Faith that Works

Have you realize how powerful our faith can be?

1. How powerful real faith in God can be?

2. What is real faith in God?

3. Can we cultivate real faith in God?

Faith as you never look at it before.

Faith is being sure of something even though it is not seen. Also synonymous to trust, belief, confidence, conviction, credence, reliance and dependence.

Since we cannot see God, Christ, angels and the apostles, we have to exercise faith in them, a faith that is a mixture of all the synonyms stated above.

Faith is a very powerful ability of a man, practiced in absolute-faith-degree it can result to changes that can be unbelievable for a common man.

Faith is very important to God, so much that without it, He told us that we will receive nothing from Him and in fact we may even get punished for the lack of faith. A case in point is the story of Moses written in Numbers:

“And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not believe in me, to uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.” - Numbers 20:12 ESV

Please take note that God reprimanded Moses and Aaron for not believing, what was it that Moses and Aaron failed to believe in that instance? This is a very interesting point to consider, If you are familiar with how Moses acted before this particular matter, you'd know how faithful Moses is, so let us examine the details of God’s command to Moses that led to this scene.

“The Lord said to Moses, “Take the staff, and you and your brother Aaron gather the assembly together. Speak to that rock before their eyes and it will pour out its water. You will bring water out of the rock for the community so they and their livestock can drink.”- Numbers 20:7-8

Here is the breakdown list of the above command of YAHWEH to Moses.

1. Take the staff

2. Go with Aaron

3. Gather the Israelite in an Assembly

4. Speak to the rock while this assembly looks on

5. Let the assembly drink from the water that will come out

Only five simple steps.

Let us look at what Moses actually did.

At Numbers 20:9-11

“ So Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, just as he commanded him. He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?” Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.”

Here is the breakdown list so we can compare:

1. Moses took the staff

2. He went with Aaron

3. He gathered the Israel for an assembly and said “Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?”

4. He raised his arm and struck the rock twice

5. The assembly drank from the water that came out.

Do you notice what was different from the command and the actual deed?

Maybe you will say well Moses spoke angrily towards Israel…But according to Yahweh’s word it is not that detail that enraged Him. It was DISBELIEF. What it was that Moses did not believe?

Compare the 4th step of God’s command. What did he tell Moses to do? Yes! SPEAK to the rock in front of the assembly!

By obeying YAHWEH and speaking to the rock Moses will show faith that what God said, He will do. By speaking to the rock Moses will show obedience, humility and it will give glory to God.

Sadly, Moses chose to do otherwise. And God punished Moses for the lack of faith. There are many reasons why Moses chose to strike the rock instead of talking to it like God commanded, but none of them can justify his lack of faith to the word of YAHWEH. We can learn a great lesson here, that faith in God’s clear word, message, law and command is very important.

Another very important lesson that we can learn from this is that our words, our spoken words are very powerful especially when coupled with faith. YAHWEH was trying to teach Moses this power of spoken words coupled with faith, It is a practical way of telling him to just say it with faith and it will happen.

Indeed if we study closely the words of God, we can find the same teaching, the same truth stated in slightly different manner. Consider for example what God said at Numbers 14:28, the prevailing situation was that the Israelites were complaining, murmuring and saying many negative things, and this is what YHWH said:“So tell them, 'As surely as I live, declares the LORD, I will do to you the very thing I heard you say”, Do you get that? God has a clear declaration, whatever He heard that we say,(said out loud, spoken) He will do to us. Wow! What a clear reason to be careful with what we say. It does not matter whether it is positive or negative, or to whom we speak about, when YAHWEH hears it, He will do it to us.

It means that our words plus faith is tremendously powerful, why is that? Why is a mere man’s word powerful? The reason lies behind the way God created us.

Let us look at Genesis 1:26,27 “ Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them."

Man is created in the image, in the likeness of YAHWEH Himself. Consider that when you recall how God created everything by saying out loud what He intends to do. And they came into being, from non-existence to existence, from spiritual power to physical manifestation.

Spoken words of YAHWEH is all it took to create anything. By teaching us to speak with faith, God is teaching us our potential, our possibilities. That is why He said in His written word; "I will do what I hear you say". Is this true? Our spoken words in faith have that potential and power? To further inquire regarding that, let us take 2 more examples, the blessings of Isaac to his 2 children and the healing of a woman by touching Christ’s cloak.

Let us read Genesis 27:1-41. The situation is that Isaac is now very old and blind, he feels he is about to die and wanted to bless Esau before he does, he asked Esau to catch an animal and prepare it for him, then he said he will bless Esau before YAHWEH. Jacob’s mother wanted the blessing that would be given to Esau for Jacob, so she asked Jacob to prepare himself to get the blessings first before Esau can get the chance to be blessed. The planned worked and the blessings were spoken out loud while Isaac is touching Jacob. At the end when Esau discovered what happened and so does Isaac, we have to notice that, Isaac cannot take back the blessings he have already spoken, he even cannot repeat the same blessings for Esau, instead he spoke of a different blessing.

Another Wow! With this part of the written word of YAHWEH are you able to understand how powerful our spoken words are? The blessings spoken to Jacob were so powerful it cannot be taken back even by the one who said them. And judging from biblical history of what happened later, the blessings of Isaac came true.

So, for us who are parents, this is a very good reminder to be careful with what we say towards our children. If we keep on repeating to them how bad they are we will eventually get a bad child as bad as we say. Thus, it is a very good incentive to start building them up with our words to have the kind of children we always wanted to have.

Now for the second example, It can be found at Matthew 9:20-22

“ Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”

Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed at that moment.

