UP ONE DAY AND DOWN THE NEXT JAMES 1:5-8 TPT (THE PASSION TRANSLATION) “And if anyone longs to be wise, ask God for wisdom and he will give it! He won’t see your lack of wisdom as an opportunity to scold you over your failures, but he will overwhelm your failures with his generous grace. Just make sure you ask empowered by confident faith without doubting that you will receive. For the ambivalent person believes one minute and doubts the next. Being undecided makes you become like the rough seas driven and tossed by the wind. You’re up one minute and tossed down the next. When you are half-hearted and wavering, it leaves you unstable. Can you really expect to receive anything from the Lord when you’re in that condition?” James (Jacob) 1:5-8 TPT
WE WILL CALL THIS, THE WAVERING CHRISTIAN. UP ONE DAY AND DOWN THE NEXT.
QUESTION: (CAN WE BE CONSTANT?)
Discouragement will cause you to be a wavering Christian, one day up and excited and the next day, down in the dumps speaking doubt and unbelief. We can all say, we have done this in our lives. There is no Christian that has not wavered, but when we waver our faith goes to rest, or it goes to sleep. Faith like this will not work. Faith has to be on constant no matter what it seems.
Take a light bulb at night, in order for you to see, that light must burn constantly and in front of you or you might trip and fall. Faith must be the same, rather you feel like it or not. Faith must be constant even in the middle of the storm or you might trip and fall or in this case, drown.
In Mark 4:35-41 TPT Later that day, after it grew dark, Jesus said to his disciples, "Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake.” After they had sent the crowd away, they shoved off from shore with him, as he had been teaching from the boat, and there were other boats that sailed with them. Suddenly, as they were crossing the lake, a ferocious tempest arose, with violent winds and waves that were crashing into the boat until it was all but swamped. But Jesus was calmly sleeping in the stern, resting on a cushion. So, they shook him awake, saying, Teacher, don’t you even care that we are all about to die! Fully awake, he rebuked the storm and shouted to the sea, “Hush! Calm down!” All at once the wind stopped howling and the water became perfectly calm. Then he turned to his disciples and said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Haven’t you learned to trust yet?” But they were overwhelmed with fear and awe and said to one another, “Who is this man who has such authority that even the
wind and waves obey him?”
Here we see the disciples out on the sea in their boat and the winds became boisterous and fear gripped the disciples, but Jesus was sleeping in the back of the boat.
Now, in the natural, if we were on a sea like it was on this day, most of us if not all of us would react like the disciples and let fear grip us.
Example: This is a true story that happened to me, when my youngest son and I went to the beach with a blow-up type raft with sides and oars. We went out a little way and my son got out of the boat like raft and said, come on Dad come out with me. I got off of that raft and as soon as I did, I started to go down. I went down and down further and further no matter what I did, I went down. Fear of dying in the water started to grip me. I knew I could not breath or speak or if I did I was a goner for sure. As I felt myself sinking, I said inside of me, “Lord what am I going to do?” Just as I finished that thought I started to rise up and up until I arose on top of the water and I saw my son and he came and helped me get back on that raft.
Question: What would have happened if I would have thought, well I guess I am done, I can’t hold my breath any longer?
I probably would have drowned, and my son would have been left out there alone, not knowing how to get home or what even to do. He would have lived his life without his Dad and blaming himself for my loss because he coaxed me off of that raft. Fear can grip everyone, no matter what the case. As it was for me, I knew to call on God for no matter what I did, I kept sinking.
Why could Jesus sleep during the storm? He was resting on the word. His faith was based on the fact that his father would rescue him.
Realize, as I did in that water, that no matter what we are going through, he (God) has us in the palm of his hand. You might say, well, Mr. or Mrs. so and so died in that accident and they were Christians who went to church every time the doors were open. They might have been good Christians and went to church all of the time, but unless you plant the word in your heart (spirit) you will speak the wrong thing. The disciples spoke the wrong thing and had they not awakened Jesus, they would have drowned, and Jesus would have been the only one that survived. It is not good enough to know Jesus, a lot of people know him, but do they trust him and his word? That is the key “Trust him and his word.” Knowing Jesus is good and great, but trusting him is even better.
