Faith’s Substance 

Genesis 30 

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Loved ones, really I think these Sunday evenings are meant by God to be a school of faith where we can learn together how to exercise faith day-by-day in our own lives and then how we can exercise faith together here for this campus.  Because, I think it’s an exciting time, you know, this is the third seven year period we’ve had two seven year periods, 14 years together and you know the way God always thinks of things in Sevens and this is a kind of exciting time for us.  It’s the beginning of the third seven year period and it seems to me that it’s a time that God wants to move us forward through the faith of the members of the body, you know.  Not just the faith of one man but the faith of the members of the body.

So I hope that maybe these evenings may be almost a learning time together where you can question and we can go back and forward in discussion and sharing and we can really lift each other up in prayer and begin to love each other up to Jesus, you know.  I think a number of us here want to know how to walk by faith day-by-day but we really do just need a lot of help and we need to go closely with others in that and so I pray that that’s what it will be, you know.  It won’t be a kind of formal preaching time but it will be really a learning together how to exercise faith, to see or own life changed and to see the lives of our friends changed, and then to see this campus changed which I think is what God wants for us.

So, that’s the approach I’m going to take loved ones, and I’d just point you to Genesis 30 as at least the starting point for our sharing tonight.  And I do think there’s something dear in this for each one of us in our everyday life this coming week.  I think there’s something here that God has that can change our own lives and it’s Genesis 30 and it starts just the old pitiful, miserable series of make dos that we end up with when we try to do things ourselves, you know.  You remember old Jacob had ended up with two wives.  I mean, he just wanted one but he got the wrong one the first time, Leah, and then tricky old Laban, the father-in-law as out to get rid of both daughters and then eventually he gave him Rachel as well.

Then you just read a horrible series of actions that almost make monkeys out of men, you know, and certainly you’ll see almost make just animals out of the woman in the story.  And so God almost seems to be saying to us in the first part of the chapter, that’s exactly what you’ll end up, making fools of yourselves, and making a mess of your lives if you’re going to do it by your own strength.  And then it’s just the last part of the chapter that the real message of faith is and that’s what we’ll share.

So, we can go pretty quickly through the first part of the chapter, it’s just a miserable experience.  First Leah, you remember, Rachel was the one that Jacob really wanted to marry and he was the one he served the years for but Laban of course deceived him and gave him Leah, the weaker daughter first.  And then after another seven years gave him Rachel as well so Jacob ended up with two daughters.  But it’s strange, God is so kindly you know, God blessed Leah with children and didn’t give Rachel children almost to try and even the thing up you know.  And so Leah ended up with four children and then this miserable story begins in Genesis 30:1, “When Rachel saw that she bore Jacob no children, she envied her sister; and she said to Jacob, ‘Give me children, or I shall die!’”  And we always end up in that spot, you know, when we’re depending on ourselves. 

The woman are asking the men, give me children, you know, and the men are asking the woman give me children, we’re all asking each other and whether it’s marriages or whether it’s kind of friendships we’re demanding from each other things that we can’t give.  And that’s always the mark, you know, of the life that is not run by faith but is run by self-effort.  “Give me children, or I shall die!’  Jacob’s anger was kindled against Rachel, and he said, ‘Am I in the place of God, who has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?’”  And of course, that’s exactly what he was doing, you are in the place of God and that’s what we do with each other, we demand too much from each other, you know.  “Then she said, ‘Here is my maid Bilhah,’” and of course went to the old technique you remember, that had occurred before in the family where they’d give the maid to the husband.  “Go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees, and even I may have children through her.”  Of course, it was silliness, you know, “So she gave him her maid Bilhah as a wife; and Jacob went in to her.”

But often we do the same thing, we do with make do solutions that aren’t really solutions, you know, but we pretend rather than exercise faith.  “And Bilhah conceived and bore Jacob a son.  Then Rachel said, ‘God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and give me a son.’”  Silliness, it wasn’t her he gave the son to at all.  “Therefore she called his name Dan.  Rachel’s maid Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.  Then Rachel said, ‘With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister, and have prevailed’; so she called his name Naphtali.’”  This is all just pretty pitiful.  She didn’t wrestle with anybody, she just deceived.  “When Leah saw that she had ceased bearing children,” so we go back to Leah, “She took her maid Zilpah and gave her to Jacob as a wife.”

