God has already given us His blessings. Faith is what releases that which has been given by the finished work of the Cross.
“To activate the Word, we have to apply faith,” said the senior pastor of City Harvest Church, Kong Hee, as he opened his message on the weekend of Jun 4 and 5.
Kong’s message on the power of the Word of God began with Galatians 3:5, which says, “Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”
“When God works miracles among us, He does it ‘by the hearing of faith’,” says Kong.
Galatians 3:13-14 continues, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith’.”
Kong encouraged the congregation to apply their faith to activate the power of God’s Word. He pointed out that faith is a spiritual force inside every believer that comes from the Word of God. The more they have the Word, the more faith is produced. And if they can believe with faith, then all things are possible.
What exactly is a blessing?
“Blessing is the empowerment of God upon us to succeed, it is the power of God in us to be productive, the anointing on us [that causes] divine favor or preferential treatment [to] flow, and it is the covenant of God that overrides any curse upon us,” Kong explained.
Proverbs 10:22 in the New International Version says “The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it.”
Kong reminded the congregation from his recent series on resting in God that there is no toil or hard labor when they work with God. They don’t have to sacrifice their health, marriage, family and time for God in order to survive.
Referencing Genesis 2:7 and Genesis 1:27, Kong said that Man is created in God’s image and Adam is the exact duplicate of God on this earth. Hence, God’s original purpose is for Man to be like Him and for the world to be a duplicate of heaven.
Kong went on to explain that because of sin, death came into the world. Satan wants to limit Man by keeping him away from having faith. Hence, believers can be saved but still have a carnal and defeated mindset. The good news is that Jesus came so that mankind can be saved and the kingdom of God is now inside every believer, said the preacher. Kong also reminded the congregation that in John 14:12, Jesus said that believers will do even greater works than Him if they believe.
Kong went on to share a story on a miracle healing witnessed by the late evangelist R W Schambach, who served in a healing crusade conducted by A A Allen, recognized as one of the greatest healing evangelists of this century.
A woman came to the crusade with her 4-year-old son who was severely deformed from birth and had 26 major diseases and disorders. Allen asked the entire congregation of over 3,000 people to close their eyes and focus their faith, believing God for 26 different miracles for this child. As they prayed, the boy’s crippled arms and legs straightened, his toes and eyes grew out, and he was no longer deaf and mute! The boy was later pronounced medically cured of all 26 diseases.
“If Jesus can grow limbs, we can do it too,” Kong said. “We need to start believing by faith in the impossible, because faith feeds on the impossible. For us to come into the impossible, we can’t just live by information, we need revelation.”
The senior pastor then read from 2 Corinthians 3:18, “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”
“The word of God is a powerful mirror that reminds us of what who we are in Jesus Christ,” said Kong. “When we look into the mirror of God’s Words, we will be transformed into the same image, the image of Jesus Christ.”
Ephesians 1:3 says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Kong shared that believers already have and will continue to have all the blessings from God, so it is a matter of taking it by faith.
“God has blessed us, the Bible says,” he reminded the crowd. “It’s already done! The blessing is already in the spiritual realm inside of us. Our life is about us releasing what God has already done and given to us.”
The reason people forget God’s Word is because they only renew their mind on the conscious level, he said. Kong encouraged the congregation to renew the “spirit of our minds”, that is, their subconscious mind.
He gave the example of how a new driver would be very conscious when driving a car for the first time but once he got used to it, he could drive somewhere without even thinking about it.
“This is what I’m talking about, we can meditate and renew our mind with the Word to a point where it automatically comes out of us,” said Kong.
Kong closed the message by encouraging the church to have faith and acknowledge God (Philemon 1:6) in all their ways. Whatever they are believing God for, they need to have a revelation that His promises are true so that the blessings can be transferred from the spiritual realm into the physical realm.
The message strengthened its listeners. “I was encouraged hearing about the 26 miracles of the little boy,” said church member Serene Ng, 38, a business development manager. “I believe sicknesses are definitely not God’s plan and I’m going to claim total healing in Jesus’s name!”
Sales support executive Joyce Teo, 50, told City News, “I never realised the Bible is the mirror of God’s words. I have to remind myself to keep looking into this ‘mirror’, to remember His words, and to live by his revelation and not on my own knowledge.”
