Faith

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Phil.3:13,14--“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind (past), and reaching forth unto those things which are before (future), 14-I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Though this won’t be an indepth study, I do want to look briefly at these seven things listed below in relation the foundation Scripture.


Desire

Goal

Plan

Pressing

Faith/God’s Word

Prayer

Thanksgiving/praise

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DESIRE AND ATTITUDE TO WIN THE GOAL:
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This is certainly not the words of a loser. It’s the words of a person with a huge desire for the things of God. This person is the Apostle Paul we’re talking about who displayed a winning attitude. I don’t think Paul ever saw himself as a loser, not even when he was persecuting the Christian's. In his eyes, this was probably being a winner also. A person who was successful. The only problem was, he was being successful in the wrong vocation. He had a call on him to save people’s lives, not destroy them.

You hear some people say, “Oh, I’m just a born loser. Been a loser all my life.” No wonder. This person has a losing attitude and the image they have of themselves is one of failure. In light of that, a person like this is already a failure going somewhere to happen. And they usually do. And when the failure comes, they’re quick to say, “Well, I knew it was going to happen like this. It always does. That’s why I don’t get my hopes up.” I’d say, you’d better get your hope pumped up as high as you can get it because hope is a fore-runner to faith and you’re going to need hope and faith working together. Are you hearing what I’m saying to you? “Now faith is the substance of things HOPED for (earnestly and intensely expected), and the evidence of things not seen” (Heb.11:1).

So Paul, as we’ve seen from the Scripture, that he was expressing desire for the prize. And because of this desire, he set a GOAL. He said, I’m pressing toward the mark because I desire the prize of that high calling of God in the anointed Jesus. It’s plain to see that he’s going after the glory. Did Paul have a PLAN? Yes, he did. Again from the Scripture, he said (paraphrase), ‘my plan is put my past behind me, FORGET IT so I can put all my energy into PRESSING toward my goal.’ That says, his past threatened to be a hindrance. If he didn’t do something about it, it would serve to be a roadblock to winning the prize and getting to his goal. If Paul had to put his past behind him so it wouldn’t be a hindrance to God’s best and getting to his goal, then so do we. Amen. What is hindering you from reaching your goal in God?

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DEVELOPING A NEW ATTITUDE:
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Paul had desire, he had a GOAL and he had a PLAN. His goal was the high calling of God. He was after the glory, and his PLAN was to throw off everything that would hinder him from successfully attaining that goal. So, we can see that a loser/failure attitude is your first biggest hindrance to attaining your goal. Romans 12:2 says, "Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind...” This says that the first thing you’re going to have to do is to change your old habits of thinking, speaking and acting. “And be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (Eph.4:23). This means, you need to develope a new attitude---a faith attitude based on the word of God, “So then, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God“ (Romans 10:17).

Now evidently, Paul had spent some time doing this himself and getting in line on these things. Listen again to what he said, (paraphrase), “I’m not saying that I’ve arrived at my goal yet, but I’ve got it in my sights. I can SEE it (through the eyes of his faith). I want to attain this goal so bad that, I tell you one thing I’m doing, I’ve made up my mind, I’m forgetting and leaving all the junk of the past back there. And I’m running after the goal that I SEE before me. It’s right there within my grasp and I’m pursuing after it.” Can you hear Paul’s attitude here? It’s the attitude of faith and faith, working by love (Gal.5:6), produces winner’s. Faith=love=action=success. The love of God is the motivator for it all.

No person’s walk of faith is perfect, even the Apostle Paul’s faith walk wasn’t perfect because he was a human man just as we are human beings. And no one has ever walked this earth who was perfect except the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the perfect and sinless, and spotless Son of the living God. And He’s still perfect as He sits at the right hand of the Father today, making intercession for you and for me. Amen! Praise the Lord!

