Hope for Healing, Faith for Living Podcast

If this is the first time you have joined me for this podcast, welcome. Over the past several episodes we have been sharing about having the goal of 100% answered prayer. The reason for this goal is because Scripture shows it’s God intention for us to ask and receive, to know we have what we have prayed for. 

Let’s review some of our main Scriptures we have focused on.

1 John 5:14-15 ESV

14 And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.

Hebrews 4:16 ESV

16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Matthew 7:7-8 ESV

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened.

2 Corinthians 1:20 ESV

20 For all the promises of God find their Yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our Amen to God for his glory.

2 Corinthians 1:20 Amplified Bible

20 For as many as are the promises of God, in Christ they are [all answered] “Yes.” So through Him we say our “Amen” to the glory of God.

John 16:23-24

English Standard Version

23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

Mark 11:22-24

22 Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. 23 For most certainly I tell you, whoever may tell this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and doesn’t doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is happening; he shall have whatever he says. 24 Therefore I tell you, all things whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them.

So you see Scripture definitely shows we are to pray but when we pray, we are to pray according to God’s will as revealed in his Word. In doing so, we can pray with confidence and that’s what God wants. He wants us to be confident in our relationship with him which is through the redemptive work of Christ.

We’ve talked about how through Faith and Patience we inherit the promises. (See Hebrews 6:12)

We’ve talked about how Abraham showed us by example how to stay in faith and actually grow strong in faith while believing God for the promise to come to pass. (See Romans Chapter 4)

Today I want to talk about the importance of seeing yourself inlight of God’s Word and embracing your identity in him and how that connects you to the promises.

To learn more about this, let's go back to our example of Abraham.

As you may know, there was a man named Abram. God told him he would make of him a great nation.

Genesis 12:1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 

Abram was about 75 at this time. 

Now there’s a lot to this story but want I want to point out here is it was 25 years later when God said something different to Abram. 

Genesis 17

When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.

Abraham means Father of Many. God changed from saying I’m going to do something to saying he did it.

Let’s look at Genesis 17:5 again.

“No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations.”

Have made. Not going to make but have made.  God changed Abrams name to Abraham to signify who he now was according to the Word of God. His wife’s name was changed too.

In Chapter 18:14 that God tells Abraham he will have a child about the same time next year.

All this time Abraham and his Wife had wanted a child but when God said it is done and their names were changed to reflect what God’s Word said, and they began to identify with their new names and for what God’s Word said, about 3 or 4 months later they conceived and as God’s Word said, they had a child the following year.

Think about it. By speaking their new name they identified with the promise and within 3 months, their bodies changed so that they could do what was up to then impossible, they conceived a child and then had a child according to the promise.

In receiving what God has for us, we have to identify with what God has already done for us in Christ. We have to infidelity with the promise and our words must line up with what we by faith know to be true.

Let’s go back to Romans 4 where it talks about the promise God gave Abraham.

16 That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, 17 as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations”—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.

God gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that do not yet exist. 

We, by identifying with and speaking the promise of God, call things into existence that do not yet exist.

Everytime Abraham spoke his name, he was confessing what was true according to God’s promise even though it didn’t exist yet.

When we believe God for what we see in his Word as his promise, as his will for our lives, we identify with it and speak it, or confess it as being true even though it does not yet exist.

What promise are you believing God for? Have you asked him for it believing you have received it? Are you identifying with the promise? Are you confessing it’s so? If not, why not? God’s Word says it so doesn’t it? Don’t we base our faith on his Word and not the present circumstances?  Yes we do. Believe God and confess what his Word says as true for you.

Blessings,

Tim Dumas

www.hopeforhealingfaithforliving.com