From time to time the Lord gives me somewhat odd titles for what I write.  Or should I say HIS writings.  Nevertheless, as I was just waking up this morning, I knew what the subject would be called today.  And without further delay, let us explore “A BLESSING CALLED MUSTARD”.

    Depending on what time you are reading this, you may be sitting down to enjoy a hamburger, and see this title and say, yes, mustard is good on a hamburger, so I guess mustard is a blessing.  But this isn’t about what you can put mustard on, actually.  No, it’s about if you’re going to be blessed or not.  Let me explain.

    Let’s say you have a dog, and you have trained him or her to respond to certain commands.  We’ll say you have trained your dog to sit.  Now, your dog is an obedient dog, so no matter what he is doing, when or where you tell your dog “SIT”, he sits, even if he is running at top speed.  And he does it immediately, because he has been trained to obey your command.  And you have absolute faith that your dog will obey your command, because he always has.  Obedience builds faith, don’t you know.

    Now, let’s say you see your dog chasing a car, which is not what you want him to do, so you holler out “SIT!”.  Guess what?  The dog stops chasing the car and immediately sits.  Good dog. He’s doing exactly what he was trained to do.  Now, after you bring him back inside your house, your dog is getting ready to jump up on your sofa, and you don’t want him on your sofa.  So this time, instead of saying “SIT”, you say “MUSTARD”.  Well, your dog isn’t trained to respond to “MUSTARD”, so he just kind of tilts his head and looks at you funny.  Guess what happens then?  Yes, you guessed it…he jumps up onto your nice clean sofa, just like you didn’t want him to do.  Is it the dog’s fault?  Absolutely not.  He’s a well trained, obedient dog.  But you gave him the wrong command, and therefore you did not get the desired response from him.   Now you can get mad and scold your dog, blaming him for not doing what he’s supposed to do, but in reality he was only doing what he was trained to do.  He was only doing his job.

    I think you see the point.  You may be facing a similar situation today, only not with your dog, but with the devil.  You see, he’s well trained and obedient too, only you have to give him the correct commands.  If he has put an insurmountable mountain in front of you, yelling “MUSTARD” won’t move it.  And you can blame God all day long for not keeping His promise, but you’re wasting your time because it isn’t God’s fault, it’s your own.  Again, let me explain. 

    Everything written in the Bible is true, because it’s God’s word, and God cannot lie, no matter what.  Our Lord Jesus said in Mark 11:23-24, and I quote, “For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.  Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.”

    Matthew 13:35 says, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.” Indeed, Jesus gave us one of the secrets of creation itself in Mark 11:23-24, and you can blow it off and say “Well that’s name it and claim it stuff, and I don’t buy that ” if you want, but it came directly from Jesus’ mouth, and if He said it, you would be wise to believe it.  Should not the creator of the whole universe know what makes the system work?  Yet, we put less confidence in God’s word than we would our dog.  Not good.

    Briefly, going back to your dog, you had absolute confidence he would obey your command, because he always done so before.  Now if you can have that faith in a dog, why not believe God will also do what He said?  As I said earlier, obedience builds faith.  Your dog’s obedience to your word built your faith, or confidence, in him.  Tell me, when was the last time God lied to you?  Think hard about it, and if there is a time you can show me that God has been untrue to His word, then we would have to say God is a liar.  What is often construed as God not keeping His word is merely a misuse on our part of His word.

    The devil WILL obey God’s word, anytime, anywhere, period.  The problem arises when we don’t use God’s word according to instructions.  Remember James 4:7?  It says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

     Yeah, I know…you resisted the devil and he didn’t flee from you, so that doesn’t work, and God didn’t keep his word, right?  Have you considered that perhaps instead of yelling “SIT” to the devil, you’ve been yelling “MUSTARD” instead?  You see, the devil is conditioned and obliged to obey only God’s word.  So if there is an area that the devil is working against you in, and you’re not seeing any results of your speaking and resisting him, then rather than keeping up an ineffective resistance, it’s time to go back and re-examine things.  There have been times in my own life when I thought God’s word wasn’t working, only to find out the problem wasn’t with God, but with me.  Imagine that!  I used to think there were only two right opinions in the world, God’s and mine, and sometimes I wasn’t too sure about God’s.  But once the light of the word of God shone on me, I saw that He is ALWAYS right, and I’m only right if I’m of the same opinion He is.

