Over-the-Horizon Questing: Faith for What's Next (EP 362)

You can't see what's coming over the horizon, but your faith can reach it now. Brian Del Turco explores four steps to cultivate over-the-horizon belief: worship and pray over the horizon (prayer as predicting the future), visualize and prophesy what's coming, fix your belief set points with sanctified desire, and act as if—filling your water pots before the wine arrives. Discover why desire means "of the heavens". Like Abraham crossing into unseen territory, you're called to exploit horizons.

----------

See the full episode transcript below.

👉 Support the podcast (use the Smart Edit BMAC page): buymeacoffee.com/SmartEdit

👉 Explore more episodes: JesusSmart.com/podcast

If this episode gave you a fresh perspective on Kingdom Living, share it with someone who needs encouragement.

Be sure to follow the podcast—each episode is designed to help you think more clearly and pursue the kind of life only Jesus makes possible.

Stay current via The Smart Edit newsletter—Elevate your faith. Live smart. Make an impact. Free. Weekly. 5 minutes to grow. Sign up at JesusSmart.com.

----------

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: Over-the-Horizon Questing: Faith for What's Next

Listener: The Jesus Smart podcast, to me, intelligently offers its listeners interesting discussions on important topics.

Brian: In this episode, it's all about cultivating our over-the-horizon belief, faith, and action.

There's a real sense in which our horizons are placed on a curve, and we look at a horizon just like Christopher Columbus sailing to new territory across the terra firma. So we too—we walk by faith, we sail by faith and not by sight.

I want to share with you for just a few moments how we can worship and pray over the horizon. Number two, how we can visualize in faith and prophesy over the horizon. Number three, we can fix our belief set points over that curvature in our life. We can't see it yet, it's not manifested yet, but our mind is already there. We're already touching it with prayer. We're already touching it with proclamation. And number four, let's make it complete. Let's be more complete in our faith and begin to act as if—begin to take action with what's coming over the horizon.

This is Brian Del Turco. Thanks for connecting with me today on Jesus Smart, the podcast.

What Is a Horizon?

A horizon is simply a place where the sky and the earth meet, right? Whether we're looking at land or water. Lord Byron is regarded as one of the greatest English poets. He was also a politician. Here's his statement: "Between two worlds, life hovers like a star, twixt (or between) night and morn, upon the horizon's verge."

When we come to Jesus, when we are transformed by Jesus and begin to walk with Jesus, we truly become people of the horizon.

I believe Abraham was first called a Hebrew in Genesis 14. The word Hebrew, scholars believe, could be derived from a Hebrew word meaning to traverse or to pass over, to cross over, referring to Abraham, who was sent by God and crossed over into the promised land. Abraham is set forth in the Scriptures as a prototype of the faith person for us. And Paul says in Galatians that we are the seed of Abraham in Christ. There's a Hebrew in the truest sense—a person who leaves one territory and crosses over into a new place.

Just like Abram left Ur of the Chaldeans, he traveled along the Euphrates River northwest to Haran in northern Mesopotamia, that Fertile Crescent region in the Middle East, and later in Genesis 12 was called down to Canaan into the promised land—a total, I believe, of about a 1,500-mile journey.

In Hebrews 11 it says that by faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place—listen to this—which he was to receive for an inheritance. And he went out not knowing where he was going, for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Now, my friend, what do you feel God may be asking you to cross over into as you quest after the horizons that He is setting before you? You will need over-the-horizon belief and applied faith.

→ Discover the four complete steps for over-the-horizon living at jesussmart.com

Living for the Ultimate Horizon

Let me read a Scripture to you from 2 Peter, chapter 3: "We are looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God. According to His promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells."

My goodness. We are people of the horizon. That is the ultimate horizon—the coming of the day of God, the Lord's return, which will initiate the restoration of all things that Jesus spoke of. And there's some sense in which we hasten that day of God. Now we're going to have to explore that sometime.

