GIG273 Faith Experiences the Invisible Now

Faith Experiences the Invisible Now

Growing In God Podcast

Program Number: GIG #273

Web Description: It is with the heart that we believe, and the heart is the center of our emotions and feelings. That means faith is not actually a mental process. You are not trying to believe with your thoughts that something will happen. Instead, you are knowing in your heart, by the joy and love and emotions that come by the Spirit, that you already have fulfillment.

 

Show Notes: How do we measure our faith? It seems that the only gauge we use is a negative one. We measure how much faith we do not have when something we believe for does not happen. But there is a better way. In a message titled, “Living Faith in Action,” John Stevens said of the promises of God that “we were to rejoice in them with faith. We were to lay hold upon them as though we already possessed them.” The greatest measure of our faith is the joy we experience in knowing that we have what God has promised.

 

We associate believing with the mind. But according to the Scriptures, we believe in our heart. And scripturally the heart is the center of our emotions. The heart is where faith really comes from, and the heart is also at the root of what we feel. Our feelings then impact our physical bodies, our thoughts, and our behavior. So faith from the heart is expressed in emotions. If you want faith to heal someone, then the most effective way is not to mentally strive to believe but to feel the joy of the deliverance in your heart.

 

We know that the fruit of the Spirit consists of emotions like love, joy, and peace. These emotions are spiritually imparted, meaning we do not get them from the material realm but from the spirit realm. This is the principle that Yeshua (Jesus) taught us in the simplest of terms. He said to pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” In other words, the answer exists right now in heaven. And you want it to also exist in your life right now. So do not pray for it to happen in the future. Pray with the knowledge that you have it now, and your faith is bringing it into the earth.

 

Key Verses:

 

•       Matthew 6:10. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

•       Hebrews 11:3. “What is seen was not made out of things which are visible.”

•       Romans 10:10. “With the heart a person believes.”

•       1 Samuel 13:14. “The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart.”

•       John 10:10. “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

•       Romans 4:17–20. “With respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith.”

•       Hebrews 11:1. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

•       1 John 5:4. “This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”

 

Quotes:

 

•       “On the Sabbath, God finished His creation; He finished his works. His works are finished and now they exist. What we are learning to do is to reach into what exists and to find the ways to bring that out of the invisible into the visible, into an effective function within the material world.”

•       “We don't hope that there's the restoration of Israel. We don't hope for the Jews to be brought back into the land. We feel the joy. We should be dancing like David in the street at the return of the Ark of the Covenant because we are dancing over the return of the people, the return of all the wealth that they have and all the blessings that are theirs. We're living in it right now.”

•       “Your faith is the substance of the thing hoped for. It's the evidence of the thing not seen. That is not wishful thinking. That's God's faith given to you to believe Him and to rejoice with Him.”

 

Takeaways:

 

1.    How do you measure how much faith you have? Look to what you are feeling in your heart.

2.    Having faith for something means that you have already embraced it in your heart. You are not praying with hope that it will happen. You pray knowing that you have it right now.

3.    Our emotions are something tangible. Study your heart and the emotions that are there. Emotions trigger thoughts and then the thoughts come out of your mouth. And that is what is creative.