Fire On Your Head

“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24 ESV)

Every so often, I get told by individuals that they perceive me to be a “faith teacher” in a derogatory way as if studying about, living this out, and writing about it is a bad thing.  Sometimes people rightly perceive this to be my favorite topic, or that I’m not capable of writing or preaching about any other subject.  I’m hardly ever offended by such notions since the Word of God says “the just shall live by faith” (Hab 2:4, Rom 1:17, Gal 3:11, Heb 10:38) and Hebrews 11:6 says “without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (King James Version)  Therefore, I don’t get how one could allegedly spend too much time finding out HOW to live like a righteous person in God’s eyes, and how to please Him in the Christian walk!

That being said, this article is born out of reflecting on things as a result of reading Watchman Nee’s “The Normal Christian“, especially the chapter early in the book called “The Path To Progress: Reckoning.“  I also decided to unofficially add this to what was a two part series on how to increase your faith, because I think this is a fitting continuation of that series.  To read them click here: part 1, part 2.

The key important thing about faith to remember is that it is always based on the promise already stated.  This is what distinguishes it from hope.  Hope doesn’t know for certain what will or could happen, but longs for the desired result.  Faith however, stands on some kind of prior knowledge, what has already been established--the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen (Heb 11:1).  One needs to stick to the Word of God, and have confidence based on what is written in it, and like the context of this particular verse states, then you will know what to speak to the mountainous problem you may be facing.  Therefore, another key to increasing your faith is changing your focus.  Instead of focusing on the problem, don’t just speak to it, but find out what exactly the Word of God already says about that situation or circumstance, and how a believer is to face it, and focus on that and only speak of the victory Christ promised, and not give any voice to any discouragement tempting you.

Faith looks at something as if it is already done, because it knows that it is, and nothing shakes that.  However, hope has no such specific assurance but flows out of faith–it can only hope for the desired outcome because it relies on what has been promised.  Faith is the acceptance of God’s fact.   Hope trusts in something still future because of what it already knows and accepts as fact.  For example, in the referred to chapter, Nee goes on to teach that just because the Christian might still struggle with sin or be living in lifestyle of sin doesn’t contradict that he has (past tense) been purchased with the blood of Christ and is made a new creation.  The way faith would be applied to this significant fact, is to look at the word “reckon”–or as other translations like the ESV tell us– “consider”–as used in in the following context:

“For the death he died (past tense) he died to sin, once (past tense) for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead (past tense) to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” (Romans 6:10-12 ESV, emphasis and parenthesis mine)

You cannot reckon or consider anything without first having had the concept or idea introduced to you to be able to ponder it or think of it, or act on the knowledge you’ve been given.  ’Reckon’ or ‘consider’ are words that only relate to the past in this regard, and give context to the word ‘therefore‘ which leads into what is to take place now in the present for the believer: not letting sin reign in your mortal body, based on the act that has happened–you have died to sin, because of what Christ has done.  The way to overcoming sin is to consider or reckon what the Word of God has already stated, concerning what has already been accomplished at the Cross of Calvary–in this case, that Christ died and overcame sin, and that you, if you’ve given your life to Christ, you were hidden in Him, and by that, died with him when He hung on the cross.  Therefore, you substantiate that into existence in your own life as a Christian.  But how you ask?  Past posts of mine tagged ‘faith‘ go into significant detail on this, but to give a concise answer, I say focus on the promise from His Word and do not let the circumstances distract you:

All temptation is primarily to look within; to take our eyes off the Lord and to take account of appearances.  Faith is always meeting a mountain, a mountain of evidence  that seems to contradict God’s Word, a mountain of apparent contradiction in the realm of tangible fact–of failures in deed, as well as in the realm of feelings and suggestion–and either faith or the mountain has to go.  They cannot both stand.  But the trouble is that many a time the mountain stays and faith goes.  That must not be.  If we resort to our senses to discover the truth, we shall find Satan’s lies are often enough true to our experience; but if we refuse to accept as binding anything that contracts God’s Word and maintain an attitude of faith in him alone, we shall find instead that Satan’s lies begin to dissolve and that our experience is coming progressively to tally with that Word.” Watchman Nee, The Normal Christian Life, p 72.

Hanging on To The Promises of God

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called (past tense promise) to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going…For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. (Heb 11:8, 10, emphasis & parenthesis mine)

Despite the decades that passed before Abraham and Sarah would see the promise fulfilled and give birth to their son Isaac, they had the promise of the word of the Lord when He told him “Look up at the heavens and count the stars –if indeed you can count them. So shall your offspring be” (Gen 15:5) They hung on to this promise given them in order to have the hope that it would be fulfilled. “No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised” (Rom 4:20-21) By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered (or reckoned) him faithful who had promised. (Heb 11:11, parenthesis mine).  There’s much more we could learn from the life of Abraham, but for brevity’s sake we’ll leave out of today’s post.

Despite the dreams given to him years earlier in his youth of leadership, Joseph did not look like he’d be ruling anybody or anything while he was locked away in a dungeon. I have always imagined these dreams and the promises they meant would go through Joseph’s mind many a night as he lay shackled in a dark dungeon forgotten by the very people he’d helped.  He reckoned that God would do what He said He would with his life.  Or what of the promise the Lord made Moses concerning leading the people out of Egypt?  It didn’t look like it was about to come to pass when immediately after speaking to the Pharaoh, who increased their work quota, and it took ten plagues before he finally had enough and released the Israelites to go on their way. But I’m sure Moses reckoned that God would do what He said, and could cling to that promise despite the natural circumstances looking like they were getting more and more difficult.

Despite the prophecies, Jesus Christ, our example and savior, it didn’t appear to the pharisees standing watching and mocking that He was going to save or rule anybody, let alone live when He hung bloody, naked, and twisted on a wooden cross.  But yet what was spoken would come to pass.  Oftentimes, the promise is the most difficult to believe in right before its eventual fulfillment.  We could go on with many more examples from Scripture of people receiving that which they were promised, and if you read through Hebrews 11, you’ll notice the same pattern written of a promise made, followed by an expectation of fulfillment by most of the people mention there.

Also consider how Isaiah 55:11 says  “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”

God’s written and spoken Word will be accomplished, since God is not a man that He can lie (Num 23:19), and if He has spoken in it in the Bible, you can rely on it and put your confidence in the Lord about the matter.  What He has already spoken, will come to pass.  If He has spoken to you in the prayer closet, you can rest assured He will perform what He said He would, for the very word He gave you often times was to give you an anchor to hang on to when the circumstances immediately following it test your confidence in the matter,  so believe that you have received it.  It is done.  If you need healing in your body, then learn from these figures in the Bible who were put there as our example and take courage.   Be like Abraham who did not consider (or reckon) in his old age that producing a child with his wife was impossible.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And let the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:6-7)

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“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers. The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.” (Psalm 1:1-4)

A tree–and pretty much all plants and vegetation in general–need several things in order to grow and produce their corresponding fruit: proper soil, water, and sunlight. If you water it too much and/or only give it water, then it will get waterlogged and die. If you don’t give it any, and it only gets heat and sunlight, also, it will die.  But the soil also needs to be in correct condition.  For example of this, the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23 ) details the different outcomes of having the seed fall on different types of ground.  In Psalm 1 we’re given a few contrasts between the righteous and the wicked which I’d like to focus on.   The man who delights in the law of the Lord is contrasted with the man who doesn’t, but walks in the counsel of the wicked and sits in the seat of the scornful.  Here we’re told not that the man who delights in the law of the Lord and meditates on it day and night is not like a seed, but how he’s like a tree planted by streams of living water.  The man of wickedness, like a leaf that withers.

