Practical, Working Faith – Way of Promise 

Genesis 13 

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Loved ones through the Sunday evenings of the fall, winter and spring, we're going to proceed with our studies of the book of Genesis and we'll probably cover a chapter every Sunday evening, as God enables us to. What we’re studying is the life of faith and what was the center of man's disagreement with God and man's separation from God. I just remind you that Genesis 1 recounted how God made space and the planets and the stars and then made the earth and the ocean and then made the planets and the birds and the fish. Then you remember how he made man himself. And then in Genesis 2 there's a record that is more detailed of God making man and saying to man “Now you have to complete the world that I have created. You have to complete it by developing it according to my will and by my power.”  Then in Genesis 3 you get the real heart of the controversy, and the reason why we separated ourselves from God.  You might want to look at that again to remind yourselves, since it was this time last year that we started at Genesis 3:1 “Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden?’’”  Man hesitated in his trust of God -- that's the whole reason for the break between us and God; man just hesitated. I mean it was stupid because God had made the whole earth and all the planets and everything, and man knew that.  There was no reason to do anything else but trust God completely, but he hesitated in his trust of God. And of course what was really more insulting to God was man is not dumb; he doesn't withdraw his trust from God unless he has something else to trust and you see that in verse 6 “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband and he ate.”

Man trusted the very gifts that God had given him. He looked at the world and said “By my own knowledge I can get along fine with this world; I can put my trust in it.” And that broke the mystic relationship between God and man. We know how it does even in our own relationships. While you trust a guy or a girl there is closeness between you. But once you feel the other person can't be trusted, it's like a concrete wall -- you have no relationship. And that's what happened: the whole mystic relationship between us and our God split apart, and all the consequences of the fall took place as we lost contact with his Spirit.  Our minds became impaired and our emotions became unbalanced and our bodies became weakened. And we entered into a world that got more and more pro-self, more and more anti-Christ, more and more filled with the evil sprits and the whole thing fell apart. Then you remember in chapter 4 how Adam's children continued in this chaotic way; as they refused to trust God, they began to distrust each other.

You remember how Cain murdered his brother Abel. And then they begot a whole generation of mighty dictators who oppressed other human beings. And that's the way the world began to develop until, really in chapter 6 it got so bad and so filled with the violence that God determined he had to show us what he had done in his son, Jesus, before the foundation of the world.  And of course what he had done was to destroy us all. He had foreseen it all so he destroyed the whole world in a flood, all the world except Noah, and then he started all over again in chapter 9; he started the world over again through Noah and his three sons. And this time, in order to hold back the evil that was bound to break out in the world because we didn't trust God, and we hadn't faith in him, he introduced moral government, and the political system, and the system of law that threatened the death penalty to anybody who murdered someone else. And yet even so, the world just got worse and worse. In fact it took that authority that God had given it and in chapter 11 it raised the Tower of Babel up even against God's authority.  And as God saw man making out towards space, because it was a huge and a high tower, he knew there was nothing that they would not be able to do, he came down and scattered us and divided us into different nations and different languages so that we would at least have some time in which he could begin to draw us back gently into the place that he had for us in faith.

Then you remember in chapter 12 he turned from the human race as a whole and he turned to one particular man and that man was called Abram and he began to try to teach this man what he had done before the foundation of the world. He began to try to encourage this man to have faith in that because loved ones, it's important for you to see the only way the world can be fixed is by bringing out of eternity the mighty act that God did in Jesus and having it manifested here on earth. And that actually is done by your faith and mine. It's unbelievable you know; it's unbelievable that it should be as simple as that. But the mighty work that God has done in Jesus can be manifested in time and space in your house, in my home, in your apartment, in your place in Australia, in your place in Africa, through your faith. That is how God has determined to draw people to himself; through different ones of us learning how to exercise complete faith in him and in what he has done in Christ. And you remember that he mentioned that he had done something as far back as Genesis chapter 3 and you might want to look at that.

Remember in Genesis 3  there’s that strange verse in connection with the condemnation of man and the penalties for his rebellion, Genesis 3:15 “I will put enmity between you” he is speaking to the serpent who is Satan, “between you and the woman, and between your seed” between the demons that you will beget, “and her seed;” her sons and daughters, “he” that is, her seed “shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.”  And it is right back there that God is saying there will be some one who is born of the seed of this woman; a man and yet not a man, more than a man, and he, Satan, will bruise your head. That is he will kill you and destroy you; he will put you under his feet because he will take the very things that you have brought into the earth and he will destroy them. He will destroy death and sickness in his death and resurrection on Calvary even though you shall bruise his heel. You will wound him and he will suffer, but he will kill you; you will only wound him.

