This is a devotional study on Faith
Lesson 3
Faith is a function of the Recreated Spirit
The power of faith resides in the spirit of every believer. Faith is not the product of reason, but it is the product of the recreated spirit that comes from God. Please understand what this verse is saying.
Rom 8:6-7 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace, the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.
Your natural mind is hostile and stands in opposition to the Word of God. It is impossible for our natural mind to fathom how God works supernaturally.
- Our natural reasoning is probably the biggest enemy we have to our faith.
- At best our mind can produce positive thinking but that is not faith.
- When it comes to the promises and the power of God; you cannot work it out, you cannot figure it out, and you cannot think it out because God is the God of the supernatural and he is the God of the impossible and chooses to operate through our recreated spirit not our carnal mind.
- That is why when the world cannot work it out logically, they just say that it’s a load of rubbish and it’s not possible. Isa 55:8-11
God has given you the ability to be the architect of your life. Heb 11:1-3
Just as God created the world by the power of his words, you to can create your world by the power of the Word of God through his promises with the words that you speak. This is why it is vital to understand that faith is not a product of our reasoning but a product of our revelation. Prov 4:20-21
- How do you keep words in your heart, words create pictures?
- These are great verses to meditate on. Prov 4:22-23, Mat 4:4
Man cannot live the God kind of life on natural bread or natural provision alone, but we need the Rhema word – the revealed word of God. John 6:63
- Don’t ever allow the bible to become just another reading book, it is the only book that can feed your spirit man
The power of meditation
When we have a revelation of God’s Word it has the ability to create and produce life. I believe that meditation is the price we pay for revelation.
- Now I am not talking about the world’s concept of meditation that teaches us to empty our minds.
- Biblical meditation means to think about, to ponder, and to think it over and over and over. The more you think about the Word of God and ponder it, the more your spiritual eyes are enlightened, and the more faith is revealed. Jas 1:22-25, Rom 12:2, Eph 1:17-19
Faith believes what God says is true; it is not a product of the natural mind but of the spirit. This is why all of Gods word and promises cannot be received and believed just thought the natural carnal mind. 1 Cor 2:6-14,
The carnal mind or the carnal man cannot accept the promises of God; they must be spiritually discerned. Rom 8:7, Isa 1:18
This is not an invitation to try and change God’s mind. Every time you reason with God, if you have any sense you will realise that He is the one with the divine wisdom. You are the one that needs to change your thinking to be in line with His thinking.
Prov 3:5-6 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, (understand him, get acquainted with him) and he will make your paths straight.
The heart of faith is being willing to trust your very life into the hands of God. But how do we develop our faith?
The word of faith
KJV Rom 10:8-10 But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
Let’s try and put this picture of faith together. It’s just like building a jigsaw puzzle – the more pieces we have, the clearer the picture becomes and the more complete our understanding is. Let me give you the five pieces of the jigsaw, then we will begin putting them together:
- The Word has to be in your heart – not your head. We get it into our heads through our intellect. We get it into our hearts through revelation, i.e. the word of faith, which we preach.
- “That if thou shalt confess” – means to acknowledge the truth, to agree with, to consent to, to acknowledge covenant and speaks the same as or agreeably or to harmonise about the facts or the truth.
- What we are confessing is that Lord Jesus is our Master, Ruler and Owner. He is the one who has absolute authority, supreme authority, and the one who is in control.
- “If we believe” – means to be fully persuaded in the truthfulness of a person and to trust in the character of a person. “That God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved” – Again in understanding the richness of this word picture or puzzle we need to understand that when the bible talks about being saved it is not just speaking about an eternal destination but a complete package, which includes God’s blessings here on earth. To be saved includes to heal, to deliver, to make whole, to preserve from danger.
- For with the heart man believes unto righteousness; “and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”. Now our salvation is the result of what God has promised in that word saved. So what we confess is the completion, the end result, the fulfilment of God’s promises. To be healed, whole, at peace,
As we meditate upon the Word of God our eyes of faith are opened and God’s begins to paint a picture of how we can be, what we can do, who we can become. If you can’t see yourself in the light of God’s Word you will never be able to believe God for it. But once it is in your heart then you can speak it out by faith into the natural realm. We are not talking about some blab it and grab it formula because if it is not in your heart by faith you cannot speak it out by faith.
This is an incredible picture and you can see this principle operating in Christians lives. The Word of God produces revelation, this must be received, believed then appropriated. If we don’t use it, we will lose it. Mar 4:22- 25
The principle of faith is to understand the process, faith operates as a seed. Seeds don’t get planted one day and produce the next day, they must be cultivated. Your spirit is the incubator and the soil for the seed of God word to be cultivated in. To the immature God will operate in instant miracles, to the mature he has chosen to operate on the basis of seed faith.
Mar 4:26 He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground.
Mar 4:27 Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how.
Mar 4:28 All by itself the soil produces grain first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head.
Mar 4:29 As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.”