12/1 Wednesday wisdom

Matt. 19:26 "And nothing is impossible to God."

Matt. 9:23 "All things are possible to him that believeth."

There has come the union of man with God. God's ability has been linked with man's inability and has swallowed it up. His very weakness is God's opportunity. "When I am weak, then am I strong."

"Nothing shall be impossible unto you." God is speaking in person to you. Just as food rejuvenates the body, so the Word rejuvenates faith in our spirits.

When will we ever learn that He and His Word are one. His is the surety of the New Covenant. He watches over His Word. He lives in His Word. His ability is in His Word.

It is Jesus speaking through your lips when you use the Word.

-- E. W. Kenyon

11/24 Wednesday wisdom

This will be my last quotation until next Tuesday or Wednesday, as I will be on vacation over the Thanksgiving holiday. Wishing you all a blessed Thanksgiving!

There is a sick one. The Word in your lips now will take the place of Jesus. If Jesus were here, He would say, "Son, you are healed." You say, "Son, by His stripes you are healed." You are using His Word. That is your confession, that His Word now has become the healer in your lips.

There is another one who is held in bondage by Satan. You remember what He said, "They that believe shall cast out demons." Fearlessly you speak the Word, "Satan, in Jesus' Name leave this person. Go off into the abyss where you belong."

You are quoting the very words of Christ. Your lips become the pulpit of Jesus Christ.

Faith grows with this confession. Faith is no grater than your confession.

Every time you break the silence caused by fear with an open confession of the integrity of the Word, and you act on the Word, you destroy the very roots of fear and unbelief in your life . . .

The Word has not lost its ability. Its ability is measured by its Author's ability.

-- E.W. Kenyon

11/23 Tuesday truth

[Faith] must be fed continually upon the Word of God and upon our acting on that Word.

Simply reading the Word, meditating on the Word, will not build faith. It will build a capacity for faith, but faith is only built when that Word becomes a part of our daily use, our daily conduct -- a part of our daily speech.

As faith grows, Satan's dominion over us wanes. Circumstances are less formidable. Fear is destroyed. As your faith grows, you begin to possess your rights in Christ. . . .

You begin to enjoy what you formerly "mentally assented" to.

You have said, "Yes, by His stripes I am healed, but I am sick." You have agreed with the Word, but you have not acted upon it . . . you have merely assented to it. Now you have reached the place where you no longer hope for it, but you look up and say, "Father, I thank Thee that I am what you say I am."

What you have mentally assented to, you now possess.

Believing is possessing. What you assented to for years, you now enjoy. Faith grows in the atmosphere of confession of the Word.

-- E.W. Kenyon

11/22 Monday meditation

As a child of God, never seek experiences. Nearly all the experiences are in the senses and these experiences do not give faith in the Word. They give faith in Man's word.

They believe in healing because they saw men healed. They believe in speaking in tongues because they heard them.

I believe in healing because the Word teaches it. I believe in speaking in tongues because the Word teaches it, not because someone else has spoken in tongues, or has been healed, or has had some other wonderful experience.

Never give an experience the first place in your life. The Word must have that.

We do not need to seek the Holy Spirit, He has already been given. He is here.

Luke 11:13, "How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"

-- E.W. Kenyon

11/19 Friday faith

Let me read you Eph. 3:20, "Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we could ask or think, according to the ability of God that is at work within us."

The heart almost stops.

Can this be true, that the One who raised Jesus from the dead has come into these bodies of ours and brought into us the Ability that was exercised in that mighty miracle of the resurrection of Jesus?

It is true, He has come in! He has come in with His ability, His wisdom, His love and grace.

-- E.W. Kenyon

11/18 Thursday thoughts

Those diseases were laid upon the spirit of the Son of God. He bore them away, and by His stripes we are healed. When He was made well in spirit, we were made well.

When He was made Righteous, we were made Righteous.

When He conquered the adversary, we conquered the adversary in Him. Here lies the secret of absolute success.

Jesus conquered the adversary on our behalf. If He did, then we today are conquerors; because, by His victory over the adversary, we won our victory.

