Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending. ~ Carl Bard
Is your faith as effective as you think it should be? Is it working for you? Are you seeing the results you want? If not, you may want to reconsider how you are using (or not using) your faith.
Here’s the first thing to understand: you do have faith. God created you that way. You are always believing something. If you say, “Well, I don’t believe that”, you just affirmed that you do, in fact, believe the opposite. You’ve just put your faith to work on the opposite side of the issue.
Actually, the title of this article is a bit of a misnomer. You see, you can’t ‘make’ faith work because it is always working. Faith is a supernatural power source. It works all the time, like gravity. Gravity keeps you from floating off the planet, but it can be a real ‘downer’ if you jump off a 20-story building! Gravity doesn’t change, but how you use it can.
Think of it like this: God created the ground to grow whatever you plant in it. If you want tomatoes, don’t plant beets.
… we also believe, therefore we speak (2 Cor. 4:13). Faith is planted by words. What you say is the harvest you will get. If you want prosperity, you shouldn’t ‘plant’ words of financial woe and lack. Faith always works. But depending on how you use it, faith will work positively or negatively.
The Bible says faith comes by hearing (Rom. 10:17). It doesn’t say ‘maybe’ faith will come. Faith comes. What you believe is based on what you hear. If you constantly say (and hear yourself say), “I’m broke. I can’t ever get ahead”, you are growing faith for that situation to continue. Your debt will get worse and your financial challenges bigger. Faith comes. You are planting for a harvest of lack and shortage.
But, if in the midst of your lack, you will begin to speak God’s promise that My God shall meet all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:19), your faith in that promise grows. Every time you speak it, you hear it. Speaking what you want – based on Biblical promise – is putting your faith to work on the situation. Psalm 103 says angels hearken to the voice [speaking] His Word (v. 20). As you put faith to work by speaking what you want, you commission the powers of heaven to go to work on your behalf.
The Bible says even Almighty God ‘calls things that be not as though they were’ (Rom. 4:17). He started that process in Genesis. And it works… every time. Yet, even for Him, it was not always instant. He waited over 4,000 years from the first words He spoke of Jesus’ coming in Genesis until the birth of His beloved Son. Why did it take so long? Because He had to find people here on earth to agree with Him, and speak His Word out loud. Spoken words have power, either positive or negative. Which side are your words on?
Words create. God designed the system that way. The very first verse of the Bible says, “God created the heaven and the earth.” That first chapter of Genesis tells us how: “And God said… and it was so”. Can you imagine God thinking to himself, “I wonder what else I need to do to make this happen? I wonder if I should wave my hands, or jump up and down, or moan and complain.” NO. Words were enough to put the Holy Spirit, the angels and whatever else was needed into operation.
On the sixth day, God created mankind – you and me – as spirit beings in His own image and likeness (v. 26). If we’re like God, we also can create with our words. Let’s look at the concept again.
We having the same spirit of faith, according as it is written, I believe, and therefore have I spoken; we also believe, and therefore speak. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal (2 Cor. 4:13, 18).
The primary way to ‘work’ the works of faith is with your words! You can change the ‘temporal’ things, the facts of your life by the words you speak. The truth of God’s Word trumps facts every time!
I heard a story of one woman, diagnosed with an incurable cancer, who made up her mind to speak only healing verses over herself. She declared aloud, “I shall live and not die” (Ps. 118:17) over a hundred times a day. She also took Jesus at His Word when He said ‘speak to the mountain’ (Matt. 17:20). She said, “Cancer, you can’t stay in my body. I am God’s and you have no place in me. You leave my body right now!” Can you imagine how much time and determination it took to stay with that plan for weeks and months on end? As I heard it, nine months later she was completely healed!
What would have happened if she had believed the doctor’s diagnosis more than the Word of God? What if she had told everyone that she’d been diagnosed with inoperable cancer? “The doctors say I’m going to die.” Her family and friends would have attended her funeral.
