JUICY JULY 2022| DAY 13
THEME: BUT FOR THE SHOWERS WE PLEAD
TOPIC: FREEDOM FROM SPIRITUAL DRYNESS
TEXT: MATTHEW 5:6 ISAIAH 44:3
BIBLE READING: JOEL 2:13-32
In life, there are two seasons, the dry and the rainy season. The dry season is a period when the heavens are closed and there is no rain. This leads to drought and dryness, shortage, locust and grasshopper activities, starvation, and possibly death.
The rainy season is a refreshing period with an abundance of rain. This brings about growth, abundance and freshness.
These seasons can be experienced both physically and spiritually.
Dry seasons are unpleasant experiences of life while the rainy season comes along with pleasant experiences.
Today, we will be focusing on spiritual dryness and I pray that we shall be delivered from every form of dryness in Jesus name.
Before we begin, I would like us to listen to and be blessed by this song.
Fresh wind by Brooke Ligertwood, David Ware and Hillsong.
Spirit sound, rushing wind
Fire of God fall within
Holy Ghost
Breathe on us, we pray
As we repent, turn from sin
Revival embers smouldering
Breath of God
Fan us into flame
We need a fresh wind
The fragrance of Heaven
Pour Your Spirit out
Pour Your Spirit out
For hearts that burn with holy fear
Purified in faith and deed
Refiner’s fire
Strengthen what remains
So we the church who bear Your light
Lamp aflame, city bright
King and kingdom come is what we pray
Yeah, we need a fresh wind
The fragrance of Heaven
Pour Your Spirit out
Pour Your Spirit out
A holy anointing
The power of Your presence
Pour Your Spirit out
Pour Your Spirit out
Pour Your Spirit out (pour Your Spirit out)
Pour Your Spirit out (pour Your Spirit out)
Pour Your Spirit out (pour Your Spirit out)
Pour Your Spirit out
Pour Your Spirit out (pour Your Spirit out)
Pour Your Spirit out (pour Your Spirit out)
Pour Your Spirit out (pour Your Spirit out)
Pour Your Spirit out
Let all the redeemed
Prophesy and sing
We can hear the wind
Blowing, blowing, blowing
Move upon our praise
Sons and daughters sing
We can hear the wind
Blowing, blowing, blowing
Let all the redeemed (prophesy)
Prophesy and sing
We can hear the wind
Blowing, blowing (pour Your Spirit out), blowing
Move upon our praise
Sons and daughters sing
We can hear the wind
Blowing (blowing)
We need a fresh wind
The fragrance of Heaven
Pour Your Spirit out
Pour Your Spirit out
A holy anointing
The power of Your presence
Pour Your Spirit out
Pour Your Spirit out
Pour Your Spirit out
Hallelujah!!!!!
Close your eyes and cry:
Oh Lord, pour your Spirit out on me!!!!
Father, let your Spirit fill me up to the brim!
Hallelujah 🔥
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Spiritual dry season is characterised by:
- Lack of God’s presence,
- Low spiritual power,
- Low spiritual sensitivity
- Lack of appetite for the Word of God
- Lack of desire for things of God.
- Lack of zeal for prayers.
When there is spiritual dryness, there will be a lack of tangible progress in the things of God.
When you notice these things in your life, then you are suffering from spiritual dryness.
Your level of thirst for God is what will determine your deliverance from this dryness.
Cry aloud:
Oh Lord, increase my hunger for You!!!!
Oh Lord, increase my thirst for You!!!!
Saviour, increase my love for you and things that are Yours in the Mighty Name!!!
Spiritual dryness is one of the worst things that can happen to a believer.
According to Leonard Ravenhill, “You can have all of your doctrines right, yet still not have the presence of God.”
There are times when you just know that God is not there!
The same way you can’t live without your heart is the same way you can’t live without God.
He is our source of strength and when you drift from your source of strength you become weak and powerless.
Has something substituted God in your life?
Money, sin, job, pride, lust, etc.?
Sometimes we can run away from God to seek our desires and that results in us being dry because we have allowed God to take the back seat while other things are ahead, leading and driving us!
When you are spiritually dry, you don’t want to pray, you just want to leave and go do something else.
Have you drifted from God?
Return to Him today!
God says, “Ask, and it will be given to you.”
God wants you to cry out to Him. He wants to fill you in ways that you have never been filled before.
A prayer for more of Him is a prayer that will never be denied!
If you are there and you have been praying and seeking for more of God and it feels as though He isn’t answering, now is not the time to give up. No! Don’t give up!
