The God-Kind of Faith - Part 1

Introduction
What exactly is faith? Let’s look at a few different translations of what faith is according to Hebrews 11:1.

Hebrews 11:1 KJVS
[1] Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1 ERV
[1] Faith is what makes real the things we hope for. It is proof of what we cannot see.

Hebrews 11:1 NASBS
[1] Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1 TPT
[1] Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.

Hebrews 11:1 Voice
[1] Faith is the assurance of things you have hoped for, the absolute conviction that there are realities you've never seen.

Hebrews 11:1 AMPC
[1] NOW FAITH is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things we hope for, being the proof of things we do not see and the conviction of their reality faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses.

Hopefully those different translations give you a better idea of what faith is! I remember reading a book written by Kenneth Hagin where he defines faith as the hand that takes the things of God. I thought to myself, “that makes sense”. Faith is the hand that takes the invisible things of God and brings them into manifestation in the physical realm. Faith is like the eye that sees beyond the natural and receives things from the supernatural. Faith is taking a promise of God and confessing it with full confidence till it becomes a reality in your life. Faith is receiving a promise of God without seeing any visible evidence of it. Faith is receiving the things of God solely upon what His Word says! It is not based on physical evidence because if you could physically see it, then the entire need for faith would become obsolete and unnecessary. Faith is believing the Word of God regardless of your situation, circumstances and problem. Now I would like to clear up a big misunderstanding a lot of people have about faith in God’s Word. Faith does not mean you deny your situation, circumstance or problem. That would be utter foolishness. It means that you deny its right upon your life by declaring what the Word of God says about your situation, circumstance or problem. Never deny the reality of things but deny its right upon your body, life and family by confessing what God has to say about your situation. Always remember, our God always has the final say. Isn’t that wonderful? I’m so happy we serve such an awesome God! Aren’t you? Let us have a quick look at another scripture on faith.

Hebrews 11:6 KJVS
[6] But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.


This is a very interesting verse. In verse 1, the writer of Hebrews tells us what exactly faith is. Then he goes onto tell us in verse 6 the fundamental requirement for faith to work. You must believe that the God of the Bible is the one and true living God. He is all that the Bible says He is. He can do all that the Bible says He can do. The Bible is the only true Word of God. Any other approach you use for faith to work is totally alien to the God of the Bible and will end up in total failure. To believe in God is to believe in His Word. For faith to work, you believe, confess and act upon what the word of God says about your situation. Most of the time, it will make no sense but believe me when I say this, God’s Word Works! If it didn’t, I would not be writing down this article because that would be a total waste of my precious time. This I say in full seriousness. If I were to put it in simple words, "Faith is the Currency of Heaven". There is no other way to receive anything from God unless it is purely received on the basis of faith.

What kind of Faith is Jesus Talking About?
Have a look at the following scripture from the Gospel of Mark.

Mark 11:22 KJVS
[22] And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.

If you were to look into the original words in the Greek, you will discover that this verse should be correctly translated as:

“And Jesus answered them saying, “Have the God-kind of faith or God’s faith”.

Now if we were to stop there and try to make sense of what Jesus means by this, we would all be left in an enigma or confusion. One of the principles of studying the Bible is to always read verses in context. We should never take a single verse and fly off with it as if you are receiving a brand-new revelation. Unfortunately, this has happened many times in the past and this has either created doctrinal divisions or destroyed the faith of many Christians. I personally advise folks to always read the previous and following verses in relation to your key scripture. It might as well be a good idea just to read the entire chapter to be on the safe end of things.

I believe the ultimate question that arises from Mark 11:22 is what exactly is the God kind of faith and how does it work? These are two very important questions and need scripture-based clarification. Always remember that the God of the Bible is not the author of confusion. He confirms this clearly in the scripture below:

1 Corinthians 14:33 KJVS
[33] For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.


Now moving on, if we were to look at verse 23, Jesus takes the honor of answering what the God kind of faith is and how it works? Please see scripture below:

Mark 11:23 KJVS
[23] For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.

