In this message we will study some Scriptures that we have read before, however, their application is fresh and alive in what God is speaking to us right now.
This command I entrust to you, Timothy, my son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you may fight the good fight. (Notice that Paul says it is by the prophecies that we fight the good fight.) I Timothy 1:18.
Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed upon you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress may be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things.… I Timothy 4:14–16. And for this reason I remind you to kindle afresh the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner… II Timothy 1:6–8.
Your relationship to the word that is preached to you and to the prophetic word that has come over your life is more important than you may realize. I am concerned about those factors which distort our walk with God, and those which bring it forth. Your own incomplete acceptance of God’s word over you is the basis for most of your problems. Often we substitute self-confidence for complete acceptance of the word that has been spoken over us, and we do that to our own destruction. The Lord is not encouraging you to go on another ego trip. He is not trying to build up a feeling of confidence in yourself. He uses all the New Testament—two hundred and sixty chapters—to knock down your confidence in the flesh. Do not try to build it up again. You must believe, totally and absolutely, what God has said about you. Why do you sometimes get so devastated when you try to do something for the Lord in your own strength? When you believe in yourself and rush out to fulfill your ministry, you fall on your face; and you cannot understand why. It is because the Lord is not encouraging an ego trip. He is not trying to build confidence in the flesh.
There is another basis for our confidence. For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh. Philippians 3:3. The Holy Spirit encourages you to mortify and crucify yourself, to come to the end of yourself so that you will no longer have any confidence in the flesh. Then what is the basis of this aggressive confidence and faith which God wants you to have? It is your relationship to the word, believing what God has said over you. When Paul said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,” he was not speaking about self-confidence. It is true that you are going to need a lot more confidence than you have now. You have not even started to have confidence when it comes to being aggressive and having faith, believing that you can do anything. But what is the basis of that confidence? The foundation of it cannot be the flesh; it must be what God says. That is where everything begins. When God speaks a word, that should establish who you are, what you can do, and where you are going.
You young people know very well the competitiveness of this world. What makes you think that you are going to produce greater inventions, better books, and better music than the world has ever produced? It is because God says so. That is the only reason. It is not that you feel you are a genius; it is because you have faith in your relationship to God. Your relationship to God, your relationship to the world, and even your attitude about yourself must be governed by only one thing: what has God said about you?
Most of you would agree that I should believe God for the word that He has spoken over me to be fulfilled. You would be very unhappy with me if I continually expressed unbelief in what I could do, and how I could teach you and lead you. But you would also be very unhappy with me if I came on too strong, if I were cocky and had a high opinion of myself. The truth of the matter is that I do not think very much of myself. Yet I will tackle any devil that comes along, no matter how big he is, because I believe I can do what God says I can do. I do not have to put any confidence in myself. My confidence is in the word of the Lord. This is the way we should relate to the Lord.
This is what Paul wanted Timothy to understand when he said to him, “Now, Timothy, remember the prophecies that came over you, that by them you might war a good warfare. God does not give us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.” How do we receive it? We believe the word! When hands are laid upon us and prophecies and revelation come over our lives, all hell can break loose against us, but we will believe what God has said! When that word is confirmed to our hearts, it is the basis of our faith. It is the basis of what we can do. I can do anything that God says I can do. I can be anything He says I can be. All He has to do is speak a word. If God says to me, “This man is your brother,” then he is my brother. I believe it, and I walk in it, and from that time on he is my brother. He is my brother because God says he is my brother.
All relationships are created by a word from God. Our relationship with each other, our relationship to the Body, and our relationship to the world are all based upon what God says. If God says we are the army of the Lord, then stand at attention, ready to take the land! If God says that we are brothers in Christ, then let us care for one another, being ready to even lay down our lives for one another. Let us believe that word. When Jesus hung on the cross, He saw His own mother and the disciple whom He loved, and He said, “Woman, behold thy son. Son, behold thy mother.” From that moment at the foot of the cross, John took Mary, the mother of the Lord, home with him and cared for her the remaining days of her life. The Lord spoke it, and it was done. They had both learned something very important. When Mary was a young virgin, perhaps fourteen years old, she said to the angel, “Be it done unto me according to thy word.” The Holy Spirit overshadowed her, and she began to carry life in her womb. The angel said, “He will be called the Son of the most high God.” She answered, “Be it done unto me according to thy word.”
When I accept something that God says, let it be just as God says it. Let it be according to His word. I will accept what He says, regardless of what appears to be. If He tells me that I am one member of His Body, I will believe it. If He tells me that these beside me are my brothers and sisters, I will believe it.