Here, we read a woman who SPOKE to herself about the faith she have, and it was done to her. And if we read the parallel story in Mark 8 we can discern additional detail in this story. In Luke, the writer added a detail where Christ asked His disciples who touched Him. The story can be found at Luke 8:43-48 in verse 45 this is what Christ said:

“ “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. When they all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.” “

Consider this fact, when Christ asked who touched Him, the disciples said people are crowding and pressing against Him, meaning to say many people were there and they were also wanting something from our Lord, they were also touching Him. So why did Christ felt the power went out of Him only when that particular woman touched Him? What is the difference? Yes, the only difference between those crowding, touching people and this woman was that this woman said her faith out loud. “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.” This is a proof of God keeping His Word. Because He said “Whatever I hear you say, I will do it to you.”

So, our faith coupled with our ability to speak plus our determined action will result in powerful acts. But there should be real faith first. Without real faith, our words and actions will only be hypocritical.

What is Real Faith in God?

Every person have real faith.

Yes, every person have real faith. That may surprise you and a lot of other people who may have been thinking that only a select few have this.

Everyday as we live our lives we exercise real faith. Whenever we decide and do a particular act, they are out of faith. For example, when we decide to eat a particular food, we are actually exercising faith that it will help us, which may or may not be true. Our consumption of that food is the result of our faith in what it can do for our body.

Another example; When you set an appointment with someone, the whole scenario of that future event, regardless of importance, is solely based on faith. Because you are not sure if you are even going to be alive on that moment, but we do those kind of things daily, having full faith that we will make it there.

Sadly, when it comes to the issue of God, we are inclined to doubt. If we can exercise the same trust that we do in our day to day activities towards God, we can be miracle workers!

We have our own personal reasons for being that way. Today, I would like us to work in ignoring those reasons and instead focus on God.n having faith in Him as we do when we decide to do our trivial daily activities.

You know yourself, you very well know how good is your faith in God, so a lot of us may feel discouraged in talking about this issue. Because we may feel that we really have so little faith left in God. Others have even totally given up on God and chose to be "atheist" instead.

How to Cultivate Faith

Photo credit: http://ww2.valdosta.edu/~almack/topic.html

I have good news for you. Faith can be cultivated and grown.

So how can we cultivate and grow our own faith?

We have said that faith is synonymous to: trust, belief, confidence, conviction, credence, reliance and dependence.

So let us cover them all to have real faith in God. How do we get faith in God as in belief? How do we come to believe something? What do we need first before believing something? Yes! Knowledge.

That is the first step towards real faith in God- knowledge.

This is what Christ have to say in this matter:

"Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. - John 17:3"

We have to know God, we have to be acquainted with God and all the true things about Him. Everything about Him.

YHWH of course, knows this fact very well. So He provided everything we need in order to do exactly that when we decide to do so. Your continued reading of this article show that you have decided to know Him already. The next thing is determining how to get those information.

Again Christ guides us: Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. - John 17:17

To avoid what have happened to billions of people being lost and misled, we can heed Christ's advice. Get the truth straight from God or from His real representative, the Christ. Trust only them. At least until you are sure you understand everything they have said to be able to judge if a publication do represent them.

So read the scriptures, look up the direct quotations of God and Christ. Study them, take them to heart, they are the wisdom of God! What do they say? What do they say about God? About His intentions and purposes? About the past? About the future? They are all there straight from God and straight from His representative, the Christ!

Read them! Compare them to what you have been believing all this time. Are there differences? Which would you pick when such case arise? Tip: pick God's version.

Here we will be discussing all about God's word, compare us. It will not be easy but the knowledge and the certainty that you are actually following God as God intended is worth all the effort you will put into it.

Read, meditate, read, compare, adjust, read, obey. Grow knowledge about God, grow real faith in God.

What's next after knowledge?

Next is trust.

How do we build trust? By application of what we are learning.

When we learn YHWH's point of view in a matter, we can apply His provided information to that. After application you can see for yourself the better effect of doing it His way. The more you apply and see good results, the more you will trust His ways and methods. Trust builds up, trust is a big part of real faith in God.

It will be hard, we have been warned by our Lord the Christ.

"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." - Matthew 7:13-14

Application will be hard, it is like finding a narrow gate, it is so narrow that many will miss finding it. But if you're sure that it will take you to life compared to the easy to find and easy to use roads that lead to death and destruction, It is easy to understand why we should strive to stay in the harder path.

Apply and appreciate the advantage of using God's wisdom in your daily life and watch your own Godly faith grow.

Then comes confidence.

When we are sure about God's truth by understanding His words and the words of His Christ, when we have applied the knowledge and found it dependable, when we become aware how God can be an undefeatable ally in our daily life, we become confident.

Confident enough to face the fact that, as we come closer and closer to what God is asking of us as persons, we drift farther and farther away from the ways of the world that we have enjoyed so much before. We are becoming different to the people we called friends or even brothers before, they too will feel that. Soon you will feel you are not as comfortable to be doing the same things with them as before. Many will then leave you. Labeling you with all the names they can call an enemy with. And yet, you won't feel sad, instead you feel proud, because you have confidence that God is on your side, that unless they also decided with conviction that they want to obey God as much as you do, they will never understand.

Again Christ has foretold: "If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." - John 15:19

Knowledge makes it possible for you to apply God's ways, it results to trust that His wisdom is the best thing we can always choose to do and that proves you that whatever other people think about God's way, you can be confident that you will not fail in your life with God's way.

Now comes conviction.

After going through life with those experiences because of application of God's knowledge, you are now slowly having the conviction to continue no matter what happens.

God is now full of credence, you can rely and depend on Him with all you have.

That, my friend, is how you build real faith in God. I hope that you will go this way. If you need a hand or a listening ear just give me a message and I will try everything to assist you. May God bless your faith cultivation!