Active or Passive?
You Have a Great Action
I know that the Kingdom of God comes because it is within you; but I am a little bit apprehensive that when you say, “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), you could become quite passive about that. The very basis of the Kingdom as it was unfolded in the book of Galatians was, “Flee from the dead works of legalism, and come into the faith working by love” (Galatians 5:1–6). You have a great action.
The Deadness Of Faith Without Works
We are not concerned about the dead works, but we are concerned about the deadness of faith without works (James 2:17). And I think that this is what caused the greatest devastation and sifting of all time. We had such an excellent Word and many did not perceive the necessity of acting on it and moving in it.
The Kingdom Of Satan Depends Upon Passivity
We are into something where we must be either active or passive. The kingdom of Satan depends upon passivity, and it works to produce that within the saints of God. Passivity, withdrawal—all of these things that we have had to fight—are what Satan is trying to accomplish.
Actions Become The True Orthodoxy Of The Kingdom
God is working the opposite way: for the faith working by love, for the works that manifest your faith, for the appropriate actions that are really the definition of faith (James 2:20–24). We begin to realize that you cannot just say, “I love my brother. I believe for my brother. Be warmed, be clothed” (James 2:14–16). Words have been the hypocrisy of the Church Age, but actions—acting it out, doing it—become the true orthodoxy of the Kingdom. If you want to know what is sound doctrine, find somebody that is moving—in motion.
The Greater Works—People Acting Their Faith Out
I don’t think we understand that this is going to be a key. The greater works are going to come about by people acting their faith out. Faith and love both must become an activity. It must be an action, something in motion, or it is not going to work.
Oneness Must Be The Greatest Action
We speak about oneness as though it were an idealistic state of acceptance of one another, of a oneness in one another. Actually, you are in my heart to create and I am in your heart to create. Oneness must be the greatest action that the people of God have ever done since the dawn of creation. That oneness is going to have to be manifested. The minute that we neglect, or we’re passive, or we withdraw, Satan has succeeded in reducing what could have been faith into an acceptance of teaching. To accept teaching is one thing; faith is another. People must not accept a fact and not act upon it.
Action is really the expression of faith. Action is really the expression of love. You cannot try to pump up love without it being acted out, because love is an activity. Faith is an activity.
If I believe, I do; and as I do, I am. I become because I do. I do because I believe.
The Key That Makes The Kingdom Of God A Functional Force
As you do, you are going to become. It has so many ramifications. For instance, you believe a Word, then you minister it to your brother. So you minister it, and you become it. This is not just some little ritual. Before God we have a hold on the whole key that makes the Kingdom of God a functional, practical, pragmatic force in the earth.
We hear and act in faith, because we are becoming as we are doing. If you believe it, you will become it as you do it.
Action Becomes The Catalyst—John 2:1–11
“Fill the pitcher with water and bear it to the governor of the feast” (John 2:1–11, KJV). Why? Because in some way, a miracle is always related to the preparatory, preliminary actions that are really the explosion of that Word we believe.
We believe the Word. We act upon it, and that action is the preliminary lighting of the fuse that explodes the miracle of the Word that we have believed. We act on it.
Sometimes there does not seem to be any active faith at all. In fact, you wonder if there is any faith. If God says, “Roll away the stone” (John 11:39), your action stirs up what faith is there, and it becomes the catalyst that takes your acceptance of the Word and turns it into the miracle drive of the Kingdom of God.
Passivity Is An Indiscriminate Sponge
Passivity is an indiscriminate sponge that soaks up the great activity of the spirit world and the psychic world. To produce a witch, the person is first taught how to be passive. Satan can possess a passive spirit, but Satan has a very difficult time with somebody who is in motion.
Immunity goes along with motion. If you move there is an immunity; you are a very elusive target. If a target is moving it is harder to hit than if it is just sitting there. Satan can hit the person who is passive in spirit, the person who neglects or withdraws or just fails to act on one Word.
A Multitude Of Actions That Turn Loose Your Faith
The multitude of hearing must be accompanied with a multitude of action. You are going to have to take some steps—actions that turn loose your faith.
We have heard a Word, but we declare before God that we have not accepted that Word until we have acted on that Word!
Faith Is A Fine Tuner
Passivity is what Satan uses—it is an indiscriminate sponge. I do not want any invasion of my spirit that comes because my spirit is like a sponge. I do not want to be so passive that it soaks up the garbage of everything that is blowing loose. How do I change that? I get ahold of the Word and I focus on that Word. I refuse to see or hear anything else. Faith is a fine tuner that dials out everything but what God says, and then it does it exactly.
It Is Easier To Correct A Person Who Is In Motion
The finest and most effective correction comes to the servants of God who are in motion while they hear it. When you rebuke people because they are passive, they are often given to resentment. But take somebody who is striving and racing before God to do the will of God and reprove him, and he will accept it. It is easier to correct a person who is in motion than it is to instruct a person who is passive and inactive.
You Can Reject The Assault Of Satan If You Are Acting Upon The Word
Have you noticed that you generally get hit after you have had a Word? You get a Word from God and then you get hit. Satan tries to get you to withdraw. Why? It takes off all of the miracle of the Word working in you. People should rant and rave and say, “Satan, I totally reject any withdrawal or passivity. I hear this Word. I’m not going to be hit by it.” I tell you, you can reject the assault of Satan if you are acting upon the Word God has given.
Want To Make It? Move!
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God (not only believed the Word, but when you have done the will of God), you may receive what was promised. All of the promises of God are just like bottled-up energy, a bomb without a fuse, until you do the will of God, until you act on that Word. For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him (there’s the passivity). The righteous one lives by faith. He doesn’t just exist by what he believes, but he lives by his faith. It’s an action. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. Hebrews 10:35–39. Want to make it? Move! Listen and move. Hear it and do it—and become.
Create A Universe
At the creation, everything was in motion. The Spirit of God was moving on the face of the chaos and God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:1–3). You can create a universe if everything is in motion.
The Fear Of Man Was Designed To Put Brakes On Faith
The fear of man was designed to put brakes on faith, to keep it boxed up and inactive. God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind (II Timothy 1:7). That is why we talk about stirring up the gifts that are within you. Stir them up. Don’t neglect them (II Timothy 1:6).
Humility Is Not Passivity
Sometimes we are confused in our minds about passivity. We say, “I’m just devastated.” Maybe you’re not devastated only. Maybe you’re passive. “Well, I’m just weak. I’m nothing in myself.” Since when is that an excuse for not moving in the miracle power of God? That’s passivity—the excuses for passivity. “I just feel a humility. I don’t want to assert myself.”
Some of the humblest men in the world were the ones who confronted kings and armies and subdued them. Humility is not passivity, but being afraid to move is the thing that produces that passivity and withdrawal.
Are you passive? Detect it. Be delivered from it. Destroy it. Let’s move out of it. It is too deadly.
The Human Race Loves To Be Passive
The world hates that intensity that refuses passivity—it hates it. Find somebody who comes on too much and has too strong a personality, and everybody shies away from him. They don’t want intensity. The human race under the Adamic curse and nature loves to be passive.
We Are Zealous
Passivity can be effective whether it is on a physical level, a soulish level, or a spiritual level. That is why you should not be afraid about being physical about this. Don’t be afraid of being emotional. But don’t just stop there; be spiritual about it. Repent in spirit. If we repent, we are zealous in repentance (Revelation 3:19).
Then Shall He Move Swiftly
We declare that as you (grampa) have given your lives to bring forth this Word and to make sure this Word is preserved, we determine to never again hear a Word and let it drop to the ground, but we instantly make that Word alive. We never again see the Word bring forth thirty or sixtyfold, but we instantly make that Word live. That is what preserves the Word on the earth. We have been in control, but from now on we’re in the saddle.
