Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. Let your gentleness be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. In nothing, be anxious.
That ruined your whole day right there, didn’t it? And all you mothers were so sure that it’s all right for you to worry about your children. And you men were sure that it was all right to be anxious about the bills and problems of that nature and all of these things that you were sure that you could be anxious about.
But the Lord says, in nothing be anxious. But in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.
This to me is something really, really important.
How in the world can you please God unless you come believing what He has for you? And if you believe what He has for you, you’re exceedingly thankful.
And your requests are not made as a beggar’s wine, but they’re made with the thankfulness of those who are appropriating a divine provision for them. Did you get that?
When you approach the Lord, then you don’t come with a beggar’s wine, Oh, Lord, look at my need.
But you come with thanksgiving because you are appropriating a divine provision for you. You know that it’s for you. So, you come making your petition, your supplication known with thanksgiving, because you know it’s for you.
You’re not whining like those who are trying to persuade God.
The peace of God which passes all understanding shall guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.
I don’t want any fretfulness. I don’t want any anxiety. Even in these things which I believe and I’m appropriating for and struggling to attain, I want it to be with a great deal of thanksgiving and with the peace of God keeping my heart and mind in Christ Jesus.
I don’t want to kick against a wall and say, in my utter frustration, why hasn’t this happened? Why hasn’t that happened? I want to believe God.
The quickest, shortest way sometimes has that relaxed thing about it, that your hearts and your minds are guarded in Christ Jesus. Now think it over. Think it over.
You’re going to believe that God has something good for you. And you may know that there’s a great deal that you need, but you’re not going to come and say, as those who are presumptuous, as though this was your due, but you’re going to come gratefully, humbly, with thanksgiving to appropriate the full divine provision for you.
Years ago, I heard a sermon that said, out of Isaiah 45:10 or something, Concerning the work of my hands, command ye me. And they would say, Command God.
It never did sit quite right because when you translate it right. It says, Concerning the work of my hands, will you command me? It’s a question. It isn’t a statement.
And the truth of the matter is God does not want us to be presumptuous. He doesn’t want us to presume.
Just because you are who you are in Christ, don’t be presumptuous. That’s the sin of the world today, it is presumption.
The world owes me a living. Well, they can’t do that to me. And so here they are. Well, the world may owe you a living, but you’re going to have one whale of a time collecting it.
You still are not going to get what God really has for you, if you’re going around on a human basis saying this is what I deserve.
You know, many a time, many a person has robbed themselves of blessing because they would say, this is what I’m going to have. Instead of realizing, if they would just open their hearts to God, that God’s provided more for them than they could ever presumptuously demand.
And if they would come with thanksgiving, and they would come humbly, and they would claim their provisions, and they would believe God for it, it would happen speedily. God would do it for them.
I had a real meeting with the Lord, and in that meeting with the Lord, the thing came to me so forcefully, so positively. Throw away anxiety, put it away. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.
When you pray for something, you don’t always see it. But when the New Testament came, the Lord said to John the Baptist ministry, Now is the axe laid to the root of the tree. All right?
What happened to that tree, the tree of the Pharisees, all that self-righteous religion? It was flourishing for another 40 years. That’s about 30 AD to about 70 AD before the thing came down.
And you can go out here and find a nice big old healthy tree and you can cut off its roots. And it may still stand there. If it’s properly balanced, it stands up there. All right, you’ve got your tree standing up there. And you’ve got the roots cut off. And the leaves don’t wither. They don’t suddenly, they don’t do it. There may be enough sap in the trunk of that tree to keep that thing alive for several months.
There may be fruit on the tree that’ll come on and ripen. And all the time you say that tree isn’t dead. It’s dead. But the tree doesn’t know it yet. The tree isn’t showing it yet. That tree is dead because the axe was laid to the root of the tree.
Everything that God does for us, listen to this. Everything He does for us, He says, this is what I’ve done for you. And we say, Thank you, Lord. And it becomes a witness to our spirit.
In essence, then, what’s happened is God has laid the axe to the root of that oppression, or that need, or that discouragement, and it’s chopped off.
So, you look up and say, now everything should change tomorrow morning, but it doesn’t. And it doesn’t change the next day, and it doesn’t change the next day. But after a while, you begin to notice that the old tree is shakier than it was, and the leaves start falling off. And they start getting brown, and the fruit starts withering, and pretty soon you realize when God said what He had done, He had done that very thing. It was done.
But the reality of a thing takes place in the realm of the spirit. Everything you see in the physical and the material realm is fed by the spirit realm. Everything is fed by the spirit realm. You take the spirit out of a man and he’s dead. The body without the spirit is dead, James says.
Everything that you see physically that exists has its source and origin in the spirit world. God spoke a word and his words are spirit and life, and the worlds came into being. The physical realm is the direct creation of the spirit realm.
And when God says He’s done something in the realm of spirit, inevitably in time you’re going to see it manifested in the material and visible realm round about you to your physical senses.
And if we begin to claim God’s provision, we come with thanksgiving, be anxious for nothing. And everything with prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, you let your requests be made known unto God.
You get the witness in your heart that it’s done. Something takes place in your spirit. The next day, it may look to you like you’re just as defeated on some point as you were the day before, but you’re not.
I’ve noticed that many times after a great deliverance, the next day, it looks like your world falls apart and the devil comes around. See, you’re worse off than ever. Not only do you not have any deliverance, but you’re worse than you were.
But that’s the lie of Satan. And he brings that up because it’s the only way he can try to discredit the Word of God.
But if you hang onto that Word of God and you believe it, the thing that God has proclaimed in the realm of spirit is yours and is yours forever, is your inheritance.
This to me is one of the greatest truths that I’ve ever embraced. And all of the promises, all the prophecies, all the good things that God has spoken through the years, have been proven, they’ve been tried, they’ve been confirmed. I’m not going to waver on them, are you?
I’m going to believe them and if sometimes there’s a delay before I see them in evidence God give me the grace to just stand and rejoice with thanksgiving and let my requests be made known unto God and God will keep my heart and he’ll keep my mind in Christ Jesus and it’s going to come to pass, I have that kind of faith.
Because inevitably, that’s the way it works. God gave Abraham a word. I’ve blessed thee, I’ve blessed thy seed. What seed? No seed in sight. Abraham, an old man, Sarah, an old woman. But he believed and he refused to despair. And one day he saw the thing because God saw to it that it happened.
But from the moment that God proclaimed it, there was a rejuvenating work started. The thing that was proclaimed in the realm of spirit began to happen until Sarah regained her youth, began to come into the period where she could raise children again.
And Abraham fathered that child, Isaac, and he has been a blessing to the whole of the Christian world, all the world.
Do you see the picture? Can you believe it? Can you hold fast your confidence? That’s enough.
When we hear a promise, we’re going to claim it, we’re going to receive it in our spirit, we’re going to walk in it.
When will it happen? Maybe this afternoon? Maybe tonight? Maybe while you’re asleep? Maybe tomorrow morning you’ll wake and it’s there? Maybe next week, next month. But if it tarries, wait for it. And don’t doubt because you’ve possessed it.
Faith is the substance of the thing hoped for. It’s the evidence of the thing not seen. Will you believe it?
Father, bless this word. I sense faith is being strengthened. And hearts are coming up stronger than ever to believe that faithful is the word of the Lord.
What YHWY hath proclaimed it. What He hath given and designated is ours forever. And we claim the promise.