Stepping Out In Faith, Part 1

We want to always obtain the promises before we’ve done the will of God, but that’s backwards. God’s Word says, “So that after you have done the will of God that you may obtain the promises.” You have need of endurance, of perseverance. You’re going to have to learn to persevere and honor the process. As we’ve said before, every one of us is somewhere between where we used to be and where we’re going. Every one of us is at some stage in the process.

The book of Proverbs tells us that the prudent man considers well his steps. The “prudent man” here means, “He who walks with a level of wisdom of knowledge, of understanding about life.” The prudent person is going to consider well his steps as Proverbs 14:15 says.

As we make progress, we’re going to move from standing to walking. Standing requires us to stand and be still. Walking involves taking steps. How do you define walking? Can you walk without going anywhere? Well, you’re going to go somewhere, even if you go in circles and end up in the same place, you went somewhere! Walking involves steps, so here’s the essence of walking in the promises: in order to experience the greater measure of the promises of God, you’re going to have to take some steps. You’re going to have to do something. It’s not because God needs our help; He is the All-Sufficient One. However, He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. God rewards faith, and He says, “The just shall live by faith.” 

The Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 9:26 (NLT) says, “I run with purpose in every step.” What steps are you taking in order to experience a greater measure of God’s promises and God’s blessing? If you’re not stepping, you’re not walking. If you’re not walking, you’re not walking by faith: you’re standing still. You’re going to have to step out which requires you to do something.

I want you to take some time today and consider the steps you’re taking. You say you want to do this, but you’re really doing that. “Boy, I’d really like to learn to play the piano.” Personally, I’ve shared with Ms. Judy that I’d love to learn to play the piano, but so far I have not taken the first step.

Wanting to do it and doing it are two entirely different things. How bad do you want to do it? Do you want the promises of God fulfilled in your life bad enough to take the steps necessary to experience them? You’re going to have to get moving, honey!

In my most recent blogs, we’ve been talking about walking by faith, right? We walk by faith, not by sight. Walking involves taking steps; it involves movement. Everyone who is walking is moving in a direction. It may or may not be the direction of God’s will; it may or may not be moving closer to the fulfillment of God’s promises. But every one of us, when we’re walking, we’re moving in a specific direction.

In regard to the above, let me ask you this: Is it easier to walk forward or to walk backwards? FORWARD! Have you ever felt like you were taking one step forward and two steps backwards? You may feel like, “Man, I’m just not getting anywhere!” There may be a reason for that; you just might not be getting anywhere! I’m just sayin’. So many of God’s people seem to take a step forward, but then take two steps back, not understanding that it’s harder to walk backwards than it is to walk forwards, so you just might as well man up, woman up, or saddle up, and move forward.

In the long run, it’s going to be a whole lot easier, and you will save steps! If I take one step forward and two steps back and one step forward and two steps back, I’m making progress, but it’s not forward progress. Even if I take two steps forward and one step back, I’ll make progress, but it will take me twice as long. The process will be lengthened, and it is not due to anything that God is or is not doing, it’s because I am not moving forward.

Listen to me. Faith requires steps. Walking by faith requires steps. I don’t care what area of life we’re talking about. Your finances might be a mess, and you know that you need to take steps like setting a budget, cutting up the credit cards, learning to save, or whatever it might be, but so far you’re not taking the steps, and you can’t figure out why God isn’t moving! God will move in response to the steps that we take in the direction in which we’re moving. 

~ pg

Walking in God's Promises, Part 2

Every person in the Bible that you can think of that accomplished anything of significance had to go through a process whether it was Ruth, Esther, Joseph, Daniel, Gideon, or Paul. Even Jesus Himself had to go through and honor the process. Jesus didn’t do that simply by going to the cross. One of His means was by entering the world legally by being born of a woman. So throughout His life, you can see that Jesus honored protocol. Protocol is part of the process. The sooner we learn to recognize, understand, and respect protocol and process, the sooner we will reach the goal of fulfilling God’s purpose in our lives. It’s all based on the Word of God and upon personal experience.

In addition to personal experience, we can learn from the people around us who've gone through so we don't have to, that is, if we're willing to learn from them. I know that there are some young folks, who in your heart, you really, really believe that you know as much about life as the sixty-year old person sitting next to you. I have a six-year old, and I'm trying to take him through a process. Right now we’re still stumbling through, “Listen to your father because he knows more than you.” At six-years old, he’s convinced that he’s smarter than me in the ways of life. So whenever I tell him how to do something, he immediately tells me how he thinks it should be done. We’re talking six-years old! Oh, what a road we have ahead of us! I’m sure none of you have kids like that. Your kids probably commend you on how smart you are every day. If that’s the case, you’d better count yourself blessed.

Also, part of the process is going from faith-to-faith. You need to ask yourself, “Am I making progress? Am I moving from faith-to-faith? Having conquered, am I prepared to conquer some more? What’s going to enable me to conquer?" One of the primary ingredients to fulfilling the purposes of God--this is going to be deep--is to know what the will of God is! Did you get that? Because you’ll never know if you’ve accomplished His purpose if you don’t know what that is! You’ll go through life wandering and wondering and never really knowing.

