by Clark Taylor
Open your Bible to the Book of Romans 4 and Hebrews 11. We are going to examine both of these passages under two headings:
1) What Faith is; and
2) How Faith operates in the heart.
As I teach you I want your heart and mind to be geared to me so that I may get through to you for your own good.
HEBREWS 11:1
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things nt seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith (through the vehicle of faith) we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things that do appear. By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it, he being dead, yet speaks.”
If you are a faith man or woman, it does not mean that you won’t have troubles when you live by faith, Abel had trouble when he lived by faith and he was murdered. Right? But what a way to go!
Verse 6: “but without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he that comes to God must believe (firstly) that He is and (secondly) that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him”
God lays down rules and when we come to Him for answers we have to abide by His rules. When we play tennis we have to play by the rules, it is the same with God. That’s fair, isn’t it? Otherwise we are disqualified and are out of the action before it even begins.
Therefore, we must believe in the existence of God, and that He will respond to our faith, and reward us when we diligently seek Him. That is the attitude with which we all must approach God and with the expectancy that He says should be in our hearts. The lack of these would be a major reason why so many prayers are unanswered.
What is faith? Hebrews 11:1 says; “Now faith is …” Faith is, faith is, its not faith was or faith shall be, its “FAITH IS”!
GOD IS! When He appeared to Moses, He said; ‘’I AM!” Moses asked God “Who shall I say sent me?” And God replied “Say that I am sent you!’’ Would it not have been different if Moses had gone to Pharaoh and said “God the has been sent me.” Many Christians have a “has been’’ God. They say, “In the days of the Bible God healed, but not today.” They are saying “God has been.’’ No! God says: ‘’I AM!” That is present tense it is NOW!
FAITH IS! Faith does not work in tomorrow! What is faith? Many people confuse faith with hope. Hope works in tomorrow, faith works in the now. Of course, the product of my faith might come tomorrow, but faith IS, faith is something that I am using NOW. Faith does not know anything about tomorrow; faith knows only NOW. “Now faith IS…” Faith IS; NOW it is!
I believe that God is! If I believe that He can or that He will, that is hope not faith. Faith is believing that I am saying is coming to pass. That is NOW!
I believe that God is! If I believe that He can, or that He will, that is hope not faith. Faith is believing that what I am saying is coming to pass. That is NOW!
MARK 11:23: If I believe in my heart and do not doubt in my heart, but believe that what I say will come o pass, I will have whatsoever I say. That’s faith! Faith is…faith is now…it’s operative, it’s working.
And we are using faith all of the time, sometimes we put our faith in the problems instead of the blessings, but we still have faith – it’s just misplaced.
We have seen that faith is; now note what faith is. “Faith is the substance…”
I am looking at an organ. What is the substance of that organ? Well, there is vinyl, wood, a bit of metal and plastic and other fancy stuff. Now, if it was all broken down and put into a heap that would be the substance. The finished organ is not the substance. What the organ was made from is the substance.
“Faith is the substance…” Put of the substance of faith we will build a convention centre or a church. Or, you will pay off your house and build a bigger one if you need one.
What can I make out of the substance of faith, the substance that God has placed in my heart? Things! What things? “Whatsoever things you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them and you shall have them.” (Mark 11:24) “Faith is given to every man…” (Romans 12:3) It is given for profit (I Cor.12:7). It is a God kind of faith, a God-aware faith, it is a substance.
You have that substance, you may not feel it – you cannot feel faith – but you can see what it makes. Faith can do marvellous things. Faith can change a human life. An atmosphere of faith can get people saved, it can set people free.
Faith: what can it make? It can make a million, it can heal a body; it can make people whole. Faith is the substance.
Take a building, if we put it all together in a great big heap before its construction, we would have a lot of bricks, sand, cement, gravel, metal, all kinds of things. We would just have a great big heap. That heap would be the substance of the building. Now it would take men to make something out of it. In a similar way God has given us the substance of faith and He has said that faith will produce anything.