It stands to reason that if the righteous man is the one who grows, and prospers, it would be necessary to know how the he does so.  Therefore we need to be delighting in the law of the Lord if we’re to prosper and be blessed in all areas of righteousness–through both the rhema revelation and the logos written Word, studying it, getting into it deep and sinking our roots deep into it.   Only from having these conditions in place in our own lives, will we be able to extract the image from the seed, the Word of God.  The man who does this, yields fruit in season, and in all that he does he prospers.  It’s also necessary to realize is that one must to do this regularly, as indicated in the words ‘day and night’.  As the saying goes, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but not if you only eat one apple and nothing else in the course of a day!

First, a little bit about my approach to reading/studying/interpreting the Bible:  since all Scripture is God-inspired,  then the meaning of one passage is tied into the one before it and breeds the meaning of the one following.   All the parables, teachings and stories are like the strokes of a much larger painting.  All of it ties together.  Therefore, passages like Psalm 1 don’t require a lot of scholarly study to understand, and if we just read the whole thing in context we can understand the individual verses contained therein.  As good as it is to memorize individual Scripture verses, I think it’s even better to meditate on entire chapters of Scripture and entire stories or parables than just individual verses.  Doing so helps avoid accidentally (or intentionally) lifting sentences out of context.

So let’s have at it:  if a blessed man walks not in the counsel of the wicked, and all the things detailed in the first two verses, then that means the unrighteous man does the opposite.  If a righteous man is like a tree firmly planted, then a wicked person is not (I know, deep revelation, but bear with me).  And if an unrighteous person is not getting his counsel from the law of the Lord then by necessity he’s getting his counsel somewhere else –as James 3:13-18 explains, from below.  And by ‘below’, I don’t mean the ground, but the pit of hell.

We read in passages like Luke 6:43-44 that no good tree bears bad fruit, and vice versa.  There’s only two options, good or bad, fruitful or unfruitful, righteous or wicked, good fruit or bad fruit.  That which is below or that which is from above.  A wicked person who is not firmly planted near the streams of living water is not going to yield fruit as though he were firmly planted in good soil.  Verse 45 goes on to say that the good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.   Therefore, it’s no wonder the very next thing Jesus proceeds to teach here in Luke 6 is about building your house on a rock so that it withstands the storm.  The idea of building and construction is linked to sowing, reaping, growing and harvesting in this context.  The fact Luke writes them one immediately following the other in his Gospel allows us to assume they are a part of the same flow of thought Jesus was teaching here.

“Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.” (Luke 6:47-49)

For years I read that passage of Scripture as though it were talking about the believer and the unbeliever, the righteous versus the unrighteous.  However, both individuals heard, but only one did what he heard, the other didn’t, and the storms and cares of this life knocked the structure down.

So why am I saying all that, and how exactly do we extract the content of the incorruptible seed of Christ in us?  Those passages then being a loose framework for us to work with provide some steps for obtaining revelation knowledge and extracting the image from the seed :

1) Put into practice what you learn from the Word of Christ

This is of the utmost importance in growing in Him and extracting revelation knowledge from the seed.  In receiving the implanted word, James 1:21-25 talks of making sure to be doers of the Word of Christ, which would be building your house on the rock, versus being a listener only–building on sandy foundations.  One person extracts the image from inside the seed BY obeying what Christ teaches and the other didn’t and the ruin of his house was great.

“But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” (James 1:25)

2) Submit to fiery trials in your life

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:2-4)

Under circumstances like heat, and fiery trials in life, we’re capable of having squeezed out of us just what’s really inside our hearts. It is these moments that reveal our true character. Sometimes the greatest opportunity for our faith to grow, is from under pressure, and remember, your faith has no perishing point (1 Peter 1:7).  The light of the sun is vital and a crucial component to the growth of any vegetation–the same way muscle doesn’t grow except under resistance.  But your true, tried, and tested genuine faith will survive the heat, and you will be refined and made purer, and steadfastness is produced in your life the way fruit grows from the tree planted by that stream of living water.

3) Create the right conditions in your life for the growth

Like I’ve already mentioned, certain conditions need to be right for the seed to sprout and germinate properly.  We see this exact same concept exemplified in the parable of the sower where the same seed is scattered in each instance, but the conditions are different, and the seed that sprouted up immediately is the one that withers and dies under the heat–the pressure and trials of life.  The soil of our hearts has to be right, or else the seed doesn’t go deep and develop any roots.  You can’t have too much sunlight, and yet can’t have too little.  You can’t have too much water, yet you can’t have too little.

Likewise, if you have too shallow of soil, the roots can’t grow deep.  Several years ago for my birthday when I was living as a missionary in Holland, some dear Dutch sisters gave me a vetplante.  I’m by no means an expert on plants and flowers, but it had very thick leaves and had an interesting ‘rubber’ like texture.  They gave it to me in a small pot, and told me it could go weeks without being watered, so that way I wouldn’t have to worry about watering it every day or having it die if I left for a few days.  Not only that, but if I put it in a larger bowl or pot, the plant would grow even larger.  Such is the case with our lives–we can only dig our roots as deep as how much room we have to grow in, and without deep roots, we’ll not have much fruit to blossom where we’re planted.

I could write a whole post on just what is needed to break up the fallow ground of one’s heart, but I think this article here that I stumbled across does an excellent job.

4) Don’t fragment the seed

The seed itself also has to be left in tact.  Nobody who knows a thing or two about farming would take a seed and split it into pieces smaller than it already is, and then sow each piece and expect a bigger harvest.  Nor would they expect partial incomplete harvest, because none would be obtained.  Why?  The image in the seed would have been destroyed by splitting and dividing it.  You can’t sow just the part of the seed responsible for leaves, and then just the part of the seed responsible for fruit, and just the part of the seed that will be responsible for wood, and expect to grow any of those components independent of the other. They are all a part of the same package.  Likewise it is with the heavenly seed, the Word of God.  We can’t add to it or take away from it.  We can’t split up any of its aspects and over-emphasize one component over the other. It all works and accomplishes something together.  We sow it as it is. The Holy Spirit will work with the written text of the Bible He authored.

5) Confess and Speak the Word

To repeat, Luke 6:45 states that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.   There’s a correlation between what someone believes & thinks in their heart, and what they choose to speak out.  Simply put, confession is a statement of your beliefs.