I claim that this activating of faith turns loose the fulfillment of a quarter of a century of prophecies. All of those Words, all of those things that people claimed, I loose them into explosive fulfillment in the name of the Lord! No more disappointment, no more grieving or heartsickness over answers and prophecies deferred. That is what I’m claiming right now. It is more than a personal thing or one experience; it is a whole state of fulfillment. Those who have said, “The Lord has delayed His coming” are going to be confounded by the swiftness (II Peter 3:3–4; Romans 9:28). “Then shall He move swiftly against the sorcerers” (Malachi 3:5).
Intensity Embarrasses The Satanic Order That Tries To Produce Tranquility And Timidity
If I get hit, what stops me from just yelling to break that thing if that is what it takes? The fear of man. We break that; we annihilate the thing that comes in to trap us in fear so that we’re locked into a passive thing. We break the fear of man that keeps us from an aggressive faith that reaches in and lays hold of the Words that have come.
Intensity always embarrasses the satanic order that tries to produce tranquility and timidity, intimidation and the fear of man. That is Satan’s order.
We’re believing for the ax to be laid to the root of that thing of fear—both in your hearts and in all of our hearts. When the enemy comes, he finds nothing in us (John 14:30). There is not that open door of fear. If there is no fear of the assault, the lie, or whatever, if there is no response to it, there is immunity.
We Won’t Have Delay
We will not be responsive to anything except the Word of the Lord in aggressiveness, and therefore we won’t have a delay. The force of the action at the time the Word is spoken is going to have instant fulfillment. And that is why I feel that today we won’t have hope deferred (Proverbs 13:12). The scoffers now will have to see it with their eyes, and we won’t have delay. It seems to me like that is what has been ministered. That is what we are walking into today. It is a unity of the fulfillment of the Word along with the authority speaking it, and we will see it happen now.
The Kingdom Is A Kingdom Of Activists
The Kingdom is a Kingdom of activists. I don’t think we are ever going to be passive again. Revelation is often pointless and fruitless because it is not acted upon. Revelation that is acted upon becomes that which explodes faith into the miracles. So, throw off any heaviness that is Satan’s maneuver to keep you from breaking through to the victory that the Word gives you. You have accepted this activism that God has brought. You have accepted that you are not going to be passive. Now it will have to be a sustained determination, for the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). Don’t give way to that flesh for a minute.
The Life Of God That Will Keep You Active
We are going to eat His flesh and drink His blood and we are going to draw His life. And our resistance of passivity is not going to be a fleshly determination, but it is going to be a spiritual appropriation. You can draw the life of God that will keep you active and not passive. You will continue to fight passivity because God puts it in your spirit to not be passive. Faith appropriates action, continuous action. Faith is never passive.
Don’t Shrink
Permitted to Walk in What We Have Dreamed About
In Acts 2:16 Peter said, “This is that which Joel spoke of,” referring to Joel chapter 2. But we know also that some of those prophecies about the sun and the moon and the blood and the days of judgment (Joel 2:30–31) had to mean that we are living in a day of real fulfillment of it. I am wondering if the fulfillment will not be different than what we expect. I am wondering if we are not going to find that we will dream dreams but still be permitted to walk in what we have dreamed about, and still see the reality of what we have had a vision of.
Oneness And Total Authority
Now we have the fourth generation coming forth. They are born into an age, into a world that we don’t even appreciate yet. We’re conditioned to say, “Will things be different?” Yes, they will be. What we have gone through is just a small token of what God is going to bring. We say two words: oneness, and total authority; it is what we are all going to walk in. We are going to walk in the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The Thorn In Our Side
Do not try to sort out what you think is acceptable of the Adamic nature and say, “We’ll live with that.” No, we’ll crucify that. In fact, the things that have been more acceptable we should go after more; if we leave them alive—just as Israel left the Philistines and the Canaanites alive—they will turn to be the thorn in our side (Numbers 33:55). The things of the Adamic nature that we leave alive are the things that will plague us and keep us back from the total possession of a new nature.
The Power Of Touching One Another
I don’t think we know the power of touching one another yet. That is going to be the key—not the little peculiar doctrines being thrashed out at a conference table, but that we learn to touch each other. There are a lot more people out there who love God just like we do; we are not exclusive in any way. It’s just that God has done a pure work by quarantining us. All of our development was like a sickness, and we had to be quarantined so that it was really a true thing. But we are coming in now to what God wanted; and because we have learned to live in one another’s heart and not to have walls, you are going to be surprised how many people say, “Let me in too. Let me in your heart too.” People aren’t after doctrines; they are after that oneness in God.
The Purpose Satan Has In Shoving Us To Withdraw
Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what was promised. For yet in a very little while, He who is coming will come, and will not delay. But My righteous one shall live by faith; and if he shrinks back, My soul has no pleasure in him. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but are of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. Hebrews 10:35–39.
We have yet to see how much Satan works for one thing: to come against the Word God has spoken by getting people to withdraw from their confidence in it. How many say, “I wish I knew how much I lost in the moments in which I just withdrew”? If we understood the purpose Satan has in shoving us to withdraw, how we would cling to the Word God has given! There would be nothing in us that would ever draw back from it.
Withdrawal Or Shrinking Back—A Direct Affront To God
If a person shrinks back, God says, “My soul has no pleasure in him” (Hebrews 10:38). Our unbelief, taking the form of withdrawal, or shrinking back, is a direct affront to God. The war is over the Word. If you cling to the Word and hold fast your confidence in God’s Word (Hebrews 3:6), that pleases God.
If A Man Would Please God, He Listens To What God Says And Doesn’t Throw Away His Confidence In That
Abraham believed the Word God had spoken and it pleased God—so much so that God counted everything as righteousness to Abraham (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3). When we believe God, I don’t think God is ever going to use a strict yardstick on us, because all of His grace, all of His mercy, all of His love, all of His compassion and His taking pleasure in us is not based upon our stumblings, upon the accuracy of our judgment in everything, upon what geniuses we are, or upon any of these things; it is not based on that. It is based on one thing: If a man would please God, he listens to what God says and he doesn’t throw away his confidence in that.
Become The Channel Of The Kingdom Coming Forth
God was not interested in a movement; He was after a people who would believe a Word that He was speaking in the earth and become the channel of the Kingdom coming forth in the earth. That is what He wanted above everything.
Are You Humble By Choice?
You learn to live whether you have much or you have little (Philippians 4:11–13). You learn to live one thing: you are a bondservant of the Lord, and you live that way. And the reason God sometimes tests you with blessings is to see if your humility and discipleship is by choice. Are you humble by choice?
We Didn’t Cast Away Our Confidence—We’re Here!
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you may not grow weary and lose heart. You have not resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin. Hebrews 12:1–4.
I think God was entitled to put us through the test. God gave us a Word. What have we done with it? We hung onto it. And after a while we thought, “Maybe it’s afar off.” But now God says, “Hang onto it though.” We’re here. You say, “Well, I wavered a little bit.” But you didn’t throw away your confidence. “I really went through it and I wished I could have given up at times.” But you didn’t cast away your confidence; the Word was still there.
Those Who Hung Onto The Word Are The Ones Who Are Going To See It Happen
We are aware of what God is saying: “You didn’t cast away your confidence, and now is the time it is going to be fulfilled.” It is going to be fulfilled. A lot of us are going to see the promises fulfilled. Those who hung onto it are the ones who are going to see it happen. We are going to see it happen.
A Renewal Of Every Word That God Ever Spoke
The Holy Spirit is going to bring to mind everything God spoke (John 14:26), as He did with the disciples after the resurrection: And they remembered His words. Luke24:8. We go through the devastation, and there is going to be a revival, a renewal of every Word that God ever spoke; and we are going to walk in it!
Walk In Greater Things Than Even The Lord Did
Even God Himself says, “Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof” (Ecclesiastes 7:8). I don’t hold to this idea that the Church Age has to fizzle out in apostasy; rather, I hold to this, that there is a remnant who will walk in greater things than even the Lord did (John 14:12). I don’t care if it does end in judgment; there has to be a remnant who are walking in abundantly above all that we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). In no way do we settle with disappointment. We do not adjust our faith to what appears; if anything, we expand our faith by more revelation to the fantastic Word that God has spoken, not moved by anything else. We will not cast away our confidence. We have done the will of God and we will inherit the promises.