So, you may suffer some setback’s along the way to reaching your goal. When this happens, and it will, (that's reality) don’t sit down somewhere and start moaning and groaning, “Well, I knew it. It’s just not meant for me to be successful. It’s not meant for me to be healed. Everybody else get’s healed but me. I don’t see why everything always has to happen to me. You just don’t know what I go through. If it’s bad, you can believe it’s going to come to my door.” Well, don’t open the door and let it in with this defeated, self-pitying, failure attitude and wrong confession of words out of your mouth! Amen, it’s the truth and this truth hits every one of us square in the eye.

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THE POWER OF WORDS TO CREATE:
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Your words have the power to create just like God’s words have power to create (Proverbs 18:21--the power of life and death are in the tongue). The only difference being, God is Sovereign and you’re not---meaning you can’t create worlds and a universe like God. But your words have the power to create an atmosphere of either failure or success. Fear and faith doesn’t mix. It’s like oil and water, its in opposition to each other. When you’re confessing doubt and unbelief that is inspired by fear, you’ve just set yourself up for failure. There’s nothing else that can happen but failure because fear doesn’t activate God’s power in your behalf.

Your words of fear and unbelief activates Satan’s power on your behalf, giving him permission to see to it that what you’ve confessed out of your mouth comes to pass. Failure is sure to come. Why is that? Because, by your words, you’re either justified or you’re condemned (Matt.12:37). Bottom line, this truth means that you’re either speaking (prophesying) words of blessing or cursing over your own life. Setting yourself up for failure in the here and now.

And when the failure comes, who gets the blame for it? Ultimately God does. But it was your loser/failure attitude and fear-filled words---your unbelief tied God’s hands. In Mark 6:5-6, in His own hometown, Jesus couldn’t do any mighty works there because of their unbelief. The Bible didn’t say He wouldn’t do any mighty works. It said, He couldn’t because of their unbelief. Are you hearing what I’m saying? How many times has God wanted to bring great blessing into your life, but your confessions of unbelief stopped Him? Where does this unbelief originate? Romans 10:10 says, “For with the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Hebrews 3:12 says, “Take heed, brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief, in departing (forsaking) from the living God.”

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LIFE & BLESSING, DEATH & CURSING:
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Matt.12:34 says, “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” So, if your heart is filled with fear, doubt and unbelief, you will be speaking unbelief and fear, not faith. Deut.30:19, God said, I’ve set before you life and blessing, death and cursing, choose life.” This says, we have a choice to either speak life and blessing over our lives and others, or death and cursing over our lives as well as over other people’s lives. It’s not always someone else cursing our lives by the evil words of unbelief they speak. Yes, it can be, but more often than not, it is mainly us who do this evil speaking from out of the abundance of our hearts to our own selves.

So, at the moment you begin confessing fear, doubt and unbelief, you’ve just given Satan permission to be your god. You’ve given him permission to be your lord, and to be your source instead of God. Oh, I know this is a tough word to swallow and most of us are probably choking on it right about now. Some of you may become offended, but your offense, or my offense won’t change the truth of what is said. It is God’s Word that brings the conviction of the Spirit to our hearts and causes the offense. “And they became offended for the word’s sake” “Mark 4:17).

And I know a lot of people don’t realize this is what they’re doing when they get caught up in the circumstances of problems and at the moment that's all they can see. No one is immune from getting his or her eyes off of Jesus and this happening but we can learn to stay more in tune with God’s way of operating instead of continuing in the devil’s losing ways. That is, the world’s system, amen. We can learn to get onto God’s system of operating and expect success. Yes, we can. And we start by being obedient to walk by the Holy Spirit’s leading and guidance in the Word of God.

Just as fear activates Satan to act on our behalf to bring our words to pass in our lives, God is activated by our faith to bring it to pass also in our lives for good and not for destruction. “It is impossible to please God without faith” (Hebrews 11:6). In other words, it pleases God, our heavenly Father, when He see’s us thinking, speaking and acting by faith in all these area’s according to His Word.

