Perseverance produces fruit

Success, prosperity, power, wisdom etc. We all want it and we all expect God to give us those things. In most of the charismatic movements around the world, they teach the people that they can claim (in faith) whatever they want. A lot of people were being taught that way. As a result, those people started to do those things. Sad enough, they do not realize that the motivation and the focus are totally wrong. So many do claim those things and see nothing happen. They start to feel disappointed and sometimes think that God only gives to His favorite children, to which they think they don’t belong. The people who are living their Christian life like this have a basic problem, which is that the success, prosperity and all those things became the goal itself. Even if God would bless you – in His mercy – with those things, you still miss the most important thing of all: the intimate personal relationship with God. In this study I’m going to tell you why and I’ll also tell you how you can receive all those things that you long for.

Back in 2003 I was sitting in Church, reading my Bible. I was reading Matthew 7. My general attitude towards the Bible was (and is) that I believe every word it says. But at this point I became confused. These verses were telling me things I already did, but I didn’t saw any results. That really confused me and I tried so hard to understand why I didn’t saw anything happen. It was in that time that I just started to receive education about the Holy Spirit and the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Those things were very new to me, since I just started to visit that (charismatic) Church and because I went to a more traditional Church in the years before. It was a whole new world for me and I started to learn a lot of very interesting things. But at this point I just couldn’t figure it out. These were the verses I was reading over and over again in my Bible:

Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 7:7-12

Those are all awesome words, but I tried all that. Sure I wanted to believe it, but I couldn’t understand it. But then the Holy Spirit started to help me. Suddenly I saw the important detail I was missing here: perseverance. It was like my Bible was changing before my eyes, until it said this:

Keep on asking, and it will be given to you; keep on seeking, and you will find; keep on knocking, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who keeps asking receives, and he who keeps seeking finds, and to him who keeps knocking it will be opened.

All that time I actually expected instant results, because that was what these verses were telling me at first. But when the Holy Spirit started to add His details to it, it suddenly started to make sense. I was so enthusiastic about all those new things that I was learning, that I thought that God was some sort of vending machine. If I only asked Him, He would give right away. It is true that God shall give us when we pray, but the key in all this was and is perseverance.

Why is perseverance important?

Every human being is born with a natural desire to be independent. That is our carnal nature. That attitude, which we are all born with, is an attitude where it’s all about your own desires. It’s all about you, what you want, what you feel, what you need etc. As we all know, being a Christian means that it is no longer about you, but about God and about our neighbors. It means that we serve others, instead of asking people to serve us. But is also means that we surrender our feeling to be independent, to become totally dependent on God.

In Matthew 6, Jesus was talking about motivation and about our attitude. He continues to talk about that until Matthew 7:1-6. Then He suddenly starts to talk about the verses mentioned above. It’s almost like He is playing hide and seek. But what does perseverance produce in our lives? It shows the one thing that has an eternal value: our character. The way we deal with circumstances in our life, is a fruit of our character. That fruit shows you if you really are dependent on Him or not. Character comes forth from our motivation and it is that motivation that matters to God.

The things we see are not the only things there are. There is a huge spiritual world all around us, which most of us cannot see. In that spiritual world there are two camps, the camp of the army of God and the camp of the army of satan. The battle is about one thing only: souls. The battlefield is our mind, our thoughts. That’s where it all starts. The Holy Spirit can and will give you thoughts of God, while satan will try to inject your thoughts with his lies. This happens with every human being, no matter how spiritual they are. Both camps will always offer you thoughts. That is something you can’t prevent from happening. It also isn’t something to be scared about. At the moment that thoughts are offered to you, nothing changed yet. At that moment they are still thoughts and nothing more. But at that moment you need to make a choice. Do you allow the thoughts to enter? Do you choose to believe the thoughts? There is one thing I always remembered from the books of Derek Prince. He said the following:

"You can not prevent a bird from sitting on your head, but you can prevent that it starts to build a nest there."

That’s how it works with those thoughts that are offered to you. You can’t prevent that the enemy offers his lies to you. But you can prevent that those lies become effective in your life, simply by rejecting these thoughts. What you choose to believe determines what your motivation will be. Everything starts with a word. That can be a word of God or a word of satan. But how do you know if a thought comes from God or from satan? You have two sources to test the thoughts: The Bible and the Author of the Bible, the Holy Spirit. When it comes to thoughts, there is one verse that clearly shows Gods thoughts:

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Jeremiah 29:11

Every thought that claims otherwise is from satan. That is just one example. The Bible shows us many examples of Gods thoughts and attitude towards us. There is only one way to find out what God thinks about you. Keep asking God to reveal His truth to you. Keep on seeking in His word to find the answers. Keep on knocking at His door. If you really want it, you need to push through. You need perseverance.

