Exercise Your Faith! - Part 2

To all who read my blog, I say thank you very much for your comments, messages, and emails. It’s has been really encouraging. Last week’s post on exercising your faith attracted some nice personal comments, best of which I consider from those that were inspired to begin exercising their faith. My friend, Opeyemi, said, “I’m learning to exercise my faith… take it for a run! Give it a good insanity workout. Get it to work.” To that, I say, you go girlfriend! Like, Ope, I hope we all can do that everyday with our relationship with God J

Well, as the title suggests, I broke up the entire article into two simply because a reader once told me that long articles put him off. So, here is just the concluding part to my last Tuesday’s bible study teaching:

So How Big Should Your Faith Be For It To Work?

Not so big. A mustard seed size is enough to speak to a mountain or a tree to be uprooted and be cast/planted into the sea, and it will be done. Matthew 17:20; Luke 17:6. Of course, the bigger your faith is the better. Just as a mustard seed grows to become a mighty tree (Matthew 13:31-32), God expects that our faith grows bigger and bigger as we put it to work.

When Will Your Faith Not Work?

1.      When you don’t forgive those who have offended you: How do I know this? See the next verse after Mark 11:24 – “²⁴ Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. ²⁵ And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” Mark 11:24-25. If you don’t forgive men their trespasses, your faith will not have a place to function the way it should to produce your expected results.

2.      When you don’t walk in love: Every person who desires to exercise his faith in order to produce results should know this important truth, “Faith works only by love.” Galatians 5:6. If you like, let your faith be as big as a mountain, if you don’t walk in love with the brethren, your faith is as good as dead. 1 John 3:14 says that, “We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loves not his brother abides in death.” A dead man cannot exercise his faith. Your faith cannot produce results without love.

3.      When your belief is not in line with God’s word: Your faith has to be completely based on the Word of God. If not, it will not work. You cannot exercise faith to have someone else’s husband or wife as your own and expect that it would work. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 according to the Amplified Bible says, “And we also [especially] thank God continually for this, that when you received the message of God [which you heard] from us, you welcomed it not as the word of [mere] men, but as it truly is, the Word of God, which is effectually at work in you who believe exercising its superhuman power in those who adhere to and trust in and rely on it].” Your faith will work only when it is in line with the word of God. James puts it this way, “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.” – James 4:3.

4.      When you have too many options: Yesterday, I got to work and received the following message from my cousin, “Faith is closing all other alternatives and holding unto one.” How true is that? Faith is saying, “This is what God has promised me through His Son, Jesus, and this is what I will receive, and I don’t care the obstacles facing me. It belongs to me. God says so, and so it is.” The bible says anyone who is double minded when he’s asking from God cannot receive anything from the Lord – James 1:6-8.

Lord, Increase Our Faith!

Luke 17:5