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In our personal lives we must realize that we have to make faith our lifestyle and know how to believe God for every need in our lives, whether it be spiritual, physical or financial. It is my personal belief that most Christians have not yet arrived at this level of spiritual maturity. When there is a need present in our lives, the question comes to mind, "How long is it going to take to get my prayer answered?" Many times when we pray and don’t receive an immediate answer we allow that petition to fall by the wayside and chalk it up to praying amiss. I feel certain if you grasp this kingdom principle that I am sharing, it will change your prayer life. What is a need and how do we get our needs met? When facing a crisis, it is easy to be deceived as to what our need really is. First of all we must understand that GOD IS NOT MOVED BY OUR NEEDS. If He were, He would be extremely busy right now. No more would children go to bed hungry. There would be no more sickness, disease, poverty, or lack on this planet. BUT GOD IS NOT MOVE BY OUR NEEDS. HE IS, HOWEVER, MOVED BY OUR SEEDS! That is a kingdom principle. God DOES want to meet our need, but we must learn HOW TO TURN OUR NEEDS INTO SEEDS AND EXPECT A HARVEST. John Wesley said, "It looks like God is limited to our prayer life, that He will do nothing for mankind unless someone asks Him to." Have you ever noticed that God does not force His blessings upon us? If you do not believe that healing belongs to you, God will not embarrass you by healing your body. If you believe that poverty is next to godliness, then God will not bug you with financial increase. You must ask and receive His blessings by faith, because of His Grace. Notice what Paul said in Philippians 4:15-19: "Now ye Philippians know also, that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church communicated with me as concerning giving and receiving, but ye only. For even in Thessalonica ye sent once and again unto my NECESSITY. Not because I desire a gift; but I desire fruit that may abound to your account. But I have all, and abound; I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things, which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God. But my God shall supply all your NEED according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." In verse 16, the King James translators used the word "necessity" and in verse 19 they used the word "need" which are the same Greek word in the original manuscripts. The definitions of the word "need" in the Greek and in Webster’s dictionary are very similar. Often times when we think of someone in need, our concept is the man on the street corner holding a "Will Work for Food" sign, or we think of someone barely making ends meet. When Paul said, " God shall supply all our need..." satan would like for us to believe that God is only interested in us barely getting by. Webster said the word "need" means A LACK OF SOMETHING USEFUL, REQUIRED OR DESIRED. A need is not only something that I can desire or something that is useful to me; it is more than just a requirement. The word "necessity" means a lack of something that is required, something that is essential to life. There is a difference between a need and a necessity. Food is a necessity; a hamburger is a need. In our society transportation is a necessity; a car is a need. You could get by with a bicycle or you could walk. Shelter is a necessity; your home is a need. You could live with your in-laws. God desires more for His children than just barely making it, He wants us to have more than enough! Our God shall supply all our lack of something useful, required and desired. That includes our health and more than enough finances to minister to our needs and help minister to the needs of others for the expansion of the kingdom of God upon this earth. But for God to supply all our need, we must first take that need and turn it into a seed based upon a promised provision from the Word of God and plant that seed with our mouth, and finally believe Him for the harvest. We can see an example of this principle in the life of Abraham. I had always wondered why God changed Abraham’s name. In the chapters prior to Genesis 17, God told Abraham to get out from the land he was in and away from his kinfolks because He wanted to bless him and make of him a great nation. Immediately Abraham was disobedient. He brought some of his family along. God gave him the promise of a son and that he was going to be the father of many nations. So he did as many us have done in the past, he tries to make the promise come to pass within his own power. And because of going his own way, Hagar gives birth to Ishmael and Abraham is convinced that Ishmael is going to be the promised son. But that was not God’s plan. In chapter 17 Abraham is now 99 years old. Genesis 17:1, "Then when Abram was 90 years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, I am the almighty God, walk before me, and be thou perfect." Verse 2, "And I will make my covenant between me and thee, and will multiply thee exceedingly." Verse 3, "And Abram fell on his face: and God talked with him, saying, Verse 4, "As for me, behold my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations." Verse 5, "neither shall thy name be anymore called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. The word "Abraham" means father of many nations. Most parents today select children’s names simply because they like the name. However