Availability, Receivability, Usability
Availability, Receivability, Usability
1
In order to tap the resources of the power of God,
one must know first of all what is and what is not
available from God. There are some things that are
not available today; and if they are not available, we
can pray until we are exhausted and we still will not
receive an answer to our prayers. If we want to
effectively tap the resources for the more abundant
life, we must find out what is available to us, what
God has promised us. In the secular world we
constantly apply this principle. Take, for instance,
this book which you are reading. Could you have
gotten it if it were not available? Certainly not.
Spiritually the same is true. We must find out from
God’s Word what is available.
As an example of availability, III John 2 tells us
what God desires for us.
Beloved, I wish above all things that thou
mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy
soul prospereth.
The will of God is that we may prosper. He never
meant for the Christian to be poverty-stricken and
down-trodden in any segment of his life. He meant
for the Christian believer to prosper. Furthermore,
God’s will for every believer is that we “be in
[good] health, even as thy soul prospereth.” God
never meant for the Christian believer to be sick;
sickness is never glorifying to God. He never meant
for the Christian believer to be full of frustrations
and fears and anxieties. God meant for us to prosper
and be in good health. Since the Word of God is the
Will of God, prosperity and good health must be
available.
Let’s check other examples of availability.
Philippians 4:19:
But my God shall supply all your need according
to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.
God’s will is to supply all our need – it doesn’t
say greed. If God is going to supply all our need
according to His riches in glory, a supply to fill it
must be available. If the supply is not available,
then He cannot fulfill our need.
Look at II Corinthians 9:8.
And God is able to make all grace abound
toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency
in all things, may abound to every good
work.
How are we going to have all sufficiency in all
things if it is not accessible to us?
Check Romans 8:37, another wonderful record in
God’s Word telling us some of the things that must
be available.
...in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us.
If we are going to be more than conquerors in
every situation, it must be possible. How could I be
more than a conqueror if the power were not
available?
Read Ephesians 3, beginning with verse 16.
That he [God] would grant you, according to
the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with
might by his Spirit in the inner man.
How am I going to be strengthened with might
by His Spirit in the inner man if it is not possible?
Ephesians 3:17–19:
That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
May be able to comprehend with all saints
what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and
height;
And to know the love of Christ, which passeth
knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the
fulness of God.
“That ye might be filled with all the fulness of
God.” How am I going to be filled with all the
fulness of God if it is not available?
How am I going to be able to apply the principles
of the Word of God and find out what God wants
me to do if I do not know the promises in His
Word? The first thing that we must find, in our
quest to tap the resources for the more abundant
life, is what is available. There are hundreds of
different promises in the Word of God that will
enable us to prosper and to be in good health. One
cannot utilize, one cannot operate, any more than
those promises he knows. How many do you know?
There is only one place where we can possibly
go to find out what God has available to us and for
us: we must go to the Word of God.
Many times the things that people have said God
does, His Word says just the opposite; things that
they say He does not do, He declares in His Word
that He does. In this book, Power for Abundant
Living, let’s be sure in our Biblical quest for the
more abundant life that we first find out what is
available so that we as God’s people will not be
destroyed because we lack knowledge. When we
know what is available, then we can learn the other
principles that are involved in making our life more
abundant so that we can manifest the greatness of
the power of God.
2
When I was a young lad, my mother would say
to me on Saturday night before I went to town, “Be
a good boy.” This admonition actually never helped
because one cannot make a boy good by telling him
to be good. People seldom read the Word of God by
being told they have to read it. People never tap the
resources of prayer by being told that they ought to
pray. I do not tell you that you ought to read the
Bible; I teach you how to read it. I do not tell you
that you ought to pray; I tell you how to pray. I do
not tell you that you should believe; I teach you
how to believe.
It is important that we know how. Since birth, we
have been taught how to receive material things. If
we had not been taught how to receive a material
object, this book could be available, but we would
not know how to go about taking or receiving it. So
it is with the Word of God. Spiritual things may be
received on the same basis as we receive this book
in the natural or material realm. In this book, not
only do we look for what is available from God, but
we also discover how to receive that which is
available.
For many years I moved among groups in which
I constantly heard people preaching sin, condemnation
and hellfire, and other negative subjects.
These well-meaning ministers were not telling
people how to get rid of sin, they were just saying
that it was wrong. To tell someone that something is
wrong does not help him to overcome it. I learned
this lesson the hard way.
In the town of my second congregation lived a
man who was an alcoholic. For about two years
many of us had prayed that this man would come to
church so that he could hear the sermon which I had
prepared on the abuses of alcohol. Finally one
Sunday morning when I least expected him, he
came and sat in the last pew. As I walked to the
pulpit having just noticed his presence, I thought,
“Well, goodness, here he is this morning.” I put
aside that morning’s sermon and I went into the
files of my mind and brought out the sermon I had
developed on the misuse and the sin of excessive
drinking. I preached with all the strength I had.
When I finished, I patted myself on the back for
having preached with such zeal against drinking
that I thought God would have to move over
someone in the spiritual realm and give me a
special place in heaven.
I walked from the pulpit to the vestibule of the
church where a minister shakes hands with the
people as they leave the sanctuary. As this poor
alcoholic passed through the handshaking line, he
had tears in his eyes. He limply shook my hand and
he said, “I came to church this morning to find out
how to get out of what I am in, but all you did was
put me in deeper.” He cried, “If you want to know
about alcoholism, I can tell you more than you will
ever know.” That response cut me to the bone. I
thought I had preached a tremendous sermon. But
this man walked out saying he came to church
trusting that maybe I would tell him how to get out
of the dilemma he was in; instead I had merely told
him less than he already knew.
