) is describing the experience of “walking through the valley of the shadow of death” made reference to God the Shepherd, implying that he is like sheep.

“Valley of the shadow of death” sounds pretty stressful to me, to say the least. First of all, it is a valley. Our option is very limited in a valley, movement is restricted – one way in, one way out. Secondly, “the shadow of death”, the threat of death overshadowing the journey. It conveys a sense of intimidation, hopelessness, uncertainty and life threatening danger. But David said, he fear no evil, because the Great Shepherd is present with him.

In between Palm Sunday and Easter, Jesus walked through “the valley of the shadow of death”. He suffered all the threats, intimidation, humiliation, evil occasioned by sins and darkness. He went through all that we are meant to go through in life due to sins. He walked through the valley of the shadow of death for us, in place of us, so that He could walk through with us, so that we could emerge victorious at the end of the valley! Jesus even went further than that and died in our place, so that we might have eternal life.

No matter how difficult life journey is for you, rest assured that you are not alone. For Jesus the Great Shepherd is here to guide, lead, protect, feed and comfort you. He is walking through this journey with you. He knows what you are going through because He has been through “the valley of the shadow of death”.

You need not fear any evil. Jesus is with you. He has overcome.

Prayer Focus

But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

The next day the large crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem. So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!”...The crowd that had been with him when he called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead continued to bear witness. The reason why the crowd went to meet him was that they heard he had done this sign. (John 12:12-13, 17-18)

On Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem as King. John explained the reason the crowd came out in drove to give Jesus such grant welcome was because He raised Lazarus from dead. The raising of Lazarus fulfilled one of the signs of the Messiah as the Jews believed – raising of the dead after 3 days.

Understandably, the crowd was ecstatic. They welcome their long-awaited King into Jerusalem. Their Saviour has come to deliver them from the bondage of the Romans and restore the Kingdom of Israel. Finally, they could regain their national pride. So they thought. However, Jesus came to usher a bigger Kingdom, one that is far reaching, across national and geographical boundaries. His Kingdom is an eternal one, one that comprised of both Jews and gentiles.

Although the crowd who came to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast received Jesus into their city, they did not receive Him into their hearts. Though they were ready to make Him King over their nation, they were not ready to make Him King over their hearts. For indeed they could not. Because they have a completely different image of Jesus, who He is and what He is to accomplish on earth.

At times we too may have received Jesus into our lives. We heard of testimonies of His doings and miracles. We confess with our mouth He is our Saviour. We acknowledge He is powerful, so as to rescue us from our troubles and do miracles. However, if we have a rather different image of Jesus from who He really is, if we consider Him our rescuer only, the answer to all our problems and provider of all we need (and want), we may miss Him as the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the One who alone deserves our worship. If we do not have the correct image of Jesus in our mind, we cannot receive Him into our hearts as the Lord of our lives. If we want to pray for the Kingdom and Rule of Jesus to come to the nations, we must first receive Him as the King of our hearts. If indeed we have an incorrect image of Jesus in our hearts, it is idolatry of the heart!

Remembering Palm Sunday, let us examine our hearts. Get rid of any false image of Jesus and ask the Holy Spirit to imprint on our hearts the true image of Jesus.

Prayer Focus

My beloved has gone to his garden, to the beds of spices, to feed his flock in the gardens, and to gather lilies. I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine. He feeds his flock among the lilies. (Song of Songs 6:2-3)

We often ask the Lord to grant us favourable environment or circumstance for us to thrive and succeed. We long for a sort of “utopia” for us to be fruitful and feel safe. Our Heavenly Father is more than willing to grant us that. In fact, in the Bible quotation above from the Song of Songs, in the analogy describing our relationship with God, God has prepared a “garden” for us. He has right at the beginning, created a world with all the resources we need, and much more, to give us favourable environment to succeed, be fruitful and feel safe.

However, sin has changed all that. The world or “garden” that God has created for us no longer a naturally safe place for us to thrive, succeed and be fruitful. Sin has defiled the garden. Hostility towards mankind and all that is godly emerges in the garden. Evil is real. Mankind is lost. But we are not left abandoned. God came looking for us. He sent His Son Jesus to gather us unto Himself. He wants to save us and keep us safe from evil and eternal death. He wants to bring us into “His garden” once again, not only in the life after, but here on earth as well.

