In our lives as we walk with the Lord, the promises of God do not really bother us as much as our ineffectual appropriation of them, that we have not been able to fully lay hold upon them, or that our spiritual experience of them has only been partial. We know that there is a perfect work that God wants to do in our lives, but too often we have not seen it done.
One of the best Scriptures for this is Hebrews 10:12, 13: … but he, when he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; henceforth expecting until his enemies be made the footstool of his feet. For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. By one offering he has for ever perfected them that are sanctified, but now we don’t see that done perfectly. Who among us has been perfected? What do we do in order that we might be what God says for us to be?
And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to him (to Christ) a blind man, and beseech him to touch him. And he took hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes, and laid his hands upon him, he asked him, Seest thou aught? And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold them as trees, walking. They looked like trees walking around. He had sight but nothing was focusing right. Then again he laid his hands upon his eyes; and he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw all things clearly. And He sent him away to his home, saying, Do not even enter into the village. Mark 8:22–26.
This is the interesting story of a man that was healed in the most unorthodox manner; Jesus spat on his eyes. Today the phrase, to “spit in his eye” is generally an expression of defiance—you see the devil, you spit in his eye. Jesus literally spat on this man’s eyes. The blind man was healed, but the trouble was that he couldn’t see anything clearly. He said, “I see men that are like trees, walking,” so the Lord touched him again and then he began to see clearly.
There are many people who can’t focus right; they have had just the beginning of the touch of God in their lives. They see a little here and a little there, but they don’t get the overall picture. They don’t focus properly on the things of God, but God has something wonderful for them, if they can be made to see that they need that second touch. They need the work to be completed, so that the miraculous thing that God has begun in their life should not be accepted as perfect when it is not. None of us should accept what we have from God, if it falls short of what the Scriptures laid down as the specifications of a divine recitation.
What are the divine specifications of a divine recitation? In the Old Testament and in the New Testament it is alike. David sang, … My cup runneth over. Psalm 23:5. If your cup is not running over, it’s not measuring up to divine expectations, divine specifications. When God moves, the human capacity is exceeded in the outpouring of the Lord. When God began to move and feed the multitudes, twelve baskets full were left over. When the Lord starts moving, it is there; my cup runneth over. When you have prayed and you get a little answer to your prayer, you’re like the blind man that was healed and could only see men like trees walking around. You had better come again because when God moves there is always this: Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us, Ephesians 3:20. It doesn’t even stop with what you can think about—“exceeding abundantly above all” that we ask or think. This is the way God moves; this is the way He intends to move. When God starts to bless, we have to say that it is… joy unspeakable and full of glory. I Peter 1:8. If your experience doesn’t measure up to that, something is wrong.
When we take a clear look at what the Scriptures intend our experience to be, then we will begin to demand that our experience in God measure up to what it ought to be. When the Lord began to bless, always it was greater than what they could anticipate. After the whole conquest of Canaan, Joshua said, “Of all the good promises the Lord hath spoken; all have come to pass.” (Joshua 23:14). When we are constantly facing a limitation upon our experience with God, upon our appropriation of it, then we are moved to believe and to take hold of the thing that is really ours.
In the Old Testament, in the beautiful story of the exodus, Moses stands as one of the unique men of the Bible as he went before God and received his instructions, and before Israel as he tried to talk them into patience, and then before Pharaoh as he went and thundered to him the word of the Lord. Then the bargaining began between Pharaoh and Moses, intermittently throughout the plagues that began to settle down over Egypt. Pharaoh said, “I see your point, there has been a terrible plague, we’re getting the message, so you that are men can go out in the wilderness to worship, but leave all your flocks, your wives and children, and all your goods behind.” (Exodus 10:11). That wasn’t acceptable, Moses said “No, when we go, we’re all going.” Pharaoh later offered another proposal—the men, women and children could go, but the herds and the flocks were to be left behind. (Exodus 10:24). To the compromises that were suggested, each time Moses answered that not one hoof would be left behind. “When we go, all of us are going.” In other words, they were believing that the redemption that God was going to give Israel would be total, and it was a little more than they expected.
