Give them something to act upon and they will do it. Open the Bible to them until Acts 20:32 becomes a present tense reality:
And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified.
Paul is leaving the church at Ephesus. He may never see them again and he commends them to the Father. He turns them over into the hands of love.
And he said, “I not only do this, but I commend you to the word of His grace.” These Epistles of Paul’s are the words of His grace.
The four Gospels are the words of His grace, and so the whole New Testament makes up the book of the words of the Father’s grace.
If he were here, he would say, “I want you to study it. I want you to prove yourself capable of doing the Word.”
There will be ability in the Word as you study it to put you over and make you a conqueror.
To merely know the Word has no real value unless it becomes a part of your life.
It does not become a part of your life until you begin to practice it.
As you begin to live the Word, then the Word becomes a part of your very being, enters into your blood, into your very system. The very strength and ability of God becomes a part of you.
First Corinthians 2:12 has a beautiful suggestion here: “That we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”
These things that were given to us were in the finished work of Christ. We have access to all the riches of His grace unveiled in Christ’s finished work. (See Colossians 2:2–3.)
Notice some of them.
Satan was conquered, defeated by Jesus before He arose from the dead, and that defeat of Satan is set to our credit so you can safely and joyously say, “I conquered Satan in Christ.”
As Jesus was Master of the devil, so I am in His name.
I was raised together with Christ.
I have in me His resurrection ability, His resurrection life. I am a master. (See Ephesians 1:17–23)
And that great, mighty Holy Spirit who has come to make His home in my body is guiding me into all the reality of the wealth that has been given to me in Christ.
He is making me know what the resurrection means to me: that if I were raised together with Christ, I am a master of the forces that operated in slaying Jesus, that I am now taking Jesus’s place in this earth walk.
I have a legal right to the use of His name, which has all authority.
I have a legal right to the ability of the Holy Spirit and I know it is God who is at work within me, willing and working His own good pleasure. I am not left to my own resources.
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)
God is making His grace to come leaping toward you in all its fullness, and that grace has within it His all sufficiency for every emergency.
What a master you are!
How ashamed we ought to be that we have ever talked about our weakness and our lack when the ability of God, the measureless ability of God, is ours.
Why, in the tenth verse, He says:
And he that supplieth seed to the sower and bread for food, shall supply and multiply your seed for sowing, and increase the fruits of your righteousness. (2 Corinthians 9:10 ASV)
How little we have appreciated this, that His very sufficiency and ability are all at our disposal.
You understand what He means by “increase the fruits of your righteousness.” All the gracious words that Jesus said and all the mighty acts that He performed were the fruits of His righteousness.
I wonder if we have ever thought of it.
Jesus was fearless in the presence of the enemy in every place.
He had no fear of a storm at sea.
He had no fear of lack.
He wasn’t afraid of death. He raised Lazarus who had been dead four days.
He wasn’t afraid of a mob.
Those were some of the fruits of His righteousness.
When these fruits abound in us, they will make us like Jesus, and these fruits can abound in us.
Righteousness was given to us with that intent.
And such confidence have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God; who also made us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant. (2 Corinthians 3:4–6 ASV)
Now notice this carefully. He is not only our ability, but He is our sufficiency.
There is no lack in us—in our service, in our finances, or in anything connected with our earth walk.
You see, when He took us over and came into us and began to build His Word into us, He was building His sufficiency and His ability into us.
That Word of His created this universe, created this earth with all its flowers and fruits, its wealth of minerals, chemicals, and oils. His efficiency in that living Word created these things.
Now He is building into us that living Word with its supernatural efficiency.
A prayer life backed with this knowledge becomes invincible.
We haven’t said anything but what is true in regard to the new creation.
All we need to do now is to take our place and act our part, for it is God who is at work within us.
Not only is He building Himself into us, but He is there to work through us.
Now just take this thing home to your heart and read Ephesians 1:3: “Who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.”
You are blessed with everything that you need.
His very fullness is yours.
His ability is yours.
His love is yours.
Yes, He Himself is yours!
CONTRAST OF PAUL AND JESUS ON FAITH
Christ tells us what the Jew can be.
Paul tells the believers what they are in Christ.
Christ tells the Jew what he could do if he had faith.
Paul tells us what we are because we have believed on Christ.
Paul reveals to us that we are in the realm with Christ now.
Jesus tells them, “If they believe.”
Paul shows us that we are believers and that we possess all things in Christ.
Paul’s revelation is what we can do, because we are what Jesus wished the Jews to be.
Jesus is talking to a nation of natural men.
Paul is speaking of the new creation, the sons of God, members of the body of Christ.
Jesus is speaking to the first covenant people who have lost their faith in God.
Paul is speaking to those who are in Christ, sons of God.
Jesus is challenging the unbelieving Jew by revealing what faith will do on the lips of a man.
Paul thanks God for leading him in triumph in Christ.
Jesus said to the disciples before Pentecost, “Greater things than these shall you do because I go to the Father.” (See John 14:12.)
All that Jesus had done for Israel was in the sense realm.
He had healed the sick.
He had fed the multitudes.
He had opened blind eyes.
He had raised the dead and stilled the sea.
But the disciples, after they were recreated, were to perform miracles upon men’s spirits.
