Promises and Foundations

Promises and FoundationsHebrews 10:34-37 Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.37 For yet a little while, and he that shall come will come, and will not tarry.38 Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.39 But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.Luke 12: 3229 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.32 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.34 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.35 Let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning;I want to talk to you today about foundations and promises. This might seem a little bit of an odd thing to discuss and use these scriptures, but as I was looking at them, the Lord began to speak to me about the issue of the promises of God, and how some of them can be foundational in our lives.I believe that this was true of Abraham. God gave him the promise of a son, and used this as a major foundation in his life and the Lord built on this. Of course we mustn’t forget that the Lord Jesus Christ is the Cornerstone of every foundation that we are to build with in God’s kingdom.Remember the statement that I made in the first blog post building in the Spirit Intro? Well this study also pertains to that study. I mentioned briefly there that God never takes away from old revelations that he has given us, he only builds on them, unless of course they were not from Him to begin with, or they have come to pass, and no longer needed in our lives.However, in this study I am going to look at this from the standpoint of revelation that is a foundational thing in our lives. If we need to see examples of people in the scriptures here are but a few: we have the example of Abraham. Also, the Apostle Paul is another person I believe who built His life around the revelation that he received in the two stages: one at His conversion and the other when Ananias came and laid hands on Him and the scales fell from His eyes! This man was going to be used mightily by the Lord, as Abraham the father of faith was also. It is also true of Joseph and many other people….and we can see this principle echoed also, in the words of Martin Luther King: “I have a dream”. Dream and destiny also tie in closely with all of this, and promises from God and revelations all build in to what God has planned for us. Ultimately, this plan carries on into eternity, and we will all be given rewards based on our obedience to the heavenly vision. (find)So, in this particular post I will be talking about this subject and perhaps will need to do a few more posts on this…well, we will see, as the Lord leads!Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward.36 For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise.So, we have received a certain promise for our lives, a vision and a destiny from Him and we are still waiting to see the outworking of it – perhaps we are in the middle somewhere. This is where I find myself at this present time. However there are certain things, certain promises that I have received from the Lord that have come to me in levels. Some of them have been hard to hold onto because they have been hard to receive. They involve some sacrifices and some big changes that will one day come into my life. Indeed changes will have to come, because in order for me to do the will of God in accordance with what he has shown me, change will have to occur.So, the Lord has given me some promises that have not yet come to pass. As time goes on, I might begin to doubt some of them. Or should I say, doubt will come against me. I do believe that we can be in faith about something and have doubt assail us, and in this way we might think that we are succumbing to doubt.However the enemy will lie to us about even this if we are not careful!! So learn to discern when Satan is starting to plant doubts in your head about the promises of God in your life!! I will perhaps look at doubt in a bit more detail later.But for now I want to focus on what I will perhaps call the “levels of promise” or should I say levels and capacity to receive. The Lord has given us part of his plan and we have come to accept it. It may be so crazy that we let it slip from our hearts (or we may just think we have), if you know what I mean. For a long time now, I have had this problem with certain promises from God. But the other day, I believe that I received some interesting insight concerning all of this and that is what I want to share with you. I am sorry if I seem to be “beating around the bush” a bit, however I am trying to explain it so you can understand it, so pleeease bear with me won’t you? LolI have a promise from God. It seems weird to say the least. But I have grown into that promise. It is from God because I have always been watching the fruit of it in my life. With it when I accept it at my new level (this is what I’m going to explain here), it bears the good fruit in my life, my faith is stronger, I walk in the Spirit, and manifest the fruit with power. I have confidence in God, etc etc.So, now down the track a bit I find myself asking the questions again, and up until now I have always thought that God was a little bit peeved at me for asking for His reassurance concerning certain things again.But the revelation that I have recently had is this: It is OK!!! In fact this is how we build in the Spirit!!!So, don’t cast away your confidence both in and at the levels of promise and revelation that you have already been given…you will be given more, and more reassurance besides…THIS IS THE REASON WHY YOU HAVE BEEN TAKEN BACK TO IT AGAIN!!NO, you are not wrong to be asking the questions again…there is a reason that you are..(unless the Lord specifically says no, stop seeking and praying regarding these things).There are times when we need to go back to the Lord concerning certain promises and revelations because HE IS WANTING TO REVEAL MORE, and wanting to reassure you…because He knows that some of these things are hard to accept, and it is not always easy waiting for them to come to pass, when the circumstances around us seem to say otherwise!! Its ok to be human, God knows we are! He also knows that perhaps you are taking a pounding from the enemy and you need His reassurance and comfort to do with these issues!I want you to know dear friends, that there just might be more revelation and insight coming to you on these particular issues, and that is why the enemy is assailing you with doubt again concerning them…he can sometimes see those ole angels coming with the revelation and doesn’t want you to receive it! Remember what happened to Daniel in the Old Testament? The angels have to fight through sometimes, the enemy doesn’t want us to receive anything from God, especially revelation!You see the scriptures say: do not cast away your confidence, and here I am using this principle to show you this: that is - (in the revelations and promises given to you) - you will be rewarded. A reward is coming the enemy doesn’t want you to have.You have need of endurance so after you have pressed through this (done the will of God, held on to the promises, continued to faithfully follow Him etc etc) YOU MAY RECEIVE THE PROMISE.You see, now you will have new capacity to receive the promise into your heart in greater measure!!! There is more revelation there for you concerning it! Hallelujah, the Lord wants to impart it to you. So press though your time of doubt and drought, and see the vision again with ever increasing clarity. See it in more fullness. The Lord wants to expand the revelation to you so you can see and grasp more of it!! He wants to build on what he gave you last time!!!You now have been stretched in your faith and you have more of an ability to receive more of it into your heart.So, what I have discovered in all of this is that it is OK to seek the assurance, because it is all part of receiving more expanded revelation. The fight of endurance concerning the promises at a new level means more revelation is coming concerning the them. Fight the good fight of faith to receive it!!! Ignore doubt!!!Every breakthrough in an area, means more revelation and clarity will be available concerning those things. Every breakthrough means more revelation on a subject thus another testing period v35. Another test of endurance – and resisting the urge to throw away your confidence in the revelations and the promises of God.These are the rewards of faith! You see, to him who is given, more will be added !! AmenSo, I hope and pray that this has all made sense to you my friends. In upcoming studies I might go further into the life of Abraham, if led to do so. You know that he is called the father of faith for a reason! He had to endure many years of waiting for the promise to come to pass, and yet he didn’t let doubt defeat him, even though he had no reason to keep believing in the end the bible says (Romans 4:18-20).