A Brand New Series for you! The IN HIMS. BE BLESSED today! =) CONFESSIONS OF A SAINT~ The IN HIMS – Who we are and what we have IN CHRIST JESUS “Seeing then that we have a great high priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast OUR profession…Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering…consider the Apostle and High Priest of OUR confession, Christ Jesus.” Heb. 3:1, 4:14, 10:23. “I believed, and therefore I have spoken…We too believe, and therefore we speak.” Psa. 116:10; 2 Cor. 4:13. Hold fast, don’t let go of our confession/ profession. The Greek word for these two words is homologia. It means agreement; speaking the same thing. Both Heb. 4:14 and 10:23 tell us this: Hold fast, or don’t let go of your confession of faith…don’t let go…don’t let go of confessing the Word, saying what God says about you, of who you are, and all you have IN HIM, in Christ Jesus. I know some will say, “these verses mean we are to confess our sins.” I agree, and I do confess sin. It’s important that we learn how to, and keep on top of judging self. And He is faithful to forgive and to cleanse from all unrighteousness as He promises. No, there’s more to this confession thing than this. If confession of sin is the only thing God means, then He would not have inspired these scriptures to be worded as they are. Also, in my own personal life, as I battled against the enemy powers after God healed-freed-delivered and loosed me, He would not have insisted that I spend most of the time in bed confessing and meditating upon the IN HIMS. We are to hold fast, not to sins that have been forgiven, because God has thrown them as far as east is to west, and He wants us to do the same, so that we do not open the door to the accuser, satan. These two scriptures say to hold fast to the confession of our faith. The confession of our faith; What’s that? I’ll answer with two questions. Who is our faith based on? Jesus. And Hebrews 3:1 calls Jesus our high priest, the author and finisher of our faith. He authored our faith. And He is the completer of our faith. And who and what are we IN HIM? More than most of us ever realised. We are everything IN HIM; We have everything IN HIM. He completes us; He is our completer. This is what we confess, and by doing so, we become alive and sharp. Because, as the Bible tells us, “As He is so are we in this world.”…as He is so are we in this world…as He is so are we in this world.” Notice this scripture does not speak of future tense, present tense “As He is so are we IN THIS WORLD.” We are all He is right now, in this world. We don’t have to wait till we get to heaven for it. What He says is fact; This fact is true of us, because Jesus says so. Here’s how we replace what we think about ourselves, the image that was instilled in us while we were growing up, based on how other people saw us, reacted to us, and most of all, by what was said to us and about us—this is how we replace the old with the new, with God’s image of us. Remain on the cutting edge. Keep your boldness and faith sharp with the two-edged sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, by confessing who you are and what you have in Christ Jesus each day. Jesus did this always, and you will find when you study His confessions that they are always in line with the Word of God. They never differ. For our Savior, Jesus spoke the Word, He lived the Word, He preached and taught the Word. Would he have been successful if He hadn’t? No. On the other side of the coin, Jesus said what He believed. And what He believed, He was, He is and He ever shall be. He spoke what God said about Him, not what the world said. His is the example we are to follow. We are to be conformed, not to the world, or to all it says or thinks, but to the image of Jesus. Conformed means patterned after. Jesus is our pattern. He is the one we are to pattern after. We are to copy His characteristics, and to say what God says about us. That song is right, “He looked beyond our faults and saw our worth.” God sees our worth. This is because God looks at our hearts, and not at who we seem to be on the surface. And He wants us to look at ourselves the same exact way. Now I’ll tell you how we go about it. There are over 140 scriptures found within the Word of God, mostly the Epistles, or letters to us, the church. These are the IN HIM scriptures, the In Christ, In whom, OF whom, OF Christ, THROUGH Christ. I will also include scriptures which don’t contain these terms, but tell us what belongs to us because of the sacrifice Jesus made for us. As we confess these, we become strong, and this image will replace the image that was shaped and set into our thinking, the image based on world standards. Last night God laid it upon my heart to give you these IN HIMS a couple at a time, perhaps three at the most. In reality He told me months back to do this, but last night He added, ”Start this tomorrow.” These will be short, so you can read them quickly, absorb, and begin your confessions based upon the Word, saying the same thing God says about you, becoming how God already sees you, and seeing yourself the same way. I know what some of you are thinking, “Can you do short, Paula?” I hear you, as even my bite-size chunks of God’s Word are enormous bites. Think