WHERE IS YOUR FAITH?
Dr. Myles Munroe says your faith is only as strong as the tests it survives. Many believers walk around daily making claims and praising and worshipping God – testifying to how good He is and how much He blessed them, but their faith has never truly been tested. It is easy to say, “God is good” when things are going well, but what about the bad times?
God allows our faith to be tested so we can see how strong we are. His purpose is to help you grow, because He knows that untested faith is not valid faith and never amounts to much.
The testing of our faith serves not only to show the strength of our faith but also to reveal the motive behind our faith. Motive is birthed by beliefs and convictions. If you say, “I trust in God,” why do you trust in God? Is it because of who He is or because of what you hope to get out of it? Satan accused Job of following God only because God had blessed him, so God allowed Job to be tested. He wanted to reveal the motive behind Job’s faith, to reveal whether or not Job would continue to follow God even after he lost everything.
Dr. Myles Munroe says that in the Kingdom of God, as in any country, your belief in the nation’s constitutional promises and privileges can only be verified when circumstances require that you place a demand on the system. The testing of your faith in the Kingdom of God occurs through circumstances, which provide an opportunity for you to validate your belief in the political, economic, social and cultural system of Heaven on earth.
RE-DISCOVERING FAITH
Why did the people consider Jesus’ words a “hard teaching?” Because they realized He was calling them to follow Him with no guarantees of fish and bread; calling them to be satisfied with Him and Him alone; calling them to follow Him without knowing outcomes in advance, content to leave the future in His hands. That’s Kingdom faith: faith that trusts God whether He blesses or not, whether He delivers or not, whether He heals or not. Kingdom faith trusts Christ no matter what because it knows that He has the “words of eternal life,” and has discovered the same truth expressed by King David who wrote, “Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You” (Ps. 63:3).
Don’t build your faith on what God show you; build it on God. Kingdom faith is tested faith. Here are ten essential qualities of Kingdom faith:
1. Kingdom Faith Is Steadfast and Stable in Storms.
2. Kingdom Faith Is in God’s Omniscient Knowledge, not Our limited Knowledge.
3. Kingdom Faith Is Beyond Our Own Understanding.
4. Kingdom Faith Is Rewarded After the Tests.
5. Kingdom Faith Is Rewarded by the King.
6. Kingdom Faith Is Given and Sustained by the King.
7. Kingdom Faith Is Stronger than Blood.
8. Kingdom Faith Is Purified by Tests.
9. Kingdom Faith Does Not Fear Trials.
10. Kingdom Faith Commits the Future to God.
The author of Hebrews writes that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see, but how can we have that faith especially when things seem to be going wrong? Dr. Myles
Monroe on an interview states the following:
The book Rediscovering Faith was written out of tragedy. I’m a pastor of one of the most significant churches in the Bahamas and this year began with tragedy for us. A young man who was a very dear member of our church literally took his wife’s life, they were both members of the church, and he also took his life. As a senior pastor, you know you’ve never had this experience before, you have to comfort the church, you’ve got to make sure that you protect the security of the people’s faith in God and when things happen that you can’t explain, when your life falls apart, when nothing is working, even when prayer doesn’t seem to be working, What do you do? That’s the question. And I think God took me back to a simple question.
Why do you follow Yeshua? And most of our faith in the twentieth century church seems to be focused on following the Most High to get good things. What happens when bad things happen? Many people actually stop following God because they think it isn’t working, the Most High failed and the biggest issue that came out of this tragedy was the most powerful re-connection to the book of faith. Faith is believing--that’s it. The word faith is the word pistes in Greek and it simply means conviction or belief. I think we’ve made faith into something that has become a problem because people actually use faith like its some kind of manipulating tool, to make God do something good
for them. Also it is easy to talk faith when everything is going well. It’s the moment of crisis that you’re talking about where you either find out your faith stands the test or you need to examine it. You know in this book you’ll find an important quote that I got out of that tragedy. The quote is, “Your faith is only as strong as the test it survives.” No matter how much you brag about how much
faith you’ve got, the test will reveal what quality of faith you have. Everybody has faith in something whether we call it that or not. Sometimes we have faith in ourselves, it might be our money, our position in life but not everybody has faith in the Most High.
