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.  Romans 10:9 

For most people, becoming a Christian is very easy in the sense that they hear the promise of God for salvation and they believe it and they act on it as if it is true. 

What about the multitudes of promises beyond salvation?  If we really and truly believed, and acted upon, them, shouldn’t we all be walking here on earth as if it is in heaven?   Why is it so easy to believe for salvation but not for the other promises of God? 

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Hebrews 11:1 

If we were full of confidence that what the Word promises us – in this life – we would be in a state of earnest expectation.  We would also be preparing ourselves for the arrival of the promises.  If we truly believe and expect, that is what we would do. 

Let’s look at a few biblical promises in light of today’s world.  The promises of God are for whosoever (that means YOU and me!) and many are not only eternal, they are also temporal (in this lifetime, not just after death).

PROMISE

…..If you hearken diligently and obey the voice of the Lord, all these blessings shall come upon you (healing, great harvests, finances, social success, and more).  If you don’t hearken and obey, all these curses shall come upon you (sickness, disease, poverty, and more) Deuteronomy 28:1-68

Do you really believe this promise?  Are you seeing more curses than blessings in your life right now?  Could it be you DO believe the scripture, but you aren’t taking the needed action steps to fulfill this promise?  It is clearly stated, “IF you hearken and obey, THEN the blessings come.”  The hearken and obey is our part.  We cannot have the blessings part without the hearken and obey part any more than a tennis player can win the championship without being in training hours each day for years. 

Are you spending time in His Word (the hearken part) and doing what He leads you to do (the obey part)?  If you are stuck at this place, one thing that works for me:  Go back to the last thing God told you to do that you didn’t do, and do it.  You will break through that blockage.

PROMISE

Jesus said: “If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”
Matthew 21:22

Are you seeing evidenced answers to 100% of what you are asking for in prayer?  Why not?  Let’s assume you believe – you have confidence in the promise.  Let’s say you are asking for that bonus you deserve at work, or a new job with higher pay, or to close a deal; all of these would help you give to a charity you respect and will let you take that cruise you’ve been dreaming about for years!  

What would a person be doing who is in total and absolute confidence that what he or she believes will come to pass?   One would be preparing!  If you really believed that bonus, new job or deal was coming, you’d br researching the charities that pull on your heart strings to determine where the money, once it is manifested into reality, will go.  If you were going on a cruise, you would be looking up cruise lines to see which one goes where you want to go and has the activities you want to do.  You would be dieting and exercising like crazy to look your best when you are lying on the pool deck, and to eat all the gourmet food! 

In other words, you would act as if you already have it – which is what the scripture says we are to do:  Believe you receive WHEN YOU PRAY!  You don’t have it yet at the time you are praying, but believing you do gets you there. 

PROMISE

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.  James 1:5

Often we cry out for wisdom.  “God, puhleeze tell me what to do!!!”  But we do not take the steps to receive that wisdom.  Many times when I pray for wisdom, I have total assurance I will receive it, but it does not come the way I think it should – divinely *plopped* into my brain!  Nope.  Usually, God will put wise people in my path, or a devotional, a scripture or a book before me; all of which contains the wisdom I need.  My part is to mine for the wisdom; seek it out, trusting that He is giving it to me at the time I have need of it.  We cannot pray, ask for wisdom and then sit on the couch watching TV waiting for wisdom to knock on the door.  We must do our part and actively pursue it as God puts it in front of us. 

Are you doing your part by having confidence in the promise AND taking your action steps to receive your promises?  I would love to see how the world would look if we all believed and acted on those beliefs – it surely would be heaven on earth! 

Keep the faith!

Everywhere I turn, I am seeing good and godly people struggling just to hold on.  Friends are in dire straits financially.  Strong Christians are sick and not getting better.  Panic and fear are gripping those who should know better. 

This causes two things to happen:  One, anger rises up in the core of my being – anger that I still don’t have enough victory myself to be able to help them all; anger that the devil is having a field day trampling down God’s people.  Two, my desire to find the causes, the answers and the manifestation of the promises of God is kicked up into high gear. 

At 3:30 this morning, while talking to God, I realized that many Christians say they are “standing in faith”, but they really are not.  They are “standing in hope”.  The hope is not biblical hope, though; it is akin to worldly wishing.  “I hope I get better”, “I hope I get that job”, “I hope we can pay the mortgage this month”, ”I hope the economy gets better soon”, and “I sure hope God comes through”. 

Part of the reason they have gone from biblical hope (earnest expectation for God to perform His word), is that their shields of faith are riddled with dents from fiery darts. Their helmets of salvation are sitting lopsided on their heads.  Their breastplates of righteousness are tarnished.  The belts of truth around their waists need a couple more notches to tighten them up.  Their swords are rusty and need a trip to the sharpener.  Their shoes of peace have turned into flip-flops of stress and worry. 

