Abraham wasn't found righteous until he believed...
It wasn't his adherence to the law or the Word, nor was it his daily prayer life or faithfulness that caused the grace of God to shine upon Abraham's life. It may have been prayer or faithfulness that got God's attention, but neither of these did anything in the way of making him worthy of a relationship with God, nor did they serve to fulfill any promise. Romans 4:3 says, "What does the Scripture say? 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.'"
It's Not Our Flaws that Disqualify Us, But Our Belief that Qualifies Us
Recently, God gave me a dream that helped me to better understand yet another function of His grace. In the dream, a rather well-known man of God came to my home. This man's ministry is very well known for the manifestation of signs, miracles and wonders. Miraculous healings are always present at his meetings, and God's presence guides him as he ministers by the Spirit of revelation and prophecy. All these things remain consistent throughout his ministry, yet in my dream I became painfully aware of the man and his shortcomings. He was plain, somewhat unkempt and lacked any social graces. In fact, I found him to be rather irritating as he followed me around my home questioning me about my life in an almost intrusive manner. The more I became aware of his flaws, the more I began to question God as to how He could use this very imperfect man to manifest His glory in the manner that I had witnessed for several years.
After some time as I was questioning God, the man purposed this question before me: "Do you see deceit in me?" Somehow I knew that the question came not from the man himself but from the Spirit of God, for this question held a familiarity for me: It was just the type of question that Christ had asked of those whom He discipled. The kind of question that made one search deep beyond the question itself.
I pondered the question for a long time, reviewing all the shortcomings that I had observed during the man's visit with me, and I was totally prepared to answer him with honesty no matter how painful it might be; but to my surprise, my answer was, "No ----- I do not see deceit in you." Of all the flaws that were so painfully apparent, there was in fact no deceit in him. He was sloppy, harsh and had many other things that, in my mind, would have surely disqualified his ministry from operating in such a place of manifested glory—but there was no deceit.
Deceit is defined as that which gives a false impression or presents a lie. This man certainly had made no attempt to hide who he was; on the contrary, he was being exactly who he was. He made no attempts to impress me with spiritual words, nor did he try to perform any mighty works to show me that he in fact was a great man of God. He was a man, and I saw him as a man. He was not yet perfected, nor was he completely polished yet, but there was something in him that was pleasing to God and allowed for God's grace to flow. He believed.
Becoming Partakers of Christ
When I awoke, the Lord drew me to Romans 4 where He speaks of His grace that is made available through those who will simply believe. Fear, doubt and unbelief go hand in hand with deception. When we allow any of these to enter into our thought process, we are believing and agreeing with the lies of the enemy of God, which is satan.
Believing is a big deal to God. The Lord speaks to Ahaz king of Judah through Isaiah the prophet in Isaiah 7, instructing this most ungodly king that he is not to fear those who were seeking to make war against the throne of David. God would honor the covenant He had made with Abraham to establish his Seed and to bring forth a remnant from the house of David. In fact, verse 9 states, "If you (Ahaz) will not believe, surely you shall not be established."
Fear can and does cause us to disobey God as we begin to interact and engage with the enemy in our thoughts. Our minds seem to lose the reality of the magnitude of who God is, and we slowly lose sight of what He has promised. No one who is in covenant with the God Most High has any place entertaining the lies of satan. We are warned in grace for our benefit in Ephesians 5:11, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them." What is this fellowship? Fellowship is to have communion, to share something in common or to partake and partner with.
When we allow doubt to enter into our thoughts, we begin to meditate on the lies of the enemy and begin to gradually partner with the lie. We are to be partakers only of that which is from our Father's Kingdom, and our communion is to be with Christ alone. For this reason Jesus says in John 6:53-56: "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood is drink indeed. He who eats of My flesh and drinks of My blood abides in Me, and I in Him."
