Killing Giants and Possessing Your Promise

Killing Giants and Possessing Your Promise

“And Joshua said unto the Children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go and possess the land, which the Lord God of your fathers hath given you?”

Many people receive a promise from God, or a prophecy, and think that it will just come to pass. This belief, however, is not based on an accurate understanding of how the Kingdom of God operates. A person must mix faith with a promise, declare and decree it, and then walk in obedience to the Holy Spirit’s direction. Some of God’s promises are conditional; in other words, “If you do this, then I will do this…” Ephesians 6:1-3 is an example of this. God has many exceeding great and precious promises in His written Word, but relatively few people ever see them come to pass and operate in their lives because of either a lack of knowledge, or they don’t apply the principles that they know (James 1:22-25).

God’s entire Creation, both natural and spiritual, operate according to the principle of seedtime and harvest (Genesis 8:22). In fact, Jesus told us in Mark 4:13 that if we didn’t understand the principle of sowing and reaping, then we would not be able to properly understand anything else pertaining to the Kingdom of God. A seed must first be planted in order for something to grow. The principle of seed-time and harvest operates in our words, our actions, and our prayers (Job 22:28, Mark 11:22-24, James 2:14).

In Mark 11:22-24, Jesus told us that if we had faith, then we could speak to a mountain and it would be removed and cast into the sea. Of course, this will work with a literal mountain if we had the faith to believe it (although moving a literal mountain would take the gift of faith; one of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit) (I Corinthians 12:9). However, the mountains that Jesus was primarily referring to are the “mountains” in our lives; the supposed insurmountable issues that we face that seem impossible to move. This is exciting because it enables us to do things that would normally be impossible.

God wants us to operate by faith because that’s the only way that his plan can manifest in the earth. For instance, let’s say that you have a million dollars in the bank and therefore, monetarily, you could do a church project “yourself” without having to apply faith to the situation in order to get the money. You hire people to build, pay the contractors, and set everything up very nicely. You then begin having meetings and so forth, but in the end, all you really have is something that looks good from the outside but can accomplish little of lasting value. God would get involved as much as He could, but He would be limited. In the body of Christ, many of our works for God are like this, and these are the works that will burn up in the end (I Corinthians 3:12-15). There will be little fruit and no reward. Why? Because there is no spiritual foundation established, and even though it may be a good work, it was conceived in the flesh and not through faith.

If God gives a vision, an idea, or a plan, the first thing that we should do is to agree with Him. When God told Moses to send twelve spies to spy out the land of Canaan, only two were in agreement with Him. Only Joshua and Caleb said, “We are well able to go in and possess it…” The other ten spies said, “It is a good land but…” It’s always the “but” that will get you into trouble! They said, “But there are giants in the land…” After we agree with God, we must also begin to agree with Him in the words that we speak. God “calls those things that be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). In other words, He declares a thing as being so even before it is. If we have been born again, then we are His children, with His nature, and we are to operate the same way (Ephesians 5:1). This is how Jesus walked, and this is how He taught us to walk. The scripture says, “The just shall live by faith” (Hebrews 10:38).

When we speak and decree God’s Word, angels begin to move things and people into position and bring proper order. The worlds themselves were framed by the Word of God, and are presently upheld by The Word (Hebrews 1:3, 11:3). In other words, the Word of God is the foundation of all matter, for by it all things consist (Colossians 1:17). Since all matter is upheld by the Word, it is therefore subject to His Word. When we speak the Word of God in faith, it causes the natural order of things and events to align themselves with God’s eternal will instead of the curse that is resident in the earth by default. Even the political structure over your nation may be rearranged in order to accommodate God’s plan, simply because He has found a man or woman who will agree with Him and release faith. When faith is applied, everything begins to network from the root, and a proper foundation is established. It may take some time, but it will all come together.

