Scripture reading: Mark 11:24
Brethren, let me tell you a secret today. Do you know that you have the power to create? Do you know that God has put in our hands the power to create that which is not, to make it be? He said in Mark 11:24, “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” If you can believe, then you shall have it. Not may, not probably, but SHALL. So if you can believe, it creates the thing! Yes! It creates the thing. But one of our problems is that sometimes when we ask for the thing and God gives us what we need, we find a gap between what we want and what we need. But God is going to give us what we need! Amen.
I’ve heard some people who ask God for a husband or a wife, and after they get the husband or the wife, they start wondering if it was God because they are running into deep waters. That’s a crime! Anytime your heart is satisfied that it is God, then it is God! For God will not allow you to be deceived believing it is God! What am I saying? I am taking you into deep waters. If you believe without the shadow of a doubt that this is what God says and God doesn’t tell you that you are wrong, you are right! Of course, I am speaking to the pure heart now, because people do deceive themselves. People deceive themselves! But God gave us a promise in the Word. This promise is in John 7:17, “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.” I hold God to it! It is a bit not too clear, but what Jesus actually said was that if any man desires to do the will of God, the responsibility is no longer his, but it is God’s to know what to do. Do you understand? You desire with your whole heart to serve God. I know, and God knows, and you know that you won’t serve God perfectly today, if you just get the desire. But you got the seed, that’s the first step in desire. Do you understand? You must have a godly desire, and the desire must be of God. The desire must be pure, the desire must be perfect. In other words, you have no “maybe” or “probably.” “I desire this, but maybe…” No, God says anyone who wavers is like the waves of the sea and he will receive nothing from the Lord (James 1:6). If you waver you will receive nothing from the Lord.
God said that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). You must have the substance before you have the evidence. So, what you need to do is to get the substance. “Lord, how do I get the substance?” I get the substance from God when I open myself to God. For example, when you sing, you open up yourselves to God (or at least, that’s what you should be doing). You begin to sing and open up to God and let the Spirit flow through. The thoughts of the song begin to form something in you, that is, you are being made, you are not finished. None of us is finished; we are being made. So, YOU must actively begin to seek the substance to make your house right for God. Things will come to you; God will show you things that are wrong with you in particular. And sometimes you don’t have to tell anybody. You don’t go around and say, “Brother So-and-so, I’m a thief. Sister So-and-so, I’m this. Brother So-and-so, I feel this way bad against you, and the other one…..” No, no, no, no. Go to God. Let God heal His temple. For God is coming into His temple, and within a few years, not many years from now, when the destruction comes, God is going to hide us in His pavilion by incorporating us with His Spirit. But we have to start from now. If we don’t start now, we are going to be left behind. We have to begin to believe God.
(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 8, 2002, pg. 7-10)
Thought for today: You must have the substance before you have the evidence. So, what you need to do is to get the substance.
Sonlight Devotional 