This is a totally awesome concept that we must grasp deep within our spirit man in order to truly walk in the covenant blessings. Of course, we know as Believers in Jesus Christ that He abides in us, but it is vital that what He has spoken remains at the forefront of our thoughts so that we are continually aware of the covenant of the Cross. Partaking of Him is also receiving His word as truth. In receiving the truth we make room for Him to dwell in our lives, not just in the heart but throughout our entire man. Our thoughts now must also belong to Him.
How to Take Every Thought Captive to the Obedience of Christ
We cannot come to the knowledge of Christ as our Messiah unless we believe that which cannot be seen with the natural eye; likewise, we cannot live an abundant life in Christ unless we by choice throw off every lie of the enemy and believe what we cannot see with the natural eye. Any time we begin to entertain a lie that God has somehow forgotten or forsaken us, we are believing that He has abandoned the covenant, and deceit enters in.
Jesus identifies satan as a thief and a liar, because he steals the dreams and promises from the hearts of God's people by chipping away at our faith. Please know that satan cannot truly take what we do not relinquish to him. He can and does trespass upon the people of God, but we have been given the authority through the name of Jesus to silence the mouth of the enemy and take the lie captive. The problem we often struggle with arises when we do not use the weapons that God has given us in taking every thought captive that is contrary to the Word of God, which we know to be true because there is no darkness found in Him.
"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ."—2 Corinthians 10:4-5
The Glory of the Lord Living with Ordinary People
We must take a stand and refuse to believe the enemy about who we are and what the outcome of our lives will be. Did Jesus not say "I have come that you may have not only eternal life but life abundant"? Those who enter into the abundant life are not those who have been "specifically chosen" but those who simply trust God and believe.
Did the man in my dream display any spectacular qualities that would have made him worthy of the glory that I had seen manifested in his ministry? No, on the contrary he was an ordinary man with ordinary flaws and weaknesses. What allowed the glory of the Lord to rest upon his ministry was that he believed what God has spoken in Mark 16:17-18:
"And these signs shall follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover!"
That is living in the supernatural. That is manifesting the power of the Kingdom of Heaven, where the constraints and confinements of the natural world are pushed back and superseded by the Almighty King of Kings!!! This man of God, like any of us can, in all of his shortcomings had become as a little child as he read the Word, and decided that if God had spoken it then it must be true. And thus he began to operate in what God has promised. You see, he was in covenant with God and he believed what Jesus, who walked a life displaying the miraculous, had spoken in John 6: "If you have fellowship with Me, I will abide in you."
We Become Righteous When We Trust that He Loves Us as We Are
It isn't our disciplined lives that give us access to the promises of God and allow us to manifest the Kingdom; it is believing. It is refusing to be deceived by the enemy in believing that we aren't good enough in our present state and that we must keep striving in order to one day manifest the power of Jesus, or to become like those whom we have believed to be great men and women of faith. This is not to say that we should abandon our pursuit of holiness; we desire to be holy because our God is holy, but our righteousness comes as Abraham received it—through a gracious God who loved us enough to send His Son Jesus to atone for our sins. We become righteous when we trust that He loves us as we are and that He will never give up on His pursuit to transform us.
God in fact does use us to manifest His glory even as we grow. We do not have to wait until we obtain some specific level of "spirituality" before we see God move powerfully in our lives. We need to simply believe that He desires to use us and that He will.
This current movement of God is looking very different than what we may have previously imagined. This army of the Lord that takes the nations will consist of Believers who are very human but also very much like God. They will manifest the glory of their God through signs, miracles and wonders, which accompany the message of the Cross. And the glory of God will rest upon them because they believe.
Paige Norfleet
Revelation of Jesus Christ Ministries
Email: revjcministries@yahoo.com
Website: www.revelationofjesuschristministries.com
About Paige Norfleet: Paige resides in Oregon with her husband and three sons and is co-president of Revelation of Jesus Christ Ministries. She is a teacher with an apostolic anointing and teaches the Word with a revelatory gift that makes it more easily understood and applicable for people of all ages and levels of understanding. She has a heart to see people fulfill their destiny in Christ Jesus and for the Body to come together in unity, walking in power and authority.
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