Self-confidence—the human level of confidence—must be taken away, and we must attain the level of divinely imparted confidence. In many places the Bible calls this “boldness,” or “confidence.”
Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled; and they took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus. Acts 4:13, KJV.
And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness. Acts 4:29, 31, KJV.
To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: in whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Ephesians 3:10–12, KJV.
According to my earnest expectation and hope, that I shall not be put to shame in anything, but that with all boldness, Christ shall even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. Philippians 1:20.
It is not a pseudo-boldness, where you are trying to convince yourself of something; rather, it is a boldness of faith that takes the answer in the name of the Lord.
This may not mean much to you until you have scriptural illustrations of how this worked in the New Testament times. With several basic references, we will relate this message on acceptance to the early Church and to the Apostle Paul. Some references in his epistles will also open the truth to our hearts. Then we are going to apply this truth and get rid of every hang-up that we have in this matter of confident prayer.
We have had teaching on aggressive prayer, and we are learning what intercession is all about. Things are changing for us, but they are not changing fast enough. Things are happening, but we want them to happen faster.
We know that we ourselves are changing from glory to glory (II Corinthians 3:18), but we believe there is a way that we can change much more rapidly. You can have a meeting with God just in the Word that He opens up to you. Without any special meeting by some mystical process, God can confront you by His own Word. He has confronted me with this Word, and I want to do more than share it with you; I want you to experience it.
Acts 3 records the account of the healing of the lame man at the Gate Beautiful of the Temple in Jerusalem. After this great miracle, Peter and John began bearing witness of Jesus’ resurrection, and many people were saved. The priests and the scribes were disturbed by this and called Peter and John before the Council. Acts 4:13–14 tells us the reaction of those who had listened to Peter’s defense of his and John’s action: Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John, and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were marveling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they had nothing to say in reply.
They took counsel together and then warned Peter and John not to speak anymore in the name of Jesus (verses 15–18). Notice the boldness with which Peter and John replied: “We cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20). The rulers threatened them again, and then let them go.
Peter and John returned to the rest of the disciples, and they all began to pray with one accord (verses 23–24). I particularly like this part of their prayer, verses 29–30: “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Thy bond-servants may speak Thy word with all confidence, while Thou dost extend Thy hand to heal, and signs and wonders take place through the name of Thy holy servant Jesus.”
And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness. And the congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul; and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own; but all things were common property to them. Acts 4:31–32.
This is the picture of the early Church. It was beautiful the way they sold their possessions and shared together and boldly spoke the Word.
The events recorded in Acts chapters 3 and 4 would not have occurred if it had not been for the fact that a certain process had taken place. First of all, the disciples had to know what they were before they could go any further. They saw themselves stripped of all illusion, and it was not a pretty sight. The great moving of the early Church began shortly after the greatest time of failure and denial the Church has ever known. At the hour of Jesus’ crucifixion, the disciples had all forsaken Him and fled (Matthew 26:56). They had denied Him and they had doubted. They were unworthy and they knew that they were unworthy. This realization was the beginning of their seeking after the Lord; and in full obedience they waited until they had been filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:4–8, 14; 2:1–4). Their prayer indicates what had happened to them. They said, “O Lord, grant Your bondservants boldness to speak the Word You have given us to speak” (Acts 4:29).
Like the disciples, you must accept yourself as a bondservant of Jesus Christ. With all of your needs and all of your problems, you belong to Him. You must accept Him as the absolute Lord over your life, and accept yourself as His bondservant. That acceptance is basic. Then you must accept what He says about you. You cannot honor Him as Lord and at the same time refuse the prophecies over you. You cannot honor Him as Lord and still draw back from the revelations God has given concerning you, or from any Word that He sets before you to walk in, just because you feel that you are not worthy or that you do not have the ability to do it. He is Lord and you are His servant. Whatever He says about you, honor that Word. Honor what He says you are. Believe in that revelation. Accept it.
