Using Your Faith
Faith is one of the greatest assets we have as believers in Christ. An unlimited number of possibilities can be accomplished when we use our faith. In this regard, faith is similar to water in its enduring value. With water we can wash our clothes, quench our thirst, clean our vehicles, water our lawns, or even brush our teeth. Faith has the ability to accomplish multifaceted goals, dreams, and visions. You have to drink water to stay alive. You have to use your faith to receive Jesus, who is the water of eternal life. Through faith you receive salvation, the infilling of the Holy Spirit, healing, prosperity, and miraculous answers to prayer. Faith is so vital that without it you simply cannot please God.
When I grew up, as a young boy I remember that we always went to church every time the doors were opened. We were there consistently every Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and also for special meetings that fell at other times. My parents taught my brothers and me to serve the Lord from an early age and onward. I am eternally thankful that I was raised in a Christian home and learned the Bible when I was young. The story of redemption was clearly explained to me at an early age. As I grew up, I eventually came to understand the message of salvation—that Christ died for my sins and that I could receive forgiveness and eternal life through His shed blood. Through faith I received Christ as my Lord and Savior and was baptized as a senior in high school.But once I was saved, it never occurred to me that I could use my faith for anything else. Most of the sermons that were preached in my home church were evangelistic. Even if there were no visitors or unsaved people in the meetings the pastor would still almost always preach a message about salvation, even though we were all saved. In essence, we really didn’t know what to do with our faith after we had been born again. Because we didn’t know what to do with it, we therefore did nothing with it. This led to an inability to find success and fulfillment in life as a Christian.I was raised in a mainline denominational church that staunchly did not believe in modern-day miracles. Speaking in tongues and all forms of the supernatural gifts of God were explained to us by our pastor as having ceased when the last of the first-century apostles died. No clear explanation of this belief was ever fully provided and you were never encouraged to ask.
The Bible tells us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. At the age of twenty-two, the Lord prepped me to receive one of His greatest blessings—the baptism in the Holy Spirit—by leading me to listen to a preacher on the radio whom I came to love; his name was R.W. Schambach. His preaching intrigued me because he seemed to have a fire in his messages that I never heard in any of our denominational preachers when they preached. Having just moved to a new city and enrolled in a large university in an effort to complete my college degree, I took a part-time job pruning apple trees. This work extended through the entire summer and into the fall, and it was while picking and pruning apples that I discovered Brother Schambach on the radio.As I listened to him daily on the radio for almost a year I began to realize he was the type of preacher I had been warned about when growing up—he was a Pentecostal preacher. We had been told to steer clear of the Pentecostals because it was said they spoke in tongues and swung from the chandeliers in church. But I could clearly notice an unusual power in Brother Schambach’s preaching that mystified me. Finally, after listening to his fifteen-minute radio message each afternoon, Monday through Friday, every week for a year, I became convinced that God still performed miracles. Faith from hearing all of those messages had risen in my heart to receive a blessing from God.At this same time, I began visiting a small Charismatic church just across the main street from the university entrance. It was in this church that I was filled with the Holy Spirit and first spoke in tongues when the pastor laid his hands on me and prayed, asking God to fill me with the Holy Spirit. Now my faith was moving forward. I had used my faith to receive salvation. Now through faith I had obtained the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. It began to dawn on me that perhaps I could also use my faith for other needs and desires as well. Once again, God had a blessing in store for me through another radio minister.
Whenever you live in a city for a year or two you eventually will discover who’s on the radio. This was before the boon of cable and satellite television networks and even satellite radio, so more people listened to the local radio stations back then. There was a Christian FM radio station in the city, and I already was aware of who came on at the various time slots throughout the day. This radio station featured primarily Bible teachers from the various streams of Christianity. There was a certain minister who was on the radio every day whom I had listened to a few times before, but I could never understand any- thing he was saying. But after I was filled with the Holy Spirit I heard him on the radio, and I completely understood clearly the message he was teaching. It’s like a veil was lifted off the eyes of my under- standing. The minister was Kenneth E. Hagin, and his teaching on faith would begin to supply me with the spiritual resources I needed to begin to win in life. The change came slowly, very slowly because I had so many layers of religious indoctrination ingrained into me. I felt like an onion that was being peeled, one layer at a time, of a wrong mind-set concerning who God was. The truth of His goodness was gradually unfolding before me. “And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John 8:32).” Truth that remains undiscovered can’t empower you to new levels of freedom; rather, it is the truth you comprehend that supplies access to new possibilities of extraordinary living. Your faith in God is going to take you into realms that you never knew were possible.
Many Christians have lived in a type of survival mode, simply existing but never crossing over in a tangible way to the place of their blessings in Christ being manifested. When this occurs it can become easy to settle far below God’s intended desire of blessing. The difficulties, discouragement, and the need to swim upstream in a prevailing downstream current can be fatiguing. Because of these consistent detrimental conditions, many believers don’t reach their destination of seeing their hopes and dreams materialized. Instead of winning in life they are defeated by the world, the flesh, the devil, or by all three at the same time. However, faith in God can turn any situation around, but faith must come by revelation. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues and also study God’s Word, then new levels of revelation begin to break forth in your spirit just like the breaking forth of light.When you know God’s Word you will also begin to discern His will for your life. Then you can take the promises of God by faith and make them evident in the natural realm so that your needs and desires can be met. As you study the pages of this book, expect the Lord to grant you a deeper revelation of faith. Any unfulfilled prophecies, unaccomplished dreams, unexecuted promises, or ingenious ideas yet undischarged need to be reexamined in light of faith and its vast potential. You will see that all things are possible to him who believes. Believes what? Believes what the Word says and what the Holy Spirit speaks to you. The Holy Spirit will speak and reveal the word of the Lord to you. The promise of that specific word will produce much joy in your life when it is manifested. This is why we need to be strong in faith. So that our lives glorify God and we manifest the promises of God.The earth and the people therein are still waiting to see the manifestation of the sons of God. They do not want to be told an explanation of the sons of God, but because they are naturally minded they must see the manifestation and proofs of what it is we declare. You may be able to explain something that you believe quite well, but you can only show to others what you have manifested. My prayer is that your faith will break loose to go out and bring into manifestation the promises that God has spoken to you. This will bring much glory to God, it will be a witness to those in the world, it will inspire the church, and it will bring happy fulfillment and lasting joy into the depths of your heart.
