In this season of celebration and joy, it is quite likely that you may be at a crossroad in some area of life.
For some, that crossroad may involve job insecurity, depression and loneliness, sickness or despair over debt and lack. Others might be at the point of decision concerning the next step of faith to take into the vision and calling of God on their lives.
Whatever that crossroad is, you may be wondering how God will bring you through. Just as Jesus’ mother, Mary, asked in Luke 1:34: “How shall this be?”
You remember the story. Luke 1:31 tells us the angel Gabriel announced to her “Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus.”
That’s when Mary asked, “How shall this be, seeing I know no man?”
Gabriel answered, “ The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (verse 35).
The angel then told her that Elisabeth, her elderly cousin who had been barren, had also conceived, finishing with the statement: “For with God nothing shall be impossible” (verse 37).
At that point Mary reached a crossroad. She had to decide if she would agree or disagree with the word she had just heard. Mary’s response was “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (verse 38).
Let’s focus on two words in Mary’s response. Two words that can set an anchor for your faith that no man, situation or lie of the devil can ever shake.
Two words that, spoken in the face of what seems could never be, can give birth to the impossible.
The Power of “According to…”
The two words we are talking about are the words “according to.” In fact, the same words are used in Romans 4:18-21 to describe how Abraham became fully persuaded concerning the promise that even though he was 100 and Sarah, 90, God would give them a son:
Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.
Notice how important the phrase “according to” in verse 18 is to Abraham becoming “fully persuaded” in verse 21.
Think for just a moment about the importance of fully persuaded faith. The fact is, the Christmas story is really about so much more than Jesus as a baby. It’s about fully persuaded faith. It was a fully persuaded faith that brought Jesus into the earth from all the glories of heaven and all the royalties of the universe and beyond. It was by a fully
It was a fully persuaded faith that caused Jesus to be able to stand in the presence of those who sought to take His life and walk fully protected out of their midst.
persuaded faith that Jesus walked in His mortal body and remained victorious over sin. It was a fully persuaded faith that caused Him to be able to stand in the presence of those who sought to take His life and walk fully protected out of their midst.
It was a fully persuaded faith that took Him to the cross where He laid His life down. By fully persuaded faith Jesus turned His own Spirit being over to the hands of the enemy, descended into the depths of hell, was subject to the torment of death and all that hell could offer for three days and three nights. And it was a fully persuaded faith that raised Him from the bowels of the earth, triumphant over death, hell and the grave.
Obviously we need to know where that kind of faith comes from.
And thank God, Jesus told us in Mark 11:22 when He said to “Have faith in God.” Or as most margin notes tell us, “Have the God kind of faith.” And the God kind of faith is fully persuaded.
This kind of faith does not operate apart from God and His Word. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17). Faith apart from God is unreliable; it’s vague and subject to whatever it hears or sees. It is moved and motivated in some way by circumstances.
But the faith of God, moved by the Word of God, is not influenced by circumstances, but rather controls them. It changes circumstances and makes the outside things become what God says they should be.
A person who walks in the God kind of faith not only speaks the Word at times when there is trouble or need, but rather ALL he speaks is in line with the Word of God.
Fully persuaded faith is not moved by feelings, symptoms or signs. Fully persuaded faith is only moved by the Word of God and what God has to say until the signs and the symptoms are changed.
A person who walks in the God kind of faith not only speaks the Word at times when there is trouble or need, but rather all that he speaks is in line with the Word of God.
That’s what we see in the Romans 8 description of the faith of Abraham. It said he was hoping against hope. That tells us that what he faced was, in the natural realm, an impossible situation.
What we want to know is how did Abraham become so fully persuaded in what God said that no one could talk him out of it, no one could keep him back from it, and no one could discourage him in it?
A major part of the answer begins with the two words “according to” that we read in verse 18.
The Importance of Hearty Agreement
Do you remember what we said about fully persuaded faith being anchored to something? Our English expression according to means “in accordance with something.”
Abraham was believing in accordance with something God had done. He was believing in accordance with that which was spoken, that which God declared. His faith was anchored to God’s Word.
If we look further at the English root for accord we find it means “agreement.” Numerous times the book of Acts describes the early believers as being “with one accord.” They were all in hearty agreement. They were in wholehearted, total and complete agreement. There was no room for anything else to come in.
