My husband bought me an Apple Watch for Christmas, and let me just say that it’s one of those things that I never knew I needed and now I can’t live without! But that’s not the point. When I first opened the package, I had no idea how to work it. He told me about all the cool features, apps and benefits I could get from it (track my running, track my sleep, play music, etc.), but quite frankly, I was a little overwhelmed by how to actually get it working for me.
Let’s face it, if you have something and you don’t know how to use it,
it’s not going to do a thing for you!
At that point, I had two choices: Either use the functions that I could understand – like the clock part that was already working – or spend some time researching the features and find out how to use them. I chose to do the latter, and I’m now the skillful operator of my Apple Watch, reaping all the benefits.
So, what’s that got to do with faith? Faith is the same way. God gives you His faith, as a gift (Eph 2:8), when you hear the Gospel message and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior (Ro 10:17). You read in His Word about all the amazing benefits you can receive through faith (deliverance, healing, prosperity, etc.), but you feel overwhelmed by how to actually get that faith working for you. At this point, you have two choices: Either let your faith remain inactive and hope for the best, or spend some time and learn how to use it. You’re still reading this article, so I assume that means you’d like to learn how to get your faith working for you.
There are a few things that I think are necessary to have active, effective faith, and they just happen to fit into an acronym for F.A.I.T.H.:
- Foundation
- Accurate Answers
- Integrity
- Trust
- Hearing
Foundation:
The foundation of a building is the most important part of a building. It’s the substructure that bears the weight of the building and makes it stable. A lot of time and work goes into putting a strong foundation in place because of its importance. We’ve all seen pictures of the destruction to concrete buildings with weak foundations in third-world countries caused by hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes. These concrete buildings look strong on the outside, but when the storms come, they crumble like they’re made of sticks.
Building a strong foundation is a principle that applies in our natural world, but it also applies to the spiritual aspect of faith. Your faith needs a strong foundation (If the foundation is destroyed, what can the righteous do? Psalm 11:3) if you want to remain standing when the storms of life come. You don’t want to crumble every time a trial of life approaches. How your faith foundation is built is addressed in Matthew 7:25.
And the rains descended, and the floods came, and the wind blew,
and it beat upon that house; and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock.
Hmmm, founded and rock. Let’s take a deeper look at the meaning of those two words in the Greek. The word “founded” is the Greek word themelioō, and it has two meanings. The literal meaning is to lay a basis for a building. The metaphorical meaning is to make stable, to establish the soul (mind, will, and emotions). The word “rock,” Greek word petra, also has two meanings: Literally, it means a rock or stone; and metaphorically it means a man like a rock, by reason of firmness and strength of his soul. This verse is saying that your life, and everything it encompasses, including your faith, will be unshakeable when you are firm and steadfast in your mind, your will, and your emotions.
Your faith will be active and effective when your soul is firm and strong, and you get that firm and strong soul by doing what Romans 12:2 says: be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That word “transformed” comes from the Greek word metamorphoo, which is where we get our word metamorphosis, meaning to be turned into something completely different (think caterpillar to butterfly). This happens by changing your mind to agree with what God’s Word says. The catch here? You have to know what His Word says, and you’ll only do that by putting your nose in the Bible and finding out. This leads us directly to the next letter in our F.A.I.T.H. acronym: The A.
Accurate Answers:
A building’s foundation can be good or bad, and it all depends on the materials you use to build it. Are you using sticks or concrete reinforced with steel rebar? The same is true with the foundation for your faith. What materials are you using to build it? It really comes down to two choices as a source for materials: the world or the Word. The world will give you false facts. The Word will give you accurate answers (truth), and these accurate answers will provide you the necessary materials to build a strong, resilient faith. You have the choice to build your faith with facts or with truth.
Here’s an example: Fact – You are diagnosed with cancer. Truth – 1 Peter 2:24 says that you were healed, and Psalm 107:20 says that He sent His word and healed you (notice the past tense nature of the italicized words). Fact – The cancer is causing pain in your body. Truth – Isaiah 53:4 says that Jesus carried that very pain on the Cross so that you wouldn’t have to. The facts may be that you have cancer and that you have pain. You have a choice to build your faith on those facts by focusing on them and them alone, or despite the fact that fear and pain are screaming for your attention, you can choose to build your faith on the truth that you know by focusing on it.
Another example for you: Fact – You have been taught your whole life that you need more faith or that you need stronger faith. Truth – The faith you have is equal in power and size to the same walking-on-water, raising-people-from-the-dead faith that Peter had (Mt 14:29, Acts 9:40)! If you choose to follow what you’ve been taught – i.e., you don’t have enough faith – you will always be chasing after something that you already have instead of walking in all the benefits that the faith you have can afford you. (For more information on the walk-on-water faith that you have, read “Got Faith?”)
This is why it is so important that whenever you’re facing a situation, or whenever you have a question about something (like if it’s His will to heal you), that the first thing you do is look to the Word for the answer. Seeking counsel and advice from a pastor or trusted friend is great, but it’s necessary to take what they say or teach and compare it to the Word because the Word is the final authority. It is the absolute truth.
Once you find your accurate answer in the Word, next comes the “I” in F.A.I.T.H.:
Integrity:
We’re talking here about the integrity of the Word, the integrity of that verse you just found in the Word that speaks to your problem at hand. The honesty of it. The reliability of it. It’s really all about how you view the Word. Do you believe it? Do you believe every word of it? Do you believe some of it and don’t believe the rest? Do you believe that God will keep all of His promises? Because that’s what His Word is, right? It’s all of His promises to you. If you make a promise, what does that mean to you? Won’t you do anything in your power to uphold that promise? Imagine, then, what God’s promises mean to Him.