Why does it please God? Because it gives Him the opportunity to bless you and do you good. This gives God pleasure, but when we draw back (Heb.10:38) and turn to Satan by our fear, doubt and unbelief, it grieves Father God’s heart because it closes the opportunity to bless us as He desires to. God’s blessings are like soft rain falling---it rains on the just and the unjust. So you’re still going to receive minimal blessing from God, but it will only be a trickle as compared to the out-pouring He wants to bring into your life.

This is where people can become jealous and envious of others and even more offended at God, accusing Him of showing partiality to other people. The accusation is that God is blessing other people more abundantly than you, while you get the “short end of the stick." How many times have we all said something like this? But folks, God is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11), He is a just God. It is not God who is stopping you from being blessed abundantly---you are by wrong attitude, wrong speech (out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks), and by your wrong actions, all based on fear, doubt and unbelief. “Whatever is not of faith is sin” (Romans 14:23).

This is the place where we all need to pause and consider our own ways instead of looking to lay our fault and our lack, our failures on to God and other people. We are the one’s who are responsible for how blessed we are or how little we’re blessed.

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DETERMINE TO ATTAIN THE GOAL:
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Paul said, I want it all. I want the glory of God and I’m going after it, and I’m not going to let anything hinder me form getting to my goal. I’m pressing on toward the goal that’s within my vision---I can SEE it and I’m pressing on through to attain. Are you pressing toward the glory of God--the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus today? The place of your every provision? Your only source? If you’re not, you can start today, amen. He said, I’m pressing on toward the glory because I’ve caught a glimpse of it and I know that I know, where my success lies.

Look what he says in Phil.4:19, “But my God...” listen to his confidence and trust here---not a confidence and trust in himself but in his God whom he knew would not fail him if he kept perusing after Him, doing faith and guarding his heart and his confessions. Making sure he was in line with the Word of God, being obedient and trusting Him with all his heart. “But MY GOD shall supply all your need according to His riches in GLORY by Christ (the Anointed) Jesus (by His Anointing).”

How did Paul know this? How could he be so confident as to tell these church people at Philippi such a thing and also tell you and me this same thing today? Because he had experienced it first hand and he had learned to figure in the glory (the anointing) in every situation he faced. That yoke destroying, burden removing power (glory, anointing) of God. He had learned that everything he needed could be found there in the glory of God. He had learned that the glory is God’s very presence. You can’t have the glory (anointing) without having God’s presence and vice versa.

Paul had experienced just enough of the glory of God that he had become addicted to it and he wanted to know Him (Jesus) and the power of His resurrection (Phil.3:10). He was talking about the glory. Paul desired this so much so that he was running as hard as he could to attain that place of God’s glory. He had determined in his mind and heart that nothing was going to hold him back, slow him down or stop him--he was going to press on through to get to his goal. The high calling of God in the Anointing of Jesus--otherwise known as the glory. He was pressing toward the glory.

And when you talk about God, you can’t help but be talking about Jesus and the Holy Spirit. You can’t talk about Jesus without you’re also talking about God and the Holy Spirit. You can’t talk about the Holy Spirit without you’re talking about God and the Son, Jesus too. They are three separate personalities and yet, they are One and the same. They are three, the Holy Trinity--yet, they are One. Do you see what I’m saying? So, Paul wasn’t pressing toward a partial goal here--he was pressing toward the WHOLE prize of the glory that included Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen! Praise the name of Jesus forever. To Him be honor and glory!

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KEEPING HOPE ALIVE!
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Some people are under the false impression that they’re not supposed to be successful. I heard a young preacher say one time, “Well, now you know that God never promised that we’d have everything we want (whatsoever things you desire, when you pray believe that you receive them and you shall have them, Mark 11:24--your want in line with what God want‘s), but He did promise to supply our needs. He never said we’d be successful.”

