LIVING WATERS from Lightbearers

Dear One, we are busting at the seams, but if the Lord is telling you to join us in Nashville for our House Church Roundtable with Henry Hon April 22-24, then be obedient and come! Call Gunnar at 503-860-7687 for FREE registration. See ya!

OVERCOMING FAITH

And this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. 1 John 5:4 NKJV

Biblical faith is obedience to the word from God which you have heard because you believe it to be true. ‘The word from God that you have heard’ is the word that is in your heart. The heart is where faith resides (Romans 10:9). The word of the heart is the word that you and the Holy Spirit have made your own. Meditation, memorization and practice can help but only Holy Spirit can make it come alive to the end it becomes your own. Your relationship with Holy Spirit is the key to the words from God becoming alive in your faith. Do you love the Holy Spirit?

…and nothing will be impossible for you. Matt 17:20 NKJV

How do we believe God? Faith may be the most preached and perhaps the least effectively understood of all of God’s principles. Love is easily grasped, hope is truly and sweetly appreciated, but faith? Faith in what? Random chance SEEMS to be a more reasonable explanation for the world I live in rather than the equations involving faith in anything, let alone the living God. When I tell my students that faith is mathematical, their jaws drop and they look at me like I have two heads. Preachers will never say it, but they imply that God has ‘good days and bad days,’ days when He responds to faith and days that He doesn’t. They may not want to imply that we are responsible for our faith and its results, so they indirectly attack His integrity, and compromise the teaching of faith. When my Father is attacked, as a good son I take it most personally…

But Jesus turned around, and when He saw her He said, “Be of good cheer, daughter; your faith has made you well.” Matt 9:22 NKJV

‘Your faith’ – Whose faith was it? Her’s. Who then was responsible for her faith? She was. Her faith did something, it made her well. I see this all the time in ministry. Someone comes up for healing prayer and their healing is like picking an apple off of the tree, because their faith is peaking at that moment. Faith is quantitative, measurable. Jesus spoke of ‘great’ faith and ‘little’ faith. You can have great faith in certain areas, and little faith in others. Your faith can wane or grow. The great key to your faith in God and His promises is what we want to talk about now. Are you ready?

THE FATAL FLAW IN THE TEACHING OF FAITH

So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.Rom 10:17 NKJV

I’d been an ardent Christian since I was sixteen, but I became a prayer fanatic after God touched me at a pastors retreat in Virginia in ’95. I’d go out on the hills south of town, at all hours and pray for hours. This was vital and necessary for what came next, but there was one great element I was missing. One night, as I was charging down the hill after an hour or more of prayer, the Holy Spirit said, “STOP!” It was a voice without a sound, as clear and direct as anything anyone had ever said to me, but it had no sound. He said, “You charge up the hill, you pray-pray-pray, and you charge down the hill. YOU NEVER STOP TO LISTEN TO ME!” Totally chagrined – like being struck by lightning – I said, “I think I’ll just stop and listen for a while…” Of course, after that He didn’t say anything!

Sometime later, a great apostle and I his spiritual son were planting a school of ministry in Niamey, Niger. We had planned to give it almost two weeks to do it, but we got it done in three days. So, we were stuck waiting for a plane, and it was HOT in Niamey. But we had a small room with air conditioning, so we spent a lot of time there. I would pace like a caged tiger, but the man of God smiled and said, “I will lie on the bed, close my eyes and listen to God.” Guess who heard from God?

Faith comes by hearing, but how can you hear if you never listen? Through Bible college training, through books, tapes, conferences, sermons and countless conversations, no one had ever stressed to me the art and importance of listening. Some people came by it intuitively, but for us type – A folks it was ‘decide and charge!’ and, ‘who listens, anyways?’ I had to learn to listen to God without guile, agenda, or preplanned response.

Faith is about ‘accepting and obeying as true’ what you have ‘heard.’ Many of us have been taught to find a verse to meet our needs, but we haven’t gone to God to listen to Him regarding that truth and the reality of our situation. This is where we fail in faith because we have not really ‘heard’ a word from God to release that faith. We decide on our own that that verse fits my circumstances, and I will pray for it to come to pass. We haven’t involved God at all, except to try to make Him a spiritual ATM machine to give us what we want. Sometimes God graciously rescues us in spite of ourselves, but generally this is a recipe for heartbreaking failure.

We are so distracted. We are probably more distracted than any other generation in history, and now we are hooked on our smart phones. You get a five minute break at anything – you are lined up to get gas at the station – and the phones come out. We scroll through life without learning to listen, without learning to receive words into our hearts. Faith is contingent upon hearing, hearing is contingent upon listening, and listening is contingent upon giving your full attention without distraction in love. Be warned, dear one, the Lord is loving and kind, but He will not compromise His own principles. You and I must intentionally disconnect from the constant static in our souls that seeks to rob us of divine communion, and the faith that comes from it. When the Lord comes, will He find faith on the earth? Not with Facebook faith, no sir!

The art of listening with no guile, with no agenda, no time limits or distractions, but with great love, great appreciation, great thankfulness to the end you hear from God is the great key to true faith.

THE FATHER OF FAITH

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. Heb 11:17-19 NKJV

Abraham is called the father of faith, and he never had the benefit of the written scriptures but he knew the Holy Spirit. He knew the word regarding the promised Messiah was written in the stars (Gen.15:4-6), so every night he didn’t pull out his smartphone, but walked outside and looking up, was instructed and edified. Abraham adds ‘obedience’ to our definition and study of faith. It was in the refiners fire of testing that Abraham proved his faith by obedience. Extraordinary faith, complete trust! Real faith puts all the pressure, the responsibility for fruit on God who has spoken His word. Abraham understood this reality!

FAITH MULTIPLIERS

We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is fitting, because your faith grows exceedingly, and the love of every one of you all abounds toward each other, 2 Thess 1:3-4 NKJV

If you ever get a revelation of speaking in tongues you will want to do it in love with every breath. SIT builds up your faith. Putting yourself in a place, going someplace where you can listen to God without distraction will be worth every dollar or shilling, or ruble that you spend. When I go for a prayer walk, the Lord does not want me to even bring Rex the dog because He wants my full attention. If we can develop the art of truly listening without distraction but with real love, our Father will speak to us in words framed in faith. You got it? This is the faith that overcomes and overrules anything out there. Love you!

Remember dear ones, we must be about our Father’s business…