The Lord can change our environment. He can transform our cities and nations. But He has much more in store for us. He wants to come to us personally to care for us, to feed us and to be involved in our lives. He calls us His beloved. We belong to Him and therefore come under His protection. He wants to provide for us personally, makes sure we have more than enough. He gives us the right to call Him OUR FATHER, for He is ours. We have access to His resources in the Name of Jesus, His Son, our Saviour and Lord.

These blessings are reserved for those who know who they are – dearly loved by God, belonging to Him. Today, ask the Holy Spirit to pour out this assurance that you are His beloved into your heart. Live everyday in that reality. Enjoy the presence of your Beloved!

“Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” (Romans 5:5)

Prayer Focus

For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! (Matthew 8:9-10)

The faith of the Centurion who came to Jesus, imploring Him to heal his servant was highly commented by Jesus. What has impressed Jesus so much? I believe it is not merely faith in the God powerful that moved Jesus into performing this healing miracle, but the recognising of the authority of Jesus.

There is a difference between authority and power. Power is the ability to perform a task. Authority is the permission or right to use that power. Jesus being the Son of God, has heaven authority to use miracle working power. Earthly authority enables us to perform tasks on earth in a natural way. Heavenly authority enables us to perform tasks on earth in a supernatural way. Jesus holds authority both in heaven and earth. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” (Matthew 28:18b) While mankind is able to muster all the God-given abilities to perform tasks on earth in a natural way – through science, management and administrative skills, cognitive reasonings, organizational skills, etc. However, when the tasks before us are beyond our natural abilities, gifting and talents, we need supernatural abilities and powers. For this reason (partly, at least), I believe, many people, adults and children alike, enjoy movies and stories about superheroes. Because they open up possibilities to overcome with super powers, powers beyond the natural.

The Centurion in Matthew Chapter 8 obviously was faced with a situation beyond the natural confines. He may have exhausted all known means to cure his sick servant. In desperation, he turned to Jesus. He knew whom he has put his trust in, not a mere fellow human being, but the Son of God – who has the right or permission to invoke heaven power to heal beyond natural means. His faith was in the person or identity of Jesus, not just His power. Because the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, holds the authority to perform healing supernaturally.

Today, you may be faced with a situation beyond your natural abilities. You may have exhausted all known means to overcome the situation, but to no avail. Be encouraged. Turn your eyes on and put your faith in Jesus, the Son of God and His authority to move mountains. Speak, in the Name of Jesus, to the mountain before you. Expect Jesus who holds heaven authority to take you on a mountain moving journey!

Prayer Focus

He found him in a desert land and in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings, so the LORD alone led him, and there was no foreign god with him. (Deuteronomy 32:10-12)

The Bible describes God as an eagle, who watches over His people, protecting them and guiding them in desert land and wasteland. He guards over them jealously as “the apple of His eye”, like a protective Father. The Lord is also described as a mother eagle who would train her young to fly by stirring them out of their comfortable nest. He would also monitor their progress and always ready to tenderly carry them on His wings if they become tired and weary, like a loving mother eagle. The Lord Himself does all these, without any help from any foreign gods. The people of God experiences God’s covering, protection, guidance, salvation and favour when they worship Him alone and do not bow down to other gods!

Though God does not need anyone else to help Him to accomplish all these for those whom He loves, He has decided to delegate His roles both as protective father and loving mother to earthly fathers and mothers. The very fact that we have parents to watch over us, cover, protect, guide, help, support, encourage and bless us, is evidence of God’s love towards us. Parents are God’s delegated authority in our lives. They are representatives sent by God, to be positioned in our lives to convey God’s blessings to us. They are tasked with the assignment to love and care for us, as if God Himself is present in our lives. Some of them may fail, but God’s original intent is so that we might be blessed through them, and to pass on God’s blessings from generation to generation. We might not have perfect parents, but know for sure, we have a God who is perfect and loves us with perfect love!

