What I’m going to share today can literally change your life. We are going to look at some Faith facts that some believers don’t know about, or if they know about them they’ve been overlooked and have not applied these facts into their everyday lives.
I dare you to trust God. I dare you to take hold of Gods promise and begin to act upon it.
Faith is important because without faith is not just hard to please God, it’s not just difficult to please God, the scripture says that: Without Faith is impossible to please God.
The kind of lifestyle that pleases God is a lifestyle of Faith.
Two weeks ago I preached and gave the example of the water tank. I said that God has all the provisions for us, it’s like a huge tank with millions and millions of litres of water. But the way to connect to this huge tank is through Faith.
Everything you need God has already provided by grace! Through Jesus’ sacrifice at cross – it has been made available to all of us believers.
Every blessing of God has already been provided through grace.
Faith is the hand that reaches out and takes what grace provides!
Faith reaches out and receives from the hands of grace. You could say Faith is the Key that opens the door for all Gods provision, through your Faith you open the valve of the water tank.
Faith is the “currency” of Heaven, without it, we will not achieve anything
Faith is the key that opens the door to all of God’s blessings, to all of God’s provision for your spirit, soul and body.
To illustrate I have an example that happened this week with my wife Fabiana and my daughter Lycia. They left the house and didn’t take the key with them. I also left the house, closed the door and took my key.
They came back and when they got home they realised that they forgotten to take the key.
They had to wait outside and it was very cold. Our neighbours were comfortable inside their homes, but they were standing outside, in the cold until I arrived, I gave them the key and they were able to go into what was already theirs.
They were standing outside, knowing that inside of the house was warm, there was food , hot showers, and everything they needed to be blessed but they were standing outside because they didn’t have the key.
Many Christians want to receive something from God but they don’t have the key or don’t know how to use the key!
That’s the way it is with a lot of believers. God has provided so much for them, and they look around and they see other people enjoying the blessings of God. They see other people walking into the things God has promised but they are left out, because they don’t have the key or they don’t know how to use it.
Faith is the key!
Today I want to show you how to use this key and to teach some facts that every believer should know about faith.
1- God has given every believer a measure of Faith.
If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ you have a measure of Faith given to you by God.
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Romans 12:3
Notice it’s said that this is to every one of you, this is not to a “special believers” but to every one! God has distributed to each one a measure of faith.
Listen, you were not forgotten when God handed out measures of faith to all members of the body of Christ. He has given you a measure of faith too. It comes with salvation.
When we born again, when we come to the Kingdom of God, God places a measure of Faith. God put Faith in your heart.
I’m telling you, if you believe in Jesus Christ, it’s there! You have enough faith to do whatever God has called you to do, IF you develop and increase that measure of Faith.
2- Faith can be increased.
God has given you a measure of Faith but it’s up to you to develop it and increase it.
“We ought always to thank God for you, brothers and sisters, and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more, and the love all of you have for one another is increasing.”
2 Thessalonians 1:3
Another Bible version says: Your Faith is growing exceedingly!
This two things has to grow in in your life, as you became a mature Christian: your faith and your love for one another.
If just your love for God is growing but not your love for one another, them your faith will stagnate.
God wants your faith to grow and He is pleased when it’s grows.
How does Faith Grows?
Faith grows by feeding it with God’s Word.
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Romans 10:17
Faith comes by hearing and decreases by the lack of hearing it. Hearing in the dictionary: the faculty of perceiving sounds, able to hear well; not deaf.
What are you doing right now? You’re listening to the Word of God.
Faith increase when you come to church, when you go the Cell Meetings and Faith decreases when you stay home and don’t listen to the Word of God.
Faith comes alive by hearing the Word of God. The Word of God is Faith Food.
It will feed and strengthen your Faith and it help it to increase. Friends, faith comes by hearing and faith goes away by not hearing.
3 – You need to act upon your faith.
Faith is increased by hearing the Word and acting upon it. Just like the muscles of your body, they need food and protein but also they need exercise if you want them to grow.
Everyone has muscles but not everyone exercises their muscles. You can give protein to your muscles, but if you don’t exercise them, you will always have weak muscles. Some people have big, strong muscles because they put them to use.
The same thing is true with our Faith. Some people have weak faiths because they only hear, and hear, but they never exercise. And their Faith really is not much stronger than when they started the Christian life.