during Abram’s time an individual’s name had very special meaning. God told Abram that his name would no longer be Abram; He was changing it to Abraham because He had given Him a promise and he would be the father of many nations. We need to remember that Abraham did not have Mark 11:22-23 to refer to, but we do! God had given a promise to Abraham just like he gives promises to us today. The Bible is full of promises that God wants to fulfill and minister into our lives. The promise to Abraham was that God wanted him to become the father of many nations. And we know that Abraham (because of going his own way) had fouled things up considerably. Now Abraham is faced with a problem. He needs help for this promise to come to pass. He has tried it his way and failed. So God takes Abraham’s need and shows him how to turn it into a seed. He changes his name to Abraham so that every time he hears his name called he doesn’t hear "Abraham" he hears "father of many nations." How many times a day do you think he heard that name called? Abraham, where do you want us to work today? Abraham, what do you want us to do? Everyday he is hearing Abraham, father of many nations, father of many nations, father of many nations. What is this doing? It is creating the image on the inside of him that he is going to be the father of many nations. God takes his need and turns it into a seed. A seed that is going to bring forth the promise that God has given to him. But He doesn’t stop there; God knows that Abraham needs some more help. In Genesis 17:15-16, " And God said unto Abraham, as for Sarai, thy wife, thou shalt not call her Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be." "And I will bless her, and give thee a son also of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of people shall be of her." God told Abraham that He was changing Sarai’s name to Sarah because she would be the mother of many nations. So every time Sarah hears her name called, she hears "mother of nations, mother of kings of people." But notice what happened, Abraham was in doubt; he was not strong in faith when God spoke to him. In Genesis 17:17, "Then Abraham fell upon his face, and laughed, and said in his heart, "shall a child be born to him that is a hundred years old? And shall Sarah, that is 90 years old, bear?" You may say how do you know that he is in doubt. Notice the next verse. "And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before Thee! Abraham is still thinking that Ishmael is the promised son from whom nations shall come. God lets Abraham know that Ishmael is not the son of promise. In Genesis 17:21, "But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee at this set time in the next year." God tells Abraham that Sarah is going to bear Isaac through which he would become the father of many nations. God took their need of help to receive the promise and turned it into a seed that caused the word to create an image on the inside of them. God’s plan was to take Abraham from doubt and unbelief into hope and then into faith, and that is when Isaac was born. Again, let’s look at verse 21, "But my covenant will I establish with Isaac, which Sarah shall bear unto thee AT THIS SET TIME IN THE NEXT YEAR." "In the next year," I had never seen that phrase before. Let’s do some calculations. From conception to birth is how long---nine months, right? From the time God changed Abraham’s name until Isaac was born was one year. You will find this is true according to Genesis 17:21, "at this set time in the next year." Let’s subtract 9 months from 12, which is the time of pregnancy, how many months does that leave--- three months right? So it took Abraham three months to get into faith. Some of you thought you had problems because it didn’t happen in two hours. Don’t get discouraged. God’s plan was to change Abraham’s need into a seed by changing his name and then take him from doubt into hope and then from hope into faith. In Romans 4:16, "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all." "As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations, before him whom he believed even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were." "Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, so shall thy seed be." In verse 18 we see where Abraham was moved from doubt and unbelief into hope. What is hope? Real Biblical hope is intense, earnest, expectation. It is not wishing! Biblical hope brings you to a level of maturity where you are surprised if the promise doesn’t come to pass. This is the hope that God was moving Abraham into. Hebrews 11:1 says, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for." That means that you must have hope before faith has something to give substance to. Hope is like a blueprint on the inside of you. You know it’s there, you know it’s yours and you will be surprised if it doesn’t happen! You are expecting it that intently. In Romans 4:18 Abraham moves from doubt into hope and in verse 19 he moves into faith "...And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body not dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God," It took three months for Abraham to move from doubt to faith and then Sarah conceived Isaac and nine months later their harvest (Isaac) was manifested. In Genesis 21:2, "For Sarah conceived, and bare Abraham a son in his old age at the set time of which God had spoken to him." It is not God’s best for us to live from miracle to miracle. Yes, God still perform miracles today but He wants us