"I’ve confessed God’s word. I’ve sown seeds. I’ve fasted. I’ve prayed. I’ve done everything! Why hasn’t my situation changed? Oh God, why?!!"
Many people are agonized like this over seeming inability to change their situation. Yet, in Matthew 17:20, Jesus made this statement clear. He said “When you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible unto you. So, why do many of God’s people pray, fast, cry, sow seeds, confess Scriptures and still experience frustrations and even tragedies in their finances, health, jobs, marriages and business. Why do they always end up questioning, “Oh God, why?”
Many who find themselves asking this kind of question or who find themselves in such situations have one major problem: They haven’t learnt how to make their faith work.
Apart from their ignorance of how to put their faith to work, some Christians find their faith coming under attack and weakened by adverse circumstances. Like Peter, they take their eyes off the Word and gaze in fear at the boisterous winds and billowing waves; they eventually begin to sink when they should actually be walking on the water.
It is at such times of adversity that some take their eyes off God’s Word. They neglect their faith, allowing it to be stifled and rendered ineffective by circumstances which the same faith should have dominated. Any child of God can rise above any situation, time and time again, if he’d only learn how to make his faith work.
You need to know how you can receive everything that rightly belongs to you in Christ, and live the glorious, victorious, successful, joyous and prosperous life God has called you into. It’s very important that we have a clear understanding of what faith is. Faith is defined as the substance of things hoped for. If you have hope for anything, faith is what gives it substance. Faith gives you every reason to affirm something is yours before you see it with your physical eyes. Why? Faith is the substance of things hoped for; it calls real those things that are not physically observable. It calls them done NOW! Faith is the response of the human spirit to the Word of God.
Let me quickly point out here that there’s a difference between faith and believing. Faith is the corresponding action to what you believe. For the one who is sick, when he hears the Word that says “By whose stripes ye were healed” and believes it, his response or corresponding action to that Word will be to begin to declare “By the stripes of Jesus, I was healed!” He should start acting as one who’s been healed and as a result, begin to do the things he couldn’t do hitherto, due to that sickness. Now, when he declares that he is the healed by the stripes of Jesus Christ, his declaration is not based on his feelings, but on the word of God that says he was healed. For faith to be faith and not just believing, it’s got to have some action to it.
You Can't Please God without Faith
The bible unequivocally states that “without faith it is impossible to please him (God).” It didn’t say “without love” or “without prayer” or “without holiness;” neither did it say “without righteousness.” I’m not saying these aren’t important, for the Word of God lets us know they all are. What I’m saying is, it’ll take faith to activate and appropriate these and many more blessing that are in the Word of God to your life.
Some have tried religiously all their lives to be holy, to walk in love or to pray, yet they couldn’t please God because they haven’t learnt to walk by faith. It’s impossible to walk in any of these successfully without faith. You’re not expected to pray yourself into faith. How else would you be able to pray to the God you don’t see? How do you know He’s really up there listening to you? It’s got to be by faith! So, you see, you do have faith. You believe the Bible is the Word of God and you study it, but you weren’t there when it was written. You simply have faith that it’s really God’s word. That’s where it all begins. Faith is fundamental; it’s the foundation, for without faith you can’t even be born again. It takes faith to come to God.
Everything in the kingdom of God functions by the principle of faith. That’s why the Bible says the just shall live by faith. It didn’t say the just shall live by holiness or righteousness, but by faith. This shows just how important faith is and why the ‘faith-message’ should be taken very seriously by anyone who desires to live a successful life in God’s kingdom.
Without faith, you wouldn’t function well on your job, in your business, family, academics, finances, health or ministry. You can’t even keep the devil under your feet where he belongs without faith! It takes faith not to wish evil for those who hate, mistreat and misjudge you. You can only walk in love and live peaceably among all men as the Bible instructs to do by faith. You see, the faith way is the way, the only way for the Christian.
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