Even back then there's that prophecy that God had already foreseen this, and that he had already done something about it. That's brought out again in Revelation 13:8 and this is the great fact on which our faith is based. That's why people say hope is hope that God will do something, but faith is confidence that he has done something and it's based on this mighty act in Revelation 13:8. “And all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the lamb that was slain.” Now even there, if you take that order of the words, it does mean that somehow our names were written before the foundation of the world. But in fact “before the foundation of the world” does not follow the word “written” in the Greek; it follows the words “slain”. In the Greek the verse reads “and all who dwell on earth will worship it, everyone whose name has not been written in the book of life of the lamb that was slain before the foundation of the world.” And that's the amazing thing; that all of the forgiveness that was extended in the Old Testament was extended because God put us all into his son Jesus and destroyed us even before the foundation of the world.

There's another, I know its a new thought and its difficult for even those of us who are Einstein enthusiasts and believe that there is no such thing as time, its still a difficult thought for us. But you get it again in I Peter 1:19 and it's like so many things that are given to us by the infinite God; we can't understand it all intellectually, but we can believe it when he says it. I Peter 1:18 gives the continuity of the sentence, “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your father's, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake.” It was Peter saying again that Jesus was destined to be crucified before the foundation of the world, but he was made manifest in 29AD for your sake; God did it in 29AD so that you would see it. That's why we are so much better off than the Old Testament people -- they only sensed that there was something, but they didn't really see it. Now what did that mean? There’s an amazing thing, you'll see it in Ephesians 2, and it’s what that meant for us. Ephesians 2:4-8 -- these are verses that I have memorized, and I think you'll want to as you begin to see the meaning of them. “But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead.”  The Greek means “being dead”, being dead, he loved us, “even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” at that very time you see, “made us alive together with Christ.” It's the same as “God commended his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” “made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”  Why? “That in the coming ages” this age “he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

In others words, we have all been raised up with Christ. We have; it's been done. All our sicknesses have been destroyed and all our sin, it's been done and it’s manifested here on earth the moment we believe that, that's what it means. And it's interesting that even this man Abraham knew that -- did you know that? Jesus said that in John 8; this was the basis of Abraham's faith. My wife asked me “How did he know it.” Oh by the Holy Spirit revealing it to him directly out of shear grace, just the way even people like Plato seem to see something of God's truth -- something of it. The Holy Spirit reveals it even before Jesus. These are amazing verses; verses that transcend time. I wrote a little tract and it will be out next week on “Escape from Time” because you do escape from time this way: John 8:56 Jesus says “Your Father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it and was glad. The Jews then said to him, ‘You are not fifty years old and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’” Jesus saw it all long before Einstein; confusing to an English teacher, but still “truly, truly I say to you before Abraham was I am.”  That's Jesus saying “Abraham knew that I had been raised from the dead; he knew that a mighty miracle had been done.”

Now loved ones that was the basis of Abraham's faith, so let's learn what we can from his faith as we turn back to Genesis 12:1. Important to see that it's only if you are living in that victorious faith that God is able to speak to you and give you his direct commands and promises; only if you are living in that complete faith.  Abraham was living in that faith, and it's in that faith that God then can speak to you and tell you what particular benefits of Jesus' death he is going to apply to you. So that's the situation with Abraham so of course, it happens. Genesis 12:1, “Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.” There are some little things you can learn: go from – to; God tells you where to go, he doesn't just tell you where to go from, do you see that? He says “Go from your kindred, from your country and your father's house to the land that I will show you.” So he doesn't even tell him the land, but he does tell him to “go to the land that I will show you.” Rarely does God's guidance come through defeat and failure in the sense of “Well I don't like this job. I just don't like it. I am not good at it. I think the Lord must be guiding me away from it.” Well rarely does God operate that way. The Father usually guides you to something. He doesn't normally guide you away because you failed there or you have been defeated there. Normally he wants you to stay there as long as you are able to stay there and to come through to victory, and then he guides you to a place. So it’s good, maybe, to keep that in mind as you wonder about guidance. Normally God guides you to a thing, not just away from your present situation. So it's really quite important to stay where you are until God guides you elsewhere. It's very important not to go out wandering in the wilderness just because you aren't satisfied with where you are. God at least knows where to find you now, and by the time you have made a couple of moves he will have to catch up on all your errors and mistakes and he'll have to bring you back through them. 

