Without faith, no amount of religious sacrifice can please God. Efforts and tradition have no meaning to God without faith. So what is faith? It is the belief that he exists and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him. Most of the church believes that God exists. But half the church vanishes when it comes to believing that God rewards his children.
That word “reward” means “reimbursed for an expense that a person or employee has paid out of their own pocket in order to get the job done”. God is telling us to use our faith for when we spend the faith he gave us, he will reward it by fulfilling the promise he has given us.
What big things are you believing God to do? If your faith is not working, you won’t get those things. Take your faith out of the unemployment line and put it back to work.
We are too passive. We often say, “I’ll be healed, if it’s God’s will.” The Bible is very clear that his will is for everyone to be healed: he sent Christ to do just that. It’s up to us to put our faith to work. Blessing comes by faith. God has given us the Bible. It’s our faith that makes the promises of God a reality. We must perceive that his word and promises are real and done before they will be real and accomplished. God will reward you when you expend or spend your faith.
When we are sick and we say that it’s his stripes that heal us, we are not lying. We are speaking truth into the current situation and believing that it will become real. Faith begins by hearing. “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) Become a word or Bible maniac. Fill your life with it.
Faith is activated by saying it. God can’t do it until you say it. “So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” (Matthew 17:20) Be willing to say crazy things: my family is saved, my body is healed, my finances are turning around, my job is blessed—even if it looks contrary to that. We don’t walk by sight, we walk by faith. Our lives are guided by what we believe not what we see.
And faith is demonstrated by doing. “But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:20) Faith is acting on God’s word.
