Believing God

...if I die suddenly, my gravestone might appropriately offer this insight into my departure: "God got tired." I require lots of work.

An ongoing relationship with God through His Word is essential to the Christian's consistent victory!

If God said it, I want to believe it. If God gives it, I want to receive it. If God shows it, I want to perceive it. If Satan stole it, I want to retrieve it.

God’s specialty is raising dead things to life and making impossible things possible. You don’t have the need that exceeds His power.

Blessing is bowing down to receive the expressions of divine favor that in the inner recesses of the human heart and mind make life worth the bother.

God is who He says He is. God can do what He says He can do. I am who God says I am. I can do all things through Christ. God’s Word is alive and active in me.

For the most part we’ve dumbed-down New Testament Christianity and accepted our reality as theology rather than biblical theology as our reality. We’ve reversed the standard, walking by sight and not by faith. We want to be the best of what we see, but frankly what we see is far removed from God’s best.

Nothing on earth compares to the strength God is willing to interject into lives caught in the act of believing.

A big difference exists between trying to manipulate God to give us what we want and cooperating with God so He can give us what He wants.

We can always hope and pray diligently for a miracle. If, in God’s sovereignty, He chooses to accomplish His purposes another way, let it not be that we have not because we asked not (James 4:2) or that we have not because we believed not (Matt. 9:29).

Your Promised Land is the place where God’s personalized promises over your life become a living reality rather than a theological theory.

Life is just a breath. All that will matter forever and ever in our heavenly state is the glory that came to God through our lives.

God has so much for you, Dear One. And, yes, seasons will come when He requires so much from you that you feel like you can’t bear it. You do have a choice. You don’t have to do it His way. You can choose bitterness, resentment, carnality, or mediocrity. Or you can go for it. With everything you’ve got. You can experience the unmatched exhilaration of partnering in divine triumph. The stakes are high. The cost is steep. But I’ll promise you this: there is no high like the Most High.

We cannot tame the Lion of Judah. There is a mystery, a wonder, and, yes, even a wildness about God we cannot take from Him.

We’ve reversed the standard, walking by sight and not by faith. We want to be the best of what we see, but frankly what we see is far removed from God’s best.

I don’t think the biggest threat to our theology is humanism or the host of world religions. Our biggest threat is cut-and-paste Christianity. If man places his faith in a god he has recreated in his own image, has he placed his faith in God at all? And if not, how can such a man be saved?

If we can come up with a God we can fully explain, we have come up with a different God from the Bible’s. We must beware of recreating an image of God that makes us feel better. Of this I’m certain: If in our pursuit of greater knowledge God seems to have gotten smaller, we have been deceived.

To pick up the Sword of the Spirit without the Shield of Faith is to shrivel and dry up in the desert of legalism. To pick up the Shield of Faith without the Sword of the Spirit is to try walking by faith on quicksand.

I don’t think the biggest threat to our theology is humanism or the host of world religions. Our biggest threat is cut-and-paste Christianity. If man places his faith in a god he has recreated in his own image, has he placed his faith in God at all?

If not for God’s compassion, His very presence in our midst would kill us. We really have little clue who we’re dealing with. The good news is: God wants us to seek Him and find Him.

John 1:16: “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.

We will never take our places as “more than overcomers” with nothing to overcome. We will never be victors without opponents. As we will continue to see in our journey, God gave the Israelites the Promised Land but told them they’d have to take what was theirs in fierce battle. Why? Probably one reason was so they’d develop the strength to keep it once they conquered it. Surely another was to let them experience the thrill of victory that only a battle hard fought can bring. In God’s economy, much of what is worth having is proved worth fighting for.

powerful motivation for believing God in our present is intentionally remembering how He’s worked in our past.

What reason did God give Joshua for turning from fear and discouragement in the face of huge opposition? “The LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1:9). When Jesus told His disciples not to be afraid in the storm, the reason wasn’t the removal of their frightful circumstances but the presence of their Savior. “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid” (Matt. 14:27).

You were meant to bring forth much fruit. You can be effective. Powerfully used. I’m talking to you. Not your preacher or Bible study teacher. Your legacy can still have an impact in a dozen generations if Christ tarries. You don’t have to look a certain way, receive a certain gift, attend a certain denominational church, practice a certain kind of ministry, or establish a nonprofit organization! All you need to be mighty in your generation is a shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit (the Word of God, Eph. 6:16–17). Through Christ you can absolutely, unequivocally do anything God places before you (Phil. 4:13).

Make no mistake: Satan’s specialty is psychological warfare. If he can turn us on God (“It’s not fair!”), turn us on others (“It’s their fault!”), or turn us on ourselves (“I’m so stupid!”), we won’t turn on him. If we keep fighting within ourselves and losing our own inner battles, we’ll never have the strength to stand up and fight our true enemy.

Every time we believe God, He credits it to our account as righteousness.

He has a mind to do. Faith happens when believers believe. This book is about developing an action verb faith that invites the exhilaration of holy participation.