Several years ago, Terri and I found ourselves in a place where we had to be in that kind of agreement. After much discussion and prayer, we made the decision to pay off our house, then sow it into a family. Though we were both willing to do it from the time we first discussed it, it took two years of us praying about it, working together and talking to each other before we were in hearty agreement about it.
Then one day over the Atlantic Ocean on a flight back from England, George said, “Terri, I believe we are ready to sow our home now.”
“I believe we are too.”
We were not in passive agreement. We had reached a point where there was no wavering about it. There was no, “Oh yeah, whatever, whenever” about it. We were finally in total, solid agreement with each other.
There’s nothing more powerful on earth than a husband and wife in agreement with each other. It raises up an impenetrable shield against the devil. When a husband and wife stand in total agreement over their children, their home and their finances, it devastates his plans. There’s nothing more powerful on earth.
When we got in agreement with each other, there was no two ways about it. The matter was settled. The devil tried to get in there and cause one of us to waver from time to time, but when one started to waver the other one would say, “Hey, listen. Remember what we committed before God? We are in agreement with each other.”
Hearty agreement is a heartfelt, deep agreement that allows for nothing else to come in, nothing else to sway you and nothing else to push you off the stand that you have made in faith.
Look again at Abraham. What was he so fully persuaded about? What was he in hearty agreement with God about, to the point that nothing could move him?
He was in agreement with God’s promise of, “So shall thy seed be.”
Receive the Engrafted Word
We saw the same thing in Mary’s life. The angel told her something impossible was about to happen in her body. At that crossroad in her life, she chose to believe the Word from God rather than the circumstances. She chose to take her stand “according to” that word.
James 1:21 calls this process receiving the engrafted Word: “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.” To receive the engrafted Word is to say “I agree with what God is saying about me wholeheartedly, totally. I agree with what God has already said and done for me.”
Mary had every opportunity to say, “But God, I don’t know how You’re going to do this. I don’t know how this thing can possibly happen.” But she refused to take that opportunity.
Notice that James says to “receive with meekness the engrafted Word.” We tend to associate the word meekness with some form of weakness. But it does not mean that at all. It means to receive it without debate, without question and without resistance.
Mary had every opportunity to say, “But God, I don’t know how You’re going to do this. I don’t know how this thing can possibly happen.” But she refused to take that opportunity. Instead, she received what God said through the angel without resistance.
Her response was, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord! Be it unto me….I agree with Your Word. Let it be unto me as I agree with the Word.” She received with meekness the engrafted word.
God Is for You
Right now, establish in your heart that God is for you, not against you, and receive the engrafted Word. Like Abraham, take that place of saying only what God says about you in His Word.
Just say out loud right now: “With meekness and without doubt, question or debate, I receive God’s Word for my life and for the need that I am dealing with right now. It does not matter what my body is trying to tell me. It does not matter what my mind is trying to tell me. It does not matter what my circumstances are trying to tell me. I agree totally, wholeheartedly with God and His Word and I don’t agree with the devil.”
Set yourself to agree with, think about and say only what God has said…all the time. Make the decision you will not agree with the enemy.
When you hear the voice of the devil—the accuser of the brethren—telling you that you are going to fail, you are not going to make it, you are not going to achieve anything in your life….
See God standing over on the other side saying, “The good work that was started in you—I’m going to perfect it. I’m going to develop it. I’m going to bring it to full maturity to the day of Jesus Christ.”
And as you are standing in the middle of this debate, listening to the devil’s accusations and God’s promises, address the devil and say, “I agree with God.”
It’s not a time to step into the devil’s party and buy into his lies that You’re not going to make it. You’re not going to get through. This thing’s not going to come to pass. It’s not time to agree with what he says about you.
It’s time to enter the rest and peace that comes only from choosing agreement with God. God is on your side and wants you to experience victory in every area.
So don’t quit. Don’t lay down your faith. And don’t cast away your fearless profession and confession of faith. Whatever it is that you’re facing, God will bring you through it as long as you stand and believe.
Remember Gabriel’s words to Mary, “Nothing is impossible with God.” Take that place of being fully persuaded—of being in total, hearty agreement with what God, and God alone, has said about you and your situation.
Whatever crossroad you are at right now, declare, “Let it be unto me according to Your Word.”
And give birth to the impossible!
~ by Pastors George and Terri Pearsons
