Chapter 12 - What Faith Involves

We saw what faith is as we studied this originally, but what really is involved with faith? How do I use it? How is it expressed and developed, and how does it function within me?

You Need to Mutter

Firstly faith involves muttering to yourself. You say, "But that is the first sign of madness isn't it?'

Well you have to be mad to have faith don't you? It is totally contrary to the world.

You step out in faith and people think you are crazy. You pack up your business to go overseas to a foreign land. You can't work there and there is no income to do the work of the Lord and people say, "Are you mad?"

"No I'm going in faith." "But you're crazy. " "Yes I probably am, but I'm going in faith."

I can imagine what Abraham's relatives said to him when God said, "I want you to leave your family, your home and your country, and I want you to go out to a land that I am going to show you?"

"Where is it Lord?" "I'll show you when you get there." "Okay Lord if you say so. I'm off."

I can imagine him calling his wife and saying, "Honey, we're moving." "Where to?" "Well I'm not quite sure just yet."

"You mean we're moving out of town?" "No, a little bit further than that."

"So where are we moving?" "We're moving to another country."

"We're going to another country? Which country?" "I don't know."

I can see her looking at him sideways and saying, "He's lost it; he really has. All this religion has gone to his head. He's gone mad."

God said to Abraham, "You go out and I will show you where to go."

The Scripture says that by faith Abraham went out. God had made him a promise and he obeyed. So when you start muttering to yourself, don't worry if people say, "This guy is crazy."

Just say to them, "Oh, I'm just being a faith person here. I'm muttering to myself."

Woman with the Issue of Blood

What are you going to mutter to yourself? Let's look at a couple of Scriptural examples.

In Matthew 9, a woman who had suffered with a flow of blood for 12 years came behind Jesus and touched the hem of His garment, ...for she said within herself, 'If I can just touch His garment I will be healed.

I can see this woman walking in the crowd and saying, "If I can just touch His garment I will be healed. If I can just touch His garment I will be healed."

She was muttering it. She was speaking to herself and saying it over and over again. She was seeing it, visualizing it and saying, "If I can touch His garment I will be healed."

Joshua

I want to show you another person who muttered the Word. He was in the Old Testament. Joshua 1:8 says: This book of the law shall not cease [to come] out of your mouth; but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it: for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

I can see Joshua muttering to himself and saying, "I'm going to take Moses' place and lead the Children of Israel. I'm going to go and destroy that big giant and take away his land.

I'm going to get in there and take all that wonderful fruit, instead of this miserable manna that we have to eat every day.

I'm going to do it! I'm going to put my foot on the land just like God said I would. I'm going to drive the people off and I'm going to conquer them."

I can see him saying it over and over again. He kept the Word in His mouth. He kept muttering it, meditating on it, thinking it, visualizing it and picturing it.

It became so real to him that in the middle of the battle when he could see that they needed more time, he just turned to the sun and said, "You will not go down until I say so."

He was nuts. How could a stupid little man talk to the sun? Didn't he know anything about the solar system? Didn't he know it had nothing to do with the sun going down, but that it was the earth that was turning?

How could he tell the sun that it was not going to go down? But you know what? It didn't go down.

That puny little madman stopped the earth in its rotation for almost a complete day. Why? Because he had been muttering to himself, With God all things are possible to him who believes.

He had been muttering to himself until it was so real to him and he was just so full of it that nothing was impossible to him.

Positive Talk

Do you want faith to operate in your life? Try talking to yourself and muttering to yourself all the time. As you go through the day say, "I'm going to do this and I'm going to succeed. I'm going to do great things for the Lord. I'm going to receive what I have desired of the Lord. My God will provide my needs."

Speak it and keep speaking it over and over, so that when you stop speaking it carries on talking back to you. You know what it is like.

Have you ever reached the point where you stopped speaking and are quiet and you can just hear this voice talking inside of you? Sometimes you just wish you could tell it to keep quiet. Most of the time when it talks it is negative.

It says, "You're going to fail. You're going to die. You're going to starve."

Change the voice. You have been running the wrong recording. It is only playing back what you put in there though. If you keep putting the wrong thing in there, what do you think is going to play back?

Start muttering the Word of God. Start muttering good things and start saying, "I will do this. I'm going to do this. I put my foot on the land. It is mine." Say it over and over.

You say, "But I can't do that during the day while I'm working."

I didn't say talk out loud. I said you must mutter to yourself. You can do it. You can mutter to yourself most of the day within your heart, even while your mind is busy with something else.

Begin to program it in until your heart is full of it and until that voice begins to talk back to you again as you lie in bed at night.

When you wake up in the middle of the night it will talk to you. And when you wake up in the morning it will also talk to you.

It will rise up in you and say, "Today my needs are provided. Today I have what I asked for and I walk in prosperity. Today I walk in victory. I am going to succeed. Today is going to be a wonderful day."

