God’s Word is true – because God Himself IS the Truth. In fact, God’s Word is MORE true – if such a thing were possible – than we can imagine. But the problem is, WE are not true.

Have we come to terms with the fact that if we don’t believe that God’s Word is true, that it is because WE ARE NOT TRUE? That is a fact. Only if we are true to God – open, honest, and single-eyed for His will and glory – will we see that God’s Word is the Truth. In short, in order to see the Truth, we must be TRUE – we must be in a true relationship with God.

This doesn’t mean we are perfect or have great understanding. All that is means is that we are honest and open even about our imperfections and lack of understanding. The Bible says, "In thy light shall we see light." (Ps. 36:9) In other words, if we will stand in the LIGHT, who IS Jesus Christ – and fully unfold ourselves to Him, we would SEE light; see the Truth. The two always go together. You cannot SEE Truth or light if you are standing in the darkness. Of course, this is all about a relationship of accountability to God – light and darkness being pictures of that. You must personally step into the light if you want to see Truth.

John the apostle said the same thing:

The key to fellowship with God is to WALK or BE in the light – as God is in the Light. And how is God in the light? John says, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." God is totally in the light. In other words, there is nothing hidden about God. He is totally open, honest, and accessible to us. He wants us to be that way to HIM.

But if God is really that open and accessible – through His Son – then why does it sometimes seem as if He is not? Sometimes it seems as if we cannot find God no matter how hard we pray. Why? Well, obviously, the problem is NOT with God. The problem is with us. The unwelcome fact – and it really ought to be a welcome truth – is that when we feel as if God is not there, or as if God is being indifferent or stubborn towards us – that the problem is US. We feel that way towards God as a reaction towards Him which comes out of our own heart and emotions. God is not generating that towards us, we are generating it towards God – and we think it is HIM.

It is a common pattern that when we do not believe God, we blame Him for it – we blame Him for not being faithful. If you see what I’m getting at, if I don’t believe God is faithful, well, then I’m going to respond to Him as if He is not faithful – because that is what I believe! And because I respond that way, I will all the more think it is true, simply because I feel that way and have responded along that line. And yet all of this is based in error and unbelief. I am operating completely outside of the Truth.

The problem is NOT with God. God IS faithful. Rather, the problem is with ME -- I don’t believe He is faithful. The simplicity of this problem is, of course, usually buried beneath a sea of emotion and ignorance. But it really IS that simple: We don’t believe God, and we don’t believe His Word is true.

But WHY don’t we believe? Because we aren’t TRUE. We are either blind, or we still want our own lives in some way – even if it is a good way. The only way to see God and believe Him is by taking the step into the light and letting God do whatever it takes to set us free.

Sometimes when we must take a great step of faith, we say that it is a step IN THE DARK. We say that because we cannot see ahead of time what is going to happen. But notice that it is really a step OUT OF THE DARK INTO THE LIGHT. It’s just that our eyes are so used to darkness, that the light disorients us. But if we want to see LIGHT, we must step into the LIGHT. We must begin to be made true by entering into a true relationship with God.

Now, don’t make the mistake of thinking that if you do this that God is going to go ZAP and do something to you that is going to cause you to believe. It doesn’t work that way. In order for God to get you to the place where He wants you, you are going to have to pass through death and resurrection. There must come an enlargement of the LIFE of Christ within you if you want an enlargement of LIGHT – for Jesus is both LIFE and LIGHT. And this will require DEATH to you. No one can tell you how God is going to do this. It will be specific to YOU. But He will do it. That also is a truth of God’s Word.

As mentioned, God’s Word is totally true. God cannot lie, and God cannot fail. But especially in the beginning of our Christian life, we are not fit for the Word of God. We are not TRUE, and therefore, we are not very compatible for the Truth of God’s Word. And so there must be a process wherein we are MADE TRUE.

If God plants His will and purpose in me – otherwise called the Word – it cannot just start functioning independent of me. No. Jesus wants to live THROUGH ME – He does not bypass me. Thus, the big, "ME," is in the way, and must be brought into harmony with the Word planted in me. That means change in me over to everything that is contained in the seed of the Word. God must therefore TRY ME in the sense of proving me – in the sense of proving me. This is not a matter of God testing me to figure out whether I have faith. No. Rather, it is a matter of God BUILDING FAITH in me, and bringing out what is already contained in His seed. Of course, I must yield and surrender each step along the way. It IS possible to abort God’s purpose. People do it all the time – and the Bible says so.

Now note: God has a will and has planted the potential for it in us. This is simply another way, of course, of saying that Christ is in us, and wants to manifest Himself through us along particular lines and purposes. But often, Jesus likened this whole process of God’s Word in us coming to fruition to a seed that God has planted in us. As we move along in Christ, His will and purpose comes to pass as we grow IN HIM.

