Faith is the method by which we are enabled to be victorious in every aspect of living. It is the foundation for salvation and used to form an intimate relationship with Jesus.
We forget how powerful and significant working our faith out in daily lives is to winning the battle over every obstacle. It is the most powerful weapon of spiritual warfare, overcoming life’s trials and securing victory every day.
If faith is this powerful, what is faith and how do we acquire it? According to Hebrews 11, faith is the substance of things hoped for, and it yields evidence of its presence when it manifests itself in the visible world through a response to what is believed. Faith is applied confidence in God to our daily lives and circumstances.
In doing so, we trust God to meet our every need. Faith always has a target. The strength of our faith is our confidence in God. Secondarily, it is our belief that God hears our prayers and will respond to what we believe Him for without doubting His love. We must employ faith by believing He will absolutely help us be successful in life, love and community.
The Bible describes faith as a seed. Seeds yield a harvest when they are planted, cared for and protected. Our heart is the soil of our faith. Caring for the seed of faith happens when we read our Bible and water our initial salvation faith into a harvest of victories.
We move on from this baby faith to a growing faith that requires weeding out any thoughts of doubt and working our faith out in daily application of the Word so we are keenly aware of the promises and teachings of biblical text, which is the sword of the Spirit (see Eph. 6:17). This is important to maturing faith so we grow to stand on God’s Word, a sure foundation in times of spiritual warfare. This is how we care for the seed of faith. We protect the seed through Bible study, prayer, building and maintaining an intimate relationship with God and in using our faith to live, thrive and mature in God. God wants to use each of us to win souls to the kingdom, and this requires warriors.
We must know the Word of God so we can skillfully develop our arsenal for overcoming the small battles of the day and the ultimate battle of faith. Knowing the Word of God is like filling a gun with bullets—the gun is empowered to effectively achieve the goal of the shooter. If you are not efficient in using your faith as a weapon, the adversary of your soul—and simply put, the flesh mind of fear—can cost your victory. Not embracing faith as your weapon of choice is a life mistake and cheapens your adventures with God. We risk everything when we doubt God, because the devil looks to steal our confidence through the small battles so we lose hope for the most important, which is our full assurance in God for life victory.
Using faith as your weapon of choice is to realize you cannot win the battle over your soul without it. It is your power in the kingdom to purchase what you need, spiritually and naturally. God receives faith and blesses it when it is centered in Him. This is why basing your faith according to the witness God left of Himself is most important to your spiritual authority. Faith is the only spiritual artillery that has the ability to move God on His throne to your particular need. It caused the woman with the issue of blood to be made whole, as the very essence of the touch of faith pulled virtue out of Jesus and captured His attention (see Luke 8:43-48). She made a faith-move on God that grabbed His attention to meet her need. Faith should be your weapon of choice.
Listen to this episode of The Power of Intimacy with Christ on the Charisma Podcast Network here. {eoa}