Numbers 23:19 says that God can’t lie, and that when He makes a promise, he won’t change His mind and He always carries through with it. Psalm 138:2 says that He elevates His Word above His very name. This means that as powerful as His name is – and His name is above every name – His word holds even more power than that. With His words, God spoke the universe into existence (Genesis 1); and Colossians 1:16-17 says that everything is, to this day, held together by that same word. If one iota was wrong in the Word, the whole universe would fall apart. The universe is still together, which means His word is still in operation, so you can believe in the integrity of the Word.
Somebody said to me once that the Bible is either the best thing that’s ever happened to man, or the biggest deception ever conceived by man. There comes a point where you have to decide if you believe the Word or not. You have the God-given faith to believe it. You just have to choose to do so. I remember the day I drew a line in the sand, crossed it, and said, “Today, I choose to believe every single word that is written in this Book, and I will believe it above all else. I believe that God’s promises are true, that they are intended for me, and that He will uphold them.”
When you see His word as promises to you that He can’t and won’t break,
when you believe in the integrity of His word,
you will read the Word in a whole new light and your faith will be set in motion.
This next one might be a little tough for some of you because of your life experiences, but don’t let that stop you! It’s the “T” in F.A.I.T.H.
Trust:
Once you build that foundation by renewing your mind with accurate answers, and you believe in the integrity of those answers, then it’s time to trust. The Hebrew word for “trust” is batach. It means to set your hope and your confidence upon someone. This can be hard for some people because of their life experiences. I can definitely say it was the hardest part of walking in faith for me. After 13 years of being sick and not seeing any change in my body when I spoke the Word, I didn’t have much trust that what the Word actually said was true, nor did I have confidence in its power.
What I learned, however, after those 13 years of being sick, is that I had been putting my trust and confidence in the wrong thing. In all that quoting of scripture, in trying to live by a formula, by reading this book or that book, I wasn’t putting my trust in God and His Word at all. I was putting my trust and confidence in myself. I was putting trust in the fact that I was “doing everything right.” I was trying to work for my healing. I was trying to earn my healing. I was trusting that if I did what I was supposed to do, then God would heal me. All my trust was in me and my actions, and no trust was in the true source: God. I had faith all right, but not in God.
It was quite a shock to the system to realize that I hadn’t been trusting in Him all along. Recognizing this was the best thing that could have happened, but now I had to learn how to actually trust God after 20-some years of thinking I had been. How in the world do I do that? As always, God led me to Jesus as my example of what trust really looks like.
In Matthew 4, Jesus and his disciples were in a boat. While they were on their way to their destination, a “great windstorm” developed and the boat started taking on water. The disciples were freaking out, but Jesus was asleep on a pillow. How could He sleep during this storm? Because He knew what God’s Word said about Him, that He had a purpose, and that there was a plan for His life. He trusted God to deliver Him safely to the other side because He knew that God’s Word, directing Him to a certain place and time, was something He could stand on. He focused on God’s Word, He trusted in God’s Word, and that brought perfect peace in the midst of the storm. Isaiah 26:3 reflects this exact thing:
You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.
The key is having your mind “stayed on” Him. This means you are focused, dwelling, meditating and in a constant state of fellowship, prayer and communion with Him. Trust comes when you give consistent attention to His Word. It means looking to Him more than to anything else, especially what you see, hear, feel, or think. Giving His Word your attention leads to trust, which leads to perfect peace. This word “peace” here includes it all: health, prosperity, peace, favor. We all want that perfect peace, but that requires trust. Trusting looks like laying down all anxiety and care, giving him your burden, and letting him carry it. Give it to him. He can handle it.
Speaking of the Word, that leads us to our final letter in F.A.I.T.H.
Hearing:
Notice I said “hearing,” not heard. I learned the difference between the two the hard way when my husband and I sold everything we owned and moved to the Middle East to study Arabic in 2016. When we moved, I had been healed for over two years and was secure in my healing. I had heard God about healing and received because of it. I knew I was healed, I knew how I got healed, and nothing was going to take that away from me. I had received all the revelation I would ever need to keep my healing. Or so I thought.
Before we left for the Middle East, I had fought my war on sickness in the cold and snowy mountains of Colorado. I won that war because I became skilled with the weapons needed specifically for mountain warfare. I had my snowmobile, my cold-weather gear and my company of winter-warfare trained, like-minded believers fighting with me. It turns out, however, that the Middle East was a whole new battleground requiring completely different weapons and tactics. When I put on my cold-weather gear, reviewed my mountain warfare tactics and got on my snowmobile in the desert sand, it didn’t work out too well and a new battle began. Quite honestly, the newer tactics the enemy opposition employed were a far cry from what we had ever faced before. This, coupled with the many, drastic cultural changes in our lives, seemed to completely shut out God’s voice to me. The hearing had stopped and the “having heard” wasn’t enough.
I struggled in all kinds of ways for a year, until we came back to the States for our first visit. During that time back, I heard His voice again. In hearing that precious, loving voice, He began telling me that I knew Him as my Savior, I knew Him as my Healer, but I didn’t know Him as my Deliverer. That “hearing” was all I needed to start on the journey of hearing His voice again, even above the ever-persistent noise of the worldly oppression around me. It was that fresh hearing, that fresh word, that fresh revelation that I needed to activate my faith and drive out the enemies that had invaded.
Having heard is wonderful, but continual hearing is necessary.
So, let’s do a quick review. Faith becomes active and effective when it is built on a strong foundation of accurate answers (truth), when you believe in the integrity of that truth, when you trust in that truth, and when you are hearing that truth on a continual basis. If you do these things, your F.A.I.T.H. will be activated.