If there is one thing we need to see about this it is that this is all about God’s will and glory. We are recipients and vessels. We are those who are to be caught up into God’s will for His glory. We are not the ones who PLANT anything. God plants – and the Bible always pictures Him calling us to account for what grows, or for what is multiplied, or for what is produced. This is GOD getting HIS will in and through US unto HIS glory.

So often we get this backwards. We think the Christian life is about us getting things from God. Many Christians have this idea that what we want, desire, or will, is automatically the will of God – and we say that this is so because He loves us. I’m not talking here about bad or sinful things here, but GOOD things. We want certain things or relationships in our lives – hopefully all legitimate and good. And most of us have been taught that we are supposed to ask God for these things, believe Him for these things, and if we do, God has promised to give them to us. After all, didn’t Jesus say, "Ask what YOU WILL?" So we try to follow this pattern, and for many, God doesn’t answer. Why?

Because this is error. The Christian life is not one where we are in the driver’s seat, trying to figure out how to get God to hop aboard, and bless us. No. Not even if our intentions are good and sincere. Rather, God is in the driver’s seat, and is doing a work wherein we will hop aboard HIS will and purpose. If you are saved, God wants to catch you up into HIS purpose for you – a purpose that He has always had for you. If you will let Him, He is first going to work on causing you to know Him, and to become His will. Any circumstances that take place in your life will either be to serve that purpose, or will be the outcome of it.

If you get what I’m saying, we are supposed to will for GOD’S WILL unto HIS GLORY. This is what God is after, and so if it is what WE are after, then guess what? It cannot fail to come to pass. The Devil will stand against you, and God may let Him, in order to build you in His will. But the Word of God is true, and the will of God is certain. God is GOING to have His will and glory. If we want to be part of it, then we are going to have to hop aboard and surrender to Him.

If we would just do this, we would see that included in the will of God is everything we could ever want. Making God’s will OUR will won’t deprive us because it IS God’s will that we have life in Christ, and everything else that we need to live. This does not mean that we won’t have, "unfulfilled dreams." No. It will just mean that they weren’t God’s will for us. When will we finally get it settled that it is possible for us to desire something with all of our heart in this world, but for that desire to have NEVER come from the Holy Spirit? This doesn’t mean it was evil, or that we wanted it in rebellion against God. No. It just means that we don’t know who we are, or what we need, and that our flesh operated in a certain way that was counter to God’s best will for us. Can we believe that God knows what He is doing?

If you have thought that God’s will, and what you read in God’s Word, was NOT coming to pass for you, and you wondered why, the answer ought to be more clear. Either you are seeking the wrong thing – you are unwittingly seeking YOUR will, and calling it God’s will – or God’s will IS coming to pass in your life, and you simply have not realized HOW God brings it to pass. God first must make YOU TRUE; He must first condition you so that His will can flow in you – so that it won’t be to your hurt. Then you may begin to understand, and see things happen.

So often we look for THINGS to happen, and if they do, we say God did His will. And if THINGS don’t happen, we think God’s will hasn’t come to pass. But no. God’s will for you is CHRIST – that you BE in a relationship with Him that is His will. Get that. God’s will is a RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU. That must come first. THINGS will follow – once God knows that your relationship with Christ cannot be hurt by them. But even then, those THINGS will be to God’s glory; they will be HIS will. Not ours. Why would we want it any other way?

When all of this is boiled down, when we talk about being made FIT for the will of God, we are really saying that we need to be made compatible with Jesus Christ. Christ is in us if we are saved, but now the work of the Holy Spirit is to form us and shape us together with Him. This will mean Jesus is Lord. But that is great news. It is what God wants for us in this church age.

Now, when I say that we are UNTRUE, or UNFIT for the Truth, I don’t necessarily mean we are deliberately dishonest with God. No. I believe that if we surrender to God that He takes us. None of us can know what is in our heart. We can only WILL TO DO – and open that heart to God. But really, this is the whole point. If I ask God to do His will in my life, He cannot fail to answer – and yet does this not begin the process of making me fit for His will? Sure. In other words, to start with, I am untrue, and unfit for the true Word of God. Yet if I will open myself, God will make me true. And in the end, I will see His will and His glory.

If you really meant it when you surrendered, you will see it through to God’s will and glory. You just will. This is why God must test us. As we go along, we discover that this is going to cost us much. But if we really want God’s will and glory, we will pay the price. We will know that what we might lose is worthless anyways, because we are growing to know God Himself.