Whatsoever a man desires, if he shall believe in his heart and shall not doubt, but shall confess it with his mouth, he shall have whatsoever he says!
Faith is, faith is the substance. The Bible also says that faith is the evidence. My faith is substance and my faith is evidence. My faith is material proof of all the things God wants me to have. I have them in substance form, I can prove that I have them with my faith. God has given me faith and I can develop that faith.
The Bible says that we from faith, to faith, to faith, to faith…
Some people try to go crazy with faith. When they have five dollars’ worth they try to buy a Cadillac and the interest payments are just to high. Five dollars buys five dollars’ worth. Ten dollars’ worth buys ten dollars’ worth. Work on your faith, build on your faith; don’t go above your faith realm. If you have faith to heal a headache it does not mean you will have the faith to heal a cancer. You may have to go and get your friends to pray with you, to join their faith with yours. You see, some people think that it’s all God, that it’s easy for God to heal cancer, “Let’s just ask God” they say.
But Jesus said: “According to your faith, so be it unto you..” It’s not just God – it’s faith. Do you see? If it was just God then every cancer would be healed for it is God’s will that none should perish. If it was just God we would have revival now, because God wants revival, so if it was a matter of just leaving it to God then we would have no problems.
The fact is that in some measure, it is up to us. “Faith is; Faith is”! Faith is the key! If you can conceive with your mind and believe with your heart that you can accomplish what your mind conceives – then you can have it. I am talking about the Christian. Yes, positive thinking works well in the world, but I am not talking about positive thinking. Positive thinking is only the infant of what I am talking about. It does it without Christ. I am talking about the man in God who is clothed with the Spirit of God. What that man can dream and conceive with the mind and believe with the heart, he can have.
But if I dream with my min “Let us go and buy Myers out!” then my heart gives up because I have gone past my faith limit. But if I way: “Let’s build so and so..”, then I watch my heart, I check my reaction, my ears are alerted to my spirit – can I do what I have just said? And if my spirit does not have the jitters, we can do it, we can do it! You see, we have stayed within our faith realm, we have not overreached ourselves foolishly.
Watch your spirit! Your spirit knows more that you think it knows because my spirit is born of God, made in God’s image, it is the God-likeness part of me. It is my spirit which has been born again from about and is quickened by the Holy Spirit. My spirit can hear and can sense. My spirit knows far more than my head knows.
You see, although we cannot understand all that our spirit knows when we get used to the spirit and moving in the spirit, we start to sense things. We start to know things. The spirit knows the future – that is so even in an unredeemed man’s spirit. His spirit is dead toward God, but even so his intuition tells him: “don’t go there today”, or he may say “I don’t feel that I should go there today!” or “Why shouldn’t you go there, there? Jack”, “I just don’t feel good about it at all!” And then, somewhere up the road there is a crash or something like that. See, his spirit know something. How did his spirit know that there was going to be a crash up the road? It just knew that’s all! How did he know? How do you know?
Ladies understand it well! I have learned to admire and to respect a woman’s intuition, the intuition that is a faculty of the spirit. For example she says: “You know, I just don’t like that fellow!” Why don’t you like him?” ‘’Oh, I don’t know, I just don’t like him!” But you can’t just say that, you’ve got to have reasons!” Men want logic all the time – isn’t that right ladies? Men when she senses something learn to respect that something.
Now, when we are born again and the Spirit of God dwells with us our spirit is inflamed. It begins to reach out, it starts to sense things in the future and the mind starts to dream in the Holy Ghost, just thinking in God. “Lord, Lord, give us wisdom, how should we build? What should we do? How do we reach out? What is Your plan, Lord? And as your mind thinks in God, you will sometimes wake at night and dream and plan and get revelation.
