A Note from DT
Some thoughts, concepts and scriptures from this week:
Imagine that you had no vehicle and so you were forced to walk everywhere you went. You had to wake up much earlier than others in order walk to work and even if the weather was bad you had to make do. Imagine that then you found out that you were going to receive a nice car as an inheritance and the only thing you needed to do in order to receive it was a place to keep it. You have a garage at your house but it is full of old trophies and junk that you’ve accumulated over the years. What is your next move? I’d imagine that you would visualize the potential of that space to be a garage in stead of its current status as a catch-all for un-needed junk. You would imagine the vehicle parked in that space and that mental picture would bring up feelings of excitement and hope for the future. This sense of hopeful expectation would change the ‘chore’ of cleaning out that space into a labor of love that you were so glad to do knowing that this inheritance would be absolutely life changing and would enhance almost every aspect of your daily routine. Even though you were yet to receive the car you would still be experiencing the emotions of receiving it. This small inheritance of a vehicle would change everything. It would provide you more rest, the capability to function in a much greater capacity and it may even allow you to look for a better job. The amount of potential that would be unlocked would cause a surge of hope…and even more vision.
Hebrews 11:1 says, ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’
Faith is what we exercise in response to our hopeful expectancy towards the promises of God. Faith ushers the abundance of Heaven into this dimension of time and space.
Hebrews 11:33-34 (tpt) says ‘through faith’s power they conquered kingdoms and established true justice. Their faith fastened onto their promises and pulled them into reality! It was faith that shut the mouth of lions, put out the power of raging fire, and caused many to escape certain death by the sword…’
As I read this passage this week the words ‘pulled them into reality’ seemed to jump out at me. The concept of pulling the promises of God into this reality is not uncommon in the New Testament. After all, in the Lords prayer Jesus taught us to pray that our Father’s kingdom would be manifest “on earth as it is in Heaven”. Still, it struck me that there were many great accomplishments of faith in Hebrews 11 and one of those was simply ‘obtaining the promises of God’ or, ‘pulling His promises into reality’. So how do we activate faith in order to obtain the promises we find in scripture?
Jesus said, “Whatever things you ask when you pay, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” Mark 11:24
I’ve always thought, ‘why would I ask for something if I believed I already had it?’. But Jesus is speaking about faith. To believe that we have what we are asking for is an act of faith. By faith we come into agreement with what God desires for us to have and to allow ourselves to feel the emotions of already having it. By allowing ourselves to feel it we are actively believing what He has said and this is how we usher His promises into our reality. What if every promise of scripture is meant to be our actual inheritance? What if simply aligning ourselves with the truth of the Word simply by believing it causes us to usher it into this reality? It sounds to me like that’s the point.
-DT
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