Let’s have a conversation about faith.  Most of us relate faith to believing what the Bible says; and rightly so.  It is where strongest faith in God can be attained.  According to Romans 10:17 faith comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God.  So, the more we hear it the more our faith in Him strengthens.

We have faith in natural things too, but don’t actually think of them that way.  We have faith that a chair will hold us when we sit down.  We have faith that the electricity will be there when we flip the light switch.  We don’t even know who built the chair or how electricity works, but we put faith in them.  How about your car?  Do you know all about how the ignition works; well, some of the men probably do.  But if you are like me, I know mostly that there needs to be air in the tires and gas in the tank but that is about all.  Hah!

Some of you may be laughing right now of the simplicity of these examples, but I assure you that there is a good lesson to learn.  First of all we don’t have to know everything about how to make a chair, make the electricity or the car to basically use them.  However if a problem arises the more informed we are the better we are to face those problems.  The same is true of the Word of God.  We don’t have to know everything about His Word in order to walk in faith.  We walk in the Light (or knowledge) that we have.  We begin where we are and grow.

Remember the Bible is God in print.  So when we study the Bible we see the distinctive qualities of God and how His Kingdom works.  Similarly if we read a car manual we see the distinctive qualities of that specific car and how it works.   It is also true about learning the rules and regulations of how to play a sport; the more you understand the better you can utilize the knowledge for your benefit.  The more we understand what God says in His Word the better we are able to apply its truths to our life and live victoriously.

So let’s look at a few basics about faith.

First, everyone has faith.  Romans 12:3, tells us that God has given every man the measure of faith.  Not a measure as though each could have a different measure, but the measure.  In other words, we all receive the same measure of faith.  So it is not about how much that measure is exactly but how we learn to use it.

Secondly, everyone has the opportunity to grow their faith.  Romans 10:17 teaches us that faith (in God) comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God.  That means we don’t just settle for hearing it once or twice a week, month, or year, but we continually make time to hear the Word of God.  We feed our natural body more than once a day to keep it strong and healthy, and we should feed our spirit more than once a day to keep our faith strong.

Thirdly, everyone must learn how to use their faith.  Faith comes by hearing the Word of God but faith works by speaking the Word of God.  Also it is of the utmost importance that we walk in love for our faith to work (Galatians 5:6).  God is love – not that He has love but that He IS love (1 John 4:8).  As His children we should exhibit this quality in our lives too.

God Himself is our example of faith.  He called things into existence from the very beginning when He created the world (Genesis 1).  We also know this from Romans 4:17 where it tells us that God called Abraham a father of many nations before he even had any children; “calling those things which be not as though they were”.  We use this same spiritual truth to call healing into our body when it is sick.  We don’t neglect the sickness or disease by denying that it’s there; we take precautions as necessary in the natural; but foremost we speak the healing power of God into our body to bring in the healing and push out the sickness.  I don’t quite understand why people have trouble with this principle.  We do the same thing in the natural when we take an aspirin to push out the pain of a headache!  The wonderful thing about the Word of God is that there are no ill effects from it; it just produces what it’s sent forth to do.  Isaiah 55:11 says, “So shall my word be that goes forth out of my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it”.  Again we see in Proverbs 18:21 that death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.  Eating the fruit thereof means that we will bear the consequences of our words.

Faith in God comes by hearing His Word.  Strong faith in God comes from continually hearing His Word.  Our faith works by our words – specifically speaking God’s Word, and by living a live pleasing to Him in love.

Heavenly Father I pray that this week be a new beginning of commitment to hearing Your Word daily.  A new commitment to speak Your Word over our lives so that we can live a life pleasing to You, fulfilling Your Plan for our life; and be in good health and make our way prosperous as You have promised in your Word (Joshua 1:8).