The Promises of God Are Closer Than You Think
How you can position your heart to live in His promises.
The power to change the world is within you (Luke 17:21). Everyone who is born again of the Spirit of God is greater than any of the Old Testament prophets (Matthew 11:11).
The church needs to believe this.
We can’t wait for others to rediscover the kingdom. Each of us needs to do our part in growing in the Kingdom so that we can lead others on the same path.
The enemy has deceived many into believing that His Kingdom and His promises are for eternity and only table scraps are available today.
It’s a lie. If the enemy can get us to defer the promises of God, he can steal our faith to believe for what is rightfully ours.
Jesus paid a heavy price so that we could walk as He did on the earth.
In fact, Jesus said that we would do greater works than He did (John 14:12).
He just started this whole thing rolling.
I am convinced that the most astonishing news we will receive will be on the other side, when we find out all that was available to us.
There are untapped warehouses full of God’s promises.
When our life produces fruit of His promises and that fruit produces fruit in the lives of others, that’s the harvest!
This is what makes us His disciples, glorifies the Father, and grants eternal reward.
Zero to Sixty In the Power of The Spirit
We must make the shift from God’s Word being good advice to God’s Word being His power.
"For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us." - 2 Corinthians 1:20
The Bible isn’t a self-help guide. In fact, most of what the Bible demands of us is impossible—righteousness according to God’s standard is impossible for men.
I tried for years. I was convinced that someday I would beat this carnal man into subjection and he would conform to God’s righteousness.
The bad news is that the old man will never conform to God’s law (Romans 8:7).
The good news is that the old man is already dead, crucified with Christ when we are born again (Romans 6:3-4).
You can give up striving. You can rest from your works and enter into His (Hebrews 4:1).
They Are All Yours
Those lofty promises of God. They’re all yours. Every one of them (2 Corinthians 1:20).
Not because you’re good enough. But because His finished work on the cross is good enough (Romans 4:5).
Jesus opens up the hood of the engine in the Parable of the Sower and explains to us how faith works. This is the faith that we need to take the promises into their fulfillment.
The purpose of His Word is to accomplish His will so that we may go out with joy, and be led forth with peace:
“For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace; The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing before you, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands" Isaiah 55:10-12.
He gave His Word to us so that we could bring His purpose into the earth.
But His Word needs good soil to produce the harvest.
This was the point of the Parable of the Sower.
According to the parable there are specific things that we need to do to cultivate the good soil necessary to see the promises of God manifest.
1. You Must Be Taught By God
Even the least Christian should be taught by God.
If you consider yourself the least in God’s kingdom, you qualify to be taught by God.
"No more shall every man teach his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more”" Jeremiah 31:34.
The reason that we can now be taught by God is because He has forgiven us. If you are forgiven, you qualify.
The purpose of that manna in the wilderness was to teach us that we cannot live by food alone, but that our true sustenance comes from Heaven.
He has made provision for us every day. Sometimes it’s easy to find, but sometimes it requires work.
He will also teach us through others, but even then we must recognize His voice.
2. KISS and Believe
“Keep It Stupid Simple,” and believe Him at His Word.
Unless we come like little children we can’t enter His kingdom.
Smith Wigglesworth often said, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it.” There was no questioning of God’s Word.
You don’t need a thousand verses to believe. You need one verse that you believe.
Faith comes by hearing.
If you’re struggling to believe it, keep hearing it until you believe it.
Your mind will catch up to your spirit.
3. Delight in The Promises
The promises of God were given to us so that we may go out with joy. There is hardly anything more exhilarating than walking with the Lord and seeing His promises come to pass.
Jesus’ yoke wasn’t intended to be heavy, but light. He wasn’t like the religious leaders who weighed people down with more rules. On the contrary, He was crucified so that we could receive His Holy Spirit who would help us to be like Him.
This is the promise that we have:
"I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them" Ezekiel 36:27.
We must mix the promises with faith. This is where the adventure begins. Those Israelites that died in the wilderness over forty years had not mixed the promises with faith.
Forget about all the what-ifs and all that jazz. If we get things a little wrong, the Holy Spirit will correct us.
Every scripture has within it the power to fulfill it. If we believe this, it can’t be anything but a delight.
4. It Must Make Sense
We must also understand His Word. If we don’t, the enemy will snatch it away before it has a chance to even take root. I covered this in more detail in the post about the wayside.
All of our understanding must be built on Jesus Christ.
For example, in Jeremiah 31:34, we know that God will teach us because we are forgiven through Christ’s perfect work on the cross.
This isn’t an earthly understanding, this is comparing spiritual things to spiritual things.
5. Endure the Contradiction
The Word of God doesn’t just happen. It needs faith. Faith needs endurance.
If you’re believing in a promise, you can be sure that will be tested. It will seem as though everything in the natural is opposing what you believe.
Many Christians have faith but no endurance.
They believe a promise for a short while but the contradictions arise and they give up. They think that perhaps it’s not meant for them, or perhaps they’re missing something, or perhaps they’re not good enough.
And the little plant withers in the shallow soil as the sun beats down on it.
The post about the heat of the day has more faith-building scripture on this topic.
6. Take Out The Thorns
The thorns are perhaps the most insidious of all. If you don’t notice the thorns, it may look like the plant of faith is growing, but its growth is stunted.
If the allure of wealth persists, we will not see the promises fulfilled.
If the heart is still chasing one thing after another—the next hobby, the next home project, and so on—the promises will remain mysteriously elusive.
If the cares of this life still consume our thought-life, doubting His provision, the Word will not produce.
The “cares of this life” have become normalized so that we hardly recognize them as a problem. Yet, Jesus placed them in the same category as drunkenness and carousing, because they all enslave the heart.
My post on the thorns has more faith-building scriptures to help overcome the thorns.
The Most Important Parable
If Jesus called this parable the linchpin, without which none of the other parables would make sense, we should pay attention to it.
If we don’t understand this parable, we won’t understand why our faith doesn’t work.
We may think that the cares of this life have nothing to do with faith.
We may consider the contradictions as faith not working, when it is working.
This parable allows us to take action. We’re waiting for God, when in fact, He is waiting for us.
This parable puts the responsibility back on us where it belongs.
Take some time to mediate on this parable. Reignite your faith for the miraculous.