Keep the Faith

On April 9, 2021   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Genesis 21: 4

Now Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

One of the observations that stood out to me in writing this week’s devotionals, was the faith and patience of the people we know as our Biblical ancestors. In yesterday’s passage from Genesis 12 we learned that Abraham was seventy-five years old when the Lord told him He was going to make a great nation of him and bless him. Then He told Abraham to pack up and go to Canaan. Twenty-five years later, God gave Abraham and Sarah the child of promise. How hard was it for them to stay in faith for twenty-five years awaiting a son when Sarah was barren anyway and they were already old? Moses waited forty years for his ministry to come to fruition.

In the book of Jeremiah, God told us that He has a good plan for us. Yea! But here is the rub, sometimes there is a gap between the revelation of the plan and its fulfillment. I wish it wasn’t so, but it sometimes is. When God gives us a vision or His plan for us, we expect the world to shake right now. When it doesn’t, there are two likely repercussions. The first if obvious – we lose our faith. We stop believing God spoke to us. Maybe we were deceived. Maybe we made it up with our own minds. That is dangerous thinking and leads to failure. We stop believing in God’s plan and make up reasons why it has not come to pass.

The other likely outcome when we do not see God’s plan unfolding right away is that we begin to help God. Abraham, Sarah and Moses all fell into that trap. They attempted to fulfill God’s plan through their own strength. This always leads to trouble. When we try to do God’s part through our own wisdom and strength, we end up with an Ishmael.

The good news is that although each of these Biblical heroes faltered, they hung in there with God and believed Him. Ultimately, they all changed the course of human history. You don’t have to be perfect. Just stick with it. Find out God’s good plan and then stay in faith praying that goal into being. Keep on praying and seeking God until you receive the promise. It may take longer than you think, but don’t give up on God because He most certainly is not giving up on you.

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The Facts Don’t Count

On September 12, 2016   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 4: 19

And without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb.

If you want to know one of the secrets to living successfully in the Spirit it is this, don’t let the facts interfere with the truth. Abraham had a promise from God that not only would he and Sarah have a child but that he would be the father of nations. How does an old man whose body is as good as dead and whose wife is not only elderly also, but who has always been barren, have a child? Well, in the natural, and according to the facts, they don’t. But, you see, that is where we must depart from the reasoning of this world and move over in to Jesus thinking and Jesus faith. 
Abraham did not become weak in his faith. Now what is faith really? Sometimes I think we make it too hard a concept. Here is a simple illustration. If I tell you that I am going to give you a pen when I see you will you be expecting to receive a pen? How confident are you that you will be given a pen? That is the measure of your faith in me? If you have a high expectation, even an assurance, then you have a lot of faith in me. That is all faith is, believing. You believe that what I say, I will do. Now, how assured are you that Dad is going to do what He has said? Somehow, Abraham was able to believe God’s word over the evidence which he saw in the world. Which one do you think you would have a tendency to believe? When you believe God, then that belief turns into trust. In the example of the pen, do you trust me to give to you what I promised?

Verse 18 says that Abraham believed even though there seemed no cause for hope. He saw the evidence that the world presented to him and chose to instead believe what God said. That is so hard for us to do but it is a super-key to living in the supernatural blessings of God. If we want to walk on the water, and who doesn’t, then we have to renew our minds with this kind of thinking. We have to ignore the facts. We don’t deny their existence we just deny their power. Abraham decided that God’s word was the final word, that it superseded the physical facts. That is the way we need to be, the way we need to think if we wish to walk in the kind of miracles that Abraham did, the kind of miracles that God wants to be our everyday experience.

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The Audacity

On July 29, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 4: 21

Fully satisfied and assured that God was able and mighty to keep His word and to do what He had promised.

This verse was written about Abraham who is called the father of faith. This is the picture of faith; not questioning whether God is able to fulfil His promise to us. Verse 20 reads from the NASB thus: “Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.” Abraham did not waver. He was fully assured that the God who made him a promise was well able to deliver on that promise. Fully assured, not partially, Abraham was convinced that God would come through.

After reading this verse I felt compelled to look up assurance and assure in the dictionary. This is what I found.

Assurance: 1. The act of assuring. 2. A statement or indication that inspires confidence. 3. a. Freedom from doubt; certainty. B. Self-confidence. 4. Boldness; audacity.

Assure: 1. To inform confidently, with a view to removing doubt. 2. To cause to feel sure; convince. 3. To give confidence to; reassure. 4. To make certain; ensure.