Ephesians 5: 18b- 20 states:

“Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

So what are you saying with your mouth?  I recommend this previous article for further Bible study on speaking and meditating on the Word of God.  If you’re storing the Word of God in your heart, you’re off to a good start in terms of stuff that you’ll be able to pull out of it and confess with your mouth based on both memory and from the Holy Spirit having something in you to draw upon.

6) Pray in tongues & Allow the Holy Spirit to work Through You

Jesus said Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ’Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ (John 7:38)  He was talking about the Holy Spirit, who ‘waters’ this seed–Word of God in us, and supplies the power to bring it to fruition.  All that you need to live holy and grow in Christ is contained in that seed.  Again, the Holy Spirit will work with the written text of the Bible He authored.

In conclusion, this list is by no means exhaustive, nor are spiritual disciplines in the Word walk limited to just these things listed, but I thought those things would help you out with unpacking the content of the faith seed.

If you’ve stumbled across this article and have never visited this site before and would like to go deeper into some of the material covered in this post further–besides the many hyperlinks throughout this article–the following are some previous posts that go into more detail:

What are You Feeding Your Tree?,  Treasures of the Heart, How’s Your Connection?, The Spirit of Truth

And please forgive me if my posts lately have had more links than a Polish sausage factory.  I just feel that these issues of personal discipline are of significant importance and I want to draw attention to other places where I covered this stuff so my individual articles aren’t too long.

I thought I’d take the time to post another “how to have faith” entry, but this time just list several Scripture verses to help remove some misunderstandings about faith and how it works and what it is believers do have exactly.  This post will be technical instead of deep and profound.

Why study faith?
Because the Bible is clear about what promises we are to obtain by faith, and what it produces in our lives or what lack of it will fail to produce. If God places within our hands the means whereby faith can be produced, then the responsibility of whether we have faith or not rests upon us. It is therefore necessary to know how this takes place if we are planning on going further into the promises of God that we obtain by faith.

Romans 12:3 – “For by the grace of God given to me, I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith God has assigned.”

• We are each given a measure or amount of faith, by the grace of God.

Ephesians 2:8 – “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God.”

• The measure of faith that we each have, is a gift from God, that He gives based on His grace towards us. We don’t ‘earn’ faith, it is a gift given.

Romans 10:17 – “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the Word of Christ.”

• Pretty simple and straightforward—hearing the Word of God produces faith. Therefore, it’s a good idea to make sure to read and study the Word of God, speak it and meditate on it, just like the following verse says:

2 Cor. 4:13 – “Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak.”

• What we believe influences what we speak. The Bible also says out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Matt 12:34). What is in your heart? What are you saying?

2 Thess. 1:3 – “We ought to always give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.”

• Our faith can grow. If it can grow abundantly, then the opposite must also be possible, in that believers can fail to grow in the area of faith. If it can grow, or stay small, then that must mean believers can be at different degrees of growth when it comes to having faith, would it not?

Romans 4:19-20 – “He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead (since he was a hundred years old), or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God.”

• We can be strong in faith, or we can be weak in faith. Notice “Abraham grew strong in his faith AS he gave glory to God”. It’s reasonable to assume that your faith will grow if you decide to glorify God while you’re waiting for the promise you’re believing for to finally come to pass. Don’t keep asking God to fulfill His promise, but glorify Him and thank Him for it.
  

1 John 5:14-15 says “And this is the confidence we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.”

• Thank God and praise Him for the answer to your prayer before the answer has been manifested. This is KEY to seeing the promise fulfilled.

Philippians 4:6-7 also brings this to light, as it says “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

• If we believe God has granted us the answer to what we ask of Him we will not be anxious in waiting for its fulfillment. Anxiety over if God will fulfill His promise is symptomatic of a heart that is uncertain of whether God will in fact answer. If you are seeking something He has promised in His Word, then you can know His will on the matter, and seek the answer more confidently. If you don’t give your prayer with supplication AND thanksgiving (before the answer has come) then God won’t in turn guard your heart and give you the peace that keeps you from being anxious about it.

Another important component to developing faith is found in Hebrews 11. The whole chapter is great, but for brevity’s sake, let’s look at verse 6 “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He is and that He rewards those who seek Him.” If you have a translation of the Bible that words it that believers are to believe that God “exists” grab a pen and scribble the word out and put “is” instead. Many modern translations mistranslate this when the original text has a connotation of God “being” [as He is]. Believers in Jesus Christ ALREADY know that He exists! What are believers to believe God “is”? Read the rest of the verse—that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him.

The believer will have a hard time standing on any promise in the Word of God if they stumble over the fact that God is provider or any other character trait made clear in His word about Himself. “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill? (Num 23:19) Any doubt of who God is and if He will perform what He has promised will cause the believer not to seek God, Who is a rewarder of those who seek Him. It’s as simple as that.

I strongly suggest this past post on mountain-moving faith, for more on how we bring ourselves to that point, because I’m going to say some things as though the reader is already familiar with the concepts found in Mark 11:23-24. Jesus never told us just to believe. But he did tell us to speak, and believe that we will have the things we say/pray for. Again, notice the speaking and what we confess. What are we told in this passage to believe? That the things we say WILL come to pass. So what are you saying? Are you whining all the time about your problems? Or are you speaking victory and freedom? We are told to speak to the mountain what God’s Word says, but most Christians speak to God about the mountain.

Too many Christians are like Pharisees and don’t have a clue they are. I’m not talking about the legalistic obedience of man-made rules—I’m talking of the ones who won’t and don’t believe until they see. That’s not faith. “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). If you could see it, then that wouldn’t be faith. When most Christians say they’re cautious and skeptical of something (like healing) and they won’t accept it until they see it for themselves, they’re really just broadcasting their ignorance and unbelief. Believing it when you see it is knowledge, but not faith. These believers are walking by sight, not faith. Bless their hearts.

More Scripture verses on faith:
James 2:5 – “Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which He has promised to those who love Him?”

• If we can be rich in faith, we can be poor in faith also, wouldn’t you agree? It doesn’t take being poor in this world’s standards to be rich in faith either, you know!

Acts 6:5a – “And what they said pleased the whole gathering, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit”

• If we can be full of faith, do you think we can be empty and lacking it? Or running on near empty?

James 2:22 – “You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works.”

• Again, I hope my over-simplification of these verses doesn’t sound condescending or patronizing, but most Christians don’t think of these things: if your faith can be active, it can be inactive. It can lack actions to demonstrate or go along with the confession of your mouth. Faith is active and demonstrated by actions, not just a mental belief. Check this entry for more on how faith is not mental.

1 Tim 1:5 – “The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”

• If faith can be sincere, it can be insincere, no?

1 Tim 1:19 – “Holding faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this some have made shipwreck of their faith.”

• How do people shipwreck their faith, by the way?

1 John 5:4 – “For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.”

• Faith is how we overcome. If we are not overcoming, is it possible, according to this verse, that maybe–just maybe–we aren’t walking in our faith? If our faith is how we overcome, then yes!

Now I strongly suggest going over these verses for yourself, memorizing them, studying them, familiarizing yourself with them even if you think you already know them.  I don’t like formulas, but something that can help you is the following if you’re facing a mountain you need to speak to and throw into the sea—and make sure you have your bathing suit on, too.

