Convinced, Embraced, Confessed
What to do with God’s promises
(Hebrews 11:13) These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.
We see in Hebrews 11 that God revealed promises to particular groups of people, just like He does with you and me. Hebrews 11:13 tells us these people did three very powerful things with the revelation they received …they were persuaded (convinced), they embraced, and they confessed.
Persuaded
They were persuaded…they became convinced of the promises and that it was for them…How? It took faith for them to believe what they were being told was for them. Its no different with you and me.
Don’t ever discount that verse of Scripture that your attention is drawn to. That one passage or verse that you have probably read or heard many times before but this time you sense something about it or are drawn to it. It might be that you are supposed to grab that promise by faith and make it yours. You’ve seen it for a reason!
So…being persuaded or convinced that the promise was for them led them to the next step…embracing that promise.
Embraced
Embrace… It’s a powerful word and it means to hold with great purpose… to behold!
Embracing means they came into union with these promises. They drew the promise near to them. They developed a closeness with the promise, and it became a part of them. They relied on the promise.
Embracing promises can take on a couple of different forms and I can point to promises in my life that reflect these two types of embraces:
A Saving Embrace – Like when your drowning and someone throws you a life jacket. Embracing and holding on for dear life, because without it, you might not make it! That’s similar to a promise of Deliverance.
A Comforting Embrace – Like when you see someone you love dearly that you haven’t seen for a while and you embrace them with joy and a sweetness that brings a peace and calm in just having them there close to you. – That’s similar to a promise of Sustainment.
After they were persuaded and embraced the promises, they did something that I think we can tend to struggle with…they confessed.
Confessed
They spoke out loud the outcome of the promises…they confessed what they were persuaded to believe and what they had embraced.
Fear and doubt will stop this from happening. Questions like “What if I’m wrong?” or “What if he doesn’t deliver” or “What will people say?” will keep you quiet.
I asked a number of people once what their biggest fears were when it came to stepping out by faith and exploring what God was showing them. The first was the fear that if they were wrong that God would punish them for it…the second was an overarching fear of what other Christians would think or say if they shared what God was showing them.
The way to defeat the first fear is to explore and study how God looks at you. How he feels towards you. This should resolve that fear pretty quickly. God is not against you He is FOR you, and you can read through some of the posts on this blog to show you Scripture to support this.
The way to overcome the second fear is to look at what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5. Paul says that what he spoke—what was revealed to him by God—was not shared to rely on human wisdom. Instead, he spoke through a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that our faith would not be based on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. This is how testimonies are made!
The confession of the promise doesn’t stop there. The natural progression of the fulfillment of any promise is that it becomes a testimony. A testimony of God’s love, mercy, presence and power.
Don’t ever underestimate the power of your testimony. It brings glory to God and it can be a strengthening to someone who is in need. Matthew 5:13-16 tells us we are the salt of the earth, the light of the world and to let our light shine before men, that they may see our good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. Thats the power of your testimony!
Connecting Faith and the Power of the Spoken Words of God
Did you know that the Bible tells us to speak that which we believe about what God reveals to us?
“(2 Corinthians 4:13) We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe and therefore speak….”
I want to show you an example from Scripture of the power of the spoken Word of God, and it’s the Lord Jesus who shows us this in Matthew 4 when Satan tempts Jesus in the wilderness.
Jesus gives us the example of how to fight the spiritual battle.
There are two very important things to see in this event for us to learn from.
Firstly, Satan was defeated by Scripture (notice the phrase…It is written) and secondly The Lord spoke Scripture out loud… “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone…”
Take a close look at this event and you will see that it was not a mental battle where Jesus just thought the Devils attack away…no …He spoke the Word of God (the truth) …He verbalised it. The Word of God was His chosen weapon to defeat Satan and we as His children have INHERITED this. In fact, The Lord tells us this in Ephesians 6:17.
The Sword of the Spirit – not just thinking it but speaking it aloud.
(Eph 6:17) And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word (rhema) of God:
The word…”word” in the Greek is Rhema which means utterance, spoken word.
The only weapon mentioned in the Armour of God is the sword. You can defend with it, but a sword is primarily designed for attacking!
The Power of verbalising the promise
Proverbs 18:21 tells us “death and life are in the power of the tongue“. You bring to life in you the promises God gives you through confessing them. You defeat Satan’s attacks on those promises by verbalising them. Jesus showed us that’s how we fight the battle.
Revelation reveals what faith must explore
A close friend of mine and Pastor of Open Door Bible Church, Paul Stephenson, said this once and it never left me…Revelation reveals what faith must explore…as God reveals these promises to us, we are supposed to explore them by faith. Exploring His Word without fear leads to being persuaded, then embracing and then confessing the promises He shows us.
The Lord reveals to us (wants us to know – to properly see and behold) the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe (Ephesians 1:19). He doesn’t just want us to have academic knowledge, He wants us to experience His power through His promises because when we do, we become partakers of His divine nature.
