When we talk about the subject of faith so many do not yet understand faith. Jesus would often say in his Word to have faith in God. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is simply to trust that God is faithful to his promises and what He says is what He means. God does not go back on His WORD, and it's up to us to believe in a God that said to us in Isaiah 55:11
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
The amplified puts it this way
So will My word be which goes out of My mouth;
It will not return to Me void (useless, without result),
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
The WORD of God is God's voice and will for us his children. And as we believe in what He spoke to us, it has the power not to return to us empty or void.
Taking the example of God in the book of Genesis chapter 1, we can see that when he spoke it came to be. That evidently tells us that God himself is a faith God and he spoke in faith and it came to be. We are God's creation and we were created in his image and likeness therefore as his own children God expects us to act like he acted by speaking out what he wanted and it was done.
Living a life of faith is an act by believing and speaking out our desires. The WORD records this in Luke 6:45 -
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart brings forth evil. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.
Amplified version of Luke 6:45 says
The [intrinsically] good man produces what is good and honorable and moral out of the good treasure [stored] in his heart; and the [intrinsically] evil man produces what is wicked and depraved out of the evil [in his heart]; for his mouth speaks from the overflow of his heart.
What we are been told here is that it's whatever that is in our heart that we speak out. Whatever we have stored in our heart is what will come out. If we have stored evil words in our hearts it's evil words that will come out but if we have stored good words in our hearts it's the good words that will flow out of our mouth.
The mouth will automatically speak of what it's in the heart and whatever we put in our heart will eventually come out.
Psalm 141:3 records this:
Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;
Keep watch over the door of my lips [to keep me from speaking thoughtlessly].
Another version puts it this way
Help me to guard my words
whenever I say something.
What the Lord is saying is to be careful of what goes into our heart and to please set a guard over our mouth, for whatever we sow into our hearts it's what will come out.
For faith to work we are encouraged to study the WORD of God, meditate on the WORD and agree with what the WORD of God says concerning our situation.God actually expects and wants us to live a life of faith because we are his children that he loves so much.
Daniel was a man that trusted in his God
Daniel 6: 1 - 12
It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps, to be over the whole kingdom; and over these, three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm. So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find no charge or fault, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, “We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”
So these governors and satraps thronged before the king, and said thus to him: “King Darius, live forever! All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.” Therefore King Darius signed the written decree.
Daniel in the Lions’ Den
Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.
Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. And they went before the king, and spoke concerning the king’s decree: “Have you not signed a decree that every man who petitions any god or man within thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?”
The king answered and said, “The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.”
So they answered and said before the king, “That Daniel, who is one of the captives from Judah, does not show due regard for you, O king, or for the decree that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”
And the king, when he heard these words, was greatly displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him; and he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men approached the king, and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed.”
So the king gave the command, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. But the king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Your God, whom you serve continually, He will deliver you.” Then a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signets of his lords, that the purpose concerning Daniel might not be changed.
Daniel Saved from the Lions
Now the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; and no musicians were brought before him. Also his sleep went from him. Then the king arose very early in the morning and went in haste to the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried out with a lamenting voice to Daniel. The king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?”
Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, so that they have not hurt me, because I was found innocent before Him; and also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”
Now the king was exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he believed in his God.
Daniel had faith in God and looking at the last sentence it's recorded that he believed in his God.
Another powerful example is Esther
Esther 4: 1 -16
When Mordecai learned all that had happened, he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the midst of the city. He cried out with a loud and bitter cry. He went as far as the front of the king’s gate, for no one might enter the king’s gate clothed with sackcloth. And in every province where the king’s command and decree arrived, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping, and wailing; and many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
So Esther’s maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept them. Then Esther called Hathach, one of the king’s eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and she gave him a command concerning Mordecai, to learn what and why this was. So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square that was in front of the king’s gate. And Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king’s treasuries to destroy the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the written decree for their destruction, which was given at Shushan, that he might show it to Esther and explain it to her, and that he might command her to go in to the king to make supplication to him and plead before him for her people. So Hathach returned and told Esther the words of Mordecai.
Then Esther spoke to Hathach, and gave him a command for Mordecai: “All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that any man or woman who goes into the inner court to the king, who has not been called, he has but one law: put all to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter, that he may live. Yet I myself have not been called to go in to the king these thirty days.” So they told Mordecai Esther’s words.
And Mordecai told them to answer Esther: “Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather all the Jews who are present in Shushan, and fast for me; neither eat nor drink for three days, night or day. My maids and I will fast likewise. And so I will go to the king, which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish!”
This woman of God acted on her faith in God and trusted that God who is the great deliverer will definitely help her and what she also said was so strong which moved God to help her. She said if I perish I perish! how many of us would say this in the face of our circumstances?. Would we trust God like she did or give up in fear?.
The WORD of God says we are to trust God and not lean on our own understanding. Esther refused to listen to what the enemy had planned but she focused on God who had promised that his people will be saved.
Let's check the faith of Paul and Silas in the book of Acts 16: 16 - 26
Now it happened, as we went to prayer, that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much profit by fortune-telling. This girl followed Paul and us, and cried out, saying, “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” And this she did for many days.
But Paul, greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And he came out that very hour. But when her masters saw that their hope of profit was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities.
And they brought them to the magistrates, and said, “These men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city; and they teach customs which are not lawful for us, being Romans, to receive or observe.” Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.
The Philippian Jailer Saved.