Paul was called to be an apostle and he knew it. He was a bondservant of Jesus Christ. He knew who the Lord was and he knew who he was in relationship to the Lord, and he did not draw back from that. It was this basic acceptance of the Lord and of himself that enabled him to accept the rest of the Body. It enabled him to accept his ministry to them and their ministry to him.
If I do not believe what God has said over me, how can I give others a Word and expect them to believe it? How can I believe for them if I do not believe for myself to be a channel of blessing to them? If I cannot accept myself as a servant of God, then I cannot accept the ministry that God gives me to give to others.
I can recall a number of years past when everyone who came around began to prophesy apostleship to me. I kept quiet because I could foresee a lot of persecution and misunderstanding concerning this. I doubted that the whole Body of Christ was ready for this sort of thing. I did not back off from it or deny it; I just let the issue lie. As long as there was a question in my mind, everyone else also had a question. But the day came that I had the meeting with the Lord where He commissioned me and said that this was the way it was going to be; and I accepted that. From that time on, I would say that less than one percent of the people who come to hear the Word ever have any problem accepting my ministry themselves. The only reason anyone has a problem with it is that he questions his own relationship to the Lord. Whoever knows that he is called of God and knows that he belongs to the Lord responds with the same confidence I have. Because you have confidence and I have confidence, there is a flow together in the Body that is basic.
When you accept Jesus Christ as Lord and yourself as His bondservant, when you believe with all of your heart that these are the days of the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, that the sons and daughters have come forth to prophesy the Word of the Lord (Joel 2:28), then inevitably you will break through to experiences with the Lord, into prophesying and all the moving of the Spirit that you want in your life. That acceptance is basic. Notice that I said “acceptance”—not “self-confidence.”
Paul illustrated, better than anyone else in the New Testament, what it really means to accept oneself as God’s servant. He could not accept himself on any other basis. Before he became a believer, his whole life was based upon an acceptance and a confidence in himself. In Philippians 3:4–6, he said that he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. He said that if anyone had reason to boast, he had more. He had been circumcised on the eighth day of the tribe of Benjamin. He excelled his brethren in zeal in persecuting the people of the Lord. But when the Lord appeared to him and asked, “Why are you persecuting Me?” (Acts 9:3–4), Paul had a new idea of what it was all about. He saw that everything he had accepted was wrong. This made him no longer a man who was establishing his righteousness under the Law; instead, it made him the chiefest of sinners (I Timothy 1:15). Now what was he going to do?
What happens to a man when he is shattered like this? What did Paul do? He followed a course by which he became one of the boldest and one of the most effective apostles of the New Testament. He himself said, concerning those with whom he had been compared, I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me. I Corinthians 15:10b, KJV. Paul was so shattered that he no longer had any basis for self-confidence. He said, “Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think that anything is of ourselves” (II Corinthians 3:5). In Philippians 3:3 he wrote, “We are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh.” This man, who once had a reason to boast, now had come to the place where he could hardly even accept himself as a human being, as one who was worthy of life. Yet he said, “I obtained mercy because I persecuted the Church of God ignorantly” (I Timothy 1:13). He was so completely broken that he had to have a basis for living; he had to find out who he was.
Galatians 1:1–5: Paul, an apostle (not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead), and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.
Galatians 1:11–20: For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure, and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.
But when He who had set me apart, even from my mother’s womb, and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles … There it is: “He revealed His Son in me, that I might preach Him.” Notice what was happening. The process had to take place. But he had been so shattered—what was he going to do? I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. (He was on his way to Damascus at the time of his conversion.) Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas (Peter), and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.)
After spending three years finding out who the Lord Jesus really was—the One whom he had persecuted—and finding out who he himself was, and finding out that God had committed to him a glorious Gospel to be preached, Paul came to Jerusalem.
And I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, “He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy.” And they were glorifying God because of me. Galatians 1:22–24.
Only one thing could have changed a man so completely that in his ministry he became the most effective of all the apostles, even though he had been the most ardent persecutor of Christianity that Judaism had ever produced. During those three years, he was not conferring with flesh and blood, but he was working something out. Of course, human channels had been used as an instrument to minister to Paul. Ananias came while Paul was still blind and ministered to him. At that time, Paul received his sight, was baptized with water, and received the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:17–18). He was not implying that no human channels were used in what he received, but that the whole Word began to come forth out of him.
