Thank you for joining me today for our look at God’s Word. We have a mix today really, looking at ‘faith’ and ‘obedience.’ I believe it is a valuable study. Praying the Lord will indeed give you revelation and cause you to say, every day, “Yes Lord!” In Christ, Eric

As God’s people, or believers, we often have needs that arise as we navigate life here on this planet. We lift those needs to God in prayer and then try to figure out what ‘we’ need to do next. We all desire that God would be active in our lives, however, what we need to understand is - this is where faith comes in.

Hebrews 11:1 reads, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” ‘Faith,’ pistis in the Greek, means: conviction, confidence, and belief. It is a divinely implanted principle of inward confidence, assurance, trust and reliance in God and all that He says. The word ‘substance’ comes from a word meaning: a standing under, used in a technical sense of ‘title deed.’ The root idea is that of standing under the claim to the property to support its validity. Thus, faith is the ‘title deed’ of things hoped for! ‘Hope’ means: to wait with joy and full confidence. Using the Greek meanings, we could read Hebrews 11:1 in this way: The divinely implanted principle of inward confidence, assurance, trust, and reliance in God and all that He says is the ‘title deed’ of things hoped for, and the proof we have of things not seen. As we look more deeply at the original language meanings of these words, it is really quite exciting to grasp the richness of the Word of God!

When we release our faith, which we get from the Word of God (Romans 10:17), it activates the power of God in our lives to fulfill His will, desire, and purpose in us. It is our faith which enables us to know that the hope we have is not in vain.

Sadly, for many, due to either our past or present circumstances, we find our ‘faith’ to be wavering.

My wife, Donna, recently had an experience which brought this reality home. Many years ago, the Lord spoke a warning to me that I would be going through the worst time in my life physically, but to know that it would be alright because He would be there with me. Shortly after He spoke those words to me - physically, health-wise, we began a most difficult season of one malady coming after another. This season began about seventeen years ago and prayerfully will be coming to an end soon. At any rate, a short while ago, my wife became quite depressed. Thankfully, God intervened and ministered a restoration of “hope in believing’ (faith) to her at a weekend conference which focused on worship. God truly cares. He is ever faithful to meet our needs.

“Without faith, it is impossible to please God and those who come to God must believe He exists and rewards those who diligently seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6).

We have amazing examples of those who were champions of faith, which the Lord has given us in His Word.

At a very young age, the virgin Mary had her faith tested when an angel appeared to her and informed her that she was to be the mother of the Messiah. Mary responded with these words. “Behold the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me, according to your word.” (Luke 1:38). A maidservant is one who worships God and submits to Him. Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, spoke these words to her under the unction of the Holy Spirit in verse 45 of Luke 1, “Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a fulfillment of what was told her from the Lord.” Mary had faith that God would do what was spoken to her by the angel.

Through faith, Mary submitted to the will of God. She bore the Son of God! Obedience is the response of faith to any instruction received from God. Added insight comes from Truth in Action in the New Spirit Filled Life Bible, “True faith will always be manifested in obedience to God’s revealed will. As a Christian (a believer in and follower of Christ), we must develop a personal commitment to the Lord and His will.”

Mary completely understood and lived this out as we see from her agreeing to become the mother of Jesus and from her interaction with Him at the wedding at Cana. When they ran out of wine, Mary spoke the very foundation of faith when she said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.” (John 2:5-8). Then, Jesus performed His first miracle! The water was turned into wine!

Abraham, the father of our faith, believed when God called him to go to a place he was to inherit, and obeyed when he left his family and traveled, even though he did not know where he was going. (Hebrews 11:8).

Then, we see that Noah was divinely warned of things not yet seen, (it had never rained before) and in faith, obediently built an ark to save his family. (Hebrews 11:7). In fact, through that act of faith and in doing what he was asked to do, he preserved all of mankind!

When you obey, you align your will to God’s will.

As wonderful as it would be to have special visitations by angels or a face to face meeting with God, to give us direction and guidance, that is not how God usually speaks to us today. The most common way we hear God speak to us is through His written Word (the Bible) or through the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, speaking to our spirits.

It is pretty awesome to realize that the events that took place in the lives of Mary, Abraham, and Noah took place because they responded to Him with faith. Then, we read and learn in His Word in Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Our faith-walk comes full circle. Our releasing our faith causes God to move in wonderous ways and it is His Word that gives and increases our faith.

We read in John 16:13a that the Holy Spirit also guides us, “"However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth,”

You can see why it is vital that we spend time with God, in His Word and in prayer, and develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit. We need to be able to recognize Their voices and be sensitive to what They tell us.

Sometimes, we do not understand the reasoning in what the Lord instructs us to do. Sometimes, what we are directed to do doesn’t make sense to us. When we were pastoring in Pennsylvania, a mother with five children was fixing a large meal for her family. The Spirit of the Lord spoke and directed her to finish preparing that meal and to deliver it to our house. My wife and I have two sons - so she didn’t really understand why she was given that directive from the Lord. She was not aware that my missionary Aunt and her sister were visiting us and had two teenage missionaries from the Netherlands with them. Dixie’s obedience blessed us and our extended family that day. So, even if we don’t understand or find it difficult to respond to what He is asking us to do, He has a purpose for every directive He speaks. “Whatever He says to you, do it!”

When Jesus called the disciples to follow Him, they left everything and followed Him. (Matthew 4:18-22).

In John 9:6 and 7, Jesus made clay with his saliva, anointed a blind man’s eyes with the clay and told the man to wash in the pool of Siloam. When the man did what Jesus told him to do, ‘he came back seeing!’ “Whatever He says to you, do it!”

When money was needed to pay the temple tax, Jesus told Peter to go fishing! “Whatever He says to you, do it!” The money for the taxes was in the mouth of the first fish that came up. (Matthew 17:24-27).

After Peter had fished all night and caught nothing, at Jesus’s word, he launched out into the deep and caught so many fish, the nets were breaking! He needed his friends and their boat to bring in the haul! “Whatever He says to you, do it!”

Lazarus had been dead for four days when Jesus told them to roll away the stone from his grave. They rolled it away, Jesus cried out, “Lazarus come forth!” Lazarus came out of the grave! (John 11:39,41,43 and 44). “Whatever He says to you, do it!”

We need to do more than ‘know’ what God’s Word says. We also need to believe it and act on it!

Matthew 7:24 and 25 reveals, “"Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: 25 "and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.” Joshua 1:8 (NIV), “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.”

Revelation 12:10b and 11a, reads, “ For the accuser of our brethren (the devil) who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down. 11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” ‘Overcame’ (nikao) means one who by constancy and courage keeps himself unharmed and spotless from the devil’s devices, solicitations, and assaults.

How did they overcome? How will we overcome? By the blood of Jesus and the word of their testimony. You can overcome by appropriating the victory of the finished work of Christ and by the public confession of your faith!

“To walk in divine alignment with His plans and purposes for our lives, we have to obey God.” (Rick Renner)

Whatever He says to you - do it!

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is taken from the New King James Version.

NIV New International Version