So normally, listen for God to guide you to a place, rather than just away from it, and no where else. Its important to see that often walking out by faith in God means just that; leaving a country, your kindred and your father's house. Often it does mean stepping out from the loved ones that are dear to you. It certainly meant that for me. We were a very close family and I had to get hold of the idea that “he who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” and so, very often it does mean stepping out from the close ties that you have, often actually because those have become idols for us and we're putting them in place of God. Often he has to get us away from those so that we can begin to hear his voice clearly without interference. Then you see in verse 2 “And I will make of you a great nation.”  So God said “I will replace all your relatives; I'll give you more relatives than you have now. “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.” And then I'll align myself with you; “I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.”

That was the promise that through Abraham's seed, eventually, would be born Jesus, by whom all the families of the earth would be blessed; all the Gentiles as well as the Jews and the Hebrews.  So that's the promise that God gave and this is the beginning of the way of promise; this is where God begins to deal with men according to promises. He says “I promise you that” and if they believe him, the thing is done. And that's the same situation with us; when God gives you a little assurance of something, you grasp that and you believe it with all you heart and you line up your life accordingly, and that's very important as you see in verse 4, “So Abram went as the Lord had told him.”

Jesus said to the man with the withered hand “stretch forth your hand.” The man didn't say “Yeah, I really think you could heal me, I really do. I really think you could heal me. And I am thinking of stretching forth my hand. And I really may do it some day if I feel some bit of strength in my hand; I think if I feel a kind of a tingle in it I will stretch it forth.”  Loved ones you will get nothing from God. I don't know about you, but I spent a lot of my life doing that; spent a lot of my life until, maybe 16 years ago, which was a lot of my life, it was about 30 years of it I spent mentally thinking “Yeah, Jesus probably could do this; God probably could do this if I did that.” And I played all kinds of mental games and I'll tell you what I was hoping; I was hoping that I would work up inside my self such a conviction and such an overwhelming certainty that God was going to do it, that I just wouldn't be able to do anything else -- it would just burst out from me. And that never happened -- I never worked up with such an enthusiasm. I never managed to work up such a faith and I never got the idea that faith is not a feeling, it’s not a notion, and it’s not just a deep conviction. 

You remember Wesley saying it's not a train of ideas in the head -- it is action; it is the man stretching forth the withered hand and it's healed. It is not Moses looking at the Red Sea crying up to God and saying “Will you help us, will you help us?” It's God saying to Moses “Why don't you do something? Stretch forth your rod over the water.”  And it’s not Moses saying “Stretch forth my rod? Well I'm certainly going to pray about that.  I'm going to think about it, and if I feel an overwhelming desire to do that I am going to stretch forth my rod.” It's really what Scott mentioned -- it’s calmly stretching forth your rod. Its acting -- it’s acting, every time loved ones.  You look at all the massive expressions of Jesus' victory on Calvary that you see in the Old Testament and it doesn't matter whether it's them going across the Jordan -- they all have to walk in the water; the water is still there and they have to walk into it. I don't remember how far they got in, but sometimes I think God lets you get in up to there and he asks you to step into it.

Brothers and sisters it changes your life when you begin to see that faith is action. When you begin to sense something in the quietness of your prayer times saying “If you say this to this person, I'll work.” And you kill that and you say “Well that couldn't have been God. I just won't say it.” And more and more you grieve the Holy Spirit of God and his voice gets fainter and fainter and you sink into mental Christianity and absolute passivity. And then you wonder why no miracles ever happen in your life. Loved ones, faith is action -- when God gives you a little sense in your heart that you should do something, do it, do it. That's the excitement of it -- get up and do it! You know it can be smiling because he said “I'll take care of your finances.”  He hasn't told you to do anything, but smiling is appropriate if somebody is taking care of your finances! Because if somebody comes along and says here is a million dollars it will pay all your debts, then you smile. So its appropriate to do that. So faith is action. It is acting as if -- I'm not silly you know -- it's acting as if the whole thing is already done; because the whole thing is already done. Faith is action.