-- E. W. Kenyon

11/17 Wednesday wisdom

The average Christian today is carnal, or sense-ruled. They are babes in Christ. They walk after the manner of men, or the senses. They have never learned the way of love.
They are full of talk, but they are not doers of the Word. Their wisdom is the wisdom of natural men. They are ever striving, but never arriving.

There is only one way to help these people, and that is to teach them how to take their place in Christ, to become doers of the Word, and not hearers only.

-- E.W. Kenyon

11/16 Tuesday truth

When a Believer is not joyful it is either because of broken fellowship or a lack of knowledge of what He is in Christ and what Christ is in him. He does not know what he is to the Father and what the Father can be to him. He has never entered into his inheritance in Christ.

It is vastly important that we know about our inheritance, that is, our present tense inheritance.

It is this unspeakable joy which makes you triumphant over the petty trials of life, and a victor over the trials that may come up.
-- E.W. Kenyon

11/15 Monday meditation

When the heart knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Father and Jesus are making their home in your home, you have a feeling of safety that no earthly or demoniacal power can destroy.

You have the "peace of God which passeth all understanding."

You are anchored in the spirit realm of love now.

Phil. 4:6,7 becomes a reality. "In nothing be anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."

I have been invited to come boldly to the throne of Grace, the throne of love gifts. I know that whatsoever I ask of the Father in Jesus' Name I will receive. Because of this I have no anxiety.

I have entered into His rest. Why? The next verse tells us. "And the peace of God which passeth all understanding shall guard your hearts and thoughts in Christ Jesus."

Your heart is safe-guarded. Your thoughts are safe-guarded.

I Peter 5:7 "Casting all your anxiety upon him, because he careth for you."

Where there is anxiety there is no peace, and where there is no peace, there is no rest. Now we have entered into His protective care, it is the realm of His rest. This belongs to every believer.

-- E. W. Kenyon, The Hidden Man

11/12 Friday faith

If I am a New Creation, created in Christ Jesus, I must be a Righteous creation. If I am a new man, I must be free from bondage of the old man. What He says about Righteousness of the New Creation is true. Then my spirit is Righteous. If it is Righteous, then I can stand in the Father's presence without fear of judgment or condemnation.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to me, because I am in Christ Jesus, a New Creation, created in Righteousness and holiness and truth."

This very fact solves the whole problem of our enjoying the riches of the fullness of our Redemptive rights in Christ.

I am not afraid to act, because I know that all that Christ wrought, He wrought for me. His entire substitutionary work, from the time He was made sin until He sat down at the right hand of the Father, was all for me.

-- E.W. Kenyon, The Hidden Man

11/11 Thursday thoughts Veterans' Day

Faith is developed in the human spirit by the Word of God. It comes by acting on the Word.

That is your exercise. Every time you act upon the Word, faith becomes stronger. You could lie in bed until your limbs lose their ability to bear the rest of your body. So it is with faith, it must be continually exercised in order to develop it.

-- E.W. Kenyon, The Hidden Man

11/10 Wednesday wisdom

Remember Matthew 28:18-19: "All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth. Go ye therefore, and make students of the whole world." (Disciple means student.)

And these students have the authority that Jesus manifested in hell, today in that mighty Name.

If you could only realize this fact, that you actually have a legal right to the authority and power invested in Jesus' Name and you can use it.

You have the power of attorney to use Jesus' Name.

You are an absolute master of Satanic forces.

-- E.W. Kenyon

11/9 Tuesday truth

Can't you see the vital need of studying to find out what we really are in Christ? What the spirit, through the Word, has really wrought in us that has made us acceptable to Him until He can whisper, "You are in the Beloved."

That means you are as near the Father's heart as Jesus is.

-- E.W. Kenyon, What Happened from the Cross to the Throne

11/8 Monday meditation

I'm going back to E.W. Kenyon quotes for a week or two. I just found two Kenyon books on my shelf that I bought two years ago at a garage sale and haven't read.

E. W. Kenyon was a friend of A.B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, and they often traded pulpits. Kenyon was a strong influence on Simpson in his day, and on Kenneth E. Hagin much later on. Kenyon is considered a forerunner of the Word of Faith movement.

Kenyon tends to write each sentence as a separate paragraph, and nearly every sentence is worthy of an extended discussion on it own.

Righteousness ... means the ability to stand in the Father's presence without the sense of guilt, condemnation or inferiority.

