Hebrews 4:1-2 (NKJV) 1 Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it. 2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
I believe God is opening the gates of the supernatural into the world in 2015. The church is the key to any move of God and this one is no exception. If God is going to pour out his spirit in the world, we must be what and where God wants us to be. That is my focus for this year.
As I have been praying about this, the Lord has been speaking to me about what opens the gates and what closes the gates. Unbelief closes the gates. Active faith in God, believing, opens them. Grumbling and complaining closes the gates while thanksgiving opens them. Understanding the goodness of God opens the supernatural gates to the world. God equated the goodness of God with the glory of God in Exodus 33. When we evaluate life according to the goodness of God instead of evaluating the goodness of God by our life experiences, we open wide the supernatural gates.
I recently heard a preacher say that all the weapons of God fire the same ammunition. That ammunition is faith. In the same light, I would say that the one thing that all “gate openers” have in common is faith in God. Faith makes the connection between the natural and the supernatural. Faith opens all of the gates!
I have studied and preached faith for most of my adult life. I was 24 years old when I began in fulltime ministry. At the same time I encountered a message we called “the uncompromised Gospel.” The heart of that message was the truth that the Word of God was true and that faith in the Word could change things in the natural world. That simple thought revolutionized my life. I can honestly say that faith in the Word of God has caused my wife and me to live a wonderful and productive life to this point.
Even though I have been walking by faith for more than 37 years, I believe something has changed since the beginning of 2015. I know that a major part of this change is the timing of God. God wants to move in the earth. We must see God move in the earth! He looks for people who will cooperate with what he wants to do, and I have tried to be one of those people. So part of what I am feeling is that the time has come for a new move of God to begin.
There is another aspect to what I feel. I know faith. Everything I have done has been by faith. I have built a wonderful church with a debt free building by faith. I have seen people changed by grasping the reality of faith in God. God has healed people and kept me healthy by faith. I have traveled the world by faith. All of my children are serving God because we believed for their salvation and destiny. I am no stranger to how faith works and what I am going to try to convey does not really sound like anything different to me, but somehow it is.
What has changed in my heart is that I have found a deeper dimension of the “rest of faith.” Paul said to Timothy, “Fight the good fight of faith.” (1 Timothy 6:12) There is a fight of faith. Certainly, the devil will challenge us when we choose to believe in what God is saying to us. There are principles that we must learn to apply where faith is concerned. Hebrews 4:11 says that we must labor to enter the rest.
This almost seems to be expressing two opposite ideas but it is not. We have a labor to do. We must study and meditate in the Word of God. Faith comes from the Word of God. We must cultivate fellowship with the Lord through prayer and worship. We must do acts of faith and service. However, the message of Hebrews 4 is that faith is, above all else, a rest.
When I believe something, I am not striving over it. I believe it. You cannot try to believe. Either you believe or you do not believe. We have studied the story of the father and son in Mark 9. The father came to Jesus because he had faith that Jesus could do something. Disappointments and discouragement disrupted that confidence and assurance, that rest. This is what he called unbelief. It stopped the flow of the supernatural.
There is another story of a man who maintained the rest of faith. It is not that his faith was not challenged. It was challenged mightily. He chose at Jesus’ word to keep believing. His name was Jairus.
Mark 5:35-36 (NKJV) 35 While He was still speaking, some came from the ruler of the synagogue’s house who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” 36 As soon as Jesus heard the word that was spoken, He said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not be afraid; only believe.”
Jairus put his trust in Jesus to deal with the most important issue in his life at that time: The life of his daughter. On the way to minister to her, a woman who also needed healing stopped Jesus. He took time with her and met her need. As he was stopped, a messenger came from the man’s house and told Jairus that his daughter had died. Jesus told him to keep believing and not to be afraid. He told him to maintain the rest of faith.
How do we know that Jairus did what Jesus said? As a father of six I know how I would have reacted if a doctor stopped to treat someone else and the resulting delay caused my child to die. I would not have remained silent. I would have reacted in either grief or anger. I would probably have displayed both loudly! Jairus did not.
The rest of faith is the absolute assurance that God will do what he said he would do. It is the ability to look at contrary circumstances without being affected by them. When we come to the place of rest, we simply know that God will do what he said. There is still a challenge in our emotions however; we simply know that the Word of God is true. Jairus was at rest because Jesus told him to rest. We can be at rest because the Word of God becomes so real in our heart that it is as if Jesus was beside us just as he was beside Jairus.
The message of today’s scripture is two-fold. One, Paul wants us to understand that finding that place of rest is a key to opening the supernatural gates. Israel could not find it because they focused on their lack and not on God’s ability to do what he promised. We must focus on what God has said until our lack of ability becomes irrelevant. We are at rest when we believe God will do what he said, not when we believe we can believe what he said. (I know that sounds like I am talking in circles, but give it some thought. It will make sense.)
The second part of the message of Hebrews 4 is that there remains an element of this rest that neither the first generation of Israelites nor the Joshua generation found. That rest is for us. Paul says that someone must enter into God’s rest. We need to be that generation. You need to enter that rest. It is the will of God for your life. It is the key to victory in the challenges you face. It is channel, the open gate, through which the supernatural will flow to our world.
The rest of faith depends on a simple thought. Whatever I am believing for is not about me. It is about Jesus! He will do what he said he would do. He will do what I cannot. I cannot really say why but I know that in my life this is being worked out to a deeper degree than ever before. Perhaps because God knows that what must happen in the earth now cannot depend upon any ability of ours. I must depend on God’s ability.
Labor to enter the rest that is true faith in God!
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