Believing Scripture

Have you ever taken a verse of Scripture and by faith claimed it as your own?  By that I mean, you start a conversation with God, because He’s the one who authored the verse in the first place, and you tell Him you are believing Him to honor and fulfill the promise that you believe is connected to that scripture.  Whatever your need is ... a job, your child to be healed, a marriage to be repaired, it doesn’t matter what ... you are claiming and standing on that certain scripture, believing God for the answer.

May I start out by saying ... make sure the scripture is a promise ... because not all of the verses in the Word of God are promises.  Some of the promises in the Old Testament are not really promises, but rather they are what I call, contractual legal language.

By that I mean they had strings attached to them.  If man did this ... then God would do that.  It’s like being on probation; to keep out of trouble man had to do certain things and not do other things.  That’s why the old contract, the old covenant wouldn’t work.  God kept His part, it’s just that man couldn’t keep his part of the deal.

The writer of Hebrews 8:7 made it very clear when he wrote these words ... "For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second."

"If the first covenant had been faultless" ... meaning it had a fault.  What was it?  Works.  It's just that simple.  Man couldn't live up to the letter of the Law.

Because the old covenant was problematic, mainly with sin and salvation as well as with faith and works; and for finding fault with it, according to Hebrews 8:8, God said ... "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah ..."  (Jeremiah 31:31).

This new covenant was designed to work by faith through God's grace instead of works ... appointing Jesus to be the covenant mediator, which according to Hebrews 8:6 is now "established upon better promises."

Believing Scripture ... that's what this short dissertation is about.  And is there anything that is considered to be more Scriptural than the words of Jesus?  That's why many Bibles have His words in red.

Let's consider some of the new, better promises in Scripture that Jesus gave to His followers while He was on earth in the form of a man.  To be totally honest with you ... the following promises are the ones I have the most trouble believing completely in, as they are presented.

So I ask, as you read these statements from Jesus, can you honestly say ... without any doubt or reservation ... that you believe every word in them is a promise that will bring you the answer to the requests you have presented to God?

Matthew 21:22 ... "And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive."  The requirement: ask, believing.  The promise: ye shall receive.  I really like this one and have used it many times.  But if I'm still waiting on some answers, does that mean I didn't believe?

Mark 9:23 ... "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."  This is quite a statement ... "if you can believe" ... meaning perhaps, then and only then will all things be possible?  What Jesus failed to express was, how much faith it takes to really believe.

Mark 11:22 ... "Have faith in God."  Literally it means, "have the faith of God."  This is how it reads in the Latin Vulgate, early Syriac and Ethiopic versions as well; meaning ... exercise and make use of that faith which has God for its author.  Simply put, it means ... believe like God.  Okay, but ... how?

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."  This may be my all time favorite promise from Jesus because He said, "What things soever."  Anything, it's unlimited ... or is it?  The word "desire" ... (the Greek, "aiteo") ... means require.  To me, require is something you need, not just something you want.  That may change things, could it not?

John 14:13-14 ... "Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it."  This promise is from the discourse He gave to His disciples at the last supper.

I'm just asking ... could it be that these words were spoken just for only the disciples as they began preaching the message of Jesus to the world.  Is it not true that He gave only the disciples special power on occasion to heal sickness and power to cast out demons when He sent them out in ministry during the three and a half years He was with them.  Could He have been doing the same here?

John 15:7 ... "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."  Is this more personal instruction from Jesus to only His disciples in what may be called His private goodbye speech to them before He went to the cross?

It seems to me, the disciples of Jesus, the ones who walked closest to Him during the three and a half years of His public ministry ... displayed a greater or higher power and spiritual authority than the average believer had ... through which miracles of healing were seen as almost common place to them as they proclaimed their faith and authority given them through the name of Jesus.  Can we do the same?

Did walking with Jesus during this time have a special effect on them that we today can't receive since we were not in physical contact with Him as they were?  Did something rub off on them?  Could it be that hearing His words, feeling His touch, eating the bread He handed them, as well as His breathing on them to receive the Holy Spirit ... did any or all of these things contribute to their boldness and authority in proclaiming the name of Jesus which resulted in the great fear and wonder that followed them because of their miracles?

We know that the disciples of Jesus had many miracles in their ministries within the 1st century; John being the last of the twelve to die sometime around A.D.96.  History also records that men like Polycarp (A.D.65-155) who was a friend, student, and disciple of the Apostle John, also had many miracles in his ministry as did his contemporaries like Clement and Ignatius.  The label, "Apostolic Fathers" has been applied to them to indicate they were the generation that had personal contact with the Twelve Apostles.  They provide a link between the Apostles ... who had personal contact with Jesus ... and the later generations of Christians after the 2nd century.

So what am I getting at?  From what I have read about miracles in church history, it reads something like this.  Jesus had hundreds, even thousands of miracles.  The disciples, those who had personal contact with Jesus, had perhaps hundreds of miracles themselves.  No one kept count.  The Apostolic Fathers, those who had personal contact with the disciples, (who had personal contact with Jesus) also had many miracles ... but fewer than the disciples had.

It looks to me, that very slowly with each generation further away from Jesus ... not only in time, but perhaps also in faith ... there seems to be fewer and fewer observed miracles.

This is the reason I ask ... did Jesus impart a special anointing to His disciples, that over time seemed to dissipate and disappear from believers?  Many so called spiritual giants of the church over the past 800 years or so have suggested the same thing.  I certainly don't know.

Late in his life, the Apostle John in one of his last letters reminded the 1st century church, to which he belonged, two reasons why they still received answers to prayer.

1st John 3:22 ... "And whatsoever we ask, we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do those things that are pleasing in his sight."

John also added a little later in this same letter the phrase, "according to his will" ... still speaking of prayer.

1st John 5:14-15 ... "And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have desired of him."

James, as does John, seems to place some credence in the belief that the Lord's will plays an important role in the answer to prayer.

James 4:15 ... "For that ye ought to say, If it be the Lord's will ..."  Some say by doing so, that you are not really asking in faith: instead you are giving your lack of faith an excuse, a way out.  But I wonder if we shouldn't add what James said, because ... if it's not God's will for you ... it ain't gonna happen.

Perhaps God's will is really the main reason our faith fails in obtaining "whatsoever we ask" in prayer today.  I hope this is the only reason I still struggle with ... "Believing Scripture."  I would rather the reason be God's will when nothing happens and not my lack of faith.



Comments welcome.