Is that what you hear when you wake up? I think probably not. You have been muttering the wrong thing.

You hear, "I don't know what we are going to do. If money doesn't come in soon we will be in trouble. What am I going to do?"

That is what you have been muttering. It is what you have been building.

Be Persistent

Faith involves humble persistence. There was a woman who came to the Lord. The Scripture says she was a woman of Canaan. She wasn't an Israelite.

She was part of the heathen nations and she came to Him and said, "Have mercy on me, Lord. My daughter is troubled with a demon."

The Scripture says He didn't answer her a word. The disciples came and said to Him, "Lord, send her away. She's nagging us too. Please get rid of this woman. She's a pain."

Jesus turned to her and He said, I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

In other words He said no. She came and begged Him to heal her daughter and He said no. Why did He say no? Because she did not have a legal right to help. She was not under the Covenant of Israel.

Israel was in Covenant with Almighty God and Israel had a right to say, "I desire this deliverance and this victory."

It was part of their Covenant, and if she was walking in this Covenant and obeying the terms of it, God was obligated to give her what was His part and responsibility of the Covenant.

This woman was not in Covenant with God. She was not of Israel and she had no right at all to ask the Lord for anything. The Scripture says she came and worshipped Him and said, "Lord help me."

He turned to her and He said, "It is not right to take the children's bread and cast it to the dogs. You're a dog."

That is what He was saying. He was saying, "You're not one of my children. You're one of the dogs. Do you expect me to take my kids food and give it to the dogs?"

That really seemed nasty didn't it? But what the Lord said was the truth. She had no right under the Covenant at all.

She said, "That's true Lord, but the dogs eat from the crumbs that fall from their master's table."

This woman was not going to take no for an answer. There was no way she was going to accept it.

He said, "You're not going to have the food."

She said, "Okay, I'll take the crumbs. Hey you can't deny me the crumbs. Nobody is going to eat them. You drop the crumbs on the floor and you don't pick them up and eat them. They're dirty. I'll have the dirty crumbs, thanks."

She was persistent and she was humble. She was prepared to receive from the crumbs that would fall off. Jesus answered her and said, "Oh woman, great is your faith."

She was so convinced that the Lord was able to give to her that she reached out and she took it.

And do you know what she did? She moved back to the original Covenant that God had given to Abraham, where God said that in him all the nations of the earth would be blessed.

She didn't have a right to the Covenant blessings under the Covenant of Israel which came down through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the Mosaic Covenant.

But she went back to the original Covenant with Abraham where God said, "In you everybody who believes and every nation will be blessed!"

She tapped into that part of the Covenant and by faith she reached out.

Jesus responded now, not as one who was coming under the Jewish Covenant. He came as a Son of Abraham and He said, "You have what you asked for."

Determined Faith

In [Mark 2], four people came to bring their friend to Jesus.

The house was so crowded they couldn't get in. So they broke a hole in the roof and dropped him down right in the middle of the people. The Scripture says in verse 5: When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the [one who was] sick of the palsy, Son, your sins are forgiven you.

We know the story of how Jesus healed him. Jesus saw their faith. Their faith was so strong that they put it into action through persistence and through not taking no for an answer.

You see when you believe you don't let go. When you believe you don't give up. Faith is persistent. Faith is continuous and never gives up.

If you are giving up then you have run out of hope. That means you never had faith in the first place. You were walking in hope. You had a picture and an anticipation in your mind. It was an earnest hope, an earnest expectation.

Yes that is another force and we will look at that as a complete separate study, but it is not faith. Faith persists and continues. And faith will not take no for an answer.

Blind Bartimaeus

I will give you one more example - that of blind Bartimaeus. In Mark 10 we see him sitting at the side of the road begging, and he heard that Jesus was coming. He began to cry out and say, Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.

They told him to be quiet and said, "Hush, you're making a noise."

But you know what he did? He shouted even more loudly. The more they told him to be quiet the louder he shouted.

He was going to get what he wanted. He was not going to let go because he believed. He had faith that Jesus was going to give him what he wanted.

Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. He said to him, "What do you want me to do for you?"

He said, "Lord, I want to receive my sight."

Jesus never even laid hands on him. He said, "Okay you can go. Your faith has healed you."

He was healed instantly. That is faith that will not give up. It is faith that does not listen to everybody saying, "You're mad. It's not going to happen. Do you honestly think that God is going to provide that for you? Are you crazy?"

Faith will not give up. It persists and hangs in there like the bulldog that bites on. It doesn't give up, because it knows that it knows that it knows.

How can I give up when I know that something is mine and that it belongs to me? I can let go of my hope but I cannot let go of my faith. True faith never gives up. It always hangs in and persists through to the end. 



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Way of Blessing Part 1 - Discovering Your Blessing - Chapter 12 of 26