LESSONS FROM 70 YEARS OF MINISTRY: ‘WHAT I HAVE RECEIVED I PASSED ON TO YOU AS OF FIRST IMPORTANCE.’ (PART 5) AVAILABLE ON ITUNES, SPOTIFY, GOOGLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE.
Possess the promises of God! So many believers are living in spiritual lack because they don’t understand the promises of God, and the power available to those who believe. We’ve been given great and precious promises - claim them for yourself: if you need healing, it is in the Word of God; deliverance, is in the Word of God; blessing, is in the Word of God; promotion, is in the Word of God; fruitfulness, is in the Word of God. We’ve been given everything that pertains to life and godliness by His divine power at work in us.
“Then I commanded you at that time, saying: ‘The Lord your God has given you this land to possess. All you men of valor shall cross over armed before your brethren, the children of Israel… You must not fear them, for the Lord your God Himself fights for you.” (Deuteronomy 3:18, 22, NKJV)
The Lord has given you the land! Possess it! Go in armed, ready for war! It is God’s command, not a request, to go and take the land. I see this as a challenge in my personal life as well as in my ministry. Many ask why I see miracles; why thousands repent and revival comes. When God sends me He says, ‘Go - take the land!’ There is no choice - He commanded me!
What does it mean to possess the land? Look at it by faith, take it by action, fight for it by power!
When I look at the promises of God, and the Bible is full of them, I want all the good things - so I have been going in and taking them! Power for miracles and healing - I’m in there, taking it! Anointing from the Holy Spirit - yes, I pray, then I go in and take it! Revival - again I go and possess the promise. I can find enough Scriptures for me to believe and know that God wants revival more than I do, so I go in!
It is the same with all our lives. God has given us so many promises, it is not presumptuous to accept them by faith, then go and take them. Too many sit and wait, asking and never receiving. I remember as a boy the time when I wanted to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The old believers said, ‘Wait. We must have waiting meetings.’ But I am impatient and soon became tired of waiting. I said, ‘Easter is coming, I will go to London to one of the big conventions and not return until I receive.’ With that positive attitude I went - and received.
We must not accept the negative but emphasise the positive!
It is so easy to know what is in the Bible, but then dismiss it. We read it, study it, preach it, ‘spiritualise’ it, until there is a danger that we make it mean something else. But everything in the Bible can and does happen today! Don’t limit God! I want to challenge you to a new kind of faith. We are commanded to go in and possess all the blessings which God has promised. Get into the Word of God, search for and mark in red every promise that you want in your life! I want you to have the faith to go and take them all! I hear Christians saying that they can’t, but my Bible says, ‘I can do all things through Christ’.
God’s command to the Israelites was to go in and possess the land. His command to believers is the same. In order to receive there are three things we must do:
(i) Possess the spiritual blessing
We need to recognise who we are and what we are in Christ. It is important to understand the blessings God has given us. When I first realised that the promises of both the Old and New Testament were not just for the Jews in the past and for the first disciples, but also for me as an inheritor of the same promises as a ‘son of God’, it opened up a whole new experience for me.
It is easy for us as believers to read and hear about the miracles that happened in the Bible without personally identifying with them. But if God did these things in the past, why not believe for them today?
And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:29, NKJV)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Ephesians 1:3, NKJV)
(ii) Act with faith
It takes real faith to possess all that God has given and act on it. Real faith does not come easily, but it is a specific gift from God through the Holy Spirit and you can ask for it, as I do. My God answers prayer. God cannot fail! But it takes a lot of faith to believe for God to work miracles.
There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills. (1 Corinthians 12:8-11, NKJV)
For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7, NKJV)
(iii) Exercise authority
Fight against the devil by taking authority over him in Jesus’ Name. Command him to get out and the problem to go! This is not just receiving an answer to prayer - it means taking authority, ‘I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy’ (Luke 10:19). There is no limit to what God can do! When God wanted to bring His people out of Egypt, Pharaoh said no. God used Moses until Pharaoh said yes. God uses men. But only men and woman willing to yield to His authority. I am not a big man with a little God. I am a little man with a big God! I may be a little David with a Goliath of a problem, but with my God I can overcome!
Then David said to [Goliath], “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the Name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand.” (1 Samuel 17:45-46, NKJV)
Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority (Luke 9:1, NKJV)
Take the land! Possess the promises of God. So many believers are without power because they don’t understand the promises and power of God to those who believe. Don’t just take ‘spiritual’ blessings - take the land, possess what you need in the material realm as well. When Israel went in, it meant war, a spiritual fight, but it also meant that they could have the milk and honey, all their material needs supplied.
God says it! Believe it! Act on it!
‘Ultimate Breakthrough’ used by kind permission of www.vinesong.com