to get to the place where we take the seed of God’s Word and sow it into the soil of our hearts so we can reap a harvest of having our needs abundantly supplied according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. God wants every year of your life to be productive and fruitful. God’s way for that to happen is for us turn our need into a seed from the Word of God, plant and cultivate that Word-seed and expect our harvest within a year. The word "year" really stood out to me. I know that everything God does, He does according to a pattern that is based on a principle from His Word. So I knew there had to be a pattern and principle for the manifestation of a harvest (promise) within a year. You will find that principle in Mark 4:26-29, "And he said, so is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear, but when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come." God wants us to get to the place where we take the Word of God, operate in the kingdom principles, and sow the Word of God for our needs so we can reap a harvest. God does not want us living from miracle to miracle. God still does miracles, but miracles are not His best. If Adam and Eve had never sinned, would God have ever had to do a miracle? No, there would not have been a need for miracles. The Red Sea would not need to be rolled back, because Israel would not have been there. If Adam and Eve had not sinned we would have been living continually in seedtime, growing time, and harvest time. That is God’s best for our lives. God’s plan for meeting our needs can be likened unto this example of the man casting seed into the ground as stated in Mark 4:26. The man planted seed into ground for the sole purpose of receiving a harvest. The scripture tells us this man does not understand how this happens, but it does. We do not have to understand the principle, just believe it, and act upon it. Let’s take a closer look at this kingdom principle. Did you know that there are basically two categories of seed in the plant kingdom? First, there is the kind of seed that you plant and it grows and produces fruit within a year, such as corn, watermelons, and tomatoes. After the harvest is reaped, the plant is cut down and the field cleared for next years crop. The second kind of seed, once sown, may take several years for the plant to mature and produce fruit before a harvest is reaped, such an example would be citrus trees. The farmer does not cut down or destroy the plant or tree from this kind of seed once the harvest is reaped. Under normal conditions, the plant or tree remains and produces fruit year after year. In either situation, once the plant is capable of producing fruit one fact remains: HARVEST IS EXPECTED. In Mark 4:26-29, it is evident that God desires to manifest our harvest within a year by using the first type of seed as an example. How do I know that? Look at verse 29 again, but when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in THE SICKLE, because the harvest is come. A SICKLE is used to reap the harvest from plants that have grown from a seed to full maturity within the period of a year. Once the harvest is reaped, the plant serves no other purpose because it is not capable of producing another harvest. Notice that Jesus referred to a SICKLE, and not an AXE. Therefore, we can see that Jesus was not referring to the kind of seed that grows into a TREE. A FARMER KNOWS THAT WHEN HE PLANTS THE FIRST TYPE OF SEED, AND CULTIVATES THAT SEED, HE CAN EXPECT A HARVEST WITHIN ONE YEAR. This is the principle I believe Jesus was endeavoring to get across to us as believers. It is not enough to just plant the seed of God’s Word and wait for harvest. A farmer would be foolish to plant his seed and then sit back and do nothing while waiting for the harvest to come forth. A farmer must make a commitment to cultivate the seed that he has planted, if he doesn’t he will not receive a manifestation of our harvest. CULTIVATION OF THE SEED IS WHAT YOU DO BETWEEN PLANTING THE SEED AND REAPING THE HARVEST. What does a farmer do in the period between planting and reaping? First, he must guard his seed so that the birds will not steal his seed. He then cultivates the soil around the seed in order to keep the weeds out and keep the soil soft and pliable so that water make soak into soil and get to the seed. The farmer also adds fertilizer to the soil, which will enhance the growth of the seed. How do we apply this to this Kingdom principle? We must constantly guard the seed that has been sown in our heart, so that satan will not steal our seed. We must also keep out the weeds of strife, contention, unforgiveness, and anything else that would choke out the Word seed. Worshiping God will help keep "weeds" out of our lives and keep the soil of our hearts soft and pliable before the Lord so that the watering of praying in the Holy Spirit may enhance the growth of the seed. When we add some spiritual fertilizer to the soil by the confession of God’s word, we then improve the quality of plant growth. WE SOW IT, GOD GROWS IT, BUT HE EXPECTS OUR CULTIVATION OF THE SEED. When I received the insight of this principle, God also reminded me of some examples confirming this principle in my life as well as in the lives of others. God will always confirm His Word with signs following, just like Genesis 26:12 points out: Then Isaac SOWED in that land, and received IN THE SAME YEAR an hundredfold: and the Lord blessed him. Let me share some of these examples as a living testimony that we