Open Heavens Devotional: GREATER GLORY – Saturday, November 19, 2011

By Pastor E.A. Adeboye

MEMORIZE: “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matt. 3:17)

READ: John 11:1-11

Another lesson from 1 Kings 17:17-24 is that there is beauty in delayed miracles. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says, “He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end”. When your time of favour comes, God makes all things beautiful. One way He does this is by deliberately refraining from intervening in that situation until it get appears impossible. Then, God steps in. Jesus knew when His friend Lazarus was sick and in need of healing. Yet, He did not have the permission of His Father to go and heal him. But after his death, He got His Father’s nod to go and resurrect him (John 11:1-11).

There is a great difference between healing the sick and raising the dead. When someone is sick, every effort towards the recovery of the fellow is aimed at preventing death. This is because human beings are not empowered to reverse death. But God has power over death, and He has equally empowered those who believe in Him with the same power. When the sick is healed, God is glorified. But when the dead is raise to life, God’s name is even more glorified. The testimony of the healing of the sick may spread to a few people, sometimes, it may not be shared at all; but the testimony of the dead being raised to life travels fast and very far. The one raised to life remains a reference point long after the one who was healed is forgotten. The one who is healed may still easily forget God. Today, many who have been healed have gone back to serving Satan or their flesh. But the one who is raised to life has a far greater loyalty, love and devotion to the One who brought him or her back to life. Healing of the sick stirs faith in the hearers, but raising of the dead stirs even a greater level of faith in God. If God does not want to bring solution to your problem when it is simple, it could be because He wants to prove a point with your life. Unfortunately, many believers do everything to rob God of that glory through impatience. If your blessings are delayed by God, it will work something better for you.

KEY POINT:

God is pleased with some of His children but well pleased with a few of them. Does your life give God glory or greater glory?

Bible in One year: 1 Chron. 4-6

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