Faith is absolutely essential to your walk with God.
What is Faith?
Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1 (AMPC) NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses].
Faith is… – if it’s not now, it is not faith.
Hope is always future tense or pointing to the future. Faith says I’ll receive it now or I have it now.
What Is Hope?
Hebrews 11:1 TPT Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.
There are a lot of people who think they are operating in faith, but they are not. They are actually working in high hopes.
Hope does have some limitations. There are certain things that it cannot do. Faith and hope DO work together and are connected.
Hope is a positive expectation of things in the future.
“I see good coming to me. Something good is going to happen to me this week…”
“I believe things are going to get better.”
God always builds our hopes before we actually begin to operate in faith.
Abraham is the father of faith. He is the classic case study of faith. Nobody matches him in terms of the quality of their faith.
What we see is that God did not begin Abraham in faith. He began him in hope.
Genesis 12:1-3 NKJV (1) Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you. (2) I will make you a great nation; I will bless you And make your name great; And you shall be a blessing. (3) I will bless those who bless you, And I will curse him who curses you; And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Genesis 12:7 NKJV (7) Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he built an altar to the LORD, who had appeared to him.
Genesis 13:14 NKJV (14) And the LORD said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: “Lift your eyes now and look from the place where you are–northward, southward, eastward, and westward;
Genesis 13:17 NKJV (17) Arise, walk in the land through its length and its width, for I give it to you.”
Notice the tense of the words that God is using while He is speaking to Abram. They are words like, “I will…, shall be…” This is all hope.
We see that God is instilling hope into the heart of Abram first because faith is required to work WITH hope.
Faith and hope can be broken down like this:
Hope is a blueprint or a model.
It is not the building; it is the expectation of the building.
Hope is the ability to imagine what is going to happen.
This is where you start.
God began to build Abram a picture of what He is planning to do not only for him but this people that He is going to make.
Genesis 15:5-6 NKJV (5) Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” (6) And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.
Abraham did not walk a walk of faith for 25 years. He clung to hope for all that time, but he walked in faith for the last year of the time he was childless.
God wanted Abraham to arrive at a place where it was completely and totally impossible for him to have a son.
If Abraham is to be the father of our faith (Romans 4:11) and he and Sarah are going to be our model of faith, they needed to believe for something that is completely and totally impossible and no reason to hope for.
Romans 4:18 AMPC [For Abraham, human reason for] hope being gone, hoped in faith that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been promised, So [numberless] shall your descendants be. [Gen 15:5]
Romans 4:18 ERV There was no hope that Abraham would have children, but Abraham believed God and continued to hope. And that is why he became the father of many nations. As God told him, “You will have many descendants.”
Romans 4:18 MSG When everything was hopeless, Abraham believed anyway, deciding to live not on the basis of what he saw he couldn’t do but on what God said he would do. And so he was made father of a multitude of peoples. God himself said to him, “You’re going to have a big family, Abraham!”
Romans 4:18 TPT Against all odds, when it looked hopeless, Abraham believed the promise and expected God to fulfill it. He took God at his word, and as a result he became the father of many nations. God’s declaration over him came to pass: “Your descendants will be so many that they will be impossible to count!”
We face problems in our lives every day that are not complete and totally hopeless. Very few of us face situations that are completely hopeless.
This means that if the principles of faith that we learn from Abraham worked for Abraham, they will surely work for us.
All of a sudden in God’s dealings with Abram, something changes.
Genesis 17:1-4 NKJV (1) When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless. (2) And I will make My covenant between Me and you, and will multiply you exceedingly.” (3) Then Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, saying: (4) “As for Me, behold, My covenant is with you, and you shall be a father of many nations. (5) No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you a father of many nations.
God says for the first time, “I have made you a father of many nations.” He says to Abraham, if you accept this, change your name and get circumcised.
Romans 4:16-17 NKJV (16) Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (17) (as it is written, “I HAVE MADE YOU A FATHER OF MANY NATIONS”) in the presence of Him whom he believed–God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;
Romans 4:17 AMPC As it is written, I have made you the father of many nations. [He was appointed our father] in the sight of God in Whom he believed, Who gives life to the dead and speaks of the nonexistent things that [He has foretold and promised] as if they [already] existed. [Gen 17:5]
When God wants to change something, He calls those things that are not as they were.
Hope is the blueprint. Hope says, “It is going to happen…” But faith is the construction crew.
Faith is like an invisible construction team; a team that works while you are at home asleep and does not want you watching them work yet you show up each day and are amazed at how much has gotten done behind the scenes.
Faith works in the invisible arena where God lives.
Romans 4:18-20 NKJV (18) who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “SO SHALL YOUR DESCENDANTS BE.” (19) And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. (20) He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God,
Consider (GREEK): to observe, notice, consider, contemplate, to have respect to, to regard
You will not be able to stay strong in faith if you continue to look at the natural negatives.
If you look at the natural negatives, you will talk yourself out of the promises that God has made to you.
Abraham DID NOT CONSIDER his body.
Some think that God always works in measurable degrees. We think that there should be measurable progress as you go along. But there also may be times when things get worse instead of better.
Abraham stayed strong in faith even when the news did not get better. He does not deny it. He refuses to focus on it.
Romans 4:21 NKJV (21) and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform.
Who was it that fully persuaded Abraham? Did God do it?
If that is the case, then all God has to do is persuade everyone that they need to get saved and they would receive it.
Who then persuaded Abraham? Abraham persuaded Abraham.
You and I have the responsibility to persuade ourselves to believe what God has already said.
How Does Faith Come?
Romans 12:3 KJV 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 as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.
“every man that is among you…” is referring to each believer.
Romans 10:17 (NKJV) 17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
“Word of God” (GREEK): Rhema – spoken word uttered by a living voice that brings revelation; a revealed word.
It does absolutely no good to pray for faith.
Your faith is fed and developed as you spend time in the Word of God and the Holy Spirit brings revelation of the Word before you. The Holy Spirit will speak a revealed word to your spirit and faith is fed and grows.
Faith for salvation comes as one hears the Gospel and that message is revealed by the Holy Spirit to your heart. One can then receive the New Birth because they now believe it and can act on it.
Faith for healing, prosperity, peace, etc. comes the same way. You avail yourself to hear the Word of God in that area and the Holy Spirit will bring revelation of that Word to your heart and then the blessing can be received.
The principles of faith are the same in any area, whether it be finances, Baptism of the Holy Spirit, healing or whatever it is. If you can learn the principles of faith, then it is easy to receive whatever it is that you are seeking from God or need to receive.
The principles and laws of God work the same every time and if you can learn them, they will for you every single time.
Dr. Lillian Yoeman said, “If I pray for any one thing, or I pray just one time for anything and I don’t get it, I start changing. I start changing. I start changing because if I pray and that prayer is not answered, there will have to be a change before the answer comes. And I know there can’t be any change with God, because He never changes, so if there’s any change, it has to be on my end. So if I pray and do not receive, then I start changing.”
Faith is of the Heart and Not the Head
Romans 10:8-10 NKJV But what does it say? “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): (9) that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (10) For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Mark 11:23 NKJV For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.
It is possible for one to have faith in their heart and doubt in their head.