Some of you people are ready to get the abundance of the Lord, and I hope God can trust you with it. He is going to test you with it, as well as give it to you. There are going to be so many blessings that I think we ought to begin to gear ourselves: “Lord, is my discipleship and dedication up to all of the fulfillment that I’m going to see in this season? What am I going to do about it?” First, get rid of any regrets, any rebellious thoughts, any conditioning, any bitterness in your heart. Get rid of every bit of it, because, I tell you, the past was ordered by God and you went through it, and I don’t care what anybody said or what anybody did. God said something and God did something and we are hanging onto that, and that is the only thing we have purposed to remember.
You Are Going To Remember Only The Word Of The Lord
We are going to be an eraser in one another’s hearts; and we have to minister this to each other because there is a promise about it: “The former things shall no longer come to mind” (Isaiah 65:17). The former things shall no longer come to mind! God is going to blot them out, and you are going to remember only the Word of the Lord. You are going to walk in that. This is the hour of its fulfillment. You are not going to be bitter; you are not going to bog down in wrong relationships or anything else, or in the bitterness that comes to people when they are trying to adjust their sights to something less than what God has said. They will never find a worthy target to shoot at. There is only one thing: “Lord, we’re going to believe the Word that You have spoken.” When we get through this we are going to say, “We were never disobedient to that heavenly vision (Acts 26:19). We’ve got it and we walked in it and we saw it fulfilled!”
The Kind Of Judgment God Is Speaking About Right Now
Do you remember that tape, “This Was Our Judgment Day”? That is the kind of judgment we are talking about, where what we have claimed becomes real in the crucifixion of the flesh. And what others have done sees that they—maybe silently, but just as definitely—irrevocably close the door on their own hearts, and they are desolate. Their house is left desolate (Matthew 23:37–39). That is the kind of judgment God is speaking of right now.
Our Flesh Limits God
Action Instead of Passivity
Do you ever get in your mind the thought, “Well, I’ve been this way before; I gave myself with all my heart to intercession but nothing happened”? I would like to talk to you about that, because what we are after now is action instead of passivity. But sometimes that passivity that we fight was born out of the fact that we did have action and nothing happened—at least in our evaluation of it nothing happened. There can be several factors or reasons for it; I am a little bit disgusted with the idea of trying to make an excuse for God—to blame God or blame ourselves, or excuse ourselves. I want to be very objective about it.
God Is A Scientific, Creative Spirit
God has a lot of people serving Him who are religious spirits. But God Himself remains in all of His dealings the scientific, creative spirit. Did you know that the devil is a religious spirit? He is concerned about transforming himself into an angel of light; he wants his servants to look like ministers of righteousness (II Corinthians 11:14–15). There is no time that Babylon can’t come up with people who look a lot more pious than God’s people. The great facade, the hypocrisy, the masquerade continues. Everything of Babylon, everything of the Adamic nature is leading toward that one thing: cover it up; make it look right before God. If the devil can do that, he knows you can go to hell unaware because you will be self-deceived, and deceived by the great deceiver himself into thinking everything is all right when it isn’t.
The Basic Reason Why Answers Have Been Limited
I want you to see the basic reason why answers to our prayers have been limited. I don’t believe that there has been one prayer that God has not answered as much as He could within the framework of His own principles and His own nature.
The Answers To Our Prayers Can Be Instantaneous
Today we could see a breakthrough come of answers that can be instantaneous for us—answers to prayer. We know somewhere all those fantastic promises are going to be just like clockwork in their fulfillment—“While we are yet speaking He will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). “Call upon Me and I will answer you” (Jeremiah 33:3). We know it is going to happen, but we know that we are not yet into the mechanics. We still are facing that the vehicle of Zion is blocked; we’ve got to get the blocks out of the way and begin to move.
The Greatest Enemy God Has Is The Flesh
The greatest enemy that God has is the flesh. The carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be (Romans 8:7, KJV). There is no way that God is going to honor religious flesh. Whatever happens, God is not about to honor, no matter how sincere he is, the prayers of someone who is not really abiding in Him and in whom His Word is not abiding, so that he can ask whatever he will (John 15:7).
The New Nature Is Not To Work A Detente With The Flesh
The new nature is not to work a detente with the flesh. Everything that comes to your spirit is designed for one thing: “Mortify your members that are on the earth” (Colossians 3:5, KJV). Crucify them. They that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its affections and its lusts (Galatians 5:24, KJV). We glory only in the cross by which the world is crucified to us and we are crucified to the world (Galatians 6:14).
The Cross—The Instrument Of Death By Which The Old Nature Dies
The work of the cross is emphasized over and over and over as the instrument of death by which the old nature dies. I’m going to tell you something: as long as there is any kind of vindictiveness, jealousy, animosity, unforgiving spirit—all of these things of the flesh that enter into the prayer flow—it takes away from it that much.
Delays Are The Period In Which God Is Dealing With Us
The purification of the priesthood precedes the ministry of judgment by the priesthood. First He has to refine all the sons of Levi; and then they offer up the offerings; and then the Lord will be a swift witness against the sorcerers (Malachi 3:1–5). It will be a swift thing that happens. The whole ministry that Paul talked about is in readiness to avenge you the moment that your obedience is complete (II Corinthians 10:6). God is not going to do it before then, because there is still a measure of the flesh. Delays are not delays of an answer; delays are the period in which God is dealing with us.
Don’t Think Anything Of Reforming The Old Flesh
We don’t want a discipline of the flesh: “Well, there is something in me that’s wrong; I’m going to try to work it out.” No, you’re not; you’re just going to eat the flesh and drink the blood and appropriate righteousness, and you’re going to become that holy channel through which God can move. Don’t think anything of reforming the old flesh; you won’t do it. Crucify it! Come to an end of it! Break through to what God wants! You can change!
We Will Act But It Will Be The Right Action
If we wise up to the truths of the Word, we will realize that the secrets were there all of the time. Our spirit is being frustrated so that we are not doing the things we would because of the deterrent that the flesh is to our lives. Let’s get out of that flesh.
We are going to act, but it is going to be the right action. I don’t want to be one who beats the air or runs uncertainly. I want to be a winner. Therefore Paul said, “That’s why I bring my flesh into subjection. I bring it under subjection lest, after I have preached to others, I myself should become a castaway. I buffet the flesh” (I Corinthians 9:26–27, KJV). I don’t think he meant that he was disciplining it. I think what he meant was that he knew he would be striking the air aimlessly, running in circles, unless he took care of the deterrent that the flesh afforded him. That is why he said, “Crucify it. Let’s get rid of it.”
Oneness Comes With The Spiritual Nature
I would like to take you through I Corinthians chapters 1–3, and I’ll tell you why: I look into it and I find that Paul is getting his teeth into their problems. Some of them were carnal; they were walking like mere men. The division was there. The oneness comes with those people of the spiritual nature.
Paul said, For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God. (Another translation reads, “No flesh would glory in His presence.”) But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.” I Corinthians 1:26–31.
There is no place anywhere where God says that there is any righteousness that is valid except His, that there is anything that He looks upon with favor except what He is creating in you.
God Says, “That’s The One I’m Going To Use”
God doesn’t look around for people who just don’t have it; He looks around for those people who have gotten rid of it. The despised, the things that the world despises—that’s what He chooses. That is why we are on the right track.
The religious world wants to look good and have religious flesh glory in His presence, but God says, “I’ll find the ones who are just about gone. You have used the work of the cross; you have eaten His flesh and have drunk His blood; you have repented of sin and you have gotten rid of it. You are the weak; you are what the world says is base; you are what the world says is not strong. You don’t have any clout, you don’t have any influence, you don’t have any abilities; you’re nothing.” God says, “That is the one I am going to use.”