This awareness of what God says about us being one, about our united identity, our united destiny, and our united authority is very important for us now. Most of our problems and defeats are on a personal, individual level. If you have hang-ups, it is because you are still looking upon yourself as an individual. You could hide in the Body and bypass most of your problems and defeats because they occur on an individual level. They occur because you think of yourself as an individual rather than as a member of Christ’s Body, which is what God says you are. If you would receive this revelation deep within your spirit, I believe that it would suddenly just burst open in your life and become very real to you.
If you have problems, it is because you are thinking of yourself as an individual. The problems occur when you become too engrossed in the areas of your daily life—your schooling, your business, your family. How can you bypass those problems? Simply by withdrawing into the Body and refusing to face them as an individual. When you think of yourself as a member of Christ’s Body, you are immediately in tune with resources and assets that are committed by Christ to His body: the riches that are in Him, the wisdom that is in Him, the sufficiency that is in Him. Then you do not have to meet your problems in your own inadequacy, your own insufficiency, or your own limited wisdom. Everyone would like to see the end of his problems. But most of our victories and power are collective. They are found within the Body.
I have taught this for years, but I think that I am finally beginning to realize it myself. I cannot blame you if you do not grasp all of it at once, because it has taken me quite a while to do so. But I think I have found an answer. I have risen to Satan’s antagonism for the last time. I believe in the apostolic ministry to which God has called me, but I do not believe that this means that as an apostle I should stand and fight the battle alone. Satan tries to defeat us by getting us to focus on our own problems and circumstances. “Look what is happening to you. Look what I am doing to you,” he will say. And if he can coax you into becoming so concerned about your own needs that you think everyone should be praying for you, then you will be in the battle as an individual, and he will have you right where he wants you. He will challenge you to come on out and fight. If you move out of your place in the Body to fight the devil alone, you will be defeated, or at the least you will continue on in that battle without victory. So, what should you do? How should you meet the devil? Immediately begin to think in terms of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God is in your midst. It is within you. The battles are taking place within you, too, and that is where they are won. It all depends on what you will accept. Believe what God has said about you. Believe what He has said about your relationship to the Body.
You will see things much differently when you stop relating everything to your own personal life. You must realize that God is not primarily concerned about your life as an individual. Oh. I know that there are many Scriptures which speak of God’s concern for us, such as Psalm 8:4a: What is man, that thou art mindful of him? It is true; He is concerned. But on the level we are talking about, there is a different application which is also true, and it is not contradictory. Face it: God is not just concerned about you as an individual, that you live your life and die only unto yourself. He is concerned today about His many membered Body coming forth. For the Kingdom’s sake, He will deliver you; not for your own sake. He will deliver you from your personal problems when they are no longer the issue. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33. This is what the Sermon on the Mount is really about. Do not worry about what you are going to wear, what you are going to eat, or where you are going to live. After these things the Gentiles seek, and if you seek them, you will fail. God knows what you have need of. Seek His Kingdom. Begin to pray and believe God to see your part in His plan, to see what He says about you in relation to the whole Kingdom of God.
Suppose all of us told you that we did not like you very much. No doubt immediately you would be bothered by that. But the issue is not whether we like you or not; the issue is whether or not you will accept your relationship to us in the Body. If you allow yourself to be drawn out of the unity of the Body, you will find yourself on the defensive, and you will be fighting your own battle. Do not be on the defensive. That puts the battle on an individual level. It does not matter whether we like you or not. The real issue is that God has set you in the Body as it pleased Him. When you accept the word of God over you as an individual, then that is the basis of your relationship to the Body, to the world, and to God.
When God chastens you, you may think that He does not love you. And you say, “I guess I’ll go eat worms.” He loves you. He chastens every son whom He receives. You have begun to grow up when God’s dealings with you have taken away the feeling that you are teacher’s pet, and you realize that you are related to God, and He is telling you to get with it and what to do. And out of your relationship to Him, you will do it—not out of personal ambition. Do nothing through selfishness or vainglory.
What is it that makes us one Body? God said so. He said that we are one Body. Then why do you feel as if you are all alone and no one cares? It does not make a bit of difference what you feel. Nothing is established by your feelings. Everything is established by a word from God. God says that you are one Body. If you feel cut off, it is an illusion. Get over those feelings. Feelings do not matter. If your actions were determined only by your feelings, you would have a difficult time. Believe that you are His son, that you are of the household of faith. It makes no difference what you think or what you feel. What God has said over you and over this walk is what really counts. Accept the destiny that God has placed before us. Accept what His word says we are going to be. Can you believe it about yourself?
Years ago when words came about us being the army of the Lord, we were a poor excuse for an army. We could not even have held each other up on a windy day. But God had to establish that truth within our hearts, and we believed it in spite of the appearances of strength or numbers.
I believe—therefore I am. I believe—therefore I become. I believe—therefore I can do anything. When the Word says that all things are possible to Him that believeth, that is not a vague statement. All things are possible to a man who believes that God has ordained for all things to be possible through him.