of them as American-sized bites. The fact that I always wrote the long instead of the short about any subject used to be a concern of mine, until one night I was speaking to the Lord about the words He gave me to write to some friends of mine. His words had flowed easily and so quickly my fingers could hardly keep up. Then it hit me. I felt a pang of guilt because the emails were quite lengthy. I said to God, “They were a bit long, though, Father. I will have to remember to apologize to each of them tomorrow.” Not missing a beat, He said, “Paul wrote long letters.” I laughed so hard I thought I would wake Chris. “That’s true, Lord. He did”, I answered. I got such a kick out of that. And I didn’t apologise, because the guilt had vanished the moment the Lord had spoken. No one can ever convince me that words aren’t a powerful force in this world, especially His. And His are as powerful when released out of our mouths as when He said them the first time. So now, I don’t apologise, but I always remember the Lord’s answer. I always remember my mentor, Paul, and I can see he and I have much more in common than the same name. As time flies onward toward the Rapture of the Church, the list grows. God puts weight in a name, as you may know, as we can see from the scriptures. He gave me my name for a reason, and He gave you your name for a reason. But yes, God says I can do short, so I can! As I give you the IN HIMS, do what I do. Write them in a small notebook, or on recipe/ index cards, along with the Confessions. Even the world agrees: when you write something down, your mind absorbs the meaning more fully. The notebook and the cards are easy to carry around, and you can easily confess them while doing some of the more boring things you must do in order to live in this world. (for we are IN the world, but we are not to be OF the world.) I’m not saying for you to confess all 140 scriptures along with the Confessions every single day. That would be challenging, but a tad time-consuming. I’m not sure there would be enough hours in the day. Confessing is not to replace study of the Word, or consume every moment of your time. And don’t bite off more than you can chew, or you will eventually feel overwhelmed and give up entirely. Just relax, and do a few at first, as many as you are comfortable in doing each day. I will ask this of you though: Say each one out loud and several times in a row. By several, I mean three. God often repeats what He says three times, when He gives me instructions, and even in His Word, He speaks it two times at least, usually three. Talk it over, freestyle, with the Lord if you want. I do this frequently, and it really makes a big difference. As you learn one, try saying it as you are just drifting off to sleep, or waking up in the morning, when you are half-awake. When our minds are more relaxed then, we absorb what we hear more easily. Also, make a note of this: when we hear something in our own voice, it influences us more than hearing someone else saying it. So let those words flow out into the air! Speak this, and all the Word you can out loud. Frustrate the devil, the prince of the power of the air(waves); knock holes in his dominion with the living Word of God released by your mouth. You may say, “I’ve confessed for a solid week straight, Paula, and nothing’s happened.” If this is the case, don’t let it bother you. Hold fast. Hold fast. Hold fast and don’t let go. The Word of God which is living; alive, and active; powerful and mighty, begins its work in your spirit. For you are spirit. You live in a body. You have a soul. The work then breaks into the natural realm, the physical world, where we can see it and feel. Just know the Word is working in your life, because you are confessing it, and God is faithful to perform His Word, as promised. And don’t expect the full results of confessing the IN HIMS to be instant. The Word of God is not about instant gratification, it’s about lasting change. As we get the reality of the IN HIMS into our hearts by saying them daily, something happens to our thinking. We realise that our minds are becoming renewed by these confessions. Our thoughts are dramatically altered. We find that we are speaking less and less world-speak, and more and more God-speak. We are more confident and capable, our faith in God is soaring, we are standing taller against the enemy instead of cowering down, instead of bowing to him. Did we do this all by ourselves? No. This amazing transformation is supernatural. It’s the power of God within us. “…for we are the workmanship of God IN Christ Jesus.” With enthusiasm, let’s look to the Author and Finisher of our faith; Lets begin to conform to the image of our Master Jesus. Remember, be patient to yourself, but be consistent. Practice, practice, practice. Practice perfects, practice reaches the finish line; practice wins the crown. In practice,say with me what David said, and what Paul said. “I believed and therefore have spoken…We too believed, and therefore speak.” I believe and therefore I speak…I believe and therefore I speak…I believe and therefore I speak. I speak God’s Words, and I believe Him.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 11:30:50 +0000
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