Faith: The Connection Between God and Man

Hebrews 11:1-3 (NKJV) ¹  Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. ²  For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. ³  By 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 are visible.

Last time we looked at many scriptures in which Jesus expressly said that people received miraculous things from God because of their faith.  We must always begin with the general trust in God and his goodness.  Without that trust, no faith will ever be valid.  However, the Bible is also clear that we must believe the promises of God.  We have an active as well as a passive part to play.  We also answered the question as to whether our faith can and should grow.  In Paul’s letters, as well as the gospels,  we find many times that we are encouraged to grow in faith and others where we see people’s faith diminished.  I find it encouraging that I can grow in my faith and a valuable caution that faith can be diminished in my life.

One of the reason’s I am taking this direction in discussing faith is something that was said to me by a young man who grew up under my teaching.  He asked if I believed God withheld things from us until our faith was of sufficient quantity and quality that he approves of us enough to finally move for us.  I was a bit shocked he would ask such a thing. 

As I talked with him, I realized how people might get that misconception when we teach on building active faith.  We often say we need more faith if we are having trouble receiving in an area God has given us a promise.  For instance, if we need healing, I will encourage people to study the promises for healing in order to build and strengthen their faith for those promises.  The idea of quantity may be what is confusing the issue.  That is not exactly what I mean when I say we need more faith.  Let me explain it this way.

Faith is our connection to God.  Faith bridges the gap between the supernatural where God lives and the natural where we live.  Hebrews 11:3 says we understand by faith that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.  Punctuation in the Greek and Hebrew are at the discretion of the writer.  It could be possible to look at the verse in another way.  By faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God.  I believe both interpretations are valid.  We accept creation to be true by faith.  I do not believe we will ever have absolute physical evidence to prove that.  I do not think we should need it.

I also believe it is valid to understand that faith was the process by which God created.  According to verse 1, Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things we cannot see.  This ties in with what it says in verse 3 that the worlds were made from things which do not appear.  The worlds were the substance of what God hoped for and the evidence of what, before creation, could not be seen. 

So, if faith is what created the world we live in from the heart of God, faith is what will also change the world according to the same heart of God.  That is the key point to remember.  Jesus said it this way, “Not my will but yours be done.”  We cannot change the natural by our will but only by his will.  In Genesis that will was expressed in words.  “God said” is how creation happened.  God released his will and his desire in words.  Those words brought the physical universe into being when he said, “Let there be light.”  God continued to release words that manipulated what God had released into the form he desired.  That is really how faith works.  It bridges the gap between the will of God in the spirit and the reality of the natural world.

Before the creation of man, the Word of God was spoken directly to the creation and the creation obeyed with absolutely no resistance.  When God created man, what he desired was children.  He said let us make man in our own image.  That means an exact duplicate.  He wanted children who would be like him.  He put them in the physical world he created and he made a statement that is actually quite startling. 

Genesis 1:26 (NKJV) ²⁶  Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth

God says he gave man dominion.  The Hebrew word carries the same basic meaning as the English word.  It means to rule over or to dominate.  God put man in the earth to be his sub-ruler.  God gave the command to fill the earth.  This cannot mean anything but to fill it with his children who would now be born of the ones God first created in his image.  He also says that man should subdue the earth, bringing it into subjection and in that way have dominion. 

What is man to subject the earth to?  How is he supposed to have this dominion?  How does it work?  To me it only makes sense that it works the same way creation did.  Man is not given the right to subject the earth to his will or his word.  He is given the responsibility to subject it to God’s will via God’s Word.  The difference is that God’s word is now revealed to his children who become the channel to apply it to the created universe.  Man becomes the bridge between the creator God and his creation.  Contrary to popular belief, the Bible teaches man as the crown of God’s creation, not just another animal.

Before chapter 3 of Genesis, this process was simple and unopposed.  God and man had an inward connection.  God revealed his will to man and man responded by communicating to the creation.  Then something happened that changed everything.  Satan came into the equation, deceived  Eve (1 Timothy 2:14) and she along with Adam fell into sin.  When that happened the dominion God gave to man came under Satan’s control because man came under his control.  Man was still the channel for the will of God to the world but because of the disruption of sin, his ability to make this connection was forever hindered until Jesus came.

Jesus paid for the sin of man, defeated Satan, the enemy of man, and gave man the right to choose who he would serve.  When a person chooses Jesus, he is born again.  The inward connection with God is restored.  He is once again the channel of the Word and will of God to the physical world. 

Inwardly, faith is automatic again.  Our spirit hears and responds to God’s Word and God’s will.  However, outwardly we live in a world still largely controlled by the fallen nature of man and the devil.  We have been raised and trained by that world.  Faith is the connection between the natural and the supernatural or between what is in us via the new birth and the world we have known our whole life.  In order to see faith change the world it created, our connection to God must become stronger and stronger in our soul.  We must believe as Jesus said to the father in Mark 9.  If we do anything is possible. 

To have “more” faith is to strengthen the connection to God and the spirit.  Paul called it the renewing of the mind.  We do that by the word of God.  As we do, we believe more and more strongly that what God said is true and the natural world conforms to that truth.  Why is it not automatic?  It is because since Genesis 3 there has been an adversary to God, his people and faith.  That adversary is called by Peter, the devil. 

More to come.

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Faith: Can Faith be Increased or Decreased

Luke 17:5 (NKJV) ⁵  And the apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”

This year God has been speaking to me of the tremendous potential he has invested in every believer.  We are to live as supernatural people in the natural world.  That means we have access to the supernatural as we live life here on earth.  Part of that is the revealed knowledge we have been studying for most of this summer.  Another important aspect of our supernatural potential is the Bible reality of faith in God.

