If You Lack Faith You won't Succeed
Well, praise Jesus today, everyone. I wanted to
make just a quick message today about a simple topic, just of faith. So what I
first wanted to talk about in regards to faith is just the worldly principle of
faith. Give me just a second here. Sorry about that. We're going to be all
sideways for a second here. Okay, there we go. Now that'll be a little bit less
distraction. So in the world, in order to achieve anything in the world, if
you're starting a business, if you're going to do good in college, whatever
you're trying to achieve in the world, if you don't have faith, if you don't
believe in yourself that you can do it, you're going to fail or you may never
even try in the first place. Let's say that you're wanting to be an athlete.
You want to be really good in track and maybe you want to be really good at
running the mile. You want to break the four-minute mile and you just don't
believe it can be done. Well, if you don't have faith that it can be done, then
you're probably not going to do it. And for many years, years ago, no one was
able to break the four-minute mile. People thought it was impossible. But as
soon as someone had the faith to believe they could do it, and they did, then
everyone knew it was possible and no longer did they even have to have faith to
believe that you could break the four-minute mile. They just believed, I can do
this if I train enough. But all of these athletes, all of these track athletes
that were great runners started breaking the four-minute mile. And now the mile
is down to, I don't know, like three minutes and 48 seconds or something
extremely fast. So this concept about faith in the world is well understood. If
you want to make a certain amount of money or if you want to buy something in
the world, you set your heart and your mind to achieve that goal. And people in
the world, I'm not even speaking about in the Lord's Church, but just in the
secular world, they have to believe in themselves in order to achieve
something. So if you are 18 and you're thinking about going to college, if you
don't have faith that you can go to college, if you don't believe in yourself
or have the kind of faith that believes that you can get the financial aid that
you need, the support that you need, then you're just going to fail. So faith is
a huge element, if not the greatest element of your success. Now if this
concept works in the world, then obviously how much more does it work when it's
applied to our faith in Jesus?
See if you
don't believe that Jesus is real, then you're not going to trust Him. And a lot
of Christians don't really have faith in God. They have faith in themselves,
they have faith in their wallet, they have faith that they can get themselves
through school, they have faith that they can buy themselves one thing or another,
but they don't have faith in Jesus because they've never seen the Lord work.
They've never opened up their heart in true faith to Him to see how God works.
Now I have seen God operate, but before I had seen God operate in my life, I
was hesitant to have real faith, to really bank on that sort of faith, because
I didn't know if God would come through. It's one thing to believe that God is
love, it's one thing to believe that we have faith in God, but it's another
thing to actually lean on Him. Now I had to muster up every little bit of faith
that I had in order to step outside and leave the rock of religion. See in my
life before I was following Jesus, my rock wasn't really Jesus Christ. I said
that He was, but really I was on the rock of religion, which really is a
conglomerate of a bunch of different sand. It's different principles of men,
right? It's ideas from the Bible that the culture has gathered, the Christian
church has put together, and all of these Christians gather around this
conglomerate rock of church. Not the rock of Jesus, but the rock of men. And
when you're around that, you have the security in your religion, and your faith
is in your church, your faith is in your pastor, your faith is in your Bible
interpretation, and your whole worldview surrounds the principles that you've
been taught as a child in your church. But this does not equate genuine faith.
You don't really have faith in Jesus, you don't have faith that He would lead
you in your life and guide you supernaturally. Why would you believe in Him
when you've never learned that? You've never learned to trust in Him with your
finances, you've never learned to trust in Him and take up your cross and leave
everything behind to follow Him.
When Abraham was called by God, he also had to muster
up all his faith in order to leave his town of Ur, to leave his father, to
leave his things behind to go towards the promised land, to walk into the land
that he didn't know. Spiritually, that is the kingdom of God. Abraham was a
sojourner in this world, and so are we if we actually have faith in Jesus. The
way this sort of faith is acquired isn't how the Christians teach it. See, the
Christians say, having faith just means believing in the Bible, it means going
to church. But true faith means that you trust that Jesus is the living God,
and that He will provide everything that you need if you leave the world, if
you leave the false rock of church behind. If you leave that, you trust Him,
that He will guide you supernaturally, that He will provide everything that you
need, and that He will make the path straight for you. If you believe that
Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and you start to go down that narrow
path, then as you see Him work wonders in your life, and open up the doors in
your life to walk with Him, then your faith starts to increase.
