22. Start Now

Chapter 22

Start Now For he saith, At an acceptable time I hearkened unto thee, And in a day of salvation did I succor (help) thee: behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2).

Everyone is waiting on the Lord to move. He hearkened and, in a day of salvation, He saved us. Now is our acceptable time to act on that salvation. Now is our day of salvation from the entire curse. Jesus conquered the devil and his kingdom in His day. (John 12:31) Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out. (John 16:33) …In the world ye have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. In other words, be happy because of the good news that this wicked world has been conquered. It is now under the feet of the true body of Christ. (Ephesians 1:22-23) And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him to be head over all things to the church, (23) which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

What is needed now is for those who believe to act on the authority of the Word, using God’s power to manifest what happened at the cross. (Romans 8:13) For if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Notice that we act by the power of the Spirit. The Spirit’s power is available to all who act on the Word. (2 Corinthians 7:1) Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Jesus made it plain that we are not to be waiting on His coming in the harvest to accomplish His work. (John 4:35-36) Say not ye, There are yet four months, and [then] cometh the harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest. (36) He that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal….

It is really easy for us to just depend upon the world and the world’s way of doing things, but wilderness times are coming that will make this impossible. “The righteous shall live by faith,” which is a radical departure from the normal, everyday “Christian” life. We should learn to do things with our faith for no other reason than to grow in the authority and experience of righteous living. You can start in areas that you may think make no difference, except that the Lord wants to train every one of us to be vessels to bring salvation, deliverance, healing, and provision to ourselves and those who believe. When we use our faith, we learn that God honors His Word, and we will begin to step out a little more. Each success is laying a foundation for following successes so that you know you can reach out your faith to command the provision of God. The day will come when your experience will save lives, as it has for me.

I share with you here some of my early experiences, not to glory in self, but Christ; for we have nothing that we did not receive from Him (1 Corinthians 4:7). As a young Christian, I asked the Lord to take me by the hand and to teach me how to be His disciple. I truly felt that He walked with me to teach me. I had been studying faith and was eager to exercise it. Don Robertson, the man who witnessed to me, and I were going water skiing. We started my car to hitch up the boat and noticed a noise under the hood. We opened it and found that the alternator shaft was wobbling because a bearing had gone out. Don said, “What are we going to do?” I said, “Let’s command it to be fixed and go skiing by faith.” Don agreed, so we put our fingers on the noisy alternator and commanded it to be healed in the name of Jesus. We slammed the hood, hooked up the boat, and took off for Old River, which was about an hour’s drive. By this time, it had started to cloud up and lightning in the direction we were going. Then I realized that this was another good opportunity to see God’s wondrous works. I said to Don, “Let’s point our fingers at those clouds and tell them to get out of our way.” We spoke the command together. As we drove, the clouds parted. We could see clouds out both side windows and blue sky out the windshield for several miles in front of our car. We rejoiced in the Lord! When we reached False River, on the way to Old River, we had to slow down because of the settlement. It was then that we noticed that there was no noise coming from under the hood. Don said, “Stop the car! I want to see this!” We opened the hood, and that alternator was running perfectly true and smooth with no noise. Glory to God, I never did change that alternator! We had to go left toward Old River, so we were turning into the clouds that had parted. We repeated our demand and the clouds parted in a perpendicular direction, ruling out natural wind currents. God was making a point. We had a beautiful, sunny day for skiing but we could see the clouds in almost every direction. Some would think that it is unimportant to Almighty God whether we had a nice day for skiing or not. It is important to Him for our training, experience, and sometimes just for our enjoyment.

Once, on my way to pick up my daughter, Deborah, from church kindergarten, my car died about three blocks from the school. I cranked the car until the battery died. Not wanting to be late, I started walking. The sky was dark with black rolling clouds and immediately the bottom fell out of those clouds. A voice in my head said, “Why don’t you command that rain to stop?” I lifted my hand and swung it horizontally at those clouds and said, “STOP, in the name of Jesus.” The rain stopped as though I had taken a knife and cut it off across the sky. Encouraged, I picked up Deborah and told her the story as we walked back. I said, “If God can do that, He can also start that car. When we get there we are going to lay our hands on the dash and command it to start in Jesus’ name.” We got in, laid our hands on the dash and said, “START, in the name of Jesus.” I turned the key and held it on. At first the battery had built up a little so it spun over pretty well, but the longer I held it, the weaker it got. The starter spun over until it would spin no more, and still I held the key on. After a moment of holding the key on with a dead battery, it suddenly started like it had two batteries in it. I know that the Lord did it that way so that I would know it was of Him. Looking back, I was so pumped up from the Lord cutting off the rain that I am surprised every car in the city did not start when we gave the command. Glory to God! He takes us by the hand and encourages us along the way.

I hope this has blessed you. Go with God.