A Four Step Formula for Faith:
1- Find a promise in God’s Word for whatever you are seeking.
2- Believe God’s word as you would the word from a friend.
3- Do not consider the contradictory circumstances
4- Praise God for the answer, acting on the Word of God.

If this entry blessed you and you’d like to hear further teaching on faith and how to have more of it, then consider listening to this teaching of mine on the subject:

Faith and Healing -

Download mp3 (right click and save)

And be sure to let me know if you got that pair of socks you were believing for (see last post’s analogy).

As they passed by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. And Peter remembered and said to him, “Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.” And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
Mark 11:20-24, ESV

This text will be the basis of this post. In case you have any doubt where I’m going with this, this is a blog study on faith, and on confessing and speaking the Word of God.  There’s power in our words, and it’s important to be confessing the right things with our mouths.

There’s this erroneous sacred cow in many Christian circles that it’s rude to teach people to have more faith than they already do. Many teach and preach that “all it takes is faith the size of a mustard seed to move mountains.” Not so. If it took faith the size of a mustard seed, we’d have all the mountains moved already. The parallel in Matthew’s Gospel–where Jesus makes the statement about one having faith like (not ”the size” of) a grain of mustard seed can move a mountain–immediately followed the incident where the disciples were unable to cast a demon out of a boy, and He told them they failed to do it because of their little faith. So likewise, this passage in Mark is NOT saying faith can be small and accomplish major things.  In a way, this entry is a continuation of the thoughts I began to unpack there, but tied into the theme as of late on the words we speak.

Notice first of all, that in Mark’s account, Jesus curses the fig tree and then keeps going on his way to the temple which He cleanses. Then, according to verse 20, they passed by it the next morning and saw the results of the word Jesus spoke. He didn’t lay a hand on it and proclaim a lightning bolt to zap it. He cursed it with His words. There’s the power of life and death in the tongue, and we can use it for blessing or cursing (James 3:9-11). This is an example of it being used for righteously cursing something.

Sometimes people’s main objection to faith for divine healing, is lack of instantaneous results, but we need to remember something: the fig tree didn’t demonstrate any outward evidence that it had been cursed and no longer bearing fruit. According to this account, it may not have been noticable until a day later. Sometimes speaking the Word of God over our circumstances doesn’t yield a noticable result right away, but in the Spirit the prayer has been answered and the outward circumstances are already in the process of changing. Maybe the cancer in that person’s body has been removed, and now the body needs normal healing to recuperate from all the damage that the stupid curse has caused. At any rate, we walk by faith and not by sight, and sometimes appearances don’t tell the whole story. Like the fig tree, the roots of a problem can be dealt with but the branches don’t look dead right away.

That leads me to my next point. Do you really think you’ll have the guts to speak to a mountain in your life if you only have a little bit of faith that your words will move that thing and cast it into the ocean? Of course not! If you’re going to speak to the mountains in your life, you better have your bathing suit on because you’re going to get wet! Most of us ARE our own problem when it comes to faith for the impossible. Most of us are ‘functional atheists.’ We give the Word of God lip service and generally have a mental ascent that certain doctrines are true, but we live our lives as though God doesn’t really do what the Word says He does. There’s many people who “believe” in divine healing, but I’d never waste my time going to them for prayer if I needed a miracle in my body because I know they already have ruled out the possibility anything will happen if they pray, and would just pray out of respect or to be nice, but not out of the place of being convinced that their prayers bear fruit. Whooops–I’m getting sidetracked.

Let’s tackle some observations I’ve made about the text. As usual, I’m reading from the ESV:

• Jesus mentions speaking three times.
• Jesus mentions believing/expecting/having faith three times
• It appears that believing that what one says will come to pass is a prerequisite for it to come to pass.
• The people who can move mountains are the ‘whoevers’. I dare to believe this applies to every believer. Are you a whoever?
• Doubting is a pre-requisite for making sure the thing you ask doesn’t come to pass.
• Both believing, and speaking are necessary to yield the result of the mountain being removed and cast into the sea, and not one aspect over the other.
• Jesus mentions speaking to the mountain, and not to God about the mountain

What else do we know about faith?

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Heb 11:1) How do you have assurance for the things you’re hoping for? You find out God’s will. How do you find out God’s will? You find and meditate on passages of Scripture that deal with the specific mountain you’re speaking to. For example, if you need healing, you meditate and study Bible passages dealing with healing.  If you are having a hard time believing your needs will be met, you study passages where God promises to feed the sparrow or clothe the lilies (Matt 6:25-34), and remind yourself of what He says He will do. You give yourself assurance by knowing His Word from reading what is written in it.

As it says in 1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests we have asked.”
The best way to know His will, is to read it. The Bible is His will in detail. This passage says we know we have what ask IF we’re praying according to His will.

“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” James 1:6-8

Do you have confidence and not doubt in your heart? Faith is knowing it will happen, when you have no outward evidence to believe this from. That’s what makes it different than hope. Faith is certain, whereas hope doesn’t know for sure what will happen. Also, this part in James here should be used every time someone insists nobody needs more faith or that we all have the same amount. If I’ve heard it or been told it once, I’ve been told it a thousand times: “How can you say someone doesn’t have enough faith for something?” Easy, if they have faith for the thing, it will come to pass. BUT, faith requires perseverance. Most people have an “I-believe-God-could-do-that-and-I-hope-that-he-will“, but that’s not faith–faith requires the tenacity to keep going for it until it happens. Hope begs God to come through, not knowing if He will or not. Faith is certain that He will, with no doubting. James says if a double-minded man should not expect to receive anything from the Lord, then don’t you think the opposite of double-minded, a single-focused man will?  If faith is not faith without works (James 2:14-26) , then neither is doubt really doubt unless it is accompanied by it corresponding works (actions opposite of faith). Faith requires action, and doubt requires action in order for it to be doubt.

Pit bull faith.

I remember not long ago, I was reading in the newspaper or online something somewhere south in the USA, how a pitbull attacked a man, and the neighbors came and were beating on the dog and trying to get it to let go of this guy’s arm. It would not let up and they kept beating on it and grabbing it and trying to force it off of this guy it was attacking, but to no avail, and he was bleeding all over the place. Finally someone got a rifle and killed that dog and it still had it’s teeth sunk into the guy’s flesh!

You need to be like a pitbull in believing God and having faith for the impossible, and determine that you’re not letting go of the promises in His Word until you see them come to pass in your life. I know that sounds blasphemous to some of you. Incidentally that’s part of the reason I’m not a Calvinist (as it’s popularly taught and understood): because there’s things that are not ‘willed’ to automatically happen with no involvement–or let me use the word ‘initiative’–on our part, but we need to go for it. God has done his part and now it’s up to us to persevere and receive. Remember the PERSISTENT widow in Luke 18? The first verse says Jesus told them that they ought always to pray and not lose heart. The problem is most of us hardly ever pray, and DO lose heart.

Steve, this stuff sounds really “name it and claim it, blab it and grab it” to me.