So, she did the same thing.  “Then Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a son.  And Leah said, ‘Good fortune!’ so she called his name Gad.  Leah’s maid Zilpah bore Jacob a second son.  And Leah said, ‘Happy am I!  For the women will call me happy’; so she called his name Asher.  In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes.”  They’re kind of little apples that were said to be used instil lust in people.  “In the days of wheat harvest Reuben went and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them to his mother Leah.  Then Rachel said to Leah, ‘Give me, I pray, some of your son’s mandrakes.’  But she said to her, ‘Is it a small matter that you have taken away my husband?’”  And here’s of course all the bitterness coming out, “Would you take away my son’s mandrakes also?’  Rachel said, ‘Then he may lie with you tonight for your son’s mandrakes.’” 

So Rachel thought she could get these things, maybe she could inspire Jacob with a desire for her so she said, “Alright, you can lay with Jacob tonight if you give me the mandrakes.”  “When Jacob came from the field in the evening, Leah went out to meet him, and said, ‘You must come into me; for I have hired you with my son’s mandrakes.’”  And it had just become a miserable undignified palming off of the man with one sister and the other and the maids.  “So he lay with her that night.  And God hearkened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.  Leah said, ‘God has given me my hire because I gave my maid to my husband’; so she called his name Issachar.  And Leah conceived again, and she bore Jacob a sixth son.  Then Leah said, ‘God has endowed me with a good dowry; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons’; so she called his name Zebulun.  Afterwards she bore a daughter, and called her name Dinah.  Then God remembered Rachel, and God hearkened to her and opened her womb.  She conceived and bore a son, and said, ‘God has taken away my reproach.’”

And it’s interesting you know that, “And she called his name Joseph.”  He was that dear one that was blessed especially by God, “Saying, ‘May the LORD add to me another son!’  When Rachel has borne Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Send me away, that I may go to my own home and country.  Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know the service which I have given you.’”  The strange thing is after all this experience Jacob had no money.  He was just poverty stricken.  He had all these children, wives, and no money and that’s always what happens to us. We work, and work, and work with our own strength and effort and at the end of years, and years, and years we still have nothing. 

And it’s so different; God’s way of faith is entirely different from this.  “Give me my wives and my children for whom I have served you, and let me go; for you know the service which I have given you.’  But Laban said to him, ‘If you will allow me to say so, I have learned by divination that the Lord has blessed me because of you; name your wages, and I will give it.’”  Laban, of course, realized he had been blessed while Jacob had been with him because often the blessings that God pours upon his own people fall upon those with whom they dwell and that’s what happened.  “Jacob said to him, ‘You yourself know how I have served you, and how your cattle have fared with me.  For you had little before I came, and it has increased abundantly; and the Lord has blessed you wherever I turned.  But now when shall I provide for my own household also?’  He said, “What shall I give you?’  Jacob said, ‘You shall not give me anything; if you will do this for me, I will again feed your flock and keep it.’” 

Jacob in a way sensed that God should bless him and so he didn’t want Laban to do anything but he said, “Let me pass through all your flock today, removing from it every speckled and spotted sheep and every black lamb, and the spotted and speckled among the goats; and such shall be my wages.”  So he said, “Let me take out the speckled animals and those shall be my wages.”  “So my honesty will answer for me later, when you come to look into my wages with you.  Every one that is not speckled and spotted among the goats and black among the lambs, if found with me, shall be counted stolen.’  Laban said, ‘Good!  Let it be as you have said.’”  Because Laban of course really felt, “This is a good deal.  Take out the speckled?  None of the other animals will breed anything but solid colors so that’s it.  It’s a limited risk I have here.”

“But that day Laban removed the he-goats that were striped and spotted, and all the she-goats that were speckled and spotted, every one that had white on it, and every lamb that was black, and put them in charge of his sons.”  So he decided, “I’m not going to risk these animals breeding any more speckled so that I will owe him more.  I’ll take these out and separate them and that’s all he’ll get.”  “And put them in charge of his sons; and he set a distance of three days journey between himself and Jacob; and Jacob fed the rest of Laban’s flock.”

