There’s nothing you can do in the kingdom of God without faith, but with it you can do anything when it’s according to God’s Word and promises.
God’s grace operating through faith will get the job done. We should always be advancing in faith. Abraham, considered the father of faith to those who believe (Rom.4:16), died in faith having not achieved all the promises to which he was drawn.
He was moving toward God’s will for his life, and achieved many things on the journey but was still travelling onwards in faith towards those promises when he passed away into the bosom of the Almighty.
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
Hebrews 11:8-16
By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude—innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore.
These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.
You see, they all moved towards what they believed by the Word of God to them, His promises. They were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed they were strangers and pilgrims in the earth. Theirs was a heavenly hope.
We don’t have to achieve all of the promises we discover in the Word in our lifetime, but it’s important that we move in their direction.
It’s what keeps us in the will of God. Faith is the answer to everything we will see or face. The just shall live by faith (Rom.1:17). In other words, faith is the lifestyle of the righteous.
Living in God’s promises
Abraham did not consider his body when it came to God’s promise of a son and heir even though he was by then elderly and his wife beyond childbearing age. He did not regard the impossible as an obstacle to God’s promise of a son who would be the beginning of generations.
Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”
Romans 4:16-22
Abraham knew that God was the Lord of the impossible, who calls those things that do not exist as if they do, who brings life into being even amongst the dead, who delivers miracles to the who believe with all their being.
It is of faith so that it might be according to grace. God’s grace is towards us and is accomplished by faith. When we join our faith to His grace amazing things can take place.
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1
This level of faith, even as a mustard seed, says Jesus (Luke 17:6), is what pleases God (Heb.11:6), but it can be increased as we dig into the Word of God and take it all on board (2Th.1:3).
Build faith by studying His Word and faith will rise to combat all eventualities and achieve far more than we would without it.
Photo by Louis Pintero for Pexels
