Rest

Rest is essential to health, spiritually and physically. Some years ago, God began to deal with me strongly about taking a day off. I think we Americans are the worst at thinking we really gain by working every day. God set the pattern of work/rest into creation when he worked six days creating, and rested the seventh. One of the Ten Commandments has to do with honoring the Sabbath. God knows we need rest. He programmed that need into who we are as humans!

We’re wired to work hard, and then take a break. Without rest, we give no opportunity to rejuvenate the systems of our bodies. Stress is a major factor in illness. Studies indicate that we are more efficient at work after rest, hence a morning and afternoon break is encouraged during work hours.

He’s an interesting tidbit. In Leviticus 25: 1-7, God commanded the Israelites to allow the land to rest every seventh year. He promised that what they grew in the sixth year and what the land voluntarily grew the seventh year would be plenty to feed them. The land was not to be cultivated. Only volunteer crops could grow. In that way the land was refreshed (one reason we should take vitamins is because we’ve depleted the soil of needed nutrients by lack of crop rotation and land rest with our current farming methods; instead we add fertilizer to make the plants grow, and we’re left depleted of much mineral content in our food).

The Israelites did not obey God’s command to let the land rest every seventh year, and boy did they pay for it! One of the reasons they went into captivity for 70 years in Babylon was so that the land could enjoy the Sabbaths they never gave it (See 2 Chronicles 36:21). They went 490 years without obeying God and allowing the land to rest, so He forced the issue. They missed 70 of the seventh years land Sabbaths during this 490 year period of their history. Babylonian captivity was the results of their general disobedience to God’s word and this included their disobedience to His land command!

Perhaps in some measure we also force ourselves to be captive to stress, tiredness, premature aging, sickness, and emotional duress because we don’t give our bodies the needed rest each week. Proverbs 14:30 reads, A calm and undisturbed mind and heart are the life and health of the body, but envy, jealousy, and wrath are like rottenness of the bones. Take a break each week, or one day you may be forced to take it!

Words are Landmarks in Your Life

The words you speak are a creative force in your life. They become absorbed into the atmosphere of your life. Words contain the contents of your heart. Proverbs tells us to keep our heart with all diligence because the issues of life come out of it. Jesus said we speak from the abundance of our heart.

Don’t take your words lightly today. Jesus said we would be justified or condemned as a result of our words.

Words create life direction. From the time we’re born, until the time we go to be with Jesus, words accomplish things. You never live beyond your words.

It is not possible to walk in prosperity and talk poverty. I t is not possible to walk in health and talk sickness. It is not possible to be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power and talk weakness and failure. It is not possible to be love and forgiveness ruled and at the same time talk bitterness and anger.

A major force in the kingdom of God and in the kingdom of Satan is words. Don’t allow your words today to correspond to the will of the kingdom of darkness. Instead, defy feelings and thoughts that oppose the will of God. Speak boldly aloud what you believe based on the Word of God. When you do this, you put God’s power into operation in your life and circumstances, and the Satan’s attacks will become dormant against the power of the open Word of God through your lips!

The more you talk about something, the more real it becomes in your life. At first, the things of God may seem vague and distant to you. But ignore this perception and speak out loud that you are the righteousness of God in Christ; that you are more than a conqueror; that you are healed by the stripes of Jesus; that God meets all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus; that if God be for you, no being can be successful against you; that the peace of God rules you; that the love of God dominates your mind and actions; that God’s protection and favor surround you every day; that the angels of God are presently working on your behalf, ministering for you because you are an heir of salvation; that your flesh and your mind do not rule you, but your spirit rules your life; that you are walking in the spirit and you are not fulfilling the works of the flesh; that greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

I started speaking the Word out loud to myself over 30 years ago. The Word did not seem real or true at the time. My circumstances tried to erected walls between me and God’s will through His Word.

But I began to speak the Word and defy all my thoughts and feeling to the contrary. Little by little, the reality of the Word began to settle down on me and rise up in me. Now, the things of the Word and of the kingdom of God have become absorbed into the very fabric of who I am. My mind, emotions, will, and body have become accustomed to yielding to my human spirit through the Word. Life has become a restful walk with God as my Father, Jesus my Lord, and the Holy Spirit as my helper and guide.

Your Words set the landmarks in your life. You never rise above them. You will be in your tomorrows what you believe and speak in your todays. Begin today to cooperate with the principles of God’s kingdom. Set your mouth in line with God’s will in every area of life. If you do, one day, you’ll look around, and you’ll see the product of your Words. And you’ll be blessed!

Don’t Get Slack

Therefore know this day, and consider it in your heart, that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other. You shall therefore keep His statutes and His commandments which I command you today, that it may go well with you and with your children after you, and that you may prolong your days in the land which the Lord your God is giving you for all time (Deuteronomy 4:39-40).

The blessings of God are not automatic. They are conditioned upon our obedience. Israel was promised untold blessings in the land of Caanan. But the Father was very clear with them that if they disobeyed, the curse would come upon them.

We have a tendency to get slack when things are going well and the outward pressure lessens. Don’t yield to that! Keep yourself stirred up in God all the times.

Over the years I’ve watched people get slack with the Word, with meeting together with other believers in church services, with meditating in the Word, and with their prayer life. For a while it seemed all was well, but eventually that slackness cost them dearly. It cost them in sickness, in financial loss, in their marriage, with their children. So pay the price now to walk with God, or there could be an even greater price to pay for catering to the flesh and getting slack!

Keep yourself strong spiritually by staying in the Word and fellowshipping with other believers. Don’t compromise when things are going well! Notice what God told Israel in Deuteronomy 4:9 : Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren.

These are serious times and we need to give our attention daily to keeping ourselves attuned spiritually to the Father so that His voice is clear, and so that we’ll be well prepared for the days ahead.

Don’t be like the frog who decided to take a bath in the cool water of the black cauldron in the farmer’s yard. When the farmer lit a fire under it, the cold-blooded frog was unaware of the danger he was in until his blood was almost boiling. His temperature rose with the temperature of the water in the cauldron!

Walking closely with the Father pays rich dividends both now and in the life to come. Don’t compromise!

Are You a 30, 60, or 100-fold Hearer?

But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirty-fold, some sixty, and some a hundred (Mark 4:20).

What we do with the Word determines our contribution in the kingdom of God. The Word is designed to take the Father’s place in our hearts during our earth walk. He and His Word are one!

Notice what Jesus said in Mark 4:24 (Amplified): And He said to them, be careful what you are hearing. The measure of thought and study you give to the truth you hear will be the measure of virtue and knowledge that comes back to you — and more besides will be given to you who hear.

We only get out what we put in to the kingdom of God. Remember that the Word is like a seed that germinates. The seed takes time to grow large enough to be seen. Jesus said that the mustard seed is a small seed that eventually grows a tree so large that the birds have a place to nest and the animals have a place to shelter.

The kingdom of God starts out very small in your life when the Word is planted in you. But as you spend time in the Word, aligning your life with it, the Word slowly grows until it’s large enough to be seen in you. Eventually others can partake of the benefits of the Word in your life as you minister it to them!

A little attention once in a while with the Word may cause you to be a doer of the Word 30% of your time. The rest of your time is then spent in unbelief and the flesh! No wonder the uncommitted have problems!

The sixty fold hearer Jesus spoke of is a doer of the Word 2/3 of their time. That means that a third of their time they are probably in the flesh and responding to problems just the way an unbeliever responds. That means basically that 1/3 of this person's time creates problems for them.

