Do What You Know To Do

I was watching a documentary the other day and the guy doing the documentary went up and asked these people at this college why they liked this speaker they were standing in line to go see. If I said the guy's name, most people in America would know who it was. I listened to the responses that these people in the line gave and for the most part, they were shallow answers. "I agree with what he says….He speaks for me…He gives a voice to what I want to say but can't." They gave some other answers that more so triggered in my head the question, "Why are they really going to see this person?"

There has to be something more to it than that-something deeper. And I started to honestly think about it, not saying that those people's answers weren't valid, but there had to be something deeper. And it came to me, whether or not it's true in every instance, it still came to me. This person validated all of these people's reasons why they hated what this man spoke out against.

They hated this and that and this guy gave them a reason to hate those things, besides the reason that they simply just all this different stuff this guy was talking about. And all of this got me thinking, as a Christian, what's my, what's our reason, —what validates us in our current condition.

If you remember when I spoke last time (before the issue about dating) I talked about how Christians are perishing, and by perishing, I'm referring to the downtrodden state that so many Christians are in. Now apparently some of us haven't gotten a hold of this, so I'm going to talk about it more. And even if we have gotten a hold of it, we still need to be reminded of it.

The Apostle Peter told all of us, because he was writing to those "who have obtained like precious faith" that he would not be negligent to remind us always of the truth, even though and even if we were already established in it. That word "establish" means that we're fixed and going firming in what was taught. Thus, even if you have it, you still need to be reminded of it. Peter wasn't the only one to do this. Paul did it, the other leaders of the early church did it and any good teacher and preacher of the Word does it because they know like you I'm sure, that faith comes by hearing and hearing and hearing. And you get it in you and rooted and established by repetition. Even the world knows that.

But in case you didn't read my last post (you should), what's this condition of perishing I'm talking about. You may say, "I'm doing fine." Well, can't you be doing better?

You see, Jesus said that He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. He used the word 'might' there. Which means you may have it and you may not. Now don't get confused or lied to. Some one may say, well but He's talking about in the next life, when we get to Heaven. I beg to differ. 2 Peter, chapter 1 says that we should have all things for this life and godliness-for this life and the next. Jesus wants you to have the abundant life here on this earth. Here! Now!

Jesus made it available to you. He paid the price. He died upon the cross, rose the third day. He took the keys to Hell, death, and the grave, and brought them back. He's sitting at the right hand of God, purchased our salvation, our redemption, and He's given us authority over everything in this earth, through His name and through His blood! Amen!

He's dropped the most powerful weapon on the face of this earth, on the face of Heaven, and on the face of Hell right in our lap. He's opened up a plethora of power and authority and he's given it to us. He's said to us-death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it, will eat of it's fruit. He's said, 'by your words you shall be justified and by your words you shall be condemned.' He's said to us, whoever says to the mountain 'be removed and cast into the sea' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes those things he says will be done, he'll have whatever he says.

God has given us this incredible power, opened up this vast storehouse of supply and dumped it in our lap and said, "I leave it up to you."

Some of us have gotten it, some of us haven't. And by some of us, I'm talking about just us in the audience. I'm talking about the church-believers all across the land. Some of us have gotten it to some degree, some more than others. Some of us have let the world, the 'affairs of this world' come up and choke them and choke the Word out of them.

What do I mean by that? I mean, we have let the world get in our way of living for God and as God intended and specified, and now we're just existing…maybe not even living. (But hey, you're reading this, so you must be living and not just existing). This world has been turned around like a rubic's cube, designed by Satan, to get your attention off of God and His Word and His way of doing things. If it's not the bad things, it's the good things.

On one end we have the bad health, we have lack of finances, we have family issues, work issues-the negative. On the other hand, we have the good things in life, or this world. We have the internet with messages popping up and people wanting to talk to us, the TV with the newest shows and the new season just starting, sports with the game you can't miss, friends who always want to hang out, family that always want to do something, something that always "has to be done" and "cannot wait." Things aren't bad. It's okay to own things, it's not okay for things to own you-even if those things only own small parts of you and there's dozens of them that do so.

