Leadership Training

Faith for the Believer

Faith is not a logical fantasy that is stimulated by an emotional response.

Local fantasies or emotional escapades will not increase your faith. Local fantasies are restricted, limited and confined to what we have learned in the education of life experiences. The church has added to these life experiences by producing emotional scholastic believers who are academically cultured to the mood of their flesh.

Matthew 21:22 - And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Romans 10:17 - So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Hebrews 11:6 - But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Mark 11:22-24 - And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.  

James 2:19 - Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.

Hebrews 11:1 - Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Luke 1:37 - For with God nothing shall be impossible.

Ephesians 2:8-9 - For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:  

Proverbs 3:5-6 - Trust in the LORD with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding.   So faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.

Mark 11:22-24 ESV

And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (read more)

  

The church is studious and intellectual when it comes to the word faith; however often times the church is theoretical, hypothetical and speculative about faith and the word of God. The church is theoretical because we have identified a set of rules to justify faith in the church that says we must have extraordinary events. The church claims these unspoken events that they feel must come through their senses or through their minds before faith can be confirmed.  

The church is hypothetical because they believe they have to test it by feeling it and observing the consequences with a logical explanation in their minds that often times contradicts what God has actually done. Finally, the church goes into speculation by looking at the terms of their investment to prayer and the word of God. As they look at themselves and evaluate what they have done they feel disqualified and assume that the benefits of receiving have a higher price and they lack what is needed.

The church has grown up to accept an underlying theory of what faith is, but in doing this we have imposed deductive reasoning as a formal standard of what we think faith is thereby drawing a conclusion from information that’s in our mind and thoughts and subtracting what is God’s word an creating an abstract meaning that faith is faulty, incorrect and restrictive.

Conclusion formed from the way you feel will help you form the wrong conclusion about what God has spoken by His word.

It has almost become a natural thing for us to feel whatever we do and we have allowed this type of thinking to take up resident in our minds.  We cannot fall into the trap of thinking that faith will work the way I feel, dream it, imagined it, and fantasized about it. Romans 10:17 says that faith come by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Emotional escapades are adventures of the flesh and mind trying to exploit what the word of God says.

You cannot exploit, manipulate or take advantage of the word of God by using your emotions. God is not moved by your sad or happy emotions or manipulation. God is moved by His word of God. God is moved by faith! His word is truth and His word is always true. God’s truth always involves integrity, dedication, loyalty, and devotion.  When we pray the word of God by faith in the truth of that word God each aspect of our prayer combines with the truth and the result is always awe-inspiring and glorious.

The fact is; is that God is the fact, the truth, and the life. He is working to answer your prayer and give you what you need for His glory and to His praise. It does not matter what you are going through God is ready and able to heal and deliver you from sin, sickness, death, and destruction. Praise God!

Your emotions cannot produce or validate faith. Feeling a sensation running up and down your arm does not confirm or certify that you have faith. If your arm is tingling and you start itching; you just might have dry skin or a rash. Feeling a sensation running up and down your back does not equate to faith. I know that might sound funny but it is amazing that faith has been compared to the way we feel and what we feel on and in our bodies. We cannot and must not bottle faith up into a body experience or an emotional event that we understand in your mind. Nor can we daydream while fantasying in our emotions, hoping in our own understanding while trying to figure out what’s real and what is not. Most of our imaginations are contrary to the word of God. Genesis 8:21 (for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth).

According to the word of God your body, your imaginations and your heart will deceive you and make you think all kind of thoughts that are contrary to the word of God. You cannot be affected by your body’s inability in telling you whether or not you have faith; it is not worthy of that task. Only the word of God can do that.  Romans 10:17 (So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God). Anything short of the word of God will not work; feeling or otherwise.

That’s why God said that flesh and blood cannot enter the kingdom of heaven; it has too many issues. Too many Christians are trying to take their body into the presence of God by the way it feels. The thing has to be transformed and changed by God because in its present form it is corrupted and it will lust, lie, cheat and steal; in other words, it will sin in the presence of God. It does not matter whether you are crying, shouting, dancing or singing you cannot rely on our flesh for faith.

If faith comes from the point of God’s view where we believe in the power of faith and the power of God; that faith we receive from God points to the power of faith; that is the power of God where we receive Jesus Christ by faith; the results of God’s Word is and always will be amazing.

Romans 12:3 (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 to as God hath dealt with every man the measure of faith). In other words in faith measurement, there should be less thinking and more believing in what God says and what God has declared by standing upon the volume of the word of God.

 But if faith comes from the point of man’s view and what he feels; man is responsible for creating man's faith and what he believes; it is from man and what he views as faith in the church. Faith it is pointless and it is futile because man has corrupted it.

What we say about ourselves means nothing in God’s work. It is what God says about us that makes the difference and fills the gap from faith to faith.

Ephesians 4:13 (Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ).

Man cannot imagine the reality of what it means to have faith apart from God because the fallen man only experience is the sin of faith (that is believing things that are contrary to the word of God).

Man is born believing that he can sin and he is motivated by sin but in Hebrews 4:15 Jesus covered all (“For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin”.  For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all). Let’s take the mercy of God and accept the help of Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. He has been through it all and experienced it all so that we may freely receive the gift of salvation by faith and this faith has given us life eternal. The point is that faith comes from God, is given by God and is maintained by God and through his word.

We cannot fall into the trap of thinking that if I shout “very loudly” and consistently shout and cry out that somehow God will hear me and your faith will be increased. Some Christian’s believers are masters in painting a pretty picture at the altar and in their minds of what they want by using their logical fantasies and emotional responses. They come to church and talk about what they want and shout about what they would like to have and cry about what they need but faith is far from them. The word of God say’s “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). We simply cannot use logic, emotions and daydreaming for faith. Logic (common sense, reason, rational judgment), cannot be a foundation for faith because faith can be logical and illogical (irrational, unscientific, unfounded, doesn’t follow what is expected) in your human mind. God does not deal with the logic or the illogic of man.

God is a God of pure uncorrupted absolute holy faith. He does not dream it, he does not shout it, and he does not fantasize about it. God is faith without any reservations or conditions.  He is all that faith is and will ever be. He is God and if you will believe and have faith in what He said in his words those words will bring deliverance, life, healing, divine health, extreme wealth and many blessings to you and your family for generations to come as we wait for His glorious return.

If we base our lives on logic it will lead to logical fantasies and emotional escapades of emotional therapy for the flesh thereby creating a false hope of faith. We need faith; the God kind of faith.

Let me give you an example. If we are children of God then what kind of faith should we have? We should have the faith that comes from God; the God kind of faith. In John 10:35 (If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken).  Jesus is quoted saying that God called us gods as the scripture is written and the word cannot be broken because of the righteousness of God and his word. God and his word are one. Psalm 115:16 (The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men).

The word of the living God is now and has always been based upon faith. The power of the word has the potential to heal the sick, deliver those in bondage, release and set the captives free. With faith in the word of God, you can do great and mighty things through Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. If faith comes from the position of the word of God that point to the place where we receive Jesus Christ and his anointing of faith; faith is amazing,  astonishing, wonderful, incredible and miraculous.

Ephesians 2:8-9 ESV

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Luke 1:37 ESV

For nothing will be impossible with God.

Proverbs 3:5-6 ESV

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

2 Corinthians 5:7 ESV

For we walk by faith, not by sight.

1 Corinthians 2:5 - That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Ephesians 2:8 - For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: [it is] the gift of God:

2 Corinthians 5:7 - (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

James 2:14-26 - What [doth it] profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not worked? can faith save him?   

James 2:24 - Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

James 1:5-8 - If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.