But the 100 fold hearer is a person who acts on the Word all day long! They don’t cater to the flesh and unbelief at all! This person walks in love 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! In every situation of life this productive believer asks himself, what does God’s Word says about this, and this believer constantly adjusts His behavior to line up with God’s Word. This believer walks in love, walks in forgiveness, and only speaks what God’s Word says about the circumstances around him. And this believer is quick to repent when he misses it and sins!

Let’s give God’s Word the first place status that it should have in our lives! Let’s refuse to compromise with the flesh, the world, or the devil at all! To receive God’s best, you must give him your best! Press towards the mark!

The Kingdom and the Seed

Another parable He put forth to them, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches (Matthew 13:31-32).

When I was young my dad planted a garden every spring. We lived all year long on the harvest of those wonderful vegetables. But it was a lot of work. The ground had to be prepared. Fertilizer had to be spread. Weeds had to be removed. Insects had to be kept away. But it was well worth the trouble when we sat down week after week in cold winter months to a plate full of sweet corn, field peas, green beans, squash, and butterbeans.

Before planting the vegetables each spring, I noticed the bags on the shelf in the tool shed. Opening them before planting I noticed the old seeds lying dormant in the bag. At times, we had some left over from the previous year. These seeds never changed until we placed them in a different environment. They were made to be placed in soil. That’s the only place they do their work.

The kingdom of God works on the principle of the seed. A seed is small and unassuming. It’s not necessarily pretty to look at either. In the wrong place, it’s completely paralyzed. Without attention, its power is never unleashed. The power to feed thousands is in one little seed! And the amount of harvest has a lot to do with the attention that seed gets as the plant it produces grows. Insects and weeds must be dealt with regularly. Irrigation at times is essential.

The Word is a seed! The kingdom of God works on the seed principle. The sower (the pastor or minister) sows the seed into hearts. The heart is the soil that germinates the Word and unleashes its power!

Jesus said that there are four types of heart soil where the Word can be planted (see Mark 4). Wayside soil is tough and impenetrable. It’s so hard that the seed just lies on the top and produces nothing but food for the birds to eat. The forces of hell love this soil. No kingdom seed will grow here. It’s the soil where they do their best work.

Stony ground hinders the root system of newly germinating seeds. Since the roots can’t dig down into deeper soil, the plant dies when it gets too tall for the small roots to supply needed nourishment. This believer hears and enjoys the word to a degree, but because they are not disciplined enough to get the rocks out of the soil, the words only does so much in them. In tough times they often bail out and quit! It’s not the seed that is the problem. It’s the soil!

Thorny ground hearers get excited about the word for a period of time. They nurture the soil of their heats and the Word begins bearing fruit in them. But this believer becomes lukewarm in their walk with God. Other things begin to be more important than God and the Word. Gradually they become too busy. They begin to miss a church service here and there. Daily devotions lose their luster and become occasional. And the weeds of money, worry, and desire for other things choke the once healthy seed. The gains this believer has had in spiritual development are lost. I see this frequently.

Good ground hearers produce fruit in the kingdom of God! According to their diligence in the Word, the kingdom of God expands in them and t hen through them! Tomorrow, I’ll give the details of this believers walk with God! Watch over the seed that’s in you today!

No Fear!

In God (I will praise His word), In God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me? (Psalm 56:4).

I sought the Lord, and He heard me, And delivered me from all my fears (Psalm 34:4).

Fear debilitates the believer. Satan uses the tactic of fear to harass and sideline the child of God if they will yield to it. For many people, fear is a way of life. From the time they get up in the morning until the time they go to bed, fear rules. Fear of tragedy, of financial failure, of sickness, and of a thousand and one other things.

The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe (Proverbs 29:25). All that Job went through was a result of fear opening the door to the enemy to steal, kill, and destroy. For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me, And what I dreaded has happened to me (Job 3:25).

Fear ruled me as a young child and as a teenager. Fear brings with it a sense of hopelessness. You can’t act in faith and fear at the same time.

Fear must be resisted. I treat fear the same way I treat a demonic force! I command it to leave me in Jesus’ name! For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

I have learned that you must set yourself against fear. You must resist it with the Word. When a thought of fear comes to me now, I immediately resist it. I will not allow it to cogitate in my mind! I speak out loud to it. I resist fear, and I command it to go in Jesus’ name! Then I’ll find scriptures that show fear for what it really is, a lie!

The fear may be, you’re not going to make it this time. I’ll speak God’s Word: Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us (Romans 8:37). It may be of sickness as Satan plants a thought and a feeling for me to act on. I’ll resist this fear with: Himself took my infirmities and bare my sicknesses! It may be a financial need. Again, I resist the fear thought with the Word: My God meets all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus!

Never give voice to your fears! Break the habit of yielding to them by creating a habit of speaking God’s Word out loud to refute the fear thought every time it comes up. Speak to the mountain; believe you receive; resist fear with the spoken Word of God out of your mouth. You’re free in Christ Jesus today!

Cast Your Burden on the Lord!

Cast your burden on the Lord [releasing the weight of it] and He will sustain you; He will never allow the [consistently] righteous to be moved (made to slip, fall, or fail) (Psalm 55:22 - Amplified).

We are not designed to worry. Worry is really faith in reverse. Worry is allowing the spirit of fear to dominate and rule the situation. Fear attract the demonic the way that faith attracts God! Don’t allow worry to rule any area of life. Worry is a weight that drains energy needed for productive activity!

The antidote for worry is releasing faith in God’s Word about the situation at hand. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and depart from evil. It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones (Proverbs 3:5-8).

We’re to refuse worry just as we would refuse the temptation to sin. Worry is the enemy seeking intrusion into your life. So Peter tells us: Casting the whole of your care [all your anxieties, all your worries, all your concerns, once and for all] on Him, for He cares for you affectionately and cares about you watchfully (1 Peter 5:7 - Amplified).

Paul gives us the practical side of replacing worry thoughts with faith. Don’t worry over anything whatever. Tell God every detail of your need in earnest and thankful prayer (Philippians 4:6 – J.B. Phillips Translation).

To release worry and the spirit of fear that motivates it, go to the Father and tell Him every detail of what bothers you. Itemize it in detail. Tell Him what concerns you about the issue and what fear is seeking entrance. Tell Him every detail of your need. Once you do this, ask Him to intervene and to solve the problem. And right there believe that you receive the answer. If you believe you receive, then act like you receive the answer by praising and thanking the Father for working out the details of the situation.

Then every time the issue comes to mind, and every time the spirit of fear seeks to come back, don’t pray about it again. You’ve already cast the care of the thing over on the Lord. Just simply remind the Father of what you’ve already prayed and believed for, and then spend time in praise and thanksgiving instead of worry. Do this every single time the thought of the situation comes back.

You’ll find that the peace of God will guard your faith like a company of soldiers. And if you do this day after day, the day will come that you will see the manifestation of the answer to your prayer!

Remove the Irritants and Thorns

But if you do not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you, then it shall be that those whom you let remain shall be irritants in your eyes and thorns in your sides, and they shall harass you in the land where you dwell (Numbers 33:55).

Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come (1 Corinthians 10:11).

God’s dealings with Israel in the Old Testament are filled with truths that help us in our walk with God today. Israel being led out of Egyptian bondage by way of the Red Sea is a type of our being delivered from the bondage of sin and being born again!