When I mustered up all my faith to leave church,
to leave religion, I didn't know how I was going to support my wife, I didn't
know how I was going to pay off my worldly debt, but I just said, “Lord, if
You're real, and if You're calling me, I know that You will make the way for me
financially, because I didn't want to be a bad testimony, I didn't want to be
the Christian who left my work and left my church, then to just have to beg for
money and beg for loans in order to pay off my debt.” I just knew that would be
a bad testimony, so I said, “Lord, please, if You're the one calling me, help
me pay off my debt.” And I didn't want to ask anyone for help, especially from
my enemy, that being dead religion, because that's going to your enemy for
something that Jesus should be giving you. So I said, “Lord, please provide for
me”. And since the time I left dead religion and I left the world, I've never
had to ask for money. The Lord has provided me with everything I need and much,
much, much more. And that truly has increased my faith. But in order to gain
faith, you have to take those baby steps of faith forward. You won't develop
faith all at once. How could you? That's like being able to develop physical
strength without doing any weight resistance. In order to get stronger, you
have to have a good diet, so you have to be eating meat, you have to be eating
things that are good for your body, but you also have to be resisting weight.
So like weightlifting or running, you have to be doing something to get your
body strong. And once your body is strong, then you can be a good runner or weightlifter
or whatever you're doing, you get better at that through exercise. And it's the
same with growing in your faith. You have to spiritually eat Jesus's flesh,
drink his blood, and as He teaches you, you are nourished by Him. And the
weight resistance is resisting the devil. And as you resist Satan, you resist
temptation, you resist evil, you resist listening to worldly information, then
you grow stronger in the kingdom of God. And then your faith is increased
because you see Jesus working in your life.
Now that's where we want to get. We want to get to
the point where we're not trusting people to provide for us, we're not trusting
the government, we're not just trusting medicine, we're not trusting the stock
market, but we're truly trusting Jesus Christ for all of our needs. And we want
to get to the point where we can just say in our heart, the Lord will provide.
And when we know that He will provide, instead of begging people for money, or
instead of getting ourselves into more debt, asking for loans, or whatever the
case is, we can pray and in faith know that Jesus will provide for us.
A lot of Christians still have their faith in all
the wrong things. Their faith is in men, their faith is in the security nets of
this world. And the reason why it's in the world is because they have learned
that there is a amount of security, at least in America, in the world. But they
haven't learned the security of Jesus. If they had learned the security that's
in Jesus, their faith would be in Him. So what I want to encourage you to do as
your brother in the Lord is learn to put your faith, your security in Jesus
Christ. That way you can develop in Him and stop putting your faith and your
trust in the world and in people and the things of this world. Truly Jesus can
give you everything that you need. But you need to seek first the kingdom of
God and His righteousness and then everything else will be provided for you.
But if your treasures are things in this world, as
Jesus says, there your heart will be also. So is your heart in this world? Is
your security in this world? Or is your heart really with Jesus Christ? And is
your security with Him? And is your faith in Him? So, I hope this makes sense
to someone out there who is looking for genuine faith that wants to grow in
their faith. The way to grow in your faith is by seeking the Lord and asking Him
to become real to you. Just say, “Jesus, I need you to speak into my heart. I
need to know that you're real. I need you to be working your wonders in my
life. And I want to give my heart to you, my soul, my mind. I want you to teach
me”. And if you go to the Lord and ask Him to teach you and you have a sincere
heart, He's going to start manifesting His truth to you. You'll start to see
how He is working in your life. So I want to pray for those of you that want
genuine faith, that want your faith to grow, and that you want to leave the
false rock of this world, the false rocks of religion.
So “Lord Jesus, I pray for your true church. I
pray for my fellow brothers and sisters in the Lord that want to grow in their
faith, that want to hear from you, that want to be led by you and not led
astray. I pray that your church will not be led by strangers or hirelings or
wolves, but they can truly be led by you, that they would hold your hand, Lord
Jesus, and walk in righteousness and holiness with you. I pray that you pull
people out of the world, pull people out of religion, pull them out of the dead
church that is leading people to hell, and that you lead them into the newness
of life. Renew their hearts, renew their minds, and let them walk with you in
peace, the peace that passes all understanding, that they can also have eternal
life and be lights to the world so that their families might repent, and people
can truly come into the household of faith with you. So I pray that you bless
your church, bless those that have an ear to hear, and may they truly come into
your presence. In your name I pray, Lord Jesus, amen.”
