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.
This will be the only message I share this week, making it the last message you will hear from me, before Thanksgiving. I am looking forward to taking some rest this week and enjoying some time with my family. Before I let you know for the week, I will make a connection between what I have been teaching about success and THANKSGIVING. I am calling it, “The Connection Between Faith, Thanksgiving, and SUCCESS!”
Yesterday, my Pastor Tony Brazelton, shared a message from James 1:5-8 that inspired this message.
(James 1:5-8 ERV)
5 Do any of you need wisdom? Ask God for it. He is generous and enjoys giving to everyone. So he will give you wisdom.
6 But when you ask God, you must believe. Don’t doubt him. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is blown up and down by the wind.
7-8 People like that are thinking two different things at the same time. They can never decide what to do. So they should not think they will receive anything from the Lord.
So what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. The double-minded man will not receive anything from God.
James said, “Do any of you need wisdom? Ask God for it. He is generous and enjoys giving to everyone. So he will give you wisdom. But when you ask God, you must believe. Don’t doubt him. Whoever doubts is like a wave in the sea that is blown up and down by the wind. People like that are thinking two different things at the same time. They can never decide what to do. So they should not think they will receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:5-8 ERV)
— You have a conscious mind (whatever you are thinking of at the moment) and a subconscious mind (that is mainly driven by your internal programming).
— When your conscious mind and your subconscious mind are not on the same page, you are double-minded. Making the connection to the text, when your conscious mind is saying one thing, but your subconscious believes something else, you are double-minded, and you will not receive anything from God this way.
— When you were Born-Again, the experience came when you confessed with your mouth and believed in your heart (Romans 10:9,10). What your mouth was saying had to align with what your heart was believing. When both were in agreement concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, you got Born-Again.
— On a personal level, I confessed THE LORD JESUS a bunch of times as a child and teenager. But I never truly believed it in my heart. The day I confessed JESUS and believed it in my heart, I was 23 years old. All the things I said about Jesus prior to that were things that came out of my lips, but they were not coming from my heart. When my lips and my heart were in agreement concerning Jesus, I was Born-Again!
— People can say they love Jesus all they want with their lips, but if their heart is not in it, they are double-minded, and they will not receive anything from God. Jesus said the following to a group who fit this category:
“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you: ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.'” (Matthew 15:7-9).
Don’t let this be you. Don’t be double-minded. Your lips and heart must be in agreement with God and His Word!
2. To walk by faith effectively, you cannot be moved by what you see.
(2 Cor 5:7)
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
I have done a great deal of teaching on the fact that there are three parts of you. You are a spirit. Your spirit is the real you. Your spirit will live forever in one of two places. You ARE a spirit, you possess a soul (your mind, emotions, and will), and you live in a body (for now).
The body you live in, for now, is an earth suit. Your body is how you communicate with this world. You use your body to relate to this world through your five physical senses. When you can validate something with your senses, it makes “sense” to you. But God does not communicate with you through your body. God is Spirit. He communicates with us through the Holy Spirit, who is connected to our spirit, once we are Born-Again.
Before you were Born-Again, you lived your life based on what you could see in the natural. You lived your life based on the input your body (your earth suit) received from this world. But now that you are Born-Again, you are supposed to live based on what you SEE (or perceive) in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit inside you gives you input from God’s realm. If you understand that, then it makes sense why the Easy To Read Version of 2 Cor 5:7 reads, “We live by what we believe will happen, not by what we can see.” Paul’s point is that as believers, we are not supposed to live by what we can see with our natural eyes but rather by what we perceive in the Spirit. If you can do that, you are living BY FAITH. Faith is the ability to perceive what God reveals and to then make decisions, in the natural, based on what you received in the Spirit.
I will now make the connection to James 1:5-8. If the Holy Spirit reveals something to you in your spirit and you say you believe it, but you then receive input from your natural senses (an email, a letter, a phone call, a doctor’s report, a financial statement, etc.) that conflicts with what God said, if you start to consider the input you got from this world and it stifles the input you got from the Holy Spirit, you are double-minded, and you will not receive anything from God.
3. If you are not double-minded and truly believe God will do what He said He would do, then you will be excited and express genuine THANKSGIVING to God!
— What do we teach our children to do when someone gives us something? We teach them to say, “THANK YOU!” Well, guess what? We are supposed to live by what God says and reveals to us. When God speaks to us or reveals His plans, He is telling us what He is going to do. But in one sense, it is already done. Therefore, we should say, “THANK YOU!” Faith and thanksgiving go together!
— If you say you believe it but have no thanksgiving (or praise and gratitude) concerning it, then you may not truly believe as you believe.
— Faith is my belief in what Jesus already did for me. If I truly believe He already did, I should be thankful! I should thank God with my whole heart.
— People with NO FAITH wait until the manifestation of what God revealed BEFORE they give God praise. Why? Because they had to wait until they SEE IT to BELIEVE IT. They live by SIGHT. They are not living by FAITH.
— Anyone can give God post-performance praise. Even the heathen do that. But pre-performance praise is an expression of your faith, and it will lead to a manifestation of the success God is revealing in your heart.
— When the Holy Spirit gives you a glimpse of you doing something you have not done yet, and the image God painted is a picture of Godly success, then if you truly believe the picture God painted, the proper response in the present, BEFORE GOD DOES IT, is to say, “THANK YOU!”
— If you believe the picture God painted and you believe God cannot lie — meaning that if He revealed it in your heart, it is only a matter of time before you have it in your hands — then you can THANK GOD NOW!
— When you walk with the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit reveals TO you what God has already prepared FOR you but was concealed FROM you, the proper response is to say THANK YOU! You can THANK GOD like it is already done because, for God, it is already done. This is the connection between FAITH, THANKSGIVING, and SUCCESS!
I pray this gives you something to think about as you head into the day of THANKSGIVING on Thursday. When you understand what I just taught, every day can be a day of THANKSGIVING!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, I thank You for teaching me about grace-based success.
I walk by faith and not by sight. I live by what You reveal to me in the spirit, and I am not moved by what I see in the natural.
I believe every Word You speak to me. I live by your written Word, and I live by the steady stream of words I receive from the Holy Spirit. Whenever there is a disconnect between what You said or revealed and what I see with my natural eyes, I never allow myself to be double-minded. I choose to believe what You said over what I see!
I say what You said until I see what You said, and I refuse to allow what I see (in the natural) to change what I say!
I am single-minded, and my mind comes from You! I put on the mind of Christ. I see myself as Jesus is in this world. I see myself the way You see me, and I shall not be moved by anything else.
When You reveal Your plans to me, I believe it is already done, and I say, “THANK YOU!” Every day is a day of THANKSGIVING for me because I am continually THANKING YOU for what You speak to me. Living this way, 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.