The land of Canaan, the land God promised to Abraham and his offspring, is a type of the born again, Spirit-filled, abundant life of the child of God today! When I was a boy we sang about Canaan’s land in church and the song referred to Canaan’s land as a type of heaven for believers. But that’s just not true! There are no inhabitants that oppose us that we must run out of heaven! Heaven is a place of rest from our labors. But here, we must fight the good fight of faith every day!

These inhabitants of Canaan were to be destroyed by Israel. They were gross idolaters whose habits were vile and repulsive. Israel was to run them out of every city as they conquered Canaan. In the above verse, God told Israel that if these inhabitants remained, they would be irritants in their eyes and thorns in their sides. God told them that these inhabitants of their land would harass them and make their life miserable!

These inhabitants of the land point to the habits of the flesh in our lives as believers! When we come out of the bondage of sin through the New Birth, there is a residue of the old man that is left in our souls. Our minds and emotions have inhabitants embedded in them from our old life before Christ! It’s our job to run them out!

These inhabitants include selfishness, envy, greed, pride, stubbornness, rebellion, anger, lust, bitterness, malice, gossip, self-pity, and a host of other things. Our responsibility as New Creation is to run these inhabitants out with the sword of the spirit, the Word of God! If we don’t confront these inhabitants, they become irritants in our eyes and thorns in our sides. They hinder our growth in God, and quench our joy! Don’t tolerate them in your land!

Israel did not conqueror these inhabitants all at once, and neither will you. Israel inhabited their promised land city by city. And it’s line upon line, precept upon precept that we grow in God and run these habits from the past out of out lives.

Be diligent to stay in the Word and keep your sword sharp. And when you come upon some inhabitants of your promised land from your old life, don’t put up with them. Run them out! Conquer your promised land little by little and you’ll walk in the peace of God and experience the best God has for you!

Believe That You Receive!

Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them (Mark 11:24 - NKJV)

So then I tell you, whenever you pray and ask for anything, have faith that it has been granted to you, and you will get it(Mark 11:24 – Williams NT).

For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will get it (Mark 11:24- Amplified).

That's why I tell you to have faith that you have already received whatever you pray for, and it will be yours (Mark 11:24-God’s Word).

Believe that you receive. That’s God’s method of giving us what we need. Faith (believing that you receive) is the way God provides to us what He has promised!

Believing you receive means that the moment you pray, you believe that God has answered your prayer. If you believe He has answered then you will act as though He has answered. Faith does not believe that one day He will answer in the future, but it is believing that God has answered or is answering right now.

Faith is never future tense. It either past tense or present tense. Anything that puts my receiving off into the future is hope and not faith. And hope is just not strong enough to receive from the Lord!

Our responsibility is to believe that we receive. God’s responsibility is to see that we have it. There is a period of time between the time that you believe you receive the answer to your prayer, and the actually physical manifestation of the answer. And what happens in this in between time is crucial!

When I believe that I receive an answer to prayer, I usually spend a lot of time praising and thanking the Father for meeting the need. Every time the issue that I’ve prayed about comes to mind, I verbally acknowledge that I believe the Lord heard and answered my prayer. This adds action to my faith!

Doubt thoughts may come to mind and tell you that God hasn’t answered the prayer. When they come, don’t speak them! When doubt thoughts come, say out loud that you believe you receive the answer to your prayer, and then spend some time praising the Lord. Praise Him and thank Him for the answer to your prayer the way you would if you actually had the manifestation of the answer! This drives the enemy nuts and boosts your confidence in the Father. Faith must be expressed in words to be most effective!

Faith expects. When I’m standing in faith, I’m expecting the manifestation of the answer at any time. Faith is a confident expectation that what you’ve asked the Father for has been granted. And this expectation produces joy!

Stand in faith today and believe that you receive. The day will come that what you believe is manifested! Faith works!

God’s Will for Healing

When He had come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him. And behold, a leper came and worshiped Him, saying, "Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean." Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, "I am willing; be cleansed." Immediately his leprosy was cleansed (Matthew 8:1-3).

Faith begins where the will of God is known. If you are uncertain as to the will of God for your healing, you will not be able to exercise the faith necessary to receive the healing that belongs to you.

As a young boy in a denominational church, I always heard the sick prayed for with the faith destroying prayer, Lord if it be Thy will. If a person was healed, then it was the will of God. If a person was not healed, then it must not have been the will of God to heal that particular person.

This kind of behavior takes all responsibility off of the individual, and makes God totally responsible for everything that happens in life. And this type of believing is a dangerous fallacy! When the will of God is determined on a case by case basis, there can be no faith on the part of the individual to be healed by the power of God.

But we can know the will of God through the Word. God’s Word is His will! If you want to my will about a matter in my life, then simply listen to what I say or write! If you want to know God’s will in a matter, go to His Word! His Word is His will.

Jesus Words to this leper in the above verse clearly show the will of God to every person in need of healing. I am willing, be cleansed is God’s will for every person touched by sickness and disease. How do we know this?

The character of God never changes. For I am the Lord, I do not change (Malachi 3:6). Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). If it was Jesus’ will to heal this man in Matthew 8, then it is still His will to heal today.

God has no favorite children. He loves us all the same! What He will do for one, He will do for all! For there is no partiality with God (Romans 2:11). Jesus healing this leper is proof positive that it is His will to heal all!

Never pray if it be your will when praying for healing. If it be your will cancels faith! I never put an if in my prayer when praying the prayer of faith! In fact, the only time I put an if in any prayer I pray is when praying the prayer of consecration to do the will of God.

Jesus prayed if it be Your will in the garden of Gethsemane when facing His hour of greatest trial. And it’s ok to pray this way where we’re seeking to find God’s will for our lives. But this is not necessary in matters where His will is clearly stated!

Faith begins where the will of God is known. Let Jesus’ Word to this leper be His Word to you concerning your life. Here Jesus say to you today, I am willing, be healed! And exercise your faith in Him to heal you by believing you receive your healing the moment that you pray. It’s the prayer of faith that heals the sick! God’s wills you to be healed!

Faith Activates God’s Healing Power!

Now a certain woman had a flow of blood for twelve years, and had suffered many things from many physicians. She had spent all that she had and was no better, but rather grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came behind Him in the crowd and touched His garment. For she said, "If only I may touch His clothes, I shall be made well." Immediately the fountain of her blood was dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of the affliction. And Jesus, immediately knowing in Himself that power had gone out of Him, turned around in the crowd and said, "Who touched My clothes?" But His disciples said to Him, "You see the multitude thronging You, and You say, 'Who touched Me?'" And He looked around to see her who had done this thing. But the woman, fearing and trembling, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell down before Him and told Him the whole truth. And He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction” (Mark 5:25-34).
Faith releases God’s healing power into our bodies! There were crowds of people touching Jesus the day this woman was healed. The multitudes were thronging Him. They were pressing upon Him. Their touch released no power from Jesus into their bodies. But the moment this woman touched Jesus with faith in her touch, healing power went out of Him and into her. She was completely healed.
Now Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father. He promised that when He left and went to heaven, the Holy Spirit would take His place and be to us everything He was to the disciples. That same healing power that was in Jesus is available to us as believers by the Holy Spirit! But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:11).
Remember that it was faith that activated the healing power to flow out of Jesus into this woman who was ill and it healed her. And it takes faith now to activate the healing power resident in you in the person of the Holy Spirit. If you’ll act your faith, you’ll activate the healing power of God that is in your spirit.
Mediate on the scriptures that promise healing, then act your faith. Pray in the name of Jesus and command the sickness to go! Then, believe that you receive the answer to your prayer of faith! Say it out loud, Lord I believe that I receive healing for my body in the name of Jesus. According to God’s Word, I believe I’m well and healed. Thank you so much Lord for healing me. Remind the Lord all day long of what you believe. Look past the symptoms to the promise of God’s Word!
Remember that faith takes the place of what God promises until it shows up in physical manifestation! Act your faith and give the Holy Spirit what He needs to manifest God’s healing power in you today!

