Claiming the promises of God

How can you live the abundant life of God if you don't know what that life is? How can you take the blessing if you don't know what it is? How can you speak with tongues, prophesy, heal the sick without the gift of the Holy Spirit? How can you receive the Holy Spirit without first seeing it in the Word of God?

God speaks to us through the Bible. It is important we search the Scripture to find the answers we are looking for. If I am facing a specific situation, I will search the Bible for an answer to that problem. An easy way to start searching is a key-word search in the concordance, or do as I do, I read a specific book in the Bible until God speaks to me. If something is in your heart, then God will lead you by the Holy Spirit to what He wants to say to you, if you will search the Scriptures.

We have to look into the Word of God - we have to possess every promise with the same tenacity and faith that Joshua had when he conquered the Promised Land. 'Eat' your Bible for breakfast, for lunch and at night. Do you know the promises of God? Have you seen the promises of God? Before you read the Bible pray, 'Lord, open my eyes. Speak to me through Your Word. Give me the faith to believe and possess every promise.'

God's promises are wonderful and available for you in this life, not merely when you die. You can call on the Lord and be healed, you can be filled with the Holy Spirit. For the believer it is the most wonderful life, so full of the joy and the glory of God, you will never want to go back to the old way.

God has a plan

God has a clear plan and strategy in everything He does. From creation to salvation, nothing has happened in heaven and earth without the foreknowledge of God. You are an important part of His strategy. He knew you before you were formed in your mother's womb. He has planned out all of your days. No experience is wasted. It has all been designed by a master architect. The Bible says in Hebrews 11:3 that it is by faith we understand that our lives are framed, fashioned and formed for their intended purpose by the Word of God (Amp).

God's plan for your life is for good, to give you a future and a hope. His plans always bring blessing. When you look at the historic sufferings of Israel, we can see how God brought them through persecution and slavery into blessing. There is always a deliverance; He will always bring you through every difficulty. God has a tremendous future for you. I want you to move forward with a renewed sense of purpose and hope. Our God is a God of power, miracles and deliverance. He will not leave you in your tragedy but has come to bless you.

An important part of God's strategy is that He wants to show His power is not just in heaven, but also on earth. God wants to use you to fulfil this plan. But God can only use willing, obedient, committed people who will make His glory the first priority. God needs the right men and women in the right place in order to do what He wants, to bring glory to His Name, to bring deliverance to nations, to build His church. Do you want to be where God is? Do you want the power of God? Then go where God is telling you, do what He is telling you to do.

The incredible power of God in us!

The power of God is absolutely without limit! Yet His power is only as big as our ability to believe. That's why Ephesians 1:19-20 talks of the 'exceeding greatness of His incredible power to us who believe'! The power is only released according to what you believe. At the start of this year, I want to encourage you to be bold in your praying; if God has revealed a promise to you for 2015, have the same attitude as David who declared in 1 Chronicles 17:25, 'O my God, I have been bold enough to pray to You because You have revealed to Your servant that You will build a house for him, a dynasty of kings!' David only dared to  pray such an outlandish promise because God revealed it to him. Just think for a moment, unbeknownst to David, contained within that promise was the birth and resurrection of Jesus, and its fulfilment is found in Revelation 19:16 where Jesus is declared to be King of kings!

When God raised Jesus from the dead, that wasn't an ordinary miracle. Our annual rituals and repetitions can make it seem meaningless. We've got to come back to the realisation as to how big the miracle actually is! Jesus was dead and buried in a tomb, but God through the power of the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead - and He is alive today! That same resurrection power is in you and me! I need this incredible power, you need this power of God.

In the Bible we read what God did with Israel in Egypt: the plagues, the crossing of the Red Sea, it's a nice encouraging story. But do we realise that Egypt was the greatest power on earth at that time, one of the greatest empires the world has ever seen?! God overthrew the power of the greatest empire, destroyed all Pharaoh's army and delivered Israel! What a triumph! Moses said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 4, "Don't you see, this is the greatest miracle ever seen on the face of the earth?!"