This is what God is doing today through the Holy Spirit. It is ALL He is doing – at least at the core of things. God has a will that He wants to bring to pass for HIS glory – and He wants this primarily in His own people, the church. But God is generally not going to bring to pass His will as a THING, or in circumstances only, to the disregard of our relationship with Him. No. He wants to bring to pass His will IN US and THROUGH US – WE are to be vessels in whom the Word of God is made living. We are to be living epistles and witnesses unto Christ. In short, God wants to cause us to BECOME His will. Then through us He can DO His will. This will include everything that He wants to see happen in our personal lives.

You cannot separate God’s will from our personal relationship with God. No. God’s will IS our personal relationship – and it is through this relationship that His will is worked INTO US, and THROUGH US. Thus, if you want the will of God you must surrender to God. You won’t get it any other way.

Most of the, "Word of Faith," teachers will tell you that they are only laying claim to what God has already promised. Of course, they include in these things health, wealth – and tend to make such claims unconditional. But behind everything they teach is supposedly the fact that the Word of God cannot fail. So why can’t we simply, "name it and claim it?" Hasn’t God promised many things in the Bible? What is wrong with laying claim to them through faith?

The fundamental problem with the Word of Faith heresy is that despite having as it’s slogan, "Jesus is Lord," He is in fact not Lord at all in the lives and teachings of those who promote this nonsense. Word of Faith bypasses the necessary that we be MADE TRUE, and bypasses the necessary that Jesus be Lord over us personally, before we have any authority to take possession in HIS NAME.

You don’t have to guess whether this is their error. When is the last time, for instance, that you heard Kenneth Copeland teach on the work of the Cross in the life of the believer – and that this work of the Cross is necessary for any authority to be possible? You’ll never hear it. You will never hear such teaching on TBN. For according to these false teachers, since Jesus did it all for us, we possess all – and need only believe and lay claim. They know nothing of the necessity of being brought UNDER the authority of Jesus as our personal Lord.

This may not seem to you to be a big deal. And yet the offer of the things of God without the work of the Cross – without the process whereby we are personally made true and brought under Jesus as Lord – this is the very gospel of Satan. Satan offered everything to Jesus that Jesus would have through the Cross – Satan offered all of it to Him WITHOUT the Cross. This is what he offered Judas, and really, Peter – who escaped this trap. To possess the kingdom of God as a THING, or as an authority, without having to come under the personal Lordship of the King is the gospel of Satan. And we can never come under the Lordship of Jesus unless our kingdom and personal rule over ourselves comes under the power of the Cross.

Paul the apostle said, "When I am weak, then I am strong." He said that the power of Christ was upon Him, not because he took possession of, "the authority of the believer," but because God had reduced him down to utter dependency upon Christ. This is what the Word of Faith heresy NEVER teaches. They will teach that Jesus was crucified so that we could possess everything. But they have no frame of reference for the fact that God must possess US – or that what God is really after in all of us is a personal relationship wherein we are utterly dependent upon Him.

The Bible teaches that all the authority of the believer is fully related to the degree of dependency upon Christ. But I will never be dependent upon Christ until I am MADE weak and dependent. Get that – I must be MADE dependent. Words won’t do it. Knowing I am supposed to be dependent won’t do it. No. I have to be MADE dependent – and that is going to mean my strength, my kingdom, and my will must come under the Cross. This is REAL – not simply a bunch of teachings. Word of faith doesn’t even have the teachings right – much less the reality.

Paul the apostle also said that he was given a thorn in the flesh for a reason – so that he would not become self-exalted due to all that God showed him and gave him. (see II Cor. 12:1-10) If this was necessary for Paul, then who are we? You see, if God simply gave to His people His life, light, authority, and His blessings – to the disregard of our relationship to Him; to the disregard of whether we have been MADE TRUE – we would take the things of God and use them for our own glory and our own benefit. It would not be necessary for us to deliberately do so – it is simply what we would do. We would, in the end, not only preach a false gospel, but we would destroy OURSELVES. This is what is already happening in the Word of Faith movement. It has become all about money. It is a false gospel destroying the faith of many – most of whom don’t even realize what they are doing to themselves.

It is not possible for us to DO the will of God, or receive the will of God, unless we are BECOMING the will of God. This means we must come under His will – fully in Christ Jesus. – and BE MADE TRUE! Anything else is NOT the Truth. Indeed, it is NOT the very will of God that we say we seek!

The Word of God was true before you were born. It will be true after you die. It is true if not a single person believes it is true. And it is true if everyone believes it to be true. In short, the Word of God is not dependent upon OUR faith. But in a very real sense, our faith is dependent upon the Word of God.

One purpose of the Holy Spirit for this age is to bring us into conformity with the Word of God. Personified, this means to be made one with Jesus Christ. Christianity is CHRIST IN US, and in the end, we are to fellowship and walk with Him forever. God is NOW making that possible – beginning that transformation. The Word of God is TRUE. And now God is using it to make US TRUE.