Healing in the Atonement of Christ

Healing is provided for us in the atonement of Christ! Let me show you the evidence!

The Passover sacrifice offered by the Israelites the night that the firstborn of Egypt died is a type of Christ. Notice 1 Corinthians 5:7: Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. In Exodus 12 you find that the Israelites were instructed to eat the flesh of the Passover lamb to give them strength for their journey out of Egypt. This is a type of Jesus being the life and health of our physical bodies!

In 2 Chronicles 30:20, the Israelites were healed while partaking of the Passover sacrifice!

In Numbers 21: 8-9, the Israelites were healed while they looked at a serpent that God had Moses put on a pole and hold up for all to see. Then the Lord said to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole; and it shall be that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, shall live." So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived. Jesus referred to this serpent on a pole as Himself being made our sin in John 3: 14: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up. If the type, the serpent on the pole, brought healing to every Israelite that gazed upon it, how much more will Jesus, the anti-type (the fulfillment of the serpent on the pole), minister healing and life to those who come to Him!

Then in Isaiah 53, the great redemptive chapter, we find healing clearly shown in the sacrifice of the Messiah! He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows (pains) and acquainted with grief (sickness). And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses) and carried our sorrows (pains); yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 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.

The words sorrows and griefs should be translated respectively pains and sicknesses in these verses! Any concordance will bear this truth. When Jesus bore our sins, he also bore our sicknesses. He dealt with both the sin and sickness problem with the same sacrifice at Calvary!

Some folk tell us that Isaiah 53: 3-5 is speaking figuratively of our spiritual sins and our spiritual sickness. And that he healing mentioned in Isaiah 53:5 is really spiritual healing. But we don’t need spiritual healing, we need spiritual transformation! We don’t get healed spiritually; we become new creatures in Christ Jesus!

The Father obviously knew that some people would try to spiritualize the healing mentioned in Isaiah 53 and He left us a Divine commentary. Notice Matthew 8: 16-17. It refers directly to Isaiah 53:4! When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."

Exercise your faith in the Father to heal you today! Believe you receive the healing that Jesus provided in His sacrifice for you. With His stripes you are healed!

Healing is the Will of God

Most people know that God can heal them. But they are not sure that it is God’s will to heal them. And it’s not what we know God can do, but what we know He will do that inspires faith. Faith rests in knowing the will of God, not in the ability of God alone. Faith begins where the will of God is known.

Many people have religious roadblocks in the way of receiving their healing from the Lord. They quote the scripture taken out of context, “Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives” (Hebrews 12:6). And the religious roadblock tells them that God sometimes uses sickness to chasten the believer. But God does not make people sick. And He is not a child abuser! We would be accused of child abuse if we harmed our children physically, but people refer to God as a child abuser when they say that He puts sickness on us to teach us a lesson. God chastens us in our spirits through His word!

Other people say that God puts sickness on us to teach us to trust Him. Still others tell us that God lets us get sick so that we can glorify Him in the sickness. And I’ve heard others say that “I’m in God’s hands, and nothing can come into my life except it come through Him first.”

But what does the Word of God teach? It teaches that “…God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38). It teaches that “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17) It DOES NOT teach that God puts sickness on His people!

Jesus prayed in Matthew 6:10, “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” There is no sickness in heaven, and it is His will that there be no sickness on the earth! Moses admonished the Israelites to keep the Word of God in their hearts “that your days and the days of your children may be multiplied in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give them, like the days of the heavens above the earth” (Deuteronomy 11:21).

Sickness came with the fall of man, and its’ cure is found in God’s remedy for the fall, the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ! To listen to some people, it sounds as though God and the devil have changed jobs over the last two thousand years. To them, God is the one who makes us sick, and the devil is the one who heals us! But “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

For me, the will of God concerning my healing is settled by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 8. Jesus came down from the mountain where He was ministering the Sermon on the Mount to His disciples, and there was a man stricken by leprosy waiting for Him at the base of the mountain. The leper said to Jesus, “…If you are willing, you can make me clean. Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’” If Jesus could tell this leper that it was His will to heal him, then He must also tell me that it is His will to heal me, or He is partial and treats some people better than He does others. Romans 2:11 reads, “For there is no partiality with God!” Again, if it’s the will of God to heal the leper, then it must be the will of God to heal me!

If it is the will of God to heal some and not all, then there is no basis for faith in God to heal except through some special revelation. That’s the reason we sometimes hear the faith destroying prayer for healing, “Lord if it be thy will…” Folk that pray that way for healing simply do not understand the Word of God on the subject. We as Christians know the will of God through His Word. His Word is His will for us!

Healing By Faith

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases (Psalm 103:1-3).

Jesus sacrifice on the cross provided both forgiveness of sin and healing of sickness and disease for us. The same kind of faith that brings the new birth to us also provides healing for our physical bodies. The same faith we exercise to be forgiveness when we sin is the same faith we exercise for healing. Let me explain.

When you’re born again, the confession of your mouth that comes from the faith in your heart brings salvation into your life! That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:10).

Faith is released with words. Be careful with what you say. Words carry what you believe! And words bring your salvation into a real experience in your life. It works the same way with healing. If fact the Greek word for salvation includes everything that salvation brings us, including healing!

So you could read this verse in Romans this way: That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be healed. For with the heart one believes unto health, and with the mouth confession is made unto healing!

The same faith that saves from sin also heals disease. Here’s how it works. When you sin, you go to 1 John 1:9, where the Word says If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. After you act on that scripture, you probably don’t feel forgiven initially. You’ve confessed your sin. You’ve asked for forgiveness, but the emotions retain the remorse of failure.

And that’s where faith comes into focus. You then say out loud, Lord, I thank you that I’m forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus. And you stand your ground on the word where God says He is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse confessed sin. It may take a while, but eventually the feelings of failure subside, and the peace of God returns. The bottom line here is that you must believe you’re forgiven before you feel forgiven.

Faith for healing works exactly the same way. You go to the Father with the symptoms that are attacking your body. You remind Him of what His Word says about you. That Jesus took your infirmities and bare your sicknesses the same time that he took your sins. You command the sickness to leave your body. You resist it in the Name of Jesus! Then, you ask the Father for complete healing and according to Mark 11:24, you believe you receive your healing.

Then, just as you do for forgiveness of sin, you stand against thoughts and feelings that tell you that you’re still sick. Your faith in the Word declares that you’re healed while the symptoms are still raging. You continue to voice aloud the promises of God for health! And healing eventually manifests in your body! Your faith in the Father through the Word for healing will make you whole! Act on the Word for healing today!

The Working of Miracles

I believe that this is the day that the Father desires to restore the gift of Working of Miracles back into prominence in the earth. Working of Miracles is one of the nine gifts of the Spirit listed in 1 Corinthians 12: 8-10.

By definition the Working of Miracles is a supernatural intervention in the ordinary course of nature; a temporary suspension of the accustomed order; an interruption of the system of nature as we know it. The working of miracles is where God sets aside the natural laws set in motion to govern the earth, and does something out of the ordinary course.