Now isn’t the time to call it quits, it is a test of how much you want this God!
Are you seeking Him with everything?
Jeremiah 29:13 says we will find the Lord when we seek Him with all our heart.
When you are seeking Him with everything, you stay there until He comes!
You seek him like a thirsty man seeks for water!
The Psalmist says in Psalms 42:1- As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
Sometimes you are going to have to stay in prayer for hours. That is how you wrestle with the Almighty God.
The presence of God might cost you sleep. Sometimes God is going to lead you to stay awake when others are sleeping comfortably in their beds. Just like mama tells us when she was in school she had a dedicated place to pray and seek God. When her colleagues were busy doing other things, she is in her place of prayer wrestling it out with God, today, we are all testimonies of those prayers.
Are you training yourself to seek God?
If you’re not feeding your soul with the things of God, you are feeding your soul with the things of the world!
Our flesh is killing us. It’s hard to be on fire for God when you have been watching movies for hours!
It’s hard to be on fire for God when you have been listening to ungodly music!
It’s hard to be on fire for God when you have been dwelling on worldly things!
Our flesh wants everything but God!
It wants to keep scrolling through social media but you are the one to deny your flesh the pleasures that it desires.
If you are seeking after God, you need to be disciplined!
If you are not able to deny your flesh how will you find God?
Does His presence matter to you?
I believe most Christians have become more content with rituals than having a genuine relationship with God.
We think as long as we appear religious, God is OK with that. No! God knows when your heart is dull, remember, He sees our hearts.
Have you become content with rituals?
Just going through the motions without heartfelt love for God?
You can go to church every day, preach every day, pray every day, give every day, and still be spiritually dry.
We love to do things for God, but do we remember the one who we do it for?
You can become so comfortable in being religious that you don’t notice God’s presence missing from your life!!!!
Don’t settle for religion, sisters – there is so much more than that!
When you are spiritually dry, you become powerless.
When your heart has become dull for the Lord, everyone notices. You don’t do the things that you used to do.
Maybe before you married, you were in the choir, always attending choir practice but after your wedding, there is always one excuse or the other to not be available.
You don’t have the same joy that you used to have. The strength that kept you from compromising is gone.
You start to become like everyone else. Your words don’t inspire others anymore. Your advice is not helpful anymore. Your faith is not contagious anymore. Sin slowly takes your heart away from God.
Most of the time, you never notice until it’s too late!
Spiritual dryness doesn’t only affect you, it affects those around you and those who look to you for assistance.
Just like Samson. He was supposed to defeat the Philistines and deliver Israel from their oppressors but he couldn’t because he was disconnected from his source of strength and he didn’t even know it!
The Israelites that were looking to Samson for help were disappointed!
Don’t allow your circumstances to make you dull.
Be careful that you don’t allow your problems to suck the joy out of you. You become spiritually dry when you stop trusting in the Lord.
A trial can kill you spiritually.
Your perspective changes when you realize God is in control. Instead of being empty and weak, you are filled with God.
You are bold.
You are spiritually alive and you become like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They said, “the God whom we serve is able to save us. He will rescue us from your power, Your Majesty.”
Even while being threatened to be thrown into the fire, they trusted in the Lord. The next thing they said is amazing. “But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
We must trust in the Lord even if He doesn’t deliver us from a certain situation.
Ask God to set you on fire for Him. He will give you what you desire! He will set your soul on fire. He will refill you. There is no trick to it, just ask Him and be still.
Even at your weakest moment, you can just say “God help me I can’t do it without you.”
You must fall upon Christ!
You must recognize your need for Christ.
Is your soul crying “Jesus I need you!” already?
We need the spirit of God to touch our lives. Isaiah 44:3 says ‘For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring’
This is the promise of God to us. All we just need to do is ask.
Do you spend time in the Word of God?
We all read the Word in our various churches, but do we have a personal relationship with finding God in His Word?
God often uses intimate Bible study time to talk to us, to deal with areas of our lives that are lacking, to search our hearts and show us the areas we need to work on. When we neglect the Word, we neglect Him. God wants us to listen to Him as He speaks to us through His Word.
We must never forget what Amos 8:11 tells us, “The days are coming, saith the LORD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD.” Cherish the Word of God!
Now sisters, it is time to pray for a fresh filling. Enough has been said.