Another reason they are wishing instead of being in biblical hope is that they have not truly transferred their burdens to Him.  Yes, they say they have, but they really haven’t.  I do that all the time.  “God, please take care of this for me”, I say in the morning, and then proceed to think about it and let it simmer inside me all day long.  Partly because the issue doesn’t get solved immediately and partly because I won’t let God have the time He needs to solve it for me.

In saying all of this, it is not to put condemnation upon anyone – not even myself.  I am saying it because we need to take a step back from the pain, the fear and the stress.  We MUST get in closer to God now!  We need to stop navigating by our feelings and instead do so by the word of God.  Psalm 91:1 says, “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide in the shadow of the Almighty”.  What a great place to be!

The ONLY kind of hope that we must have is clearly stated in Hebrew 11:1:  “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. 

God wants us to get our hopes up!  Hope in Him!  Hope in His word!  Let’s put the devil on notice by getting into the word of God and standing in faith on what it says, and not what the world and our circumstances say!

Keep the faith!

My son, give attention to my words;
      Incline your ear to my sayings.
        Do not let them depart from your eyes;
      Keep them in the midst of your heart;
        For they are life to those who find them,
      And health to all their flesh.      Proverbs 4:20-22

What do you do when you are lining your life up to the Word of God, purposefully choosing to do His will, and life still seems to be not working right?  We all have been there.  We’ve made our decisions to get sin out of our lives, to ‘do it God’s way’, thinking it will bring us victory and success; yet, nothing changes – or worse, it gets more unpleasant. 

Some real-life examples: 

You’ve made a decision to tithe based on the Word – Malachi 3:8-12, Matthew 23:23 and Luke 11:42. You’ve heard the testimonies from so many who said, “The moment we decided to tithe, blessings came pouring in!”  The Word promises that you will be blessed if you tithe and you believe it.  Yet, you tithe and the refrigerator and the washing machine and the car all break down the same week!  The money you tithed would have covered all the repairs. 

You decided to dedicate your business, or your job, to the Lord based on the Word -  Proverbs 3:6, Deuteronomy 28:3-13, Deuteronomy 8:18 and Matthew 21:22.  You believe fully that God has your back and that He will prosper the work you do, giving you the power to get wealth, just like it says in the bible!  But, you lose three clients, you lose a big contract, your hours are cut at your job or you are laid off, and you are now wondering, “If this is prospering, I wonder what failing is?” 

After hearing so much about what must be done in the natural to restore good health, and based on the Word  – 1 Corinthians 6:19, 1 Corinthians 9:27, Jeremiah 33:6 and 1 John 2, you chose to drastically make better choices in your diet and lifestyle.  You felt confident that, once you began honoring the temple of the Lord, you would feel terrific and be full of energy.  Instead, you don’t feel that same bountiful level of health others say they obtained when they did the same thing.  You feel blah and are left wondering if all the sacrifice of the foods you love and the pain of exercise are worth it.  

You wonder, “Where the heck is God in all of this?  I thought He said there was a reward for doing the right thing?”  Psalm 18:12 says, “The Lord rewarded me for doing right….”

So, what do you do?  You have a few choices, actually.  You can give up and throw in the towel saying, “Why did I even bother?  I should’ve known God would not come through for me.”  Or, you can go numb because it hurts too much to keep trying to do the right thing and never get the prize.  You could even choose to determine that this Christianity stuff really IS a hoax, created for those who don’t have a brain! 

The only real choice you have is to keep on keepin’ on!  One of my favorite preachers talks about what to do between the “Amen” and the “There-It-Is”.  He says, “Having done all you can to stand, stand some more!”  Ephesians 6:13.  In other words, don’t give up!  

At the same time, you cannot get into murmuring and complaining, moaning and groaning about it.  Yes, there is a time to be honest with the Lord.  Tell Him you are in a quandary.  Tell Him you don’t understand why His Word says one thing but another is happening.  You can share your struggle with a like-minded close friend or mentor, but don’t share it with the world.  Afterward, you must choose to buck up, and endure like a good soldier.

Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee.  James 4:7 

We must make a choice to base our lives on the Word, not on the circumstances our senses can see, hear and feel.  Another one of my wonderful teachers always says, “The power is in consistency”.  We didn’t get where we are at overnight; God rarely gets us out of where we are overnight.  As it was with the Israelites when they finally entered the promised land, it is with us:  “Little by little I will drive them out before you….”  Exodus 23:30   Slow and steady wins the race!   Consistency has power. 

Don’t give up!  Hang on tight!  Keep on keepin’ on!