God created the natural laws of physics that govern the earth. And at will, He has the ability to defy them! God lives in the realm of the eternal, the realm of the spirit. And spiritual laws supersede natural law.

The Working of Miracles was in prominence in the Old Testament as a display of the power and presence of God over the gods of the pagan nations that surrounded Israel. The Ten Plagues that God displayed through Moses before the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt were ten manifestations of the working of miracles against the gods of Egypt.

As we come to the close of the age of grace in which we live, I believe God will once against display His power and presence through the working of miracles as a sign to the world of His power, goodness, and love! He can still calm storms with a word of command! The Father can still feed multitudes with a small lunch! If Joshua could part the waters of the Jordan, if Moses could part the Red Sea, if Joshua could command the sun to stand still in the sky, if Daniel could be protected from ravenous lions, if three Jews could be immune from fire, if Elijah could cause a widow’s food supply to multiply, then can God not do even more through the church today with the better covenant we have that is established upon better promises than they had under the Old Covenant? As great need arises in this hour, expect God’s sovereign power to manifest to meet people’s needs through the church of the Lord Jesus Christ through this awesome gift, the Working of Miracles!

Here’s another thought about the working of miracles. Enoch walked with God, and was raptured to heaven – he was not, for God took him (Genesis 5:23). Phillip was instantaneously translated (raptured) to a city 20 miles away after ministering to a religious man from Ethiopia (See Acts 8). I believe the Father will be doing these kinds of things again as the spiritual battle intensifies on earth just prior to the time of tribulation.

The rapture of the church will be a manifestation of the working of miracles as our bodies are instantaneously changed and transported to heaven when Jesus comes with a shout!

For the Father t o do what He desires, we must intensify our prayer life. It’s time to take more time to seek the Lord, and ask Him to manifest Himself in a greater way in spiritual gifts. Let’s prepare ourselves for the outpouring of His Spirit that He has promised before the return of Jesus!

Shine!

It’s obvious to those who know what the Bible teaches about the events prior to the second coming of Christ that we are in that era of time! Europe is uniting just the way Daniel prophesied. The countries that Ezekiel said would join together to attack Israel are now forming their coalitions. Weather phenomenon abound just as Jesus predicted. War and ethnic fighting are rampant. The clouds of darkness are gathering on the earth. It’s a day never experienced before.

In the midst of all this, God wants the believer to shine! Let me tell you what I see ahead for the church prior to the rapture. It’s summed up in Isaiah: Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and deep darkness the people; but the Lord will arise over you, and His glory will be seen upon you. The Gentiles shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising(Isaiah 60:1-3).

As the darkness increases, we’re to shine with the presence of God! So don’t just fill yourself with all the negative. Don’t just meditate on the current events and horrible happenings! Meditate on the goodness and love of God! Fill yourself with the promises of the Word of God!

For years it’s been prophesied that there will be a great harvest of souls just before we leave in the rapture. Joel 2 reveals that God will pour His Spirit out on all flesh before the return of Jesus in the second coming! I believe it’s a day when the Father wants spiritual gifts to flourish again! I believe that particularly the power gifts will come into manifestation in this hour. The power gifts are the gift of faith, the working of miracles, and the gifts of healings (See 1 Corinthians 12:8-10).

The gift of faith is a supernatural (beyond the natural) ability to believe God. It’s where God by the Holy Spirit gives you a faith boost so that you just can’t doubt! The working of miracles is a spiritual gift where God defies and overrides the laws of nature and physics as we know them and shows Himself strong! The gifts of healings is where God heals disease supernaturally without medical aid of any kind!

Peter walked on water. Jesus stilled the storm with a command of faith. Jesus turned water into wine. He fed thousand with a little boy’s lunch. Elijah spoke (the gift of faith in manifestation) and it did not rain for three and a half years until he allowed it. Moses parted the Red Sea. He spoke to a rock, and water gushed out of it to quench the thirst of the Israelites! Three Jewish men were thrown into a raging furnace and came out unharmed without even the smell of smoke on them. Joshua commanded and the sun stood still for twenty four hours! Elijah called fire down from heaven. According to his word, a widow was fed for months and months from a supply of olive oil and flour that never ran out.

God create natural law, but can override it when necessary! And in this hour of test that is coming on the world scene, He wants us His people to shine with His glory. It’s a day to believe God for miracles again. His power has not changed. He’s an awesome God. Now is the time for His awesomeness to shine through us! Let’s begin to expect the Father to do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think! Arise! Shine!

Don’t Lose the Blessing

In Numbers 22-24, You can read the story of how Balak (King of the Moabites) tried to get the prophet Balaam to curse Israel. And what a blessing we receive when we read of Balaam’s response, How can you curse whom God has not cursed! (Numbers 23:8). We are the people of God as Christians, and are Like Israel destined to be blessed.

But there is an interesting twist in the story of Balaam. Though he could not entice God into the notion of cursing His own people, Balaam through his warped spiritual view encouraged the Israelites to go and party with their heathen relatives, the Moabites (See Numbers 25). The Moabites worshipped Baal through very gross immorality. And the Israelites went right along with the Moabites into their heathen fleshly sexual indulgences in their worship of Baal.

Resultantly, 24,000 Israelites died of a plague that broke out. Balaam couldn’t get God to curse the Israelites, but the Israelites brought a curse on themselves through yielding to the flesh and purposely disobeying God and breaking their covenant with Him!

Esau was to be blessed with the inheritance of the first born (which was getting 2/3 of the inheritance passed down from his father), but he gave it away in a pledge to his brother Jacob. Esau became so hungry that he despised his own birthright (which in that culture was the greatest honor) for a bowl of soup! His flesh caused him to loose the blessing destined to him by God!

Samson took the vow of the Nazarite. He consecrated himself to God and became a national hero in Israel through feats of supernatural strength. The power of God would come on Samson, and he became a one man army as he single handedly defeated the enemy. But he lost God’s blessing on his life when he fell in love and sinned with a Philistine prostitute named Delilah. She coerced him into telling her the secret of his strength (his long hair through the Nazarite vow). Sin had so numbed Samson’s life that he was unaware of when the Spirit of God left him. Unconfessed sin cancels God’s blessing.

The lesson for us today is strikingly clear. We are destined to be blessed with Abraham’s blessing as believers! We’re the head and not the tail. The Father wants to lavish us with His best. But we though our own disobedience can cancel the destined blessing. Let’s keep the flesh under, and refuse to sell our birthright of blessing for a moment of selfish pleasure!

I’ll leave you today with the words of the prophet Isaiah on the subject:
If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword"; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken (Isaiah 1:19-20).

If you miss it, repent! God forgives when you confess sin! Refuse to live in disobedience! God blesses obedience! Walk with God, refuse the offers of the flesh to dishonor your Lord. And you’ll be available for the best that God has for you.

The Blessing

We are destined for blessing! The Father’s desire was for the human race to be blessed beyond measure! Adam sin ended the blessing and instead allowed the curse to creep into this wonderful planet. The goodness and blessing of God was curtailed as a result.

God appeared to Abram and told him that he was going to bless him and make his name great. He told Abram that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed. The blessing that Adam lost through the fall is being restored through the blessing of Abraham! This blessing will reach it’s finality when Jesus returns, reigns for one thousand years, judges all His enemies, and then the earth is renewed and the curse removed! The blessing will be back in its entirety then!