It pleased God to reveal His Son in Paul, that he might preach Him among the nations; and in order to do that, Paul had to accept himself as an object of the grace of God. He had to accept the boldness which would come by the Holy Spirit. He had to accept the commission that the Lord had given him. He had to accept the brethren. He had to accept the fact that some of the brethren were afraid of him and would have nothing to do with him because he had been a persecutor. He had many things to accept before he could walk through the entire known world of that time and preach the Word of God. He had no point to prove, because he had accepted himself as a servant of God. He had accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as absolute Lord over his life.
Some of you still do not know who you are. You still do not know what the Lord Jesus Christ is to be to you. That is why there is confusion in your life. That is why you have problems and needs. But a great deal can be done when you come before the Lord and say, “I take You, Jesus, as my Lord. I confess I’m Your bondservant. What is it You want of me? You speak and I am ready to do it.”
As soon as there is that complete acceptance, not only of the Lord but of yourself in relationship to Him, then you can begin to minister to one another much more effectively.
There has been enough intercession in the churches to change the whole world. Why aren’t more prayers heard? There is a question in the minds of some of you as to who God has made you. Down deep in your mind, although it may be an unconscious thing that you are not aware of, you are not accepting what God has done; you are not accepting who you are, what He has made you. This does not mean that you should glory in the flesh or have self-confidence.
I repeat—it is not confidence in the flesh or in what you are as an individual. It is confidence in your relationship with Him, and an acceptance of that relationship. It is an acceptance of His provision for you, an acceptance of the Lord’s work of grace in your heart. When you have accepted that, then you can begin to minister.
You cannot sermonize. When you speak, it must be a Word from the Lord. And you get a Word from the Lord because you come to Him with the attitude, “Lord, I’m Your servant; I’m the one You chose to speak to the people. What is it that You want me to tell them?” Because you accept the place that you have and the responsibility of the ministry that God has given you to perform, you believe that He will give a Word.
I know that with faith I can minister to people. I would just as soon believe that the stars would fall from the heavens and the sun would be blacked out and the earth would disappear, as to stand before a person without believing that God will give me a Word for him or the ministry he needs. God promised me, “Your hands will never be empty when you minister to My people. You will lead them by a word of wisdom and a word of knowledge.” That prophetic Word came several decades ago, and it is still working. And it will work as long as I have breath and probably long into eternity because I believe what God said.
I believe who I am called to be in the Lord Jesus Christ; yet I have no confidence in what I am. I abhor everything I see in myself after the flesh, but I magnify what God is doing in me, and I give Him praise for what He has done. Even though I hate everything in my flesh, I do not dare touch the work that God is bringing forth in me. If it pleases God to reveal His Son in me that I might preach Him, then, like Paul, I will accept it absolutely. This has nothing to do with self-confidence; it is an acceptance of the Lordship of Jesus Christ and His Headship over a many-membered Body.
It comes right back to the basic thing this move of God in the earth is all about—Body ministry (I Corinthians 12). You cannot say, “I am only a hand; I do not have much confidence.” You had better have confidence. I have confidence in my feet and in my hands. I do not brag about them. I simply believe that when I want to get up and walk, my feet will help me; they will be functioning. That is the way we believe for the ministries. We do not give them praise or glory, but we believe that they will function when they are supposed to. As members of the Body of Christ, they will function. Come on hands and feet—work! Ears—hear the Word of the Lord! Mouths—speak the Word of the Lord!
Do not excuse yourself by saying that you are unworthy. You have been unworthy for a long time, and probably you will be unworthy for a long time to come. Worthiness on a human level is not even to be a valid consideration.
Not one of the men of God in the Bible was worthy. Some of them wandered around in sheepskins and goatskins and dwelt in caves (Hebrews 11:37–38). Verse 38 says concerning them, “Of these the world was not worthy.” It says nothing about them not being worthy. It says nothing about the fact that they probably would not be accepted today. These people had many drawbacks, but they were what they were because they believed God; and because they accepted their place in God, the world did not accept them.