But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed.
The faith of this men of God should be an example for us to follow when we are at our midnight hour. Do we praise God with our worship or do we grumble and complain to God like the children of Israel did and because they grumbled against God many of them perished without getting to the promised land. After Paul and Silas were treated so badly they still opened their mouth in worshipping the only true God and let's check out the result of their time of worship,
Acts 16:31
"So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
In believing in God by holding on to their faith the keeper of the prison was saved and his household also. Faith is to trust in God and not in our ability, remembering that it is God that saves us in time of trouble.
Faith is trusting in God that in every situation he is able to save us.
Another important thing that I have realised is that faith does not complain, grumble, doubt, be anxious, worry, fear, distrust God but faith will always praise God in every area of our lives.
The Holy Spirit as been prompting me to write about Joseph's trust in God the time he had a dream to the time he was made the second in command to the king and to the time he revealed himself to his brothers. We are going to go to the time he made himself known to his brothers in Genesis 45
Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Make everyone go out from me!” So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it.
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph; does my father still live?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. And Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near to me.” So they came near. Then he said: “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.
“Hurry and go up to my father, and say to him, ‘Thus says your son Joseph: “God has made me lord of all Egypt; come down to me, do not tarry. You shall dwell in the land of Goshen, and you shall be near to me, you and your children, your children’s children, your flocks and your herds, and all that you have. There I will provide for you, lest you and your household, and all that you have, come to poverty; for there are still five years of famine.” ’
“And behold, your eyes and the eyes of my brother Benjamin see that it is my mouth that speaks to you. So you shall tell my father of all my glory in Egypt, and of all that you have seen; and you shall hurry and bring my father down here.”
Then he fell on his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. Moreover he kissed all his brothers and wept over them, and after that his brothers talked with him.
Now the report of it was heard in Pharaoh’s house, saying, “Joseph’s brothers have come.” So it pleased Pharaoh and his servants well. And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, ‘Do this: Load your animals and depart; go to the land of Canaan. Bring your father and your households and come to me; I will give you the best of the land of Egypt, and you will eat the fat of the land. Now you are commanded—do this: Take carts out of the land of Egypt for your little ones and your wives; bring your father and come. Also do not be concerned about your goods, for the best of all the land of Egypt is yours.’ ”
Then the sons of Israel did so; and Joseph gave them carts, according to the command of Pharaoh, and he gave them provisions for the journey. He gave to all of them, to each man, changes of garments; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five changes of garments. And he sent to his father these things: ten donkeys loaded with the good things of Egypt, and ten female donkeys loaded with grain, bread, and food for his father for the journey. So he sent his brothers away, and they departed; and he said to them, “See that you do not become troubled along the way.”
Then they went up out of Egypt, and came to the land of Canaan to Jacob their father. And they told him, saying, “Joseph is still alive, and he is governor over all the land of Egypt.” And Jacob’s heart stood still, because he did not believe them. But when they told him all the words which Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived. Then Israel said, “It is enough. Joseph my son is still alive. I will go and see him before I die.”
Joseph was a man of faith and he believed in the promises that God had given him in his dreams and before the word of God came to fulfilment he had to go through so many trials but at the end of it all the word of God did not return to him void or empty. He said to his brothers that God had preserved him for such a time as this.
We cannot look at faith without reading about Abraham our father of faith in Romans 4: 1 - 24
For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead.
God promised Abraham a son and for years he held on to the promise of God and the bible records that Abraham did not waver at the promise but believed in God who had spoken of this promise of having a son. And we can evidently see that by his believing in God he had a son and up till now we cannot but talk about Abraham's faith.
This was not for him alone but for us that when we believe in God's promises we shall receive the desires of our heart to his glory.
God loves us when we live a life of faith.
Hebrews 11: 1- 6
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony.
By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
Faith at the Dawn of History
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.
By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, “and was not found, because God had taken him”; for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
Faith
What does faith mean?
The biblical definition of faith in seen in Hebrews 11:1, there are so many commentaries for faith.
"Faith means that we are certain of the things we hope for, convinced of the things we do not see" (William Barclay).
"Faith is a hope that is absolutely certain that what it believes is true, and that what it expects will come" ( Barclay ).
"Faith is being sure of the things we hope for, being convinced of the things we can't see" (Beck).
Faith is trusting and possessing all that God is and says.
Faith is believing and possessing all that God is and says.
Faith is having confidence in and possessing all that God is and says.
Faith is hoping for something and possessing it because God is ( exists ) and has promised it.
Biblical faith is not, I think so. I hope so or It may be so; it may not be so or It might be true; it might not be true.
True biblical faith is knowing what is real and experiencing what is real as well as possessing what is real.
God rewards faith and this simply means that God approvals our faith and is pleased when we believe Him and His promises. And this also means that God fulfills all his promises in our lives.
By faith God created the world and brought everything into existence.
Abel and Enoch were men of faith and God rewarded them tremendously because of their faith in Him.
The book of James 2: 14 - 26 says this about faith
Faith Without Works Is Dead
What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled,” but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered Isaac his son on the altar? Do you see that faith was working together with his works, and by works faith was made perfect? And the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” And he was called the friend of God. You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?
For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
What God is saying here is that we need to add action to our faith and then because God sees our act of faith He rewards us by giving us his promise.
My desire is that we live a life of faith and see His promises come to manifestation in our individual lives.
Remain blessed always.
