Restoring Your Shield of Faith: Reach a New Dimension of Faith for Daily Victory by Chuck D. Pierce; Robert Heidler

Author:Chuck D. Pierce; Robert Heidler
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: spiritual warfare
ISBN: 0830732632
Publisher: Regal
Published: 2003-12-07T22:00:00+00:00

Ten days go by, and we say, "Well, I guess I still believe these promises."

God's picture of answered prayer is not a vending machine but a harvest

Ten weeks go by, and we mumble, "I sure thought God would have done something by now!"

Here is a secret: If we believe the promise because we know God is faithful, then it doesn't matter whether it takes 10 minutes or 10 years. God is still faithful. It may be hard to remain steadfast in faith as we see time passing, but if we allow delay to bring discouragement, then we are in trouble. Part of our trouble, as twenty-first-century Christians, is that we go through life with a vending-machine mentality. We want everything right now! We do this with God, too. We need a breakthrough from heaven, so we go to the divine vending machine, slip some faith in the slot, push the prayer button and look for the answer to pop out. If the answer is not there in two minutes, we're ready to start kicking the machine. That's not how prayer works!

God's picture of answered prayer is not a vending machine but a harvest. We have a need, so we sow our faith in the good soil of God's promise. As we sow, we nurture and water our promise until the time of harvest. When the time of harvest has fully come, we reap based upon what we have sown!

Signs of Hope Deferred

Hope deferred occurs when weariness brings wavering. We enter hope deferred when the tiredness of pressing on makes us want to give up. Here are some signs that we have succumbed to hope deferred.

We know we are on shaky ground when we no longer want to hear God's promise. As we go through testing, God will give us prophetic words to encourage us and keep us focused on His promise. When Abraham was waiting for a son, God repeatedly came to him and said, "I'm going to give you a son!" (see Gen. 15:4; 17:19; 18:10). God repeats His Word to us to strengthen our faith. We can know we are in hope deferred when we hear God's promise and want to explode. It is not a good sign when we say, "I am tired of hearing that promise! I don't want any more prophetic words! I just want it to happen."

A second indication of hope deferred is when Satan is able to plant a thought in our mind, such as I can't take any more of this! If we find that phrase repeatedly coming into our mind, we can be sure that the thought is from Satan. God would not tell us that! God has promised that He will not test us beyond what we are able to take (see 1 Cor. 10:13). Our problem is that sometimes God knows we can handle more that we think we can handle — or want to handle. When we hear that discouraging thought in our mind, we need to confront

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