In Faith BY Faith

In Faith by Faith!
Light For Life November 2005

All my Christian life I have been taught about faith, it would be safe to say that it is probably one of the most spoken & taught about subjects in Christianity. It is pivotal to our life and our walk in Christ and it is something that we need and want. God has been giving me some understanding on faith in recent weeks; bringing me insight that I have never had before and I am beginning to grasp what it means in a new way.

From the time we are Christians we are encouraged to walk in faith and we try to do this but often we try and then give up too quickly, our human traits being very strong. I guess one of the first things God showed me was that we need to be ‘in faith’, as being ‘in faith’ is what pleases God, how can we expect to receive anything if we are not in faith. I had come to a place of wanting a breakthrough in different and specific areas of my life and first of all I needed to be in faith and not in doubt. I began to see that I was ‘in doubt’ more often than I liked to realise. The lessons of staying ‘in faith’ are ones we can't learn while we're on a high or while we're smooth sailing; they are quite often valley lessons. This is the place for us to practice faith and then overcome.

Since the beginning of this year when God started to make clear to me that He had a different plan for me, He began to reveal what exactly He was trying to teach me through each thing that I experienced. It started off with getting the ‘foundations’ in order which consisted of many of the most important things – like family, identity, priorities, then a revelation about God’s love for me and then how to really love God – by trusting God moment by moment, being obedient and following God. The last several months He began to show me about having hope, about believing for miracles in areas, and that hope is an anchor for the soul. All this has led me to another huge revelation, you guessed it….faith. FAITH was my next major lesson.

One week there was an appointment that I needed to go to, to something that I had been dreading for a long time and in a strong way. Funny, but for weeks ahead of it I still had a peace inside me, and as the time got closer to the appointment the level of peace did not alter one iota – not the week before, the day before or the night before!!! I woke up in the morning with God speaking very clearly to me and showing me something about faith. It was amazing. I realised that going over and over again in my spirit was a sentence – IN faith BY faith, IN faith BY faith, IN faith BY faith. I don't need to be in faith by my own strength – I could be IN faith BY faith. After all if we are not in faith then we are in fear!!!!! I became aware that this was God’s next message to me for that day and beyond. I did not have to struggle to be or stay in faith, God could fill me with faith.

As a part of this new understanding He showed me (or gave me a knowledge of or awareness) that I was not alone in the house (apart from the family) – there were angels here with me and so was He! Then I KNEW I was not alone! He reminded me of the story in the Old Testament of Elisha and his servant. They were in a situation where they thought they were outnumbered and then God opened his eyes and he saw the supernatural army ready to fight for them (the angels and the chariots), that those with them were more than those against them. I knew this was also God’s message to me – spot on. I had a very vivid sense of big strong angels surrounding me, also God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit being there too. The bible says that the angels are ‘ministering spirits sent to do the bidding of His word and to minister to and uphold the heirs of salvation’. I FELT as if I was not alone! This fed my faith level; God was showing me I would be alright.

The bible also says that ‘without faith it is impossible to please God for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him’ and, "the just shall live by faith.
But if he draws back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him." I wanted to please God and I wanted a breakthrough which meant I needed to have hope and to stay in faith.

There is so much in all of this that we can learn from and do, but where do we start? By having hope for our situations and then staying in faith about them, by not giving up when the circumstances don't change quickly, by still believing that God will do what He said He will do. Faith is what pleases God, in the bible in the book of Hebrews 11, it says that some of our great heroes of faith ‘died in faith believing, but did not receive the promise this side of heaven’. Do you think these mighty men and women died miserable? No! They died ‘in faith’! They died still believing! What would we lose by staying in faith? Nothing! Dying in worry and fear would mean that we did lose something… our peace, our stability, our purpose. But ‘in faith’ there is the freedom of joy, of rest, of hope.

Love
Cam

Word For Life

Interesting:
When you don't believe you get what you asked for… nothing! (Camille Richmond)

The Word

Hebrews 10:35-36
Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise.