God Loves Faith!
One of my all-time favourite subjects is faith and I have wanted to write about it for a long time now. Every time I want to start, I see something more about faith that I want to add and so I never get to a place where I think I am ready to write. But, I guess I am going to learn about faith and the things of God until I leave this earth. So, it won’t be a waste of time to start putting some of it down on paper.
I love to read about faith and the faith exploits of others. I also enjoy listening to teachings by those who have been living and walking by faith for many years. Living by faith is not boring as some might think, and opens the doors from a mundane life, to an exciting one where all things become possible because we are not limited by our own human abilities. In my own life I can sense the difference if I ask the Holy Spirit to open the Word for me before I read. If I then read it by faith, I am amazed at the wonderful revelation I get. Also when listening to or attending a service preached by someone who knows how to read the Word and preach by faith, you can hear the difference. Faith becomes addictive - something you cannot live without. The more you live by faith, the more you see that it is the only way to successfully deal with any issue you face.
What is faith?
I have heard people refer to faith as a crutch, something others use when they cannot deal with what is happening around them, sort of like an escape. Faith is also referred to as a movement or a doctrine. None of this is true. So what is faith? Faith is part of the make-up of God. Faith is who God is, just like love is who He is. That is how He created our earth and the planets and galaxies around us. Faith is what pleases Him because it gives Him a way through which to bless humanity.
In short, a definition of faith is confidence in God that He will do what He said He will do.
Heb 10:35 NKJV - Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward.
One of my own favourite daily confessions about faith is “If He said it in His Word, that settles it”. This sometimes gives our 5 senses a black eye so to speak because what He says in His Word about us, doesn't always line up with what we experience or see in this natural world. But, through faith and patience we get to see it manifest from out of the spiritual realm into this one.
Eph 2:8 NKJV - For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,
As you can see from this scripture, what He provided by His great grace, we have to receive by faith. In Gal 2:21 we see that we can frustrate the grace of God. How does that happen? When we don’t take a hold of what was given through grace by using our faith.
Gal 2:20-21 KJV
20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
If you are believing for something, then it is normally something that is not seen and not yet. Once it is seen, then there is no more need for faith.
Heb 11:1 NKJV - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
God loves faith so much that He publicly approved of the heroes of faith in the book of Hebrews Chapter 11. He will also approve of us if we live by faith.
Heb 11:2,39 Weymouth Translation - For by it the saints of old won God's approval.
Heb 11:4 NKJV - 4 By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.
God testified about Abel’s offering because He did it by faith and we are still talking about it today.
How can I get faith?
But I don’t have faith, or my faith is not strong enough, I hear you say. If you are a Christian, then that is not true. The scripture in Eph 2 quoted earlier says that faith was a free gift. The scripture in Gal 2:20 says that we can live our lives by the faith of the Son of God and He already lives in me.
Gal 2:20 KJV - I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
We have all the faith we can possibly use. Problem is we don’t know what we already have been given and we also don’t know how to use and grow what we have. God’s faith in me is not a human faith, it is a supernatural faith.
We all have the same measure of faith. Even the well-known Bible teachers and preachers all received the same measure.
Rom 12:3 KJV - For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
Those who use their faith for great exploits have renewed their minds to the Word to find out what they have received. It is important that we realize what we have and learn how to release it.
The measure of faith you have received can also be increased. It is just like a muscle. You start off with small muscles but the more you train and exercise them, the bigger and stronger they become. The more you use your faith muscles, the more confidence you get and the more your faith starts to grow. It also grows by reading and hearing the Word of God that shows you what is possible. It breaks you out of the confines of the mold the world tries to fit you in.
Rom 10:17 NKJV - So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
For this reason and many others, is it vital that we get into the Word and get our minds renewed.
Rom 12:2 NKJV - And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Faith is not a blank cheque. You cannot just decide that you want something and then start to believe for it. You can only believe for something already promised in the Word of God - something He said He already did.
“You cannot believe that I will come mow your lawn unless I said I would.”
Same with God. Once you have it settled that it is in the Word, then spending time with God in the Word will help you to hear from Him so you will know what to do to walk it out until you see what you are believing for manifest in the natural world.
Christians have the realm of the Kingdom of God with all its benefits living on the inside yet we sometimes look and sound just like the world. When disaster strikes, we panic and get into fear. We speak doubt and unbelief just like those who have no Savior. We are conformed to this world, acting like there is no solution - no way out. It should not be like that.
How do I release the faith that is in me?
Faith can be released through actions and attitudes, but the main way to release it is through our own spoken words.