The first thing we need is revelation. We have to have revelation of God’s purpose for our life. When revelation comes, by definition, it means that something is revealed; it’s uncovered. God makes it plain to us. It may or may not line up with how we think we had our lives figured out. I just knew in my younger days that I was going to be a rock and roll star. I mean, all those gigs we had making $20 a night; we were on our way! Well, it’s kind of funny how things changed. We had the ambition of being stars: sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll; isn’t that a great vision? I was a man full of vision. How do you go from that to having the privilege of going so many places and preaching the Word of God? The two don’t even compare.

I look at what God has done. was able to go back to my very first church, Christian Service Center, this past Easter Sunday. I wanted to honor my former pastor, Pastor Bill. It’s kind of like giving flowers before the funeral. They allowed me to give a message and share. Part of my sermon was that everywhere I’ve gone, I’ve taken a part of that man with me. That may sound strange to some, although in my heart, he infused me with something and imparted so deeply to me. I shared with him all the places I’d been around the world in order to preach the Gospel, and Pastor Bill was simply thrilled and excited. Everywhere I had gone, it was to take Christ, but I felt like he was going with me. Thirty years of this, wow!

In closing, as revelation of God’s will opens up, we can define our purpose. Some of you say, “Well, I’m just a carpenter, a laborer, a housewife, a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, a dentist, or a garbage collector working with Waste Management. You know what I say? Number one: be the best garbage collector you can be. Find purpose in your work. Because I tell you what, I appreciate your work! I am so glad that we have garbage collectors. Just think about what your world would be like without them. When was the last time that you thanked God for the garbage man and spoke a blessing over him? You don’t have to lay hands on him unless you want to, but pray for him!

So, what has God called you to do? Whatever that is, get passionate about it! We’re only part way through what God has laid on my heart to share regarding, “Walking in His Promises.” Thanks so much for joining me on this journey, and we’ll see you next time!

~ pg

Walking in God's Promises, Part 1

Today I want to transition a bit between our last blog series from "Standing on the Promises" to "Walking in the Promises." First we must learn to stand on the promises and then we can learn to walk in the promises. We must be diligent, first of all, to discover what the promises are. They are found in the Word of God, and depending on who you ask or Google, there are anywhere from a hundred to several thousand promises in the Word. I happen to believe that there are thousands of promises . . . some subtle, some not so subtle.

As you remember, God is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent. Paul said that all of the promises of God are, "yes and amen!" Now, in Ephesians chapter 6, the Apostle Paul says in verse 13, "Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day." Here's what we really want to focus on, "and having done all to stand." We discovered last time that the phrase, "having done all to stand," is somewhat of a militaristic term and literally means, "having conquered, be prepared to conquer again."

All of us can look back on our lives and see apparent victories; we have all conquered to some degree. We have conquered, thanks be to God, thanks be to the blood, thanks be to the Shepherd, and to the power of the Holy Spirit. Scripture says that we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us. So basically Paul is saying, "You have already conquered, and you have already obtained some victories in your life; therefore, be ready to conquer once again." And many times, the current battle is greater than those we have experienced previously. Why is that?

I believe the answer can be found in part in Romans chapter 1 wherein the Apostle Paul says, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ." We've all heard that before, and we declare that. In fact, we make that declaration oftentimes to express our boldness and our faith. "For it (the Gospel) is the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek." Then we must read on to verse 17 to capture the concept of what is being communicated. "For in it (the Gospel), the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith." This is just one of at least four places in Scripture that we find the phrase, "The just shall live by faith." Please note that it doesn't say the just should, the just could, the just might, but it says the just SHALL, which means it's a given. Why? Because it takes faith to be just; it takes faith to be justified.

We read here that we are to be going from one level of faith to another level of faith. So here is a question that we all need to ask ourselves: Am I growing from faith to faith? Can you look back on your life and determine whether or not your faith is increasing? Your level of faith should be going upward and onward. It is a false assumption to believe that the longer you walk with God, the more faith you acquire. We probably all know people (perhaps even ourselves) who do not have the faith today that they might have had ten, five, or even two years ago.

Paul prayed for the Corinthians that their faith might be increased, and so are we to be moving from one level of faith to a greater level of faith. That's why I referred to my own life years ago that "having done all to stand" for me at one point was being able to pay my light bill. It was conquering to be able to pay my bills on time and to keep the telephone turned on. What a relief! Some of you might not even know what I'm talking about, but if you've ever had your phone or electricity turned off because you couldn't pay your bill, then we can relate.  

So for me, it may have been a great victory just to be able to pay my bills or put gasoline in my auto. I can remember times when I was driving my old Pontiac down the road, and I would see the little red needle would go weeeelllll below empty, and it didn't take me long to find out exactly how far down it would go! You know how you find out? If you run out of gas enough times, suddenly you discover you can let it go this far, and no farther.

I can remember traveling down the road and having to believe God. Back in the day I'd hear great testimonies about people pouring something else into their gas tanks, and their engines still ran. But I was always a little fearful of that. I mean, my old Pontiac, it wasn't much, but it was all I had.

So we're to be going from faith to faith. I like to put it this way: I've gone from ten dollar faith to tens of thousands of dollars of faith. I've seen my faith increase because today in my life, ten dollars isn't going to make a whole lot of difference. See, God doesn't take you directly from ten dollar faith to ten thousand dollar faith; there's this little thing between the two called "process." This is a significant portion of growing from faith to faith. We'll cover the importance of "process" in my next blog.

Thank you very much for joining me as we talk about His promises and how to claim them and make them your very own!

~ pg