Do you want to walk in faith, be filled with the power of Jesus and be used by him to see hearts changed? Then the Word of our God has to go beyond words, becoming greater than flesh, if we are to walk in faith. We have to allow the Word to have greater substance than the chair we are sitting on, the clothes we are wearing or the food we are eating. We have to be more assured by it than by what we are seeing right now with our eyes. We have to become more confident of what we cannot see than of the things that would cause us to fear.
I am sorry but you will never step into the fullness of Christ as long as you are trying to get there by the thinking process of man. You cannot argue your way into greater inspiration. You cannot think your way into greater faith. You cannot get there by any means of the flesh. Let me show you why.
Hezekiah was another of the great kings of Judah, one for whom I have reserved a great deal of respect. He had a great and growing relationship with Yahweh. Yet, here before him was the great Assyrian army. The Assyrians were ruthless, vicious and destroyed anything they set their eyes on. No nation or city had been able to stand against them and here they were about to come against Jerusalem. What does the flesh say? Fear of course. Perhaps despair, suicide, hopelessness. If you had a greater survival instinct perhaps you would be looking for a back door, a way to escape. But that is the difference between the spirit and the flesh.
Hezekiah was a man who had become so close to Yahweh that he discerned the truth of the matter. He did not see with his eyes but with his spirit as he looked out at this terrible enemy that out-muscled them significantly. Hezekiah, in full confidence of Yahweh, stood before the people and simply stated:
Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria, nor before all the multitude that is with him; for there are more with us than with him. (2 Chronicles 32:7)
You and I may have been tempted to count heads and then disagree with the king. Yet, all the great men of faith, the one's who trusted the Lord and were used greatly by him, saw this truth every day. Remember Elijah on the roof with his servant when the enemy surrounded him? More are with us than with them. We remember the statement of faith in the New Testament: greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. Hezekiah continued:
With him is an arm of flesh; but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles.” (v. 8)
If we do not see that the flesh takes second place to the Spirit we will never learn to trust, and trust is the great component of our relationship with Jesus. The fact is that the flesh will always look greater. The odds will always be against us. Circumstances will constantly threaten to derail our faith. The enemy will always be looking to scare us away from Jesus so he can devour us. But victory is always ours in Jesus because the Lord fights our battles.
Christians should be the most confident people walking on this planet. Not self-confident to the point of arrogance but confident, as in confident in our Lord Jesus and the promises he has given us. We have to be confident when we are up against Goliath with all his strength and threats. We have to be confident when the numbers are against us and we are about to be swallowed up in a sea of opposition. We have to be confident when the world shows its ugly face of hatred and threatens to destroy us. We have to be confident when the bills are more than the income, and our health is heading in the wrong direction. We have to be confident when we are walking through the valley of failure and we don't understand what went wrong. We have to be confident that Yahweh is sovereign in all things, everywhere, all the time, and he knows what he is doing.
There are more with us than with them. With them is an arm of flesh but with us is the Lord our God. Greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. If you feel weak in the face of the enemy do us all a favour, strengthen your relationship with Jesus. Cut out the unnecessary distractions in your life and fill it with relationship building moments. Bathe yourself in prayer, worship and the Word. Walk with him, talk with him, sing with him, dance with him and soon you will discover how confident you have become in him. Read Acts 1:8 and realize how you have been equipped. Hezekiah did not honey coat it to calm down the people, using religion to do so. Hezekiah spoke the truth to the people, the truth he had experienced for himself in his relationship with Yahweh. I encourage you, let your relationship take you beyond words and into a life of substantial faith.
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