Does the Word mean what it says? How can I believe that?

7“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 9Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? 10Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? 11If you then,being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 
Coming back to the topic of - does the Word really mean what it says? The verse above gives many folks a canker sore. In reality, I believe it's a matter of what kind of theology you've been taught - and believe. First off - I had to come to grips with the question to myself: "Am I a Bible believing Christian? Or a Bible-teaching believing Christian?"
I've begun to transition to believing the Word and start receiving the promises of what God the Father promises to me, rather than what my old religion taught me.
Once I started believing the Word at face value (in context, of course), then when the Word didn't line up with my personal experience, what was I going to do? Believe the Word or believe my experience?
I MUST filter my experience through the Word, rather than filter the Word through my experiences. 
So - does God the Father REALLY give good gifts to his children? Is He a better father than me? If I would never give my daughter a snake when she asks for a fish, then why would I think God would not do the same. 
Let's bring it down to what we hear in Sunday School. God allowed me to get sick so I could learn some important lessons.
Oooo -- a little too close to home, isn't it? "But! If I pray and plead to God to heal me and I don't get healed, then the sickness MUST be from God for Him to teach me something...right?"
What does the verse say - 11If you then,being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! 

What does the Word say? Is the Word the problem? Is God the problem? Or is there something that might be blocking the showers of blessings? Think about it and post below.

Until next time...

A Condemning Heart Blocks Receiving Healing

"Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight." ~ 1 John 3:18-22

There are so many things that can stand in the way of receiving blessings in our prayers. The Lord wants to always say "Yes", (For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; 2 Corinthians 1:20) and He will say Yes, as long as we are praying the will of God, and that means praying His Word.

I was taught most my life that the Lord answers Yes, No and Wait - I've come to believe now that such a doctrine is a teaching that reduces God to a miserly parent who doesn't really want to give good gifts to his children as Jesus promised (Matthew 7:11) unless the child of God happens to hit the "answered prayer" lottery.

But I digress. In this passage, John distinctly says "whatever we ask we receive from Him." Again - as in The Power of Your Words- do we REALLY believe the Word of God? Does Jehovah Jireh REALLY want to provide "whatever we ask" to us? Either God is true and every man a liar, or this passage of receiving "whatever we ask" is not true.

What we fail to remember, at times, is that there are proviso's to us "receiving" God's Word in our lives through answered prayers. In this case, John says, "if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God" and THEN whatever we ask we receive. 

This is the challenge, is it not? That I can actually go before the Almighty One and ask confidently without condemnation in my own heart for whatever I ask and that I will actually receive it. (And, of course, there's another proviso - if you're praying the Word - you will be asking and praying before God HIS will and then He will answer YES.

Until next time...

Jesus Healed Them All...

Any time Jesus is healing people He heals them all...all who came to him. When I'm talking with a friend today who has not come into this revelation yet, they will make a mistake in filtering the Word of God through their experiences instead of filtering their experiences through the Word.

Jesus Healed them all. He didn't check their Christian card first, or what denomination they were in. He didn't even ask them to repent from sin first (though there seems to be a pattern between healing and repentance), He just healed them according to his power and their faith.

http://bible.com/59/luk.6.17-19.ESV And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. Bible.com/app