We continue our study on Faith. If you haven’t already, read Part One.
Faith Begins Where the Will of God is Known
Faith will only work for things which are the will of God for you. It doesn’t matter how many confessions you make, or how hard you believe, or what you do to act on it – if it’s not God’s will, you’re not going to get it. Therefore, it is essential that we know how to find out what God’s will is.
The main source where we can find out God’s will is in the scripture, the Bible. The Bible doesn’t just contain the will of God, it is the will of God. So the very first thing we should be doing is search the scriptures to find the ones that pertain to our situation.
Jewish law was built on the principle of out of the mouth of two or three witnesses let everything be established. Remember faith is the evidence of things not seen; we want to build a case for our faith with the scripture. If you have one scripture, that’s not enough to build your case on. If you have two, that’s good, you can work from that. And the more scripture you have, the more solid your foundation is.
But the Bible is a very big place. There are ways we can focus our search. For example, we are Christians, and therefore under the New covenant. Therefore our main focus should be in the New Testament. That is not to say that we can’t use scriptures from the Old Testament, but they should always be interpreted in the light of the New Testament.
If we want to find out what God thinks about a certain subject, we should look at Jesus. Jesus was God’s will in action. If we can see what Jesus’ attitude was towards something, then we will know what the Father’s attitude and will is. And if it was true when Jesus was walking the earth, it is true today, because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8).
For example, let’s say we wanted to know about healing – is it always God’s will to heal, or just sometimes? To find out, we can look at Jesus’ attitude toward healing. Did He heal everybody, or did He turn some away? Can we find any examples where He didn’t heal someone? If He didn’t, can we see in the scriptures a reason why not?
As you see the scriptures and build a case for God’s will, hope will rise in your heart. Remember hope is the image on the inside of you for what you want from God. When you find out what God’s will is from the scripture, you will have a foundation of hope upon which faith can be built.
If you are unsure of what God’s will is in your situation, you are not in faith. If you are praying “If it by Thy will”, you are not praying in faith. Faith begins where the will of God is known.
“But Jesus prayed ‘If it by Thy will’”. Yes He did; when He was asking His Father whether there was another path He could take besides going to the cross. Also in James 4:13-15 where it speaks of someone making plans to move to another city and start a business. Both of these have to do with the plans we are making for our lives. We should always submit our plans to the will of God. But you never saw Jesus praying “If it be Thy will” when He was healing the sick, or raising the dead, or casting out demons. In fact, in most of these situations you don’t see Jesus praying to the Father at all – He just commanded it to happen. He already knew what the Father’s will was. He learned that during His own personal prayer time.
Universal and Specific Will
Sometimes a scripture will have a promise that applies to you generally, but you don’t know how it applies to you specifically. For example, you could see from the scripture that it is God’s will that your needs be met and you have a job, but you don’t know if you should take a specific job you are considering. In those cases you will have to have God’s wisdom for guidance in your life.
And there is specific scripture on asking for wisdom:
James 1:5-8 5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
6 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.
7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
Vs. 5 states unequivocally that if we ask God for wisdom, He will give it to us, and He won’t think we’re stupid for asking. But vs. 6-8 give conditions – oh look, you have to have faith even to ask for wisdom! There’s just no getting away from faith, it is to be the lifestyle of the Christian. You have to believe He is going to speak to you.
We can apply the same techniques to get faith for receiving wisdom. Find scriptures! Here are ones that I use:
John 10:1-5 1 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice; and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
4 And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
5 Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Open this one up and say “Baaaaaa”!
1 Corinthians 2:12 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
John 16:13 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.
There are many Christians that think that God’s will is some mysterious thing that you can never be sure of. But that is not scriptural. God wants us to know His will.
Ephesians 5:17 17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
Here is another tip: if the scripture shows God’s universal will on a subject, you don’t have to ask for God’s specific will. For example, 1 Timothy 2:4 says that God desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Therefore we don’t need to pray to see if it’s God’s will to save Uncle Billy – we already know, because His will has been revealed for all men universally.
Avoiding Excess and Error
When it comes to faith, there are a lot of things that have been preached. Much of it has been very good. But there have been some that have gotten into excess and error. There have been people who have tried to imitate faith preachers they have heard, with disastrous results.
I have a confession to make. I come from a “Word of Faith” background. I graduated from Kenneth E. Hagin’s Rhema Bible Training Center in Oklahoma in 1984. I pastored a “Word of Faith” church for 11 years and was ordained through the Rhema organization. And I am not ashamed of it. I still consider myself a “word person”, and value the teaching I received there.
There has been controversy over faith preaching, especially in the area of prosperity. More people seem to get mad about that than any other subject. There has probably been more excess in that area than any other subject.
I have seen a trend that disturbs me: because people don’t agree with the Word of Faith teaching on prosperity, they have thrown out all that they teach on faith, “throwing the baby out with the bathwater”, as the saying goes. And that is sad, because there is much in there that could help them.
Ultimately, you are the one that is going to decide what to use your faith for. Maybe you think it is going too far to believe that God wants to make you rich, but how about having faith for God to meet your needs? You will still need to know the principles of faith.
Secondly, do not judge any minister on hearsay. If all you know about a preacher is what other people have said about them, and you’ve never read their books or been in any of their meetings or listened to any of their teachings, you have no idea what they really teach. And just because you listened to some 5 minute excerpt on YouTube doesn’t mean you know what they teach either.
Do you know anything about their ministries? The Bible says, “By their fruit you shall know them”. How many people are they reaching? How many people are getting saved, healed, and filled with the Holy Spirit under their ministry? What other works and ministries do they support, and to what extent? If they have fruit in all these areas, but they live a more lavish lifestyle than you think they should, is that a good basis for judgment? There are many people in the Bible that God made rich. The richest person who ever lived on this earth was the Jewish king, Solomon.
God has nothing against His people being wealthy. What He is against is covetousness, and arrogance or snobbishness. Having money is not the issue. It is how you got it, and then what you do with it after you have it – you have to be willing to share it, and give.
Jesus’ Teaching on Faith
Mark 11:12-14 12 Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry.
13 And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.
14 In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.” And His disciples heard it.
Bethany was about two miles outside of the walls of Jerusalem. It was the town where Mary, Martha, and Lazarus lived, and Jesus often stayed there when He was in Jerusalem. On the way into Jerusalem one day, Jesus is hungry, and sees a fig tree with leaves on it in the distance. Now from experience growing up in that area of the world, Jesus knew that when the leaves came out on the fig trees like that, it would also have ripe figs.
But, this fig tree was unusual. It was too early in the season for it to have leaves and figs. There were probably other fig trees around, and they didn’t have leaves yet.
When He gets there, He searches the branches for fruit, and finds none. This tree was a fraud. It made a promise of provision, but only made a show of leaves with no fruit. Jesus speaks to the fig tree audibly so the disciples heard it: “May no one eat fruit of you ever again.” Then He went on His way.
This incident has spiritual significance. In Luke 13:6-9 Jesus tells a parable where a vineyard owner had a fig tree that bore no fruit. He wanted to cut it down. The vinedresser suggested that first they give it special attention to see if that helped. But the message is that trees that do not bear fruit are destroyed.
Mark 11:20-21 AMP 20 In the morning, when they were passing along, they noticed that the fig tree was withered [completely] away to its roots.
21 And Peter remembered and said to Him, Master, look! The fig tree which You doomed has withered away!
The next day, they are coming down the same path, and Peter notices the fig tree is completely withered away. Now they had actually passed by that tree the previous evening when the returned to Bethany from Jerusalem, but no mention is made of it.
In a parallel passage in Matthew 21, the disciples ask, “How did the tree wither away so soon?” You see, even if you cut a tree down, which will kill it, the next day it will still have its leaves. This tree was withered away like it had been dead a long time.
So the disciples had asked the question, “How did you do it?” And Jesus is going to tell them.
Mark 11:22-24 22 So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God.
23 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.
24 Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.
Vs. 22 is in the continuous present tense, so it can be read as “Be having faith in God”, or “have faith in God constantly”.
This is a key point. We have already seen that faith is really trust in a person. Having faith in God is having trust in God. Lots of people, and unfortunately even many Christians, put their faith in something other than God.
Now I am not talking about our trust in Jesus for our salvation here. You can have full trust and faith in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, but fall apart when the doctors give you a bad report. That means you have more trust in what the doctors say about your health than what the Bible says about healing. Faith in one area does not automatically transfer to faith in all areas.
Another thing we see is that faith in God does not passively sit around and wait for God to do everything. At least not the kind of faith that Jesus was exhibiting when he cursed the fig tree. Faith is active, it will do something.
So Jesus cursed the fig tree by faith. And He is about to tell the disciples how faith works.
Whosoever
“… whoever shall say…” The first thing we see, is that whoever, or as the KJV says, whosoever, can work this kind of faith. Cursing the fig tree was not something that only Jesus as the Son of God could do. The disciples could also. And it was not just for the apostles either. Are you a whosoever? Then you can too.