So Abram went as the Lord had told him and luck went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran, 75. Now he did live to 175, but still, he was 75. Moses you remember was what – 80-- in the backside of that mountain and wasn't very well known, so don't get down about how your life's going and don't get impatient with God.  Don't think because you're 30, 35, 40 and God hasn't done wonderful things through you that the chances are passed. God has a lot more preparing of instruments to do than the world need's done. So don't.  Be content.  Maybe you'll get to 70 and God will do miracles the last 2 years of your life. So be content with that; don't look by sight look by faith. See yourself in Jesus at the right hand of God and that he has his time for you and that may be 75 years of age, but don't feel bad about that. God can do in a moment through your life what it could take an ordinary life 50 years to achieve. So have faith in God; don't walk by sight. “Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son and all their possessions which they gathered, and the persons that they had gotten in Haran.”

So he really didn't prepare himself to go back thinking maybe he won't like it out there. He took everybody with him and burned his bridges, and it’s important to do that; burn your bridges. “And they set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem to the oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram,” and this is one of the early appearances of God. For a long time God had been absent from the earth if you notice; he had really been absent. He had withdrawn himself and his spirit and his physical presence from the earth. And then he began to appear to Abram and the patriots again. “Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendents I will give this land.’”  He promised him “I will give this land to your descendents.”  “So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.”

The precious times in your life are when you are dwelling in Jesus at the right hand of God, glorifying the Father and there comes an impression from God to you. That's precious. You need treasure that, treasure it. I've started to write mine down in a book. Treasure that -- that's God's speaking individually to you, you see, so treasure it. And build an altar to the Lord, that's what Abraham did; he knew that was important. That was the vital guidance for his life. God may take a piece of scripture and bring it home to you. I have a door off my classroom and I have pieces of scripture that God has made imprinted in my heart at hard times of life.  Treasure those things and you gradually build up your own Bible; you begin to build up the words of the Bible that God has made real and alive to you and that's your particular life line, that's your guidance system.  God is going to make sense of those, so those are important, and that's why Abram built an altar. “So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. Thence he removed to the mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.”  So he spent time with the Father, as the Father had spoken to him, “And Abraham journeyed on, still going toward the Negeb.”

Now loved ones it's about a time like this that God lovingly allows Satan to come at you. In other words, usually you've moved out on something that God has told you to do and he's kind of confirmed it by speaking to you and being alive and real in your own spiritual and prayer life, and you are very conscious of his presence. It's usually about that time that there is a person who stalks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. You remember from the first chapter of Job that he doesn't get at you because God can't protect you; he gets at you because God lovingly allows that. God has strengthened you, you have obeyed him, you have moved out in faith and he has confirmed some things by being real to you in your prayer life and God recons, “Now I will draw you up a little more my child, in faith. I am going to give you a little more opportunity to keep believing me and having faith in me and trusting me and going on as I guide you.”  That's what happens in verse 10. “Now there was a famine in the land.  So Abram went to down to Egypt to sojourn there,” that seemed very reasonable, “for the famine was severe in the land.” Usually the little deviations we make do seem very reasonable, that’s the amazing thing, “When he was about to enter Egypt” and so that wasn't wrong in itself, but “when he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai, his wife, ‘I know that you are a woman beautiful to behold; and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife’; then they will kill me, but they will let you live.’”

Usually God allows you, then, to come into a little dangerous situation where you could be hurt because he is saying, “So, you are really dead in my son, are you? You are really crucified?  Are you really settled on my son's cross? Are you really on the rock? Are you really determined it's him and his glory alone that counts and that's the only thing that matters -- are you?” And he allows us to come into a little dangerous position where self is threatened. And then here is the danger, you see; Abraham outlines the problem, “they will kill me and they will let you live, so I have an idea” -- verse 13, “say you are my sister” and the dear guy steps back from having faith in God. He knows the might of his God, but he decides there is danger here, and he becomes preoccupied with it, and he thinks, “Well, she is kind of my half sister, so its kind of true so say ‘You are my sister that it may go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared on your account.’”

