WHEN THE PRESSURE IS ON…

Our desire is to speak into your life each month and share some insights that we feel will help you in your pursuit of all God’s calling and purpose for your life. This month I want to write to you about the Word of His Power. I have found this teaching to be a tremendous blessing at times when the pressure is on.

THE WORD OF HIS POWER

The author of Hebrews begins his wonderful letter explaining that after God used prophets to speak to His people, in the last days He spoke to all of mankind through His own Son, Jesus Christ. In the second verse of chapter one, he also says that God has appointed Jesus heir of all things, and that He even made all of the worlds through Jesus.

This agrees perfectly with what the Apostle John wrote in his gospel. John 1:1-3 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.” Verse 14 of the same chapter goes on to say, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Going back to Hebrews 1:3, we pick up the narrative about Jesus as the Word of God. It says, “who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.” I believe that it would be accurate to capitalize the W on the phrase, Word of His power in this case. Let me tell you why.

I minister a great deal on the covenant promises of God that we find in the Bible – and how if you put faith in these promises, pray the prayer of faith to receive these promises, you can receive miraculous manifestations of God’s power as He answers your prayers. In the process of teaching this, I usually talk about the power of His Word. But here in Hebrews the term is “the word of His power.” In context, this phrase is saying that Jesus was upholding all things by the word of His power when He purged our sins and then sat down at the right hand of His Father in Heaven.

GETTING OUR PRAYERS ANSWERED

We have already seen in John’s gospel that Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is the actual agent or person of the Godhead that spoke the universe and all living things into existence. The Triune God, Elohim, is certainly a mystery to us in many ways, but we do know that our God is one God, who manifests Himself in three persons or agents of the Godhead. They are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of them is just as much God as the others, but they function in three different roles. This is very important for us to know in getting our prayers answered.

Jesus gave His disciples instructions concerning prayer in John 16: 23 and 24. He said, “And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in My name, He will give you. Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.”

We know that we are going to ask only for those things that have been revealed to us from the Bible as a covenant promise of God. If we are asking for anything that we have not seen to be a promise of God to every born-again believer, then we simply have no basis for faith, and a prayer of faith cannot be applied. But if it is indeed a promise from God, then we can have a confident expectation of receiving because it is the will of God and it will bring full joy into our lives.

PUT THE PRESSURE ON THE WORD OF GOD

I heard Dr. Kenneth Copeland say that God gave him additional understanding on prayer when He told him, “Never put pressure on people; put the pressure on the Word.” Now I know that this is a direct reference to the covenant promise of the Word of God. However, since we also know that Jesus is the Word of God, we could also say that according to Heb.1:3, He is also the Word of His power that upholds all things.

When in prayer recently, I had the Lord Jesus speak very clearly to me when I was presenting a request to my Father in Heaven. Jesus said to me, “Put the pressure where I want you to put the pressure. Put the pressure on Me, the Word. When you pray to the Father in My name, you are putting the pressure on My promises to you. That is what I want you to believe in. If I promised it, that should settle it for you.”

He went on to say, “When you are ministering to others, remember what I said to My disciples in John 14: 12-14: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

JESUS CAN HANDLE THE PRESSURE!

You see, my fellow believers, Jesus can handle the pressure of someone believing Him concerning what He has promised in His Word. It is His promise after all, and when a miracle is needed, whom else would we go to except the author of the miracle of life and every other miracle of creation that has ever existed.

In both the prayer instructions in John 16 and the ministry instructions in John 14, the word “ask” is actually better translated “demand.” Now don’t get me wrong, I am not about to say that anyone should be so arrogant as to think that it would be proper to demand something from the Father or from the Lord Jesus. That would be extremely disrespectful, so that is not what the Word of God is saying to do. No, we are to put a demand on the power of God’s covenant promises to be manifested, and a demand on the circumstances to change, and a demand on the forces of darkness to loosen their grip on our lives and to flee in terror from God and His people – those who know their God and are about to do exploits in His name.

The simple prayer to our heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, sets the forces of God into motion on our behalf, and Jesus, our Savior and Lord, delights in us putting the pressure (faith, trust, reliance and dependence) on Him and His marvelous guarantees from His Word.

God bless you as you place your trust in the Word of His power.