You are thinking of something and your spirit latches onto a scripture, an idea or a plan and it becomes alive inside you, and you get excited and start to wrestle with it and start saying: “We could do this, and this and this… Let’s do it!”’ And then you are off! That’s the spirit in a man, quickened. What the mind can conceive and the mind can believe, you can have and do. It is the check for you, your heart is your check. What you sense in your heart indicates whether or not you can do it.
Faith is the evidence. There are a few things about faith In Romans 3:21 the subject is righteousness, which is right standing in the presence of God. Later on in this scripture you will see that this will join with what we have already seen to make a very powerful whole.
“Even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all that believe, for there is no difference”. Now read Roman 3:25 and 27: “Whom God has set forth (that is the Lord Jesus) to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins”. (v27) “Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Works? No, by the law of faith”.
So there is a Law of Faith. The subject we are looking into is righteousness and we see that there is a Law of Faith. Now the Law of Faith works not just sometimes, but all the time. It is a law like any other kind of law – like the Law of Gravity. It works for everyone. For example the Law of Aerodynamics will work for anyone; it’s a fixed law and will work for anyone who knows how to fly the machine. At first you will wobble a bit in flight when you are learning. The same applies to the Law of Faith you will wobble sometimes and sometimes you will take a nosedive.
Imagine you are about to step out to operate in the Law of Faith, it is exciting in church and suddenly the Lord says to you: “Come on you can do it!” What might it be? It could be somebody drops down in front of you having an epileptic fit. “Where is the pastor?” “He is not here!” “Well, you are here!” says the Holy Ghost. And you say “Not me, not that, it’s a disaster area!” Ï want to get you launched on this faith business”, God says. Our response is to say “Yes, but not now, God, another time, get somebody else…!” Have you any faith? Oh, you are full of faith – but not for that! God is trying to get us launched in the Law of Faith, we have plenty of faith until the epileptic takes a seizure, then our faith disappears. Isn’t that right? It’s the law of passing the buck. So we see that there is a Law of Faith, now let’s see what Romans 4:3 says about this faith? “For what does the scripture say? “Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness”.
What was counted to him for righteousness? His believing was counted to him for righteousness. We could say: Abraham Believed God = Righteousness, for it is an equation. Abraham believed God, and that made him righteous. We have found a Law of Faith at work, if I believe God it’s counted to me as righteousness – for we are the children of Abraham, through faith, and are heirs of the promise.
But how did Abraham believe God? What did he do?
You know the story of Abraham, how that God spoke to him when he was an old man and promised him a son. Abram (who was later named Abraham by God) and Sarai (later Sarah), both laughed at the promise, knowing that physically speaking, they were well past having children.
Abram had a visitation from God. He laughed at first, but later accepted God’s Word, saying, “Well. God, You say I am going to have a son, alright, I’m going to have a son. You promised it, so that settles it, I accept it.”
Therefore we read: “Abraham, who against hope (there was no hope for a man almost a hundred years old to procreate) believed in hope”. He lined himself up with the Word from God and from then on, for a period of thirteen years, he confessed “I am the father of many nations. I am the father of many nations…” And God said: “Because you are saying this in faith that is credited to you as righteousness.” Abraham believed God – equation righteousness. Can you see it?
But what if Abraham had not believed God? What if he hadn’t confessed that what God had said would happen?
Remember the twelve spies that were sent to look over the Promised Land? Ten of them brought back what the scripture calls “an evil report”. Read it for yourself in Numbers 14:37, where their report is called a “slander on the land”.
But they told the truth! I defy anyone to say that they didn’t tell the truth. There were Anakim in the land; there were giants in the land. Their report was a true one, yet God calls it “an evil report”. In the natural they were telling the truth, but in the spiritual they were telling a lie, for God had said: “I have given you the land.” And they said: “We can’t take it,! The giants are too big for us!” God said: “You have reported the facts, but I call that an evil report!” Can you see that – they didn’t believe God!
But Abraham believed God and it was counted unto him for righteousness, whereas the spies believed the facts above God’s Word and it was counted unto them for an evil report.