Usually when you and I are going along in full faith and step back that's the way we do it isn't it? Doesn't matter whether its money or a job or your loved one at home or a sickness or anything else that you have started to go out in faith for, when these moments come, we resort to human expedience so quickly, and it all sounds kind of rational doesn't it. And in fact we could kind of justify it, “You are my sister and its kind of half true what I am saying” but it isn't full honesty.  It isn’t the whole hearted honesty; it's giving the wrong impression, but we think we can kind of snake through it. You see its not faith loved ones; its not full faith in God; its not full faith that the Father who brought you into this situation will certainly bring you through it, and if he doesn't, you don't want to come through it.  So God gives us all opportunities like that; when you can either go on in full faith or you can decide to “help God out” by a little bit of a half honesty, or a half lie, and you lose everything.  There’s the famous line from the man for all seasons, “There times when you hold your life in your hand like water, and if you open it just a little, you lose everything.”

There come those precious moments when you've gone out on a certain limb with God in faith and you are about to see him do mighty miracles, and he allows a little bit of the flame to come close to you and you get out of it fast by some lie or some expedience or some justification or some rationalization. Of course the result is always disaster and harm for others as well as for you. Verse 14 “When Abram entered Egypt the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful.  And when the princes of Pharoah saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh.  And the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.  “And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, he-ass's, menservants, maidservants, she-ass's and camels.”  What did it matter his wife was taken into the King's home. But God is good, and wants, all the time, to make us aware of what's happening. Verse 17 “But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarah, Abraham's wife.”  And all through this life God will keep on working at you and me, trying to show us through some strain that we are experiencing or through some strain somebody else's experiencing or something that is continually going wrong in our life, we'll see that there is something not right here, there's somewhere in which we are not having faith in God. That's why the areas of strain in your life are important.  Wherever you have strain in your life; physical, financial, emotional, relationships, family, your career, your profession, wherever there is strain, its God showing you that you are not dwelling in absolute faith, “Trust in me.  You are not resting in me.” So God is always working that way to bring up those times of strain as he did here with Pharaoh. So verse 18 “Pharaoh called Abram and said ‘What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister’ so I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife, take her and be gone.’ And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him; and they set him on the way, with his wife and all that he had.”

God will be gracious to us. He has given us these 70 years to learn to have faith in him, but loved ones it's vital that we start moving on this basis of faith. It’s vital that you get off the basis of faith in yourself and faith in your career and faith in the world's system -- societies way to give you a happy life. It's vital you get off that and get off faith in the world and onto faith in your God, because that's the dear one you are going to meet at the end of this life. It’s in faith that he has done everything all ready that is needed in your life; he has rectified all in his son Jesus. It's that faith and existing on the basis of that faith that will enable God to change things. In other words God will begin to assure you that your mother is healed or that a certain financial situation has been rectified in Christ, and as you rise in faith and begin to act on the basis of that faith, you will see that thing cleared away from before you -- that's the way it works. Faith actually changes circumstances and changes things and applies the victory of Calvary to this time - space world.

I’ll just read a little of this dear friend; he is the English plumber [Smith Wiggelsworth], “Did you believe before you were saved? So many people would be saved but they want to feel saved first. There was never a man who felt saved before he believed. God's plan is always this; if you will believe you will see the glory of God. I believe God wants to bring us all to a definite place of unswerving faith and confidence in himself. Jesus uses the figure of a mountain.  Why does he say a mountain -- because if faith can remove a mountain, it can remove anything. The plan of God is so marvelous that if you will only believe, all things are possible. There is one special phrase to which I want to call your attention, ‘and shall not doubt in his heart.’ The man shall believe and shall not doubt in his heart. The heart is the main spring. See that young man and young woman. They fall in love at first sight and in a short while there is a deep affection and a strong heart love, the one toward the other. What is a heart of love? A heart of faith; faith and love are kin. In the measure that that young man and that young woman love one, another they are true. One may go to the north and the other to the south, but because of their love they will be true to each other.

It is the same when there is a deep love in the heart towards the Lord Jesus Christ. In this new life into which God has brought us Paul tells us that we have become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that we should be married to another, even to him who was raised from the dead. God brings us into a place of perfect love and perfect faith. A man who is born of God is brought into an inward affection, a loyalty to the Lord Jesus that shrinks from anything impure. You see the purity of a man and woman when there is a deep natural affection between them; they distain the very thought of either of them being untrue. I say that in the measure that a man has faith in Jesus he is pure. He that believes that Jesus is the Christ overcomes the world. It is a faith that works by love.” Then he explains how this faith is created within you. “Just as we have heart fellowship with our Lord, our faith cannot be daunted. We cannot doubt in our hearts. There comes, as we go on with God, a wonderful association and impartation of his very life and nature within as we read his word and believe the promises that he has so graciously given to us, we are made partakers of his very essence in life. The Lord is made to us a bridegroom and we are his bride. His words to us are spirit and life transforming us and changing us, expelling that which is natural and bringing in that which is divine. It is impossible to comprehend the love of God as we think on natural lines.  We must have the revelation from the Spirit of God. God giveth liberally.”

