Let’s paint the picture as we see it so far.
God sends His Word to the earth where people, also called plantings, drink the Word of God into their lives in abundance. They make the Word of God their priority through various disciplines like reading, memorization, study, and meditation. They ask God’s Holy Spirit to infiltrate this Word into their innermost being—into their hearts and spirits.
Our growing life in Christ includes not just the absorbance of this precious water of the Word, but we are also challenged to prayer and confession, declaring this Word back to God, thereby returning it to Him.
Our Lord Jesus has a very special and vital role to play in this spiritual process. Because I used Hebrews 3:1 to help open this book, I can now point you to one of the titles of Jesus, namely, the High Priest of our Confession.[1]
The high priestly office of Jesus makes Him the mediator, or go-between, for God and man.[2] He is the reason we can now connect to God; He is the basis for safe access into the presence of a holy God. To know that is exhilarating enough. But the fact that Jesus is called the High Priest of our confession is of special interest as we consider this theme.
The Greek word for confession is homologia.[3] To understand it, we break it down into its two parts. Homo[4] means together. The English prefix means same. Logia comes from logos[5] which is word and is used in John 1:1 to reference the Word of God. It literally means, “to say the same thing.”
Jesus’ high priestly office commits Him to making sure that when we confess God’s words together with Him, those same words are mediated to the Father, where those words originated.
In two gospel instances Jesus said, “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven”;[6] and, “Whoever confesses Me before men, him the Son of Man also will confess before the angels of God.”[7] In other words, when you make confession concerning God’s Word, then you can be assured that heaven and its inhabitants will hear it because Jesus personally will make sure the same confession is delivered there.
This is proof positive that Jesus is a proactive part of this confession process. He is committed by apostolic and high priestly function to work toward the success of this all-important practice which should be a natural and developing part of our personal spiritual activity.
Sobering to this consideration is the question I might ask myself, “Do I want everything I say to be repeated in heaven?”
Though this book’s emphasis is not a teaching on confessing of sin, it is important at this point to make some notable comments. Most people only think of the concept of confession as it relates to sin and their need to confess it to God, to a parent, or to an authority figure. As this idea pertains to the confession of sin, let me explain it this way.
After we have sinned, we approach God for forgiveness and we say to Him, for example, “Father, I have sinned; I lusted.” Upon announcing your compromised behavior, is this the first time that God knew about it? No, he was fully aware of it and of all the related and sad details. Upon confessing the sin, you were only saying the same as what He already knew. You didn’t confess to inform God of the sin, you confessed it to get back into humble agreement with God and receive the forgiveness He has promised. “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”[8]
In essence, the concept of confession is saying the same as what God already knows or what God has already said.[9]
We must understand, too, that not only should we drink in the water of God’s Word in abundance, but also we should release it from our mouth in great quantity.[10] Remember reading earlier that the process of transpiration helps a plant produce one pound of solid material with every 200 to 1000 pounds of water released through the stomata? And that’s 200 to 1000 pounds of water vapor. This indicates no small or trivial process.
You might not like the idea that this analogy hints of great amounts of confession released with comparatively slow-developing results.[11] Let me point out that theological magic, ecclesiastical formula, or faith energized by human effort is not my goal. Even Jesus spoke of process, tapping the wisdom of the plant world again by saying that “the earth yields crops by itself: first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.”[12]
If plants gave themselves to botanical processes at the same levels average Christians give themselves to declaring God’s Word in prayer, then the results from those plants would slow down significantly, if not stop altogether. This is why we should be extremely happy that plants are models to humans and not the other way around.
Our motivation here must find its energy from the incredible sense of promise and enablement flowing from God’s grace, not to mention the sober calling that exists to use heart and mouth to declare God’s purposes in our world. We can then begin to give ourselves wholeheartedly in spirit to its exercise, which can release incredible results over time, if we commit ourselves to this process with the intensity it deserves. If this analogy hints of anything, it hints of intense commitment with incredible promise, the kind of promise that doesn’t just bless you and me, but blesses the world we are called to influence.
Some might be cautionary as they remember that one of the characteristics Jesus seemed to challenge with the hypocrites and the heathen was their use of repetition.[13] I believe it is safe to say that the use of repetition was not Jesus’ concern, but what was behind it, namely, the desire for self-glorification or the thought that many words will assure a hearing. Repetition in the practice of confession and prayer is assumed, not unlike plants which by default repeat over and over, minute by minute the processes that eventually impact their world for good.
Additionally, James told us that long patience must characterize us as we wait for the harvests that God has planned.[14] It’s just like the farmer who depends on botanical dynamics while he waits for that day when he eventually experiences the harvest.
Just remember, patience is not the passive acknowledgement that you are only tolerating a life that is at some kind of status quo standstill. Instead, patience should be the proactive acknowledgment that God is at work and things are in process. A farmer’s patience is not used during times of waiting because he believes things will go nowhere. Instead he waits with anticipation. Just like the farmer we must believe God is directing things toward a purposeful end according to the seeds sown and the water that is both sent to and returned by the plants. This produces confidence in farmers—and in people who return God’s Word to Him—that things are headed in the right direction. This kind of confidence announces that God heard us when we prayed[15] and, as long as we don’t cast this confidence away, has great reward.[16]
Though the farmer has a wait time, his sense of expectation is amazingly strong because of the predictability that exists. If you give plants water, you can predict what they will produce. If you withhold water from plants, you can predict what they will produce as well. Botanical results are predictable relative to water intake. It is not arbitrary. A church whose leadership makes the teaching of the Word of God their priority and have an open heart to its Author’s convictions can be confident that godly fruitfulness will be the results.