And we're looking for the new heavens and the new earth. But all along the way there are many horizons in light of this macro horizon which is coming. And the Bible says that we now taste the powers of the age to come. And we begin to live now, my friend, a lifestyle of restoration in the now, foreshadowing the time of restoration of all things.

Now, what are those things that we can do to apply our faith practically, to begin to take action, to begin to orientate ourselves towards over-the-horizon living? Maybe it's a new geographical location God is calling you to. Maybe it's a change, a pivot in your career, your business, your work. Maybe it's some phase of education, maybe it's a new relationship, maybe it's starting a family, some interest, some cause, some justice issue that you're to pursue and quest after.

These are all many horizons that God may very well be calling you to and setting before you, which are just reflections of that macro horizon which is to come. Yes, and we begin to live now with over-the-horizon belief and faith and faith-born action in our lives right now. It's an adventure, it's exciting. You, as a human created in God's image, are wired to be facing horizons.

Step One: Worship and Pray Over the Horizon

So what can we do? Number one, worship and pray over the horizon. Remember the curvature of the earth. You can't see in the natural what's coming. You have not experienced it yet, but it's there. And you want to begin to pick it up with that radar of faith. And you want to begin to worship and pray over the horizon.

There's a real sense in which prayer is predicting the future. Think about the word prediction: "pre," meaning before or in advance, and "diction," meaning to speak or a saying. A prediction is a saying in advance of what's coming.

And what worship does is it transforms us further, it conditions us, and even more, it positions us in faith. And we can now predict in worship and in prayer—to say beforehand, to declare. Even our English word "predict" comes from the Latin, which means beforehand and to say. That is a prediction.

Think about Psalm 139. It says that even before we were conceived, all the days that were ordained for us were written down in Your book, O God. David says we want to say those pages. We want to predict and pray those pages and soak it all in a sentiment, an attitude of worship. Yes, declaring who God is.

Becoming Christocentric in our worship and adoration, allowing the person of Jesus Christ to eclipse all the drama, all the distraction, all the resistance—to get so big in our purview that we pray with a faith which will not falter, with a faith which is not double-minded, but is sincere and single-minded. And we believe we've picked up something of the mind of the Lord, of the counsel of the Lord, and we're praying over the horizon to that effect, to effectualize what wants to happen on the earth. Things want to happen in the heart of the Father that happen through us. It's a partnership.

Step Two: Visualize in Faith and Prophesy Over the Horizon

So worshiping and praying over the horizon, number one. Number two, visualize in faith and prophesy over the horizon. So we get before the Lord in His Word, in worship, in prayer. And now we begin to speak forth and to prophesy what we believe the Lord is saying, what His promises are to you, what He's leading you into.

We begin to visualize in faith. The Bible word "prophecy" in the New Testament means to forth-tell the counsel of the Lord, to speak forth the counsel of the Lord. See, the Bible says the mind of man plans his way, but the counsel of the Lord will stand—not only in yourself, but all around you. The minds of men and women are trying to plan certain ways and may even have thoughts about you. Your circumstances may be trying to say something about you and what your future looks like. But it's the counsel of the Lord that will stand.

And to prophesy in faith means to foretell that counsel, to speak it out. Speak it out over the curvature of your timeline. Let it address and begin to get on what's coming and begin to energize it in faith.

Here's what I want to say: Get the word of the Lord on it, and then get the word of the Lord on it. What do I mean? Get the counsel of the Lord, get the word of the Lord on that matter, and then through applied verbal faith, get that word on that matter, uphold it in faith. Release the creativity of God in faith. Speak forth in faith. Visualize and prophesy over the horizon.

Do I have a mirror here? Let me hold it up. Brian, what could it look like if on the most desired or even important or urgent edges in your life right now, if you were to consistently, on a daily basis, visualize in faith and prophesy on those horizons what you believe the counsel of the Lord...