Beloved reader due to the length of this teaching I am breaking it into two parts so you can take your time and meditate on the teaching. My prayer is that God has birthed a new understanding of what the God-Kind of faith is and the ingredients necessary to activate that faith in your life. The bible tell us that the “just shall live by faith“, (Hab. 2:4) and that “we walk by faith and not by sight.” ( 2nd Cor. 5:7) Faith is essential to the full life Jesus came to give us, and give us abundantly. Remember beloved, “that without faith it is impossible to please God!” (Heb. 11:6)
As we finish this teaching of the God-Kind of faith we must understand that God, as I have written in every lesson, has given to “every man” a measure of faith, or none of us could be saved. The bible tells us that we are “saved by grace through FAITH, “it is NOT OF OURSELVES, but a GIFT FROM GOD!” (Eph. 2:8) We have learned that God has not given us faith to just obtain “stuff”, but to walk in the invisible realm of the Kingdom of God. He has given us faith to see that which is not, to believe His word above everything else we see in the natural. Faith gives us the ability to receive on earth that which is heaven.
Faith is the only way we can walk by! Faith is a walk with God. It is intimate fellowship in and with the Holy Spirit who leads us and guides us into all things. Faith allows us to hear God’s word, and for that word to become our daily bread to live and walk by. "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." (Rom. 10:17) Faith has its roots in an intimate relationship with God Himself speaking to us through the Holy Spirit. It is a dependence upon God revealing or manifesting Himself, His will, and His words to us and in us. He does this as we meditate in His word, spend time in prayer, by having a devotional life, and more. His desire is to fellowship with us 24/7, 365 days a year if we will dare believe Him.
Enoch was such a man and his testimony of faith is that “he walked in continuous fellowship with God for 365 years. He was, and then He was not, because God took him.” (Gen 5:22-23) This man of God loved God so much that every moment of his life, He was in fellowship and communion with God. BELOVED THIS IS FAITH! THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT TO WALK BY FAITH AND NOT BY SIGHT! This intimacy with God is what releases and activates the Faith of God in us and allows us to do the very works Jesus said we can do,even the greater works. 365 years is allegorical for a lifetime. God loved this man so much, he took Him straight into heaven without tasting death! This is what a true walk of faith is! It is a lifetime of intimacy and relationship with God. This relationship allows you to hear his voice continually in which you can walk in His ways and not your own.
Oh, what a better life God has in store for us as believers than just going to church twice a week and doing some sort of ministry. Through a walk of faith we “become” a ministry instead of doing one! The work that we accomplish is the Lord working in and through us, our personal work is to stay in continual fellowship with Him to hear his voice and obey. Remember Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” (Mat. 4:4) In our text verse we understand the reason why a life of true faith is needed. We are not to live a life walking in the flesh or in the wisdom of our human mind, but we are to live a life with the mind of the Holy Spirit. Let us read our text scripture:
1Co 1:25- 29, " Because what seems foolish in God is wiser than men; and what seems feeble in God is stronger than men. For you see God's design for you, my brothers, that he has not taken a great number of the wise after the flesh, not the strong, not the noble: But God made selection of the foolish things of this world so that he might put the wise to shame; and the feeble things that he might put to shame the strong; And the low things of the world, and the things without honor, did God make selection of, yes, even the things which are not, so that he might make as nothing the things which are: So that no flesh might have glory before God."
Do hear the reason, Beloved? Verse 29 says, “SO THAT NO FLESH MIGHTY GLORY IN HIS SIGHT!” What a powerful statement concerning the “Faith of God.” The Lord is under no obligation to honor our words, only His own words spoken under the power of the Holy Spirit. Some of the problem of the 80’s faith movement is that it became the “name it and claim it Gospel.” Some took the faith teaching to extremes. Some of the movements teachers taught, we could actually command God to do what He says in His word because we say so. A result of the faith movement was the growth of much pride and arrogance, and a looking down upon those who didn’t have their revelation.
Another by-product was an isolationist mentality that only “word of faith” people could minister to each other, so many other parts of the Body were not accepted because of they didn’t have the “revelation” of what faith was. God has corrected much of the excesses some of the teachers taught about faith, and some of the influential leaders of the movement have even repented for some of the extremes the faith teaching brought. Yet with all that said, the revelation of what faith was so valuable to so many people. As I mentioned in an earlier article, many who were in poverty could now believe God could prosper them, and they would not have to live on welfare the rest of their life. They began to believe that God could provide their daily bread and prosper them even as their soul prospered. This was a first step for many to come out of slavery into the liberty of the Lord.
But true and living faith has nothing to do with meeting our every day needs. Matter of fact Jesus said, “that we are not to worry about what we are going to eat or drink.” He said, “don’t worry about what you wear or where you are going to live.” Why? “Because you are of more value than the birds of the air and lily of the valley, and your Heavenly Father already knows that you have these needs!” (Mat.6:25-34) Our faith must grow beyond believing God to take care of us, matter of fact true living faith already knows that fact and is secure in it. Why is this important? Because knowing this fact in the depth of your being is the only way you can be about the business of the Lord. Mathew 6:33 says, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and it’s righteousness, and ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE ADDED UNTO YOU!” Beloved a walk by faith has to go beyond “our daily necessities and our needs” to understanding the HEART OF GOD AND HIS NEEDS.
Faith becomes alive and active in us when we KNOW what God desires for our lives, families and those around us. Faith becomes active when we lose the right to our lives, and we understand that God Himself has taken the responsibility to provide for as we obey His every word. That is why faith requires HEARING, and HEARING by the Word of God. It is the ability to hear God‘s voice that enables us to do His will and purpose. Hearing God’s voice daily and allowing Him to quicken His very words in us empowers us by faith to accomplish what is “impossible for man.” Peter heard the word from Jesus in the boat, “ Come” and Peter got out of the boat and walked upon the water. His faith came by hearing and hearing a word from Jesus and he did the impossible. He learned how to walk by faith.
Beloved this is essential, without a life of intimacy with God through the Holy Spirit we can NEVER WALK BY FAITH! WE WILL NEVER KNOW WHAT TO DO OR WHERE TO DO IT! At best, we will try to do His will in our understanding. We will read a few verses of scripture and try to go out to do it, but it will be in the power of the flesh and not the quickened WORD that came by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the most important person on the face of the earth. He is the most important person that came to live in your body, He calls His temple. The bible tells us, “know ye not, ye are the temple of the Holy Spirit.”(1 Cor. 6:19) We know God is one, but manifests as three persons, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Yet it does not say, ye are the temple of the Father, or of Jesus, though they can not be separated. It says we are the “temple of the Holy Spirit.” Why?
Because He is the promise of the Father that was to come to lead, teach and guide us and live in us.(Luke 24:29) He is the One who has come to empower us in the God-Kind of faith to obey God’s commands, every last one of them.(Acts 1:8, “and you shall receive power, after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be a witness!”) Beloved without Him, we can do nothing! Our next teaching will continue this thought. Please go to the next blog to continue this teaching.
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