Bible Study
The Dynamics of Faith
‘Faith Is Equal To’...is my first article on faith published in 2019. It provides a simple and clear description of the concept of faith.
As we see in Romans 10:9, the process of becoming a Christian is a simple one and it is based on faith…
“that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Romans 10:9 NKJV
Step 1- confess with your mouth the lordship of Jesus. Step 2- believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead (that He is alive not dead). Step 3- you become saved.
We also established in ‘Faith Is Equal To‘….’ that the prerequisite to believing, confessing and becoming saved is that the good news of Christ must be heard, meaning that it has to be preached, taught or shared by someone…we see that in Romans 10:14….
“How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher?”
Romans 10:14 NKJV
Ephesians 2:8, alludes to the fact that someone gets saved through faith….
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God”
Ephesians 2:8 NKJV
Obviously getting saved serves as an entry point into the God’s kind of faith and this grows and becomes layered upon as we walk with God and His Word..
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.“
Romans 10:17 NKJV
In Mark 11:22, Jesus said; ‘have faith in God’. Then He immediately went ahead to provide an illustration of moving a mountain in the supernaturally. This He gave to explain what I have chosen to call the dynamics of faith…
“So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
Mark 11:22-26 NKJV
From Mark 11:22-26, again we see the dynamics of faith: if you say it, believe it, do not doubt it, receive it and then you will have it. To further drive home His point, Jesus says directly and clearly to His listeners; ‘when you pray believe that you receive it and you will have it’.
What Is Faith?
From all the scriptures cited above, we can say that faith entails confessing with the mouth, believing in the heart and staying convinced/assured of this believe (you walk away believing you are saved).
Is this whole process what faith is or is there more?
Hebrews 11:1 says…
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen“
Hebrews 11:1 NKJV
The Amplified version presents this more clearly…
“Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses].”
Hebrews 11:1 AMP
When we bring in Hebrews 11:1, which is a clear Bible definition of faith, it would seem that faith is actually more than the dynamics of confessing and believing. Faith is the resultant effect of all that.
Faith is the substance (it is tangible), faith is the assurance, it is the confirmation, a title deed.
A title deed is a legal document constituting evidence of a right, especially to a property.
So faith is the final document we walk away with after saying it, believing it and receiving it. That would take us back to what Jesus concluded His faith lecture with….. believe that you have them…
“Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
Mark 11:24 NKJV
So I ask you concerning that thing you have been praying and crying to God about; ‘do you believe that you have it’? If you believe, when was the last time you asked God about it again? How many times have you asked God about it? Should you be continually asking about the same thing over and again? Does that sound like faith? ?. Have you really been in faith concerning that thing? Do you believe that you have what you asked your Father for? Do you have a confirmation, assurance, confidence that you have it? What would you be doing if you received what you asked of someone? …Say; ‘thank you’ right? So has your ‘praying without ceasing’ been of thanksgiving?
Faith is the assurance that we have it!
Dead and Living Faith
When a title deed lands in your hands, you will not still be asking for it, no, you’ll be dancing, celebrating, rejoicing……Halleluyah!!!! Oh! But you will not only rejoice about it, you will start acting on it….
Let’s go back again to Mark 11:22-26
So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them. “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
Do you think there is a difference between ‘believe that you receive them’ and ‘you will have them’?
The faith process is incomplete without a receiving. The way I understand it, you receive when you have the title deed in your hand spirituallly. Having is the actual physical manifestation of the faith object/project.
Now the Bible talks about living and dead faith, what do these mean?
“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.“
James 2:26 NKJV
Three quick inferences from this scripture…..
1. Faith and works are 2 different entities. 2. Works keeps faith alive. 3. Without works faith is dead.
According to James, faith is incomplete without works.
So, James likens the human body to faith while he relates the spirit to works. And we know that it is the human spirit that gives life to the human body, meaning that works give life to faith.
Question: What does works mean?
To get a better understanding of what James means by works, consider expanding your reading to James 2: 14-26..
James doesn’t provide a clear definition of works, however he cites 2 examples we can learn from…
Example 1
Abraham offered up Isaac, his only and long awaited son.
In Genesis 15, God promised Abraham that his descendants would be as many as the stars. In Genesis 21 the Bible records that Abraham was 100 years old when Isaac was born. In Genesis 21:13, God informs Abraham that His promise to him would be fulfilled through Isaac. Then in Genesis 22, God instructs Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt offering! How much more interesting can this get? ….
Abraham passed his faith test. Hebrews 11:17-19 provides a good summary of this….
“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.“
Hebrews 11:17-19 NKJV
Abraham acted on his convictions, that is faith being mixed with works.
Example 2
Rahab the prostitute helped the spies sent by Joshua to Jericho escape. She trusted what she heard about the God of the Hebrews, His power and ability to deliver. She knew that Jericho would be taken over (Joshua chapter 2), so she risked her life. God saved Rahab; Joshua and his men saved her family.