Jesus said, “If the world had accepted Me, they would accept you; if they had kept My Word, they would keep your word. Because they have not kept My Word, they will not keep yours. If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you” (John 15:19–20).
The world will not accept you, but that is all right. You cry out, “Abba Father” (Romans 8:15). You say, “Hallelujah! I’ve got it made. I am accepted in the Beloved (Ephesians 1:6). I am accepted of the Lord, and I accept the Body of believers, and myself as a member of that Body, with no reservations.”
All discouragement, confusion, and problems are based upon the fact that you do not accept your place in God. Remind yourself often, “I am a believer. I am the Lord’s workmanship, created in Him unto good works (Ephesians 2:10). I am the handiwork of God. I am His bondservant, one of His sons He is bringing forth. I am one of the instruments He has raised up. I do not have to be anything in myself, but I do have to accept myself as an instrument in the hand of God.”
This acceptance will break a lot of barriers and solve many problems for you. The lack of this acceptance is the basic cause of half your problems. Many of the things you are believing God to be done could be accomplished by laying hold of this message.
Confess it, “I know that God has laid His hand on me, but I’m hung up with these problems. Deliver me, Lord, because I’m supposed to be serving You.” Whenever you evaluate yourself from the basis of the flesh, then you get wiped out, and you say, “I’m not good enough.”
If the Lord has called you to be something, who cares whether or not you are good enough?
There are several ministers who go around bragging about how wicked they had been. They would tell the story of their life and brag about what awful sinners they had been. They preached that those who had been forgiven much will love much (Luke 7:47). Then as I went along, I saw something else. I watched those who were struggling to be loosed from bonds and restraints and the effects of everything that had ever happened to them, those who were struggling to come up just to reach zero.
You must get over the idea that there is any measure of worthiness in anybody, that anyone is worth anything at all. Forget that. Start on a basis of absolute nothingness and give it to the Lord. Then He will begin to bless you and create Himself in you. He will open the door to you and say, “I’ve chosen you.”
You could ask, “Lord, why did You choose me? Johnny over there is a lot better than I am. He hasn’t been as mean as I have been.” Johnny is probably praying the same way: “Lord, why did You choose me? I can see the grace in that other fellow over there, how You’ve done so much for him.” Forget all that. There are no degrees of sinners—all have sinned and come short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). A sinner is a sinner. It isn’t important that you stop to even weigh that in your mind. What is important is that you find out your destiny in the Lord. If God has called you and brought you into this walk, then don’t sit back and say, “I have no place.” You do!
You were called to a walk with God; and the acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Lord, of yourself as a bondservant of the Lord, and of the Word that God speaks over you is absolutely essential.
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence (or “come boldly,” as it says in the King James Version) to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need. Hebrews 4:12–16.
This passage in Hebrews tells how God’s Word like a sharp sword cuts you wide open, just as this message is doing. Do you find that it is revealing a need in your own heart, or a source of your own confusion? Do you believe that the Lord will help you right now to a new acceptance of Him as Lord, a new acceptance of yourself as His servant, a new acceptance of the Word He speaks over you, a new acceptance of the destiny He has given you to fulfill, and a new acceptance of what He is doing in you?
You dare not question it. That is what this passage is speaking about.
When you come to the Lord and He gives you a Word, it is like the high priest laying open the sacrifice. The Lord takes a sharp, two-edged sword—the Word of God—and cuts you open. Hebrews says that the Word divides your soul and spirit and joints and marrow and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of your heart (Hebrews 4:12). Only if you had lived in Jerusalem in the days when the sacrifices were offered could you understand that passage fully. During the days of Jesus Christ, almost a half-million lambs were brought into Jerusalem for each Passover. That was a lot of lambs, bleating and crying through the narrow streets of the city. You may have the idea that the priests were delicate men of prayer, but actually they looked more like butchers. They had to wrestle the animals down and then butcher them, cutting up the sacrifices and burning them as the atonement for sin. What a bloody mess it was. Imagine the stench as the hides of the animals burned. It was like a slaughterhouse. No wonder the Lord provided a laver in which the priests could wash before they passed by the altar of incense, which signified the worship, and came into the presence of the Lord.
