Conditioned

 Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.’  Jeremiah 33:3...."We've been conditioned not to believe extravagantly."  Chris Tiegreen

The Bible constantly reinforces that we have been given "great and precious promises." I think most who identify as believers, as followers of Jesus Christ, would testify that they believe this. How we believe this, the time frame which in involved in our believing is what comes into question. Someone said that He is always speaking "now" words to us. Too often though, we place the fulfillment of His words in the hazy future. We don't really believe that those "great and unsearchable things" are meant for us today.

It's true that the complete fulfillment of His Word and His promises won't come to pass until the time this material world passes away and His eternal world fully comes, but eternal life is not just a future promise. It's a current one that we begin to enter into upon our believing upon Him. We can dare to believe extravagantly.

We live in a fallen world, and the enemy is highly skilled at coming against us through this. One of his favorite ploys is to get us to either outright doubt His promises and words, or failing that, to believe that we can't even begin to realize them now. As always, he lies. Doubt, cynicism, negative and defeated thinking and expectations are where he wishes to lead us, and he's been highly successful at doing that in so many of God's people. We're busy trying to survive and have little if any idea that He has created us to thrive, to know and experience His abundant life now. There is no waiting list in order to enter in. We need only to believe and receive. We may believe, but we stumble at believing we can actually receive His fullness and life. We live under the weight of life's challenges instead of above them in Christ.

Where in your life and thinking has the enemy conditioned you to settle for little of His life when He desires that you have it to the full? Can you dare to both believe and receive? Can you dare to believe extravagantly and be set free from living as a pauper in His land of abundance? Perhaps its as simple a thing as praying the words of the father who came to Christ on behalf of his dying daughter. He asked for healing while struggling to believe Christ could heal her. He confessed, "Lord, I do believe. Help me in my unbelief." Let us admit and pray the same. Let us come to live in an extravagant faith that yields an extravagant life.

Blessings,
Pastor O