But you do this, you get caught in one side or another of these traps, and it's going to hurt something. It'll hurt God of course. At the same time, it will hurt your relationship with God and it will hurt you. God is in the business of helping you stay in the center of the lane, in the center of life-not where all the bad stuff is distracting you and hurting you and not where all the good and enjoyable things are taking up your time and hurting you.

I believe in my heart that most Christian, know what to do, they just don't do it. Things get them entangled. It's so easy to get caught up in everyday life and push God to the side. James 1:22 says to be doers of the Word. If you receive the Word of God, if you sit here and listen to all that I say and agree with it, and accept it into your heart of hearts, and do nothing with it, then there was no point of you hearing it. There was no point of you sitting down and reading it. It would have been better for you not to have read it at all. Because now you know it and when you don't do it, it will be counted against you.

God said he who knows to do right and does not do it, it's counted as a sin against them. James 1:25 says, "But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does."

The Amplified Bible says, "But he who looks carefully into the faultless law, the [law] of liberty, and is faithful to it and perseveres in looking into it, being not a heedless listener who forgets but an active doer [who obeys], he shall be blessed in his doing (his life of obedience)." And the Message, though I don't like the wholeness of how it states this, I do think there are some things to be gotten from it. It says, "5But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action."

You are blessed not because you go to church and listen, you are blessed when you take what you have heard and apply it to your life, when you do what needs to be done. I was taught this at my church back home, I was taught this when I went to Bible school, and I'm still being taught that Faith is an act. It's not some mystery thing that no one knows. Throughout the scripture it says, "…have faith…" What does that mean? It means, what ever you are believing, you get scriptures to stand on and you act on them. You confess those things, getting them into your heart, implanted into your deepest of being. When the devil comes at you-in the form of thoughts or the form of other people speaking against what you're believing you shout back "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." You shout back those scriptures you've been standing on. You act like the Word of God is true because it is!

I read a bunch of scripture early about quoting the word, about confessing. That's because the more you confess, the more you hear, the more you hear, the more faith comes, the more faith comes the more your prayers come to materializing and the closer you get to having what you asked for show up in your life in the natural realm. You already have it, don't try to get it. You're just waiting for it to materialize. God' not an idiot. He has rational, logical reasons for the things He's told us to do. I almost thought about writing a book on that one day. Because there are so many people out there, Christians included, who are just blindly doing stuff, or talking bad about other stuff, and they don't realize that God is a God of logic just as much as He is of faith, of love, and everything else He is. It may not be your logic, but that's because you're logic is either off, or you're ignorant of a few things. It's God that said to Isaiah in Isaiah 1, "come, and let us reason together."

But faith is act. You act on your faith. You act on your belief. What you do is a reflection of your beliefs. Jesus said out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh and a good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings good things and an evil man, evil things. Your beliefs, what you've embraced, what you've let grow in your heart, will determine how you act, what you do when situations arise. The only problem is that Christians, with their Bible-formed beliefs, that know they are to confess, to act in faith, to believe—they don't. Basically, we know what to do, but we don't. God said you do not have because you do not ask.

Everything is open for you, but you don't have it because you won't go after it. I have friends that want to go on it their own. They know God's truth, but they've pushed Him and it away to go on their own. And their lives are a pathetic excuse in some degrees. They aren't really living. They're just existing. For most Christians, that isn't the case. They know God's truth and they haven't actively pushed the truth away, but passively they have. They've let it get pushed away by everything that's gotten in their life.

I was praying one day, and this has been a long time ago, but I got these word-"Do what you know to do." I know God's Word. I know how to get you healed, I know how to finances for my life, my family. I know God's Word. I went to a great church for year and then went to one of the best Bible schools in the world. I know how to do things. But do I? I'd like to say I do all the time. But like everyone else, I'm growing.

I give you this word today: Do what you know to do. If you don't know what to do, get in God's Word and find out.