Until that time God has instituted His blessing back into the earth through the family of God! It started with Abraham, and has been passed on to the believer through Christ Jesus! The blessing that belonged to Abraham now belongs to us by faith! Take what belongs to you in Christ! You’ve been blessed with every spiritual blessing!

The Old Testament word for blessing means to endue with power for success, prosperity, fecundity (Webster’s - fruitfulness, fertility, productivity), longevity, etc.[i] As believers we are enabled with BLESSING! We have the Father’s favor that He poured out on Adam, that Adam lost through disobedience, but has been reinstituted in the earth through God’s promise to Abraham! In Christ we are blessed with faithful Abraham (Galatians 3:9). That means that we have the same blessing that God gave him!

Notice again Galatians 3:13-14, and Galatians 3:29: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree"), that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.

You are BLESSED! Success, prosperity, fruitfulness, productivity, longevity, health, wholeness, soundness, belongs to you in Christ! Take it by faith. Confess it, believe it, act like it, and release it to others!

In closing let me remind you of your BLESSING:

Deuteronomy 28: 1-14

"If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God: Your towns and your fields will be blessed. Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. "The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven! "The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. "If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you. "The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them.

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[i] (from Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Copyright © 1980 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)

God Rebukes the Devourer!

Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this, says the Lord of hosts, If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, so that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field, says the Lord of hosts; and all nations will call you blessed, for you will be a delightful land, says the Lord of hosts (Malachi 3:10-12).

Most of the time throughout scripture, we are fully responsible to stand our ground and resist the enemy! We have the authority of the name of Jesus and the Word of God to do so!

But in this scripture, God says He will rebuke the devourer for us! Incredible! When you get involved in helping the Father with His program of spreading the Word of God and preaching the gospel all over the world through tithing to your local church and in giving offering to other ministries, God Almighty goes to work on your behalf!

When the enemy tries to mess with your finances, be aware that God Almighty has taken offensive to help you. You’re not own your own alone. He’s taking the first step to see that you are blessed, that you get the best deals, and to see that your stuff lasts longer and goes further that it normally would. For the tither and giver, the devourer is rebuked by God!

Now you must believe this for it to work. Start saying out loud that the devourer is rebuked in your life! When things go wrong, expect God the Father to back you up and work it out! Set yourself in agreement with this promise of God that He will work on your behalf!

Don’t settle for second best. Expect the Father to bless your obedient giving. He watches over His word to make it good in your life today!

Faithfulness

Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23).

Moreover it is essentially required in stewards that a man be found faithful – proving himself worthy of trust (1 Corinthians 4:2-Amplified)

A faithful man will abound with blessings, but he who hastens to be rich will not go unpunished (Proverbs 28:20).

God is faithful, and renews His mercies to us every single day. His steadfastness is surer than the rising of the sun. His desire is that we be faithful just like Him. Faithfulness is something that we must choose to walk in. It transcends feelings and circumstances. A faithful person is as faithful when the storm is producing relentless rain as he is when the sun is shining. Outward things simply do not shake the person of faithful heart.

Here are some definitions: Faithfulness: the quality or state of being faithful.

Faithful: true or constant in affection or allegiance; loyal; firm in adherence to promises oaths, or undertakings; firm and thorough in observance of duty.

The Father abundantly blesses the faithful. Part of this may be due to the fact that the faithful person will hang in there through thick and thin. It takes consistency to receive from the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.

To find God’s best for your life you must be faithful! He rarely speaks to a slack person! He’s already spoken 66 books full of directives! And unless we’re after obeying what He’s already instructed, He’s not likely to add more in the way of specifics!

I began ministry just by being faithful in small things. Whatever I saw that needed to be done in my church, I just pitched in and helped without being asked. There are so many who are much more skilled than me to preach and to pastor. But God rarely looks at skills. He looks at the heart. And there He yearns to find faithfulness!

If you’re not sure of exactly what the Father has for you, just start being faithful! Two things will happen. First of all, you’ll be blessed! And secondly, the Father will shed His light on your path, and you will eventually walk into the plan of God for your life!

The Father Enables

And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who has enabled me, because He counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry (1 Timothy 1:12).

The Father has given each one of us divine ability to fulfill the tasks He has called us to do. He enables us to do His will. One translation reads, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has made me equal to the task. Ephesians 4:7 reads, But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift. This grace is a divine ability to walk in the calling the Father has for the individual believer.

Each of us has a purpose in the family of God. The will of The Father has been placed deep within us. He places in us a desire for something. Following that desire will move you into the purpose of God for your life.

For me, after I received the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, I began to have an innate desire to help people see who they are in Christ. I would find myself constantly encouraging and teaching as I had conversations with friends. That desire to build up the believer led me into the call that is on my life today. I simply yielded to that inward tug of the Father.

Some have a desire to help children. Others have a yearning to ministry to the imprisoned. Still others find a sense of fulfillment in ministering to the elderly in nursing homes, in helping singles parents and widows with house repairs and natural things they can’t do alone. Many will find great fulfillment in helping the pastor in the local church with ushering, greeting, with sound, in children’s ministry, and in all the necessary things that make ministry happen each week.

When people ask me what think God has called them to do I ask them a question. What do you want to do deep down inside. The Father places His desires in us (Psalm 37:4). Then, He gives us the ability to perform those desires. Jesus said, The Father who dwells in me does the work (John 14:10).

To walk in God’s best for you, listen deep within to the want to the Father has placed within you. Then follow that want to and you’ll eventually end up fulfilling the high call of God in Christ for your life (Philippians 3:14)!

Kings and Priests

And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth. To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen (Revelation 1:5-6).

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9).

We have two important positions as believers. We are kings! And we are priests! Being a king doesn’t mean that we whiz around with the pomp and circumstance of royalty having servants cater to every whim and fancy. A king rules his domain. We have the spiritual authority of a king! Historically, a king’s word was the bottom line in his kingdom. Where the word of a king is there is power (Ecclesiastes 8:4)! We are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That means that He actually shares His authority with us! Demonic forces must bow when we exercise our authority.

A king reigns with words. The Father wants us to fill our words with His word! He watches over His word to make it good! He is the King of kings! When we speak as a king, our King’s power backs it up and brings it to pass! Jesus is Lord of lords. We are lord over our domain. And Jesus is Lord of us! We have spiritual authority in our homes and families. We have the legal right before God to command Satan to keep his hands off our lives! He must go with his sickness and disease, with his poverty and lack, with his strife and rebellion, with his depression and fear! We’re kings! Our words rule! The King of kings backs them up! Exercise your kingship!

We are also priests before God. A priest represents others before God. Jesus is our High Priest. He ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25). As priests, we are to go before the Father on behalf of those who don’t know their rights and privileges in Christ. We are to bear their burdens, and be the go-between for them before God. We represent the weak, the helpless, the fear-filled, the sick, the depressed, the poverty stricken before God in prayer. We ask on their behalf. Then, as the Father gives direction, we go minister to them! And His power becomes available to set them free.

Exercise your rights as a king and a priest today. The Father depends on you to help Him. We are laborers together with God!

An Example of Change By Meditating

The Word canceled fear in my life! Due to circumstances when I was young I developed a fear of rejection. I developed a self-consciousness that feared people’s responses to my words and actions. I would walk into a room and immediately size up who was there and how people viewed me. My thinking had a default setting that assumed others did not like me and wanted nothing to do with me.

When I entered ministry as a young man, this rejection syndrome worsened. I would preach and then have a terrible next day while thinking of all the reasons no one received what I was saying. The focus was all on me and not on the blessing the Lord wanted me to be to others.