I know. But if you want to see an example of believing in your heart and saying with your mouth and believing what you say will come to pass and then having it come to pass that you probably have already done, then remember what the Bible says in Romans 10:9-10: “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”

Romans 10:9-10 is simply Mark 11:23-24 applied specifically to salvation. The human soul getting born again is the ultimate moving of a mountain! You believe, you speak, and what you believe and speak ACCORDING to God’s will, happens. God’s will is for all to be saved (2 Peter 3:9), therefore, someone coming to Him in faith, confessing with their mouth, and believing in their heart, causes them to receive what they are promised by Him to receive from having believed and confessed according to His instruction in the Word about it. You have to meet the conditions of the promise in order to receive the promise, and God would not promise you something if he had no intention of giving it to you when you meet the conditions He lays out.

God is not a respecter of persons (Acts 10:34) which means He doesn’t favor one person’s request over another or respect them more than you. God won’t withold from you something if He promises it in the Word–that’s why it’s in there, so you CAN know what He promises. “God is not a man that He should lie, or a son of man, that He should change His mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19). “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” (James 1:17).

So all  believers and followers of Christ reading this–you have already put this principle into practice in your life by initially getting saved. It’s just that few of us speak to mountains and believe in our heart they will move when it comes to other areas of our lives. We’re afraid we’ll be selfish. We’re afraid it will work. We’re afraid we’ll go off into practicing this in weird areas of our lives like cars and big houses like some other ministers do. We’re also afraid we won’t ask for the right things or that God will say ‘no’. He won’t say no if you’re praying according to the promises in His Word. The promises of God in Him are ‘yes’ and ‘amen’ (2 Cor 1:20). If you get the answer ‘no’, then either a demon is speaking to you or you’re praying differently than what the Word of God gives you any right to believe for. If you’re praying contrary to the Word of God, and have no promise from Him to stand on, then you are in presumption or foolishness or both, and I cannot guarantee you what will happen.

That’s why constant Bible reading and meditation is important. It renews your mind so you can know what the will of God is. (Romans 12:2)

If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy a class from our Fire For Life Summer School a couple of years ago, where I taught more on this subject:

Faith & Healing:
Download mp3 (right click and save)

I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch of mine that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.

John 15:1-8

Someone was telling me recently about some observations they’ve made concerning a vine his parents have in their front yard. He was telling me that when the useless branches are cut off, they really don’t do anything but die and need to be thrown away or used in a fire. He went on to explain to me, that if you don’t prune the branches that are bearing fruit, then the vine grows very large, and has leaves and branches everywhere, but only very tiny grapes. The reason you prune the branches is so that the ingredients that travel from the roots in the ground and through the stem will make it all the way to the grapes on the ends of the branches, and thereby produce more in quality and size. The less spread-out their pathways are, the more ‘focus’ and concentration–if you will—the juice will have, so that the fruit that is coming forth will be larger and more plentiful.

So in other words, the energy is channeled into specific branches, instead of spread too thin all over the whole vine.

Time and again, the Bible uses the imagery of wine to describe the Holy Spirit and His work in our lives. We obviously get wine from grapes, and so the implications of this passage and the work of the Holy Spirit are made clear, especially given that in the previous chapter and the one following, Jesus went into detailed explanation of the role He’d play in the believer’s life.

The clearest I have ever been able to hear God clearly, has been when I cut out of my life the junk that kept me just bearing leaves and tiny grapes. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a leaf-bearing tree. There’s nothing wrong in and of itself when a tree has a lot of leaves—that’s just the point. It may look nice from a distance, but in your hunger when you approach that tree looking for food, you are sadly disappointed and go elsewhere to satisfy that hunger. Jesus cursed a fig tree that only had leaves, but nothing to feed his hunger. What does He think when He comes to your life expecting fruit? Does He find any?

Jude also called such people ‘clouds without water’ (Jude 12), when talking specifically of false teachers. There’s many trees in our midst but since the tree looks good, we think nothing of it. But is your hunger and thirst for spiritual matters satisfied by such? Is there healing in those branches? There’s many false teachers out there, making rules like ‘tongues are not for today‘ and ‘it’s ok to ordain practicing homosexuals to the ministry.’ But the culture around us disintegrates because we the church are mostly clouds without water, trees without fruit substituting power and truth with proper theology.

Jesus Himself told the scribes and pharisees “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” (John 5:39-40).  What kind of vessel does the Holy Spirit use–one who has their theological ducks in a row and is not too “imbalanced”, or one who is YIELDED to Him fully, in whatever HE may desire of the vessel? The Holy Spirit and His work is just as resisted, rejected and taught against and ignored as something demonic and not heavenly, as Jesus’ was when He walked the earth in His day.

Now, of course I’m not saying that Jesus ‘curses’ us, His children for not bearing fruit. But we do have texts like the one quoted at the beginning of this entry that we have to contend with. What do eternal securists who believe once you’re saved you’re always saved do with passages of Scripture that say things like ‘if you the branch don’t bear fruit you’re cut off and thrown into the fire?!’ But that’s another topic for another time, sorry to digress.

But everything in God’s kingdom gets the knife. The second verse of John 15 states that the branches that don’t bear fruit, get cut off, and the branches that bear fruit get pruned, so they can produce more fruit. Either way, we can decide if we’ll give certain things up in our lives so that we can be more fruit-bearing, or we can let God cut them off Himself. When we wait for Him to do it for us, it’s always more painful than if we just willingly lay things down on the altar of His grace.

Everything in the kingdom of God gets the knife one way or another. Does God have to prune you, or does He have to cut things off? When He prunes, it’s so that we bear more fruit, and can yield “larger grapes”. So that the Holy Spirit wine can flow through the veins of our branches all the more easier. But in order to discuss the Holy Spirit as wine flowing through our lives, it’s necessary to make a little detour for a moment.

Fruit vs. Gifts
The Holy Spirit’s work within the believer produces the following fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). When Jesus comes to you looking to quench His thirst, does he find fruit like this in your life? The fruit of the Holy Spirit is not to be confused with the gifts (or more appropriately, enablements of power) of the Holy Spirit. Jesus told his disciples the Holy Spirit would be with them and in them (John 14:17), but then he also told them to not leave Jerusalem until they received power from on high. This obviously is a different experience altogether than when they received the Holy Spirit within, or else Jesus would have been mistaken or foolish to tell them not to leave Jerusalem until they received something they already had!

The baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a synonym for receiving the Holy Spirit upon salvation. For one thing, Jesus told them to tarry in Jerusalem until they received power, and did not tell them to wait until they “got saved”, “reborn”, or “regenerated” or any other synonym used to describe the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives upon salvation. They were bearing evidence of salvation already when they met to pray in the upper room every day until that famous day of Pentecost. And lest you think otherwise, let me remind you how rare it is to find unbelievers gathering in groups to pray every day to God! The burden of proof is on those who say we’re baptized in the Holy Spirit AND indwelt by Him both at the point of salvation, to explain away Scripture; for example how come it happened as separate experiences in the Bible, and to explain how the disciples could not possibly be saved already until Acts 2. The explanations I’ve been given or heard take hermeneutical and logical acrobats in order to hold water, and aren’t persuasive enough for me to list and refute all here.

When Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he was writing to a group of believers who already had both experiences—this is where many people make their exegetical (fancy Bible interpretation word) mistakes and start making assumptions about all that’s promised in the empowerment from on high is included in the role the Holy Spirit plays when he dwells in us upon getting saved. The two experiences, in my opinion were never meant to be separate but all believers should have and want this baptism for power in their witness for Christ, and the earlier they get it the better. When I witness to people and pray alongside them giving their lies to Jesus, I also take them through the steps of how the Holy Spirit will come on them also for power to witness for Christ, as well as in them for lifestyle–and it’s SO much easier to lead someone in this prayer as a baby Christian because they don’t have all the bad theology to unlearn and years of living without the power of the Holy Spirit to resist. But it sure would be nice if this experience DID happen at the point of salvation with every individual believer!

Interesting to note also, is that we have two groups of nine connected with the work of the Holy Spirit; nine fruit in Galatians 5, and nine gifts in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.  The fruit might be referred to the character traits resulting from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit: fruit grows on the branch because of the life within the tree. The fruit of the Spirit is demonstrative of the indwelling and fruit-bearing of the Holy Spirit in our lives as individual believers. The gifts of the Spirit are for service to the Body and the lost, and not ourselves, as a community where each individual constituting the whole, does its part.

We need to stay connected to the vine, and abide in Him or we’re not going to produce any character traits of the Spirit, or flow more fluidly in the gifts of the Spirit.

If you enjoyed this post or were blessed by it, then you may enjoy mp3s we have for free download on our podcast dealing with these same subjects:

Fire On Your Head Episode 21: Spiritual Disciplines
Download mp3 (right click and save)

Transformed into the Image of Christ – message by Bob Gladstone
Download mp3 (right click and save)

Hindrances to the Baptism in The Holy Spirit
Download mp3 (right click and save)

More Hindrances To a Spiritual Life
Download mp3 (right click and save)

“For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”
Luke 6:43-45

This is a passage that pretty much anybody who is saved has heard, quoted, maybe memorized or studied. It’s “christianese” to most of us, but let’s look at something usually overlooked, especially in light of the theme of my posts lately concerning the words we speak and the power of them. Much of what I’m going to present should be familiar passages of Scripture, but presented from angles you might not have taken time to consider.

When reading and studying Scripture it’s extremely important to keep context in mind, and it’s highly recommended that the Sermon on the Mount in either Matthew 5-7 or Luke 6, is something believers study and meditate on. In fact, there’s plenty of gold to unpack in the end of this chapter of Luke, and things are in the order they are in because there’s a correlation between each thought, and the Holy Spirit saw to it that our writings are the way they are–and written in the order they are–for a reason.

I don’t think many of you need to be told or have explained to you what a treasure is. The Word of God says elsewhere that where your treasure is, there your heart is also (Matt 6:21). If your treasure is valuable to you, its protected. Strong’s Concordance says of treasure, that this is the place in which good and precious things are collected and laid up. Is it not true that many people keep valuables in things like chests and safes, hidden somewhere that can’t be reached easily by just anybody except the persons entrusted with it? In fact, safes are made out of such strong metals and materials, that even if a house burns down, whatever is in those safes is still protected and you still can’t hardly break into them to get what’s inside! That’s why they call them ’safes’, eh. Then it’s no secret as to why Solomon said the following:

“My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. For they are life to those who find them, and healing to all their flesh. Keep [guard] your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.” Proverbs 4:20-24, emphasis mine. Again remember how these passages deal with the tongue bringing forth what’s in the heart. Guard your treasure.

What are you saying?

Ephesians 5:18-20 states: Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The implications are clear: When we’re filled with the Spirit, we’re saying something. We’re singing something. There’s something different about our hearts and words. There’s rivers of living water that flow out of us (John 7:37-39). It’s incredibly obvious that words and speaking are one of the tell-tale signs of this. Blessing and cursing cannot be coming out of the same overflow (James 3:10), anymore than fig trees don’t bear thorns, and vice versa.

Look at how the Amplified Bible translates verse 45 of our text (emphasis mine):

“The upright (honorable, intrinsically good) man out of the good treasure [stored] in his heart produces what is upright (honorable and intrinsically good), and the evil man out of the evil storehouse brings forth that which is depraved (wicked and intrinsically evil); for out of the abundance (overflow) of the heart his mouth speaks.”

What are you storing up in your heart?

I’ve said before in my posts,  if you sit and watch hours of TV a day or play video games constantly and spend only 15 minutes in the Word, you’re not in a healthy place as far as your spiritual inner man is concerned. The stuff you feed your heart is what will be there to come out of your mouth. You can’t speak to mountains and tell them to move if you’ve got nothing in there to say. You are what you eat. Everything we watch, read, spend our time doing–is feeding our spirits in some way, whether good or bad. “Harmless” things–even if not outright sinful–if they aren’t things that produce growth in our spiritual lives, then they are useless foods. Junk food in the natural doesn’t prepare us for extensive muscle use, neither does spiritual junk food prepare our use of spiritual muscle during fiery trials and tribulations. Jesus Himself said anyone not working for Him is working against Him. I’m not against TV and movie watching in and of itself–I’m against how much time people spend doing these things. Most Christians don’t want to admit it, but Hollywood and Nashville are preaching to them more than the Lord is, and these things filter their understanding of spiritual things. I know it’s impossible to chart every single thing we watch, talk about, do, read and make sure none of it is wasteful, but trying to live by that standard is definitely better than not bothering to at all–for the sake of your heart.

I know I’m sounding legalistic to some readers. But I’ve written before on how discipline is needed in the Christian life, but it’s not the same thing as legalism. I read some of the blogs out there, Facebooks, MySpace sites and just plain talk to some of you who will be reading this, and I cringe at some of the things so many believers are comfortable participating in!–in any of the cultures I have set my foot in. As a sidenote, can you really picture the disciples with Jesus in the boat or laying around a camp fire, and discussing the latest episode of The Office that was on the night before? Or if anybody had downloaded the newest Spiderman movie illegally on the internet? I’m not preaching against those idols in particular, it’s up to you to decide if idols in your life are idols that need to be destroyed.

But it’s also up to you how much you want to hear the voice of God clearly in your life and have more of the Scriptures come up from inside your spirit more often and more deeply, then I guarantee you–I say from experience–the junk needs to be cut out! It dulls you. Too many Christians are insensitive to the Holy Spirit because they’re too desensitized by the junk and dope of this world. Unblock and unclog the things in your life/spirit/heart/soul/[whatever the spot is exactly]–and remove the things that are in the way and polluting your vessel. Yes, God uses impure people to accomplish His will. Yes, God ‘uses us in spite of us‘, but imagine how much more He could have His way if we were giving ourselves more to His purposes than our own vain pursuits and entertainments?

That is not a rhetorical question, by the way!

