Study Eight – Let The Word Abide In You!
Introduction
For years, I prayed without getting any sort of answer. I didn’t know what it took to pray effectively, and because of that, most of my prayers were just a rehearsal of the problem. But God already knew the problem! What He needed was for me to open the door of faith. So, He could move into my life and solve that problem. But I had weak faith. I didn’t believe I received when I prayed according to Mark 11:24 – “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” So what happened as a result of faithless prayers? For most part, nothing at all. “But you ask, “couldn’t you have prayed for more faith?”
Yes, I could have, but I wouldn’t have received any that way because faith doesn’t come generally by praying. As we’ve been studying, it comes by hearing The WORD of God. The only way you can obtain faith is to hear The WORD preached or take it into yourself by spending time in it! Of course, you can spend a lifetime studying The WORD like a textbook, just to gain natural knowledge, or to learn facts, but it won’t generate faith or do anything else for you spiritually. For The WORD to be effective in your life, you have to let it become more than just a book to you. You must treat it as though God is speaking to you, personally, through its pages. You must let God’s words jump out of your Bible and into your heart, so they can abide, or take up residence there.
God’s words can do that because they’re not just tired, dead, old phrases. They are supernatural words that originated in heaven. As Hebrews 4:12 says:
The WORD that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and the [immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analysing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart (The Amplified Bible).
God’s words had life in them the moment He first spoke them. And even though they’ve been written in a Book for thousands of years, those words are still as powerful and full of life as they were the day God said them. His words are eternal. Jesus said they are spirit, and they are life (John 6:63). So, when you take the words in that Book and put them into your heart and into your mouth, they bring supernatural things to pass. God’s WORD makes a circle. It comes down to us from Him like rain from heaven and goes into the soil of our hearts (Mark 4). Then, we lift those words back up to Him by faith, in prayer, and He brings them to pass in our lives. Isaiah 55:10-11 says it like this:
“As the rain and snow come down from the heavens, and return not there again, but water the earth and make it bring forth and sprout, that it may give seed to the Sower and bread to the eater, So shall My WORD be that goes forth out of My mouth: it shall not return to Me void [without producing and effect, useless], but it shall accomplish that which I please and purpose, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (The Amplified Bible).
Keep The WORD Alive in You
Remember though, if you want The WORD to produce those kinds of powerful results in your life, you can’t be content just to “know” it. You must believe it and meditate on it until it abides in you, and you’ll obey it. You must give your attention to it just as God instructed Joshua to do in Joshua 1. You must:
Turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. “This book…shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success” (verses 7-8, The Amplified Bible).
I realized, of course, that you can’t walk around reading your Bible 24hours a day. But if you’re committed to abiding in The WORD, you’ll find ways to put it into your heart. You can certainly keep The WORD abiding in you 24 hours a day. We first learned to walk by faith back in the 1960s by listening to 7 -inch reel-to-reel tapes by Kenneth E. Hagin. (It’s so much easier today!)
How do you know if The WORD is abiding in you? It begins to speak to you. If the WORD is not talking to you, then it’s not alive in you, and you need to freshen your remembrance of it. Proverbs 6:20-22 says:
“My son, keep your father’s command, and do not forsake the law of your mother. Bind them continually upon your heart; Tie them around your neck. When you roam, they will lead you; When you sleep, they will keep you; and when you awake, they will speak with you.”
The WORD that’s abiding in you, The WORD that’s alive in you, is The WORD that talks to you. It’s The WORD that leads you moment by moment as you go about your day. The abiding WORD will come up in your heart unexpectedly, much like the words and notes of a familiar song might waft spontaneously through your mind. To conquer the challenges of the devil, you must have the spiritual strength within you that only the engrafted WORD can provide. You have to be so established in that WORD that it automatically rises up within you at the moment of crisis.
No Deposit/No Return
If The WORD is not abiding in you as it should, if it’s not coming up inside you when you need it, the solution is simple. Spend more time in it. Put more of The WORD in your heart…and more will come out! In some ways, your heart is like a bank account. If you want to write faith cheques on that account, you must have plenty of WORD in there to back them. Jesus said, “A good man brings good things out of the good store up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him” (Matthew 12:33-35, New International Version). If you haven’t put money in the bank, when you write a cheque, money will not come out of the bank. The WORD is the same way. If you haven’t deposited God’s WORD about healing into your heart, when you become sick, words of healing will not come out of your mouth. If you haven’t deposited God’s WORD about prosperity in your heart, when the devil attacks your finances, you won’t have the spiritual funds to fight back.
“But I did deposit God’s WORD about healing in my heat,” you say.” “I read healing scriptures every day, back in 1990.” You probably deposited a thousand dollars in the bank a few years ago, too—but are you living on that money today? Of course not! It’s not long gone. You cashed cheques on it and used it all. By the same token, in this life, you have to walk by faith, so you are continually writing faith cheques. The WORD you put inside you is made strength and produces faith (if you believe it and keep it), and you’re continually drawing on that supply of strength to meet the challenges that come your way. You are always encountering situations that require supernatural help. So, to keep your strength account from running low, you must continually make deposits of The WORD. You must keep a fresh deposit of The WORD in your heart at all times by putting it in daily.
Right now, you may not be in a position to make huge deposits of money into your natural bank account. But you can make any size deposit you want to make in your heart account—and that’s the account that really matters—because it’s one you must draw on to change the circumstances in your life. It holds the faith you’ll need to cover any bill the devil tries to send your way. When you’re first starting your faith account, it’s wise to begin making deposits in the area of your greatest need. If your biggest problem is finances, for example, you should set your attention on The WORD of God concerning prosperity. You ought to go to The WORD and start the power of God working in you, so faith will rise up in your heart and cause you to prosper.
So, give Him an opportunity! Open the door of faith for Him by spending time in His WORD. Meditate on it until that WORD becomes bigger inside you than the circumstances that surround you. Set your attention on The WORD that gives you an answer to the problem you’re facing. Then, focus on God’s answer until you can look right past the circumstances and into the realm of the spirit. Focus on it until you can see God’s WORD coming to pass for you! When you do that, you’ll find that poverty and lack, sickness and failure of every kind will wither. They will lose their energy to stay in your life, and the provision of God will gain energy and bring you what you need.
By building your faith account, you’ll bankrupt the devil in your life. He just won’t have the resources to keep you down anymore. If he tries to put sickness on you, you can draw on The WORD of God about healing, and it will give you victory in that area. But remember, you can’t make a withdrawal from an account that doesn’t have anything in it. No deposits, no return! If you need more faith in your heart to meet the challenges you’re facing right now, put some in there. Since faith comes by hearing The WORD, you can have as much as you want. The amount of WORD you put in your heart is how much faith you will have.
But remember this: No one can make deposits into your heart account but you. Your spouse can’t do it for you. Your pastor can’t do it for you. Even God can’t do it for you. You’re the one who has to open your Bible every day. You’re the one who has to listen to this teaching series and attend this church where The WORD is being preached. You’re the one who has to open your ears and your heart and receive the living WORD!
From the first day we began to walk by faith, our lives began to improve. But breakthrough didn’t manifest overnight. It took time. It took a while for us to lay hold of The WORD of God to such an extent that it could significantly change our circumstances. It took time for the WORD to work its way down into our hearts and take root there, to take over our minds and mouths, and then become fruitful.
So, don’t become impatient. Don’t expect to revolutionise your entire life in a day or two. Give The WORD time to work. Your life will never be the same!
Questions
How is God’s WORD alive?
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How can you keep The WORD in your heart 24 hours a day?
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How is your heart like a bank account?
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What other lessons have you taken from this study?
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