BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

A major miracle was needed to raise Lazarus from the dead. We know from reading the Scriptures that Jesus had already prayed about the situation. He had received direction from the Father before He ever arrived on the scene. But when the moment of truth came and He stood in front of that tomb surrounded by a crowd of unbelieving people, the first thing He said was, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me” (John 11:41). Why did He say that? Because He knew The WORD of God. He knew that Psalm 8:2 says, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength [or praise] because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger.” At Lazarus’ tomb, Jesus was facing one of Satan’s most sinister weapons—the enemy of death. That enemy was boasting and bragging of its triumph. It was taunting that grieving crowd, challenging anyone to break its grip. Jesus accepted that challenge. But before He did, He moved the big gun into position. He used the weapon that Scripture guarantees will silence every enemy of God—the weapon of thanksgiving and praise. Not Just Gratitude, but Faith You can do the same thing. When you’re praying for someone to be healed, for example, and you’ve loaded your faith pistol and rifle by praying and standing on The WORD, just before you walk into the hospital room to lay hands on that person, load your cannon. Start praising God and say, “Father, I thank You that You have already heard me and I go into this room victoriously. I thank You that this work is already complete and this person is healed!” Don’t wait until you see the person raised up. Fire your thanksgiving gun before you ever go in there. Stop the enemy and the avenger, bring him to a standstill before—not after—the miracle takes place. Of course, it takes faith to do that. Anyone can give thanks after God moves. No doubt, all the unbelieving folks around Lazarus’ tomb were praising and thanking God after their once-dead friend came walking out in his grave clothes. But Jesus gave thanks beforehand. And if we’re going to see the miraculous power of God in our lives, that’s what we too must do. We must do more than just give thanks after we receive the answer to our prayers as an act of gratitude. We must give thanks before we receive the answer as an act of faith. That means we must learn to thank God in the midst of what may seem like hopeless, terrible situations. We must thank God when it looks like the devil has just won the fight. How can we possibly do that? Because we know what the Bible says. We know that no matter how things may appear, the devil hasn’t won the fight. Jesus defeated him once and for all 2,000 years ago. And if we’ll dare to stand on His victory and give thanks, we can win every time. Don’t Dig Up Your Seed We can also find ourselves receiving marvelous answers to our prayers. Read the following two verses about prayer and you’ll quickly see why. “What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24). “Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). When you put those two scriptures together, you can see how prayer and thanksgiving work together. When we pray, we believe we receive what we ask for. Then we demonstrate our faith by giving thanks—not after but before we see the answer! Look at 1 Timothy 2:1-3: “I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; for kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour.” Thanksgiving is right in the middle of supplications, prayers and intercessions. If we fail to follow this prayer concept, the devil will mess us up. The day after we pray—when the pressure gets worse and it looks like all hell is breaking loose in the situation we prayed about—he’ll tempt us to cast aside our confidence. Maybe God didn’t hear me yesterday when I prayed, we’ll think. I’d better pray that prayer over again. So, we start over. Pray the prayer of faith. Believe we receive. But the next day things look even worse so we end up going back and praying that prayer again…and again…and again. Do you realize what we’re doing when we do that? We’re digging up our faith seed! Because we think it isn’t working, we’re planting it one day and digging it up the next. You know as well as I do, if you treated a natural seed that way it would never be able to grow. It would never produce any fruit. ******ADVERTISEMENT****** magazine.kcm.org Get more in the digital issue Packed with bonus content! ************************************* 22 : BVOV

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