And then we come to the lesson of faith and loved ones, it’s really true.  “Then Jacob took fresh rods of poplar and almond and plane, and peeled white streaks in them, exposing the white of the rods.  He set the rods which he had peeled in front of the flocks in the runnels, that is, the watering troughs, where the flocks came to drink.  And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the rods and so the flocks brought froth striped, speckled, and spotted.”  Some people have said that when animals breed what they concentrate on is what they pass on to the young.  But actually that wasn’t it.

Jacob made a wall that was spotted and speckled with the rods and he looked at that wall and he saw it with his eyes and he saw it when he was asleep, and he saw it when he prayed, and he saw it when he was out in the field, and he saw it when he faced the solid black cattle and the goats.  He didn’t see solid colors; he saw speckled colors before his eyes.  He saw constantly with the eyes of faith the animals that he was praying that God would bring about.  “And since they bred when they came to drink, the flocks bred in front of the rods and so the flocks brought forth striped, speckled, and spotted.  And Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the striped and all the black in the flock of Laban; and he put his own droves apart, and did not put them with Laban’s flock.”

Then he took another step, “Whenever the stronger of the flock were breeding Jacob laid the rods in the runnels before the eyes of the flock, that they might breed among the rods,” and he believed again for the speckled to be bred.  “But for the feebler of the flock he did not lay them there; so the feebler were Laban’s, and the stronger Jacob’s.  Thus the man grew exceedingly rich, and had large flocks, maidservants and menservants, and camels and asses.” 

There are different books loved ones that I’d love you to begin to read as we start to strengthen each other’s faith.  This is the first one I’d ask you to buy as soon as you can The Fourth Dimension by Cho.  That’s the Korean man, you remember, The Fourth Dimension.  Here it goes, “Long after Jacob God put up another spotted and speckled tree.  This time that tree was on Calvary and this tree was not spotted and speckled by a pen knife but by the real blood of the Son of God.  Everybody and anybody can come gaze upon this spotted and speckled tree and receive a new image, and a new dream, and new vision by the power of the Holy Spirit and be changed.” 

Now how does this work out?  “Now, let me share something from my personal experience with you, ‘One Christmas eve I was busy preparing a sermon.  Later an urgent telephone call came in the early morning hours of Christmas day.  A man calling from Seoul National Hospital asked, “Are you pastor Cho?” ‘Yes, I am.’  “One of your members is dying.  He was in a car accident; a taxi hit him and then road around all through the morning with him in the back seat.”” 

In Korea at that time if someone had hit him killed by a Taxi driver the taxi driver would only have to pay the sum of $25 and then would be cleared of all financial obligation.  However, if the victim were only injured then the driver would have to pay for all the medical and hospital bills so if a driver hit someone and no one saw the accident he would then drive that person around until he or she died.  It would be cheaper for him.  So, this guy had knocked down this member of his congregation you see, and was just driving around with the guy bleeding to death in the back seat. 

“This member had bought a beautiful hat with some other articles for his wife.  He was so carried away with the joy of giving these presents that he jay walked across the street without watching the light and was hit by a taxi.  Since it was late in the evening and no one saw, this taxi driver had carried that man in his car throughout the evening.  The man did not die and eventually a policeman caught the taxi and carried the man to a hospital.  The impact of the accident had badly impaired his intestines and his stomach was full of dirt and blood.  Blood poisoning had already set in.  His doctor knew me and called saying, ‘Cho, should we operate on him?  Medically speaking, it’s hopeless.  He was without medical attention for such a long time that blood poisoning has set in.  There will be no way for us to cure him.’  But I said, ‘Go ahead and operate on him and as soon as I finish this sermon I’ll run to the hospital.’  After the Christmas service I rushed to the emergency room of Seoul National University Hospital and there he was totally unconscious. 