The Lord is jealously watching over you. He has not taken His eyes away from you. He will not leave you nor forsake you. “When my father and mother forsake me, then the Lord will take care of me” (Psalm 27:10)

Prayer Focus

On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.

(Isaiah 62:6-7)

At times when we are confronted with challenges beyond our strength and understanding, we cry out to God. Whatever our relationship with God is like, we need extra, supernatural help in such situations. You may be in a situation such as this. Whether it is due to the current pandemic, its many ripple effects, or due to sins and iniquities – that of your own doings or your forebear, or result from the devil’s works and deception hidden in your life or bloodline, now surface. Cry out to Jesus for help!

You may have been praying to the Lord to help you and save you in your situations. Or you may have been praying for someone else, your family, your city, your nation or the Church. But God seems silent. He seems so far away and things do not change significantly. In the passage from Isaiah we read today, when God’s people Israel was going through the consequences of their sins and that of the iniquities of their forebear, the Lord said He Himself has put watchmen on the walls of Jerusalem. God Himself has stirred up hope and faith among His people, to seek Him in prayers and intercede for Jerusalem- watchmen for the city. But situations did not seem to improve. The Lord Himself said to His people “to take no rest and give Him no rest!”.

God will not ask us to do something which He is not willing to respond. The Lord said, “For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.” (Isaiah 62:1). God is faithful. He will always fulfil His Covenantal promises to us. He will not be silent in your situation. He is working out the necessary details to bring breakthrough in your life and your situation. Do not give up. Press in in prayers and cooperate with Him as He speaks to you and lead you step by step in your destiny.

Keep praying even if God seems silent. Do not rest from praying and give God no rest!

Persevering Prayer Focus

And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,'These things says He who is holy, He who is true, "He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens": "I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word, and have not denied My name. (Revelation 3:7-8)

When automatic doors were first introduced in public places, I found them hugely convenient. I just needed to stand in the path of the sensors, the doors will open for me. After a while, there was in me sort of expectation when I am going through doors in public places – that they will open for me when I stood before them. Then I encountered revolving doors. Not the motorised ones, but the conventional ones. Being used to automatic doors, I was hesitant at first when I first stood before one. “What do I do?”. Of course, I soon learnt that I needed to give it a push and stepped inside the cubicle that moved as the door revolved. Then I would emerge on the other side.

When God said He “has set before us an open door”, it may not be an automatic door. It may well be a door that no one can shut, but only we are go through – if we give it a push. Like a revolving door, as we walk through it, there may be a time of waiting. An uncertain time, just like inside the cubicle of a revolving door. What is on the other side? How long are we supposed to remain in this little confined space? One thing for sure, when the door is revolving, we need to keep moving. We needed to pay attention when it opens to the other side. We have to move out of that confined space. If we miss that opportunity, we find ourselves back in the revolving door. The door was in no time shut, but we are going in circle until the next opening.

What “doors” have the Lord opened before you today? Or what pastures, Promised Land He has promised you? When He said He would give them to you, He will open “doors that no one can shut”. But you must move along with His Spirit’s guidance. You must be watchful to see the opening to the other side. When you do, do not hesitate to step out.

Keep moving with the Lord. What He says to you, do it! The doors that He open for you, no one can shut. Don’t miss it!

Prayer Focus

Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; but at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry. "Behold the proud, his soul is not upright in him; but the just shall live by his faith. (Habakkuk 2:2-4)

Have you ever waited for something you anticipate very much to happen? If you have, you would probably remember what went through your mind during the wait. It is in time of waiting that our core belief is tested and challenged. Belief in God, in our abilities, in the goodness of others.

The Lord spoke to Habakkuk concerning waiting for the fulfilment of His prophecies. God has appointed specific times for all Biblical prophecies to come to past. God is faithful and He is a Promise Keeping God. Whatever He has promised us in this time and age, will come to past as well. But we need to contend for its fulfilment. We are to “wait”. By no means passively waiting, but actively pressing in with prayers, actively exercising faith in God and His faithfulness.

