Today we continue our series entitled, “Pursuing Grace-Based Success!”
Here are our foundational scriptures:
(Ephesians 2:8-10 ERV)
8 I mean that you have been saved by grace because you believed. You did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God.
9 You are not saved by the things you have done, so there is nothing to boast about.
10 God has made us what we are. In Christ Jesus, God made us new people so that we would spend our lives doing the good things he had already planned for us to do.
(1 Corinthians 1:30,31 NLT)
30 God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.
31 Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the Lord.”
(2 Timothy 1:9 NKJV)
Who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.
(Joshua 1:8 KJV)
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
In yesterday’s message, I shared with you that faith has a language. To experience God’s best, we must develop the language of faith and speak it daily.
Joshua was the newly appointed leader of the nation of Israel. God made it clear that it was time to take possession of the land promised to their forefathers. The land was expansive (millions of acres) and was inhabited by several nations with fortified cities and tested armies. To prepare Joshua for the assignment, the Lord said, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.” (Joshua 1:8 NIV). Today we will focus on the words, “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips.”
So what does this mean for you today? I will share a few things about the language of faith.
1. Faith begins where the will of God is known.
— Faith is not about God granting you your selfish desires. Faith is about you aligning with God’s desires for your life.
— Faith is not about you trying to get God to put a “YES” on your plans. Faith is about God trying to get you to put a “YES” on His plans.
— Faith is not what happens when you convince God to give you what you came up with. Faith is what happens when God convinces you! When you are fully persuaded of God.
— In this case, the will of God was clear. God was “giving” the land of Canaan to the Israelites. So God needed Joshua to align his faith and his words with the promise. God needed Joshua to believe what He was revealing in his soul and then speak words of faith from a believing heart.
— As you walk with God and He speaks to you, He sows promises (like seeds) down in your heart. Faith is what happens when you believe what God revealed. When you are so convinced of what God planned, you are willing to believe it, ANNOUNCE IT, and perform corresponding actions to receive it, even when everything you see in this world shows you evidence against it!
— Revelation is the authorization of your faith. If you don’t know what the will of God is in any given situation, you can’t exercise faith yet. You can hope, wish and pray. But it is not faith until you can stand on a Word from God.
— If God said it, then He will perform it. If He declared it, He will make His Word good (Numbers 23:19).
2. Faith believes what God said (or revealed), no matter how impossible it seems.
— Faith believes in the humanly IMPOSSIBLE. If God said it, and you know what He said is clearly impossible, then guess what? The impossible just became possible for you! Because no Word from God ever comes without the power to perform it!
— Faith puts the emphasis on God’s power and not your lack of it. Faith says, “If God said it, then I can do it. Not by my power, but by His!” This is the mindset required to walk and live by faith.
— The fact that God said it is His invitation for you to experience it. This is how Jesus lived. Jesus only said what He heard the Father say, and He only did what He saw the Father do. Hearing and seeing in the Spirit are critical to living by faith.
— When Jesus said that He only did what He saw the Father do, He was saying, “The Father shows me things. He shows me what He is doing in the earth. And this revelation becomes my invitation for participation. I am not walking around the earth, asking the Father to get involved in what I am doing. The Father is inviting me to get involved in what He is doing.” This mindset keeps the emphasis on God and not us. This is the life of faith!
— Your ability to receive seed (Word from God) and then BELIEVE it is critical to your ability to live supernaturally. If you don’t know what God said, you don’t know what you can or cannot do.
— In the case of Joshua, he was minding his own business when the Lord sent Moses to confront Pharaoh. The Lord revealed to Moses that IT WAS TIME for His people to leave Egypt. God revealed that His people would be FREE, and they would not leave empty-handed. Moses had to believe it, declare it, and walk it out (just like Joshua 1:8 teaches). Once free from the bondage of Egypt. God revealed something else. God revealed that He had land He promised their forefather, Abraham, to give Abraham’s descendants. But 10 of the 12 spies DID NOT BELIEVE God. The 10 infected millions of people with UNBELIEF. So all those folks had to DIE in the wilderness. When all of that was over, God said to Joshua, “Hey Son, Moses is dead and so is the unbelieving generation. It’s your season, it’s your time, and it’s your turn. I have chosen YOU to lead these people into the land I promised their forefathers. I AM GIVING YOU THIS LAND. I want you to think about what I am promising you. I want you to declare it openly and then I want you to GO GET THAT LAND. You have to TAKE POSSESSION OF IT! But don’t worry, I am with you everywhere you go. I will make you successful as you TAKE POSSESSION of what I PROMISED! Be strong! Be very courageous! Those giants you saw before will be no match for you, becuase I AM WITH YOU EVERYWHERE YOU GO!” (Rick Piña Version of Joshua 1).
— Since God revealed to Joshua that it was HIS WILL for him to TAKE POSSESSION of the Promised Land, then Joshua had to believe and receive it, and even DECLARE IT, OUT LOUD, no matter how humanly impossible it seemed. Remember, Joshua was leading a young generation that was unproven and who had never been in a battle against nations with walled cities and tested armies. But when God is leading you to do something, you must BELIEVE it, DECLARE it, and PURSUE it, no matter how impossible it seems!
— If you want to see the supernatural manifested in your marriage, relationships, health, career, finances, etc., then you must seek God concerning these things. Find out what He said in His written Word about it. Also, ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you concerning it. When God speaks, you must believe what He revealed, no matter how impossible it seems. If you can believe it, God can do it in your life! You are only limited by your capacity to believe what God speaks to you!