The Father began to show me the self-centered thinking that was producing these emotions and feeling of rejection. He gave me this scripture on day: But as a matter of fact, it matters very little to me what you, or any man thinks of me – I don’t even value my opinion of myself (! Corinthians 4:3 – J.B. Phillips).

I began to see that my thoughts and emotions were fear based instead of Word based. I had developed a habit of allowing my mind to set me up to be dominated by the fear of others rejecting me! This was a deep seated ingrained behavior in my life. I knew that there was no way that I could survive in ministry with this kind of thinking ruling me.

I cried out to the Father and He showed me this scripture in 1 Corinthians and then led me to 1 John 4:18 in the Amplified: There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror! For fear brings with it the thought of punishment, and [so] he who is afraid has not reached the full maturity of love [is not yet grown into love's complete perfection].

I began to meditate daily on these two scriptures. I let them revolve over and over in my thought life. I said them slowly to myself. I spoke out loud when alone. I did this several times a day. This type of meditation dropped the Word down deep into my personal belief system, my underlying thought patterns, or as Ephesians 4:23 calls it, the spirit of my mind.

I also developed a siege mentality with respect to my wrong thinking and emotions. Your mind will try to convince you that what it is thinking and what your emotions are feeling is reality. And often they are not. So I deprived my mind and emotions of power over me by following the principle of a siege.

Enemy armies in Bible days would often siege a city in order to conquer it. Cities in that day had very high walls erected all the way around them to keep out predatory animals and enemy forces. Sentries were stationed on top of the walls providing a lookout for detecting the enemy. This made a city basically impenetrable.

An enemy army would simply surround the perimeter of the walled city far enough away as to be immune to arrows shot by the troops on the wall. And they simply cut the supply lines of food and goods to the city. It may take as much as two years for the city to run out of food and supplies, but eventually the enemy would defeat the city. The only factor was time and the siege.

Using this principle along with meditation on the Word cured me of this fear of rejection. My mind and emotions would tell me people did not like me, and I would simply call the person or see them personally and engage them in conversation. I was really conversing with them to see if my mind and emotion were telling me the truth, and I found that the majority of time they were not!

So the siege began! I refused to give in to my thoughts and feelings of rejection! Every day I would siege my thoughts and emotions, refusing to allow the thoughts to remain in my mind, and refusing to believe what my emotions told me. I meditated on the Word and then purposely called people just to talk to them to prove that my perceptions of rejection were wrong!

The siege worked. Now the Word has replaced the fear of others! Meditation on the Word along with actions that demonstrate belief in the Word will change your wrong belief system and produce a change in your behavior. The Word did it for me! And the Word will work for you too!

Meditation Changed Me!

Meditation in the Word will change you! There is simply no such thing as a believer who meditates in the Word not changing. Fifteen minutes a day in meditation with the Word of God will overcome years of wrong thinking and believing.

As I mentioned yesterday, meditation takes the Word from your surface thought life down into the very recesses of what you think and believe! You meditate two ways: by speaking the word slowly out loud, and by cogitation it over and over mentally, thinking about every Word in a verse of scripture. This applies the Word in a practical way to your life and lifestyle!

When I first came back to the Lord and was filled with the Holy Spirit, I began the practice of taking a few minutes throughout my day for meditating. I meditated on being a new creature in Christ and what that means (2 Corinthians 5:17); on being the righteousness of God in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:21); on having no condemnation between me and the Lord; on being loved by the Father (John 16:27, John 17:23); on Jesus taking my sicknesses and diseases the same time He took my sins (Psalm 103:1-3; Isaiah 53: 3-5; Matthew 8:17, 1 Peter 2:24); on the Father providing for all my needs (Matthew 6:33; Phil. 4:19); on being free from fear (2 Timothy 1:7); on the value and power of my words (Matthew 12: 34-37; James 3: 1-6; on my authority in Christ over demonic forces (Colossians 2:15; Colossians 1:13; Ephesians 1: 17-2:6).

Boy did my life change! Over a period of time, fears that had ruled me life long began to fade away like a snowball in the sunshine! And in their place, faith rose in my heart!

Then God begin to show me a different level of knowing Him. I began to see character issue in a way I never had before. I begin to see how the fear of others had driven me into isolating myself from intimacy. From really letting others know what I’m like. I began to see how perfectionism, being an obsessive and compulsive person, had ruled me and my relationships with those close to me. I began to see how using accomplishment as a means of being pleased with myself and as a took to get others to affirm me had ruled my life.

Meditation in the Word began to rip these false beliefs from the core of who I was. Confidence in being loved and fully accepted by the Father completed replaced the fear that dominated my relationships with God and others. Knowing that the Father cares and knowing that He rules me has set me free from the never having arrived attitude and feeling perfectionism brings. Knowing that as I act on His Word God honors His Word in my life and brings it to pass has liberated me from the obsessive compulsive desire to have everything just right. Now, I live as unto the Lord, seeking to simply to honor Him and His Word.

Life is rich, peaceful, and enriching when you have a values system that agrees with what the Father’s values.

Take time to meditate in the Word today. Find scriptures that deal with the problem areas of your life and begin to let them revolve on the inside of you. Give it some time. 21 to 28 days begins the formation of new habits. IF you’ll be honest with yourself, allowing the Lord to show you the areas that need changing, and then if you’ll meditate in the Word that addresses these areas, you’ll change! Start today!

Meditation in the Word

There is no real change in the life of the believer without meditation in the Word. Meditation means speaking the Word aloud slowly or revolving it around in the mind over and over again. The Word will not affect you until it gets from your head to your underlying thought patterns, the spirit of your mind (Ephesians 4:23).

Notice Psalm 1:1-3: Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. Notice that meditation in the Word cause a person’s whole life to blossom like a well nourished tree on a river bank! That’s because meditation moves the Word from the conscious mind to the spirit of man, where these underlying thought patterns are closely aligned. Once the Word replaces these wrong underlying thought patterns, life changes!

Notice Joshua 1:8: This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. I want you to see here that meditation in the Word produces the ability to do according to all that is written therein!

Start in the New Testament with the scriptures that include the Words in Christ, In Him, or In Whom. You’ll find these in Kenneth Hagin’s mini book In Him. Start to speak them out loud, and cogitate them in your mind. Take ten or fifteen minutes a day to meditate on the word.

For me, once I did this, I then began to find scriptures that related to problem areas of my life. Scriptures that had to do with anger, unforgiveness, gossip, healing, answered prayer, etc. I would look them up, write them down, and take them to a quiet place and meditate on them. My life changed!

Meditate in your car, as you go to sleep at night, or take a break during the day. Go to a quiet place, close you eyes, and speak the scriptures to yourself. Make meditation a daily practice. The Word will begin to replace wrong thinking and believing. The wrong underlying thought patterns will be replaced with the truth of the Word. You behavior will slowly conform to your new belief system. And you’ll be a changed person! 21 to 28 days begins the formation of new habits. So give yourself a month or so, and you’ll begin to see changes in your outward conduct. The Word meditated upon and acted on brings tangible results! Tomorrow, I’ll give you some personal examples of what meditation in the Word has done to change me.

Changing Your Belief System

The Word has the power to produce deep and lasting change in the believer. The implanted word saves the soul or renews the mind. When it comes to us changing, we will not change until our belief system changes. Let me explain.

