Faithfulness To Truth
(The Key To Promotion)

Submitted by Clay Sikes

The Bible tells us that we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. To some extent, this is my testimony. The truth contained in this teaching came at great cost in terms of time, tears, heartbreak, money and much anxiety, but through it all, kingdom truth was birthed (Acts 14:22).

We begin with a question. Could it be that promotion time has come but the promoter of all promotion finds the candidate unfaithful? The candidate knows his time has come, he knows it is the will of God to move into the next phase of his life and destiny, yet almost dreamlike he remains glued to the past and stuck in the rut of sameness. "Is this God stretching me in teaching patience, the candidate may ask, or am I stuck in a rut created by my own unfaithfulness?" We often know the answer within ourselves though we may not be ready to admit it.

This is the question that most of us as Christians have faced. "Why Lord why, and when Lord when?" When we truly ask the Lord "why" and are truly open to His answer, we will soon find ourselves in the direction of "when." Embracing the truth will propel us in the direction of God's promotion as sure as the renegade spirit of self-will will stop it.

The question of "why" has specific answers based upon the internal witness within, but are we listening? God is always speaking, but we are not always listening. One of my favorite songs is entitled 'The Living Years' by Mike and The Mechanics. One of phrases contained in the song sets the tone of this teaching. The words are "Say it loud, say it clear, you can listen as well as you hear. It is too late when we die, that we didn't see eye to eye." I submit to you that much in the way of God-appointed direction, protection, and opportunity has come our way but we were not listening. We could hear (with our ears), but we were not listening (with our spirit). Because we didn't see God, as the song says, "eye to eye" (listen), the direction, protection, and opportunity died.

God is saying to us today that we can listen to him as well as we hear. Most of us can hear, but all of us can listen! His sheep hear His voice. He wouldn't have given it to us if it were not the truth.

When we come face to face with absolute truth our innermost heart sees it, whether our Mind accepts it or not. Our traditions of rationalization (the arena of logic and reason) and denial (pride) often rule us, and truth takes a back seat. It is not the truth that sets us free; it is the knowledge of, and mental acceptance of the truth. In many cases you cannot know truth until you have experienced or walked in it both from a positive and negative standpoint. Much of God's revelation of truth in me was birthed experientially, in the negative as well as the positive.

How willing are we to listen to our heart (the Spirit of God within) over our mind, will, and emotions? How much denial (within us) rules over the truth (within us)? The amount of His power at work within us reveals the answer, and this is easily discerned by us and others. Do we blame others for our shortcomings? Do we have a Victim Mentality? If so, we have yet to learn truth. We are still partaking of the milk instead of the meat of God's word.

Often trials are the only resource available to exacerbate truth. Fire purges and separates fleshly motives from spiritual truth, but is it the only way to find God's inescapable truth? The answer is an unequivocal no. After all, the Bible tells us, "Greater is He who is in us…" The truth is in us, but do we honestly seek it? We all deal with denial far more than we would like to think and it serves as a roadblock between the truths of the Spirit connecting with the mind. We all, to some extent, have that victim mentality that always places blame, yet we hear testimony upon testimony of Christians who said, "Nothing changed in my life until I got sick and tired of being sick and tired." Sameness or the rut we sometimes find ourselves in is often God saying something very loud to us, and what He is saying is something (in us) HAS TO CHANGE. No longer can we blame others.

Remember this if you remember nothing else written here - ALL CHANGE THAT WE DESIRE IN LIFE MUST BEGIN IN US. Those without this revelation will be years in seeing the changes they desire. Growth in any form - mental, physical, or spiritual has one common denominator - CHANGE! We will never experience growth without change, though there can be changes without growth. All God-appointed growth will require change; it is not optional. Conversely, man-appointed changes do not necessarily equate to growth. "If only I had a bigger church," some would say, "If only I had better job, if my wife treated me better, if we made more money, I couldn't accept my responsibility because of what so and so did to me..." All of these are excuses that relegate us to the "poor victim" mindset, which will hide the truth and keep us from ever accepting responsibility for our own actions. Therefore there can be no change from within.

To those trapped by this lie, AWAKEN FROM YOUR SLEEP! It is your fault. Accept the responsibility, repent, get over it, grow from your mistake and get promoted. The alternative is to sulk, continue to point fingers, and stay the same for another few years!

Let us begin this teaching by examining some scripture that perhaps puts light on the elements of promotion as contrasted by our remaining in the same stagnant position for years, or even experiencing demotion. "He replied, the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them (Them are those who will not receive revelation). Whoever has will be given more, and he will have AN ABUNDANCE. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him" (Matthew 13:11,12).

Here is a Kingdom Secret: First and foremost all promotion comes from God and all promotion is based upon faithfulness - how we have stewarded what has been placed in our lives; our family, job, vocation, spiritual responsibility, OPPORTUNITY, etc., When Moses first began his walk of destiny he cried to God that he possessed nothing that would allow him to perform such a feat, yet God ask him, "What is in your hand?" A mere Shepard's rod, a tool of his vocation was what God used to perform miracle upon miracle in the deliverance of His people. Symbolically, it is what we have in our hands today and how we have used it that either promotes or denies our promotion. Where do we spend most of our waking hours? The answer of course is in our vocation, so it makes good sense that God will at least likely test our faithfulness to some extent in our vocation. Said differently, a measure of stewardship will be measured by our work.

