How Do I Cultivate Living Faith?

The most essential theme woven throughout the Bible, and the most necessary thing to have when professing to be a Christian is faith. It is “by grace” that we are saved “through faith” (Eph. 2:8), and even that faith is a gift of God. And we are to go “from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith” (Rom. 1:17). Among the believers of the church that was in Rome, it was stated that God has given “every man the measure of faith” (Rom. 12:3-8) whereby the gifts of God and the works of God are made manifest in the believer’s life; these gifts are “differing according to the grace that is given to us”

whether it is exhortation, ministering, teaching, giving, ruling, or wheresoever God has called out the exercise of faith, He gives it by grace “according to the proportion of faith” He bestows upon us.

Seeing that faith is so essential to the operation of the Christian, the question arises: what is faith? We’re told that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”(Hebrews 11:1)

The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Faith is not feeling, but the evidence of unseen things. Faith takes hold across the boundaries of time and place, beyond the circumstances of what is felt whether heard or seen, that would undermine God’s grace and His truth. The “evidence” of things unseen is the product brought to light as a manifestation of that faith. The evidences are seen in a multitude of ways:

1) By faith, we see creation (the evidence), and believe God created it (the unseen).
2) By faith, Abraham left his homeland (the evidence), because God promised to give him a better land (the unseen).
3) By faith, Abel offered up a sacrifice of a lamb (the evidence), because He believed God would send the true Lamb of God to die for his sins (the unseen).
4) By faith, we keep God’s commandments (the evidence), because God so loved us and sent His Son to be our death to sin and life in righteousness two thousand years ago (the unseen).
5) By faith, the poor man faithfully returns tithe to God (the evidence), because he believes God as an all-wise, all-sufficient Provider and Sustainer who “withholds no good thing to them that walk uprightly” (Psalm84:11).

Have Faith!

The evidence is a response to God that reveals faith, and it is a response to God’s Word; however, that may be made manifest. “But without faith, it is impossible to please Him: for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6)

Without faith, it is impossible to walk in salvation; God is well-pleased for us to be clothed in His wonderful gift of salvation, but without faith, no fruit is borne unto salvation. Mark this point with care, and meditate on it: God cannot bless without His child walking by faith; unbelief prevents the blessing, and turns the blessing that would come into a curse. In fact, without faith, it is impossible for God to save you.

Some may say, “Nothing is impossible for God!” That is true, but faith is a divine channel by which God unlocks heaven’s storehouse. Nothing is impossible for God, but will He save the Satanist who believes in Satan as their savior? Would God make a circle fit perfectly into a square? Nothing is impossible for Him, but not all things are logical. Without faith, it is IMPOSSIBLE to please Him, because without faith, He cannot save you;

the apostle James further elaborates “by works was faith made perfect”; faith is the evidence you have believed, received, and are walking in His salvation, revealed by your works, through both word & deed. O child, dost thou have faith?

The Right Kind of Faith

“For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another, the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; and to another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;” (1 Corinthians 12:8-9) Faith is an essential gift of the Spirit, yet large measures of faith are given by those who have received a larger measure of the Spirit by the Word of God.

Speaking on faith from the prophecy of Isaiah, the apostle writes: “But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report? So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:16-17)

True faith comes by the Word of God. It is the Word of God that is the test of all faith, and therefore, the test of all manifest evidence of what is professed as “faith”; whether it is miracles, experiences, doctrines, in thought, word, or act. For example, someone may say they have faith, but as an expression of that faith, they will get a religious tattoo of Jesus, of a cross, or something of this nature.

But what does the Word of God say? “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:28) Therefore getting a tattoo would actually be an expression of faith outside of the Scripture, and outside the blessing and will of God.

“We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;” (2 Corinthians 4:13) By the Spirit of Faith we speak the word of God as we have believed it, yet we are not to aimlessly believe every word as though it were the Word of God.”