When I was in my early 20’s I was exposed to a teaching that deeply impacted me.  This teaching was focused in two primary areas.  The first was the absolute truth of the written Word of God.  I found that what the Bible said was the highest truth in the universe.  It supersedes what I feel.  It supersedes the reality of the natural world.  If something that was true in the natural disagreed with what God said in his word, I could apply the Word of God to that situation and eventually it would conform to it.  That can be applied to any area of human life.  The key to remember is that it is the Word of God that will conform the natural to itself.  We must come to an understanding of what the Word really says, not what we think it says or what tradition tells us it should say. 

What would enable the born-again human to apply the truth of the Word of God to a natural situation?  The connection is made by faith.  In Mark 11:22-24, Jesus made a statement that points to this very clearly. 

Mark 11:22-24 (NKJV) ²²  So Jesus answered and said to them, “Have faith in God. ²³  For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. ²⁴  Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.

There are many times in the Gospels when Jesus points to the necessity of the faith of the person involved in order to see results.  In this verse, Jesus, is responding to the astonishment of his disciples that a fig tree has withered and died just as Jesus said it would the day before.  His answer to how this is possible is to “have faith in God.”  Other translations read the faith of God, or the kind of faith God has.  Here Jesus uses the term believe which is faith that is active in a person.  If we have faith than we can believe that something will happen.  In this case we can believe that whatever we say will come to pass up to and including the moving of a physical mountain. 

Some might say that this is something Jesus can do but not all Christians.  That is not possible because he says to them, “I say to you, whoever says to this mountain.”  He is telling them what is possible for them.  Some would say he is not talking about things we might face in the natural, but he is talking about spiritual mountains.  That cannot be true either because he says, “You can say to this mountain be removed.”  He must be pointing to a mountain of some height.  He is talking about a real dirt and rock mountain. 

In teaching along these lines, I like to ask, “Was Jesus lying?”  Of course, the answer is no.  Jesus never lied.  Then I like to ask, “Has anyone here moved a real dirt and rock mountain?”  The answer is also no.  Why not?  Because none of us have ever needed that to happen.  Why then use such an extreme statement?  I believe Jesus wants us to know the extent of what is possible if we have faith in God.  Anything we face in life including the removal of a literal mountain is possible.  If anyone but Jesus said it, I am not sure I would believe it! 

In Matthew 9:29, 15:28, Mark 2:5, and 5:34 we see just a few examples of times when Jesus said specifically that is was the faith of the individual to whom he ministered that caused healing in their life.  I believe we can say without doubt that Jesus taught that our faith is important if we are going to see God move miraculously in our lives. 

In today’s scripture we find Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness.  He tells the disciples that they must forgive a person not seven times but 70 times 7 times for an offense committed against them.  The implication is that if a person commits the same offense against us 490 times in a day, we must forgive them.  No wonder they felt they needed more faith! 

In answer to their question, he says two important things.  One is that faith as small as a mustard seed is enough to get the job done.  In this case they did not need more faith.  He tells them that what they must do is put the faith that they have to work.  They must use it.  I believe in the case of this level of forgiveness, they must simply do it by faith.  That means they forgive without any need to feel anything or to have some kind of retribution for the offense.  When we forgive by faith, we tap into the supernatural power of God that will cleanse our own hearts and work on the offender to heal him as well.

That said, their question requires that we ask, “Can faith be increased.”  I believe it can.  Paul says some things that indicate this to be true.

2 Corinthians 10:15 (NKJV) ¹⁵  not boasting of things beyond measure, that is, in other men’s labors, but having hope, that as your faith is increased, we shall be greatly enlarged by you in our sphere,

Here we find that Paul expects the faith of the Corinthians to be increased.  In Thessalonians 3:5 he writes to find out if the tempter had been able to hinder their faith causing Paul’s labor to be in vain.  In one case we see that faith can and must increase.  In the other we find that faith can diminish and become ineffective.  We can and must grow in our faith. 

I have heard teaching that implies faith is passive in that it is simply trusting in God.  This is very true.  Trusting in God is the essence of faith.  However, sometimes this kind of teaching implies that we do not have to believe anything in particular.  We just trust in God and whatever happens, happens.  If we remain faithful to God, he will take care of us.  We should not and cannot believe that God will do specific things.  I find this at odds with Mark 11:22-24,and all the scriptures that I cited where Jesus tells individuals that their faith has made them well or whole.  If you read their stories they were not people who were being faithful, but people who were coming to ask for something of Jesus. 

Another scripture that I believe shows us that we have something to do with what happens in our lives is 2 Corinthians 1:20.

2 Corinthians 1:20 (NKJV) ²⁰  For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.

Why would we need promises if we were not supposed to believe them.  No, it is clear that God gives us promises so that we can actively believe them and by doing so see changes right here in the natural world.  We can increase our faith in those promises if we are not seeing them fulfilled.  Since God calls them promises he intends for us to partake of what they promise.  What do they promise?  Anything we may need to live in victory and blessing in the world.  How they come to pass in each of our lives may be very different, but God intends them to come to pass and for that to happen we must believe them.  To believe them we must have faith in them. 

Why, if God is sovereign, is it necessary for us to actively believe the Word of God?  Is God not capable of taking care of us if we do not believe?  Of course he is!  However, there are things in effect in this age that require us to be involved with God in what he is doing in the earth.  That is what we will look at in the next few weeks.

For Audio Messages Visit: https://anchor.fm/bill-kiefer or search Practical Wisdom from the Word of God or Bill Kiefer on Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.