can expect harvest within a year. I remember hearing and reading the testimony of a young minister who had a tumor in his chest. After having the painful growth surgically removed, the doctor warned him that it could come back and it did. Even though it was painful, it was not life threatening and he was growing in his faith, so he made the decision to believe God for his healing. In January 1972, he planted the seed of healing. WITHIN A YEAR, he received his harvest of health; the tumor disappeared from his body and never came back! That minister was Dr. Fred Price, pastor of Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angles, California. A young man moved his family to Tulsa, Oklahoma so that he could attend Oral Roberts University. While living in Tulsa the man and his wife learned that God would meet all their needs. They were deeply in debt. Bills were left unpaid and a threat of lawsuit was hanging over their heads. They decided to put into practice what they had learned from God’s Word and believed God to get them out of debt. WITHIN A YEAR, they received their financial harvest from the seed of the Word they had planted. That young couple was Kenneth and Gloria Copeland! One of the most inspiring testimonies that I have ever heard is the testimony of the woman school teacher who came to Norvel Hayes’ Campmeeting in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, dying from cancer of the liver. The cancer had already spread through her liver and it was only a matter of months before she would be dead. At that particular campmeeting, Norvel Hayes was teaching on "How to Live and Not Die." She received the Word, went home, and planted her seed for a harvest. For eight or more hours a day she walked the floor and called Jesus her Healer. Hour after hour, she praised God that she would live and not die, that she was already healed, that she had a new liver because Jesus had already healed her. She crossed the line from doubt and unbelief, uprooted the thorn bush of sickness and disease, and replaced it with the seed of divine healing, until the healing seed grew into a plant of hope. She kept on worshiping God and calling Jesus her Healer until she crossed over the line of hope into faith and WITHIN A YEAR she reaped her harvest and was completely healed! Dave Roberson, pastor of The Prayer Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma shared the testimony of how he planted the seed of the Word and received his harvest. When he first entered the ministry he was having problems in his finances, so he subjected himself to the Word of God until the Word was able to change him. One of his needs was for a new car. The one he had was a 1958 Chevrolet Impala that had 160,000 miles on it when the speedometer stopped. He said the car burned so much oil that he got stopped six times By the State Police on a 150 mile trip because they wanted to see what was behind the smoke screen. He took his need, turned it into a seed, prayed, and believed that he received a new car. At times he would sleep in the auditoriums he had rented for a meeting because he could not afford a motel. Yet he started saying that he had a new car because he had prayed and believed he had received one. Every time he would rejoice and thank God for his new car, he could feel faith surge through his whole being. He said he knows now that he was not moving God with his confession but rather he was moving himself into a position to receive from God by crossing the line from hope to faith. WITHIN A YEAR he drove a new Volkswagen van right off the showroom floor, and his wife was driving a new Volkswagen bug. Both were paid for! To God be all the glory! After recalling these testimonies, the Holy Spirit urged me to reexamine my prayer journal where I have recorded prayer petitions and the manifestations of answered prayer. I noticed immediately the dates of the prayers (planting the seed) and the manifestations (harvest). The first prayer of petition that we recorded was for a leather bound edition Amplified Bible. WITHIN A YEAR, we received our harvest! When my mother-in-law went to be with the Lord, my wife was responsible for the sale of her mother’s house and property and to make financial distribution to her brothers and sister. The house did not sell through the first real estate agent with whom it was listed. When we changed real estate agents, we walked over the property and through the house and planted our Word seed and called the house and property sold in the name of Jesus Christ. WITHIN ONE YEAR, harvest was received, the sale of the house came into manifestation, and distribution was made to all the relatives involved! On another occasion, my wife and I decided that we wanted to give $500 to help a mission church in a foreign country. So we planted our seed through prayer and believed that we received our $500 harvest. WITHIN A YEAR, we received a letter in the mail containing some pictures and six one hundred dollar bills. Praise the Lord for the God who is more than enough! I could share more, like the $250 for a mission outreach in Brazil or our own 3 bedroom, 2 bath home that we received after 14 years of renting; ALL OF THIS HARVEST WAS RECEIVED WITHIN A YEAR! In conclusion, let me encourage you to allow the Holy Spirit to illuminate your heart with this Kingdom principle. It will work in your life as well. For God is no respecter of persons. God is waiting for us to TURN OUR NEEDS INTO SEEDS FROM HIS WORD, SO HE CAN BRING FORTH OUR HARVEST. |