I am painting a picture for you. Hebrews says that you have a High Priest who passed through the heavens—Jesus, the Son of God (Hebrews 4:14). His Word—that sharp, two-edged sword—has laid you open, and God is doing the work of separating the joints and the marrow, the thoughts and intents of the heart, separating between soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12). He is dealing with the basic things in your heart, and you come before Him as a worshiper. Jesus, your High Priest, has entered into the Holy of Holies, the heavens itself, to intercede for you (Hebrews 9:11–12; 7:25). What a different picture this is!
When the Word comes and cuts you wide open, don’t say, “Lord, I’ve just taken a look and I see what is in me, the thoughts and intents of my heart. I’m sick about it, Lord, but if You will give me a few months, I’ll try to do better; and next year by this time I hope I won’t be defeated by my need.” Forget that kind of praying! Just take one good look at yourself and then start looking to Him who is the High Priest. Come with confidence and boldness to the throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16). The basis of that boldness is not what you are in yourself, but what you are in relationship to Him, and what He is to you. That gives a new acceptance, where you say, “If that is the case, then I’m going to take this Word seriously. If He says I can come boldly, then I’m going to come boldly.”
The Lord says that He will meet you and give you grace to help in the time of need (Hebrews 4:16). Believe it. He is the One who started the work in you. He is your Lord and you are His servant. He gave the invitation; accept it boldly. Your worthiness on a human plane has nothing to do with it. It is His invitation; it is His grace.
No matter what your need is, He will meet it; His grace has already provided for it.
We must understand what we are in the flesh—nothing. We must know who He is—He is our Lord and our Redeemer. We must also know who we are in relationship to Him—we are the sheep of His pasture (Psalm 100:3), the children of His table. We are His creation. He has begotten us by a Living Word of truth, and we belong to Him; we are His. We are called to minister to one another. When we accept His Lordship and our relationship to Him, then we will accept our relationship to other believers, and this will put an end to any division or friction.
Know that the Lord Himself is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him; bless His name. For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting, and His faithfulness to all generations. Psalm 100:3–5.
Let me illustrate with a practical application. A wife must first of all accept her husband as he is. God has accepted her, just the way she is. He did not say, “I will accept you after you have changed.” He accepted her as an unworthy sinner, falling short in every way. Therefore she must accept her husband as he is. She must accept what God is saying about him and doing to him, and she must accept herself as an instrument to help him. Then, with faith, she can proceed with all boldness to claim God’s will for him. There is nothing apologetic or defeated in her attitude.
This is also true in dealing with children. Instead of constantly nagging them, a mother first of all must accept them as they are, with their need. They cannot feel that she is rejecting them. Then she must accept what God said about them, what He has for them, what she is to be to them, and the way she is to minister to them. When she accepts these things, then she will be able to proceed with confidence to help change her children.
This same principle applies when you are ministering to a brother. First of all, accept him with his need, just as he is. Do not accept him or reject him on the basis of his worthiness. When he pours out his need, it is not for you to approve or disapprove. Instead, open your heart to him with this attitude, “I accept him in this sense, that he has this need. I do not turn away from him. I accept that God has something for him. I accept the promises of God for him, and in all boldness I will work to see his need met.” Let there be a minimum of personal judgment; rather, let us approach every need positively.
Sometimes when I see the problems facing some of our young people, I pray, “Lord, deliver me from having a wrong spirit.” For example, a young man who had prophecies over him concerning a ministry wanted to marry a young girl with a small child that had been born out of wedlock. I found myself wondering, “That is one thing he should not do.” But immediately I realized that I was wrongly judging.