We stand there as sons in the presence of the Father of love.

We have been recreated out of His own heart.

We are of His own substance.

You know it will be a great day when large bodies of believers come to understand what they really are in Christ.

"Wherefore if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation."

He is a new species, something the world had never known until the Day of Pentecost.

He is so nearly like Christ, so utterly one with Him, that Christ can say, "I am the vine, and ye are the branches."

We are become partakers of His own nature. Not only that, but He has deigned to come and make His home in our bodies.

I cannot grasp this with sense knowledge.

I simply know that it is a fact, and my spirit bears witness with the Word that it is true.

He is in me now. That great, mighty Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is in me. . .

11/5 Friday faith

This passage from Smith Wigglesworth begins with my all-time favorite quotation, which I used to use as the signature line on my emails.

God has privileged us in Christ Jesus to live above the ordinary human plane of life. Those who want to be "ordinary" and live on a lower plane can do so; but as for me, I will not!

For the same unction, the same zeal, the same Holy Ghost power is at our command as was at the command of Stephen and the apostles. We have the same God that Abraham had, that Elijah had, and we need not come behind in any gift or grace. We may not possess the gifts, as abiding gifts, but as we are full of the Holy Ghost and divine unction, it is possible, when there is need, for God to manifest every gift of the Spirit through us, but a manifestation of the gifts as God may choose to use us.

11/4 Thursday thoughts

It is not what we are that counts, but what we can be as He disciplines and chastens us and transforms us by His all skillful hands. He sees our bitter tears and our weeping night after night. There is none like Him. He knows. He forgives. We cannot forgive ourselves, we oftentimes would give the world to forget, but we cannot. The devil won't let us forget. But God has forgiven and forgotten. Do you believe self, or the devil, or God? Which are you going to believe? Believe God. I know the past is under the blood and that God has forgiven and forgotten, for when He forgives He forgets Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!

-- Smith Wigglesworth

11/3 Wednesday wisdom

This is one of the most-often-retold stories of Smith Wigglesworth's ministry. It is often quoted by modern faith teachers.

A young woman with a goiter came to be prayed for. In a testimony meeting she said, "I do praise the Lord for healing my goiter." She went home and said to her mother, "Oh Mother, when the man prayed for me, God healed my goiter." For twelve months she went about telling everybody how God healed her goiter. Twelve months afterward I was in the same place and people said, "How big that lady's goiter is!" Then came a time for testimony. She jumped up and said, "I was here twelve months ago and God healed me of my goiter. Such a marvelous twelve months!" When she went home her folks said, "You should have seen the people today when you testified that God had healed your goiter. They think there is something wrong with you. If you go upstairs and look in the glass you will see the goiter is bigger than ever it was." She went upstairs, but she didn't look in the glass. She got down on her knees and said, "O Lord, let all the people know just as You have let me know, how wonderfully You have healed me." The next morning her neck was as perfect as any neck you ever saw. Faith never looks. Faith praises God -- it is done!

11/2 All Souls' Day: Tuesday truth

This follows Friday's and Monday's meditations from a 1922 sermon by Smith Wigglesworth. I believe that he was ministering in the former Union of South Africa (a British colony) at the time of this incident.

Two African boys were brought to us from the Congo, and my daughter said to me, "Father, will you take the boys around?" Well, it was a job because they could not speak a word of English. When I was walking with these boys I kept saying, "Praise the Lord, Amen." After a while they caught on to it. So when I said, "Praise the Lord," they would say, "Amen." We boarded a car which was full of people and the boys were at one end and I at the other. They would shout, "Praise the Lord!" and I would respond, "Amen" and we kept it up through the town. The boys were having a great time. When they sought the baptism of the Holy Ghost we had a glorious time. By the way, these "boys" were thirty years old. The Holy Ghost fell on them and gave them a new language, so different from their own. It was wonderful. They were full of the Spirit and joyful beyond words. They said, "When we were saved it was good, very good; but now it is more good, more so!" O beloved! I know God wants us all to have this "more so" salvation. It is not a measure, but a pressed down measure; and not only a pressed down measure but a measure shaken together and running over. The baptism of the Spirit is an overflowing cup. Praise the Lord!