We are doing a series about Faith! This series is fundamental and very important for every Christian life.
I’m talking about things that every believer should know about faith and facts on how to put your faith into practice.
I want to quickly recap some points from our last two messages:
– God has given every believer a measure of Faith. Romans 12:3
– Faith can and should be increased. 2 Thessalonians 1:3
– You need to act upon your faith.
– Faith without works is dead. James 2:26
- Faith works through love.
- Faith rests on the evidence of God’s Word alone.
- Your faith will be tested – Between every promise and the fulfilment of that promise, there is a wilderness.
Today I want to to talk about two principles only, the first one is:
- Faith is a lifestyle
“The just shall live by faith”
Romans 1:17 / Hebrews 10:38 / Galatians 3:11
All these verses say the just shall live by Faith. It doesn’t say that you must have Faith. It says You must live by Faith.
Faith is not a panic button that you push when something goes wrong. It’s not an escape tunnel that you go through when things go badly.
Faith is to be a way of life. The just shall live by faith. It’s day by day, trusting God for everything. It’s the way we live. It’s not just some tool we use and bring from the garage when we are in trouble, and them we put it back when another trouble comes.
Faith is a lifestyle. The just shall live by faith. We walk by Faith.
Learn to go to God first, submitting your life to the authority of His Word in every area of your life.
Obedience to His will is not just about getting the things you want. The just must live by faith and no other lifestyle is pleasing to God.
Without it, you cannot please Him!
Many use Faith as a parachute when they get into trouble. Of course, Faith will help you when you’re in desperate situation. But if your faith is not a lifestyle, it’s probably not going to work if you only remember to use it when you’re in a crises.
The just shall live by Faith.
Our whole life should relate back to God. I should submit my marriage and the way I love my wife. I need to be a husband that the scripture tells me to be. I need to be the father that God tells me to be. I need to be a faithful steward in my finances, I need give to God my first and my best, the way the scripture commands me.
I need to get together with my brothers and sisters cherish the body of Christ as the scripture declare we must do. “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do.” Hebrews 10:25 NLT
All of these things, they have to do with faith, obedience to God and aligning myself to the will of God, knowing that He sees me and He has given me instructions in His book, in the Bible how to live everyday.
When I do that, when I submit my life to Him , then my faith on His Word will certainly work.
- Faith is of the heart.
The Bible says that it is with the heart that we believe. Not with our physical senses, not with our mind, but with our heart. Faith is of the heart
Please listen carefully, because there are so many people that do not understand it : Faith is of the heart ! Let’s read Romans 10:10
“For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.”
Romans 10:10 NIV
It is with your heart that you believe! I don’t believe with my mind, I don’t believe with my body, I don’t believe with my feelings, but with my heart.
The heart refers to the spirit or the inner man.
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
I Thessalonians 5:23 NKJV
I am a spirit, I have a soul, which is my mind, my will and my emotions and I live in a physical body. I’m a three part being.
I’m a spiritual being, I have a soul and and I live in a physical body.
And it is with my spirit, in my heart that I believe.
“rather let it be the hidden person of the heart…..”
I Peter 3:4 NKJV
You see, it’s hidden. You can’t see the real me. You can look to my body, my appearance, but you can’t really see me. You just see the house I live in.
I’m a spiritual being, the real Marcio is hidden. It’s the hidden person of the heart. If you don’t get it and don’t understand this fact you will struggle to use your Faith.
Consider these verses, if you get what I’m trying to convey, it will change your life.
“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.”
Romans 2:28-29 NKJV
Think about that: it talks about inwardly and outwardly. A true Jew is not someone who is just outwardly, not one who has an outwardly circumcision in the flesh, but a true Jew is one who has a heart circumcised in the Spirit.
The outward refers to the body or the flesh. The inwards refers to the heart of the Spirit.
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.”
II Corinthians 4:16 NKJV
Many are discouraged and many give up because they have an emotional and not a spiritual faith.
My beloved ones, there is a hidden person of the heart living in every body.
“For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.”
Romans 7:22 NKJV
When my inward person, the real me, hears the Word of God he is delighted. He is created to believe in the Word of God.
But Paul talks about seeing this other force at work in his body, the nature of sin that was still in his flesh. One day we are going to get new bodies created like His Glorious body. They are going to be glorified bodies. But in the meantime we have this treasure in an earthly vessel.
This earthly body receives all the messages from our physical senses, smell, touch, taste, how things look, how things seem, how I feel and it reports everything to my mind.
