In yesterday’s blog we wrote about how our God is a God of truth. Unlike any human being, and clearly unlike the devil, He only speaks truth into our lives. Accepting and believing what He says to us and about us is, in fact, our main source of faith, because ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ.’ Romans 10:17. Jesus Himself said to the enemy, “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God”. Matthew 4:4. What God says to us is truth and also spiritual ‘life’ itself.
Jesus often challenged His listeners saying, “He who has ears to hear let Him hear.” Luke 8:8. Now clearly the vast majority of His listeners had ears, but Jesus was talking about really hearing Him and embracing what He was saying. Really ‘hearing’ God is a question of the heart, and we know, because Jesus tells us, that ‘out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks’ Matthew 12:34. What we hear and believe, will also come out of our mouths.
We are told that ‘Death and life are in the power of the tongue.’ Proverbs 18:21. Well we are not kings and queens to say ‘Off with her/his head”. We don’t literally have the power to command life or death for someone, but we do have the power in our tongues to give or take away ‘life’ from our own spirit. The confessions of my mouth, coming from my heart agreement with God, with what God Himself says, are vital for my spiritual life and growth.
Now some of the truths that we read in the Bible are really hard to believe, especially when we look at our own life and ‘how we are doing’. But thanking God for His words and His truth can help to bring us into agreement and therefore alignment with God, enabling us to walk closely with Him. As we said yesterday, speaking out God’s truth and thanking Him for it can help us to confront our unbelief and our doubts, and as we intentionally start to thank Him for specific truths, we can often discover just how deep our unbelief is, and we will start to erode that unbelief with the Holy Spirit’s help.
As we move forward towards the goal of complete agreement with God, the walls of unbelief and fear will come down, there will be nothing between us, and like David we will be saying “I set Him always before my face….. He is at my right hand that I should not be moved.’ Psalm 16:8. This closeness then brings with it the joy and pleasure that there is to be found in His presence.
In Psalm 12:6 we read, ‘The words of the Lord are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times.’ Today let us take a truth that we are finding hard to believe. Something about His love, His purposes for us, His care of us, or His good plans for us. Let us find a truth that speaks to us where we are in a certain level of disagreement with God, (It’s called unbelief), and let us find the scripture and thank God for it until we believe it.
We all have our own challenging areas, but here are a few ‘starters’:-
‘I have loved you with an everlasting love’. Jeremiah 31:3.
‘As far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us.’ Psalm103:12.
‘The lord your God is with you…..He will rejoice over you with singing.’ Zephaniah 3;17
‘I know the plans I have for you…….. plans to give you hope and a future.’ Jeremiah 29:11.
‘My times are in your hands’. Psalm 31:15
‘Christ in you, the hope of glory.’ Colossians 2:27.
‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose.’ Romans 8:28.
‘Behold I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with Him and he with me.’ Revelation 3:20.
There are just so many words that we need to agree with, words that can transform our lives, and for those of you who are saying, “Ah yes but surely that was said to the nation of Israel, or that was God speaking to Paul, or the early Christian community” let us remember what we wrote in an earlier blog, that if the Lord has spoken it to anyone of His beloved children we can say, as a well loved child of God ourselves, “and me too please”. In other words we need to appropriate and claim all of God’s words for ourselves.
Find out what He has said that you need to know at this moment in time, and then personalise it by saying “Thank you, I’ll have that”. It’s called faith and it pleases God.