I quit shaking hands and returned to my office
where I knelt in prayer next to my office chair. I
hardly ever kneel when I pray, but somehow that
morning I dropped next to my chair and I asked
God to forgive me. I promised the Father that if He
would forgive me, as long as I lived I would never
preach a negative sermon, I would never condemn
anybody. Why? I want to teach people how to tap
the resources for the more abundant life, not the less
abundant life.
I cannot help what people have been in the past;
all I can do is to teach that what they were in the
past can be forgiven and forgotten and that they can
move on with the greatness of the power of God.
This is why we must not only know what is
available if we are going to live the more abundant
life, but we must also know how to receive the
spiritual things of God. After we have received
from God, in the third place, we must know what to
do with these spiritual things.
3
First, what is available; second, how to receive;
and third, what to do with it after we have received.
For example, here is this book. It is available and I
know how to receive it; but unless I know what to
do with it after I have it, I still cannot utilize it for
the purpose for which it was designed. I knew the
book was available; I knew how to receive it; but
then if I used it as a garden hoe, it would not serve
very well, would it? It is not designed for that. This
book was designed for reading. In the spiritual
realm we must know what to do after we have
received what is available. There are people who
know what is available and they know how to
receive something; but when it comes to knowing
what to do with it after they have it, they are
entirely at a loss and especially so on the subject of
the holy spirit. To find proper usage we must again
go to the Word of God.
I believe that the Word of God is the Will of God
and that if we are going to know the will of God,
we must go back to the Word of God. One cannot
listen to the man on the street He says, “Well, this is
God’s will.” He may be right and he may be wrong.
You and I can be accurate and sure only if we go to
God’s Word. No one can know the will of God
without knowing the Word of God. The Bible is,
the revealed Word of God; this Word of God means
what it says and says what it means, and God has a
purpose for everything He says, where He says it,
why He says it, how He says it, when He says it, and
to whom He says it.
If we are going to tap the resources for the more
abundant life, we must not only know what is
available, how to receive it, and what to do with it;
but we must also get our needs and wants parallel.
If our needs are light and our wants are heavy, we
are not balanced. If our wants are light and our
needs are heavy, we will never get an answer.
When we believe, we get results in prayer if our
needs and our wants are equal.
Look at Matthew 18:19.
...If two of you shall agree on earth as touching
any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done
for them of my Father which is in heaven.
In the Greek text the word “agree” is “symphonized.”
If the two people agree, they are in harmony;
they have their needs and wants parallel because “it
shall be done.”
John 14:13 is another tremendous truth.
And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that
will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the
Son.
Whatsoever we ask in Jesus’ name, having our
needs and wants parallel, He is going to do.
In John 15:16 is another wonderful promise.
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,
and ordained you, that ye should go and bring
forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain:
that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my
name, he may give it you.
If we know what is available, how to receive it,
what to do with it, and have our needs and wants
parallel, then whatsoever we shall ask shall be done
unto us.
There is another promise in I John 5:14.
And this is the confidence that we have in him,
that, if we ask any thing according to his will,
he heareth us.
If we have our needs and wants parallel, we can
ask anything according to His will. How can we
know His will without knowing His Word? His
Word is His Will.
One more great truth is that God’s ability always
equals God’s willingness. Many people say that
God is willing, but He is not able; others say He is
able, but not willing. This may be true of men, but
not of God. A man may have the ability and lack
the willingness, or have the willingness and lack the
ability. For instance, let’s say I am stranded along
the highway with a flat tire and need a jack. You
come along that highway, stop and say, “Hello what
can I do for you?” And I say, “Well, I need a jack”;
but you do not have a jack either. You are willing to
help me, but you lack the ability. On the other hand,
let’s say you would come along the highway and
you do have a jack, but you will not let me use it;
then you have the ability, but you lack the willing
ness. This is never true with God. God’s ability
always equals His willingness – they are always
harmonious. What God is able to do, He is willing
to do; and what He is willing to do, He is able to do.
Let us look at Romans 4:20 and 21.
He staggered not at the promise of God through
unbelief....
And [But] being fully persuaded that, what he
[God] had promised, he was able also to
perform.
God’s ability always equals God’s willingness.
Numbers 23:19 contains a phrase that I want to
point out. “God is not a man, that he should lie....”
God’s promises are always true and dependable.
In Romans 11:29 we read of the permanence of
God’s gifts.
For the gifts and calling of God are without
repentance.
When God gives something, these gifts and these
callings of God are always without repentance; God
does not withdraw or take them away. Whatever
God has promised that He will perform, that He will
honor when men and women believe God’s wonderful,
matchless Word.
I want to give one more example to illustrate that
God’s ability equals His willingness.
Hebrews 11:11:
Through faith also Sara herself received strength
to conceive seed, and was delivered of a child
when she was past age, because she judged him
faithful who had promised.
Sara brought forth this child because of the
promises which God had made many years before
for “she judged him faithful who had promised.”
Who had made the promise? God. What God
promised He kept when Sara believed. So, too,
what God promises in His Word, He will honor
when we believe.
If we are going to tap the resources for the more
abundant life, we have to go to The Word to find
out what is available, how to receive, and what to
do with it after we have it. We are going to keep our
needs and our wants in balance, recognizing that
God is not only able but willing to perform every
promise set forth in His Word.