The farmer predicts the harvest on the basis of what happens with the precipitation issue. Understand that all the processes work, but putting water in the mix makes all the difference. The survival of men and women globally depends on these processes working daily without fail in the fields and orchards of the world.
All of this is why we can have a sense of expectation, as well, not because we know everything, but because the processes are activated with the presence of the water of God’s Word—remember, no magic, no formula, no faith in human effort. We welcome the life-giving insight and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and as we wait, we wait with the spirit of true hope and expectation.
I take incredible encouragement from plants, especially corn. Think about it. When a farmer plants one seed of corn, assuming all things are equal, he can expect to receive nearly a 60,000% increase, assuming he has a conservative yield of 600 kernels per ear in a harvest that takes place less than six months after the day he plants the initial seed. And this assumes only one ear per corn plant. That is incredible exponential potential.
The plant world, at the very least, is shouting to us, “Pay attention!”
However, I can just see the religious, formula-driven minds going to work on this one, announcing, “If only I can confess and pray for an hour a day, five hours a day, or maybe even work it up to ten hours a day…”
For this reason, I was reluctant to use the graphics I did in this book because I did not want them to be misunderstood as methodologies. Plants don’t need a graphic illustration with all the guidelines spelled out to function. But many of us are looking for some gloriously graphic, multi-step, strategic plan to appease our academic longings, when all God wants us to do is own who we are—the planting of the Lord. With that truth established, your intercessory actions are then only natural and innate to who you realize yourself to be. Drinking in God’s Word then becomes much more than academic exercise, it becomes true sustenance for a life of faith and influence.
Please, do yourself a favor and pray for the day when this Bible-based practice is no longer an exercise in formalism flowing from superficial religious energy. Instead, let it become a work of God’s grace, organic to who you truly are—the planting of the Lord—existing to be a vital part of the harvest in which God wants you proactively involved.
The world around us has never been much impressed with our formalisms. However, they would be all ears if we had something that spoke of fruitfulness and productivity.
Realize that plants are really into this process. No ritual here. No jumping through hoops. No effort made to impress others or even God. It is their very nature. It is organic to their very makeup. What they do is mandated not just by the Creator, but their innate sense of purpose to accomplish the Creator’s wishes. Divinely programmed, their instinct drives them toward fulfillment of this process that ends up offering to their needy world something of substance, something that hungry people can bite into and realize genuine gratification.
When we start seeing what this is all about, it becomes important to move ourselves and our children beyond the “now I lay me down to sleep” and “please bless my food” prayers. Instead, we must embrace faith-based and Word-based proclamations of mercy, grace, and favor on all areas of life, including relationships, health, economic concerns, and global outreach.
We must challenge our children with the initial disciplines of Bible reading, study and memorization. This practice hydrates us and our loved ones for the various circumstances that define life’s random climates so we can still come out blossoming, fruitful and strong.
As we continue to paint this picture, we realize that out of our heart, where this Word is to reside in abundance, it is to be proclaimed in prayer and by other means of declaration and confession. We are saying to God what He has already said in His Word.
We do realize that God has made commitment to His own Word, not ours. But that doesn’t make his promises about answering prayer concerning our heart’s desires without merit, for there is promise here too.[17] I strongly suggest that we have a Bible basis and a Bible presence for our confessions back to him in times of prayer and petition.
Jesus’ high priestly function makes Him an active part of this process. This makes us more focused to embrace confession of God’s Word as a vital part of our daily living with a heart set to be in agreement with God’s purposes through our lives.
The promise remains that, having participated in the return of God’s Word, God is watching over it to perform it, bringing the purposes of His Word to pass and making it prosper in the thing for which He sent it.
[1] King James Version uses the word profession.
[2] 1 Timothy 2:5
[3] Homologia (Strong’s number G3671) is from the same as homologeo (Strong’s number G3670). There is plenty of Scripture in the Gospels to give strong indication that the Lord Jesus is very interested in words that proceed from our mouths, and He communicates clearly the vital impact words make. His call to accountability in this area is undeniable. The balance of Scripture on this subject points us to verbal priorities which the Word of God Himself is asking us to take seriously. At the very least, His title as High Priest of our confession means that we answer to Him ultimately for all words spoken in prayer or otherwise. This alone motivates our embrace of God’s Word and its wisdom as the source of our communications with Him.
[4] From homou; Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, number G3674
[5] Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, number G3056
[6] Matthew 10:32
[7] Luke 12:8
[8] 1 John 1:9
[9] Some limit Jesus’ high priestly function to that which pertains to the confessing of sin; however, I believe it includes both the confessing of sin and the confessing of God’s Word. Biblically, demand is made on every man that they will give an account in the Day of Judgment for every idle word they speak. Matthew 12:36
[10] Matthew 12:34
[11] If we actually did give ourselves to these processes at the highest levels of commitment, we would stop saying “slow-developing results” because results would start being a regular part of our lives.
[12] Mark 4:28 Italics mine
[13] Matthew 6:5-7
[14] James 5:7
[15] 1 John 5:14
[16] Hebrews 10:35
[17] Psalm 37:4; Mark 11:24
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