You say, “But I’m a mess.” Okay. Just be sure that you are a diminishing, shrinking, dying mess; then God can use you! I don’t know whether you are getting ahold of the idea that this is going to work this time because we have experienced so much of the cross. We have been constantly into the appropriation of this new nature. We have been constantly creating it. Everything that has come in this whole operation of the Spirit in our lives for the last two or three months has done one thing: How is it going to work? You can’t do it to yourself. There is no way you can build it up. Just lay hands on each other, impart to each other, see the end of the flesh. Do it.
Watch How You Change
God has led most of you to stop praying for yourselves, because most of your prayers were getting a little more religious than they should be. Now you are appropriating for me, and you know it has to be a miracle of God. That is why I think that this praying for resurrection life is probably one of the most valid things. It is the thing that really tests your faith because you know that no one can produce it; God has to create it. And you get to praying for that and believing for that, and watch how you change.
There are all kinds of desires, unbreathed whispers of your heart that God is answering every day. You are different this morning than you were last night.
Death Has To Work In Us
When the old flesh is alive and you get hit, you really react; you withdraw, you do many things. Many things happen in your responses and your reactions if the flesh is alive. Every once in a while God lets the devil stick the pin in you to see if you are really dying. Now I am talking about the flesh nature, not about the physical being, because the physical being is going to be quickened and the mortal body is going to really come alive when we get rid of the flesh nature that seems to prevail in that natural realm.
Death has to work in us. Paul said, “So then death worketh in us, but life in you” (II Corinthians 4:12). There is no coming forth of the life of Jesus Christ without there is a commensurate amount of death working in the ministries.
Paul described all the things the ministries go through. He said, “We’re the offscouring of the earth. Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed” (I Corinthians 4:9–13; II Corinthians 4:7–10). Even Paul had a “messenger from Satan” buffeting him, a thorn in the flesh. I cannot but believe that it was in the demonic realm, in the physical realm, and in the psychic realm that he was being bothered. Three times he prayed and the Lord said, “My grace is sufficient for you; My strength is going to be perfected in weakness” (II Corinthians 12:7–10). He was saying that there had to be a diminishing of the flesh nature.
Suffer With Him And Reign With Him
Paul had been caught up into the third heaven, and he saw visions that weren’t even lawful to describe in this earth (II Corinthians 12:1–4). He said, “Lest I be exalted through the abundance of revelation, this messenger from Satan was given to me.” Now why would that be? God wanted to keep Paul humble enough so that he could live with what God was showing him in the spirit and not have his flesh suddenly become so puffed up and arrogant. That is the whole battle all the way through, that arrogance of the flesh, that awful thing that wants to glory in the presence of God. We will live in the humble place before God; that is where we are going to live, and that is the effective place to live. If we suffer with Him, we are going to reign with Him (II Timothy 2:12, KJV). Paul said, “I reckon the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:17–18).
It Is Not Going To Work Until You Get Out Of The Way
God has put your flesh in the corner. I am going to tell you something: It has taken years for the people to be put in the corner where they finally get the idea, “This has been a true Word from God, but it is not going to work until we get out of the way.” And then we move. “Well, I don’t know how. I tried, I tried, I tried.” Forget the trying and try the cross! Try the body and the blood of the Lord and just believe.
You are not being arrogant when you are determined that you are going to walk in the will of God.
One Big Step In God
Can you understand that God has done as much as He can up to this point? All your prayers will be answered as soon as you can just get out of the way a little more. Every step we take toward the minimizing of the flesh and walking in the Spirit is going to loose us that much more. If we just made one big step in God, we might find reverberations, and prophecies and things that had been pending for twenty or thirty years fulfilled just like that. God has heard them all. You believe that, don’t you? And God isn’t unfaithful; He holds them in His heart. He has written us on the palm of His hand (Isaiah 49:16). We are His people. He has promised that He is going to hear us.
We need the appropriation that finishes totally the work of devastation. I don’t want to be devastated; I want to be dead, because then there is resurrection life. There isn’t going to be a resurrection life where God sympathizes with my self-pity. I’m going to be dead and then I’m going to be resurrected. The channel has to be cleared out totally.
It comes right back to this: I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20, KJV. “I do not nullify the grace of God.” Verse 21a, NASB.
A Creative Force That Solves Your Problem
The worst thing we could do right now would be to point attention to one another and say, “We’re aware of your need.” Most of us are already aware of our own need.
The more we begin to confront one another, the more we maintain the independence and the separate identities that we have had. If I confront you, I am confronting your problem. If I enter your heart, I become a creative force that solves your problem, and you solve mine, by blessing, by creating, by change; and that is what we are believing for.
If we confront one another on the basis of the Law, then we are still working against the mind of God.
I Want To Confront The Flesh Nature
The whole key of it is this: … Christ in you, the hope of glory. And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me. Colossians 1:27–29. The problems that you have, I do not want to confront; I want to confront the nature you have—the flesh nature. I want to labor to present you perfect in Christ Jesus. If I bog down and become concerned about the mechanics and the workings and the nature of the flesh, I will deal with it forever. The attention it gets keeps it alive. Just forget it. We’re going to crucify it.
And we have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. I John 4:16a. John, I’m coming to know that love in you and in the brothers. That love has faith to change me. We are getting over the fear of people not loving us.
This love for one another is crucifying our old natures. It is an objective love in the spirit, not something that is soulish or emotional. God is giving us a love that is crucifying the flesh in one another. It is not pointing at the problems.
It is a love that sustains you. You do not need a lot of reassurance about it; you just trust it. It is a love that your faith trusts.
This is the love of the Lord: it does the complete work—crucifies, rebuilds, and creates at the same time. It doesn’t just level you out and then wait for something to come.
This Word has brought such a healing to us. It has given a purpose for all the years that we have interceded and cried out to God. And it has directed our focus so pointedly in the direction that we have to go. It rules out every other question in our mind; we know one thing—that we have to become crucified with Christ, and that in seeing your release, this thing is going to break loose so fantastically.
The Lord says, “Lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset you.” Then, “Run with endurance the race that is set before you, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of your faith” (Hebrews 12:1–2). Faith is an action; it’s like running. And you do everything you can to lay aside every weight and every sin, to get the thing going and run. It is not enough to run with endurance; get rid of the weights and get your focus fixed upon the Lord. He is the Author, and He will finish that faith, and you will move into it.
Identify Anything That Crosses The Lord In Our Daily Life
If the crucifixion of the flesh from this point could be clearer, then we would do it quicker. And the way I would plumb line it is that if we are set, moment by moment, with expectation of a release in the flow of judgments that we’ve been expecting, then the simplest way to identify anything that crosses the Lord would be whatever happens in our daily life that is in conflict with our constant awareness of the Lord, the judgment, the flow, and the expectation. I think that what we should do from this point is analyze daily—take it twenty-four hours a day to start with—and study what is in conflict and what does lessen the sharp edge, so that you can watch the battle and stay on top of everything. It isn’t that the Lord wants us to stop certain actions, like watching television or going to the show. All of a sudden you think, “What am I doing that is displeasing the Lord?” (JOHN STEVENS: It isn’t what you are doing; it’s what the flesh is.) Right. And it’s what you give into in a way of thinking, and you slip back into unbelief, or you’re not aggressive.
The New Nature Is Deadly; Feed Your Spirit And Make It Strong
You are looking for the specifics, the rocks in the yard that dull the blade of the mower—get them out, because we don’t want any hang-ups again. Okay, you are looking for those things of the flesh, but basically you will recognize that that is not the answer, totally. The answer is that the new nature is deadly, and it will see to it that the flesh is crucified. The spirit and the flesh are warring against each other, so you do not take the flesh to war against the flesh; you feed your spirit and make it strong and it automatically wars against the flesh and all the specific aspects of it. It is totally a thing of feeding the new nature; and it becomes strong, and it automatically functions in a realm that crucifies the flesh.
A Revelation That Comes To Your Spirit
The specifics will come up, and little things: “Oh, that’s one thing that is hindering.” But you see, it will be a revelation that comes to your spirit. It is not going to be trying to search out the flesh, because the flesh is too much of a lying entity and it will deceive you; it will hide, it will come up, it will even allow itself to be mowed down because it knows the root is still there. But that is not true of the spirit; the spirit will get at the root of the damnable thing and destroy it once and for all.
