Christian Boldness : The Power of Affirmation
Affirmation according to the Collins Shorter English Dictionary is a noun. The verb form of the word, is ‘affirm’. To affirm means to assert positively; to confirm; to aver; to strengthen; to ratify a judgment; to affirm:— verb intransitive (Law) to make a solemn promise to tell the truth without oath; to ratify a law. To be affirmative means to be affirming; dogmatic; ratifying; to be positive; speaking in favour of a motion or subject of debate.
I have gone to this length to define our terms because understanding is the bedrock of illumination, and revelation. The Christian faith is called ” THE GREAT CONFESSION”. Your entry in to the faith is by way of confession: ” That if thou shall confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God raised Him from the dead,thou shalt be saved.
For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9-10).
After coming to salvation, growth, and maturity in the faith is by ‘confession’. Hebrews 3:1 says:”Wherefore holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; Who was faithful to Him that appointed Him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house” (Hebrews 3:1-2). Profession means the act of professing; to make open declaration of; to confess publicly; to affirm belief in.
So profession is another word for confession. And we are told in Hebrews 3:1, to consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession ( confession). To consider means to reflect upon carefully; to examine carefully; to be of opinion. Why are we asked to consider? Because our confession is so vitally important to God, and to our High Priest, that God the Father had to appoint an Apostle and High Priest of our confession. And we are further reminded in Hebrews 3:2, that this Apostle and High Priest of our Profession was faithful to Him that appointed Him.
Why is all this so important? An Apostle is a sent one on a mission, for a defined purpose. A High Priest makes offerings and sacrifices to God on behalf of those He is representing. And the item that the Apostle and High Priest offers to God is our ‘confession’
Hebrews 4:14, reiterates: “Seeing then that we have a great High Priest, that is passed into the Heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession”. See the emphasis on maintaining an unwavering confession? We are assured of the fact of Jesus’s presence in the Highest heaven. And our confession is vitally important to God, to Jesus, and has great implication for our success or otherwise in the Christian race.
Confession, comes from a combination of two Greek words; Homo, and logeo. Homo means ‘the same’, and logeo means ‘to speak’. To speak what? It means to speak the same words as God. To say exactly the same thing God says.
Why is confession this important? Many professing believers the world over have become exasperated to the point of near apostasy, or renouncing the faith. Their experiences hardly line up with the expressed declaration in God’s Holy Word. Churches, in the main, having been skewed in fear, and terror theology, have concocted a devilcentric body of beliefs, and practices. People go to church, and are inundated with how much havoc the devil is doing; how much mayhem he is capable of generating; how thoroughly pervasive he is, in muddying every area of our lives, how he is the monster always on the prowl; stealing, killing, and destroying at random; how utterly vulnerable the saints of God are to all his devious antics. This perverse teaching has made believers to depart from their place of rest, and power. The sad consequence of all this is that, instead of putting the devil on the run, the believers are now the ones on the run from the devil.
Satanocentric theology ascribes to the devil, an authority, and power he doesn’t possess. Jesus warned that we should be careful what we hear, and how we hear. He also declared that, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaketh. So a heart laden with fear thoughts, and with half truths, and outright lies about the devil, can only regurgitate all the trash information stored up in the heart. So, confessing rightly presupposes believing rightly. And the amazing reality of life is that a man’s confession becometh him. Those who are yet to make a connection between their confession, and what circumstances eventuate in their lives, suffer greatly if they are saying words that controvert God’s words concerning them. Proverbs 18:21, says: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue; and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof”.
It doesn’t say death and life are in the power of God; it doesn’t say they are in the power of the devil; it says death and life are in the power of the tongue. And it goes further to warn those who relish the use of their tongues loosely. It warns that, they will be rewarded handsomely with generous harvest of the seed words they sow.
Jesus is our great example of how to confess, and what to confess. The Bible records that He witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate. Tomorrow we shall be looking at the Affirmations or Profession of Jesus. Day after, we shall look at what kind of confession or affirmation a christian believer should be making.
Good morning great friends. I love you all agape-ously
