Bible News: Obtaining The Promise Through Thanksgiving (Part 1)

“He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God.” – Rom 4:20

Have you ever gone to church with a heavy heart and the worship leader is challenging you to lift your hands and praise the Lord but you are feeling like the weight of the world is on your shoulder and the hands wouldn’t just go up?

Some will find the strength to lift it and others will just skip through the service. However if you do, the weight can be lifted at that moment… But what you want is a permanent lifting.

Someone was saying to me “whenever I’m in church, I find joy in the word and in the song ministration but as soon as I step out, my worries come knocking again” (paraphrased).

Abraham was over 90 years old and Sarah his wife was way passed menopause, but the bible says he did not consider it, instead, he was strengthened in faith giving glory to God.

How do you not consider in the midst of worries? How do you give glory when all you want to do is fall and cry? How do you become establish in the joy of the word and give thanks with genuine intent???

Let’s look at Romans 4:17. It says “it was written ‘I have made thee a father of many nations'” (please observe the present tense and affirmation). If this was written out for Abraham, or God spoke to him through dream or vision is not really our bone of contention right now. What we are more concerned about is the fact that just as the promises of God have been written out for us through His word, Abraham ‘heard’ something that he believed. (Remember faith comes by a continuous hearing of the word of God).

Therefore, you can read the word but until it resounds in your Spirit, you might as well be reading a novel. Now how the word resounds is not by forcing it to, it is by a continuous hearing (although you are reading it) and the quickening work of the Holy Spirit in you. (This is more broad than I make it appear here but the rudiments is what I have given… You need to get into the word if you need light out of the darkness).

When Abraham heard the word, he believed it. Why did he believed? Romans 4:17 goes further to describe the God Abraham believed to make us know he had a knowledge of whom he believed so that he was able to trust Him. Knowing births trust and perfect love will drive out fear.

Verse 18 makes us understand that after Abraham’s belief was established, everything happening on the outward became inconsequential. He was old and so was his wife. It was ridiculous to even fathom bringing a child to the world at that age but he knew whom he had believed and the FACT was nothing compared to the TRUTH he had received.

What happens in our life is not as important as how we receive it. What we see on the surface is not as important as what we see through the eyes of faith because we walk by faith not by sight. So if you are looking at the circumstances more than the promise, your vision of a blossom future will be impaired.

– Written by Alex Amos