I am talking about the absolutely incredible, unbelievable power that God has! If only we understood! That power is available to every one of us who will believe.

This is the way, walk ye in it!

'You shall hear a voice behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk ye in it'.' God has a time and a season for everything. At my age, looking back on my life, I see order, direction, planning and purpose; His timing is perfect. Not everything I have lived through has been easy, but not every season listed in Ecclesiastes 3 is. How else would we learn to appreciate joy without also knowing sorrow? All I know for sure is, 'the steps of a righteous man are ordered and planned by the Lord' (Ps 37:23). We just need to follow and do what He says.

All my life I have heard God's voice behind me. Sometimes it has been a whisper, other times God has used dramatic events to alter the course of my life. I have always searched for the power of God, I have longed to live within His will. In 1961 I went to Jerusalem seeking a new anointing, a new fire - three and a half years later I got the beginning of the answer when God healed my throat cancer! Without that miracle I would never have known the power of God in my life. I don't want prophecy, I don't want emotion, I don't want to party. I want the Hand of God to touch me.

God is always a God of miracles! Yes, looking back over my life, I have experienced the power of God, but it was never some emotional experience in a conference, it was just step by step walking closer to God: my teenage cry for the Holy Spirit, my miraculous release from a communist prison, my healing from the two cancers - and many other problems and miracles. What will it be next time, what will happen this year? I'm still not satisfied that God has answered me fully. For me, walking by faith is step by step, and I have not reached the end of the road yet!

That is why Peter said we have a living hope, an inheritance which is incorruptible that cannot be defiled, that does not fade away but goes on increasing and increasing until the moment when we see Jesus in all power and glory (1 Peter 1:4). Every step is another miracle towards experiencing the power of God in our lives! As for me, I will seek God every day until I am in the Kingdom.

Reasonable Service

Is this reasonable? Get to work for the Kingdom. 

God so impressed Romans 12:1 on me when I was a teenager: 'I beseech you to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.' God is talking about reasonable service, nothing exceptional - for every believer - the norm. Today the churches are talking about being normal, taking care of yourself, not working too hard... But the challenge is 'reasonable service' - giving your whole life as a 'living sacrifice'! Everything! God didn't call me to be an evangelist or a preacher - He said He wanted all of me!

A few years ago to celebrate my 60th anniversary in ministry, I revisited the place in Brighton where God first spoke to me when I was 15 years old. I was with a group of young Christians walking along the beach, but God was speaking to me, challenging me. God was saying, "I want you David!" And the devil was saying, "Don't you realise you're saved, you got baptised in water, filled with the Holy Spirit - that's enough!" But God was saying, "I want you!" He didn't say, "I want you to be a preacher, I want you to be an evangelist, a missionary..." God said, "David, I want ALL of you, EVERYTHING! - Your life, your family, your time, your house, every single thing - I want the lot!" People talk about tithing, the Biblical pattern of giving a tenth of your income to God, but a long time ago I tried the opposite, keep a tenth and give God 90%! You cannot out-give God! Give everything! The more I give Him, the more I receive in return! - Give and you will receive 'pressed down and running over!' - This is why God says, the only 'reasonable' thing is to present your body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God! - And this is only the beginning, the norm, the 'reasonable' bit! I want the un-reasonable, the extra-normal! I don't just want to receive the Holy Spirit like everybody else, I want a double portion, a treble portion, ten times, a hundred times more! I'm hungry for God! I need that anointing, that power! Jesus told the servant who did everything that was expected of him, what was reasonable - but the master did not thank him - he only did what he was employed to do (Luke 17:7-10). But I want to receive! The more you give, the more God gives back! I remember that tremendous challenge when God said to me, "David, I want YOU!" That night I had to say, "Lord, I'll give you everything!"