Faith in Practice

2 Chron 20:20
And they rose early in the morning, and went forth into the wilderness of Tekoa: and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, O Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem; Believe in the LORD your God, so shall ye be established; believe his prophets, so shall ye prosper.

Faith we see here worked even in the Old Testament. To be established and to prosper we are to believe in our Lord God and the teachings of those who represent Him and His word in truth. This does not mean that we are to believe all prophets without question. Some are false prophets who deviate from the truth occasionally for their own benefit.

Luke 8: 41-42
41 And, behold, there came a man named Jairus, and he was a ruler of the synagogue: and he fell down at Jesus' feet, and besought him that he would come into his house:
42 For he had one only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him.

Luke 8:49-56
49 While he yet spake, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; trouble not the Master.
50 But when Jesus heard it, he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.
51 And when he came into the house, he suffered no man to go in, save Peter, and James, and John, and the father and the mother of the maiden.
52 And all wept, and bewailed her: but he said, Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth.
53 And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead.
54 And he put them all out, and took her by the hand, and called, saying, Maid, arise.
55 And her spirit came again, and she arose straightway: and he commanded to give her meat.
56 And her parents were astonished: but he charged them that they should tell no man what was done.

Believe only and she shall be made whole. We haven't yet begun to tap into the power of faith and true love. Believe only, only believe. Simple child like faith is powerful. It touches the very heart of God. I believe that unbelief grieves the heart of God. When we study the life of Jesus when he walked the earth, we see incidences of His grief at unbelief.  What is the faith that makes one whole.  Not faith in faith but faith in the one God sent to save and heal.  The faith that heals and the faith that saves is faith in Jesus Christ.  We must believe that He is the Messiah, the promised one.  We must have faith in Jesus Christ. 

Here is one incident when Jesus was grieved at the people's unbelief. I believe also that Jesus grieved because he cared about their sorrow. He couldn't have been grieved because his friend had died since he had the power to raise him.

John 11:33 When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,

Another incident of healing by having simple faith in Jesus Christ. 

Luke 8:43-48
43 And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any,
44 Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.
45 And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?
46 And Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that virtue is gone out of me.
47 And when the woman saw that she was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before him, she declared unto him before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately.
48 And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace.

Jesus could feel when the healing of this lady took place. Faith in the ability to only touch the garment of Jesus was what released the power of healing into the woman's body. She believed Jesus was sent from God and acted on her faith.  Faith in Jesus' power to heal her was how she was healed by faith. 

John 6:29
28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God?
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

Just believing on Jesus whom God had sent to save us is the very work of God.  Jesus is the one promised by the writings of Moses and the prophets.  Jesus is the Messiah.  Its faith in Him that saves and heals. 

 John 20:29
Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

This is a comfort to those who live in today's world and have not actually seen Jesus in person. There is a special blessing now and in the future for those who have not seen Jesus with their eyes but still believe in Him. I had a conversation with an atheist recently who just could not understand how we could possibly believe in someone that we did not actually see. He simply could not understand faith. He was looking for visible proof of the existence of God and could not grasp the truth of faith though I tried to explain it the best I could. God may allow us to see proof of His existence by scientific evidence after we believe but usually we have to believe first before we can see. Faith is what reveals God to us. Without faith we will not see him at all. If we have to have scientific proof first then we will probably miss it altogether unless God has mercy and allows a special revelation to be shown unto the unbeliever like in the instance of Paul the apostle on the road to Damascus.

It is strange that many will not believe unless they have scientific proof yet they will believe evolution without any scientific proof. The study of evolution is chock full of holes and unanswered questions, yet it is accepted in today's educational circles as true facts.

My questions concerning evolution is, "What makes man so different? Why can man run a business but a dog cannot? What makes us love and hate? Why do we like pretty music? What makes our conscience bother us when we do wrong? There are many more questions also like; why do we have two hands situated just right and not just one? Why are our thumbs in just the right position? Why do we have two identical eyes, ears, legs and feet? Unless disease or birth defects destroys something in our flesh all our parts work perfectly.

Ephesians 6:16
Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.