Search ye the Scriptures…

Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits, whether they be of God because many false prophets have gone out into the world…” (1 John 4:1) We are not called upon to test the word of the prophets by our own thoughts of what we believe to be right; but “to the law and the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” (Isaiah 8:20) If they do not speak in harmony with the Word of God, or if they unsettle the confidence of God’s people in that Word, it undermines true faith. All counterfeits to true faith lead to the operation of another spirit: another word is spoken, another act is performed in the life, and people remove themselves from the channel of God’s blessing.

Examine thineselves…

Even our own thoughts, and the thoughts that come into the mind, should be brought to the test to determine whether we are walking in the light. “Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates?” (2 Cor. 13:5)

Do we walk by this command? Do we humbly “prove our own selves”? “For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be condemned.” (1 Corinthians 11:31) How might we judge ourselves? We ought to judge our feelings, the sight of our eyes, the hearing of our ears, and all the avenues of the soul guardedly considered, whether that experience within us, or around us, is of God.

We are given exactly how we are to meet every false thing: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

A Standard of Faith

You are not to judge your standing with God based on how good you think you keep the law. Neither are you to judge your standing with God based on how good or euphoric you feel. Feelings are fleeting; but a mind consistent with the Word of God shall reveal Christ in all that comes forth from it; seeing as Christ sees; feeling as Christ feels; having high and holy purposes and motives in harmony with the very heart of God. This is the faith that God desires for His children, and has ever desired from His children. This is the faith which pleases the Father.

It displeased the Father when Eve sinned because of the sight of her eyes, when she “saw that the {forbidden} tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise” (Gen. 3:6) because she had made of no effect the Word of God, which said, “In the day that you eat thereof, you shall surely die.” To Christ, the devil came, saying “If you are the Son of God…” after the Word of God had already declared it, Christ met every action contrary to the will and word of God with the Scripture, and thus, Christ evidenced His faith, by not yielding to the devices of the enemy, even when he quoted the Scripture, placing it in a false setting, to undermine the integrity of the full counsel of God.

Abiding in Truth

The Scripture says “Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:11); yet it also says to “rightly divide the word of truth” that you may be “a workman that needeth not to be ashamed” (2 Tim. 2:15); as it is evident that we must believe, not merely in intellectual or doctrinal assent, but Christ says to “believe on Me, as the Scripture hath said…” (John 7:37); here lies the best, yet most plainly revealed secret to growing in faith, grace, and “being thoroughly furnished unto every good work” (2 Tim. 3:17). It is by the truth of the Word of God abiding in the heart that the Spirit shall cause us to keep His ways, and since it is by the Word that we receive faith, it is by advancing in the knowledge of that word that we will necessarily grow in faith,

and thus our experience shall grow as more and more, our lives become living reality, “the evidence of things not seen”; “…whoso keepeth His Word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in Him. He that saith He [Christ] abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as He walked.” When we believe on Him as the Scripture hath said, we shall abide in Christ and Christ in us. And if we abide in Him and He in us, we will walk even as He walks. Such is the power of the Word of God when indwelling the heart; it shall create within us all that image and likeness to God’s very own mind, and so revealing His will to us, He will reveal His will through us.
(1 John 2:5-6)

Abiding in Faith

“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.” (John 15:7) By the Word it shall be done unto you, because “the Word that goeth forth from My mouth, it shall not return unto Me void, but shall accomplish all of My good pleasure.” (Isaiah 55:11)

Therefore we ask according to His Word, and it shall be done for us: “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” (1 John 5:14-15)

Why shall it be done for us? Because “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matt. 18:19)

Can two walk together except they be agreed?

If two agree where? On earth. Yet how much more if you place yourself in agreement with Him who abides in heaven, who descended to the earth, and was raised up to heavenly places? It is when in agreement with the divine mind that faith shall move mountains; it is not an arbitrary commanding of the moving of mountains.

Where mountains of sin shall be cast into the everlasting depths, nevermore to be risen. Where every ill and contrary thought to the Word of God shall be laid in the dust, and where mountains are brought down, and plains are exalted to become mountains. He who abides in the Word of God shall abide forever, for “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.” (Isaiah 40:8) And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” (1 John 2:17)

Dost thou have faith? More importantly…

Hast thou proven thy faith?

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” 
(Ephesians 2:8-10)