Over the last few weeks, we have been navigating our way through the powerful, twitter-style one liners that Hebrews chapter eleven throws at us, as we have been discovering afresh what it means to be a people not defined by our circumstances, our past or our brokenness, but rather a people defined by faith!
We truly believe that crazy times demand crazy faith from the people of God, and we love hearing testimony upon testimony of lives being realigned with what God promises over what the devil steals.
As you begin to choose to “walk by faith and not by sight” very quickly you will discover that faith is not some ethereal concept reserved for the spiritual elite, but rather it is something that has a very tangible outworking and that it actually looks like something.
Here are three tangible ways for us to build our faith at his time:
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THE WORD NOT THE WORLD
“So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” (Romans.10:17)
In this season of life where we have a non-stop accessibility to news, social media and information right at the flick of our fingers, we need to make a daily decision to allow our world-view to be shaped by the unchanging Word of God rather than the shifting trends and opinions of the world around us.
The most fundamental building block to a growing and unwavering faith is giving regular time to the Word of God.
If you are feeling that your faith is fragile or fleeting, the best thing you can do is to give yourself to a habit of digging into the bible. Turn your ear consistently to the Word of God and you will find your heart won’t be as easily frustrated, offended or fearful, no matter what the world throws at you.
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EXPECTATION NOT FRUSTRATION
“The Word did them no good because they didn’t they didn’t combine what they heard with faith” (Hebrews.4:2)
Frustration is a silent killer of faith, and the more you allow yourself to indulge in it, the more cynical you will become towards the promises of God.
When we approach the Word of God with expectation, hope that what God promises will come to pass, we begin to give faith fertile ground in our hearts to grow.
And this hope and expectation is not based on something that will lead to disappointment. As the scripture says in 2.Corinthians.1:20, “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken by us to the glory of God.” The promises of God are based on the certainty of Jesus, and because of that we can meet them with fullness of agreement in belief and expectation.
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OBEDIENCE NOT OUTCOME
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.” (Hebrews.11:8)
When we obey even when we don’t understand, the blessing and favour of heaven is close at hand. People who live based on outcome and what they see with their eyes will find their faith being weak and inept.
But true biblical obedience is one that says “even though I don’t see it or fully understand it, I will step out in faith”.
Simple obedience is the quickest way to add muscle to your faith. Because when God can trust you to obey what He has already spoken, He will continue to speak and lead all the more.
Faith is like a muscle. It gets stronger the more we use it. This is a season not to shrink back or to allow your faith to weaken, but rather to add weight to your faith by feeding it with the Word, mixing the promises of God with expectation and then explicitly obeying and walking the Word out in practical terms.
Blog written by Gabe Phillips
Gabe and Fiona lead the Life Changers Milnerton and City congregations