“Action And Passivity” or “Spirit And Flesh”
We could say, “action” and “passivity,” or we could say, “spirit” and “flesh,” and we are saying the same thing. When I say “action,” I am talking about the violent explosion of your faith moving on something. Even if you never moved a muscle, you are still moving on it, acting on it. You’re getting ahold of it; and that’s the difference. That is going to make the difference.
We’re learning more all the time, and more of God is being released. We have never seen such miracle change, and the change in us means inevitably the change in the world.
Judgment is a by-product of the will of God perfectly wrought in us.
Acts of Faith
Passivity Comes from a Soulish Reaction Of The Flesh
We are talking about action and passivity, just the same as we could talk about the spirit and the soul. Almost all passivity comes from a soulish reaction of the flesh to circumstances, to delays and discouragements, and so forth. I think that if we ever have a defeat, and we are walking with God, we should look for the source of it to be in some way connected with the flesh.
We want to learn how to perform a miracle that will continue on in perpetuation. That was a key that the old School of Prophets had; it’s really true. If you look back, they would get a miracle that would last as long as the faith of the people would believe for.
Action That Is Preparatory To The Miracle Is Very Important
Do you remember the story of the prophet who died in the days of Elisha? He was so heavily in debt that his sons were going to be sold into servitude. When the mother came to the prophet Elisha, he said, “You go borrow all of the vessels from your neighbors that you can, and not a few”; the Hebrews reads, “not one or two.” So she went and borrowed as many as she could, I suppose; but I think she could have been a little more diligent if she had realized the nature of the miracle. She only had one little cruse of oil, and she was told to pour it out into those vessels; each vessel was filled, and she continued to pour. The oil stayed at the last vessel (II Kings 4:1–7).
This miracle shows us something: though you don’t understand it, the action that is preparatory to the expression of your faith in a miracle is very important. The miracle will be just as great, and last just as long, as you prepare for it. What we are concerned with right now is the kind of action that gives the preliminary expression to our faith and guarantees the miracle.
Faith In Itself Is An Activity
Sometimes I wonder if that action isn’t the thing that generates faith, because faith in itself is an activity. You cannot love just in word; you have to love in deed (I John 3:18). And faith without any actions is dead, abiding alone (James 2:17). There are some things that are actions, especially faith and love which are the basic functions of the Kingdom—it’s faith that worketh by love (Galatians 5:6). You just cannot have faith without that you act on it. You cannot have love without that you act on it. In no way do we escape if we neglect so great a salvation (Hebrews 2:3). We neglect not the gift that is in us, which was given to us by prophecy and the laying on of hands; we don’t dare to neglect it (I Timothy 4:14). If it is dormant we stir it up (II Timothy 1:6). If it is there, we are careful not to grieve it or to quench it (Ephesians 4:30; I Thessalonians 5:19). In every case, whatever we have from God is stirred by our faith.
Fruitfulness Is The Final Result Of Active Faith
You say, “I don’t know; I’m waiting for the Spirit to move me.” Why don’t you move the Spirit? Since there is so much initiative given to the Spirit-filled walk, and so much initiative given to stewardship, we’re aware that our accountability is important. In the Scriptures, nine times out of ten you will find that your accountability for a thing is based upon how you reacted to your stewardship. Did you take your talent and go out and do business, or did you bury it? Were you active or were you passive? Did you trade and use it until you gained ten talents, or were you just content to stop with one? (Matthew 25:14–30.) There has to be something within you that becomes the activation of your faith.
I think fruitfulness is a result of faith. Fruitfulness is the final result of active faith, but you won’t be fruitful unless you act on it. That is true, isn’t it? There is not going to be any fruit in your life unless you act on it. There is not going to be any judgment in the earth unless you have acted upon the faith in the Word God gives. All of these things that we are concerned about are a result of faith that we have acted upon.
Faith Detonates The Powerful Word
Look back in the Old Testament, and time and time again you see that the miracles required a certain amount of preparation (II Kings 3:16; Joshua 6:1–5; II Kings 4:2–4).
Always the preparation didn’t seem to be that reasonable; but they did it in obedience, and their very action precipitated something: “Take up your bed and walk” (Luke 5:24). Do something. Express the faith of your heart. Do what is impossible. Do what is not even reasonable, but do what God says to do with an obedience in your heart. I think this is the process: you get a Word, and you set your will to do that Word, and you obey it; and some way in the process, faith detonates the powerful Word that God gave and you see the miracle.
I Dare Not Let Experience Be My Teacher
Something is going to have to reduce this whole day of the Kingdom from the reasonable, inasmuch as we have a syndrome of reasoning in this day that has reasoned everything out of the picture. There will have to be, not blind faith, but the kind of faith that sees into the realm of the Spirit and says, “There is only one thing: God and His Word. And I dare not allow my mind to question it. I dare not allow the inner responses of my soul and my emotions, my reactions, the memories that I have of past things to exist. I dare not let experience be my teacher.” When God starts bringing the Kingdom to us, it becomes a very living thing. We have not seen it in this manner heretofore (I Samuel 4:7). In the Scriptures there is always something surprising and amazing, because the Spirit does something that people are not ready for in their experience of things. That is what God wants to do with you.
We Seek Confirmation Because We Are Ready To See A Great Victory In The Lord
This has to lead, in your spirit, to a form of obedience that does not question things until you run around in circles trying to find wise men who could come and say, “Yes, go ahead and do it.” We can seek for confirmation because we’ve got cold feet in the day of battle, or we can seek for confirmation because we are ready to plunge into the battle and see a great victory in the Lord. That confirmation can come, one way or the other.
There is a victory that God wants to win, but we are still conditioned to what is reasonable, to what is acceptable.
The Obedience Of Your Spirit Transcends The Reasoning Of Your Mind
I don’t know what God will do in the Kingdom, but I tell you, we’re going to see and be and do; and it’s going to be more or less in that order. I think God will show you something that you are to do; it will become a reality to you. It may not make any sense, but you will see it in the Spirit and you will go and do it, because in the motion you become the faith of God in the earth. As long as your mind is warring against God, God has to invent some way that the obedience of your spirit transcends the reasoning of your mind, and you get into some action that is preparatory to it.
Now when you read the story of how Jesus turned the water into wine (John 2:3–11), the miracle makes sense to you. It wasn’t just some little isolated incident that was a premature manifestation of the miracle power of God; it had inherent right within it the things of action that have to be the trigger of faith. Mary said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it. They acted in obedient faith and the result was a miracle. You have to set your will to act on the Word.
How many times have you searched the Scriptures in vain for some set pattern in the way Jesus performed miracles? You can’t find it. But you find some lepers, and He tells them, “You go show yourselves to the priests”; and as they go, they are healed (Luke 17:11–14).
Incidental To The Boldness Of Faith Was Miracle After Miracle
There is some kind of action which is beyond reason that precedes a miracle. There is some kind of faith that you can have like those three boys who stood up there and said, “We don’t know whether God is going to deliver us or not; but one thing we do know, we’re not bowing down to this image. We’re not going to do it.” So they made the furnace as hot as they could and threw them in. God delivered them (Daniel 3:14–27). See, the three Hebrews didn’t know whether there was going to be a miracle or not. They really didn’t know. These men didn’t live with a foreknowledge of a miracle to be worked. All they lived with was faith that they actively lived every day. Incidental to the boldness of living in faith is that miracle after miracle is performed. I don’t think there is some conscious thing that you cook up.
Led By The Spirit
I would say most of the things that have happened of the supernatural or miracle level in my life have been because I just walked with God, and they happened incidental to it. There is a need; suddenly your hands are burning; you lay them on somebody, and something happens to him right there. You open your mouth and there is a Word, and twenty years later he says, “That was the Word. It was the Word over my whole life.” I don’t think we have planned this great walk of faith and miracles. I don’t think the greater works are going to be that way. I think that it’s going to be pretty much led by the Spirit of the Lord; as you go along, there it is. It’s like Abraham’s servant said: “I being in the way, the Lord led me” (Genesis 24:27, KJV).