Wow! Those are strong words. I love the boldness with which we can be assured that God is with us and for us. Can we even go so far as to be audacious? Sure we can and some are. We can have absolute certainty that the one who promised is prepared to follow through on His promise. What, then, makes us different from Abraham? That is to say, how many people do you know personally with audacious faith? My goodness but I would like to aspire to be known as one with that kind of outrageous, radical faith. Can you imagine how much the locals made fun of Abraham and Sarah? People probably said, “Oh, you know, they are those ‘faith’ people. They think they can have a baby at their advanced ages because their God made them a promise.” Oh that we could be that daring, that bold in our believing. Jesus said that with just a little bit of faith, nothing would be impossible to us (Matthew 17: 20). 

God is mighty and able to deliver on all His good promises. Do you believe it?

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Three Times Impossible

On April 8, 2015   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment


Luke 1: 36 – 37

And behold, even your relative, Elizabeth has conceived a son in her old age; and she who was called barren is now in her sixth month. For nothing will be impossible with God.

These were the angel Gabriel’s words to the virgin Mary when he appeared to her to inform her that she would become pregnant with the Holy child. Mary knew her Jewish history. Gabriel’s statement would have immediately put her in remembrance of Abraham and Sarah. Although they were old and Sarah barren they had the word of God, His promise that they would have a child and they clung to that word and gave birth to the nation of Israel.

Mary thus understood that the seemingly impossible becomes possible when we believe God. She accepted that a virgin can have a child because God said it and she conceived and bore Jesus, the son of the Almighty.

I wonder what impossibilities you are facing today. Perhaps you would be encouraged to think of Sarah, Elizabeth, and Mary. They learned how to believe God for what appeared to them impossible. Consider this though; do you think there is any such word as “impossible” in heaven? Why would there be? To God all things are possible so He and all the heavenly beings only think in terms of possibility. So when Sarah was told she would have a child, it seemed impossible to the human mind but clearly it was not. Nor was it impossible for the aged, barren Elizabeth to conceive or the virgin Mary. Some say it is impossible for a person to walk on water too. Well, someone forgot to tell Jesus and Peter.

If we can but believe God then there is nothing which really is impossible. Can you stretch yourself just a little farther today and believe with your heart? What would you have, what would you do if you could reach just a bit further? What is that thing which seems just beyond your reach? If we will partner with God in these impossible projects then all things really do become possible.

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The Facts Don’t Count

On April 28, 2014   /   Word of the Day   /   Leave a comment

Romans 4: 19 – 20

And without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.

Of course these verses are speaking of Abraham who is known as the father of faith. God made Abraham a huge promise. He told him that he would be the father of a multitude and that all the families of the earth would be blessed in him. Of course, this was a bit funny to Abraham and Sarah who were childless.

Abraham didn’t start out as the father of faith. He, like the rest of us, had to learn it. He had a promise from God but that promise was in the realm of impossibility. Sarah was barren from youth and now she and Abraham were old. They had a decision to make. Were they going to believe the facts, the evidence of the physical world or were they going to believe God, were they going to invest their belief in the realm of the spirit? This is the same dilemma with which we are all faced. The first verse lets us know that Abraham was well aware of their physical limitations. He was aware of the facts. But, what was he going to let influence him?

Even without the rest of the verse we know that he chose to believe God instead of “reality” because Isaac was born. Had Abraham and Sarah let the physical evidence be the last word then you wouldn’t even know their names today. Abraham would have never become the father of faith and Isaac would not have been born. You see, even though Abraham knew the facts regarding their bodies he did not let them persuade his thinking. Have we not learned yet that there is nothing real about reality? If “reality television” has taught us anything it is that reality is fungible. Someone once said that our perceptions mold our reality. If that is true, then change your perception. That is exactly what Abraham and Sarah did. They began to focus on the promise rather than the problem. Their eyes were glued to the vision of parenting a multitude. They began to disregard the physical limitations and meditate on the fulfilled promise. Then they opened up their mouths and spoke what they believed in their spirits rather than what they saw in the physical. If you back up two verses you see that Abraham learned from God to call those things into being which do not yet exist in the physical (v.17).  Abraham lined up his thoughts, his meditations and his words with the promise of God.

Somewhere along the journey we must each make a decision about what we are going to believe, what we are going to allow our hearts to meditate upon and what we allow our mouths speak. There will always be worldly evidence which contradicts the promise that God has given you. If you believe it then that is what will continuously manifest in your life. If, instead, you choose to determinedly set your focus on the promise of God then you will receive the miracles you need and the blessings of God’s promises will overflow in your life. I wouldn’t suggest that staying steadfast on God’s Word is necessarily the easiest thing to do. If so then you would see many more Christians living in the fulfillment of the promise. We have not all been brought up learning how to let faith be our guide but if we can learn to set our will in accordance with God’s Word and waver not at the promise, then we too will walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. And when we reach that stage, nothing shall by any means be impossible to us.

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