    I don’t know how many people over the 15 years I’ve been in ministry have told me that Mark 11:23-24 doesn’t work.  They say they spoke, and believed in their heart, and it still didn’t work.  Well, let me tell you IT DID WORK!  They said they didn’t believe it worked, and it didn’t.  They got just exactly what they believed in their heart of hearts.  You can say with your mouth, and still doubt in your heart.  Been there, done that.  Let me save you some heartache.  Get into God’s word and study it until it’s running out of your ears, to the point where you know that you know that if God said it, that’s the way it will be.  Then, when YOU say God’s word (not your word) to a situation, there is absolutely NO DOUBT in your heart that it will be done exactly as you said, because God will back up His word every time. 

    Once you get to that point in your heart, you can say “SIT” to the devil, and he will drop like a rock and obey you.  Just be sure when you want him to sit, you’re not saying “MUSTARD” to him.  Because he’s no dummy. He’s well trained, and only hearkens to the word of God.  If you’re speaking God’s word, he has no choice but to obey.  But he knows if you’re believing or not.  So if he isn’t obeying you, then he knows you aren’t believing, or else, you aren’t submitting yourself to God.  The devil is thoroughly evil, but even he will obey if given the right command.  He obeyed Jesus every time, and when Jesus sent the seventy disciples out to preach the Gospel, it is recorded in Luke 10:17-20, “And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.  And He said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.  Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.  Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.”

    What does that mean to you?  Simply this, if you are a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, then what worked for them will also work for you, period.  Settle that right now, beloved friend, and then when you tell the devil “SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP“, or “LOOSE ME NOW“, or “LOOSE SO AND SO“, he will obey you.  What’s the secret? first knowing your relationship with Jesus.  Are you in relationship with Him, and are you an “OBEDIENT” disciple?  Are you speaking His word only?  In other words, are you speaking TO the problem with what GOD says about it, or are you just speaking about the problem? (speaking SIT, and not MUSTARD).  Now believe that God trusts you enough to let you use the name of Jesus.  You’re His disciple, aren’t you? He has given you His word and His name to speak what God says about you, and it will come to pass if you believe only and doubt not in your heart. 

    You can spend countless hours asking God to remove this or that hindrance, and never see it done until you speak directly to the hindrance yourself in His name. Remember, Jesus said “For verily I say unto you, that whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea;…”.   He didn’t say, ask the Father or Me to remove the mountain.  You see, that’s where we often stumble.  We bring our petitions to the Father in Jesus’ name, and that’s good.  But there are certain things that are left in OUR authority to get done.  The Centurion said in Matthew 8:8-10 told Jesus, “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, go, and he goeth; and to another, come, and he cometh; and to my servant, do this, and he doeth it.  When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said unto them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” 

    This Centurion clearly understood his authority to speak in the name of his superior, and lived his daily life both being in submission to the orders of his superior, as well as speaking out the orders of his superior to those under him, knowing they would obey, just as he himself obeyed.  That’s what we’re greatly lacking in the body of Christ.  I’m not saying the devil will do tricks for you like a dog, but he WILL obey the Word of God coming out of your mouth, whether he likes it or not.  Say what God says about you, for example, I am healed by the stripes of Jesus.  I am the head, and not the tail, above only and not beneath, blessed when I go out, blessed when I come in.  Blessed in the city, blessed in the field.  I am the lender, not the borrower.  Say it like you mean it, because you do, don’t you??

    Hopefully, today you’ve learned that MUSTARD indeed is a blessing if it is properly applied.  But if not, it does you about as much good as saying MUSTARD to your dog when you really want him to SIT.