There Is Something Spontaneous Coming
Instead of straining, we just say, “Lord, here we are.” Casually we see something in the Spirit; we speak it and it happens. There is something spontaneous coming.
All of the problems that we face today come from a disobedience back there someplace. The Israelites left some Canaanites alive, and they plagued them (Numbers 33:55). The wholehearted response to God should leave us responding until we almost wait for God to say, “You can stop now.”
You Are Giving Birth
It is just too late to back out. You can’t. You are giving birth to this level of the Kingdom and it is going to keep convulsively coming. And you are going to have to keep acting upon it. Grit your teeth and push! God is not allowing us to be without this compulsive, directive drive; and He is saying, “Act on it with all your heart.”
We Are Ready To Be Fools
Look what the devil says: “Okay, this drive will end. It will be just the same as anything else that ever was; you will have gained so much ground, and that’s all!” But we’re going for broke in this one, more than we have ever done before. We are ready to be fools. We are ready to renounce the reasonableness of it. We are ready to even be confronted by anything.
They Did Things That There Was No Pattern For
Everybody is trying to conform to the conventional. They do not want to do anything unexpected, but we are doing it.
In the name of Jesus Christ we are breaking through to the unconventional, to the thing that is different. It dawned on me that when you stand and pray, I think you’re going to be more effective if you are not self-conscious about it: “Oh boy, shut the windows! What are the neighbors going to think?” You’re going to stand out in the front. There is a little of that fear, intimidation, in us yet. If God says for us to pray, we will pray. If He says to stand still here while one guy prays, then one guy will pray. But whatever God says to do or that we’re led to do, we’ll do. The whole pattern of the Bible is that they did things that there was no pattern for!
Boldness Brings Fruitfulness
We don’t understand yet that the great men of God had something in them. Michal despised David when he danced before the Lord. He threw off his clothes and danced, and she said, “You were like one of the lewd fellows today. Were you something else!” He said, “I’m going to be even more abased in my own sight”; and Michal was barren until the day she died (II Samuel 6:20–23).
There isn’t anything that ends fruitfulness like fear. But it is boldness that brings fruitfulness. If you are going to bring the ark up, do it right because it’s a dangerous thing. If you’re going to try to bring Christ in the earth, it’s a dangerous thing. Don’t try to use some modern method. You don’t wheel Him in on a cart; you’re going to carry Him on your shoulders. And you’re going to dance before the Lord and you’re going to shout. You’re going to cry. You are going to do a lot of things because your spirit is going to be released into a wholeheartedness before God, loving Him with all your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37). We have pleased God in the one thing He wants: wholeheartedness, all our heart.
He Wants Some Of That Audacious Faith
God wants some of that audacious faith that says, “I won’t let You go until You bless me.” God says, “Okay, what is your name?” “Jacob. (“Supplanter.” That means crooked.) I don’t care what my name is; I’m not going to let You go” (Genesis 32:26–27). Even God Himself has to get His act together in this because He comes at you insisting that you are going to move with that violent faith. You’re going to be obedient. Something is going to work in your life. He has to draw you.
The woman with the devil-possessed daughter kept yelling after the Lord; and the disciples said, “We’ve got to send her away.” And the Lord said, “We can’t take the children’s bread and give it to dogs.” “Yes, Lord, but the dogs will get the crumbs. I’m sticking right with You” (Matthew 15:22–28). God help us to have that kind of faith, because unless we stand and we pray and everybody is agreeing and everybody hangs on together, then we tend to shrink back. When we have heard a Word and that Word has set us on a course, we can’t stop, because somewhere that fearfulness enters in and takes the cutting edge off the sword of the Spirit.
Ninety Percent Of Our Problems Are The Result Of Transference
Even Elijah, after He killed the seven hundred prophets of Baal, sat under the juniper tree and wished he were dead because of a certain spirit that was in the earth (I Kings 19:1–4). We need this impartation of faith because there is reproach on speaking judgment, and on facing the Jezebel spirit. That is the thing that makes us afraid—it tries to intimidate us. That is the thing that we are going to overcome in this age. There won’t be any release until there is a judgment. We go after it right now to see that totally taken off the face of the earth. The Jezebel spirit has been a seed in the earth since the beginning. You say that ninety percent of our problems are the result of transference. I believe that with this faith we can channel it and see that spirit judged.
You Have To Judge All Of Babylon
What is bothering me is that we still narrow it down to too few instances, things that are common to our own experience. You have to judge all of Babylon, not just one little branch of it or one of the great whore’s daughters (Revelation 18). You can’t just get one of them. You have to go after this thing that you are crying for: the Lord being vindicated in the earth, the righteousness of God filling the earth. You’ve got to look for an outpouring that is going to do it.
Be A Channel For God’s Wrath To Come
We have limited God in the scope of what is to be done. We sit down and we talk about what God really hates. But what are you doing about it? Be a channel for God’s wrath to come upon the dead religion, upon the things that have turned away and become apostate. The prophets made people shake in their boots when they came. When Samuel came over the hill, they sent out all of the elders who said, “Are you coming in peace, or have we done something and we’re going to get it?” (I Samuel 16:4.) The fear of God is going to come back again when the fear of man leaves the prophets.
Be Purified
We submit to the purification of the Lord, because we still don’t realize how much of this unbelief is just dry rot in our soul. Get rid of it. Be purified. With the purification comes the perception. Now we can see what we’re doing. And with the perception comes the complete obedience to appropriate, to move. Move on the thing and see it happen. There is just no place for us to dillydally along with this thing. We’re either going to do it or we’re not going to do it.
Be The Expression Of The Will Of God
This is the purest Kingdom spirit I have ever seen. Nobody is seeking for the preeminence, but just to see Him glorified. We are not even praying for judgments or deliverances or breakthroughs for any lower motivation than to say, “Let the will of God come forth in the earth. And let us be the expression of that will of God, for His praise and His glory. Let’s get the thing going in the name of the Lord.”
The Reasoning Process Drains Our Faith
The whole reasoning process is so perverted. It is so passive. It’s a root that drains our faith. It drains the active impartation that we can give. That whole process is what we are breaking. That obedience to the Word without the steps, the wholehearted commitment which you have given your life to—we are taking that from you, and we are giving it back to you.
God Is Against Reason That Is Enthroned Above His Word
Do you believe it is happening? Do you believe it happened to you today? Do you believe you are doing it? Then it is happening. But it sure isn’t happening in anybody who is questioning it, reasoning it. That’s what we are talking about. Reason it, and something evaporates. It shakes apart. Reasoning becomes the thing that shoves, shoves, shoves the thing until it falls apart. It isn’t that God is against reason, but He is against you enthroning your reason above His Word.
We Are Going To Be Friends Of God
Jesus said, “Henceforth, I call you not servants, but I’m going to call you friends” (John 15:14–15). And there must be a higher level even than bondservants, where God communes what He wants and you feel like Abraham, a friend of God (James 2:23). Above everything else you believe Him and you do whatever He says, regardless of whether it makes sense or not. If He says, “Get up and go to a land that I’ll show you,” you trust that He is going to show you, and you start moving (Genesis 12:1–4).
God is doing this with us. If you are reaching to a higher level of oneness, a level of obedient faith, God is going to honor it and say, “This is the friendship that I want in the Kingdom.” When there is one Lord totally dominating and we are living in Him, we will cease to be so many bondservants and we will be friends of God. We are going to be executors of the estate. We are going to be the ones that He can trust, because He says, “You are not just a servant, because a servant doesn’t know what his master is doing (John 15:15). But you are going to know what I am doing, and I am going to know what you are doing.” I loose this level of being led by God.
We Are Making A New Way To Walk In
The thing to do when you hit a ditch is just walk around it. I am really convinced that the way into the Kingdom is not a straight line, regardless of whether it is mountains or valleys. I think that there are some things we can come up to and say, “I totally remove that valley from my experience. I cast this mountain into the sea because I have the faith for it” (Mark 11:23). You are going to go through it if that is what you think, but we ought to plow the ground like a bulldozer, cast out the stones, build up a highway (Isaiah 62:10). We are making a new way to walk in. We believe God. We determine the course and the result, because we believe Him. We get our cues from God, and we go right through. Mountains, disappear!
