What it means to receive.

When we talked about the key to unanswered prayer, we said that it was believing or acting according to your confession.  That hope was the active part of faith.

When we believe… we do.  When we hope… we do.

And when we believe there is a promise…

“And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Matt 21:22

What does it mean to receive?

Whenever we look at a word or phrase in the Bible, let’s let the Bible define the word to the world, not the other way around.

So when we look at the word receive in the Word of God we need to remember that every word in the Word of God is good for three things: exhortation, edification, and comfort.  That is and KJV way of saying: direction, correction, and affection.  NEVER FOR REJECTION!!!  God’s word never rejects YOU.  It shows you what YOU should reject in order to get close to HIM!

So let us look for three ways to understand receive.

First, to receive means to take in, to accept.  When we take in the Word of God we make it part of us.  It truly becomes the Bread of Life to us.  When someone blesses us and we say, “I receive that!” We are saying that we are not just accepting it, but actually taking it in to ourselves, making it become part of who we are… of what defines us… of what we agree with.

Second, to receive means to get back what was yours. “Re” means again.  And the words receive and recover share the same origin.  Whatever God had for you in the garden, what the devil stole… you get back again.

Third, to receive means to be made capable of.  Did you get that?  When we pray… and believe… we are made capable of obtaining the thing we asked for.  Sometimes, we are the answer.  Sometimes, God wants us to do in order to see.

In the kingdom of God believing is seeing not the other way around.  Doing is being made capable of doing.

We need to step off the boat to see that we can walk on the waves.

SDG