They were to do spiritual things as well as things in the sense realm.
The “greater things” were to lead men into the new creation and unveil spiritual realities for them to enjoy.
Jesus was surrounded by unbelief, and He was seeking to inspire faith in natural man.
It would be well for us to recognize this fact: that natural man cannot have faith in the revelation realm.
He has sense knowledge faith.
He believes what he can see, hear, and feel.
All God asks him to do is to act on the Word.
He demands that he confess Jesus as Lord and act upon the Word that declares Christ died for his sins and was raised for his justification.
For years, I tried to get natural men to believe. I can see them now struggling, crying, weeping, and confessing their sins. It was so hard for them to grasp it.
But now I can see how simple it is.
All I ask them to do is act upon what God has spoken, and He counts that as faith.
The man who acts on that enters into the family, becomes a member of the body of Christ.
He becomes a partaker of the divine nature, so that all things that God wrought in Christ in the substitution belong to him.
Now he can act intelligently on the Word, either for himself or for another.
Believing is acting on the Word.
Faith is the result of acting.
Under the first covenant, the word “faith” does not occur in connection with Moses or Israel until Paul unveils it in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews.
Moses obeyed and did what the angel told him to do.
God never left it as a problem of faith; it was a problem of obedience.
The word “faith” does not occur.
They were servants acting under orders from God, which came through angels.
Malachi 1:6 unveils it to us: “A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the LORD of hosts.”
Malachi 3:16 says, “Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.”
And Malachi 4:2 says, “But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings.”
You will notice that all through the old covenant, especially in the Psalms and in the prophetic books, Israel feared Jehovah.
Fear and love don’t blend.
They were natural men who lived under an iron law called the law of death.
We are the new creation folks.
Fear has been taken out of us, and we love because He has imparted His love nature to us.
All of Israel’s mighty men were mighty because God revealed Himself to them.
They learned to do what He told them to do.
Elijah said, “O Jehovah, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word” (1 Kings 18:36 ASV).
Then the fire fell upon the altar and consumed the offering and the altar.
Elijah was simply doing what God had told him to do, not through anything that he had read, but an angel always communicated with him, or God gave him a dream or a vision.
Today, we are to act upon the written Word.
During the first century of the early church, only a very few people had the written Word.
Wherever Paul went, it was the spoken Word.
Where Peter and John went, it was the spoken Word.
We have the written Word, but faith makes of it a living Word, a life-giving Word, a healing Word, and a comforting Word.
To the unbelieving, it is just ink on paper, just words that may bring condemnation, or, if the heart is responsive, bring life and healing.
LEGAL AND VITAL SIDE OF THE PLAN
OF REDEMPTION
It helped me greatly when I found that prayer was based on legal grounds; that it didn’t depend upon struggle and long hours of agonizing before the Lord.
It wasn’t based upon pity, but upon a legal foundation.
You remember that the Bible is made up of two covenants, two contracts: the old one and the new one.
The first contract was made with Abraham—sealed with blood.
The second contract was between Jesus and the Father—sealed with the Son’s blood.
Israel were the beneficiaries of that first covenant.
We are the beneficiaries of the second.
Our redemption is based on legal grounds.
Our new birth is legal.
Every child of God is legally in His family.
The book of Romans that gives to us the plan of redemption is the greatest legal document in existence.
The New Testament or new covenant is the greatest document on jurisprudence ever given to man.
Hebrews 7:22 (ASV) says, “By so much also hath Jesus become the surety of a better covenant.”
God said to Abraham, “By myself have I sworn” (Genesis 22:16). He becomes the surety of the old covenant.
You see, the throne is behind the covenant. Jesus and the Father are behind the new covenant and prayer is based upon this covenant; consequently, it is based upon legal grounds.
Montgomery translates Hebrews 11:1 as, “Faith is the title deed of things hoped for; the putting to the proof of things not seen.”
Practically all the basic terminology of English law comes from the Bible.
Then if prayer is based on legal grounds, we should learn what they are.
In the first place, we are legally justified or made righteous, legally born again, and have a legal right to eternal life and a son’s place in the Father’s family.
And He is legally responsible for us because He brought us into being. There are two phases of our redemption: one is the legal and the other is the vital.
The legal is what God has done for us in the past, like the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.
The vital is what the Holy Spirit through the Word is doing in us.
Romans 4:25 is a good illustration of the legal: “Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.”
The vital is illustrated in Philippians 2:13: “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” (See also 2 Corinthians 5:17.)
That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. (Ephesians 3:16–19)
This is vital.
Notice the next verse: “Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”
Redemption is legal. It is in the past. It is a finished work.
The new birth is vital. It is now.
When you know that prayer is based on legal grounds and you know that God has legally tied Himself, has bound Himself, to do certain things, then you will learn to take your place and act accordingly.
His Son, the living Word, is the guarantor, and gives you your rights and privileges in redemption.
God gave us this Word of His own free will.
He has led us into the prayer life.
He has led us to trust Him and now He will not fail us.
So we can confidently turn to Isaiah 41:10 and hear Him whisper:
Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy [Father] God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
That “right hand” is Jesus and He is upholding us by the Word of His power, by the Word of His grace.
E. W. Kenyon, In His Presence: The Secret of Prayer (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2025).