Oneness Is Totally Unexplored
I believe that constantly we are expanding into a new relationship in this oneness. Oneness is totally unexplored. Our relationships are totally unexplored. The reason for it is that our relationship to God has not been really explored; half of us don’t even know the extent of our relationship and our oneness with the Lord. Our walk with God is not that real to us, and so we grasp this oneness together and say, “Isn’t that nice?” But it is just a fraction of what God really wants between Him and us.
In this oneness—being led by the Spirit of the Lord—we have come to the place where we are God’s people in this earth. We are His people. We don’t have to say that we’re special, but we’re not second-rate citizens either. We are His people. We are one in Him. And anything He tells us to do, we can do.
God Is Going To Get Our Total Commitment
The Scripture said in the Old Testament that He does nothing but what He reveals it first to His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7). He did the same thing with Abraham. There has to be a level in which people are not just getting words to pass on mechanically, but they are in tune with the heart of God. It is the fellowship, the communion that He is really after. That’s why He is going to this extent to get His inheritance in the saints of light (Ephesians 1:18).
How great that is! We always think about what we are going to get. But the whole thing is not what we are going to get; it is that God is going to get us. He is after that. And our total commitment is the thing that gives us total boldness. He is looking for it.
Let Him Bring Forth Out Of Weakness His Great Strength
Paul said, “Who is sufficient for these things?” That’s the awesome part, that you see this treasure in earthen vessels (II Corinthians 2:16; 4:7.) You see, God’s selectivity isn’t very reasonable. He has selected. He has chosen. But it doesn’t look like He made a very wise choice. I never felt that He did, but I never argue with Him because you don’t argue with Him—not on that point (Romans 9:11–26). You just have to understand Him. And if He wants to do it with a base vessel, that is up to Him.
But we will let Him purify that vessel and bring forth out of its weakness His great strength (II Corinthians 12:9); and He is going to commune with us.
God Is Going To Honor What He Has Done In Us
God has not brought us thus far into oneness only to create one vessel that becomes a one-man show. We fought so long to get the brethren to grow, to come up to it. This time God is going to honor what He has done in us. And it’s going to be almost an instantaneous creativity of God.
I’ve Got It in My Hand!
Impartation—The Key of Everything That We Are Doing
I would like to set something before you today that will be a very important part of your ministering to me, to Marilyn, and to one another. What is the Word about? What is the next step for us? Where are we going from this step? Are we just coming together for more services? The whole key of all of this is impartation. Whether it’s a Communion service or laying on of hands or intercession, it is what you are imparting to one another. Your coming into one another’s hearts and imparting has to be the key of everything that we are doing.
The Simple Definition Of Faith
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1, KJV. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1, NASB. That simple definition of faith has been quoted so often, on every successive level of people’s acceptance of the Word of God, but few have really understood the deep quality and nature of faith. When we are in the midst of intercession, it is easy for us to cry aloud to God with what we have as a hopeful expectation, rather than with faith.
If It Is Right To Pray For A Thing, It Is Wrong To Stop Until You Get It
If it is right to pray for a thing, it is wrong to stop praying until you get it, because behind that is the crying out to the Lord for the assurance of faith—faith that is an evidence, a substance.
Faith Goes Beyond The Realm Of Hope; Come To The Place Where You Can Say, “I’ve Got It In My Hand”
Faith has to go beyond the realm of hope, until you come to the place where you say, “I’ve got it in my hand. I’ve got the Word in my hand. I believe it.” Faith, then, has to become the substance of those who are active and not passive. Faith is an activity; and as you crash against the door, you have to believe that it is going to break down. You have gained entry into the area of fulfillment. Faith cannot be an intangible thing that you are trying to work up, nor can it be some kind of a modification or a form of hope. Faith has to be a gift from God. You’ve got it in your hand! It is there. It’s a substance of something that you have hoped for; it’s an evidence of things not seen.
God Looked In The Heart Of Abraham
What made Abraham so wonderful? I think he made a lot of mistakes. But Abraham didn’t walk with any condemnation. If you, today, were walking in the same problems that he had, you could easily give yourself to self-condemnation. God was defending Abraham even when it didn’t seem that he had faith. God didn’t look on his fears; God looked upon the fact that somewhere in the heart of Abraham was such a faith in God that no matter how much he stumbled around, God honored him. And everything in Abraham’s life He accounted for righteousness (Genesis 15:6; Romans 4:3).
Faith Cancels Out Everything You Have Done Wrong
How many say, “I don’t know how the verdict would come out if God went to judge me. I’ve wavered; I’ve withdrawn; I’ve goofed off; I’ve been bitter; I’ve done everything else but express faith. How could God ever look upon me and love me? How do I stand before God?”
What can you do to work the works of God? Believe! (John 6:28–29.) Faith is going to cancel out everything that you have done wrong, because God has already provided for it anyway. Faith will bring you to the place where not only are the wrong, hindering things no longer a problem, but He is going to put in your hand the substance of everything you have wanted—every dream, every vision, every Word, every promise.
Get Rid Of That Self-Condemnation And Start Believing God
How many times have you said, “I’m all through; I’m washed up”? How many times have we failed God? Does that make any difference? We still don’t understand the depths of the grace of God. You say, “I want to work the works of God. I don’t want to lose out.” The first thing is get rid of that self-condemnation. God is more willing to forgive you than you are willing to repent of it. “Then what do I do?” Get right with this thing and start believing God and standing on His promises. Believe them! The only thing that doesn’t become an antique in this world is God’s Word. When God says something, it’s for good. Heaven and earth will pass away, but that Word will not pass away (Mark 13:31).
Everything Has Its Origin In The Heart Of God
The substance in your spirit precedes the visual evidence of it in your sight. When you’ve got it in your spirit, you’re going to see it with your eyes. Everything begins to have its reality in the spirit world, and then it comes down into the natural world. First God has to say, “Let Us make man in Our own image” (Genesis 1:26). Then He comes down, and you’ve got a man (Genesis 2:7). But the man in substance and form does not precede the vision in the heart of God. Nothing comes until it is born in the heart of God. Christ did nothing but what He saw the Father do (John 5:19). What the Father spoke, He spoke (John 14:10). Everything has to have its origin in the heart of God. Once God gets through to you that this is His heart, this is what He believes, this is what He is going to do, this is His will in the earth, you will see it fulfilled.
Faith Is A Gift From God
I’ve got it; it is more than a hope now. I’ve got it in my hand. I don’t have to have anybody prove anything to me; I have the evidence. I don’t have to have anybody try to talk me into believing; I believe because I know. I have faith. It is a gift of faith from God that says, “You have it, son.” That is the faith I want you to minister in your ministry to me.
God Gives Answers To Your Prayers To Confirm Your Faith
I don’t want emotional stimulus! I want evidence—substance! If faith is an activity, your faith takes hold of a substance. Action—take hold of it. You’re not running against fears. “Oh, I’m so afraid. I’m so afraid! God answer my prayer!” He does not give you answers to your prayers to still your fears; He gives them to you only to confirm your faith.
The Promises Of God Do Not Expire By A Law Of Limitations
If you think for one minute that I am not going to see the total fulfillment of every prophecy that has ever come for the last twenty-five years, you are mistaken. In fact, I am going to make a search to find out things that were said way back in the early fifties, and I am going to produce them, because the promises of God do not expire by a law of limitations. There is no statute of limitations on the promises of God.
