THEME: STANDING IN FAITH
LESSON: Two
TOPIC: THE BASIC PRINCIPLES OF FAITH IN THE LORD JESUS (Part 2)
TEXT: Hebrews 11:1-4, Mark 11:23-24; Romans 10:14-17
MEMORY TRACK:
Last week we learnt that faith entails receiving substance for what we have hoped for and receiving evidence for what we cannot see. Faith grasps the unreality of hope and brings it to reality. We also saw that faith is not mere giving mental ascent to certain biblical truth, it is not assumption, and faith does not depend on our feelings, rather it is dependent on the word of God.
How Faith Comes (Romans 10:17)
Faith comes by hearing the word of God. The word of God carries in itself the dynamics of God’s power. It is embedded with the active force of God for the performance of the promises of God. The extent to which we can believe God is dependent on the extent of the knowledge of God’s word we have.
Faith For Salvation (Romans 10:14-15):
The faith for salvation comes via hearing. Some examples include:
- Cornelius (Acts 11:11-14).
- The city of Samaria (Acts 8:5-12).
Faith For Healing (Luke 5:15):
Jesus, during His earthly ministry, was willing to heal the sick (Matthew 8:3, Act 10:38, 1Peter 2:24). Faith for the healing of our body from any form of sickness and disease comes by hearing the word. The lame man at Lystra was healed by his faith when he heard the word of God (Acts 14:8-10).
Faith For Baptism of the Holy Ghost:
The faith for the baptism of the Holy Spirit comes by the hearing of the word (Acts 19:1-10). It should be noted that those who exercised faith in Acts 19, heard the word, believed the word, and acted in faith!
Building Your Faith on the Word (Heb 11:2-3, Ps 33:6, Ps 119:89, Ps 138:2, Rom 3:4)
Faith can be built on human wisdom, but the bible kind of faith is built on the word of God (1Cor. 2:5). The word of God is the means by which we get faith for anything we hope for. To believe God means believing God for what He has promised in His word and to take it as true. It is so amazing to know that all creatures are products of God’s word.
Building Your Life around the Word (Mathew 7:24):
We must labour to build our life upon the word because that is the only thing that is sure. The word of the Lord is the only anchor that can hold the soul. So, it is good to build our lives upon it. Building our life outside the word is building it upon sand that has no foundation.
Meditating on the Word:
We build our lives on the word by hearing, reading and meditating on the word. We need physical food to sustain our body but the food for the soul is the word of God (Matt 4:4). To read the word or hear the word is eating the word. Ruminating or meditating on the word is chewing and digesting it.
Meditating on the word heals the mind and heart of unbelieve:
Meditating upon the word renews the mind and strengthens the heart to believe. The word you meditate upon supplies life and health to your soul and body (Prov 4:20-22). Meditation is the process of chewing, swallowing and digesting the words to nourish our souls.
What Does it Mean to Believe on the Word?
Man is a spirit, which expresses itself through a soul and lives in a body. With the heart man believes and it is also the place of unbelief. At new birth, our spirit was quickened because we believe the gospel with our heart by the help of the Holy Ghost. The heart is the faculty that God designed for faith and Satan also uses this place as the seat of unbelief.
Your heart needs the convincing knowledge of God’s word to believe. The knowledge and judgement of the sense affect the heart either unto faith or unbelief.
Acting on the information taken from the Spirit generates faith in the heart while acting on the information from the mind breeds unbelief in our heart. To believe with the mind is unbelief but to believe with the heart is faith.
How to believe with the heart:
With the heart man believes, so faith is of the heart. The word of God is the basis for faith. Our spirit and the Holy Spirit agree with the word. So, the word of God we hear comes through our mind and reaches our heart through the help of the spirit. When the Holy Spirit illuminates upon the word (spoken or read), what comes out of it is faith.
So, faith is the releasing of the active force of God embedded in the word, empowering the heart to believe against the mind and the feelings of the body. Faith is the illumination of the word of God in us by the Spirit against the gross darkness of unbelief.
The voice of the Lord upon many waters:
Faith is the present voice of the Lord to us in His word, through which He addresses our present needs at a particular point in time. The voice of the Lord concerning what we are hoping for is revealed through the abundance of the word. Therefore, we need to gather more than enough scripture that address that particular need.
The essence of the Holy Spirit in faith exercise:
We need the help of the Spirit to act upon the word of God and lead us in a particular situation. It is good to know that faith is not static but dynamic. Faith is acting upon what the Spirit is saying per time. Rev. Kenneth E. Hagin said “Faith begins when the will of God is known”. What the Spirit reveals concerning a particular situation is the will of God.
Three Important Factors to Get Answers
“Therefore, I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark 11:24).
- Desire: The desire here means the expectation (Ps 62:5,10-11). The first step to answered prayer is desire that is borne out of faith (Prov 24:14, Prov 23:18)
- Pray (Philippians 4:6): This is communicating the need to God knowing that God is able to do it.
- Believe: Receiving substances for your desire and evidence for the things you have not seen.
The substances we receive here are what we hold as the answer to our prayers and we need to hold this in thanksgiving until the fruition of our desire.