The doctor again said there would be no hope, ‘Reverend, don’t expect anything. He is dying. We could do nothing.  When we opened the stomach there were three places where the intestines were completely cut off and these areas were filled with excrement and dirt.  There is no hope.’  I replied, ‘Well, I will try to do my best.’  When I went in he was in a deep coma.  I knelt beside him and said, ‘Lord God, give me only five minutes then I will try.  Let him come out of the coma for five minutes, then I will try.’  As I was praying I felt something moving.  I opened my eyes and the man opened his eyes.  ‘Oh pastor I’m dying,’ he cried.  I knew then that I had five minutes.  I replied, ‘You can’t say that.  As long as you keep saying that you will die.  Then, I can’t help you.  You must change your imagination and thinking.  Change your vision and dream for the only way to carry out dominion over this third dimension material world is through your imagination, your visions, and your dreams.  So listen to me, picture a young man, he says goodbye to his wife, he’s full of beauty and health.  He goes to his office and completes his business successfully.  All the people respect and admire him.

Evening arrives and he buys nice gifts for his wife who is waiting for him to come home and eat supper.  When he arrives she rushes out to the gate and welcomes him with a big hug and kiss.  They go into the house, share a delicious meal together and a quiet evening at home.  The man I am talking about is no stranger, that man is you.  Think of that man.  Draw that picture in your mind.  Look at that man and say in your heart, ‘That man is me.”  Don’t draw a picture of death.  Don’t draw a picture of a dead corpse.  Keep on dreaming about that man and I’ll do the praying.  You just draw a mental picture and leave the praying to me.  Will you do that?’  ‘Yes pastor I’ll change my dream.  I’ll change my thinking.  I’ll say that I’m that man.  I’ll try to make that vision and dream a reality.’  ‘I see it,’ he cried. 

While we were talking the surgeon had come in with his nurses.  They started giggling and laughing at me, they thought that I had lost my mind but I was serious for I knew the law of the spirit’s fourth dimension and that man had begun to speak the language of the Holy Spirit.  Like a missionary in a foreign field who gains a deeper level of communication with the local people of that country by learning to speak their language directly instead of using an interpreter, so that dying man had learned the deeper language of the Holy Spirit.”

Loved ones, the deeper language of the Holy Spirit least you think that it isn’t scriptural, is Mark 11:24 and you might want to look at it just in the middle of this story.  Mark 11:24 and I’d ask you to memorize this verse and then ask the Holy Spirit to put it into your spirit and make it part of you every day and every moment of every day.  It’s Mark 11:24, it’s very clear and plain.  Mark 11:24, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”  That’s it.  This is a scriptural principle, whatsoever you desire when you pray, believe that you have received it and it will be yours. 

Loved ones, don’t argue with it, don’t barter and fiddle around with it, believe God’s word.  God’s word is not here to be argued with or to be doubted, or to be theorized about.  I spent so much of my life doing that too.  Don’t spend your life doing that.  God’s word is there because it’s his faith expressed.  It says, “Whatsoever you desire when you pray believe you have received it and you will have it.”  Believe that you’ve received it.  Picture it.  See the speckled wall before the animals as they breed.  See the speckled animals.  Night and day see them.  See what God has prompted you to pray for.  See it and see it already answered and believe it with all your heart.  That’s faith.

Oh, we’re going the wrong way.  We’re going the wrong way.  We’re saying, “Oh pastor I don’t want to give God too much of an advantage here.  I want to pray and ask him to bring about the answer and then when I see the answer I’ll believe it.”  No, that’s not right.  God asks you to believe that you’ve received it the moment you pray for it.  That is what faith is. That’s exercising faith. 

In your work situation if you pray for a certain thing to happen, see it as already done, see it as done.  Stop this silliness that we’re all about.  We offer a mental prayer up to God and then we go back to the miserable situation and we deal with it as it appears to us in spite of the fact that God has told us that that situation has already been changed, “The moment you asked me to change it that change was wrought and I want you to see that as already changed.  To believe that you’ve already received it.” 

It’s the same with money, loved ones.  It’s the same with a change in a person’s heart.  God expects you to be walking on cloud seven. That’s it.  The moment you pray, you shed the worry and you walk on cloud seven and you see the thing as already done.  That’s what faith is.  That’s the only kind of faith that will change us.  The only way we’ll get 500 people in here, and that’s God’s will for us. 500 people on Sunday evenings from the campus, is if every one of us see 500 people here night and day.  The only way your job situation will change is if you see it as already changed in Jesus and thank him for it and shed all your worry and anxiety.

