The Holy Ghost Said!
Well, Do It Then
During the summer before I attended Rhema, we went to Kenneth Hagin's Campmeeting in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My youngest daughter was almost four years old and we were taking her to a children's class while we attended the morning service in the auditorium. On the way to her class, we passed a concession booth and she asked for some popcorn because you could smell it. I told her that there wasn't time to eat it before class, but I would get her some after class. I went on to the main service and forgot all about it. When I picked her up after the service and we were walking down the hall, my daughter said, "Daddy, didn't you promise to get me some popcorn after the class?" I said, "Yes." To which she replied, "Well, do it then." I walked straight to the concession booth and bought her some popcorn without any other conversation.
The Holy Spirit has echoed a child's four simple words in my ears many times since that day. "Well, do it then." I have always taught my children to be a person of their word, and my daughter knew it. When a person keeps their word, you don't have to beg them to do what they said, you only have to remind them sometimes. There is no other being who keeps his word as faithful as God. We just need to learn what he has said and simply in child-like faith remind him, "Well, do it then." If I, as a natural man, will straightway respond to a child's four simple words, how much more will God do for us the things that he said that he would do. He has given us many exceeding great and precious promises and wants to perform every one of them, but we must know what he has promised us and in faith ask him to perform those promises.
We don't have to beg and plead with God for him to keep his word. We don't have to get a big prayer chain going and try to get enough people to persuade him. We don't even have to find some great spiritual minister to ask him on our behalf. We just need to come to a knowledge of what belongs to us (those things that he has promised us already belong to us even if we don't currently see them) and ask him for them in faith believing that he will do it. We must then remain in faith, knowing that the answer is on the way until we see the full manifestation of it. How foolish it would have been for my daughter to have started begging for me to get her some popcorn on the way to the concession booth when I had already said yes. That's what many Christians do. They annul their faith by begging God to do what he initially said yes to, just because they don't see it immediately. Once they annul their faith, the answer is no longer on the way unless they go back and pick up their faith.