Faith is essential to protect ourselves from darts of the enemy of our souls. The darts may be in the form of temptation, stress, trials, difficulties, problems, physical attacks and other things. In order to keep from getting bogged down our minds should be built up in faith. I have never seen God forsake any believer yet. He loves us and we are not alone. Through faith the darts of the enemy can be quenched. Stopped.

1 Thessalonians 5:8
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation.

The hope of salvation is our helmet. On our breastplate is faith and love. The breastplate is in the front. The sword of the spirit is first in our journey. This is the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit to confirm the word. The second is the breastplate, right up front and behind the sword. This is our protection from evil. Nothing is greater than that true faith in God and true love. Not the love that is called love by the standards of our present society. This is the true love that comes through the power of the Holy Spirit as He sheds this love abroad in our hearts.

1 Timothy 1:19
Holding faith, and a good conscience; which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck:

Shipwrecked faith is faith that is cast away and forsaken. When we try to have faith without living a life of holiness our faith is in great danger of being shipwrecked. We must not go against our conscience of right and wrong. If we say we have faith and ignore the teachings of the word of God, it is not true faith, which works by love. If we love God we will keep his commandments. If we have faith in God, we will love God and in turn will want to obey his word.

1 Timothy 6:12
Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.

True faith has to be fought for. We have to be determined to have faith and lay hold on eternal life. This is not something you can get with a half-hearted spirit. If you want just enough religion to get by and escape hell, you will not be a person of faith. You can get faith by seeking, studying, reading, and desiring the word of God. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.

Hebrews 10:22, 23
Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;)

Faith should not waver. We are not saved one day and lost the next. We are not right with God when we feel good and cast aside when we feel bad. Faith is something that is with us in the good times and the bad.

Here again is the matter of our conscience. Our hearts is sprinkled with a clean conscience when we first repent of sins and come accept Christ into our lives at conversion. If we go back and start to sin again our conscience then becomes defiled again. It then hinders our faith. To be full of faith we must not let that happen. First we need to remember that we have been saved from sin and God forgets the past sins. We don't need to remember them any more. We then need to let the word of God abide richly in our hearts that we don't go back into sin and have our conscience defiled again. If we know something is wrong and go ahead and do it hoping to be covered by grace, it is very dangerous. Yes we trust in His grace to cover mistakes that we may make unknowingly but to actually do things we know are against the word of God and hope to be saved by grace is going against the conscience and frustrating the grace of God. That is not going to build faith, it will destroy it. Love and a clean conscience accompany true faith.

Hebrews 11:6
But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

Now we see that there is no guarantee that our prayers will be heard and answered if we do not have faith. We cannot please God if we don't believe in Him, if we don't believe in His word, if we don't believe He wants to answer our prayers and if we don't believe He cares about us. He rewards those who seek him in truth and with faith.

James 1:5-8
If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.
For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.
A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Lets try not to miss this scripture. We sometimes go through our Christian walk all confused and not understanding anything and sing, "We will understand it better by and by." I am not speaking against that song and at times that is true. My concern is though that we will not try to seek God for understanding thinking that we are to blindly trust him and not know anything until we get to heaven. According to this word here in the book of James though, it says that if any man ask wisdom let him ask and he will receive. This of course is possible if he or she asks in faith. If we ask with a wavering, doubtful heart we most probably will not get the wisdom we ask for unless God has mercy on us and decides to reveal it to us anyway.

1 John 3:23
And this is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment.

This is the true answer to Christian living. This is the way to walk in the spirit and get along with others. Believe on the name of Jesus Christ the Son of God and LOVE one another. This is not a option this is a commandment. God cares about this commandment or he would not have given it. We are to love one another. If we are having trouble with this, our faith will be hindered and our testimony to the world will be full of holes. The way to get this type of love is to first come to Christ and receive all that he has for us. We cannot get anything by our own efforts and good works. We have to recognize the fault in us and pray about it saying, "Lord, I don't love my neighbor as myself, please help me in this." Another one may be, "Lord, I am mad at so and so, please help me to love them." Be determined to love and forgive. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Be determined to overcome grudges, unforgiveness, hatred, strife, covetousness, greed and other things that hinder our love and hinder our faith. Be determined to be filled with the Spirit of God and walk in the Spirit daily. True faith as I said before has to be fought for, sought after and desired.

Justification by Faith