Published by admin on 14 Aug 2006 at 08:24 pm
FAITH WILL WORK FOR YOU
Everything in the Kingdom of God gets done by faith, and when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we are praying “Your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven”. Have you ever given much thought to that? By faith, and by His word, God created this whole universe. Every tree, every blade of grass, flower, animal, bird, and person exists only because God spoke them into existence. Do you suppose God ever wondered if His words would work and bring forth what He spoke? Do you think that God ever sat on His throne with His head in His hands, worried how He would come up with the necessary material to create the universe? Where in the world did God go shopping for what He made everything from? WalMart and Home Depot were not around back then as far as I know. Sam Walton was old, but he wasn’t that old! Just think about it. Man builds houses out of lumber that comes from trees. Did we create the trees? No. Did man create the water and the lime from which we make concrete? No. All our materials have to come from the earth. But we didn’t create the earth. In order to do it like God did, we would have to be able to make our own dirt, our own trees, make our own minerals to create steel from. When you have to create your own raw materials, it becomes, well, just a little bit tougher, to say the least.
I recently read joke on the Internet, where a group of scientists told God they didn’t need Him anymore, that they had figured out how to make men out of dirt. God said “OK, show Me”. So one of them started pushing a pile of dirt around into the shape of a man. Then about that time God said, “Hold it a minute….that’s my dirt. Create your own dirt!”
You see, although man tries to take credit for all the things they build and make, actually, we can’t take credit for any of it. All we are doing is taking what is already here, and making something else out of it. A law of physics says that energy cannot be created or destroyed, but rather only altered in it’s state. We can take water and heat it and make a gas out of it, or freeze it and make it solid. We can break compounds down to their molecules, and even break down the molecules to atoms, or smash those atoms together to convert them into raw energy, but we can’t create or destroy that energy. That energy exists because God created it. While many would argue that energy just happened, it is about as absurd as the notion that a car, even a simple car, could simply create itself and the parts thereof could just mysteriously just evolve from swamp gas. Can you imagine that swamp gas just becoming different parts of a car, and them just moving around amongst each other till they became a car? Silly, huh? About as silly as the Kingdom of God working without faith.
Now, God created faith, not us. And contrary to popular belief, the faith movement didn’t create faith. They just read about it in the Bible and started talking about it. One of my favorite passages about faith is written in Mark 11:22-24. I wish I could take the credit for what is written there, but I can’t. Jesus said it. Faith isn’t a Baptist thing. It isn’t a Catholic thing. It isn’t a Methodist or Pentecostal thing. Its a GOD thing. Now, if Jesus said something, don’t you know He knew what He was talking about? Before looking at Mark 11:22-24, let’s look at John 1:1-3 to get a little background on the authority of Jesus’ words. It is written ( I like that…..it settles all arguments)
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 The same was in the beginning with God.
John 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
Now, having established that Jesus knows of that which He spoke, let’s move on. As it is written in Mark 11:22-24,
And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. ( the Greek says Have the faith OF God)
For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
The problem occurs when we try to operate faith in a way that Jesus didn’t say to do it. Consider this; let’s say you want to go to New York in your car. The car is locked, and you have the key in your hand. Would you get a can opener and cut a hole in the top to gain entrance into the car? No, you would open the door with the key. Would you then speak to the car and demand it take you to your destination? Maybe, but nothing is going to happen until you put the key in the ignition lock and turn it and start the engine. You could go outside and kick the bumper and even beg the car to go, but it’s not going anywhere until you put it in gear and step on the gas. You could call the Highway department and tell them to guide your car for you, but hey, it isn’t going to go where you want unless you steer it yourself.
You can see how absurd it is to try to get your car to do something it was not created to do. A car is created to be “interactive”. That means, it takes some input from you to make it operate correctly. Faith is interactive. It takes you to operate it.
While Jesus said to “speak to the mountain”, most people speak “about” the mountain. They expect faith to do everything for them, without any effort on their part at all. You can’t just “think” to the mountain. If that were so, Jesus would not have said to “speak” to the mountain. Of course, He also said you have to believe in your heart and doubt not. Hey, if you have to speak to your kids to get them to do something, do you expect anything less will motivate your faith to do something? How many of you with kids can “think” to them to clean up their room? But they will do what you say, right? I rest my case.
Faith is your servant. It will serve you well if you use it like Jesus said. Regardless of what anyone says, if Jesus said faith will work by saying and doubting not, then it’s settled. Of course, there’s more to it than just Mark 11:22-24. For example, there’s also Mark 11:25. There’s Deuteronomy 28:1, and Isaiah 1:19, just to name a few.
God has given you servants to help you accomplish His will on earth; the most important being Faith. You also have Angels. But angels are another teaching. For the purpose of this teaching, let’s keep our focus on faith. Faith was sent to be your servant. And if you’re smart, you’ll put it to work for you. Romans 10:17 says, “Now then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” The Lord told me, Faith has ears, and it comes when it hears your voice speaking the word of God. So, call it to you. Talk to it. Give your faith something to work on. It’s your servant, so put it to work! Faith was created to work 24/7, without any rest, because it never gets tired. Faith LOVES to work for you. It hates standing around with nothing to do. In fact, it thrives on you keeping the pressure on it to do something. Expect your Faith to accomplish what you assign it to do. Don’t just “hope” it will get the job done, expect Faith to deliver! And don’t give your Faith any slack until it gets the job done!
Reminds me of the time a couple years ago I was asking God for a laptop computer. I told Him I needed one to work on prayer requests while we were on the road, and asked Him if someone had an old one we might be able to borrow. He told me to turn to Psalm 33:9. I did, and the light came on…..I said, Lord, in Jesus’ name I have a laptop computer. He said, Why do you want to borrow an old one? I said, In that case, in Jesus’ name I have a NEW laptop computer. He said, When do you want it? I said NOW! He said, Well, then say so! I said, In Jesus’ name, I have a new laptop computer now! He said, What kind do you want? Well, I’d like a Compaq, Lord. Then say so! I said, In Jesus’ name, I have a new Compaq laptop computer now.
In 45 minutes my phone rang. It was a call from a lady we minister to about once a year. She said, Are you going to be home this evening? I said yes, why? She said, The Lord told me to go and buy you a new Compaq laptop computer. I’ll bring it over to you this evening. (They live in another town) It was brand new, in an un-opened box. Inside was a $150 rebate certificate as well.
Don’t tell me faith doesn’t work!
But there’s something else you need to know about Faith. It has a tremendous appetite, it hungers for and requires a steady diet of God’s word. Try feeding doubt to your Faith, and you can kiss it goodbye. It will be deader than a door knob in no time. Many a person has killed their Faith with doubt. Have you been doing that? If so, here’s the solution…….
Just as you have to feed yourself good food to keep healthy and strong, your servant Faith must be fed the Word of God if you expect it to be healthy and strong to serve you.
In fact, Faith is hungry right now……
Raymond on 22 Apr 2010 at 3:22 pm #
Thank you so much for the information on FAITH, it’s true if we ever get the true understanding of faith and then BELIEVE by ACTING on the word God gives us concerning a matter we Christians would see many results in our lives.I would like to close by saying some Christians are living way below the abundant life God talks about in his word and I’m not just talking about being rich.