If you enjoyed this post or were blessed by it, then you may enjoy mp3s we have for free download on our podcast dealing with these same subjects:

Fire On Your Head Episode 21: Spiritual Disciplines
Download mp3 (right click and save)

Transformed into the Image of Christ – message by Bob Gladstone
Download mp3 (right click and save)

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Psalm 1:1-2

“This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Joshua 1:8

If you’re a good Jesus-loving, sin hating, Bible reading follower of Christ, you’ve probably come across passages like this and many other ones in the Psalms, that talk of meditating on the Word of God, ‘day and night‘. This is not some new-agey practice. But seriously, if the Bible talks about something a lot, then we need to take seriously what it repeats, and find out what it means.

The word for meditate used here in the Hebrew is ‘hagah‘. It comes from the root word ‘hagiyg, which literally means “whisper, musing, or murmuring”. Hagah literally means “to moan, growl, utter, muse, mutter, meditate, devise, plot, speak.”

Interesting isn’t it? I don’t know about you, but I think moaning, growling and muttering are kind of aggressive or at least deliberate speech in nature. Almost all of these renderings involve speaking, or orating in some fashion. When the word of God talks of meditating on the law of the Lord, this is not some kind of setting where you sit on the floor with your legs crossed and quietly ponder something, with candles and incense burning and other weird new age type of concepts that come to mind when we think of meditating. Biblical meditation involves speaking.

How do I know this for certain?

For one thing, you don’t need to look up the original Hebrew in order to come to this conclusion, for the passage in Joshua says in the same sentence “this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth.” The writer defines what meditation is. This makes a lot more sense when you read the psalms, where much of the time the psalmists talk about meditating on the book of the law, the same word hagah or hagiyg is used in the Hebrew. Have you ever wondered how on earth it’s possible to ‘meditate’ on the Bible day and night? According to the common modern day understanding of meditation, this would be an impossible feat, since no average Christian has the time or self-discipline to give this much focus to studying and focusing our attention ‘day and night’ on the things of the Lord. It’s simply impossible with all the other daily responsibilities the average Christian and human being needs to tend to.

But we can speak any time we want to, day or night. Alone or in public. Walking somewhere or laying still in our beds.

You can speak Scriptures out loud concerning topics that are important to where you are at in your relationship with God right now. If you need physical healing, ‘meditate’ and speak out loud (confess) Scriptures on the subject of healing, and you will build your spirit up and increase your faith in that area. The Bible says in Romans 10:17 that faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. In order to be hearing the Word of God, someone needs to be saying it, correct?

Notice the rendering in the King James Version for Psalm 2:1: “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine (hagah) a vain thing?” Remember the way we looked in a previous blog entry about how the heart/beliefs are intertwined with the mouth/words. So say and imagine the Word of God and things of the Lord, day and night, and then like the rest of Joshua 1:8 says “so that you may be careful to do all that is written in it (the things written in the book of the Law). For then you shall make your way prosperous and then you will have good success.

Look at some other uses of the word (in the ESV translation):

“Those who seek my life lay their snares; those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long.” Psalm 38:12

“When I remember you upon my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night.” Psalm 63:6

“When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints.” Psalm 77:3

In the New Testament, the Greek word that gets translated is not much different than the Hebrew Old Testament one. In the KJV, Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 21:14–in the context of impending persecution they’d face–to “Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer.” In the same translation, Paul told Timothy “Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.” 1 Timothy 4:15. The English Standard Version replaces meditate with the word ‘practice’.

In the Greek, the original word for ‘meditate upon’ is 1) to care for, attend to carefully, practise 2) to meditate i.e. to devise, contrive a) used of the Greeks of the meditative pondering and the practice of orators and rhetoricians.

Again, this is directly tied into to SPEAKING the things of God and His Word.

If you’ve ever tried memorizing anything, Scripture in particular, you’ll know that the most effective way you’ve retained what you tried memorizing, was from repeating it to yourself or someone else over and over again. There’s something about being able to store information in our spirits from speaking it a lot. So, with all this in mind, I highly recommend doing so. In Hebrew culture, much orating was done at young ages, in order that the law of the Lord could be remembered. If they were doing that with the Old Testament law, then how much more us with the words of life!?

If you’re struggling with a besetting sin, then I’d recommend meditating and speaking about verses from places like Romans 4-8 and just feed your spirit stuff on practical holiness. If you are facing a mountain in your life, speak to it and confess the Word of God concerning the promises He makes in the Bible concerning that thing you’re believing for, and like the Bible says, you can cast that mountain into the sea.

If you enjoyed this post, you may enjoy the episode of our podcast where we discussed these concepts in more depth:

Download mp3 (right click and save)

I’ve decided to go in a certain direction with my entries on this site for a little while. This will be the first of around 6-8 posts, based on a series of personal blog entries I posted in the Spring of 2007 while living in Holland.  I had been putting something into practice in my personal life, and I felt like I finally “got it” and that this is not just something spooky spiritual that charismatic flakes do.  So check back every Monday for each entry in this study.

I want to spend this post doing a cursory Scripture study on the importance of the words we speak. I notice this kind of teaching is not something noncharismatic/evangelicals really teach a lot on other than token messages or devotionals on ‘the power of life and death lies in the tongue’ teaching from Proverbs and of James chapter 3.

Anyway, that being said, let’s hit the ground running…

The Bible says in Matthew 12:34b-37:
For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”

It’s worth noting the correlation that exists between what someone believes and thinks in their heart, and what they choose to speak out. What are you saying? If you read the book of Proverbs for more than 10 minutes, you will notice that many of the comparison and contrast proverbs involve speaking. “The wise man says this, but the fool says that.” Over and over again. But in my recent re-habit of Scripture memorization, I noticed when repeating the words in some of those verses I’d written down on little cards, how many times ‘mouth’ is used interchangeably with ‘heart’, and decided to put much effort into looking into the Scriptures and focus on that subject where I see it when I’m reading the Word. I’ve highlighted texts using a specific colored highlighter, all over the Psalms and wisdom books of the Bible, and New Testament where I find passages on words, speaking, and meditating (which I will get to in next week’s entry of mine). It blows my mind how much there is in the Word of God on this subject, and virtually nobody teaches it, other than messages on how we’re to edify and encourage others with our words. Which I’m not against.  I just believe it doesn’t end there.

“I will praise you, O Lord with all my heart, I will tell of all your wonders.” Psalm 9:1

“Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary? Who may live on your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless, and does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellowman.“ Psalm 15:1-3

“Therefore my heart is glad, and my tongue rejoices.“ Psalm 16:9

“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock, and my Redeemer.” Psalm 19

“The fool says in his heart there is no God…“ Psalm 53:1

We are told in Psalm 66:1-3a “Shout with joy to God, all the earth! Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious! Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!“

The psalmist said “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations. I will declare that your love stands firm forever, that you established your faithfulness in heaven.“ Psalm 89:1-2. The writer didn’t say I “will sing in my head”. The psalmist didn’t say “I will think your praises and hope people telepathically figure out I love you.”

No, there was speaking involved.

“Even in your thought, do not curse the king, nor in your bedroom curse the rich,
for a bird of the air will carry your voice, or some winged creature tell the matter.” (Ecclesiastes 10:20).