Prov 6:2 NKJV - You are snared by the words of your mouth; You are taken by the words of your mouth.
Prov 18:21 NKJV - Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
And those who love it will eat its fruit.
God created us with a free will. We can do and say whatever we want. But, we are created in the image of God - speaking spirits just like Him. When we speak, we release authority to produce positive things or negative things depending on what we are saying.
Gen 1:27 NKJV - So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
We have the same ability to create that He has. How does God create? He does it by speaking. The first two chapters of the book of Genesis are full of references of God who spoke something into being and it became. We can do the same. Problem is that the world is programmed to focus on the negative, on the problems rather than on the solutions. This leads to Christians also speaking what they see rather than to speak what they want to see. We have the ability to change what we see by our words. Few of us have realized this and so things stay the same and even get worse.
Heb 10:23 NKJV - Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works,
As an example, if your knee hurts and you keep saying your knee hurts, then all you are doing is to establish the hurting knee even further. What God wants you to do is to say what the Word of God says about your knee - by His stripes, knee, you were healed (1 Pet 2:24) - and in saying this, you are changing the hurt knee to a healed knee. You are not lying; you are merely stating something that is already true in the spiritual realm.
How does faith work?
We have gone through what faith is, how to get it and also how to release it. But, how does it work? There is a scripture in Gal 5:6 that shows this:
Gal 5:6 NKJV - 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
Faith works through love. Getting a real revelation of how much God loves you, will absolutely empower your faith and make it come alive. Sometimes we walk in fear. Fear is the opposite of faith - faith in the enemy to harm us. But, meditating on how much you are loved by God - with a perfect love - will destroy fear and help faith to work.
1 John 4:18 NKJV - 18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.
The spirit of faith
The Bible speaks about the spirit (or attitude) of faith. You can sense when someone has it. They speak differently. They are aware that every word they say matters and that things they say can affect their life, their finances and health. Once you realize this, it changes how you respond in conversations. You become very conscious of the words of your mouth knowing that the things you say can change your life - good or bad.
2 Cor 4:13 NKJV - And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak,
When we speak God’s Words over our situation, we get Jesus on the scene. Our words of faith give Him access to help us in a time of need. He is the High Priest of our confession of faith:
Heb 3:1 NKJV - Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Christ Jesus,
The unrenewed mouth
God demonstrated how to operate by faith through the spoken word throughout history. Once man fell, God knew that the only way to save humanity was through the coming of Jesus. God started speaking the coming of Jesus through the prophets thousands of years before it came to pass.
One of the stories in the Bible where God had to intervene to make sure that His plans were not hindered by man’s unbelief was in the announcement of the birth of John the Baptist. We read the story in Luke 1 where the Angel of the Lord came to tell Zacharias that he and his wife will have a son and that they should call him John. Zacharias didn't believe the angel and so we see in V20 that he became mute and unable to speak until the baby was born. If this didn’t happen, he was likely to have spoken his doubt and unbelief which could have stopped the plan of God for this important prophet’s birth announcing the coming of Jesus. I often wonder how our own negative, unbelieving words are affecting, even derailing the plans the Lord has for us.
Mal 3:13 KJV - Your words have been stout against me, saith the LORD.
As said before, we have a free will and so the Lord will not go against our words.
There is another story in the Bible that isn’t directly connected to the coming of Jesus but emphasizes the point that sometimes it takes a command from God for people to "shut up" so God’s plans can come to pass. In Joshua 6 the children of Israel were to invade the city of Jericho. They were commanded to march around the city once every day for six days without saying a word. I guess the Lord knew that if they were to be free to talk that they would complain and gripe and moan and speak a whole bunch of unbelief and talk themselves right out of the victory. This was the command He gave through Joshua:
Jos 6:10 NKJV - Now Joshua had commanded the people, saying, “You shall not shout or make any noise with your voice, nor shall a word proceed out of your mouth, until the day I say to you, ‘Shout!’ Then you shall shout.”
They had to keep quiet so they don’t murmur and complain and speak doubt and unbelief against the words of the Lord. They did as Joshua commanded and this is what happened on the seventh day:
Josh 6:20 NKJV - So the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him, and they took the city. 21 And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, ox and sheep and donkey, with the edge of the sword.
Finding a parking spot
So perhaps you know or have already heard the things I have written here, or it may all be brand new. Bottom line is that God is pleased when we trust Him even though we don’t yet see the answer. He wants us to step out by faith and take a hold of His promises. That is how He is able to bless us.
We will never be done learning or writing about faith, but this is it for now.
Until next time..
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