Page 76 - The Prosperous Way _ (APRIL 2024 v3)

THE PROSPEROUS WAY

love, just as David and Moses did as we saw in the last chapter. Because
we trust His love and faithfulness, we can believe in the trustworthiness
of the promise-maker.

Finally, faith means believing that the promise-maker has the power to
perform the promise. We trust that He is Almighty God, and, therefore,
has the power to accomplish what He has promised. When we
understand these things, we come to realize that faith is essentially a
conviction that, because God has said it, and because of His faithfulness
and His power, what God has said will come to pass. This is what it
means to have faith in God.

FAITH COMES BY HEARING

Romans 10:17 tells us that “faith comes by hearing and hearing through
the Word of Christ.” Faith in the promises of God similarly comes from
the act of hearing those promises spoken over our lives. As we have just
seen, God makes promises to all believers in the Word. We learn from
Hebrews 4:11 that the Word of God is an active, powerful and living
force. This living Word carries within itself a seed of life which, when
planted within the heart of the hearer, has the power to transform that
heart and bring forth faith. The Word actually carries within it an
inherent power to birth faith in the heart. Thus, Jesus tells us “The words
that I have spoken are spirit and they are life” (John 6:61).

Therefore, if we want faith to be built up in our hearts, it is vital that we
position ourselves where the Spirit-filled, life-giving Word of God is
flowing. The Word comes to us primarily through our daily Bible reading
when, as we read, the Holy Spirit “lifes” a particular passage and it speaks
directly into our situation. But the Word can also impregnate our spirit
with faith through a Bible-believing church where the Word of God is
consistently preached, or by fellowshipping with people of faith who
will speak the hope of God’s Word into your life, or by listening to online
sermons from a trustworthy minister of the Gospel. The word can come
from our own lips as we meditate upon Scriptures that we have “hidden
in our heart” (Psalm 119:11). The Scriptures that you have stored up in
your memory can accurately address a current situation that you are
going through, and when you repeat these Scriptures to yourself, they
will cause faith to come alive in your heart. So, like King David, you can
encourage your own self in the Lord (Psalm 42:5) by studying His Word.

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