Rehab mixed her faith with works. Just as Abraham ‘risked’ losing his child of promise by choosing to act on His faith, Rahab took her ‘chances‘ with the spies, importantly trusting in Jehovah. Acting on your faith will take you out of your comfort zone, however the inconvenience felt will be transient, temporary and nothing compared to the joy and testimony before you.
The example of the hypothetical sister/brother in need who is sent off with only a ‘goodwill message‘ by another brother without an accompanying physical help or provision, goes to show a not active faith. How? Well, one reason people may not readily share what they have with others is if they think they don’t have enough for themselves. So there’s the fear of having less by giving out. A person acting in faith would share while believing God to supply and replenish. In this case then, the expected works is to give. This should remind us of 1 John 3:17-18…..
“But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.”
I John 3:17-18 NKJV
In these examples we see works explained as acting on our convictions, title deed or assurance, acting on our faith. Actually the examples of works we’ve seen here are expressions of love; love towards God (Abraham) and love towards man (Rehab)
There are other examples of expressions of faith in Jesus’ time that are written in the Gospels. May we be sensitive to know (from The Lord) exactly what actions we must take to birth our faith projects. Amen.
Conditions for asking and receiving/having.
We have said earlier that having is the actual physical manifestation of our faith project/object.
If we are to be totally honest, we would say that there are things we’ve asked for in faith that haven’t manifested physically yet. Could there be something we are missing? (Not that this is always the case).
So below we look at 4 possible hindrances to having our faith manifest…
1. Not asking according to the will of God
We know that God’s Word is His will, but I mean we don’t all find our individual purpose in life clearly written in the Bible. For example, we know what God says concerning the type of persons we should not marry; ‘do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers‘ (2 Corinthians 6:14), however, we do not find clear descriptions of the actual person to marry in the Bible.
So in this discourse, the will of God is to be understood in 2 dimensions …
1. The Will of God as being His Word. 2. The Will of God as relating to God’s plans and purpose for someone’s life.
Any asking outside of the will of God as concerns His Word and/or as relates to His plans and purpose for us will not be granted. Even Jesus had to swallow a bitter pill here…..?…..Please read more about this in my article; ‘Why Hasn’t God Answered Me?’
2. Harbouring doubt
Can you remember times when you are passionately praying about something and honestly somewhere within, there’s an unease, you are not exactly sure you are praying the right kind of prayer or asking aright? Doubt is actually an indication that we don’t have our ‘title deeds ‘ in our hands.
Clearly we see from Mark 11:22-24, that not doubting is one condition for having what we pray for. Jesus said; …’and does not doubt in his heart, but believes…..’
Again we are reminded of James 1:6-8…
“But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
James 1:6-8 NKJV
3. Unforgiveness
I find it very instructive that immediately following Jesus’s teaching on Faith in Mark 11:22-24 is His admonition to forgive others, especially when we pray…..
“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.”
Mark 11:25-26 NKJV
And in Matthew 5:22-24, Jesus tells us how to forgive…
“But I tell you, don’t be angry with anyone. If you are angry with others, you will be judged. And if you insult someone, you will be judged by the high court. And if you call someone a fool, you will be in danger of the fire of hell. “So, what if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember that someone has something against you? Leave your gift there and go make peace with that person. Then come and offer your gift.”
Matthew 5:22-24 ERV
How do you forgive?
I hear people say; ‘I don’t have anything against that person, no grudge, I take no offense,’ etc, etc. This is not how to forgive! Jesus said ‘leave your offering at the altar, first go make peace’.
Do you think that if forgiveness was just something to sort out in your heart, that there will be any need to leave the alter? Can’t you forgive in your heart while at the alter?
I think that one of the reasons we struggle with forgiveness is pride, we conveniently convince ourselves that we did no wrong; it’s the other person that has a problem. Hello! Jesus said; ‘go and make peace when it’s the other person feeling angry or offended‘. Can you truly walk in love?
Go meet the person, call the person, talk with the person, reconnect with the person, reconcile with the person. Don’t just say I forgive in my heart, if Jesus wanted that He would have said first confess that you forgive….selah.
Sometimes people are not ready for reconciliation, do your part and give them space. Keep them in your prayers.
Here are 5 Secrets to Taming the Spirit of Unforgiveness
4. Not acting on our believe
“For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.“
James 2:26 NKJV
Help us Lord!
Well, thank you for joining me on this Bible Study time today. I do hope you were blessed. I pray that our understanding of faith continues to grow so that we can truly access all that the Father has made available for us in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Please join me next time as we continue our study series; ‘The Whole Armor of God‘
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Blessings & Love Always.
Grace Obomanu