Again, we see the writer weaving in and out of thoughts and speaking out loud to demonstrate that it’s necessary to be careful what we are thinking, because we could accidentally say it and suffer consequences.

Not that I’ve never done this myself–of course–but a slightly funny example of seeing someone else blurt out their thoughts of hatred towards someone comes to mind. One time in a class of mine at Bible school, the teacher was praising the good work that someone on staff had done in a certain area, and told us all to say something positive to her, let her know how much we all appreciate her, and to bless her. Then, oddly, someone sitting near me, very loudly added “yeah, with a brick.”  I might add, that the saying ‘bless him/her with a brick” was jokingly understood in our circle as a way of asking the Lord to deal with someone we didn’t like much and drop a brick on their head for us.

It was obvious for a second that this brother had no idea he said that out loud, but the whole class heard it and the professor said “and we’ll just ignore that comment and some of us can check our hearts.” It was awkward as this classmate realized he blurted an inner personal thought out loud to his embarrassment. I’m sure I’ve done the same thing many times, I just thought this example was interesting as a witness to refer to for my point.

Those are just a few verses to scratch the surface for now. If you take a highlighter to the Psalms and just mark in your Bibles the times words and praises are mentioned like the above examples, you will start to have a coloring book in that part of your Bible.

Jesus, full of the Word (being the Word Himself) quoted Scripture when the devil came and tempted Him (Matthew 4:4, 7, 10). He also told his disciples the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and that’s what can make a person unclean. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. (Matthew 15:18-19). It’s for this reason alone that I have no respect for Christians using their mouth to cuss, since many words we use as swear words are based on actions of immorality–and we’re not to speak of what the ungodly do in secret (Ephesians 5:12). I don’t care if something the apostle Paul said here or there was like cussing in his language in his day–most Christians who justify cussing do it for shock value, and usually in an immature way, or are just immature in their use of vocabulary. I know I’m meddling with some people who are and will be reading this, but deal with it–we’re called to be people of excellence in deed and speech. Proverbs 4:23-24 says to “keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life. Put away from you crooked speech, and put devious talk far from you.“ And Ephesians 4:29: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear“.

Nuff said about that.

Confession.
The Scriptures say a lot on the topic of confession, but we’re too afraid of delving into it because we’re afraid we’ll get flaky. But I hope to get into examples of how many Christians already do ‘confession’. I’m not talking about standing in your empty garage and confessing you have 5 limousines. I’m not saying I stand in front of a mirror, and put one hand on my head and say “I have a full head of hair“, all the while oblivious to reality. I’m talking about confessing the Word of God over our problems, lives, circumstances.   We’ll get into the Scriptures on that in the weeks to come, since I don’t want to leave it here and have readers go away from this entry and get flaky.

Bible Studies for a Firm Foundation, a book Bob Weiner puts out, has the following to say about confession:

“Very few Christians actually realize the place that confession holds in God’s scheme of things. Unfortunately, whenever the word ‘confession’ is used, many invariably think of confessing sins, weaknesses, and failures. That is the negative side of confession. There is, however, a positive side of confession, which the Bible has more to say about than the negative. Webster’s dictionary defines “confession” not only as a confession of sins, but as a ’statement of one’s beliefs; especially those of the Christian faith.’ That is why true Christianity throughout the centuries has been known as ‘The Great Confession.” Webster’s dictionary also defines ‘confessor’ as a “a Christian who has suffered for his faith.” The apostles and early fathers of the faith were “bold confessors” of the Word of God.” p. 93

Simply put, confession is a statement of your beliefs. So what are you saying with your mouth?

Revelation 12:11 says “And they conquered him [the devil] by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.“

When I worked at Hope Valley Day Camp years ago in the summertime, the leaders made us volunteers memorize passages of Scripture referred to as ’salvation verses’ and ‘assurance verses’, so we would know how to show kids who were wanting to give their lives to Jesus passages that showed them how. I say that as a way of indicating I know many Christians, even in evangelical circles already know what confession is in a sense:

Worship

For so long people have searched and scoured the earth for some form of satisfaction that will last. People have gone to incredible lengths to find satisfaction in their life. Risking life, family and health to see if they can find something that will fill that longing in their soul.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.  Psalm 107:9.

Some have turned to drugs, alcohol, pornography, friendships, marriage, success and all sorts of other things. Even trying religion. But many walk out of churches disgusted and disheartened that the people there are as hungry and searching out broken cisterns as anyone else.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.

I believe compellingly, rationally and fully that the answer to the above question is yes. But I want to examine some objections and hindrances that people have in coming to that conclusion

Where is God when I cry out to him?
Why are Christians so bored?
Why is pornography so rampant in the church if God really satisfied?
Wouldn’t christians be willing to undergo any sacrifice, any length and depth of hardship because God was so deeply satisfying that nothing else would be a matter of consequence in their decision-making?

I would contend and fight for the conclusion that God does satisfy, truly and deeply. There is nothing else, no entertainment, no drug, or high that can even come close to the level of fulfillment and satisfaction that there is in God.

He Satisfies the longing Soul.

Then why is he so hard to find? Why do so few find him and experience that deeply satisfying relationship?

I know that in my journey of life for many years even after I had become a Christian knowing this fulfillment and deep peace was only a momentary and fleeting thing. Every once in awhile I might experience it, but for the most part I never came to that place. I struggled with acceptance, loneliness and lust throughout high school, as well sometimes feeling like God wasn’t even there. It probably hasn’t even been until this last year of my life that I really began to encounter God in ways that I never had before and it has made all the difference.

He satisfies the longing Soul.

I don’t need to make friends to fill my desire for acceptance, or do things well to gain the approval of those people that I respect. Or look at images to fulfill my desire for a relationship with a girl. I can finally say in honesty that He is enough. He is truly sufficient for every need. There are times when I don’t feel that way but I know it’s true. Even in our weakness and human frailty he is sufficient.

I find that the extent that a Christian worships and has experienced the presence of God is that extent to which a Christian is satisfied in God above all other earthly things.

He satisfies the longing soul.

The truth of the matter is we have tried again and again to quench our thirst from empty and broken cisterns.

for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.
Jeremiah 2:13

I am longing again for that passionate fulfilled life, that place where he is the only one that I go to fulfill every need. Lord, please help me in my pursuit of you, for even in this I need you and I can’t do it without you.

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.”
-Jesus

Isn’t that a catchy title? I know that messes with some of your heads and sounds pretty blasphemous to some, but I almost mentioned this in a previous entry on faith, and realized I needed to devote a whole entry to it. This is a detour on the ’speaking’ theme, but I’ll get right back to it in the next post.

Believe it or not, I honestly try to keep my entries short, and multiple-part entries are more favorable to me than big long ones. After positive, but private feedback I got through Facebook in response to my previous blog entry on moving mountains with our words, I knew I had to visit this subject just a little bit more before continuing and hopefully feed the pitbull in you all (see last post). So allow me to say that faith is ’selfish’–or at least it’s persistent and doesn’t care what anybody says or thinks, but goes for what it’s seeking. Nothing can or will stop it.