By faith you can do anything.
Pure faith often moves in a world of unseen fantasy, as far as your circumstances are concerned.
Illusions of spiritual battle and struggles around you are unreal, for you actually possess the victory of the Lord.
The fantasy world that Satan creates, and the way that he does it, can seem very real, but it is only an illusion to disturb faith.
Most people believe with an unshakable faith that chances are they will be hurt in a disaster; and for that reason, insurance sells so well.
Unbelief is really a faith in the negative and a faith in the limitations.
It is a faith in the overwhelming circumstances.
It is a faith in everything except what God has said; for the faith of God stands upon His word.
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. 2 This is what the ancients were commended for.
3 By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
4 By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.
5 By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: “He could not be found, because God had taken him away.”[a] For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.
6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
7 By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith.
Hebrews 11:7.
Faith is an attribute from the Lord that His people usually need more than anything else.
If you have real faith to believe what God has said, on a cold winter night by faith you can hold in your arms the unborn Isaac and comfort yourself with the word of the Lord.
It is the substance of the thing hoped for.
By faith, when the din of spiritual battle seems to be too much, you can hear the worship of a thousand believing churches rising up as one, glorifying God.
By faith, it is the substance of something hoped for; it is the evidence that you can hold in your hand.
It is not seen with the natural eye, but with faith you can believe the promises of God.
By faith you can throw back your shoulders on the smoggiest day and begin to breathe the air of the Kingdom.
When you are being spiritually assaulted, faith is the substance of something that is hoped for and the evidence of that which is not seen.
Do not despair when it seems as if you have been hopelessly wounded and have fallen by the wayside.
By faith, reach in to feel the surge of divine health and to hear the shouts of those who will break the immortality barrier very soon.
Reach into a new age and do not waver.
God's people will soon be breaking through to this.
Do not forever anticipate battling, but live with faith in the vision that the Kingdom is coming.
The Kingdom is upon God's people, and they hold it in their hands by faith. It s the substance of the promise hoped for.
By faith they will break into it.
They will not have to continue battling for it; by faith they will pass through.
As the psalmist said, "Tears may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning" ( Psalm 30:3) .
Let us stand in a faith vigil for an age that is ready to change.
Let us be ready to believe and claim much, asking largely.
Here are seven ways of applying faith to your life.
Claim much and accept no less.
Act upon every word that God sets before you.
Anticipate the answer as though it were already accomplished.
Believe His confirmed word above all reason that is in your mind; do not let your power to reason turn your will from believing what His word has confirmed to your heart.
Believe for a new day.
Believe to find new ways of reaching the people, and new ways of breaking through to the effective ways of the Kingdom.
Believe to speak the creative word of the Lord to bring His will to pass.
Satan is like a negative barometer that indicates when you are really doing right.
He will fight you in every instance he can.
Let him fight, but take faith in your heart to believe that everything he creates is a fantasy of illusion.
He manipulates circumstances and people until they do what he would do.
Do not accept any of that as being a reality.
It is the substance of that which you hope for and the evidence of that which you cannot see.
By faith you can put a condensed form of a whole new age right in your pocket.
Then you can bring out all the promises and all the dreams and look at them by faith.
Faith is the substance - not a substance visible to the naked eye, but to the spiritual eye.
This kind of faith is not a type of glorified daydreaming, but it is akin to the spirit of the prophets that must rest upon God's people in this end time.
Joel prophesied this word of the Lord: ...your old men will dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. Joel 2:28.
They will take them out of their pockets and look at them again.
The promises of the Lord are the substance of what you should hope for and the evidence of things that you have not yet seen.
Believe that they will spring forth into reality - the miracles, the reversing of the aging process, the healing of the wounded and the bruised and the broken hearted, the release of the captives.
By faith believe to see every need supplied.
By faith you can see the new day is coming.
It is not enough to interpret by the past how far you have come.
To claim anything less than the total provision that God has promised is unbelief.
Faith claims while standing in His presence, saying, "Thank You, Father, for all the promises that You have given me which I hold in my hand by faith.
They have been given substance by Your word.
I believe them by faith.
I have them, but no one can see them.
I cannot see them myself, but I carry them in my heart.
My faith is the substance.
My faith is a new day, a whole new way of living.
My faith is all that you have spoken coming to pass.
By faith, I hold all of God's precious promises concerning what I am going to be and to do, and also what His people are going to be and to do.
Have faith for people.
When you look at a person, believe that God will do something in his life.
Do not evaluate people by what you see them do, or what you see of their old nature; evaluate them in another way.
Ask the lord to give you His word concerning an individual.
When the Lord gives you a word, from then on, only what God has said concerning that person should be in your mind and in your heart.
You must bind everything that wars against that reality.
A thousand little things will rise up to try to nullify God's word, but do not accept them.
Ask God for the gift of faith.
