Part 4 (1/2)
Chapter 10, Turn On and Tune In.
Blessed be the G.o.d and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath [past tense] blessed us... Ephesians 1:3 The word ”hath” in this verse means it's already been done. We're already blessed. It doesn't say, ”Who is going to [future tense]....” Most prophecies in the body of Christ today focus on the future. They say, ”G.o.d is going to do this, and G.o.d is going to do that. He's going to move and do something new!” The Lord is presented as the great ”I'm going to be,” not the great I Am. The average prophecy today says, ”There's something coming, but right now there's nothing.” Yet, this isn't the message of the Bible. Here in Ephesians 1:3, the Word reveals that we're already blessed. The whole book of Ephesians was written from this perspective that it's already done. G.o.d has already...
...blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. Ephesians 1:3 This is just an old English way of saying that He's given us all earthly and spiritual blessings-and they're already in us in Christ. G.o.d has already deposited everything we'll ever need into our born-again spirit. It's already done. G.o.d has already pa.s.sed His blessings out.
Therefore, it's an act of unbelief to pray, ”Oh G.o.d, bless me.” You're already blessed. You just haven't heard G.o.d's Word, believed the truth, and seen it manifested yet. G.o.d has already commanded the blessing upon you, but you just haven't received it yet.
You Were Healed It's an insult to G.o.d to pray, ”Oh G.o.d, heal me.” First Peter 2:24 says: By whose stripes ye were [past tense] healed.
If G.o.d says, ”You were healed,” and then you say, ”Oh G.o.d, heal me,” one of you is wrong. Let me just suggest to you that it isn't G.o.d who's wrong. He says, by His stripes you were healed. If you were healed, then you are healed. Why are you asking G.o.d to do something that He's already done?
”But I have a doctor's report and pain in my body that proves I'm not healed.” No, that just proves that your physical body hasn't yet received the healing that G.o.d has already given. According to the scriptures, G.o.d has already healed you. The resurrection power He's placed within you is certainly enough to heal your hangnail, cold, headache, cancer, or AIDS. None of these things are a problem for G.o.d. He has already placed supernatural healing power on the inside of you, yet you're still asking Him for it. That's unbelief.
How do you think I would respond if I gave you my Bible, but then you walked up to me and asked, ”Andrew, would you please give me your Bible so I could look up a scripture?” How do you respond when a person asks you to give them something that you know you've already given to them? Personally, I don't even know how I would respond. I'd probably just look at them like, ”What's wrong?”
If G.o.d could be confused, I believe that He would be by our unbelief. All these millions of people are praying, ”Oh G.o.d, please heal me. Stretch forth Your hand and heal. I'm believing You to come and heal me.”
Already Anointed They also pray, ”Oh G.o.d, rend the heavens and come down.” You may be thinking, That's in the Bible. What's wrong with that? G.o.d already rent the heavens and came down through Jesus. It was appropriate for Isaiah to pray, ”Rend the heavens and come down” because G.o.d hadn't done it yet. (Isa. 64:1.) However, it's inappropriate to pray this way on this side of the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. People who pray this way aren't valuing Jesus properly. They're basically saying, ”I know Jesus came down, but what He did isn't enough. I need G.o.d to do something else!”
Before Jesus came, it was appropriate for David to pray:
Create in me a clean heart, O G.o.d; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Psalm 51:10-12 But it's unbelief for a Christian to pray this way today. David was an Old Testament man who wasn't born again. He didn't have the promises we do which say, ”I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Heb. 13:5) and ”I am with you alway even unto the end of the world” (Matt. 28:20). It's unbelief for us to come into a church service and pray, ”Oh G.o.d, we ask You to meet with us today.” In addition to the promise we have in Hebrews 13:5 that He will never leave us, nor forsake us, Jesus said: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them. Matthew 18:20 We don't have to pray and ask for the anointing to fall. G.o.d has already anointed us. When Jesus came into His hometown of Nazareth, He stood up and quoted from Isaiah 61 saying: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. Luke 4:18 He didn't go into a back room with the preacher and say, ”Let's pray and ask G.o.d to anoint you.” People do this with me all the time when I go to their church. They ask, ”Would you like to come back here with us? We want to pray for G.o.d to anoint you.” I am so polite, kind, and non-confrontational that I usually don't say anything, but what is the point of asking G.o.d to anoint me? If I don't have the anointing of G.o.d by the time I get to your church to minister, I'm not going to get it in the next five minutes. If you don't believe that I'm anointed and that G.o.d speaks through me, why would you invite me to your church in the first place? Why go in the back room and spend thirty minutes praying and asking for G.o.d's anointing? It's unbelief. Desiring to see the power of G.o.d in manifestation is good, but you don't have to beg G.o.d for the anointing.