This is very important. This book deals with God stripping us and reducing us back to him. Even the present crisis in the world, people think of it as a negative. I think it’s a wonderful experience because God will remove things from your life reduce you back to him and not just to him, but faith only in him. More often in the word, you go back and read him saying to his people over and over and over again, I gave you the blessing and you had such great enjoyment of the blessing, that you forgot
about me. In this book I take you back to the biblical faith because this modern faith we have been living with cannot handle crisis.
I think about Daniel's faith when God allowed him to go into the lions den. Was there something wrong with Daniel? Was Daniel in sin? No, the lions den was the greatest act of the Most High's
power to prove Daniel's faith. The three Hebrew boys, I think they prayed a prayer that we need to pray again. They told the King, our God is able to deliver us from your fiery furnace, but then part of the prayer that we need to learn again is--what if He doesn’t? We know the Most High is able to do anything, but here’s the beauty. He’s also able to do nothing. What happens when God does nothing?
What do you do when God is silent? Do you still believe? You see, the three Hebrew boys had a faith that was on the other side of the coin. He’s able but what if he doesn’t? We still won’t bow. I want
the people to know today, If you lost your job, your business fell apart, you had a foreclosure on your house, whatever it is, don’t allow it to touch your belief in the Most High because there is always life after the test. Faith is believing in life after the test. Knowing that the test is always temporary. Faith and trust are linked together. They are the same because when you trust God it doesn’t matter what happens after that. The most powerful defense against crisis, is faith because faith tells the crisis, you are only temporary. Faith is telling every crisis you cannot outlast my belief. This is why we have to rediscover the faith that we have lost. Yeshua told Peter a very important statement. He says, Peter satan is going to sift you, that means you are going to go through a crisis, but notice He didn’t say, I’m going to pray for you to get blessed. And he also didn’t tell Peter, I won’t deliver you from the test but he says I’m going to pray for you that your faith fail not. Paul says that we must fight the good fight of faith.
The fight is keeping your belief when you’ve lost everything. When there is a tragedy you still believe. No matter what you’re going through today your faith must outlast it because your faith is the key to victory. We are all going to be sifted at some point in our lives more than once, so there are things, in the times of blessing that we can do to prepare ourselves and strengthen our faith for the time of testing. Corey Tambourine has an excellent quote. She says, “Believe in the dark, what he told you in the light.” Sometimes you only believe God for the light, question is, do you still believe him when it’s all dark? Always remember after every dark, day is on the way and He never changes!!!
power to prove Daniel's faith. The three Hebrew boys, I think they prayed a prayer that we need to pray again. They told the King, our God is able to deliver us from your fiery furnace, but then part of the prayer that we need to learn again is--what if He doesn’t? We know the Most High is able to do anything, but here’s the beauty. He’s also able to do nothing. What happens when God does nothing?
What do you do when God is silent? Do you still believe? You see, the three Hebrew boys had a faith that was on the other side of the coin. He’s able but what if he doesn’t? We still won’t bow. I want
the people to know today, If you lost your job, your business fell apart, you had a foreclosure on your house, whatever it is, don’t allow it to touch your belief in the Most High because there is always life after the test. Faith is believing in life after the test. Knowing that the test is always temporary. Faith and trust are linked together. They are the same because when you trust God it doesn’t matter what happens after that. The most powerful defense against crisis, is faith because faith tells the crisis, you are only temporary. Faith is telling every crisis you cannot outlast my belief. This is why we have to rediscover the faith that we have lost. Yeshua told Peter a very important statement. He says, Peter satan is going to sift you, that means you are going to go through a crisis, but notice He didn’t say, I’m going to pray for you to get blessed. And he also didn’t tell Peter, I won’t deliver you from the test but he says I’m going to pray for you that your faith fail not. Paul says that we must fight the good fight of faith.
The fight is keeping your belief when you’ve lost everything. When there is a tragedy you still believe. No matter what you’re going through today your faith must outlast it because your faith is the key to victory. We are all going to be sifted at some point in our lives more than once, so there are things, in the times of blessing that we can do to prepare ourselves and strengthen our faith for the time of testing. Corey Tambourine has an excellent quote. She says, “Believe in the dark, what he told you in the light.” Sometimes you only believe God for the light, question is, do you still believe him when it’s all dark? Always remember after every dark, day is on the way and He never changes!!!
Shema selah we have to know and truly believe that He is the same and fails not!! While His plans are not our plans our faith and trust should never change with the seasons!!
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