Saying
The second thing we see, to use this kind of faith, you have to say something: “… whoever shall say…”. Vs. 23 mentions saying three times. Faith uses words. What do we say? Well, faith speaks to things. Jesus spoke to the fig tree. In vs. 23 it says if you say to the mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea’.
Jesus very often used things that were at hand as examples. There are several large hills (not quite what we might think of as a “mountain”) around Jerusalem. They might have even been climbing a hill as He was speaking these words. When your method of transportation is by foot, even large hills become “mountains”.
What did the mountain represent? A hindrance, an obstacle to travel. In those days, if where you were going to was on the other side of a mountain, you had two options: go around it, or go over it. In the first option, you have to go way out of your way. And in the second option, going over the mountain involves a lot more work (remember, you’re on foot).
So we can speak to obstacles and hindrances in our life, and command them to be removed. Notice that – vs. 23 is not talking about praying to God and asking Him to remove things (vs. 24 talks about praying, more about that later). Look in the gospels and Acts, and see when Jesus or the apostles prayed and asked God to do things, or when they just spoke and commanded it (you’ll be surprised).
Believing
The third thing we see is that faith involves believing. “… whoever says…. And does not doubt in his heart but believes…” Well, that is no surprise. We expect faith to involve believing something. In fact, the word believe in the Greek is pisteuo, which derives directly from the Greek word for faith, pistis.
But it is important what we believe, and this verse says we are to believe something very specific: “…and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says.”
Do you believe that what you say will come to pass? I doubt it – otherwise you wouldn’t be saying a lot of the things you do say. If Jesus suddenly appeared in a service, and told us “I am going to lay my hands on you, and when I do, from that point onward everything you say will come to pass” – someone would probably jump up and say “Well that just tickles me to death!” Hahahahahah! <thud!>
The more we believe that what we will say will come to pass, the more we will control our words, and the more we control our words, the more God can trust us to turn the power up behind them. Jesus only said the things He heard the Father say, and when He spoke, it came to pass immediately.
“Aw, that was Jesus. Of course He could do it, He was the Son of God”. Well, too bad Jesus didn’t know that, because He said “whosoever”. Red letters, folks. Jesus speaking. I didn’t make this up, the Word of Faith preachers didn’t make this up, Jesus said this. Now the question is, will we believe and act on what Jesus said?
This is the way God operates. In fact, an alternate rendering of vs. 22 is “Have the faith of God” – or have the kind of faith that God has. God has faith, and when He uses that faith, He speaks words. And He believes the words that He speaks will come to pass.
Isaiah 55:10-11 10 “For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, And do not return there, But water the earth, And make it bring forth and bud, That it may give seed to the sower And bread to the eater,
11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.
Hebrews 11:3 3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
Now most people look at Heb 11:3 and interpret it as meaning that it requires faith on our part to understand that the worlds were created by the word of God. And that is true. But the ordering of words in the Greek language is different than in English, and the above verse could just as well be rendered, “We understand that by faith the worlds were framed by the word of God… I.e., that God is the one exercising faith when He used words to create the worlds.
Hebrews 11 lists a number of “heroes of faith” from the Bible. And the very first one in the list is God Himself. We can see from Isaiah 55:10-11 that God acts on Mark 11:23 – that is, He believes that the things which He says will come to pass.
Jesus said that He only did the things He saw the Father do and say the things He heard the Father say. He told Philip “If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.” So the way we see Jesus act is the way the Father acts. And He wants us to act the same way: to be imitators of God, as dear children (Eph 5:1).
Why all this fuss about saying?
Believing and speaking are the two necessary parts for faith. One doesn’t work without the other; if you believe it and don’t speak it, you won’t get the results. If you speak it but don’t believe it, you won’t get the results. It’s like the water molecule H2O.
It takes two hydrogens and one oxygen atom combined to make water. You can have plenty of H2 molecules, but you don’t have water. You can have plenty of O2 molecules, but you won’t have water.
I want to put a real emphasis on the saying part. Why? Because most people realize that faith involves believing, but many neglect the saying part. And notice that Mark 11:23 doesn’t say that you will have whatever you believe, it says you will have whatever you say.
Luke 17:5-6 NASB 5 The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!”
6 And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and be planted in the sea’; and it would obey you.
Jesus kept telling the disciples, “O ye of little faith”, so eventually they figured out that they needed more than they had. So they came and asked Jesus, “Increase our faith”. Now notice what Jesus did not do when they asked Him.
- He didn’t pray for them
- He didn’t lay hands on them
- He spoke to them, but even then He did not tell them “Here’s how you get more faith”.
What did He do? He told them what they would do if they had faith.
