Why is Faith Important to God?
Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
If you can’t please God without faith, then you must understand what faith is and how it works according to the Bible. What is God’s definition of faith? What is God looking for when He sees a faith that pleases Him?
When you come to a time in your life when you realize that God is your creator, that Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven and the only way to a relationship with God, your response to that revelation should be evident, even dramatic. Your belief in this profound truth should turn your world upside down. It should cause you to think, feel, and behave differently. If it doesn’t, you really don’t understand who God is.
He created you for His good pleasure. If you understand that, you will want to do what He says.
Faith in God is expressed by love for Him, and love for Him is demonstrated by obedience to Him.
John 14:15 If you love Me, keep My commandments.
John 14:21 He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
John 14:23-24 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. 24 He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me.
Loving, willing obedience is the highest expression of faith in God. If you love God, you will act like it. If you truly believe in Him, you will strive to obey Him. You will act like you believe. It will change your thinking. It will change your speaking. It will change your behavior, and it will change your overall emotional state.
This expression of faith pleases God.
Love is only known by its actions, by its behavior, how it responds, how it thinks. We see what this looks like in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails.
It is your love for God that empowers you to love this way. It also empowers your faith to believe in God to receive His promises. Without the foundation of this love in your lives, faith to believe God for His promises will always seem to be just out of reach.
Galatians 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love.
Your love for God is expressed by a living faith. There are two kinds of faith mentioned in the Bible. A dead faith, and a living faith.
A living faith to receive the promises of God hinges on your love for God. Your faith works because of that love. Your faith to receive God’s promises will never rise above the living faith that expresses your love for Him.
What Defines a Living Faith?
James 2:26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.
Declaring you believe something without corresponding works that confirm your beliefs would be like God creating Adam’s body from the dust of the ground and never breathing the breath of life into him.
Genesis 2:7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.
Saying that you believe something is not evidence that you believe. You can make a bold declaration that you believe in God, but if your actions, words, and behaviors do not align with that declaration, your faith is dead. Dead things produce no fruit. This should be of great concern to many self-professing Christians.
It is only when you attach works of faith to your declaration of belief that you breathe life into your faith. So, what are the “works” that must accompany what you say you believe?
2 Corinthians 4:13 And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, “I believed and therefore I spoke,” we also believe and therefore speak,
The first and most important work that must accompany your declaration of faith is words. Your words will reflect what is truly in your heart. What is in your heart will always be revealed by what comes out of your mouth. If you believe, your language will reveal it. If you doubt, that will be exposed by what you say.
God created everything by His faith and by His words. The things that you can see with your physical eyes were made from things that you can’t see. Somehow, a living faith can create tangible things out of things you cannot see with the naked eye. Your physical reality is shaped in the same way, by a living faith.
There is something extraordinary about your soul and how it responds to thoughts and words; Every single thought you think is a seed that has the power and potential to grow into something significant and tangible. Every single word you say has creative power and prophetic implications, setting in motion a chain of events in the spirit realm that cause what you believe to become substance, to become your reality.
When you change your thoughts, you change your beliefs. When you change your beliefs, you change your words, your emotions, your actions, and your expectations. When that happens, you now have a living faith that brings substance and evidence of what you actually believe.
Faith starts in the mind. This is why your mind must be constantly renewed. This is the arena that the devil attacks because it is the part of your being where reproduction takes place.
This is why Peter exhorts us to gird up the loins of our mind, because the loins are where the reproductive organs are.
1 Peter 1:13 Therefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
The mind of man was created as fertile soil. Whatever seeds you allow to be planted in your mind have the potential to take root and grow into something enormous.
Ephesians tells us that we must put the armor of truth on the loins of our mind.
Ephesians 6:14 Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
You must sow the seeds of truth into your mind constantly. This will water and feed the seeds of truth you have already planted, and choke out and overcome any bad seeds that the enemy has planted.
Truth is not just spiritual armor; it is also an offensive weapon. The truth of God’s word not only defends and protects our minds against the enemy. When the word of God is spoken, it becomes the most powerful weapon against demonic attacks.
1 Corinthians 10:3-5 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,
You are in an endless war with supernatural beings and forces that are relentlessly trying to influence you with ideas and beliefs that are anti-Christ. If you are not aggressively fighting in this war and bringing your thoughts, ideas, and words captive to the obedience of Christ, you are being programmed, shaped, molded, and transformed into something you were never created to be. Every thought you fail to take captive has the potential to bring you one step further away from Christlikeness.
Everything starts and ends with the mind. Your mind is the battlefield, and the battlefield must be controlled. It’s important to have control of the battlefield during a fight, whether it’s a real-life confrontation, a military engagement, a spiritual battle, or a tabletop role-playing game.
In a spiritual fight, controlling the “battlefield of the mind” is crucial. The mind is where spiritual battles are primarily waged, and controlling your thoughts is essential for resisting temptation, overcoming doubt, negativity, and maintaining spiritual well-being.
Your thoughts directly impact your behavior. If you allow negative or harmful thoughts to take root, they can lead to negative actions and choices, potentially causing you to fall into sin or make decisions that hinder your spiritual growth.
Renewing your mind to the living truth of God’s word is how you control and prepare the battlefield. This gives you the ability to properly discern and to actively examine your thoughts. It gives you the wisdom and insight to choose or reject those thoughts that are not in line with God’s word or that lead you away from Him and His will for your lives.
Romans 12:2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
Without a renewed mind, the enemy will prepare your battlefield. He will build strongholds of wrong thinking and wrong believing in your mind that he will hide behind and wage war from. These strongholds are built slowly, methodically, and deceitfully. Satan uses these strongholds to force you into a fight on his terms.
Faith as a Seed
Belief, plus words, actions, and emotions that align with and confirm that belief, is the very definition of a living faith.
Matthew 17:20 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.
The entire kingdom of God operates on the principle of seed time and harvest.
Mark 4:30-32 Then He said, “To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? 31 It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; 32 but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.”
If you want things to change in your life, you must change the seeds that are being sown into your mind. Seeds produce thoughts, thoughts shape beliefs, and beliefs shape your behavior
When you change your thoughts, you change your beliefs (faith). When you change your beliefs, you change your words, actions, and expectations (works). You now have faith as a living seed. If you keep that seed in the right environment, keeping it fed and watered, it will take root and grow. If you don’t cast away your confidence and hold fast to your confession of faith, it will continue to grow and produce the fruit of what you believe and expect.
This isn’t about the power of positive thinking, although it will produce positive thinking. This is not the new age practice of manifesting, but it will manifest results.
This is about operating in life with a living faith. Your beliefs, coupled with corresponding works, will change things in the unseen realm and eventually change the things you see. This is about permanent transformation, becoming the supernatural, creative being that God designed you to be. It is about stepping beyond the limitations of this fallen and corrupt world, beyond your fallen nature, and stepping into the realm of faith and infinite possibilities.
Mark 9:23 Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
JESUS IS COMING!
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