Before we go on, let’s please listen to and be blessed by this inspiring song:
FRESH FIRE BY DON MOEN
Fresh fire let it fall
O God hear our call
Send Your Spirit like a rushing wind
We need fresh fire
We are hungry we are thirsty
Crying our for more of You
Lord we are desperate for Your mercy
Let us burn to know Your Truth
Light a flame in us now
Send Your holy fire down
Fresh fire let it fall
Oh God hear our call
Send Your Spirit like a rushing wind
We need fresh fire
We have left our hearts unguarded
We confess we’ve walked away
Lord take us back to where we started
Where we first found love and grace
Light a flame in us now
Send Your holy fire down
Fresh fire let it fall
O God hear our call
Send Your Spirit like a rushing wind
We need fresh fire
Fresh fire let it fall
O God hear our call
Send Your Spirit like a rushing wind
We need fresh fire
More of Your love
More of Your power
Send a revival
We need it now
Stir up a fire
Let it burn brighter
Let the flame burn higher higher higher
Fresh fire let it fall
O God hear our call
Send Your Spirit like a rushing wind
We need fresh fire
Revive us again
Oh Lord!!!
I plead for fresh fire!
Yesterday was about newness and freshness and greenness.
Today I want new fire!!!
Fresh fire!
Greener spiritual life!
Are we ready to pray sisters?
Before we start, I want you to look inward, what has replaced God in your life, that has brought about this spiritual dryness? Start to confess them before God and ask God to forgive you. Tell Him you are sorry for allowing other things to take up His place in your heart. In the Mighty Name of Jesus.
NOW PRAY:
Lord, I ask for help in disciplining my flesh. Help me to deny my flesh of the pleasures it craves in the Mighty Name of Jesus!
Enough is enough of being fleshy Lord! I no longer want to live in the flesh, fulfilling its lusts. Help me to live in the Spirit and fulfill the desires of the Spirit from this day forward in the Mighty Name of Jesus!
Lord Jesus, rescue me from every enemy of a disciplined life.
Lord, create in me an insatiable hunger for you.
Lord, separate me from everything, everyone that is sapping away my spiritual strength, knowingly and unknowingly in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
Help me Lord to be dedicated in my search for you. Help me to seek after You hungrily in the Mighty Name of Jesus! I will not be distracted by my environment, by anyone, or anything in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
Help me Lord to be diligent in my study of the Word. I will not read my Bible to fulfill all righteousness but rather to know You more and draw closer to You in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
Help me to daily practice the presence of God. I will not do anything to grieve the Holy Spirit in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
Henceforth, I will not go where the presence of God will not go with me in the Mighty Name of Jesus!
Henceforth, I will not say what the presence of God will not allow me to say in the Mighty Name of Jesus!
Henceforth, I will not see what the presence of God does not want me to see in the Mighty Name of Jesus!
Henceforth, I will not go do the presence of God will not do with me in the Mighty Name of Jesus!
Lord deliver me from every lukewarm and lethargic spirit that is making me slip into spiritual dryness in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
Revive my zeal for the Presence of God, oh Holy Spirit in the Mighty Name of Jesus!!!
Oh, Father, my circumstances will not make me trust you any less. No matter the trial I face in life, I will not trust you any less in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
Father, set me on fire for you, pour out your spirit upon me afresh, set my heart on fire for you in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
Help me to cherish your word enough to put it to practice in my life, Lord!!!
Father, separate me from every association that is making me slip into spiritual dryness in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
I ask for the grace to obey you in all that You ask of and expect of me in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
Father, re-awaken me to the zeal to continually be in your presence.
I receive the power to conquer spiritual dryness in the Mighty Name of Jesus.
I receive holy hunger for the undiluted word of God.
Lord God Almighty, I pray that you sustain the hunger for Holy things in me, Lord! Sustain it Lord!!! (7x)
Pray some more sisters and we shall receive that freshness that we so desire.
When you are done, raise your prayer journal to the Lord and call all the requests forth according to the Word of the Lord.
Round off with this inspiring song when you are done:
1 Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning.
Give me oil in my lamp, I pray.
Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning.
Keep me burning till the break of day.
Refrain:
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna,
sing hosanna to the King of kings!
Sing hosanna, sing hosanna,
sing hosanna to the King!
2 Give me love in my heart, keep me sharing.
Give me love in my heart, I pray.
Give me love in my heart, keep me sharing.
Keep me sharing till the break of day. (Refrain)
3 Give me joy in my heart, keep me singing.
Give me joy in my heart, I pray.
Give me joy in my heart, keep me singing.
Keep me singing till the break of day. (Refrain)
4 Give me faith in my heart, keep me praying.
Give me faith in my heart, I pray.
Give me faith in my heart, keep me praying.
Keep me praying till the break of day. (Refrain)