There was an appointed time for the children of Israel to come out of Egypt. Four hundred and thirty years from the time that the sons of Jacob and their families joined Joseph in that land, they came out again just as God had spoken to Abraham (Genesis 15:12-14). Everything was in place, and even the wicked Pharaoh was on the throne at just the right time. Moses and Aaron were available, and God did many miracles in bringing them out. It was by faith that Moses obeyed God and went back into Egypt and confronted Pharaoh, and it was by faith that they came out.

When we speak and declare God’s promises, we activate our faith and put it in motion. It is the same principle by which we are born again; “With the heart man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:10), and II Corinthians 4:13 says, “I believed, and therefore have I spoken.” Confession is necessary in order to complete the process. Believing alone is not sufficient. In John 12:42, many of the chief rulers believed in Jesus, but they wouldn’t confess Him because they were afraid that they would be put out of the synagogue. In other words, they only accomplished part of the process. It wasn’t enough to complete it. God says, “I will watch over my word to perform it…” (Jeremiah 1:12).

Psalms 103:20 tells us that the angels of God hearken unto the voice of the Word. They hearken to the voice of the Word of God coming out of our mouths when we speak it in faith. The power of life and death is in the tongue (Proverbs 18:21, Luke 6:45), and the tongue literally sets the course of natural events (James 3:6). It should therefore it should be no mystery that the devil wants to get control of our tongue.

Sometimes the trouble and pressure that we are experiencing in our lives is not the direct result of demonic attack, but rather a result of what we have been saying. The good news is that when we realize that we have released a curse over our lives or over someone else’s life (or someone else has released a curse over us), we can bind the words that have been spoken, and they will fall to the ground (Matthew 18:18). These curses can be quite powerful. In fact, because of his unbelief, God had to literally silence Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, in order to ensure that His plan came to pass (Luke 1:19-20). Due to Peter’s misunderstanding of something that Jesus had said, the Apostle John was the only disciple who died a natural death. Peter misunderstood Jesus, and then went and told all of the other disciples what he had thought Jesus had said; they voiced it abroad, and the thing came to pass as they had spoken (John 21:18-23).

There have been times in my life when I have been under intense oppression and pressure, and nothing seemed to be working. I would bind the devil, but there was no relief, and I knew in my spirit that I was simply fighting the air. When I went to the Lord about it, He told me that the problem was not the devil, but words that other people had been speaking over my family and over myself. In fact, some of them had been prayers from other believers, and although they may have meant well, their prayers were based on assumption, emotion, or manipulation (witchcraft), rather than the leading of the Holy Spirit. As soon as I bound the words, we experienced instant breakthrough and freedom. There have been several “more stubborn” cases where I had to do it several times over a few days in order to get through, and even had to fast on occasion in order to break through. I now do this regularly from time to time, whenever the Holy Spirit brings it to my attention (It’s kind of like “cleaning house” every several months).

When we apply our faith and stand on God’s promises, the Holy Spirit and the Word will go directly to the root of the issue, and He will give us wisdom and tell us what to do. When Jesus spoke to the fig tree, it dried up from the roots, not the leaves (Mark 11:20). God always deals with an issue by dealing first with its root. If you are praying for healing for example, the root of the problem may not be a healing issue at all. It may be a forgiveness issue. Unforgiveness is at the root of why many people fail to receive healing, and, in fact, is the cause of many sicknesses in the first place. Unforgiveness and bitterness open a huge door to the devil. Jesus told us that if we would not forgive, neither would our heavenly Father forgive us, and went further to say that we would be delivered to the “tormentors” (Matthew 18:34-35). The devil is the tormentor, but the Holy Spirit will reveal the root issue and give us instruction if we ask Him in faith.

If we are “willing and obedient,” we shall eat the good of the land (Isaiah 1:19). God wants us to receive every good thing that He has for us to receive and to do for His Kingdom, but just as a good farmer must be diligent in reaping a harvest, we must do the same thing spiritually. We must agree with God, speak His promises, and then do whatever He tells us to do!