What Matters Now

"If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." The concept is simple but the process is challenging. It’s like saying, “If you can exercise, you can get in shape.” You know you can exercise but can you continue to exercise? The exercise you did in years ago won’t help you now, nor will just having the knowledge of. You’ve exercised before and believed before, but it’s not what you believed but what you believe that matters now.

When the Word comes faith comes and then the enemy comes. He comes immediately to take away the Word that was sown. Initially most people receive the Word with gladness. It’s like getting new gym equipment delivered to your house. There’s excitement in the potential but are you prepared for the challenge? Tribulation and persecution will come for the Word’s sake. If you will hold onto your faith and resist the resistance you will get stronger day by day. And if not it will probably end up in the second hand store.

Attics get filled with exercise equipment and Christians get filled with dusty old faith. Then when a battle comes they retract to the recesses of their mind to try to find something to fight with. But it’s not what you knew but what you know that matters now.

“Now faith - is the substance of things hoped for”… not then faith. That was then but this is now. And it’s not if you believed then all things are possible to him who believed but what Jesus said is "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes." Believing is a present tense conviction of the truth of God’s Word.

John 8:31-32
31 Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, "If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
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You see, Jesus told those who “believed” that they needed to “abide” so they could “know” and be free. What you think about is what abides in your mind and becomes what you know. And what you know determines how your life goes. And it’s not the fight you fought but the fight you fight that matters now.

Mark 9:23
23 Jesus said to him, "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes."
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2 Tim 4:7
7 I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
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1 Tim 6:12
12 Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called…
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Mark 4:13-20
13 And He said to them, "Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables? 14 The sower sows the word. 15 And these are the ones by the wayside where the word is sown. When they hear, Satan comes immediately and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. 16 These likewise are the ones sown on stony ground who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with gladness; 17 and they have no root in themselves, and so endure only for a time. Afterward, when tribulation or persecution arises for the word's sake, immediately they stumble. 18 Now these are the ones sown among thorns; they are the ones who hear the word, 19 and the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. 20 But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred."
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Luke 8:15
15 But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bear fruit with patience.
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Heb 10:35-11:2
35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:

37 "For yet a little while,
And He who is coming will come and will not tarry.
38 Now the just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back,
My soul has no pleasure in him."

39 But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

11 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
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Rom 4:16-22
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 17 (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; 18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, "So shall your descendants be." 19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah's womb. 20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
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