That can douse your HOPE right then and there. That would be enough to make a person think there’s no use in trying to do anything toward achieving a goal, let alone setting one. To hear these discouraging words would be like telling a person, you’re never going to make it very far in this life. Just learn to except defeat. But God told Joshua in Joshua 1:8, to observe to do the Word, meditate on it day and night, don’t let it depart from you--in other words, eat it, sleep it, think it continually and God said, YOU will make your way prosperous and have GOOD SUCCESS. How? By being obedient to the Word. By being a doer and not just a hearer of it, deceiving your own self (James 1:22).

If you take a way a person’s hope, they don’t have much of anything left, amen? But I’m not talking about the world’s kind of hope that says, “Well, I sure do hope we get a rain to end this drought so my crops will grow. But I don’t much believe we will.” This kind of hope causes you to be defeated before you ever get started. And so a lot of people are of the attitude, “Why bother trying if I’m already defeated? If I don’t expect anything, I won’t be disappointed.”

Your expectation is set on receiving nothing and that's exactly what you will get---nothing. And when you don’t receive your needs met, you end up saying, it was God who held out on you. That is just what the devil want’s you to think and believe so you won’t catch a glimpse of the glory of God and begin perusing after it. He knows better than you and I what the Anointing (the glory) of God is capable of. He knows it destroys his evil works and shows him up as the nothing he really is. This is all the more reason why we need to run after God as hard and as fast as we can go, letting absolutely nothing hold us back, amen! Praise the Lord!

Satan doesn’t want you to learn how to figure in the Anointing (the glory) in your circumstances to destroy strongholds of poverty, sickness and disease off your life. He doesn’t want you going after God with all your heart and with all your might and being determined not to settle for less that God’s best. But listen, Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). Praise God, we’re catching on.

How do you catch this glimpse of the truth? Through God’s Word first of all--His book of glory, you could say. You get in it and begin digging and mining out those nuggets of His Word that leads you straight to the glory. What was it Paul said? “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in GLORY (also known as the Anointing) by Christ Jesus.” Paul had to get his glimpse of it the same way you and I do. Through God’s Word. It came through God’s Word by revelation that he began writing---those epistles (letters) he wrote under the inspiration and leadership of the Holy Spirit. He got these words of revelation of God’s glory through spending time in prayer and listening to what God had to say back to him. You and I have to do the same. It won’t work any other way.

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DEALING WITH SET-BACKS:
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There will be times when you will probably stumble and have a setback on your way to realizing your goal. Don’t let it overwhelm you to the point that you say, “This is not working. I knew it wouldn’t” and you sit down and quit. This is the time when you want to get yourself by the nap of the neck (letting your spirit rule), so to speak, and tell yourself to get your Bible--shut yourself in with God for a few days while you read the Word, fast and pray and find out from Him where you missed it.

Most of us want to fold up and start griping and complaining, “Well, I knew it wouldn’t work--all this faith stuff. It never fails, just let me try to do something that I think is going to turn out good and I get my hopes up, it always fails. I can just count on it.” What is a person like this doing by complaining? Complaining is shifting the blame for your failure off onto something or someone else. It is to avoid taking responsibility for the failure because YOU messed up somewhere.

This is the time to admit it, quit it and then forget it and get back on course. You do this by getting yourself before God to say, “God, I missed it here, but I don’t know where. I repent of any lack of obedience to your Word in this thing--any place where I got off track of your Word, and I’m asking you to forgive me. I’m also asking you to show me where I missed it and help me to get back on course.” If you’re sincere and you mean business before God, He’ll show you exactly where you missed it. He will show you where you got off track and it resulted in your failing to receive His blessing. Then, when He does reveal this to you, take His instruction instead of fighting against it and get back on track. Get back in there and press toward the goal of the glory. Amen, that's what we ALL have to do.

I want you to notice something else here in what Paul said in the beginning Scriptures we used from Phil.3:13,14. We’ve already seen that Paul saw himself as a success and not a failure. He knew that his sufficiency was of God, not himself, therefore he had the right image on the inside of him. His self-image was in union with the God-image on the inside of him. And he had learned that he was nothing on his own but he could do all things through Christ (by His anointing) which strengthened him (Phil 4:13). So can you, and so can I do all things through Christ, the anointed One and through His Anointing that strengthens us to keep pressing toward the goal. That will empower us to keep pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah! Amen!