But friends: It’s not with my body and it’s not with my mind that I believe. It is with my heart, my spirit that I believe.
The outer man or the natural man reports natural information to your mind, which is received through the five physical senses.
But Faith is of the heart. Faith is not of the outward man. Faith has to do with the inward man.
Listen to me: “For it is with your heart that you believe” Romans 10:10
It is with the heart that we believe! And to believe with the heart means to believe apart from what physical bodies may tell us or what our physical senses may indicate.
The physical or outer man only believes what his physical senses or his feelings may tell him. But your Spirit or Heart believes in the Word regardless of what it sees or feels.
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Hebrews 11:1 NKJV
It’s not about how you feel or what you see with your eyes. Faith is the evidence of things not seen! It’s the substance of things hoped for.
Faith It’s based upon a promise. It’s based upon the eternal, unchangeable truth of God’s Word.
Faith will change these things. I know there is law of gravity. If I drop a cup of water the cup will probably break because of the law of gravity.
The law of Faith is based upon God’s Word, it is the inner person taking God at His Word.
Every great man, every great woman of faith in the Bible, they believed in things they could not see, they acted upon God’s Word without physical evidence and without physical confirmation.
They believed what God said. Think now about Joshua when he was in front of the walls of Jericho.
“By faith the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days.”
Hebrews 11:30 NKJV
They were at the walls of Jericho. God says: here is the plan, I want you to march around the city without saying a word for a full day. And what happened? Nothing!
The second day God said again: march around the city in silence. Joshua said, “Really?”
God said “I want you do that for seven days. In the seventh day I want you to march around seven times, blow the trumpets, and shout, and the walls will fall down”
In the natural, Joshua had to be thinking: God this makes no sense. This is idiotic. But Joshua acted upon God’s Word.
He had no physical confirmation that what God said was true. But they marched around that wall seven times, blew the trumpets and acted upon God’s Word and the walls fell down.
He did what he did by Faith !
Noah built the ark by Faith. He was warned of things not yet seen. And he acted upon Gods Word.
Faith deals with the heart. I don’t look at physical symptoms or to circumstances to confirm my faith.
Example: if I’m sick, I’m not saying that I feel okay, I’m not saying there are not visible symptoms, I’m not saying that I have no pain.
But I just believe that as I apply the Word of God, as I thank God for His promises, as I worship Him for His Word, as I embrace what He says, as I begin to act upon it, the Law of Faith will take place, the law of healing. And God will bring me to a place of peace and health.
I do believe that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. He healed the sick on the Galilee and He is still doing the same thing today.
I choose to put my trust in His Word, which is eternal and will change the circumstances in my life and your life.
Please remember that your faith is not based on your feelings. It doesn’t matter if you feel better or if you feel worse. My bedrock is God’s promise. That’s where my faith is anchored and that’s what my inner person believes in.
Faith is of the heart. Your heart has to believe the Word, regardless, of seeing, hearing, or feeling.
You read the Word of God, you listen to the preaching of your pastor, you believe in the promise of God, you act upon it, and your inner man will rejoice doing that.
The outer man is still going to report senses, feelings, circumstances. I don’t deny that those things are there, but I believe that God’s Word is going to take place and change my circumstances.
But if we listen to the outer person, we will be cheated out of the blessing.
The outer person is going to say that is foolishness. Just look at the symptoms, the circumstances, you don’t feel any better, things are not changing, things look worse.
We are always faced with the decision: either I listen to the outer man and lose the supernatural or I listen to the inner man (my spirit) and take possession of the supernatural
Faith is not based on feelings or physical observances.
Example: if you’re on a trip and you don’t know the roads, you have to trust in your GPS, you can not trust in your feelings. You may feel lost but the GPS says that this is the right direction. We have nothing else to do but trust in this machine.
Our GPS is the Word of God and we have to go by what the Word of God says, regardless of how you feel, regardless of how things look.
The Word of God is the truth, we need to spend time studying the Word, then the Holy Spirit will illuminate the promise in your heart. You embrace that promise, you lift your hands and thank God for that promise. You act upon that promise.
This is how Faith works! Faith is the key but many Christians do not know how to use this key!
You have to make the Word of God your final authority, not the word of people, not the word of doubt, not what you see but what you believe.
Everything you need God has already provided by grace! Through Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross – It’s made available to us believers.
Every blessing of God has already been provided by grace.
Faith is the hand that reaches out and takes what grace provides!
Today you must take a step of Faith by believing in the word of God.
May the Lord bless you!