3. Faith is about having so much confidence in God that you will SAY what you SAW (what He revealed).
(2 Corinthians 4:13 NKJV)
And since we have the same Spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak.
— The Spirit of faith speaks the language of faith. It speaks words of faith from a believing heart.
— Faith has to audacity to SAY what God has SAID, no matter how impossible or crazy it seems. When you do this, you are taking God public.
— It’s easy to believe God in your heart. No one knows what is going on in your heart. Your heart is where you meditate, medicate, and let the Word of God ruminate. But when you open up your mouth and say, OUT LOUD, what is going on in your heart, you are taking God public. You are exposing externally what is going on in your heart internally. This takes your faith to another level because you are speaking the language of faith. You have mustered up the faith to say publicly what you believe privately. This type of faith is required because God has set up a system in this world where you will have what you say from a believing heart.
— The power of life and death are in your tongue (Prov 18:21). Whichever you speak is what you will experience. Good or bad, you will have what you SAY!
— If you have the faith to SAY what God said from a believing heart, it is only a matter of time before you SEE what God said in this world!
— Anyone can say what God said to them AFTER God does it. Let’s say there is a guy named Jim who loves God. God speaks to him. God reveals certain plans to Jim. Jim believes God. He meditates on those plans. The Holy Spirit leads Jim to take God public. The Holy Spirit wants Jim to talk about it out loud (related note: in the Kingdom of God, things often do not happen until you ANNOUNCE them). But let’s say Jim is scared. He has allowed fear to stifle his faith. He is concerned about what people will say about this crazy idea God placed in his heart. He is okay with dreaming about it, but he is not okay with talking about it. This lack of faith causes Jim a delay.
What should have happened in a month took him a year. But after a year of God working with him, God finally brought it to pass. Now Jim has the promise. People can see it. People congratulate him on it. Jim then says, “Hey guys, just so you know, God spoke to me about this over a year ago. This is something God placed in my heart and now it is here. Glory to God!” What Jim failed to say was, “But God told me to take Him public 11 months ago. I was too scared to do so. I failed to speak the language of faith. Who knows? What took me a year could have taken me a month. But I just did not have the faith to be public about what I was believing and my concern for what other people would think has cost me.”
Anyone can ANNOUNCE something after it is already done. Anyone can say, “Oh yeah, I was believing God for this,” after they have it. That’s easy. Even the heathen can do that. But the language of faith I am talking about today is reserved for those who open their hearts to what God reveals to them about their future, and they then have the audacity to SAY what they SAW! And they keep SAYING what they SAW until they SEE what they SAW in this world. This is the language of faith. This is how we are supposed to live.
— When the 10 spies were saying that they COULD NOT do what God had revealed, when they were putting a NOT where God had already put a YES, Joshua and Caleb were the only 2 who believed God. They said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.” They believed what God said, and they DECLARED IT, OUT LOUD, SPEAKING THE LANGUAGE OF FAITH, well before it happened. They did not wait. They spoke it in advance. That is why there were the ONLY TWO PEOPLE from their entire generation who were STILL ALIVE 40 years later. They were the ONLY TWO who were willing to speak the language of faith!
4. Speaking the language of faith is an expression of your confidence in God.
Speaking the language of faith can seem scary at times. When you are fully persuaded by God and the Holy Spirit is leading you to SAY what God is saying to you, out loud, to others, you know you are saying it AT THE RISK OF LOOKING FOOLISH. I can’t tell you how many times I have been through this, and I thought to myself, “But what if it does not happen? What if I missed God? What if this thing I am believing God for is nothing more than a desire I came up with? What if I say it, and it never comes to pass? How is that going to make me look?”
Listen, I have been there more times than I want to remember. I have missed God. I did say things that did not happen. I have run the RISK OF LOOKING FOOLISH many times, and guess what? Sometimes I have looked foolish. No one is perfect. You are going to miss God sometimes. You will make mistakes. But you cannot hit a home run if you don’t take the swing. You cannot walk on water if you do not get out of the boat. You can play it safe and only say what you believe AFTER God does it. But if you live that way your entire life, you are going to get to heaven, only to realize that your lack of faith caused you many delays. Faith has a language. SPEAK IT!
God reveals your TO BE stage from your RIGHT NOW stage. And God then often requires you to ANNOUNCE what He revealed. God loves it when you have enough confidence in Him to say what He revealed, AT THE RISK OF LOOKING FOOLISH, because, at that point, God knows your confidence is in Him and Him alone! I can’t tell you how many times I have done this and then said, “Okay God, I said it. I put myself out there. I released my faith. All my confidence is in you. I can’t make this thing happen. I believe You will make it happen. If you don’t do it, it won’t get done. Please don’t let me look stupid!”
Guess what? Every time I spoke what actually came from God, God did what He said in my life. He has NEVER failed me, and He will NEVER fail you! Speak the language of faith!
That’s enough for today. I may have given you too much. This is a lot to digest, but I pray you do.
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You for teaching me about grace-based success.
For me to become a success in Your eyes, I must live by every Word You speak to me.
You have given me Your written Word. I live by that.
You have also given me Your Spirit. Your Spirit reveals TO ME the plans You established FOR ME before the world began. I live by those words as well.
I believe everything You reveal to me, no matter how impossible it seems, and I have the audacity to SAY IT OUT LOUD! You reveal things to me, and I SAY what I SAW until I SEE what I SAW in this world.
I speak the language of faith daily! Therefore, I know GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name, Amen!
This is Today’s Word! Apply it and Prosper.
