How to have faith and keep it
How to have faith and keep it.
“You just have to have faith” Haven’t you heard that phrase about a million times? Sounds simple enough but how can you have faith and how can you keep it to get your prayers answered.
What is faith?
Are faith and hope the same thing?
Is believing in God faith?
Why do I have to have faith?
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What is faith?
When we sit down on a chair, we believe the chair will hold us up. That is natural faith. What we will be talking about here is the God kind of faith, the faith that flows between us and God. The faith that moves mountains, heals the sick and parts the waters. The kind of faith that you need to have in order to receive your miracle. In the book of Hebrews, we find the definition of faith:
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”
Hebrews 11:11
First of all, let’s define faith; the Webster’s Dictionary describes faith as “unquestioning belief in God…complete trust, confidence or reliance; as children usually have faith in their parents”.
So, from this description, we can see that faith is the unquestioning belief in who God is, in what He does and what He says. Believing and acting on God’s word without questioning, just simply trusting that He is who He said He is, and that His promises are true in your life.
What faith is not
I used to think faith and hope were the same thing but faith is not hope. I’m not saying that hope is bad, hope is good, hope precedes faith. One of the reasons for prayers not being answered is because people are operating in hope and not in faith.
Someone once said that “Hope sets the stage, and faith brings the result”
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you receive it, and it will be yours.”
Mark 11:24
Jesus did not say that you will receive in the future, he said it in the present “believe that you receive it” Hope is in the future. Hope believes that one day we “will receive” Faith believes that we already got it. We have now moved from the hope of the future to the now of faith. We do not receive it by hoping.
Why do we need to have faith?
It is impossible to believe God and His word without faith because faith pleases God. He wants His children to believe in Him; He wants you to know without a doubt in your heart that He is real, and that He loves you. He has thousands of promises for your life if you just have faith and get a hold of them and receive them.
“And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.”
Hebrews 11:6
Faith examples
The bible is full of faith examples. Many of God’s children both men and women accomplished great things by choosing to have faith, and guess what? God is the same, yesterday, today and always, so just like those people from the past you can also accomplish great things by choosing to have faith in God. Let’s look at 3 examples:
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Jesus:
We cannot talk about faith without talking about Jesus because after all, he is the perfect example. “But Jesus was different, He was the son of God,” many people say. When Jesus came to Earth he was a regular man just like you and me, he also had free will, like you and I and he made his own decisions. When Jesus saw the man with a withered hand, His instructions were simple. Impossible in the natural but simple and full of faith: “Stretch out your hand” and he stretched it out, and it was restored as whole as the other” (Matthew 12:10-13).
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David:
Everybody knows the story of David and Goliath, even some scientists have studied this case. Goliath was a giant and in the natural very fearsome, he was the enemy and was threatening, but David refused to react in the natural, he refused to fear. David’s faith was so strong that he convinced the king to let him go fight Goliath. David knew God, he trusted that God was with him and that He was going to deliver him. David persisted in faith and declared it and Goliath was killed just like David declared: “This day The Lord will deliver you into my hand” (1 Samuel 17:45-47).
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Abraham:
He was an old man with a barren wife named Sara. Abraham had a promise from God that one day, he will be the father of many nations. His situation was impossible in the natural but praise God that there is nothing impossible to Him! Abraham saw God’s promise fulfilled in his life because he never gave up his faith, he knew that one way or another God will come through. “Abraham believed God, and God counted him as righteous because of his faith.” (Romans 4:3).
Faith facts
- It is now, in the present.
- Faith is a choice.
- It changes things.
- Believing and acting in faith will cause the results to materialize.
- Faith without works (believing, acting, speaking) is dead.
- We release faith with words.
- We all have the same measure of faith.
- Faith can be developed.
- Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
How to have faith and keep it
“For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you”
Romans 12 :3
According to this scripture all of us as born again believers have been given a measure of faith, we just need to develop our faith in order to keep it. How to have faith? Simple, faith is something that God puts inside of us. Faith is a spiritual force that needs to be nurtured.
How can we develop our faith?
- Develop a strong relationship with God. Know Who He is, and who you are in Him.
- Put the word first, meditate on it. Putting the word first builds the capacity for faith because faith comes by hearing the word of God. (Romans 10:17)
- We must choose to believe His word to us will come to pass.
- Faith has a voice. Faith-filled words can change your situation. Speak the word to your situation.
- Don’t look at the things happening around you in the natural, keep your eyes on Jesus the founder and perfecter of our faith.
- Act on the word. We don’t have to wait for the fulfillment of the word because we know that we already have it. We need to start praising God for His word. Live a life of praise.
I know this is getting long my friends, but I hope you see the importance of faith. When we choose to have faith every day for every situation our faith will grow as we forsake the natural and move into the supernatural.
“There impossible with God. All the impossibility is with us when we measure
God by the limitations of our unbelief”
Smith Wigglesworth
Enemies of faith
- Worry is a manifestation of a lack of trust, no one can worry and trust at the same time.
- Fear will keep us from having the faith it takes to do the will of God. Faith and fear are both built on information so make sure you choose to believe the information coming from the word of God.
- Hardness of heart comes from unforgiveness. We build a wall to protect ourselves to make sure we don’t get hurt again. But the walls that we build for our protection are also separating us from God and others. Allow God to soften your heart.
- Doubt and unbelief are very similar and is one of the main enemies of the faith, they are in contrast to faith. Doubt means fearful, apprehensive or suspicious. Unbelief is the failure to believe or lack of faith.
- Lack of love God is love, if you don’t have love, you don’t have God. If you don’t have God, you don’t have faith.
You can read more about the enemies of faith in this post: The Enemies of Faith and How to Overcome Them.
Finally
As you see my friends, having faith is not hard, we all have it, we just need to nurture it. Choose to believe in God, choose to believe His promises for you are real and that you already have them.
A mustard seed is just a measure, and that is exactly how much you need in order to move a mountain. There are tons of faith books out there, my favorite book is called Ever Increasing Faith by Smith Wigglesworth, if you have a chance to buy that book I highly recommend it, it will bless your socks off.
Smith Wigglesworth was a man that God used to do great miracles. His teachings and his revelation of faith is something worth studying. You can get the complete collection of his teachings here, you won’t regret it.
Do you have any questions about faith? Do you have a testimony of faith that can bless someone? Please let me know in the comments.
“Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,
and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.” (Mark 11:23)
“Jesus here uses the figure of a mountain. Why does He say a mountain?
Because, if faith can remove a mountain, it can remove anything.
The plan of God is so marvelous, that if you will only believe, all things are possible” Smith Wigglesworth
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