If you’re concerned about your job, or your profession, or where your future is going the only way is to see it as already right, and full, and satisfying in God’s eyes and in reality here on earth and to shed all worry and all doubt and anxiety about it.  That’s what faith is.  Faith is does not coexist with worry or anxiety.  It coexists alone with complete certainty that the thing is already done.

Loved ones, it is important to grasp that.  It’s important to rise out of this theoretical faith which is just hope.  You know, it’s just old bluff -- it’s bluff.  You know it.  If I got you down and give you a few good kicks in the ribs, you’d agree because I’ve been there. It’s just hope, it’s just miserable hope.  You remember what Paul says, “If in Christ we have only hope we are of all men most to be pitied.”  The fact is that God has already crucified the world in Christ and that means our whole world that opposes his will and he has raised it up as he wants it and he says, “Believe that I have done that.  Believe it with all your heart and walk in joy and delight.”  And this is what this dear guy did.

“Suddenly the group, as I knelt down and grabbed hold of his bed I prayed, ‘Dear Holy Spirit, now he speaks your language.  He has a vision and a dream.  Rush into his physical body and carry out your dominion.  I command this man to be whole and to be filled with healing power.’  Suddenly the group of unbelieving nurses said, ‘This room is too hot, the heat is too high.’  But the weather was very cold there was no heat, it was the power of the Holy Spirit giving off all the heat.  The surgeon and those nurses began to feel fire.  Their ears turned red and the power of God became so strong that we even felt the bed trembling. 

Amazingly, in one week that man rose up and walked out of the hospital.  He is now in the chemical business doing wonderfully.  Whenever I see him on Sunday mornings sitting on the balcony I say to myself, ‘Praise God we spoke the Holy Spirit’s language.  We created hallelujah.’”  That’s it, you see.  God brings into being the things that are not.  That’s what he does, loved ones.  But now he brings it into being according to your faith and mine and faith is absolute confidence that God has already answered our pray. 

Let me tell you about another incident and this is worth it because it’s maybe a little less sensational but just I think it will speak to a lot of our situations.  “One day I was in my office and a lady about 50 years old came in crying, ‘Pastor my home is completely destroyed and broken.’  ‘Stop crying,’ I responded and tell me about it.  ‘You know we have several sons but only one daughter.  She has become a hippie and she sleeps with friends of my husband and friends of my sons, going from this hotel to that hotel and from this dance hall to that dance hall.  She has become a shame to my family.  My husband cannot go to his office.  My boys are dying of embarrassment and now they’re all going to leave home.  I’ve tried everything.  I’ve even cried to the Lord to strike her dead.  Oh, pastor, what can I do?’  ‘Stop whining and crying,’ I told her.  ‘I can see very clear why God could not answer your prayer.  You were presenting the wrong kind of mental blueprint to him.  In your mind you were always submitting just the picture of a prostitute, weren’t you?’  She retorted, ‘Yes.  Well, that’s what she is.  She is a prostitute.’”

See, we’re doing that.  We pray for mums and dads -- we pray for husbands and wives, we pray for dear people, dear friends of ours and we don’t see them as changed in God and rejoice in that.  We’re seeing them full of their problems and full of their difficulties and then we’re going whining and crying to the Lord, “Lord, will you save him from his jealousy,” and we go down and we describe it.  We’re masochists, we torture ourselves.  Where there’s anger, and jealousy, and there’s badness, we just pray ourselves into the pit and that’s what she was doing.

“Well, is she a prostitute or is she saved?  Is she a prostitute or has she been raised up in Jesus?”  Is your friend a miserable critical wretch or is he a wonderful loving person and new creation in Jesus?  You better settle which way.  Which way are you going to settle your eyes on?  Are you going to settle your eyes on this old fallen world that God has already said has been crucified in Christ and are you going to feast your eyes on that or are you going to feast your eyes on what he has done in Jesus?  Really, you have to make the decision and it’ll determine whether you live in heaven or whether you live right down here in the midst of hell.  And it will determine whether you exercise faith or whether you go on just having hopes and hopes are no use, loved ones.  They’re just no use.