Another woman, also diagnosed with cancer, stood for three years on the promises she found in God’s Word. After she was sent home from the hospital to die, she looked up every scripture on healing and health, and wrote them down. She read that list out loud at least three times a day – like medicine. And at the end of her battle, he body was completely restored. No medicines or special treatments – the doctors had given up on her. But she put the power of faith to work by saying, by speaking The Word and nothing else.
Let’s look at Abraham. His wife was barren. They never had a baby even when they were both young. But God spoke to him (calling things that be not as though they were) saying, “I have made you the father of many nations” (Gen. 17:5). Abraham was 99 years old! Seriously?
Yet… Against hope [Abraham] believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, ‘So shall thy seed be’. And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah’s womb: He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised, He was able also to perform. (Rom. 4:18-21).
Fourteen years earlier, God said the same thing. But Abraham didn’t believe. Instead, he tried to help God out by taking Sarah’s maid and Ishmael was born. God had to wait all those years for Abraham’s faith to develop enough to bring His prophecy to fruition. Abraham was 100 when Isaac was born.
Faith works when you are willing to rest in God’s promises, not demanding or requiring any other proof than the fact that He said it. Abraham ‘staggered not’. He set aside every doubt and question and hung onto the promise. You and I can do the same thing. It may not be easy, but it is do-able. The Bible is full of examples of God’s faithfulness to anyone who believed.
The woman with the issue of blood said, “If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole.”
Jairus told Jesus, “If You will come and lay hands on her, my daughter will live.”
When Jesus was tempted by the devil, He quoted The Word, the only weapon He needed.
The centurion said, “Speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.”
The leper said, “If You wilt, You can make me clean” and Jesus said, “I will”.
In Mark 11:24, Jesus taught, “What things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.” Did you get that? Faith believes the promise is real when you pray, not when you see it. “Shall have” is a result of working, active faith.
How much word ‘seed’ does it take to overcome your particular problem? I don’t know, but I do know that God’s promises are yea and amen (2 Cor. 1:20). God says “Yes! Absolutely!” if you ask in faith, never wavering (James 1:6). Jesus always said “Yes” to those who asked for healing or help.
Seed produces harvest. The more you sow, the greater your harvest will be. The Word is seed. Are you planting enough to fill a flower pot, a garden plot or a field? How much harvest do you want?
How will you know you’re faith is working? When you are able to cast the care of that situation or circumstance on God and not worry about it any longer. Are you are willing to believe that it is already taken care of, that God has it well in hand? As long as you maintain the ‘care’ (worry, stress, responsibility) of the problem, you’re not letting your faith (or God) work for you. Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:6-7).
If you feel like your faith isn’t strong enough, remember how to get more. Faith comes by hearing. Speak the Word to yourself over and over until it becomes real in your spirit. Those women didn’t experience healing the first time they said “I am healed”. But they didn’t give up at the hundredth or thousandth or ten-thousandth saying. They spoke the Word until they saw the results they wanted!
Being humble doesn’t mean telling God that you’re not worthy or good enough. It doesn’t mean begging Him to do what He’s already promised. It means submitting yourself to His Word, regardless of how you feel about the situation. If He said He will do it, you must also believe that He will do it for you.
The next time you are faced with a difficult situation, pour it on! Put your faith to work by speaking words of victory and deliverance. When the disciples came to Jesus asking, “What should we do?” He didn’t give them a list of requirements. Instead, He told them, “Believe only.” Faith will move mountains, heal bodies, supply prosperity and deliverance.
Faith believes. Faith speaks. Faith works when you put it to work. And it will give you a harvest of victory, plenty and peace.
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Ruth Seebeck has built a reputation over the last three decades as a life-skills coach, mentor, Christian counselor and friend. She is a business owner, author, community volunteer and event coordinator whose passion is helping others overcome life’s challenges. Seebeck Solutions: Helping you make the most of What Matters Most!