It is very easy for some of the older generation to start judging others who have come from a more liberal and free background. We cannot do that. We are not to judge. One person has this kind of fault and another person has a different kind of failing. When the Living Word comes, every man finds that he is laid open before the Lord. The Lord discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart and separates between soul and spirit; He cuts right down to the joints and marrow and lays us all open to be living sacrifices unto Himself. That is what we want to be, and so we say, “Lord, get rid of it. Keep cutting away. Everything that has to go must go.”
We are going to believe for change—absolute change, rapid change, miraculous change, instant change. And we will see it happen because we are going to reach a level of Body ministry in which we all agree together as we gather around a person and help him believe the Word of the Lord. We will bolster his faith and strengthen it until problems are removed and uprooted.
A man will be what God says he is to be by the grace of God, and not by any human basis or any worthiness manufactured by the flesh. Our thinking will change, for we still evaluate things too much on a fleshly level.
As it was with Paul in the early Church, so it will be now. This man comes along and preaches effectively; how abundantly he labors (I Corinthians 15:10; II Corinthians 11:23–33). But the people may remember that he was once a persecutor of the Church, that many of the families under his spiritual care had lost loved ones because of his actions before he became a Christian. Imagine what it was like for Paul to preach the Gospel to certain families and worship with them, knowing that he had been responsible for the death of some of their loved ones. What was it like for him to look at a young man’s face and know that he had sent the young man’s father to his death because he was a Christian? Paul probably had to do that. Talk about acceptance—think what Paul had to accept. He had to accept the grace of God, or he could have gone insane thinking about what he had done.
There was another man who did something that terrible, and that was Judas. When he realized what he had done to Christ, he went out and hung himself, but the rope broke and he was disemboweled on the rocks below (Matthew 27:3–5; Acts 1:18). Why did he commit suicide? He could not accept himself as the sinner he was. He could not accept what he had done to Christ. The opposite is true of us. We have accepted Christ and, like Paul, we say, “I am what I am by the grace of God (I Corinthians 15:10). Lord, You love me.”
Many people trembled on the day of Pentecost when they heard Peter say, “You, with wicked hands, have slain the Lord of glory. You slew Him, but God raised Him from the dead and made Him both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:22–24, 32–36). In effect, Peter was saying, “The spear which you thrust into His side brought forth the blood that redeems you.” When they asked Peter, “What shall we do?” he told them, “Repent and believe, and you will be saved” (Acts 2:37–38). On the day of Pentecost, the murderers of Christ became the first vanguard into the Kingdom.
There is no acceptance until you accept the fact that you are nothing in yourself. Then you begin to accept what the Lord has done for you and what He is saying to you in the prophecies. Sometimes hope deferred makes the heart sick (Proverbs 13:12). It brings confusion and causes you to draw back, asking, “What am I going to do? This has lingered so long.” Seek a miracle! Make it happen. Come before the Lord and say, “You’re my Lord. Talk to me. I come to You because You have opened the door for me to be what You said I am to be. You can create the miracle change in me. I can be that ministry in the house of God. I can be that person Joel saw, one on whom You have laid Your hand to prophesy (Joel 2:28). I am not defeated. I am more than a conqueror through Christ who loves me” (Romans 8:37).
Let us pray for one another. When we come to the Communion Altar, let us mystically join together, like a bride and groom who link their arms and toast each other at their wedding. Let’s take the blood of Jesus Christ, and in effect link our arms and our hearts together as we believe for one another to be what God says we are to be. Accept Him absolutely as Lord over your life, and yourself as His bondservant.
Your redemption means that you accept Him as Lord and yourself, whatever you are, as His.
You cannot acknowledge Christ as Lord over your life and deny His ability to fulfill His will in your life, regardless of your own unworthiness.
If you accept Christ as your Lord, you must accept yourself as His bondservant.
Our confidence is never in our flesh, but in our relationship to our Lord. It is always a matter of His worthiness, never ours.
The fulfillment of God’s will and promises in us is always a matter of His faithfulness, not our worthiness.
Beloved, accept yourself as accepted in the Beloved.
Whatever your need, His grace has already made a provision for it.
Don’t you believe that what He started in you He is able to finish? Just believe.