The whole earth is going through a time of real shaking because the Lord is establishing His Kingdom (Hebrews 12:26–29). As humans we do not like change. So the Lord has to peel our fingers off whatever we are holding tightly. Then when we are in the middle of nowhere and hanging onto nothing, we are much more open to the new thing God wants us to do. If you feel like you are hanging from a sky hook, then you are perfectly poised for the change God wants to bring in your life.
Abraham found a key when he stood in God’s presence and believed Him (Romans 4:17–18). God told Abraham, “You will have a child, and your descendants will be like the stars of heaven” (see Genesis 22:17). What did Abraham do? He refused to be weak in faith and did not let go of that Word.
Without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, He was able also to perform. (Romans 4:19–21)[1]
This is how spiritual warfare works. God tells you something, and satan tells you something else. It is a war in your thinking. That is why when we come to Romans 12, Paul says, “Listen. Give your body to the Lord and look for a transformation of your mind. Do not think according to the world.” And that is what Abraham did. He woke up every morning, knowing that he was getting older and older. Sarah herself was long past the age for bearing children. Yet Abraham sat there each day saying, “I have a Word from God.”
If you were in that situation, how long would it have taken you to get discouraged? At some point in your life, you have to take what God said as a personal Word to you and that Word becomes your thinking. Otherwise, you find yourself in a spiritual battle, and you start to think, “God doesn’t love me; my brother doesn’t love me.” You freely give your mind to a whole train of thought that is diametrically opposed to what God said (Genesis 3:1). Then the thoughts in your mind remove you from your positioning in God.
If I believe that I have a Word from God, then like Abraham I will not believe anything else; no matter what I am facing, I will have to control my thoughts. How are you going to be transformed? There is no way you will ever do that by yourself. It must come from the miracle force that is God’s transformation. While beholding Him you are changed (2 Corinthians 3:18). When God’s Word becomes the plumb line in your brain, then you will understand why Abraham is called the father of our faith.
Abraham disciplined his mind to believe the Word and did not allow his thoughts to go outside of what God had promised him. When the Word of God becomes your truth, you have just positioned yourself to be transformed. God will create you into the Word that you believe. When the Word of God is as real to you as it was to Abraham, then you will say, “I have a Word from God, and I will not let go of it!” That is when the miracle of transformation begins for you.
[1] All Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).