Like I said before, everything starts with a word. These words are presented to you in your thoughts. You decide what you believe. That what you choose to believe, becomes your motivation. Your motivation will become a stronghold (a good stronghold or a bad one) that protects what you believe. That will determine the words that you will speak. The Bible teaches that every spoken word has power. These words will become your deeds. Your deeds will become your habits. Your habits will become your character. Your character determines what you will be in eternity. Do you see how important it is? It all starts in the battlefield of your mind.

It all sounds very simple, but in fact it truly is very simple. When we choose to believe God’s thoughts over us, it will produce the right motivation and character. Why do you think that Jesus was able to resist satan? Please take the time to read in Matthew 4 how Jesus dealt with satan. Why was he able to resist satan? Because He knew His Father, He know Who He was and He knew what is written in God’s word. That’s why satan couldn’t fool or tempt Jesus. How did Jesus knew all these things? Because He had a personal and intimate relationship with His Father and because He studied the word of God. Yes, He was and is the Son of God, but at that time He was a human like you and me. That means that He had to do the same things as we need to do, to be defensible against the enemy. The more you seek, the more secrets of God will be revealed to you. Every lie of satan can only be destroyed by using God’s truth against it. When you seek God, it is His truth that will be revealed to you. With every revelation of His truth, you’ll become less vulnerable and more defensible.

Why do we have to search?

Now the question remains why God doesn’t give His truth right away, from the start. That would be a lot easier. Why do we have to seek for it? Why do we have to ask Him all the time? The point is that God does give His truth right away, from the start. But He is not the only one Who starts to share His heart with you. At the same time, satan will start to inject his lies as well. Sounds easy right? How hard can it be to separate the truth of God from the lies of satan? The truth of God is the opposite of what satan tells us, right? Well… if that would be the case, it would be easy indeed. If someone always tells the truth, then you know what to expect from that person. If someone always lies to you, then you know what to expect from that person. But when someone sometimes lies and sometimes tells the truth, you’ll never know what to expect from that person. Wait a minute. Do you tell us that satan tells the truth as well? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. That is a part of his strategy. We have to realize that satan knows the Bible better then we do. He will tell you a lot of God’s truth, so it all sounds very acceptable to you, but then he will suddenly add a small lie to it. It’s the same as drinking a glass of pure water. There’s nothing wrong with the water. Then someone suddenly adds one drop of poison to it. Can you take that drop out and drink the water safely afterwards? No, you can’t. At the moment the drop of poison was added, all the water was poisoned.

When satan came to Jesus, to tempt Him in the desert, he didn’t lie to Him in the first place. In fact he used God’s word, and the things he was mentioning were written in the Bible. This is what happened:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And when He had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterward He was hungry. Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.

But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’” Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone.’” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the LORD your God.’” Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the LORD your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” Then the devil left Him, and behold, angels came and ministered to Him.

Matthew 4:1-11

Satan started with “if you are the Son of God”. The first thing he usually tries to do is to make you doubt. Of course he knew that Jesus was the Son of God, but he wanted to confuse Jesus. Directly after that he challenged Him to show His power. The remarkable thing is that Jesus did not respond to the “if you are the Son of God” part. Jesus ignored that comment of satan. He didn’t try to prove to satan that He is the Son of God, He just told satan what is written (Deuteronomy 8:3). Immediately satan responds back with something else that is written in the Bible as well. Did satan lie to Jesus? Did he told him something different then what is actually written? No. What he said is indeed written in the Bible (Psalm 91:11,12). At this point many Christians of today would fail, because they just don’t know how to respond in such a situation.

You can have the word of God and you can know all of it, but without the help (baptism with) the Holy Spirit, you will fail this test. That’s why Jesus didn’t got this test before He was baptised in the Holy Spirit. But even when you are baptised in the Holy Spirit it is important to work together with Him to find the answers you need. Those answers can only be found when you have a personal intimate relationship with Him. God is telling you the truth, He does that all the time. But at the same time, satan is spreading his lies as well. It’s like two radio stations which are broadcasting at the same time at the same frequency. The only way to know what voice you should listen to, is to learn to know God’s voice. So spent time in His presence, search for His presence and sit at His feet, waiting for Him to reveal His truth to you. The more time you spent in His presence, the more familiar you’ll become with His voice, the easier it becomes to recognize His voice among all the others. I want to encourage you to keep on asking God, keep on knocking on God’s door and to keep searching until you’ve got what you came for. Whatever you do, never ever ever give up!