Command You Me
Isaiah 45:11” Thus says the Lord, The Holy One of Israel (Jesus), and his Maker (God Almighty): “Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons; And concerning the work of My hands, you command Me.”
The Lord welcomes us to ask Him about the future. One of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is to show us things to come (“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you..” John 16:12-15).
What does it mean to command the Lord concerning the works of His hands? Well, it certainly doesn’t mean we are greater than He is and can force Him to do anything. I believe it’s like when electricity is put into our homes. It’s at our command.
We can’t call the electric company to come and turn on our lights. It doesn’t matter how desperate our need is. The electric company won’t come to our homes and turn on the lights for us. They deliver the power to us and then put it under our command, our control. We have to flip the switch and, in that sense, command the electricity to work.
While the electricity is at our command, we aren’t the source of that power. We have to take responsibility and flip the switch ourselves so the light turns on.
Likewise, God is the one who generates the power that is in every believer, but He has given this power to us. Jesus came and told His disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:18-19.
Today, we have something Jesus’ disciples did not have prior to the infilling of the Holy Spirit. As born again spirit filled believers we now have the power and the authority to speak directly to our mountains. Notice what the Apostle Peter said in Acts 3:6 “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”
Notice what happened when Peter took the power and authority that he received after the day of Pentecost. In Acts 3:7-8 Peter took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them—walking, leaping, and praising God.”
We can’t call on God to do what He told us to do. Jesus commanded us to “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” Matthew 10:8. Then in Acts 4:29-30 after the day of Pentecost, we see the disciples praying and asking the Lord to speak the Gospel through them by stretching forth His hand to heal through them.
Know that God will confirm the true preaching of the Gospel with signs and miracles. We see in Mark 16:20 that after the Holy Spirit had come, the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed His word by the signs that accompanied the preaching of the Word.
We have to learn to command the work He has already accomplished to come to pass. It will not happen automatically. We have an important role to play.
“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” Mark 11:23.
Jesus was explaining to His disciples how His faith worked on the fig tree. Jesus told them that anyone who would use their faith the way He did would get the same results. Jesus stressed the importance of speaking out loud three times in this verse. Speaking out loud is a vital part of faith. We can’t just think faith. It needs to be spoken.
Proverbs 18:20-22 says, “A man’s stomach shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; From the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit. He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.”
Notice that it’s not only important to speak our faith; it’s also important to whom or what we are speaking. This verse says we are to speak to the mountain. The mountain symbolizes our problem or the thing we want removed. Most people speak to God about their problems. This verse is saying we need to speak to our problems about God. We should say things like “Cancer, be gone” and “Body, you recover.”
This involves believers taking their authority and commanding the problem to be removed (Isaiah 45:11). “Concerning the work of My hands, command you Me.” The Lord didn’t say, “Pray for the sick.” He said, “Heal the sick” (Matthew 10:8 and Luke 9:2). There is a huge difference between the two.
A common prayer today for healing would be something like, “Father, I thank You that by the stripes of Jesus, I have been healed. I’m claiming my healing in the name of Jesus.” All those statements are good and true, but that’s not what Jesus was instructing us to do. We should speak directly to the problem and, using our authority in Jesus, command the problem — whatever it is — to be removed.
Notice that people have to believe that the words they say will come to pass, without doubting in their hearts. People who don’t place a value on words and constantly say things they don’t mean can’t do this. They train their bodies not to believe or take their words seriously with many of the foolish things they say. Those who see the miraculous things come to pass that Jesus was promising in this verse are those who bridle their tongues all the time, not just when they are in a bind and need something from God.
What a wonderful privilege we have today as born again spirit filled believers. It requires that we take responsibiblity to be God-like; to keep our word as He keeps His. The good news is that God enables us. For all responsibility is is us responding to His ability; to His power; to His authority that He has given to us.
This is the too good to be true news of the Gospel! Christ in us, the hope of glory! And upon this foundation — the foundation that is made of solid rock — we stand. For all other ground is simply shifting sand.