How to Receive God’s Promises
6 Steps to Experience God’s Life-Giving Words
Receiving God’s promises is one of the biggest keys to living the abundant life. The big question is how do we do it? The Bible gives us powerful insights on how to receive those life-changing promises.
The Promises of God Give Us the Life of God
We know that one of Jesus’ greatest emphasis was abundant, eternal life.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever would believe in Him would have eternal life.” John 3:16
“The thief comes only to kill, steal, and destroy: I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
It is the will of God that all of us have eternal, abundant life now and forever.
How Do We Receive Eternal, Abundant Life?
2 Peter 1:3–4 gives some of the clearest, best insights on how God gives us abundant life. Let’s read it and then break it down into chewable bites.
“seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”
- We become partakers of God’s nature (abundant, eternal life) by God’s promises. God’s word carries His life and power, His seed, so when we receive His words, His promises, His nature is sown into us.
God’s promises come directly out of His own glory and excellence. God’s promises are filled with specific aspects of His nature. The more we build those promises into our souls, the more we plant and water them, the more we will eventually receive them.
2. In the spiritual dimension God has already given us everything we need for life and godliness. Ephesians 1:3 says that God has already blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ.
God has no lack in any area. In Jesus He has already given us absolutely everything we will need in our heavenly, spiritual account. (Yes, you have a heavenly account with your name on it.)
You may be thinking, “that’s great, but I need help now, on earth.” Remember, Jesus taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
You are praying in line with God’s will when you pray for those heavenly blessings to come to earth in your life and the lives of the people you are praying for.
3. Everything that pertains to life and godliness comes through “the true knowledge” of God through Jesus. Jesus is the key to everything in the abundant life, including God’s promises.
2 Corinthians 1:20 “For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us.”
The better you get to know Jesus, the more you’ll learn how to receive God’s promises in His timing. It’s always a relationship with Jesus and it’s always through God’s word that we receive and grow….Always!
4. Seeing is key to receiving. “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us….” There are at least 2 types of sight: natural sight and spiritual sight. When we “see” spiritually, it means we get it. We understand that in the spiritual realm these things are already ours and God wants us to experience them.
Again, this is why getting God’s word inside us is so important. To receive God’s promises we first need to know what they are and that God wants us to experience them: that is why He gave them.
5. God wants us to receive His promises. No one forced God to give us these amazing promises. There was never a negotiation where a human representative said, “We’ll believe in You and follow You if you give us several thousand of the following promises.” Nothing like that happened.
God decided He wanted us to have them. God’s promises are a living expression of His glory and excellence, they come directly out of who He is and what He wants to happen. It is God’s will that we receive His promises.
This gives us faith.
6. We receive God’s promises by some expression of faith. So then, how do we move those promises from the spiritual realm to our experience?
It almost always includes some expression of diligent faith. “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises of God.” Hebrews 6:11–12
Once you know that God’s promise applies to you and your situation (you learn that through studying the Bible and learning to listen to the Holy Spirit), then you take the appropriate step of faith and receive it, first in your heart, and then in time, it comes in your experience. (Mark 11:24)
By faith; that means before you see the answer or experience it, you receive the promise as true in your heart. You then stay diligent in trusting God during that waiting period. At the right time, “through faith and patience” you will inherit the promises of God.
Dealing with Your Inner Timer
The fight of faith that we will all face is continuing to believe when it takes longer than we think it should. Every now and then God manifests His promise sooner than we anticipated. But almost always, the promise comes much slower than we want.
I’ve seen in my life and in working with lots of good people, most of us have an inner, subconscious timer. We might not even be aware of it, but if our waiting time, our patience capacity is crossed, then we give up. We stop believing.
Does God answer prayers when we stop believing? Sometimes. But most of the time our continued faith plays an important role. *Take a look at Romans 4:16–24 regarding Abraham’s faith.
Developing faith in us is one of God’s biggest goals, so learning to keep believing over longer periods of time is something God takes us all through.
That’s another important teaching, I cover elsewhere.
But for today, remember.
- We receive the divine nature through God’s promises.
- In the spiritual dimension we already have everything we need.
- It all comes through Jesus.
- Seeing is key to receiving.
- God wants us to receive.
- We receive by some expression of diligent faith in God’s timing.
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