I will show you something very unique about this verse that many of us including me have missed although we have read and heard it so many times. There are several very important points Jesus makes in this verse and truthfully explaining this one verse can fill an entire book. But for time and space sake, I will try to write as much as possible direct to the point.

One, Jesus instructs the believers to speak to their mountain. Of course, the mountain that He is referring to can be an impossible situation in your life. Have a quick look at the following verses:

Mark 9:23 KJVS
[23] Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.

Matthew 19:26 KJVS
[26] But Jesus beheld them , and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.


In the above two verses, Jesus clarifies a very important point. Our God is a God of all Possibilities. Nothing is too hard for Him. Your small problems are easy for Him to resolve and your impossible problems are also easy for Him to resolve. Isn’t that promising? I sure get excited whenever I read those two verses. Now, you need to speak to your impossible problem. Jesus is not going to do it for you. Your pastor is not going to do it for you. Your Church brothers and sisters are not going to do it for you. Jesus has instructed you to do it so stop complaining and obey His instructions.

Two, Jesus tells us that we need to believe what we say. But how do we believe? According to Jesus, you believe with your heart. What is heart? No, He is not referring to your organ ‘heart’ which pumps your blood, but He is talking about the real person on the inside of you that is your spirit. The spirit is the inner person or the hidden person of the heart. It is the real you who has been born of the life of God when you received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Remember, Jesus did not tell you to believe with your mind or brain or head. He very specifically instructed us to believe with our heart which is your spirit. Three, Jesus seems to be putting a lot of pressure on the word 'Say'. He uses the word 'believe' only one time in that entire verse but uses the word 'Say' three times. It took me a while to catch why! You see folks, we who believe in Jesus Christ also believe what His word says. As a matter of fact, the very reason you are reading this article is evidence that you believe God’s Word. Believing the Bible is not the problem for Christians. Saying what Jesus says or the Bible says about your situation, circumstance or problem is the major issue. Think about it! Why would Jesus put so much stress on the word 'Say'? It appears three times in that one verse. That itself is evidence that the real issue has always been that Christians or believers do not confess what they believe as often as they should. Jesus understood that very well. Our body and mind are so used to the sensual or physical realm that confessing the spiritual things of God reached the heart but seldom got to the mouth or tongue. Isn’t this true? Ask yourself this question, do you confess the promises of God as often as you should? How many promises of God have you seen manifest in your life? Do most of your conversations center around what the Bible says or what the world says? These are the bitter truths that we Christians try to ignore as if that will resolve our problems. And then you have Mr. Devil walk all over your life, Church, family and ministry! We wonder where the problem lays? My friends, the problem is us! How can a believer confess God’s Word if he or she is only attending an hour service on Sunday and an hour of Bible Study! What’s worse is that most Christians don’t even attend these two regularly! How can God’s word be on their lips? Believers are spending most their time in the world satisfying their fleshly desires. Ask an average Christian how much time they spend in front of the television or on the internet and the answer might blow your ears away. What kind of music do you listen to? I seldom hear a Christian hymning a gospel song. But all the junk music of the world, I bet it’s on their lips and in their smart phones and other devices. Christianity is called the great confession. I’m afraid we are losing touch with that phrase. On Sunday, we shout hallelujah, praise the Lord and from Monday to Saturday, we shout everything that’s contrary to God’s Word. On Sunday, we play the game of holiness! On Monday, we become like that man who looked himself in the mirror and walked away forgetting what kind of person he is! On Sunday, we sing, “All to Jesus I Surrender”! On Monday, we surrender everything to the devil and live like the devil! How can this be my friends? And then we wonder why everything in our lives is in chaos; how did we end up in such a mess?