But even though you and I may know what to do, we still don't do it. Do we. Honestly. Let's include everyone here. 100% of the time, do you do what you know to do? Of course not. We're in good company though. The Apostle Paul himself had the same problem. Paul wrote to the Romans and explained this quandary, this problem to them. In Romans 7:15 he says, "For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do." He was talking specifically about sin here. But like we said early, God says if we know to do good and we do not, we sin. He relieves us though, because we're all in this mess. There is no condemnation to us who are in Christ.

I tell you: do what you know to do?

And I ask myself and Paul himself asks, "How?" Does anyone else ask how? Does anyone else have this same problem or am I preaching to a tree? Are my words useless and fruitless? Do you want the answer?

First and foremost, you can't do it yourself. You were never intended to do it yourself. So stop trying to do it yourself, because that's all you will ever do-try. I like what Jesse Duplantis says, "I stopped trying a long time ago. Trying cost money." And it gets nothing done. God sent Jesus Christ to the earth to make available everything you would ever need for this life and Godliness. Jesus came, did His job, and went back to Heaven to await the next step in the plan of God, but after He left, another one was sent. Heaven sent the Holy Spirit, who is that? He's our counselor, or comfortor, and our helper. You want to do something, you do it with the Helper. You do it with the Spirit of God because God said you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, the Greater one is living in you, you can do all things because God is with you and apart from him, you can do nothing. That's why we fail because we're trying to do it apart from Him.

You might say I'm doing it with God and I'm still not getting it. Well, either you're missing it somewhere and thus it's your fault and you need to get it straight and everything will be hunky dory or either you're a liar or God's a liar and I'd tend to believe God over you. So that's the first thing you need to know. Do it with God! And in the power of God!

The second thing: Romans 8:5-7.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

It says there that those who live according to the spirit set their minds on things of the spirit. And those people get life (the abundant life here on earth) and peace. You know who are the most blessed and happy and nicest and best people to be around? People that are constantly in the Word. Most of the time, these people are in the ministry because people that are in the ministry know these things and live by them. They don't have to be, but most the people I meet are. These are the people that are healthy, they're provided for, they're happy and nice—even when they're surrounded by the worst of circumstances.

People that are constantly feeding on the Word by reading it, having their daily devotionals, listening to teaching, watching the preacher on TV, DVD, or the internet, these are the ones that are the most blessed, the ones that have peace and have life and have it abundantly. And you know what, because they're hearing it so much, their faith is getting fed. They're obeying God's Word. They're confessing God's Word, not just top obey it, but because they know and see the benefit of it.

When I was here last time we went to Joshua. Because I want to put you in remembrance, let's go there now. You know Psalms 78: 41-42 says that the children of Israel limited God because they did not remember His power. We limit what God can do in our life and what we can do with what He has given us when we don't remember.

Joshua 1:8-9, "This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

If you remember, that word "meditate" means to mutter or confess. It's by getting the Word in you, confessing it, growing your faith, that you make you're way prosperous. God has already set the laws and the ways in which things work and this is one of them. Thus, in you obeying the law or way of confession, of faith, you will make your own way prosperous. Joshua got into the only Word that He had, read it, confessed it, and made His way prosperous.

He made a choice. Just like all the people I know that I'm talking about, they make a choice. We have choices in front of us every day-thousands of them. The people I know, they started small—you, you started small. Like everything else, you work at it. It's a process. It's just like developing a habit, which I've heard takes around 21 days or so. But the more you feed the on the Word and less on the world, the more you'll want to feed on the Word and starve the world. Just like feeding your faith and starving your doubts.

So I look back and wonder at times in my life, like those people that were standing in line way back at the beginning of this, "what's our reason?" Why are we in our current condition (for the most part)? It's because we have become hearers of the Word and not Doers as God intended. We have everything we need in front of us, and have no grasped a hold of it because we are not Doers of the Word. We don't do what we know to do. We do it ion our own power.

But now we know what the problem is, not just a symptom, but the root problem. And we know the answer. The answer is to be a doer of the word and not a hearer only. We know that we need to live our lives with the help of God, not doing it alone. We need to be constantly in the Word, as Joshua was. And then we will make our way prosperous. Then, not the good of the world, nor the bad of the world will entangle us. Then, we can do what God has called us to do.