Now, you may have arthritis in your body and God says “By the stripes of Jesus, the lashes of the Roman whip on His body, you are healed.” If you say I have arthritis, God calls that an evil report. Those are the facts but God’s Word is the truth, you were healed over two thousand years ago! All you have to do is believe and receive the truth of God’s Word above the facts. Those men who brought the evil report died in the wilderness, never entering the Promised Land because of their unbelief.
When those men went in to search out the land they had a great responsibility, there were three and a half million Israelites waiting on their report.
Do you know you are responsible for the lives of others. What a heavy responsibility we need to be careful. They looked at the giants and saw themselves as grasshoppers. They looked at the walled city and quaked in fear saying. “We could never take the land.” They went back to Moses and the people with the facts filled with fear stopping the people from entering the Promised Land.
But Joshua and Caleb two of the twelve spies step forward disagreeing with the ten who gave an evil report. “We saw the giants and the walled cities, sure, but the land is all that God said it would be. It’s a good land and we say it can be taken, we say we are well able to possess the land!” And Joshua and Caleb’s report was counted unto them for righteousness, whereas the report of the other ten spies was called “an evil report”.
We can believe what our senses tell us, or we can believe the truth of God’s Word, claiming the promise as yours. The choice is yours.
See that Abraham believed God and lived by faith. He was before Moses and the Law. Faith came before the Law. When men could not walk by faith, God gave them the Law. Now, when we come to Christ, we come back to Faith again.
Abraham by believing God’s Word aligned himself up with what God said, and God then said “That makes you righteous!” We have to align ourselves up with what God says and that will make us righteous in the area about which His Word has spoken.
There are many areas of faith. For example your faith is strong in the area of healing, but you have no faith for finances. So you would be healed of diseases, but go broke, because your faith falls short in the area of finances. You speak words of lack “I hope God sends me some soon, I’m nearly broke…” God will not supply your finances if you talk like that, that’s not faith! We must display faith toward God in every area of our daily living.
What did Abraham actually do to display his faith? Read Ephesians 5:1. This is a verse that will bless your heart as you read it.
“Be ye therefore, followers of God as dear children.” The word “followers” in the original Greek means “mimickers”, or “imitators”, we are told to go around imitating God. How do we do that? What does God do? “He calls the things that are not as though they were…” (Romans 4:17b) Negative talk must be sorted out because we have what we say, words are powerful we have to imitate God, copy our Father, and speak what He says.
The Word of God says that He calls the things that are not as though they were. But that doesn’t make sense to most people. Instead we put up with our sicknesses and shortages. Talking sickness when God is saying “By the stripes of Christ you are healed”
God said “Let there be light” and there was, even though light did not exist until He said it.
That is the way the earth and all the heavens were created. But we say that’s God! Don’t forget God say be ye imitators of Me. Whatever the problem may be, God says and so we also say. No matter how impossible the condition, God says – so we say. He says – we say. We are imitating our Father.
“Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
God made the worlds by His Word. And the things that He has promised us are going to be ours by the same Word on our lips, for we are God’s dear children and we are imitating our Father.
You see, God did not come to earth in the body of Jesus Christ to give us a little religious philosophy to live by. NO! God came down to make us a creation that He could indwell, so that we could be imitators of God as dear children.
Jesus was a great imitator of His Father. He said and did only the things His Father told him to say and do. He said “If you have seen me you have seen the Father!”
Jesus looked into the spiritual dimension and imitated the things that He saw God doing. He walked through the midst of the crowds who wanted to take Him prisoner, because His Father said I am walking through the midst of them and Jesus went on His way…
Faith is a law and faith brings you into right standing with God in any area of life. Faith is at work when the words of your mouth line up with what God has said about a certain subject. God says, so you say… And Jesus said that we shall have whatever we say if we believe in our hearts and doubt not.
For more about Pastor Clark Taylor, download this free article written by Peter E Barfoot: https://peterbarfootministry.com/books/how-clark-taylor-found-a-new-way-of-living/