You have to get out and do something. You have to use your Faith. I dare you, I challenge you to trust God. Take hold of a promise and begin to act upon it.
Start where you are. Stretch your Faith and watch it grow. Start small.
There are areas in each of our lives where we can and should be using our faith. In relationships, our health, or material supply, when it comes to obedience to God, and doing what He’s asked us to do. It will take Faith for you to follow God and obey Him.
So, there are areas that you can immediately begin to use your Faith in.
4- Faith without works is dead.
“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”
James 2:26 NKJV
I’m standing here, I’m preaching and you see my body. Do you know why? Because I’m alive and I’m here telling my body what to do. This body is temporary and one day it will pass.
I’m a spirit being created by God. I’m alive. I have fellowship with God. I love God.
But the moment my spirit leaves my body, my body is dead. Just as the body without spirit is dead, so our Faith without works. Faith without actions is dead.
If you truly believe, you will act in line with your beliefs. Faith is expressed through actions.
What you believe in you will act upon.
Do you want to know if I have faith? Watch what I do. It’s a testimony to what I believe in. What you do and what you don’t is a testimony to what you believe in.
Let’s look at the story about Noah. The Bible says that he is one of the examples of Faith.
“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.” Hebrews 11:7 NIV
Noah warned about things not yet seem, by Faith he built an ark.
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
Hebrews 11:1 NIV
If I can see it I don’t need Faith for it. God told Noah, it’s going to rain, and you need to build a huge boat. What did Noah do?
Noah got to work. And for the next 100 years, Noah built the Ark and he did it by Faith.
Not because he saw a storm coming, not because he felt raindrops falling on his head. Not because there was thunder and lightning. No, but because Noah trusted in what God had said! He trusted God’s Word and by Faith he built the ark and he worked on it for 100 years.
Faith makes preparation. Faith has action. And by doing so, Noah saved himself and his family because he acted in faith.
When God tell us something, whether we can see evidences or not we should respond and act upon it.
Example: Many years ago, God gave me a Word that He would take me to other nations. At that time it was hard to believe, because I was just a young man from a very poor family.
But I believed in it and started serving my church. I offered to wash dishes in our church conferences, to clean church toilets. After a year I was leading my first cell meeting and my cell multiplied many times. I did the 5 levels of Bible School of my Church. I served my pastors and leaders. I became one of the pastors of my church. After years of “building my ark” I was sent to the Nations as God said.
What are you doing by Faith? How can doors be open to you if you have made no preparations?
If you believe God has called you to some ministry in the Church you need to start doing something and prepare for it by Faith.
Some people say: I’m waiting for when God will open the doors! How can God open doors if you don’t get yourself ready.
Why would He open doors if you don’t take any step of faith. When you believe in God’s Word you have to take steps of faith.
God has many things to do in your life but please don’t try to take shortcuts. God will prepare you in the Church when you are connected to the church, your spiritual muscles will grow by listening, receiving the word, because He is building His Church and His Kingdom.
I myself was healed from many diseases. In my first or second year after I born again, I had severe migraine, when the crisis would come, I felt like I would almost die from the pain. It was a very strong pain behind the eyes. It was as if “someone had my eyes in its hand and squeezing and crushing them”.
I heard a message about faith, as you are hearing now, I asked for prayers, after the prayer I left there declaring that I was healed. I didn’t see anything, I didn’t feel anything, but I believed in the word I had listened and in the prayer of Faith. I was healed and I have been healed to this day. Never again had I this crushing migraine or any kind of headache for over 30 years now.
My point is, I found a promise, I heard a Word from my pastor, I acted on the Word, Faith was released, I took hold of the grace of healing that God has already provided.
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.
I will continue this message next week! Today you need to take a step of Faith by believing in the word of God.
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!
Faith rests on evidence of God’s Word alone. God is able and He is also willing to help us, to heal us, to lift us up, to guide us, to comfort us, to sustain us, to provide us and to save us. Faith in God is the Key that unlocks all this blessings, Faith in God is the hand that reaches up and receives what Grace freely provides for us.
Even for you to be saved you need Faith. The Bible says, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Maybe you have never done that. Maybe you never called on the name of Jesus.
Jesus says that the ones that come to me I will not cast out. Salvation is the first great miracle that will open doors for many others miracles.
If you call out the name of the Lord and trust in Jesus, He will save you, wash you, clean you and give you a new life.