Developing Faith

THE FORMATION OF FAITH:

*Hearing the Word initiates faith!

*Speaking the Word ACTIVATES faith!

*Doing the Word DEMONSTRATES FAITH! (Sun Stand Still, Steven Furtick)





The aforementioned statement was posted on my Facebook page and I decided I want to briefly clarify what this post is about. The Christian life stands on the basis of faith. We are brought into right standing with God and grafted into the Royal Family of God through faith in Christ. Faith, however, moves beyond the moment of salvation and becomes the catalyst for the Christian way of life. The Christian way of life is executed through faith in God to empower you to carry out all that is required of you in His divine plan.

The Bible tells us that without faith it is impossible to please God. The question that this post addresses is one that has come to me in many ways from many sources over the past 6 months. Why are Christians living lives that are plagued with defeat and despair. The answer is a misunderstanding of faith and its application to the Christian walk.

Some believe faith is a magic wand that you wave over all of your problems and cause them to disappear; while others have stifled faith and limited it with their limited perspicacity of God’s omnipotence and goodness. Genuine and authentic Christian faith is founded upon the faithfulness of God towards His people; it considers God’s promises, His power to carry out what He has promised and his will to do so. Authentic faith is not based on the believer, but on what or whom he or she believes.

What I posted was not a definition of faith, but the biblical formula for the formation and the perpetuation the faith driven Christian life. We will visit each principle briefly as they all will be developed in full as we move forward.

1. Hearing Initiates Faith: Romans 10:17 is the clearest biblical expression of this truth in scripture, but it is by no means the only one. Repetitively in the Word we see situations where the hearing of God’s words and promises set the foundation for faith and propels the believer into the supernatural execution of God’s plan and will. So, each time that you hear the Word of God it provides a basis on which your beliefs are established
2. Speaking the Word Activates Faith: There are numerous examples of this principle being commanded and carried out in Scripture. One of the things I noticed in The Old Testament is on a number of occasions God either changed the name of a person that He was about to work through, i.e. Changing Abram’s name to Abraham or Jacob’s name to Israel and other times he commanded or influenced the naming of those that were anointed to do great things on His behalf. How does this apply? Names have great significance in helping to establish the identity of its bearer, and one way this was done is every time someone called out to this person, he heard the promise being spoken and every time he introduced himself he spoke the promise. In Joshua 1:8 God tells Joshua, “Do not let this book of the Law depart from your mouth…”; this is a call to speak the Word, promises, and mandates of God daily.
3. Doing the Word Demonstrates Faith: Faith is not truly faith until it has produced action. Your actions in any form are indicative of your faith. Faith without works or corresponding action is useless. Efficacy of faith is perpetuated in the Christian life as the believer walks boldly in that faith to accomplish the will of God despite the odds and obstacles that are laid out before him. Author and Pastor Steven Furtick says it like this, “Authentic faith doesn’t end in a positive mental state. It plays out in total obedience based on the sure Word of God.” One of the greatest examples of this in the Bible is the biblical account of the night Peter dared to step out in faith by stepping out onto the water. He first heard that all things are possible (through the teaching of Christ), he then spoke what he believed through his verbal request to Christ to allow him to come out to him (one does not make this request without believing that it is possible), next he takes action and literally steps out onto the water.

The points listed above are not, in any way, comprehensive. They were meant to provide a basic and general understanding as well as set the stage for future discussion and teaching.
Going back to the initial reason I set out to lay this out: Why are so many believers living defeated and ineffective lives? I believe a significant portion has to do with obedience, and I will deal with this in time; however there are many believers that are striving to live their lives for the glory of God and yet find themselves constantly defeated. A great portion of this is due to a faith that is stifled through distortion, intellectualism, scholasticism, rationalism, etc. Our effectiveness is limited to what we believe God is capable of doing in and through our lives. When we limit God to what we can explain and reasonably expect, we stifle His movement in our lives. Through our intellect and systems of rationale we rob ourselves of experiencing the omnipotence of God manifested and carried out in our lives.

Remember, what we truly believe will be reflected in our actions and our actions will never move beyond what we truly believe to be possible. One of the greatest reasons why very few experience the supernatural is that very few believe God for the supernatural. They may say they do, but there actions reflect something different. I believe that in combating sensationalism, cessationalist have boxed in the power of God to fit what they can rationally express or explain. In doing this, you have not literally limited God’s power, but you limited His movement in your life. Always remember that God meets you at your level of expectation.

Too many believers are ignoring Proverbs 3:5-6, which tells us, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.  Too often we are attempting to fit God’s omnipotence into an intellectual box in which we can rationalize his movement. I am going to reveal something that many will refute, but until you understand this truth, you will never experience God’s power in your life in the way that He desires for you to. Faith is not faith until it enters into the realm of the impossible. What I mean by this is anything that you can rationalize and figure out within the scope of your limited perspicacity of God and humanity is by definition within your sight of reason and thereby not true faith. Remember, faith is the opposite of sight walking. Faith speaks those things that are not as though they were. Faith expects the impossible and the unexplainable. Faith causes your spirit to disagree with your circumstances. Faith causes you to press through the process in order to obtain the promise. Faith is deterred by delay or conquered by chaos. Faith simply says, “God said.”

The faith I speak of is not some magic wand to wave over problems and fears, but an audacious boldness that decides to take God at His Word despite the problems and fears. This boldness causes the believer to walk in a manner that expresses what he believes. Since he believes that it is God’s desire for him to walk on water, he steps out of the boat onto the stormy seas. The believer that bears audacious faith does not search for empirical or pragmatic evidence that what he believes is valid. He has decided to live a life that says if God has declared it in His Word than I believe it and I choose to walk in it. This faith that I elucidate to some and introduce to others does not consider your circumstances as the determining factor in the outcome of your destiny. The believer that possesses authentic faith has determined that the supernatural is within his grasp when he truly trusts the source or its origin, which is God.

In presenting this I want to be lucidly clear that authentic faith does not override the sovereign will of God, it executes it. You may be thinking that I am back peddling a bit, but that is far from the truth. I would not be honoring my responsibility to absolute truth without pointing out that there will be times that you will make a specific prayer and truly believe in God for it, and yet it does not come to pass. We have to remember that faith is always efficacious, even when it does not produce the desire result. Allow me to venture out a little deeper to explain. When I speak of experiencing the supernatural I am speaking of what many would call the miraculous. This is what you need to understand: Authentic and genuine faith that is audacious enough to believe God for the impossible always proves efficacious, even when the desired end is not accomplished. Sometimes, through your faith, you will experience the miracle and other times you will become the miracle.

There will be times in which you get exactly what you are seeking, financial breakthrough, reconciliation, physical healing, etc. This is experiencing the miracle. Then there will be those times in which your prayer will seem to go unanswered or the answer is no, yet God gives you the strength to endure the struggle with true Christian character and integrity. In doing this others will see your living testimony and be strengthened and encouraged by it. This is becoming the miracle. God has used you to accomplish His will in the lives of others. Either way God’s will was accomplished in a miraculous way. The experience produces elation whereas the becoming bears honor.
I pray that I have at least laid the foundation on which we will be able to build from this day forward.

May God bless and keep you,

Dr. Rick Wallace