We Have To Reach The Place Where We Know In Our Spirits That It Is Real
Everybody must have it in their spirits. In other words, you can pray and believe, but what you are really saying is that we have to have the truth that we’re voicing so positive in our spirits that it’s automatic; and then we’ll see it. We said today, “If it’s right to pray for something, it’s wrong to stop until we see it.” I’m wondering if we can’t apply that to specifics, and know that we are praying for one thing or another until it’s so positive in our spirit. And then our spirit creates it; we see it happen after that. Maybe that’s one reason we have fallen a little short at times, because we have prayed for it and we have believed it, but we have always had that little undermining thing that wondered if it was going to happen. But we have to reach the place where we know in our spirits that it is real to us. We shouldn’t stop until we have made it or created it by our will in our own spirit. It’s a Word that we make bypass every inner conflict within us that is opposing it. We make it real to us, and then from that point it is created.
God Gives Us A Word And Our Faith Fulfills It
“I have believed and therefore I spoke” is the language of the Scriptures (II Corinthians 4:13). I’m wondering if God isn’t trying to tell us in all of this, “Do you want the substance? Speak it into your hand.” God gives us a Word. He puts the Word in our heart and makes that Word a part of our very being; He writes it on the tablets of our heart and it becomes a living part of us (II Corinthians 3:3). Then what do we do? Do we say, “God in heaven, move someday, somewhere, and bring this to pass”? Or has He put with that seed of faith and Word in our heart everything that is necessary to explode it into fulfillment? We are still looking to God to do something that He said was ours. He gave us the Word, and we do not know how to declare it into action yet, because we are still expecting it to happen outside of us and apart from us. We are the substance of the Word; the Word is substance in us. And the faith we have means that we have it. Somewhere in your heart and in your being is the fulfillment of everything that God has ever spoken over you.
People Are The Promises And Fulfillment Of The Seed Of The Word Of God
That is the substance we are after. It’s like a woman who has been impregnated. When the Scripture talks about the Word of God, it says, “We’re born of the incorruptible seed, the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever” (I Peter 1:23, KJV). The Word is a seed. “The sower went out to sow” (Matthew 13:3). It was seeds. What was that seed? The seed was the Word of God. What grew? Promises and fulfillment? People were the promises and fulfillment. They did it. The greater works are not apart from people who are a greater manifestation of Christ. It is all one and the same thing.
The Miracle Is In Us—All We Have To Do Is Proclaim It
Everything in this great time of oneness is taking any way that we have ever thought we and God were separate entities, or you and I were separate entities, and it is bringing it down to say, “We are one with God; we’re one with His Word.” The miracle is in us. All we have to do is to proclaim it.
“Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ (that is, to bring Christ down), or ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).” But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Romans 10:6b–9.
That’s it. We don’t understand yet that with one positive declaration of that faith you’ve got it. All we have to do is speak it. It is there in us. We are through with any disillusionment or disappointment, or with having our hopes and expectations not fulfilled. We are determined we’re not going to walk that way again; we’re not going to go through years and years of just hanging on. God is saying, “This is the way that it’s going to be fulfilled. Now shall it spring forth” (Isaiah 43:19).
It Is In Our Spirits; We Are Speaking It Into Existence
This thing of hanging on is a fear. You said that the thing doesn’t happen to comfort our fear. We are not praying because we’re afraid. We are not believing because we’re afraid, but because it is a confirmed Word of God and we see it and we believe it and we are speaking it into existence. If we are praying for you out of fear, we are missing it. But if we are seeing it as a confirmed substance within our spirits and within our hearts, then we are creating it. It’s in our spirits; we speak it into existence.
We Are Putting Into Motion What God Has Put In Our Hearts
JOHN STEVENS: It is different than saying, “Well, we believe it, and therefore now we are going to do it.” We believe that we are putting into motion and into fulfillment what God has put in our hearts.
We Are Beginning To Realize Our Power To Create
Why does impartation work? Because God has already deposited it in you. You’re not saying, “God, come here and do this.” He has put it in your heart and you minister it through your hands. “Such as we have we give to you” (Acts 3:6). When God speaks a Word to you I think it is like an electronic chip that has recorded on it all of eternity. And with it, if you know how to work it, you can be an instrument to bring it forth. We limit ourselves to think that we have to have a bulldozer to move these ant hills. We are beginning to realize our power to create.
Its prophetic proclamation. And now it’s creative. How often you have said, “Don’t exhort; don’t prophesy. Proclaim it into being. Create it.”
When One Is Born Of God, There Is A Capacity In Him For Development
A little baby, even from the time of its conception in the womb, has inherent within it everything that his personality will ever develop, and possibly hundreds of times more than it ever will develop. Likewise, when one is born of God, within him is not just something that is going to grow, and you have to hang on him gifts and abilities; but there is a capacity in him for development, for impartation to receive, for the creativity, so that we are not just imparting something alien and foreign to him, but mainly we are imparting something that triggers off what is in him, what is a latent thing within him.
Oneness Has No Meaning Unless We Can Turn God Loose In One Another
Give God His voice. We’ll go a step further: Give these brothers their fulfillment. Faith is the substance of the thing hoped for. Someway there is within us a capacity to turn God loose in ourselves and in our brothers. Oneness means nothing in the world at all unless I can turn God loose in you and you can turn God loose in me.
“I Take It From You”
The purest faith I could manifest would be to walk up to you and say, “You can do it for me. I take it from you.” Even when you don’t believe it, I can believe that you’ve got it. God gave it to you for me and I am going to have it. Give it to me. It is that simple.
God Limits Our Faith For Ourselves To Be A Little Less Than It Is For Our Brother
There is always that question in your mind: “How am I going to make it?” If faith has any limitation at all in the heart of God, it is that God limits our faith for ourselves to be a little less than it is for our brother.
I Confess That In Me Is The God Of Creation
Faith is the substance of the thing hoped for. Why is it a substance? Because I believe God has already put it here—the seed of it, the whole basis of it. He put Himself in me. It is not an illogical thing, but it is a real step of faith for someone to say, “I confess that I can do nothing in myself. But I confess that in me is the God of creation” (John 5:19–30).
The Power That The Father Turned Loose For His Son Is Inherent In Us
I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:18–23.
It was a tremendous prayer that is almost inexhaustible in us. Paul was saying, “I pray that you begin to understand what God did. He turned loose a power toward us. That power He manifested when He raised Christ from the dead, set Him at His right hand, made Him head over everything, and brought it back to where that fullness will be in you.” In other words, the very power that the Father turned loose for the resurrection of His Son, to make Him the Head over all, is the thing that is inherent in us. He made us to be the fullness of Him that filleth all in all. I don’t like how much of this fullness we are manifesting. It is too meager an amount of God coming through. I don’t think it is an ego trip, but I think it is a simple matter of faith. If the fullness of God is to be manifested through us, let’s get this show on the road!
God Has Limited Himself To Move Through Instruments Of Faith
If the Scriptures mean one thing to us, they mean that the omnipotent God has limited Himself to move through faith, through instruments of faith. It is His faith in us.
We’ve Got To Flow Completely In Oneness
Before, the mistrust and suspicion kept us from loving. But now, whenever you reach out and take, or someone else reaches out and takes, you trust that the thing that is going to be taken is exactly what God has for you or for that person to receive—that the portion God has for that person is exactly what he is going to receive.
We’ve got to get away from this suspicion of each other, knowing one another after the flesh. We’ve got to flow completely in this oneness that is coming, this trust, this love.
We Have In Us The Unlimited Potential That Could Create A Hundred Universes
What we have in us is the unlimited potential of God that actually could go and create a hundred universes like this one—it could start cycles of ages. This will be the ministry: We draw from you with a new awareness of your potential, the divine potential, the holy potential, the faith that is in you. We draw from it to become what God wants. As you have voiced it many times, now our active faith reaches in because I can believe, “This is the will of God that you give it.” You have it. I take it. This is the ministry.
We Are The New Creation Born To Create The Will Of God In The Whole Earth
This is the beginning of the creativity of God through the new creation—the new creation born to create in one another and to create the will of God in the whole earth. We are the new creation born to create one another. Ministry should never be what I can give or what you can give. The ministry should be a reciprocal flow, flowing from God through all of us. You say, “Well, I can’t be anything.” But your brother believes that you can be everything. And you believe that your brother can be everything. That’s where the faith reaches its peak.