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COME UP HIGER:
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Yes, we are being called to come up to this level of the glory of God---that we may know Him and the power of His resurrection---that dynumas power---the glory. But we will never attain it as long as we keep the same old defeated ways of thinking, speaking and acting--all based on fear, doubt and unbelief in God and in His Word. It’s going to take a new tenacious determination to let nothing interfere with your reaching your goal in God, and being what He called you to be now. A holy people, whom God’s glory is to rise upon and be seen as brightness (as bright as the noon day sun) and a light so that people from all over will be drawn to the glory that rests on you and me. To the praise of His glory. So people will be drawn to the majesty and glory of Jesus.

And so, in conclusion, let me say this, there is a difference between a winner and a loser---a failure and success. The person who has a winning/success attitude (in right perspective of God’s Word), regardless of how many times they get knocked down by Satan’s tactic’s to over-throw their attaining success in God---they will always get up to begin again. They are relentless in their determination to get up and keep pressing toward their goal.

The person who has a defeat/failure attitude, once they get knocked down, they begin complaining, “This is too hard. I’m never going to make it. It’s just not meant for me to ever have anything good in my life. It’s not meant for me to be happy, or healed, etc.” Once this kind of person gets knocked down (makes no difference of the number of times), he will stay down longer and longer each time until finally, he refuses to get up to try again.

Thus, he has become what he set out to become by his wrong thinking, speaking and his wrong actions and that is a ’failure.’ It was based on fear, doubt, and unbelief and by confessing death words out of his mouth, which gave the devil permission to bring about even more failure. This person will maintain that God’s Word and all that faith stuff didn’t and doesn’t work for him--maybe for others, but not for him. But wait a minute, God’s Word did work for you. It just worked in reverse to bring about defeat and failure (for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap-Gal.6:7).

Let us set about to reverse the curse off our lives today by keeping God’s Word before our eyes (reading, studying. meditating), going in our ears (preaching, teaching at church, tapes, worship music), and coming out of our mouth’s. Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy name, bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all His benefits, who has forgiven my iniquities, and healed ALL diseases that tries to attack my body (Psalm 103). I will forever praise the Lord. His praise shall be on my lips continually.

“Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.” Say what? What the Word of God say’s you are, what the Word of God say’s you have and what the Word of God say’s you can do---ALL through the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, “Apart from Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). Begin today professing that you are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. That Christ (the Anointed One and by His Anointing) has redeemed you from the curse of the law, being made a curse for you, for cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree (Gal.3:13).

Somebody says, “I don’t FEEL like doing this.” Well, do it anyway because it doesn't have anything to do with your feelings. The operation of God’s Word for good in our lives is not dependent upon our feelings. If it were, folks, we’d be in a heap of trouble, amen? Yes, we would. Faith moves God to act in our behalf, not our feelings, and that’s not to say that Jesus is not touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He is. But He’s more concerned with seeing us make a decision of our will, by our faith to press toward the goal. Going after the glory. Amen. So let me ask you these few simple questions and I encourage you to take some quality time allowing the Holy Spirit to reveal your heart to you as you answer them honestly.

Do you have a tenacious DESIRE to be a winner in God, instead of a failure?

Do you have a GOAL from God for your life?

Have you asked God for His PLAN for your life, asking Him to show you how to work the plan?

Are you PRESSING toward the glory and ultimately into God’s presence?

Are you renewing your mind by FAITH in God’s WORD daily?

Are you spending time in PRAYER, and even learning to FAST to receive a ‘word’ from God?

Are you spending time being THANKFUL to God, giving Him honor and PRAISE? I want to encourage you again, keep pressing toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, and may you make your way prosperous and have good success, giving God thanksgiving always in all things. Giving Him all the honor and all the praise for your success in becoming a winner in Jesus name.

Plain As Day Ministries

Shirley Williams

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