Agree with G.o.d's Word If G.o.d tells us to do something, He would be unjust not to give us what we need to do it. Naturally speaking, I'm an introvert. As a teenager, I couldn't even look someone else in the face. Yet G.o.d has called me to speak to millions of people worldwide every day through television, radio, and Internet. He's called me to hold conferences and citywide meetings, and to minister in churches and Bible schools. G.o.d would be unjust to tell me to do something that I can't do and not supply me with everything I need to do it. He doesn't just command us and then turn us loose on our own until we beg Him for help. No, anything G.o.d tells us to do, there is an anointing present to get it accomplished.
You don't have to beg G.o.d for the anointing. Actually, by approaching Him and saying, ”Oh G.o.d, please anoint me,” you're praying from a position of unbelief. You're saying that you aren't anointed when the scripture says that G.o.d...
...hath anointed us... 2 Corinthians 1:21 I'm already anointed. You're anointed. (1 John 2:20.) G.o.d has anointed every one of his children. So instead of praying in unbelief, saying, ”Oh G.o.d, I'm not anointed, but would You anoint me?” you need to start believing that He has already anointed you (2 Cor. 1:21) and has blessed you with all spiritual blessings (Eph. 1:3). Agree with G.o.d's Word, declaring, ”I've already been blessed. I already have love, joy, and peace. I don't need G.o.d to give it to me. If I don't feel joy, it's not because G.o.d hasn't given it to me. Somehow or another I have switched off the joy of the Lord. What I need to do is work on my receiver, not G.o.d's transmitter.”
Right now, there are television signals wherever you are. You may not believe this to be true, but your unbelief doesn't mean the signals aren't there. It just means that you aren't very smart. You say, ”But I can't see or hear them.” That doesn't mean they aren't there. They're there. They're just in a form that you can't perceive with your natural senses.
If you plug in, turn on, and tune in a television set, you'd start seeing and hearing the program, but that's not when the signal started. The signal was already there. It's being broadcast twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. In fact, there are multiple signals-both television and radio-all around you. There are all kinds of things happening in the unseen realm all around you. You may not be perceiving them, but they're there. The station doesn't start broadcasting when you turn on and tune in your television set; that's just when you start receiving.
What About Daniel?
G.o.d is always releasing-broadcasting-love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, and goodness. And it's not coming from ”out there” somewhere.
We don't have to clear a hole through the demonic powers over our city so that our prayers can get through to G.o.d, as some people might think. No, that's just a religious doctrine. ”Then what about Daniel?” someone might ask. Daniel was an Old Testament man. Jesus hadn't yet died and broken the dominion of the devil.
In the New Covenant, you don't need your prayers to get above the ceiling. You don't even need them to get above your nose. G.o.d lives on the inside of you. The reason you bow your head to pray is so you can look at G.o.d. Believing this erroneous concept that demons are blocking your prayers from getting up to G.o.d shows that you don't understand what the Lord has already done through grace. That's the reason Satan is eating your lunch and popping the bag-you're lacking important knowledge. (Hos. 4:6.) You feel too desperate to have a move from G.o.d. G.o.d has already moved through Jesus, and He's placed on the inside of you the same power that raised Christ from the dead. You can go out and do the same works that Jesus did. Start representing Him truthfully as somebody who has done everything. Quit representing the Lord as someone who could move if we pray hard enough. Go out and proclaim, ”Good news! G.o.d has already done it. He's already provided everything you need. He's already forgiven your sins. He's already healed you. Will you believe and receive?”
That's a much different approach than saying, ”Let's pray and ask G.o.d to move.” If we would represent G.o.d correctly, we'd see much better results. Let's stop begging the Lord to do something and start acting like He's already done it. When we start believing His Word and releasing His power, we'll have more revival than we can handle.
Check Your Receiver Unfortunately for most Christians, their tuner isn't working. And instead of checking to see if they're plugged in, turning the power on, or seeing if they have the channel adjusted, the first thing they do is call the broadcasting station. ”Why aren't you transmitting? Please turn on the power and start sending a signal. I want to watch Andrew's program!”
