Romans 4:20-21(NKJV) 20He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
Today we are going to conclude our study of Romans 4. It seems that most of the things I buy come with two sets of instructions. One a detailed owner’s manual and the other a quick start guide. The quick start guide tells you the essentials you need to know in order to start using the product. That is how I see Romans 4. It gives us the essentials of walking by faith in an easy, step by step presentation. Let us take a quick look at the steps we have uncovered so far.
- We must have a promise. We cannot walk by faith in God if we do not know what God has said he will do. It is not enough to “have an idea” what the Bible says. We must know specifically what we are standing on if we are going to receive
- We must speak in line with the promise. God calls those things that are not as though they were. We must speak the Word of God that we are believing even though we may not yet have seen it happen.
- We must consider the promise not the circumstance. We must give more credibility to what the Bible says than to what the circumstances say. We must not dwell upon the circumstances but we must dwell upon the promise. In this way, we will maintain our hope even when surrounded by impossibility.
Now we will look at the last step put forth in Romans 4. The Bible says that Abraham did not waver in his faith in the promise, but “was strengthened” in his faith. I have been in the ministry full time since April 1 of 1978. For the first ten years of my ministry, my family struggled financially. We were learning the things I am teaching now, and I can tell you that I have had many times when I wavered in my faith in the promises of God. Abraham stood for twenty-years. There is no way that he never had days when he questioned the promise.
The greatest battleground of faith is the mind. That is why step three is so important. However, even as we consider the promise of God and give it credibility over the circstance we are facing, there will be challenges to our faith. James 1 tells us this is true.
James 1:2-4(NKJV) 2My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, 3knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. 4But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
Our faith will be tried. The Devil will certainly try our faith. Our own flesh will try it and, at times, God himself will try it. Every faith operation has some waiting period involved. It may be twenty-five seconds or twenty-five years, but there will be a waiting period and in that time, we will have to resist the temptation to waver.
During the time we wait for the promise to manifest, we must find a way to stay strong in faith. We have a promise. We speak in line with the promise and we consider the promise over the circumstance. What else can we do to stay strong in our faith? I have taught this many, many times over Thirty-three years of ministry, but somehow I never caught this as a step in the process until now. Abraham’s faith stayed strong because he gave glory to God.
Philippians 4:6 says we should make our requests known to God with thanksgiving. If we are going to be strong through the whole faith process, we must thank God for the answer. Thanking God puts in the right emotional and spiritual state to possess the blessing in the promise.
There is something about a thankful person. It is hard to defeat someone who is thankful. When the pressure comes to back off the promise, but we choose to thank God for the answer, we refocus on the solution and off the problem. Abraham stayed strong in faith by giving glory to God. Another scriptural term is to magnify Lord.
My wife loves to use this illustration. Have you ever looked through the wrong side of a telescope? When you do, instead of things appearing closer to you they actually appear farther away. The purpose of the telescope is to magnify the image or make it larger, but when you turn the telescope around it does just the opposite. Many times, we look at the Lord through the wrong side of the telescope and the problem through the right side. We magnify the problem and minimize the Lord. Giving Glory to God does just the opposite. It looks at God through the correct side of the telescope.
When you are pressed to quit on the promise, instead make a decision to aggressively give Glory to God. He is worthy of glory even if the promise never comes to pass. He is worthy because he is God. He is worthy because he saved you. When the problem seems so great that we are overwhelmed, giving glory to God reminds you of what is really important. It also reminds us that God is almighty. It reminds us that we are not trying to solve the problem in our own strength or ability. We are depending on God and giving him glory reminds us of that.
Giving glory to God also helps us tap into the joy of the Lord. That joy is our strength. When we choose to give glory to God, we step into the realm of the spirit where God and the promise live. We step out of the natural where the problem lives and connect with God in a way that nothing else will do. There is really no way to be successful if we will not give God glory throughout the faith process.
When we do not choose to glorify God, we are turning the telescope the wrong way. The problem will get bigger and bigger. God will seem to get smaller and smaller. We will feel increasingly alone and isolated. We will begin to focus on our ability and we will consider the problem and not the promise. Our hope will waste away until we have nothing upon which to hang our faith. When that happens, we are defeated.
In our church, praise and worship is a very important element. We spend forty-five minutes to an hour at every service giving glory to God. Our Friday night service focuses on praise and worship. Most of the time, all we do in that service is praise God. I tell our people, “You cannot do anything about your problems in the next hour. You cannot solve the problem, but you can put it out of your mind and connect with the answer in praise and worship.”
If you are in a real struggle, glorify God. You will be strengthened in your faith until you come to the place Abraham did in Romans 4:21. He was fully persuaded that God would do what he said he would do. Once you are at that point, nothing can keep the promise form coming to pass in your life.
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