Knowing Jesus as your savior will get you in to heaven, but faith in his word is a plus for all of us. Let’s put it this way. Think about when you were growing up with parents that taught you everything. What if when you were born, they let you lay in that crib crying because you were hungry or needed your diaper changed and said, “you are on your own, do it yourself.” You as a baby would have died and no fault of your own, but no one took care of you and taught you how to take care of yourself. As you were growing up, you trusted your parents to do things for you so that you would live and grow up into childhood and possible Mother or Fatherhood. Once you learned how to do things yourself, your parents would let you hold your own bottle and later on you would go to the restroom yourself. It would not be long that you would feed yourself, get your own drinks etc. You grew up and was able to do these things yourself. After you grow up, you did not stop learning. You went to school, college etc., in order to further your education.
Well, to grow up spiritually is the same as growing up naturally. At first you are a baby Christian and as I heard a minister once say, you have your pampers on. Well even when growing up in the word, you don’t want to live your Christian life with your spiritual pampers on or still taking your spiritual bottle. After a while you must learn on your own and teach yourself to feed on that word and grow up spiritually. This comes spiritually the same way it does physically. You read, study and speak the word until you grow spiritually. As you grow spiritually you can handle more and more. You get out of your spiritual pampers as to speak and into grown up spiritual pants. Again, like in the natural, you did not eat steak or hamburgers until you grew up to have teeth and the means to chew that food. You drank a bottle and ate mashed potatoes and mashed fruit or vegetables out of a jar. Your food would be mashed up, so you would not choke. The word is much the same way, you are fed little bites of God’s word, then you take bigger bites and yet bigger bites until you are able to handle it without choking. In this scripture, Jesus obviously expected the disciples to know what to do. But when the test really came, they lost it and went crying to Jesus. You see, Jesus was doing things on this earth, teaching, preaching, healing etc. and if the disciples were listening and growing up spiritually, they would have spoken to that storm in faith and the storm would have obeyed them just as it obeyed Jesus. Faith, real true faith will work for anyone if spoken and acted on. Jesus did not start twiddling his thumbs and saying, “What
do I do, what do I do, we are going to drown!” No, he took his authority and spoke to the wind and storm in faith. He trusted in the fact that he spoke in faith the winds and the storm had no choice but to obey.
God gave us the same ability to speak his word by faith against each and every storm in our life. In Matthew 9:20 we see the story of the woman with an issue of blood. It says And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment. There is a phrase and a teaching that started going around that “you can have what you say.” Here we see him tell us, we can have what you say. As we look at this scripture we can see that this woman with the issue of blood, did not just say one time, “If I can just touch his clothes I will be clean.” She said it over and over until regardless of the rules of the law which said she was not to be around other people or out in the crowd because of her disease they would become unclean. She ignored that law and pressed through the crowd until she touched the hem of Jesus garment and Jesus asked out loud, “who touched me?” Then the woman came forth for she was healed. Jesus said, “Woman they faith has made you whole, go in peace.”
You can see this in our lives right now, we speak words of unbelief and it comes to pass, sometimes immediately. Well if we continue to speak his word over and over, until his word becomes more powerful than the negative, we will have what we say. I remember a phrase as a child growing up that went like this, “Sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” How many of you heard those words spoken to you or a friend? Well, words can hurt, and words can kill. Let’s look at this story again of the woman with the issue of blood. What would have happened if she said, I want to touch Jesus, but I can’t for it is against the law. I am not even aloud to be out in the crowd I have to stay in my home. Well she would have died as the woman with the issue of blood and we would not have read or heard of the story of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood. By using negative words, she could in no way receive her healing. Negative words will do the same for you today. You might not be able to physically touch the hem of his garment today, but you can still receive healing for your body or finances or for your family etc. If you learn to speak the word until you believe it, you will have what you say and healing, prosperity or whatever you are believing for will come to pass. You might ask, Bill, how long until I receive what I am asking for? Well, as long as it takes until the manifestation comes. A lot of times we say things once or twice, then when there is no change we say with our mouths, “This faith stuff does not work!” Well, ask God’s forgiveness and go back to speaking Gods word until it is settled in your heart (spirit).
Speaking God’s word on a regular basis will bring you in line with his word and the more you speak it, the more you will see happen positively instead of defeat. God’s promises are true, only to those who believe it in their hearts, (spirits) and speak it out of their mouth.
1) It must be in your heart.
2) It must be spoke out loud with your mouth.
If you can speak negative words, you can speak positive words and if you can speak positive words you can speak God’s word.
Amen!
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