Don’t get distracted about the mustard seed part. “Oh, I have to get some of that mustard seed kind of faith”. The significance of a mustard seed is found in Mark 4:31:
Mark 4:30-32 30 Then He said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it?
31 It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth;
32 but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.”
Mustard seeds are very small. Yet they grow into a large bush. Have you ever seen the seed for a redwood tree? It’s tiny, yet can grow into the largest living things on earth.
If you had a shovel, you could _____________
If you had an airplane, you could ___________
If you had a gun, you could _______________
If you had faith, you would….. say!
The Fundamental Principle of Faith
So this is the fundamental principle of faith that appears throughout the Bible: believe it in your heart, and say it with your mouth. That’s how you got saved.
Romans 10:6-10 6 But the righteousness of faith speaks in this way, “Do not say in your heart, ‘Who will ascend into heaven?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ down from above)
7 or, ” ‘Who will descend into the abyss?’ ” (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead).
8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach):
9 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.
10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
As I’ve said before, if you’ve been born again, you already know how to use this kind of faith and have experience in it. You just need to learn how to apply the very same principles in other areas.
Colossians 2:6-7 6 As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,
7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.
How did you receive Christ Jesus? By faith. And in Romans 10 we saw that it worked by believing it in your heart and confessing it (or saying the same thing) with your mouth. Well, we are supposed to walk, or live our lifestyle, in the same manner.
2 Corinthians 4:13 13 We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak;
Romans 10:6 says the righteousness of faith speaks. Here, the spirit of faith speaks. If you believe, you should also speak. What do we say? The same thing that God says, that His Word says. Don’t just speak what your circumstances say. Speak the promise.
Believe That You Receive
Mark 11:24 NKJV 24 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 KJV 24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.
Mark 11:24 NASB 24 “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.
Mark 11:24 AMP 24 For this reason I am telling you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe (trust and be confident) that it is granted to you, and you will [get it].
In vs. 23 Jesus talks about how to remove obstacles by speaking to things. In vs. 24, he addresses how faith works in prayer.
There are many types of prayer, and each has its own set of rules. Mark 11:24 is speaking of when you are making a request for yourself. There are other types of prayer, such as when you are praying for someone else (intercession), or when two or more people are praying about something (prayer of agreement). Some types of prayer don’t involve asking for anything, like a prayer of worship and praise, or a prayer where you commit yourself to do God’s will (like Jesus did in Gethsemane).
So in Mark 11:24, which some have called the prayer of faith, the key point is to believe you receive. Believe you receive what? The things you are asking for – the things that you desire. Some people do a whole lot of praying, telling God all their problems, but they don’t ask God what they want to happen. Like in Phillipians 4:4-6, where it tells us not to be anxious about anything, but by prayer and supplication make our requests known to God.
And notice the tenses: you believe you have received them, and then you will get them. Or like the Amplified Bible says, that it is granted you. How do you believe you receive something before you see it? You do it all the time in the natural.
You interview for a job, and a few days later they call you and say “we want to offer you the job at such and such salary”. You say yes, and when you get off the phone you whoop and holler. You’re excited. You tell your spouse, “I got the job, I got the job!” You might go out to dinner to celebrate.
The next week you’ll go in and work for that company a week or two and you haven’t received a penny from them. And that doesn’t bother you. What was it all based on? Someone’s promise. You trust in that hiring manager’s word as a representative of that company enough to act on it.
Is God as trustworthy as some company? Can we put our reliance on His Word as much as some hiring manager?
Receive = to take
The root of the word translated receive in the Greek is lambano, which is also translated take (133 time receive, 106 times take). It means to accept (take something that is offered), to obtain (used in Hebrews 4:16, come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy and grace to help).
The implications are that it is not a passive action, i.e., just waiting for something to be dumped on you. It involves action on our part, to reach out and grab hold of something.
The promises of God are God offering things to us; but we must walk up and take them. The best New Testament example of this is the woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5. She had heard about Jesus, how He healed the sick. That caused faith to rise in her heart, and she became convinced that she could have healing also. She said to herself, “If I can just touch His garment, I will be healed”. Then she acted on what she believed and got out into the crowd and touched him. She literally reached out and took healing for herself, she received it. Then when Jesus demanded to know who had touched Him, she told and gave testimony. She was afraid at first because she didn’t know if Jesus was mad or not. Plus according to the Law she shouldn’t have been out in the crowd like that with an issue of blood, she was “unclean”. But Jesus wasn’t mad at all. He told her, “your faith has made you whole, go in peace and be healed of your affliction.”