We have basically two kinds of thought; conscious thoughts, and underlying thought patterns which some term your belief system or your core values. The Bible calls this your conscience. These core beliefs, or belief system, or underlying patterns of thought operate almost automatically. And they are at work just under the conscious level and they motivate us in all of our behaviors; our actions, words, responses, how we see the world, how we see ourselves, how we treat others, and how we relate to God.

These deep underlying thoughts are what control us. And there is no personal change of lasting value until these underlying patterns of thinking change. Notice 2 Corinthians 10:3-6: For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

The strongholds mentioned here are really fortresses of thought that are built up in these underlying thought patterns. The arguments mentioned are the patterns of thinking that precede behavior. These must be challenged and changed before we act differently.

The Word divides soul from spirit in us, and is able to analyze these underlying thoughts in a way no psychologist or psychotherapist ever could. For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart (Hebrews 4:12- Amplified).

Reading the Epistles in the New Testament will give you the will of God for the believer in most of the areas of life. If you’ll read them slowly and prayerfully, making a decision to line your lifestyle up with what you read, you will be challenged to change! Ask yourself while reading; is there an attitude or motive that I need to change; is there some sinful activity that I need to forsake; is there something that I’m not doing that I must begin to do; is there some promise here that I must embrace?

If you’ll do this, the power of the word of God will begin to change you. It will analyze your thoughts, your motives, your actions and reactions, your beliefs and all your conduct. It will detect wrong underlying patterns of thinking. The Word will convict you to change! The Holy Spirit will urge you and motivate you to challenge hurtful underlying patterns of thinking.

Tomorrow, I discuss the part that meditation in the Word plays in changing these underlying patterns of thinking. Meditation in the Word is the key to permanent life change!

The Indwelling Word

I’ve been reminded recently by the Lord of the importance of meditating in the Word daily. Like no other generation before our time, we have an overload of information. As Daniel said it would be before the coming of the Messiah, knowledge has taken a quantum leap! With so much available from multiple sources, it’s now necessary to become selective in what we read, hear, and watch.

The most important information that we need each day is the WORD! God’s Word is my standard that keeps distractions out, and keeps me focused on the necessary and important. As Isaiah 33:6 states, Wisdom and knowledge will be the stability of your times, and the strength of salvation...Without the Word, our lives will be like sand bombarded with a flood of water; we’ll be unstable!

The Word insulates us from the harsh environment of the world, where fear and doubt try to steal into our minds. The Word washes the debris from our thoughts that may get temporarily lodged there through daily interaction with so much stuff! And we’re admonished to let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly in all wisdom or practical application (Colossians 3:16).

Joshua tells us that meditation in the Word will bring prosperity and success into daily life (Joshua 1:8). David encourages that meditation in the Word will cause us to be like a tree by a river bank that has a great supply of nourishment, and from that association with the river, all that we do will prosper. Solomon tells us that the Word is even like medicine to our flesh (See Proverbs 4:20-22)! Isaiah relates that the Word will give us perfect peace (Is. 26:3).

If it’s available, what would keep us from pursuing that which would better us? Jesus said the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of money, and the desire for other things could steal what the Word wants to do in us (Mark 4). The enemy knows what a power house for God we will be if we act on the indwelling word, so he’s real busy these days cooking up some interesting distractions. Don’t buy his game of bluff!

I’ve made a fresh decision to take time each day to meditate. To take scripture and let it go over and over in my mind while a taking a quick break, or when going for a walk or jog. To speak it out loud in my car, or to let it revolve over and over in my mind when I’m going to sleep, or when I wake up at night. The more opportunities we give the Word to dwell in us richly, the more success, favor, health, life, light, peace, and rest we will enjoy. The Word will NEVER leave us empty like so much in this information age. Let’s let it dwell in us – RICHLY!

Words Carry Faith

And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, "I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak (2 Corinthians 4:13).

Our words carry our faith. Words are one of faith’s ways of expressing itself. Faith doesn’t just float up to the Lord from our hearts in silence. Our faith is carried to Him with Words.

From salvation throughout the rest of our lives, words carry out what we believe. That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation (Romans 10:9-10). Faith for salvation is carried to the Father with our words. And faith for everything else He provides for us in Christ is carried to Him in the same way, with words!

You may say, I don’t know where my faith is. But you can always locate where you are in faith about in matter in your life. Ask yourself, what am I saying about this particular situation? You see, what you say is your faith speaking!

That’s why it’s so important to say only what you believe! Say what the Word says even if you don’t seem to believe it at first. You may say it trembling with hesitation, but say it anyway! Voice with His stripes I am healed even while the pain is in your body. Say it in the face of the negative report from the doctor. In t he face of apparent lack , say my God is meeting all my needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. The Lord is my Shepherd, I do not want! Align your words with God’s Word and God’s power will begin to manifest to bring your Words to pass!

God created the worlds with words. To a large degree, you create your world with your words. What will you have in your tomorrows? What will your life be like in the future? To a large extent, your tomorrows will reveal what you’ve been speaking today!

If you’ve not been speaking what the Words says aloud about what you believe about your healing, your finances, your relationships, your past, your present, your future, your job, your marriage, your children, then start today! Break the chains of unbelief off your life by confessing what the Bible says about who you are in Christ OUT LOUD!

If you do this, before long, things will begin to change. The Father watches for those who will have the guts to believe His Word in the face of the contradiction of negative circumstances. God’s Word voiced with your words has the power to change your life and circumstances. His Word will not fail you if you will only act on it and speak it in the face of adversity.

I’ll leave you with Jesus’ commentary on the issue of your words:

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says (Mark 11:23).

Between the Promise and the Performance

Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the Lord tested him (Psalm 105:19).

The only thing standing between you and God’s promises being fulfilled in your life is time! That’s it! Faith calls those things that be not as though they were. Faith looks not at the things seen, but at the things that are unseen. Seen things are temporary. Unseen things are eternal. Faith is the substance of what we hope for. Faith is the tangibility, the materializing of what we are believing. Faith takes hope, which is in the future, and brings it into the right now! Faith is knowing that something is real even if we do not see it (Hebrews 11:1 – New Century Version)!

Faith and patience inherits the promises (Hebrews 6:12). Patience gives you the ability to calmly wait in faith until the manifestation of what you believe comes. Joy is what gives patience its ability to hang in there. Jesus endured the cross because of the joy that was set before Him. Joy comes when you believe that God has answered you, when you know that you know that you know that the promise of God is yours now.

What you do between the time that God promises you something and the actual manifestation of that promises has a lot to do with how long it takes for it to manifest. The best thing to do during this interim time of waiting between the promises and its performance is to praise and thank God for it! Act like it’s already manifested. Speak as though you have the answer. Think as though you have the answer. See the answer with the eye of imagination!

If you do these things, the manifestation will be almost anti-climatic! You’ve been so caught up with the joy of receiving until it is such an expectation that when it does come, there is no surprise. It was yours all the time!

Stand in faith for your healing and act like it’s yours before the symptoms disappear. Act like the financial need is met by praising, thanking, and worshipping the Father before the money is manifested. Act as though the circumstance has changed before it actually changes. See that person in the difficult relationship through the eye if faith. See the end from the beginning!

Faith brings the manifestation of the promise of God into your life. Add patience to your faith. Walk in joy! Act like God has heard and answered you today! Allow patience to have its perfect work in you.

The only thing standing between you and that need being met is time. God lives in the eternal now. Call the need met now. Believe you receive now. The answer is yours now. The Word of the Lord is testing you! Pass the test of time!