The night of the Passover, the Israelites were instructed to borrow jewels from their neighbors’ houses. God gave them favor in the sight of the Egyptians (Exodus 11:2), and they borrowed the wealth of Egypt. Those poor slaves probably thought, “We’ll be lucky to get out of this place with our skins,” but instead, they got out with their wives and their children, with their herds and their flocks. Can’t you picture some of those Israelites journeying along? They had been slaves, dressed in rags, but now they were dressed in finery with all the jewelry, the gold and the silver. “We’ve never seen anything like this before.” It exceeded anything that they could have anticipated.
… Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. I Corinthians 2:9. Does that mean what God will prepare in the sweet by-and-by? No—God hath prepared for them that love Him. Verse 10, But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.
The office work of the Holy Spirit is to bring out the fantastic provision of God for you and show it to you. The eyes haven’t seen it; the ears haven’t heard it. Never has it entered into the imagination of your heart the things that God has prepared for them that love Him, but God reveals them to us by His Spirit.
When Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit coming to His disciples after He left, He said, Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all truth.… He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you. Jesus continued, All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it unto you. John 16:13–15. The great purpose of the Holy Spirit is to constantly open your heart to understand what God really has prepared for you and wants you to have.
You have no idea of the greatness of the thing that God wants you to have. Your eye hasn’t seen it; your ear hasn’t heard it; it has never entered into your heart. He is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think. It exceeds the limits of man’s imagination. Maybe in this hour, in this generation, in this walk, there will be those who will come forth from our young people who will begin to grasp that God’s provision through Jesus Christ, for us, is far greater than they have ever dared to believe. They will not be content with just half a blessing, but they will want something that measures up to the full specifications of a divine recitation, and that always means something more.
The Father will open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. Malachi 3:10. I like that terminology, “not room enough to receive it.” You can see yourself expanding and growing and saying, “O Lord, how great is Thy blessing; how great is the measure of Your grace that You have poured out to us.” This is what He wants us to see.
I’m trying to build your faith to believe for something that is a perfect experience. For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Hebrews 10:14. There is no question about it; He has provided for your absolute perfection. Peter talks about the exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature.… II Peter 1:4. Think of the great and precious promises, even to partake of the divine nature, to have the nature of God.
I would stagger you if I told you what was in the provision of God. Do you know that it is in the plan of God that the Adamic heredity should give way to the nature of Jesus Christ within you? Why limit God in any measure? Because I was born with certain characteristics, therefore, will I always be what I am? No. What does Paul say, But by the grace of God I am what I am.… I Corinthians 15:10. He was not the same as he was before. Nothing of the old nature remained; it was a new nature that came forth. How God does it is a mystery, but He intends for you to have a new nature, a new heredity.
Do you think God can create natural abilities within you? Do you think that He can take a child without a certain aptitude and give him that aptitude, such as for mathematics or anything like that? Have you ever seen someone sit down at the piano, who has never played a note in their life, and under the anointing of the Spirit, play songs? Have you ever seen what acquired talents can be? This can be done and has been done again and again. Do you know that what God can do exceeds our expectations?
Faith opens up a realm or a principle in God that is above all the laws of nature, whether they deal with the physical, the mental or the spiritual realm. Through faith, water stood up straight, like a wall. Through faith, men walked on water as though it were glass. Through faith, men walked unharmed through a fiery furnace that slew the men who opened the door, because the heat was so great. Through faith, hungry lions were unable to eat. Through faith, the dead have come forth out of the grave after deterioration. Through faith, things have changed form and substance—water became wine—a small portion of loaves and fishes was multiplied in quantity until thousands of people partook of it.
What can be done? What can God do with your life—what can He do with you as a person? Some of you are like the man that was touched—you’ve been healed but not completely. You have had a touch, but not all of it. Can you open your heart and say, “There is something more for me. I can become all that God wants me to be. I need only to wait before Him and let Him touch me again and I’ll begin to see everything clearly, everything will be just the way it should be in my life”?
We labor along and somewhere along the line, a common fallacy occurs to a lot of Christians. They say, “Oh, I thank God for what He has done for me, but I will have to get down to business now and work hard so that I can be what God wants me to be.” Paul wrote to the Galatians.… having begun in the Spirit, are ye now perfected in the flesh? Galatians 3:3. God has made it a miracle in your life up to now, but are you saying, “Thank You, Jesus—I’ll finish it from here”? Do you think that human effort can finish what God began as a miracle? If you are a creation of God thus far, is He the Author up to this point, but you have to be the finisher of it? He is the Alpha, but you’re going to be the omega? If you’re going to be the omega, you’re going to be the end. God is the One who started it and He is the One to see it through. And if you have come to the place where suddenly you say, “I’m not moving on; I’m not getting what I should with God, I’m not in the place I ought to be with the Lord,” it may be because you’re interfering with it. A thing that began by faith is becoming a thing of dead works. Get out of the rut. Open up your heart; pray for a living miracle every day. Believe. Be in touch with the Almighty; be in touch with the flow of the living Christ. He has begun it and He will finish it. He is the One who started you and He will see you through.