It is areas of our lives, past and present, which we have been faithful over that initiates promotion. We have heard the scripture many times that we must be faithful over the little to be lord over the much. Our faithfulness or lack thereof RELEGATES OUR FUTURE. This is both a natural and a spiritual phenomenon. What we see in the natural (in our lives) is often a reflection of what is going on in the spiritual (in us).

Make the connection; promotion and faithfulness have an inextricable link. With that foundation established, let us now look deeper into another Kingdom Secret - FAITHFULLNESS AND TRUTH HAVE AN INEXTRICABLE LINK! True faithfulness (to God) can only be offered to the truth of God within us. All truth is from God. All truth is within us because "Greater is He who is within us…" but are we allowing the greater truth to rule, or are we still on the throne of our hearts? The greatest enemy of any Christian is self-rule. WE WERE NOT MADE TO GUIDE WHAT GOD DESIGNED TO LEAD. As we have often cited in Romans 8, those that are led by His Spirit are sons.

God is always speaking truth to us within, but often we will not listen, most especially as His voice clashes with our traditions. As scripture says, "The traditions of men make the word of God to no effect." As we stubbornly and tenaciously hold on to our old traditional mindset, we engage perverted truth. The Bible tells us that stubbornness is as the sin of witchcraft and witchcraft is nothing more than perverted truth. It is important here to recognize that we are not speaking of tradition as in Thanksgiving at grandma's house. We are speaking of our belief system and mindset.

3 John 2 has been taught for years by Word of Faith ministers as one of the greatest health and prosperity scriptures in the Bible - "Beloved, above all things I wish that thou mayest prosper and be in health even as thou soul prospers." God is saying to us here that He desires us to walk in prosperity and good health, and then makes reference to our soul - mind, will, and emotions prospering. For years I heard this taught and never made the real connection between my mind prospering and me prospering. Recently the light bulb of revelation came on in my heart and now I see clearly, but only after reading the full context of the scripture in 3 John 2-8.

"To my friend Gaius, whom I love in truth. 2) Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well. 3) It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth. 4) I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth…8) We ought therefore to show hospitality to such men so that we may work together for the truth."

It is my prayer that this teaching is an example of us working together for the truth. Now let us examine closely what God's word is telling us here. There is a definite connection in 3 John 2 between our prosperity and good health and our mind, will, and even our emotions prospering. For years I only heard the prosperity and good health aspects of the scripture, and as stated, didn't make the connection to my soul, or my soul prospering. This begs the question, what is soul prosperity? SOUL PROSPERITY IS THE RECOGNITION AND ACCEPTANCE OF THE TRUTH THAT IS WITHIN US through God's mighty presence in our very being. We know the truth in given situations, even when our minds will not accept it, but this must change to walk in God's power. As we have often said, it is not so much knowing who we are in Christ as knowing who He is in us.

Here is the connection - we will prosper to the extent we are willing to marry the truth that emanates from the greater one who resides within us. Once we learn to embrace the truth in our hearts, once we stop denying the truth, the roadblock to our health and prosperity will be removed. 3 John 2 tells us that health and prosperity are ours to the extent that we have a prospering soul, and for years we were taught that a prospering soul meant that we believe and accept mentally that we were to prosper, but it is much deeper than that. It is profoundly our willingness to hear, believe, and obey what is emanating from within us OVER THE OVERTLY LOUD VOICE OF OUR TRADITIONAL THOUGHT PROCESS (our propensity to judge, to anger, to blame etc.,)

3 John 3 takes us quickly to the point of understanding how prosperity and health come; BY BEING FAITHFUL TO THE TRUTH. 3 John 3 "It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth." It gives God no greater joy than to know that His children are now walking in the truth that was sealed in them with Christ's Spirit. 4) "I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth."

We initiated this teaching with the relationship of faithfulness to promotion. As hearts are opened to the revelation that God is always speaking, always providing direction, always available to guide and lead, let us now begin to prove ourselves faithful to hear, believe, and obey. As we begin to yield to our hearts and cause our minds to accept the emanating truth of God's Spirit within us instead of the traditional arenas of logic and reason, we will begin to see health and prosperity in such proportions that it will be above what we can imagine or think. Now we see that through our obedience to His Spirit we release a supernatural miraculous course of events into our life.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine (according to His power) that is at work with us…" (Galatians 3:20). "Immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine is directly proportional to how much of HIS POWER is at work within us based upon our yielded ness to His Spirit. When we allow His Power (and voice) to be our source of guidance and instruction, we will engage more than we can ask or imagine.

In conclusion, our lives are a living testimony as to whether His Power or Our Power has the greatest influence in our life. Truth accepted and obeyed produces God's results.

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