The just shall live by faith. The Apostle Paul wrote in Romans (Romans 1:16-17) and Galatians (Galatians 3:11) that we being declared just is due to our faith in Christ, in the finished work of the Cross of Jesus. We who believe in Jesus has been credited with the righteousness of God, we are just by faith in Christ. How then shall the just live by faith? It means that every detail in our lives, we trust God to guide, lead, provide, protect and direct. It means we are to lean on His faithfulness and His words. Notice that the faith of the just is directed at the God who is faithful. Not just God’s words, but the Speaker of those words. Not just God’s promises and prophecies, but the God who utters those promises and prophecies. The faith of the just is anchored in the Person of God, first and foremost, then His words and His promises.

When we are convinced that the God who utters God’s words is faithful, good, loving, compassionate, truthful (never lies), trustworthy and powerful, then we have every confidence that He will also do what He says. Then we have every reason to persevere in prayers and press in persistently for the fulfilment of God’s prophetic words and promises.

Never gives up on God’s words and promises, because He doesn’t give up on us. The just shall live by faith!

Prayer Focus

Then all the people answered together and said, "All that the LORD has spoken we will do." So Moses brought back the words of the people to the LORD. And the LORD said to Moses, "Behold, I come to you in the thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and believe you forever." (Exodus 19:8-9)

This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 6:19-20)

In the times of Moses, God spoke to him from behind a thick cloud. Though God’s voice could be heard by Moses, and the people of Israel in fact, God’s presence they could not see. However, when Jesus came, He entered into God’s Presence for us. So that those who are in Christ can have access to God’s Presence. We hear God speaks to us through His words. But when He speaks to us through His Holy Spirit, we receive revelational truth in His Presence.

Elijah stood on the mountain that day. The presence of the Lord came as a strong wind that tore into the mountain where Elijah stood. For Elijah, the Lord was not in the wind or the earthquake that followed, nor the fire that came next. The Lord’s presence that day was a still, small voice.

(Adopted from Shirley Weaver’s Devotional “Your words stand before the Lord”)

A word from the Lord we received in His presence, is a revelation that would make a whole world of difference for us! Pursue it and settle for nothing less, because revelation matters.

Prayer Focus

For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” But you would not, and you said, “No, for we will flee on horses”— Therefore you shall flee! And, “We will ride on swift horses”— Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift! (Isaiah 30:15-16)

God in creating mankind, designs that six days we shall work, one day we shall rest. Our bodies need that. Our mind and soul need that. It is a day we shall focus on the God of creation, and be refreshed in our spirit. This rhythm enables us to be recharged and rejuvenated for works in the next 6 days.

There is however, a deeper rest that man needs and seeks. Rest from recurring troubles, pattern of fruitlessness, or even barrenness. Breaking free from a cycle of defeat, sometimes from marching in circle. The Lord told His people, Israel, in returning to His ways, in resting of their souls, in trusting Him, shall they be saved from the mundane cycle of being pursued, being victims of the enemy. But they would not. So they remained in defeat.

Resting in the Lord is more than just spending one day in every seven days, getting away from work and doing recreation. If we have been toiling in our own strength and wisdom for six days, and see very little or no fruit nor progress, taking one day off our futile works and returning to it for a subsequent six days of the same work doesn’t help at all. The Lord told His people, therefore He is saying to us, “Don’t rest for one day in Me, and thereafter return to the works of your own flesh and ideas, and walk in your old ways all over again in the next six days. But return to My Ways! Change your course! Rest in My wisdom and discontinue in yours! Then you shall see your salvation”

When God’s people stubbornly refused to return to God’s ways in their lives, even they legalistically keep the Sabbath, they experience no breakthrough. On the contrary, they continue to be victims in life, being pursued and fleeing.

Are you tired of being pursued, being a prey to the Predator? Do you want to be in a position of overcoming and pursue the enemy, to plunder the plunderer? Then choose to rest in God’s ways and abandon your own ways. Not just rest from the works of your flesh for one day, being legalistic about Sabbath, but truly enter into that trusting rest in the Lord, to live a life in the Spirit.

Return to the Lord and rest in His ways. Walk according to the Spirit. Even you are in the midst of a storm, you shall command the wind to cease!

Prayer Focus