“But if you want to see her changed then you must submit another mental blueprint.  You must clean the canvas of your imagination and you must start drawing a new picture.’  But she rejected the idea saying, ‘I can’t.  She’s dirty, ugly, and wretched.’  ‘Stop talking like that.  Let’s draw a new picture.  Let’s bring to mind another kind of spotted and speckled tree.  You kneel down here and I will kneel down before you.  Let’s go to the foot of Calvary, let’s lift up our hands, let’s look at Jesus Christ dying on a cross bleeding and beaten up.  Why is he hanging there?  Because of your daughter.  Let’s put your daughter right behind Jesus Christ.  Let’s see your daughter through a spotted and speckled cross.  Can’t you see your daughter forgiven, cleansed, born again, and filled with the Holy Spirit, completely changed? Can you draw that picture through the blood of Jesus Christ?’  ‘Pastor, yes.  Now I see differently.  Through Jesus, through the cross I can see, change my image about my daughter.’  Wonderful, wonderful I exclaimed.  I will draw a new picture of your daughter.  Keep that clear cut vivid and graphic picture in your mind day in and day out.  Then the Holy Spirit can use you for his language is carried with a vision and a dream.  We know we are drawing the right kind of picture since we are coming to the foot of the cross.’

So, we knelt down and prayed, ‘Oh Lord, now you see this picture.  Dear Holy Spirit, flow into this new image, this new vision and dream, change, perform miracles.’  Then I sent this mother out and as she was leaving she was all smiles, there was no more crying for her image of her daughter had changed.  One Sunday a few months later she suddenly walked into my office bringing a beautiful young lady with her.  ‘Who is this young lady,’ I asked?  ‘This is my daughter,’ she smiled.  ‘Did God answer you?’  She replied, ‘Oh yes, he did.’  Then she told the story.

One night her daughter had been sleeping in a motel with a man.  In the morning when she woke up she felt dirty and wretched.  She felt a great unhappiness in her spirit and had a deep desire to return home but she was frightened and scared of her parents and brothers.  Nevertheless, she decided to risk it saying to herself, ‘I’ll try one more time and if they kick me out then that will be my last attempt.’  So she went to her parent’s home and rang the bell.  Her mother came out and when she saw her daughter her face lit up as if the sun was rising in her face.  She greeted her daughter, ‘Welcome my daughter,’ and rushed out to hug her. 

Her daughter was absolutely overwhelmed by the love of her mother and she crumpled crying.  Her mother had prayed and her image of her daughter was entirely changed.  She had welcomed her daughter on the spot and opened wider arms of love.  Her mother brought her to the church for a period of two or three months.  She listened to the sermons, confessed all sins, gave her heart to Jesus Christ and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  She became an absolute new creation in Christ and she eventually found a wonderful husband.  This daughter now has three children of her own and is one of the foremost home sale unit leaders in my church.  She’s a burning evangelist and all this happened because her mother changed her vision and dream applying the law of the fourth dimension.” 

Well loved ones, you can do it.  You know, you and I can do it.  We can start exercising faith.  Faith is not just some theory, or belief, or hope.  Faith is changing the way your mind thinks.  It’s seeing the things as already done in Jesus.  It’s Mark 11:24, “Whatsoever you desire when you pray believe that you have received it and you will have it.”  Loved ones, that can start with us this very night. 

I’d ask you to take some situation in your life at present that you want to see changed and I’d ask you to commit yourself now to seeing that changed in Jesus.  See that that’s part of the world that’s been crucified in Christ and see that it’s changed.  And you may say, “Pastor, I’m trying to but I can’t see it too clearly at the beginning.”  No, no, you’ll have to take time maybe.  You’ll have to draw in all the details as he did.  See the thing, take every negative thing in the situation and paint the opposite positive good and paint it in detail before your eyes.  And before you go to bed tonight, paint it again and thank God that he has made it like that in his son, Jesus and that that is the fact now and thank him for that and never again look at the old that has passed away.  Continue to thank him for that day, after day. 