And God does loved ones. Your Father wants to work miracles for you this week; that's the only reason that he has allowed us to continue in this fallen world -- so that he could show his love to us, that's it. And why doesn't he take us straight to heaven? Why leave us here? But it's just so he can show his love to us by actually turning back the powers of the world that would destroy you and would prevent your life being what God wants it to be. And so you have really a great shield around you, the shield that was created in Jesus from before the foundation of the world and as you believe that in different situations, God is able to change those and manifest the victory. So maybe you'll read the chapter again and begin to move by faith in God and act when he tells you to act. Break out of this cerebral stuff -- break out of this mental Christianity. Start acting as he tells you to act, and start seeing his miracles. That's his will for us.

 Let us pray.

Dear Father, we thank you for this. We thank you Lord that's why you said to the man with the withered hands “Stretch forth thy hand” because you knew that  proved that he had faith. Father we thank you for the many things you have spoken in our hearts and we would apologize for the many impressions that have come from you that we have just tucked away in a store and we have done nothing about them. We have despised your word to us and we have grieved your Holy Spirit. Father forgive us; we would stop that and we would begin to act on the things that you have told us. We care not whether we look like fools or not. Father we intend to begin to move in faith in you, so that you may manifest the victory of Jesus in our day to day lives. We thank you for Abraham and thank you that all of us who are children of faith are his children and that we are in Jesus this very moment at your right hand our Father, where there is power for us, now, to receive healing at this very moment for any sickness that we have. Thank you Lord, we want to receive that healing now from you. Father, we thank you that Jesus bore our sicknesses and carried our pains. So now Lord, we let them go up to you, thank you. Lord we care not about the symptoms; it's your healing life that we receive now by faith. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you that all that we used to be in this old body has been done away with in you.

So we thank you Father. Lord we want to take some stands now for things in the coming week; certain situations that we’re facing that we are apprehensive about; certain situations in the job, certain relationships in our home, certain financial matters that we’re doubtful about and worried about it. Lord we see that the one who is worried is not having faith; the one who is apprehensive is filled with doubt. And whatever is not of faith is sin. So Lord we know that we can’t doubt, we can't waver, and have faith, so Father, we haven't got much other option. We either stay in this doubting, wavering apprehensive position where we can have no power to do anything for you, or we move out of this and reject it Lord. So Father we move out of the apprehension now. We step away from this worry and this anxiety about this thing. And Lord we are going to gulp and take a stand in faith. Lord we believe that you overcame the world and we believe you overcame this part of it that we were worried about. We believe Lord that you already rectified that relationship that we have in our home. You already put that financial situation right and solved it. Lord you already have dealt with that situation at work. Father thank you. We want to say we believe you -- we believe you Lord. We believe that you have done this. And we believe your word, “What so ever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive it and you shall have it.” Lord we believe you and receive this now. Thank you and we believe we have it now.

So Father we want to thank you and we want to feel the relaxation in our muscles and our emotions and our heads as we now relax about the situation. We are going to look forward to this week instead of fearing, Father. Forgive us that we spoiled it before we came to it. Lord we want to take that back -- you haven't planned for us a miserable week. You planned for us a way where the valleys are filled in and the mountains are made low. So Father we thank you. We are going to look forward to this week. We are going to get up tomorrow and when Satan comes in like a lion we shall answer “The Lord has promised this. This the Lord has already done.”

Father we thank you that we can be like Abraham, we can be like him; we can believe you and we can go and act in the assurance that you have already done the thing and we can avoid our own expedient attempts to get out of difficulties. So Father thank you. Thank you for this way of faith. We take our stands now, all of us, as an army, and look forward to this week, to walking it joyfully in the absolute assurance that you have resolved all these dilemmas and you have solved all these problems and you have untied all these knots and you have untangled all the entanglements in Jesus. Thank you Father. Thank you this night. Thank you for rest and peace in your faith.

Now may the grace of our Lord Jesus, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with each one of us, now and throughout this coming week.  Amen.