DECREE!

TEXT : ACTS 12 : 1- 13

1 About that time King Herod Agrippa began to persecute some believers in the church.
2 He had the apostle James (John’s brother) killed with a sword.
3 When Herod saw how much this pleased the Jewish people, he also arrested Peter. (This took place during the Passover celebration.)
4 Then he imprisoned him, placing him under the guard of four squads of four soldiers each. Herod intended to bring Peter out for public trial after the Passover .
5 But while Peter was in prison, the church prayed very earnestly for him .
6 The night before Peter was to be placed on trial, he was asleep, fastened with two chains between two soldiers. Others stood guard at the prison gate.
7 Suddenly, there was a bright light in the cell, and an angel of the Lord stood before Peter. The angel struck him on the side to awaken him and said, “Quick! Get up!” And the chains fell off his wrists.
8 Then the angel told him, “Get dressed and put on your sandals.” And he did. “Now put on your coat and follow me,” the angel ordered.
10 They passed the first and second guard posts and came to the iron gate leading to the city, and this opened for them all by itself. So they passed through and started walking down the street, and then the angel suddenly left him .
11 Peter finally came to his senses. “It’s really true!” he said. “The Lord has sent his angel and saved me from Herod and from what the Jewish leaders had planned to do to me!”
12 When he realized this, he went to the home of Mary, the mother of John Mark, where many were gathered for prayer.
13 He knocked at the door in the gate, and a servant girl named Rhoda came to open it .

Herod arrested James and put him in prison. The church was quiet and only wished that God should vindicate him.
Then in their very own eyes, he was beheaded. The Jews were pleased, the king was honored.

Then the king lay hold on Peter. It was meant to be a pattern. The new way of pleasing the Jews and gaining recognition by the king. At that point when Peter was imprisoned, the church realize that waiting for Gods vindication without doing anything is not applicable in all things.

Infact, prayer is an activator that moves God into action.
They became afraid that the same thing that happened to James will happen to Peter (The rock upon which Jesus had once proclaim to build his church and the gates of hell will not prevail).

No matter how promising a prophecy is, the devil is set to fight it tooth and nail and make sure, it doesn’t come to pass.

The devil is a very bad devil. His target was the best of all the disciples. Peter, James and John.
The three disciples Jesus spent much time to pour himself into while on earth.

The devil make sure the church was ignorant enough to loss James. He was waisted, everything Jesus poured upon him was waisted.

The church was spirit filled, burning for the Lord. But they had never learnt to make decree and make demand. They were just fine, living holy and serving the Lord. Which is an example of who most of us are.

The devil was ready to cut off the life of Peter so that the prophecy of Jesus upon his life should not see the light of the day. He was imprisoned, when the Jesus work just began and Peter was at the center of the work to set the pace.

Then the church knew that they were in for a battle and turned to God. They prayed and cried to the Lord, then the Lord miraculously sent his angel to deliver him from the prison.

Psalm 8 : 2 says ” Out of the mouth of babes and suckling have thou ordained strength to still the enemies and the avenger. ”

Even though the Lord has endowed the mouth of babes and sucklings with his strength, there is no way the enemies and the avengers will be silenced if they don’t open their mouth to make decree.

The bible says in the book of Job 22:28 ” Thou shall decree a thing, and it shall be established unto thee: and the light shall shine upon thy ways .

Until we open our mouth to make the necessary decree, we won’t be established and we will not see the light shine upon our ways, this is the implication of that verse.

We are children of the Most High and the bible has declared us as gods. It’s left to us to live as gods or as mere men.

The bible say that men ought to always pray and not to faint. We are meant to always make a decree and not be quiet or be silent.

The silence of the church killed James not Herod or the expectations of the Jews.

We can’t work in the supernatural if we don’t know how to command and make demands in the spirit realm, because life is not fair. Life doesn’t give you what you deserve it only gives you what you demand.

We can only survive when we make demands and command in the spirit realm because that is how the devil (our enemy and adversary) thrives. And we have been created to make decree.

To have dominion and subdue the earth, making Decree is essential.

Written by thevictorial