Let there be that creative expectation in your heart. Begin reaching up and say, “I refuse to be like that blind man, Lord; I must not see men as trees walking. I don’t want to behold the spirit world as a distorted thing; I’m going to have it all, that which I started out to be, that which God had in His mind.” Paul said, … I count not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind.… I press on toward the goal.… Philippians 3:13–14. In other words, he said, “I don’t want to stop here. I don’t feel like I’ve arrived, but I’m struggling to lay hold upon the thing that God had in mind when He first laid hold upon me” (Verse 12). I like what Paul said: “I do not frustrate the grace of God” (Galatians 2:21). He was intending to go on into all that God had for him.
Do you believe that God has some marvelous, wonderful thing for your life: what you are to become, what you are to do, things you are to possess, releases and deliverances that you are believing for, a new life?… I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. John 10:10. I think we ought to live every day with a certain violence in our spirit. We ought to say, “I protest the sun coming up and going down today with me under any chains of self-limitation. I protest against this thinking of mine that is so limited, against my mind that is so slow to lay hold upon the thing that God has. O Lord, am I like the disciples, so slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have said, all that God has said?”
We must rise up with violence and say, “I must see God take down these walls on my horizon. I must see further. I’m going to explore, to be something else, but not according to the little road maps that people have set before us.”
It isn’t in the thinking of this generation, but we will go on anyway. We shall think thoughts that have never been thought before, do things that have never been done before, be a people that have never existed before, because God has this in mind. But the people that know their God, Daniel prophesied, in this hour shall be strong and do exploits. Daniel 11:32. I would like to incite you, to stir you in your spirit, until something within you would rise up and say, “This is my heritage in the Lord,” and you would cry unto God until that thing is possessed in the name of the Lord. I’ve given you many Scriptures in this message, and not one of them is twisted out of its context. Each one of them should cause you to say, “Yes, I must believe it; I must know what God has for me.”
What does He want for you? There have been times this church has been criticized because of prophecies over people, “God says,” etc. They have said, “Oh, that can’t be.” But I have never heard a prophecy come over any individual that was not exceeded in the promises of the gospels or the epistles, which belong to everyone in the church, to every believer who would open his heart to them. They far exceed the extent and scope of any prophecy I have ever heard over any individual. The prophecies come to give a little pointer, a little direction. They are not exhaustive, but they point out things to believe for, and they still stagger us. We don’t want to stagger at the promises of God, through unbelief. The Word says of Abraham, that he was … fully assured that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Romans 4:21. And we believe it for awhile, “But Lord, sustain us in this faith that perseveres and opens the door to the fantastic, to the impossible.”
The gospel begins with the announcement of an angel, For with God nothing shall be impossible. Luke 1:37. With God nothing shall be impossible. Will you accept that? What did it involve? A virgin was going to give birth to a baby. “Well,” you say, “that’s a miracle.” Yes, but that baby was going to be the Son of God—God coming down incarnate in flesh. That is the way it begins. How does it end? If you believe in contemporary Christianity, you believe that it ends with a little notice in your hand that tells you when to stand, when to sit down, when to sing, when not to sing, and not to believe for anything.
I’m tired of services in which people don’t meet God. You’re here for an encounter with God, or this church has nothing to justify its existence. There are plenty of other churches that would do as much, if we don’t believe for this to be a house of faith, a place with the living word from God, for God to restore in our times. Someone has to come along and say, “Look—see what God wants to do for His people.” We may not have it all, but there’s much more than you have anticipated. Someone has to point the way. Someone has to come and say, “The Word of God is valid, the promises are true.” We have gone far enough to know that we know the truth, but we can’t be those who see men as trees walking. We cannot have something short of the perfection of what God wants to do in our lives. Remember, He began it—it will be His second touch that finishes it. You cannot do it in yourself; but you can be stirred to believe. Believe for the miracle.