Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is there anything too hard for Me? —JEREMIAH 32:27
God is able. In this section we are going to discover how placing our faith in God’s unlimited ability is so much more than merely believing He can or might do something. To walk in breakthrough faith, we need to believe that the able God is also willing. This section is designed to whet your spiritual appetite. By exploring what is revealed in Scripture, my desire is that your paradigm of what God is able to do will dramatically and supernaturally shift. Remember, before we set out to explore God’s willingness, we need to have a clear picture of what He is able to do.
Sadly, the statement “God is able” has become a cheesy, weightless Christian platitude that is often said at the wrong time and delivered without any follow-through.
Going through a difficult time? No worries. God is able.
Face to face with a terminal disease? Hang in there. God is able.
Is your family falling apart? Keep pressing through. God is able.
Have you fallen prey to layoffs, plunging stocks, depleting retirement funds, and a shifting economy? Keep your head up. God is able.
This is not meant to be insensitive toward those who are going through struggles; we just need to start getting real with God and with each other. The belief that God is able is absolutely foundational and fundamental to cultivating breakthrough faith. The problem is not so much in the statement of fact, but rather in the definition we have come to assign this phrase. Basically, we are saying that He can do something—however, whether or not He will is a whole other story.
To walk in breakthrough faith, we need to believe that the able God is also willing.
The problem is that we level God’s ability by bringing it down to earth. We bring Him down to mortal terms, and the “miracles” we assign to His supernatural ability are, oftentimes, a joke. They are subpar exploits compared to what the almighty, omnipotent God is truly capable of accomplishing in our lives and throughout the earth. Where is the generation who will dare to gaze upon His glorious face and behold the One who is truly able “to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think” (Eph. 3:20 NLT)?
In twenty-first-century Christianity, it seems like God is basically able to do whatever we can do. He is able to pay off loans for our church buildings. He is able to grow the youth group. He is able to give us jobs. He is able to pay our bills. He is able to get us out of debt. He is able to modify our behavior—but only to a degree. When we experience one of these victories, we celebrate and call it God. There is nothing wrong with extending credit to Him, as apart from Him we can truly do nothing (see John 15:5). But I do take issue with us labeling everything as a miracle, for by doing so we begin to reduce miracles to what can be accomplished by a combination of wisdom, the fruit of the Spirit, and divine strategy.
The fact that we are able to take our next breath is, in part, a miracle. However, we need to realign our concept of the miraculous with what we read about in the accounts of Scripture. When it comes to what almighty God is able to do, all of us are due for a belief upgrade. It is not about acquiring more and more faith; it is about having a greater vision for what the faith God has already given us is able to produce. This takes place when our source manual for what God is able to do becomes His Word alone.
I don’t care how old the testimonies contained in Scripture are; and I don’t care how outlandish some of them sound to our rational, contemporary minds. I don’t care about the alleged infrequency of “those kinds of miracles” happening in our country or world today. Such facts are quite irrelevant to me. Indeed, these facts are the very stumbling blocks that thwart us from pressing in to receive, experience, and release the supernatural realities that Scripture entitles us to. The Bible is a wonderful book of testimony. It reveals what God has done, and if God has done it, then He can surely do it again. No wonder the psalmist wrote, “My soul keeps Your testimonies, and I love them exceedingly” (Ps. 119:167).
The Bible alone must become our benchmark for what we can legally believe God for. Not a doctrine. Not a church or denomination. Not a spiritual leader. Not a friend or family member. Not a Christian book or a passionately delivered sermon. Scripture is the foundation when it comes to providing a sure list of what we are licensed to believe God for. We believe based on His ability as revealed through the pages of His Word.
God is raising up a generation of men and women who are deeply intimate with God like Paul was, and who, in turn, become conduits for unusual and extraordinary miracles. If Paul performed such miraculous exploits, you and I are able to do likewise. It does not require some faith upgrade; if anything, we need to enlarge our concept of what faith is able to do!
However, we will never walk in the greater works of John 14:12 or experience the unusual or extraordinary miracles described in Acts 19:11-12 if we continue to believe that God’s miraculous ability simply covers building programs, attendance growth, financial problems, and integrating discipline into our lives.
The Bible alone must become our benchmark for what we can legally believe God for.
The problem is that many of us have lived disconnected from the fullness of God’s ability because, for some reason, we have relegated His more supernatural activities and works to the realm of “Bible times.” The same God who moved miraculously back in “Bible times” is still moving today. He never changed! The writer of Hebrews says, “For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists…” (Heb. 11:6 AMP). If you are reading this book, then you surely have some concept or belief that God does indeed exist. That He is real. I want you to take it a step further now. Not only do you need to believe that there is a real Person called God out there somewhere, but you need to believe that He exists as…
What do I mean by saying that He exists as…? God’s works reveal God’s ability. He heals and thus reveals His identity as healer. He delivers, thereby confirming that He is the deliverer. He saves and is thus the Savior. He exists, absolutely, but He also exists as healer, deliverer, Savior, restorer, fortress, strong tower, friend, Lover of Our Souls, and the list endlessly goes on and on.
It is now time to start upgrading our belief system. When we get honest with the Bible, the Holy Spirit wonderfully rocks our paradigm of God’s limitless ability. Take this opportunity to review some of the unusual miracles and works that God performed throughout Scripture. This is only a small sampling, but I intentionally selected some of the more radical ones for the very purpose of unboxing God’s ability in your life:
The same God who moved miraculously back in “Bible times” is still moving today.
This list could continue on for an entire book. In fact, John concludes his Gospel account by writing, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).
So what does this list of miracles mean for you and me today? Let me follow it up with an example from the New Testament. In Acts 14:8-10 Paul releases supernatural healing to a crippled man. The people are so astounded by this act that they begin to herald him as some type of god. Paul’s response in verse 15 reminds us that as carriers of God’s Presence and power, we are able to perform the same miraculous works. He says, “Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you.” Paul was clearly affirming his humanity and normalcy. Paul was a man—who was anointed. Elijah was a man—who just happened to be anointed. Peter was a man—who also was anointed. And we today are men and women of God—whom God empowers in the same way that He anointed men and women of long ago, carrying the same Presence and power. Anointed to do what? Represent God by showing the world what He is able to do.
One of the first steps to walking out a lifestyle of breakthrough faith is believing that God is able—and specifically identifying what Scripture says He is able to do. These are the works we are anointed to perform as His ambassadors and representatives.
Christ the Healer by F.F. Bosworth
Ever Increasing Faith by Smith Wigglesworth
John G. Lake: Complete Collection of His
Teaching compiled by Roberts Liardon