Hang On

Hebrews 10: 23

Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

Why must we hold fast to our confession? Because sometimes it takes some time before our answer arrives just as was the case in Daniel chapter 10. First you must have hope. Then hope gives you reason to pray and develop a confession. Without hope, you won’t even pray. Why would you if there was no hope of answered prayer but we always have reason to hope because our God is faithful.

When you pray, you have reason to expect God to answer that prayer. Yet the answer isn’t always on the doorstep the next morning. So, what shall we do? We enter our confession stage. We are to develop a confession (or profession of faith, if you will) which is consistent with our prayer and with the Word of God. For example, if my prayer was for healing an ankle sprain and my ankle still hurt the next morning, I would begin to confess my healing rather than confessing the pain. My confession might sound like, “My ankle is healed because 1 Peter says that by His stripes I was healed.” Then I am going to hold onto that confession until my ankle manifests its healing. I am not going to start speaking doubt and unbelief because I have faith that God, the one who promised, is faithful. The writer of Hebrews tells us to hold fast without wavering. So, we shouldn’t waffle back and forth. Since He who promised is faithful, we just hang onto our confession of faith until our answer arrives.

Word Works

2 Kings 20: 5

Thus says the LORD, the God of your father David, “I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you.

As the people on our prayer team well know, I have really struggled with my back this year. Fortunately, I have an exceptionally good chiropractor, who, is also a Christian and no doubt prays for me in addition to his other healing ministrations. I have had the benefit of the power prayers of the prayer team, which is no small thing. Above all, I, like you, have the love and devotion of a God who has healing power in His hands and is eager to share that with me.

This has been a very challenging time. I have had to fight this physically, yes, but emotionally, mentally and spiritually. I found myself thinking that I might not recover this time. I had to counter that thought every time it came to mind. If I had ever given in to it, I don’t think I would be enjoying this manifested healing even with the very good prayer cover I have received all year. My doubts and negative thoughts could have canceled out the pray-ers good work. Fortunately, I was able to cooperate with their words.

Today’s verse is the verse I have repeated to myself day after day. I had to have it to hang on to. These are our Father’s own words. He brought them to me, and I believed. I am not saying it wasn’t still a battle, but this verse put a sword in my hand. No other scripture stood out to me like this one, not even some of my favorite healing scriptures like Psalm 107: 20.

I bless the Lord for giving me this outstanding scripture. I am also grateful for outstanding medical care and a prayer team who is insistent and persistent. I am enjoying renewed strength and health. I could not have done this on my own. It seems my part was just to keep myself in agreement with the Word and the prayers and follow, diligently and obediently, the advice of my chiropractor.

I praise our beloved for the healing in my back and for restoring my faith when fear threatened to take over. I bless God for the people He gave me who supported me. And I am grateful to our precious Lord for ministering to my tired and worn spirit with His Word. Let the children of God sing His praises for He is good and worthy to be praised.

And thank you for your prayers too. Guess what?! They worked!

Ditto

Matthew 7: 7 – 8          GW

Ask, and you will receive . . . Everyone who asks will receive.

Yesterday I wrote about speaking the result you desire when you pray. That is a very important part of prayer. No sooner had the email gone out than did God prove his word to me and to a grandmother who relied on her profession of faith for her grandchild.

My friend, Ann, wrote that her son sent her a message that his newborn was having digestion issues. Ann says she began praying that the child’s digestive system works perfectly and commanded his digestive tract to behave properly. She didn’t stop there though. She says she closed her eyes and pictured her grandchild exhibiting healthy characteristics. She said, “I just thanked God and knew.” Her son texted her 30 minutes later with the good news. It witnessed to her son as well and is a testimony to all of us that what was in the Word of the Day yesterday works. What is funny about this is that the encounter with Ann’s son and grandson was happening at the time I was writing the Word of the Day. Do you think God knew what He was doing? Was He bringing a point home for us?

Look at these components again. Ann spoke the end result. She didn’t beg and plead. She knew God’s will that we all be healthy so she could begin to speak, with confidence, what she knew to be God’s will. She visualized. Remember how God gave Abraham visual images related to his promise? Ann saw her grandchild exhibiting all the signs of a healthy baby with a healthy digestive system. She didn’t stop there though. She also thanked God. In her mind’s eye she saw the baby healthy and whole and thanked God for that result. She spoke it and thanked God for it before it “existed” because in her mind it was a done deal. She spoke health rather than complaining of sickness. She thanked God because she believed in the end result. Thirty minutes it took for that particular miracle. Thirty minutes, and her son called her with the good news!

There is one more component here that may not be obvious but is very much present. Look at this scripture, “And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive,” (Matthew 21: 22). Did you see it, the extra ingredient? Ann is a believer. She believes the Word of God; she believes God will do what He has promised, and she sees it fulfilled.

Get your promise from God. Just go to the Bible and pick one. Try the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy if you don’t have a verse you are focusing on. Imagine what it would look like if that promise was fulfilled. See your child healed, your finances whole, your home blessed. Picture what your life will look like when that prayer is answered. Then, open your mouth with a positive profession of faith. “I am the father of many, legs work as you were designed, etc.” Speak to that mountain and command it to obey the Word of God. Talk about the problem in the resolved state rather than in the broken state. “I am healthy and strong.” Then believe it. If you really do believe it, then gratitude to God will naturally come out of your mouth. If you don’t believe it, hibernate on that picture and God’s Word until you know that Yahweh is a god of His word.

Get the promise, get a picture, believe, speak the end result, command obedience to the Word, praise God. And, keep speaking the end result rather than the symptoms until the result you believe for is fully manifested. Don’t talk about the brokenness; speak the answer. See things fixed, not broken and let the words of your mouth reflect that picture.

TODAY

Exodus 8: 8 – 10

Then Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and begged, “Plead with the LORD to take the frogs away from me and my people. I will let your people go, so they can offer sacrifices to the LORD.”

9 “You set the time!” Moses replied. “Tell me when you want me to pray for you, your officials, and your people. Then you and your houses will be rid of the frogs. They will remain only in the Nile River.”

10 “Do it tomorrow,” Pharaoh said.  All right,” Moses replied, “it will be as you have said. Then you will know that there is no one like the LORD our God.”



What a nut! Why didn’t Pharaoh answer Moses with, “Do it TODAY! Do it right now!”? But are we really any different? Don’t we look to tomorrow for our prayers to be answered? Are we waiting until tomorrow to receive our healing? Our prosperity? What is wrong with today after all? Is this just some kind of fear? Do we need a day to prepare to receive God’s miracles? Well, I don’t know the answers to these questions but I do know that today is better than tomorrow. Why put up with frogs if you don’t have to? Or is it that our problems become so familiar that there is actually some comfort in them. That is to say that because change is so uncomfortable to most people we actually rest with our problems rather than challenging them. Would you really prefer to be miserable with the problems you know because there is familiarity in the status quo than getting completely free of them? Are the frogs you know more tolerable than the risk of facing them even if you are already guaranteed that the Lord will banish your frogs? When we learn that we really can trust our Father and that the words He has given us are truth and life, will we then be able to tell Him that we want the frogs gone today? I hope so. I hope we can take a step towards allowing God to free us from all the snares in which we are entangled. I pray that we take at least one small step in that direction TODAY.