What exactly does favor do? Favor is the affection of God towards you that releases an influence through you so that other people are inclined to like, trust and cooperate with you.
The oldest book of the Old Testament is Job. As such it is the first real insight into favor and how it operates. In the very first chapter we read about the phenomenal blessing that is on Job's life, declaring: "This man was the greatest of all the men of the East" (Job 1:3).
What is not fully understood is how the blessing of God came upon this righteous man. We find a hint in the following verse: "Thou hast granted me life and favor and thy visitation has refreshed my spirit" (Job 10:1). Job was a man who walked under the supernatural blessing of God's favor because God visited him when he prayed. What was the effect of that favor? He opened his mouth and his "words were like butter" to those who heard him. The elders at the gates sought wisdom from his mouth. Talk about the power of persuasion!
To guard the blessing of God, he was very careful to build a hedge of prayer around his life, a point that Satan made a complaint about before the throne of God. The force of favor attracts not only God's blessings, but Satan's envy. Thus when Job came out of his troubles, God restored Jobs fortunes in a double portion! Job shows us how God restores to his embattled saints a double portion of blessing and power at the end of the conflict!
Favor makes ordinary students shine in an extraordinary way.
The fist mention of favor in the New Testament is Luke 1:28-31. Here Mary is approached by Gabriel, whose salutation heralds Marie's favored status in the throne room. Notice in these verses that the word 'favor' is repeated twice. Favor, charis (pronounced khar-ece), is a word revealing a two-fold operation of the law of attraction. The first definition describes an attraction of God to you and the second describes the release of an influence through you that inclines other people to trust, like and assist you in your assignment.
Do you remember Job's confession that God gave him "life and favor" by his "visitation?"
In fact the word "Desire" in Latin is a two part word De: "of", and Sire: "Father". Literally, desire is "of the father." You were designed with a spiritual womb that is capable of birthing God's purposes. When a group of Al Quaida terrorists opened up their spirits to the spirit realm, they received a direct infusion of Satan's desire into their hearts. The events of September 11th were not conceived in the mind of Islamic extremists; they were conceived by an intelligence operating in the realms of spiritual wickedness in heavenly places and transferred into the waiting wombs of demonized Islamic zealots. Heaven and Hell bend low over the affairs of the earth in this last hour.
This is the reason for the call to intimacy and worship. God is seeking to set apart a people into whom He can birth, by the Spirit, the initiatives and the desires of the counsel of Heaven. At this same time, fallen and foul principalities seek the womb of the disobedient. Jesus taught that the tares would increase and grow at the same time as the wheat (Mt 13:26). The tares are the children of the devil and the wheat are the children of God. Both harvests multiply at the same time. If you will open your womb to the seed of the word of God you will see the manifestation of the works of God through his sons. To have an open womb toward God requires that you keep your spiritual womb closed off to every other spirit.
God wants you to be resistant toward Satan's temptations of compromise.
Most people miss this wonderful aspect of the call of God. When Jesus gave the talents to the three servants He did not tell them what to do. He gave them instructions and a time period to produce fruit and left them on their own to invest and multiply the gifts He gave. Then he returned and had them render an account of what they did on their own with His talents to multiply them! You have more latitude to co-create than you realize. When God made Adam, He put him over His creation and then showed up to see what Adam would name the animals. Adam was free to create within the realm of his assignment and so are you.
Favor, Desire, Assignment, and Testing are all words we will be looking into in future articles.
"Arise, shine; for your light is come, and the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the people: but the LORD shall arise upon you, and his glory shall be seen upon you." (Isaiah 60:1-2 KJV)