The first thing we do if we have sickness in our body is say, ”G.o.d, why haven't You healed me?” G.o.d is broadcasting healing 24/7. If you aren't receiving healing, it's not G.o.d who hasn't released it. It's you who don't know how to receive it. I'm not saying this to condemn you. It takes time to get educated and learn. But you must start by recognizing that G.o.d is not the One who hasn't healed anybody. He has already healed all of our sicknesses and diseases and that power is already on the inside of us. If we aren't feeling it-if it isn't manifest-it's not G.o.d who hasn't given. It's us who haven't learned to receive. We need to start working on our receiver, not questioning G.o.d's transmitter.
Don't call the station and say, ”G.o.d, what's wrong with You? Broadcast! Oh G.o.d, pour out Your power. Oh Lord, send revival!” G.o.d is not our problem. He's been releasing His power for over two thousand years now. The reason why the church suffers isn't that G.o.d hasn't been moving. It's that we haven't been receiving. We've been ignorant, and Satan has been stealing from us.
Chapter 11, Open Your Eyes.
If you were writing a prayer that would be read by and prayed for the saints two thousand years in the future, how would you pray? Think about that for a moment.
The exact wording might vary, but the typical Christian today would pray something like, ”Oh G.o.d, we ask You to pour out Your power on this generation. Just move and send revival. Oh G.o.d, we ask for a new....” It would all be some form of pleading with G.o.d to do a new thing, to move, to do something.
Let's take a look at the way Paul approached this task in Ephesians 1:15-23. The only thing he asked G.o.d to do is give us a revelation of what the Lord had already done. Paul didn't ask G.o.d to do anything new. He just said, ”Open up their eyes to what You've already done.” He was praying for every believer to receive revelation of what they already have.
Spirit and Life I won't pray for someone who comes up to me and asks, ”Will you please pray that G.o.d will pour out His love in my life?” because G.o.d has already poured out His love through Jesus. He sent the Holy Spirit who shed abroad the love of G.o.d in our hearts. (Rom. 5:5.) There is no problem with G.o.d's love. He loves every one of us infinitely more than any of us have ever understood. We don't need G.o.d to pour out His love.
However, if you ask, ”Would you please pray with me to receive a revelation of what I know is true. I know G.o.d loves me, but I don't have a revelation of it. I don't understand it, and I'm not walking in it.” I'll pray with you in a heartbeat for that. I'm happy to help you fix your receiver, but I refuse to impute to G.o.d that He doesn't love you. G.o.d loves you.
You may complain that you don't feel the love of G.o.d. Well then, your feelings are wrong. They're broken. But it's not G.o.d who isn't transmitting His love. You may say that you don't feel the joy of the Lord or His peace. Your feelings are wrong because the truth is you have love, joy, and peace on the inside of you all of the time.
Every time you've been depressed and discouraged, your spirit is just rejoicing and praising G.o.d. Your spirit is always happy and blessed. You may be thinking, No, it's not. I would know if it was. That's not true. That which is spirit is spirit, and that which is flesh is flesh. (John 3:6.) You can't tell what's going on in the spirit realm unless you get into the Word of G.o.d.
The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life. John 6:63 ”Thank You, Father”
Let's read Paul's prayer in Ephesians 1:15-16.
Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.
In our prayers, not many of us give thanks. Our prayers consist of, ”Oh G.o.d, I need this. Please give me that. Oh G.o.d, help me...forgive me.” That's what most people's prayers are about. If you are a spiritual giant today, then your prayer is all about ”Oh G.o.d, give them this, and give them that. Oh G.o.d, forgive them.” Notice that 99.9 percent of all prayer is about your needs. There's not a lot of thanksgiving and praise because again, we don't see G.o.d as having done much. We see Him as able to do anything, but He hasn't done very much. We feel we must constantly pet.i.tion Him. However, once you start understanding that by grace it's already been done, then your prayers turn more toward thanksgiving.
I don't sit down and consciously evaluate my prayers, but I guarantee you that 95 to 99 percent of my prayers are prayers of thanksgiving and expressing my love to G.o.d. I spend virtually no time asking G.o.d for anything because He's already provided it.
You may be thinking that I'm weird. Well, if you are one of those people who are always praying about your needs, then I think you're weird, and until you start getting better results than I am, maybe you ought to consider doing it the way I am.