Thursday, May 5, 2005

Calling Things As Though They Were

Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did. (Romans 4:16-17)
God calls those things that are not as though they were. That is how the heavens and the earth got here in the first place. Once they were not, now they are—because God called them as though they were. The worlds were framed by the Word of God (Hebrews 11:3).
That’s how God works.

When God made man, He made him in the image of God. He formed Adam from the earth and then puffed the breath of life into him, and Adam became a living being. An ancient rabbinic commentary says that Adam became a “speaking spirit.”

God is Spirit, a speaking spirit. The Bible says that “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16). The Greek word for “inspiration” is theoneustos and literally means “God-breathed.” God breathes out His Word.

When God breathes out His Word, things happen. They come into being because He calls them by the breath of His mouth. At the Creation, for example, when darkness was upon the face of the deep, God called for light. Light came into being and solved the problem of darkness.

Now, the breath of God is one. The same breath He breathed into Adam’s nostrils is the same breath by which He breathes out His Word and causes things to be.

After God created Adam, He set him to work. He brought the animals to Adam to see what he would call them (Genesis 2:19). With the breath of God, Adam was to breath forth words and name the animals. By naming them, he called forth what they were to be and do. Another way to say this is that he called things which did not exist (the purpose and destiny of the animals) as though they were already in existence. That is how faith works.

God did not tell Adam what to call the animals, He simply gave Adam the breath and the authority to name them and call forth their destinies. Then He stepped back to observe and see what Adam would call into being.

God operates in the world by the Word of His breath, and that is how He created man to operate as well. In Romans 4, we see that God called Abraham, which means “Father of Multitudes,” even though, at the time, Abraham was the father of none. But God was calling things that are not as though they were, and He expected Abraham to come into agreement with His word, this name Abraham, Father of Multitudes. So whenever Abraham or Sarah spoke forth this name, they were calling things that did not exist as though they already did. They were not speaking lies or denying facts, they were calling for things to come forth. The Word of God cannot fail—whether it comes from God’s own mouth or from ours—so the things that Abraham called eventually showed up in the natural.

God has created you and me to call things which do not exist as though they did. So explore the Word of God to discover the promises of God and what His heart is all about. Then open up your mouth and start calling them forth in agreement with Him. It does not matter whether you can see them, feel them or experience them in any way. Just keep calling them as if they already existed, and they will eventually show up. For everything must eventually line up with the Word of God.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous3:58 PM

    Thank you for this inspiration.

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  2. Thank you so much! I have been trying to explain this principle for so many years. You did it so perfectly. People for so long were being told to lie so I believe they gave up on this. What you call forth must line up with HIS word and/or HIS mission. So you may miss a few or get something not quite right but HE will fix your effort for you. A good father when teaching the baby to walk, picks him up when he falls, dust him off, and gets him to try again until he learns how to walk. We have PERFECTION!
    He is trying to teach us how to be more like HIM and to use our "God Given Talents!" So I must say, "When faith takes His first step, He just seems to keep on walking!"

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