I don’t know if you keep a common place book, I encourage the loved ones in London to do it.  That was the old name, you know, for really what it is, is a daily diary of your spiritual progress and your fellowship with God.  It is good if you can get one of those diaries that has a whole page for a day.  I’ve just started one for this year now.  Or, even an exercise book with just dates in it.  But you should each day fill into that what you are thanking God for and what you are believing him for.  It will help you in a way to hold to what has been done on Calvary.  Because, the fact is, you and I walk so much by sight that the gutter has become our normal comfortable little home.  We just walk along the gutter in the midst of all our troubles and all the miserable things that happen to us and that gutter has been crucified in Christ.  The way God makes that manifest in this world is through your faith and my faith.

So loved ones, I’d encourage you to begin and I’ll try to continue to use God’s word to build our faith as these Sunday evenings past.  But I believe that we will see more of us here in this group testifying to what God has done in our lives each week.  If you will now do that with something in your life.  So now will you choose something?  I’m choosing something now in my life that I want to see changed.  Will you choose something now?

Let us pray.  The Lord Jesus has said to us, “Whatsoever you desire when you pray believe that you have received it and you will have it.”  This is not some ordinary human being telling us this.  This is not some psychologist.  This is not some confidence trickster.  This is the Son of God saying to each one of us this evening, “Whatsoever you desire when you pray believe that you have received it and you shall have it.”  Believe that you have already received it, think of it, imagine it, and see it before your eyes.  See that speckled wall before your eyes.  See that speckled cross of Calvary before your eyes.  See that everything has been changed there.  That the old has already passed away.”  That’s what God’s word has told us, “The old has passed away and the new has come.”  Father, we thank you for that.

I see the thing I want changed.  I see it now as already changed and I thank you for it Lord.  Each one of us we would see this particular situation or person completely changed.  We would see them as we ask you to make them.  We would see them as already like that.  We would see the circumstance of the situation as already changed and we would feast our eyes on that change.  Father, we believe what you said you have done on Calvary.  We do not believe sight, we believe our faith.  We are not moved by what we see.  We know that all that we have seen has already passed away.  This world has been crucified in Christ.  We know that the old has past and the new has come. 

Lord, we feast our eyes on that new that has come in Jesus.  We thank you for it now.  We see it before our eyes.  We see it plainly.  We allow it to touch our feelings and emotions so that we begin to enjoy the change that it will work in us.  We begin to enjoy all the things that this will bring about in our lives and the lives of others as we see this thing already done.  Lord, we begin to live in the light of the fact that this is done.  We begin to live now in the light of the fact that this thing has already happened.  Lord, we’re going now to live in this.  Not live according to the lie that has been presented to our eyes by Satan and by this fallen world but Lord we’re going to live by the light of what you have done on Calvary to this situation.  Lord, we thank you for that now and we want to praise you for this.

We want to praise you for the peace that is flowing into our emotions now as this thing begins to relax our minds and our hearts and we begin to enjoy the world that has now been changed according to Calvary.  Lord, we thank you for this and we’re going to thank you for it.  Lord, whenever Satan slips in trying to get us to look by sight, we will resist him in Jesus’ name and we will look away from what he calls real.  His real has already been destroyed on Calvary and we will look away to what is really real, the renewed resurrected world, the changed person, the changed circumstance, and we see it now Lord.  We see all these things as real and complete now and we thank you for the change it’s made in our feelings about it.

Thank you for the happiness that has come into our hearts as we’re thinking about this.  Thank you Lord, that you want us to be happy and to enjoy this, and to see this thing as something that we’ve already received.  Faith is the substance of things unseen so we’ve received this very substance of these things now and we’re enjoying the substance of them.  And we thank you, Lord, that the appearance is following very quickly. 

So Lord, we pray now for each other that during the days this week we live in faith, in this glorious faith knowing that we have already received what we’ve prayed for and we thank you for that.  We thank you for Jacob, and we thank you for the miracle. 

Now the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with each one of us and enable us to walk in faith this coming week for his namesake.  Amen.