“A PROMISE from God may very instructively be compared to a cheque payable to order. It is given to the believer with the view of bestowing upon him some good thing. It is not meant that he should read it over comfortably, and then have done with it. No, he is to treat the promise as a reality, as a man treats a cheque.”
So begins a little book I have been reading. I wonder what you think of such words. If you know who it was who wrote them, please don’t let anyone know–I will reveal all soon. But for now, allow the words themselves to startle you and draw your attention as they have mine. Does this very idea seem strange to you because, like me, you have rejected the so-called “word of faith” teaching? Or, is it possible that we have gone and thrown the baby out with the bathwater? If it gets under your skin and you decide to blog or tweet about it yourself, let me know and I will share your link here.
The little book continues:
He is to take the promise, and endorse it with his own name by personally receiving it as true. He is by faith to accept it as his own. He sets to his seal that God is true, and true as to this particular word of promise. He goes further, and believes that he has the blessing in having the sure promise of it, and therefore he puts his name to it to testify to the receipt of the blessing.
This done, he must believingly present the promise to the Lord, as a man presents a cheque at the counter of the Bank. He must plead it by prayer, expecting to have it fulfilled. If he has come to heaven’s bank at the right date, he will receive the promised amount at once. If the date should happen to be further on, he must patiently wait till its arrival; but meanwhile he may count the promise as money, for the Bank is sure to pay when the due time arrives.
Some fail to place the endorsement of faith upon the cheque, and so they get nothing; and others are slack in presenting it, and these also receive nothing. This is not the fault of the promise, but of those who do not act with it in a common-sense, business-like manner.
God has given no pledge which he will not redeem, and encouraged no hope which he will not fulfil. To help my brethren to believe this, I have prepared this little volume. The sight of the promises themselves is good for the eyes of faith: the more we study the words of grace, the more grace shall we derive from the words. To the cheering Scriptures I have added testimonies of my own, the fruit of trial and experience. I believe all the promises of God, but many of them I have personally tried and proved. I have seen that they are true, for they have been fulfilled to me. This, I trust, may be cheering to the young; and not without solace to the older sort. One man’s experience may be of the utmost use to another; and this is why the man of God of old wrote, ” I sought the Lord, and he heard me,” and again, “this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him.”
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