John 11:25-26 ‘Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’

DAILY READING –     John 6:60-71; 1 Chronicles 25-26; Zechariah11

Pastor Phodidas—whose name means, “I worship the Lord”— showed a dedication to God’s Word, from a young age. As a student in Rwanda, he preached the morning devotionals at his school each day. Over the years, as he studied his Bible, he colorfully highlighted numerous verses. Little did he realize, how that marked Bible would help to save his life during the horrific Rwandan genocide in 1994.

After being captured, he was asked by the killers to dig his own grave. As he was digging, Phodidas began to pray “Lord, I believe you can deliver me. You can protect me from being killed by these people.’ He went on to remind God of how He had delivered Daniel in the lion’s den, and also the three Hebrew boys from the fiery furnace. And he believed God would do the same for him.

As he was digging, one of the killers picked up his Bible and began to question him about the colorful markings. Phodidas explained that they were his favorite verses. The man marveled at how he could have read so many highlighted verses. Somehow it seemed the man’s heart softened towards him and he offered to help Phodidas dig the grave. After the grave was dug, the killers decided to bury someone else there and asked him to dig another one.

Phodidas then told them that he would like to preach to them before they killed him. After much argument the men allowed him to speak. As he began speaking, the Holy Spirit began to prick their hearts and some of the killers began crying. Thereafter they decided not to kill him anymore and so they let him go scot free.

Today, Dr. Phodidas Ndamyumugabe is a professor at the Adventist University of Central Africa (AUCA) in Kigali and his story is captured in his book ‘Rwanda: Beyond Wildest Imagination’.

Jesus speaking in John 11:26 said ‘And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.’

Indeed faith in God can deliver from death. This pastor would have died, if not for faith built up in God through years of studying his Bible. Even when death seemed eminent, his heart continued to hold on to God in faith. In the end God showed up and delivered him miraculously.

The truth is that God’s hand is not shortened that He cannot save, but we need to know how to engage His hand to fight for us. It takes faith to move God on our behalf, and faith comes from hearing the Word of God. Indeed for any believer who would survive and thrive in these end-times, a working knowledge of God’s Word is quite crucial.

Hosea 4: 6 says ‘My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee..’

If we are not to perish, then we must go for knowledge of God’s Word. The most important investment anyone can make is towards acquiring spiritual knowledge. That is the control room of life. If you don’t know how to operate spiritually, you may become the grass that suffers when elephants fight. We are in the era of fierce spiritual battles, and it is dangerous for any soldier to be in the battlefield without adequate knowledge and skill in the use of his weapons. The era of spiritual docility is over. The end-times are perilous times. The Bible likens it to the days of Noah when there was great violence on the earth. Today there is great spiritual violence on the earth, therefore no believer can afford to remain a spiritual weakling..

Understand that the devil is not playing with you, he is on an all-out mission to kill, steal and destroy, he is going about as a roaring lion looking for whom to devour, therefore we must remain full of faith and battle ready.

Especially at this time, faith in the Blood of Jesus is essential. The Blood of Jesus is a spiritual weapon of warfare that the enemy has no defense against. Each time we invoke the Blood we render all demonic oppressions in the environment powerless. Let us therefore constantly plead the Blood of Jesus over our household as a divine shield of protection around us. Indeed through the Blood, we abide under the shadow of the Almighty, where no plague or pestilence can come near us.

PRAYER: Lord, please grant me the grace to continually build up my faith through in-depth study of Your Word. I thank You Lord, for faith in the Blood of Jesus to protect me and my family from every evil of these end-times in Jesus Name.

Quote

Nothing liberates like truth, the truth you know and act upon will set you free.- – WORDBITE 222.