Believe what God will make of people, and do not let go of them.
This does not mean that you should overlook what is wrong, but rather that you should look ahead and see what god is going to do.
Try to help them move in that direction by faith.
God wants us to see one another in faith.
Everyone doubts at one time or another.
Mark 9:24 tells what one man prayed, "Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief."
Unbelief was coexisting with faith.
You must decide where you you are going to focus.
If you focus on your unbelief, it will grow and become magnified.
If you focus upon the true word that you believe in your heart, it becomes great and the unbelief seems to shrink.
When Abraham was told he was going to have a son, he laughed.
Later on, Sarah also laughed when she overheard angels bringing the same message again to Abraham.
Abraham and Sarah did not laugh for joy - the promise seemed unbelievable to them.
Their laughter was not an expression of faith, and yet Abraham was a man of faith.
What is faith?
Is it never having a doubt?
The Scriptures reveal that every man who performed miracles doubted at some time.
For instance, Peter's shadow fell upon the sick and healed them.
That involved faith, and yet he was the man doubted and began to sink after starting out by faith to walk on water.
Zacharias, too, was a man of faith who was seeking God and waiting on God for the fulfilling of the priesthood.
When an angel came and told him that he was going to have a son, he doubted, because he and his wife, Elizabeth, were old.
Because of his unbelief he became speechless until after his son was born.
Another occurrence of doubt took place when the disciple were told that Jesus had risen from the dead.
They did not believe it, even though they had been close to Him.
The early Church was built upon men who doubted, but they also had faith.
When they waited on God, they minimized their unbelief and kept it under control.
They refused to give unbelief substance or reality.
They believed, and their faith became the substance of that which they hoped for, the evidence of that which was not seen.
Anyone can doubt.
John the Baptist finished his great ministry with the utmost of faithfulness to rebuke wickedness in high places; yet before he was killed, he sent word to Jesus, Art thou that should come, or do we look for another? Matthew 11:3
There are many Biblical examples of people who had great faith, but at times their unbelief was expressed.
This is not to excuse your unbelief, but to show you that an individual can be of great faith and still have moments of being overwhelmed with doubt.
The difference between a man of faith and a man of doubt, predominantly, is that a man of faith acts upon god's word, and a man of unbelief acts upon his fear.
That which holds back the effectiveness of Body ministry is not selfishness so much as it is unbelief.
Selfishness is the product of unbelief.
If you can say, believing, The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want, then you will not be afraid to share your bread with your brother, because you do not believe that you are going to be in a state of want.
But suppose you believe that you are going to want, and you fear that you may even go hungry.
If there is unbelief in your heart that God might not take care of you, then you hold on to everything that you have.
Your holding on to your possessions only express your faith toward disaster.
Faith in lies of Satan can come upon you.
Proverbs 11:24 says, ...There is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth only to want.
If you give, it is heaped back upon you because your giving is an expression of faith more than it is an expression of unselfishness.
Your unselfishness of heart is an expression of your faith in God that what He has given you can be given to someone else without your fear of ever wanting.
You do not have to hold back anything.
If you give everything away, you do not have to worry.
(Shekinah Fellowship edit note: There are people who have given everything away and suffered for it.
Don't give the kids beds away or their food.
People have actually done this at many churches and suffered greatly because of it.
You are expected to be responsible in your giving to others while taking care of yourself and those of your own household first.
Giving within reason.
Therefore while we are presenting this teaching in it's entirety we do not endorse this particular train of thought on giving as presented here at all!)
You shall not want, for the great Shepherd will feed you in green pastures; and you will truly experience the Twenty-third Psalm for yourself.
You must be confident in that.
Many are the promises that are not even on the horizon.
On a clear day you cannot see them, nor even on a spiritual mountaintop where everything seems wonderful.
Only with the heart of faith do they have reality.
It is difficult to find many losers among those who start to walk with God.
They may stray for a while, but that does not mean they have lost out.
They still crawl out of their dilemmas and rise up to be prophets of the Lord.
Sometimes a brother feels that God is leading him into a more independent way.
Sure enough, God is leading him right out into the wilderness to discipline him.
The Lord brings that brother into sonship through severe chastenings.
God is good; and if He were not the loving Father, if he were not our blessed Master, He would just let that man die.
He could turn him over to his own devices.
But he does not.
By faith you can hold in your arms the unborn Isaac, the hope and expectancy of all that you believe for your life.
If it is delayed, wait for it; it will come.
Reach into it by faith and possess it right now.
While you are waiting for your promise it may seem as if you have been walking around Jericho for six days; nevertheless, the seventh day is a winner.
People on the walls may be laughing as you walk around on the seventh day, but with just a little more faith and a little more perseverance, the walls will come down.
After you have been knocked down a number of times, you might think you are getting a real beating.
Actually, you are wearing out your opponent.
You have only begun to claim the good promises of the Lord.
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