The bottom line is that a person believes and confesses those things which continuously enter his mind through his eyes and ears. Those are really the only two points of entry. Ask yourself these two simple questions. One, what are you looking at most of the time? Two, what do you listen to most of the time. What you watch and hear, are they related to God’s word in any way or are they related to the world? My friends, whatever enters our ears and eyes continuously frames our thinking. Our thoughts shape the words of our mouth and in time that we think and say manifests into our actions. It’s a bitter truth but true. That is why the Bible tells us to renew our minds by the Word of God. We need to continuously see and hear the word of God daily. In time, this will change how we think, how we talk and how we act. Do this and you might as well turn out to be one of the godliest person around. People who spend a lot of time in God’s presence can easily be known by their speech and deed. They reflect the nature of Jesus Christ. Jesus instructs us in Mark 11:23, that the ratio of our belief to confession should be one is to three. There is something that I feel needs a little more clarification. Have a look at the scripture below:

Proverbs 3:3 KJVS
[3] Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart.

According to Proverbs 3:3, our heart is a table upon which we can write. In other words, the human spirit can be programmed with the word. The other end of this equation is that if we can write God’s word on our spirit, then we can also write the things contrary to the words of God in the same manner. The ultimate question that we all need to answer is how we can write things on our spirit. The scripture below answers this question.

Psalm 45:1 KJVS
[1] My heart is inditing a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.


There you have it folks. The tongue is the pen of a ready writer. What is the function of the tongue? We talk and speak using the tongue. When we talk and speak, what happens? Words come out or proceed from your mouth. To summarize my point, let me say that according to the Bible, the heart is a like notepad and the tongue is like a pen. To write on the heart, we speak out words using our tongue which slowly frames itself onto our spirit and manifests what we say in the physical realm. Now, please don’t misunderstand my explanation. This is a process and does not happen overnight. As a person continues to speak certain things regularly, it shapes onto their spirit and makes those things become a reality in their lives. Sometimes its quick; sometimes it’s slow depending upon the level of your confession. What is interesting about the heart and tongue is the fact that our flesh is an expert in negative things and these seem to come to pass much faster than the things of God. That is why I believe that Jesus had to focus so much on the saying part compared to the believing part.

So how exactly does the God kind of faith work? Well, according to the words of Jesus Christ, what you believe should be confessed with full confidence without doubt with persistence until the answer manifests. In the case of the believer, it is very important that he or she believes and confesses the promises of God that applies to their situation till it becomes a reality in the natural. Mark 11:24 gives us further inside into this principle. Have a look at the scripture below.

Mark 11:24 KJVS
[24] Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them , and ye shall have them .

If a student of the word was supposed to study the entire chapter of Mark 11, they will sooner or later realize that Mark 11:22-24 are all focusing towards the same principle. As Jesus moves the conversation from one verse to the next, He breaks deeper into the iceberg. The finishing touch is made in verse 25 but the principle of believing with the heart and confessing with the mouth reaches its true peak point in verse 24. Jesus talks about the things a person desires followed by three central principles of praying, believing and receiving. It’s astonishing to see that Jesus is telling the believer to receive the answer to their prayer purely based on believe. But believe in what? It’s obvious that He is pointing towards the promises of God. We can believe things contrary to the Bible but why would we want to do that? The conclusion that one really draws out from these three verses is that the God kind of faith works by taking a promise of God from the Bible in context, personalizing it, believing it in your spirit and speaking it out through your mouth and confessing it in the past tense till it manifests and becomes a reality in your life. Once again, this is a process. It is not make believe. We are building our confession on the solid foundation of God’s word. See the two verses below on what the Bible says about God’s word.

Hebrews 4:12 KJVS
[12] For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Isaiah 55:11 KJVS
[11] So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.


According to Hebrew 4:12, the word of God that is recorded in the Holy Bible is alive, living, active and powerful. My friends, God’s word has life in it. It is medicine for your body. It restores your health and prolongs your life and heals your body. See Proverbs 4:20-22.

Proverbs 4:20-22 KJVS
[20] My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. [21] Let them not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. [22] For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.

Just think about the impact God’s word will have in your life if you believe and confess it on a regular basis. My friends, it will change the destiny of your entire life and of those around you. God’s word gives joy, love, strength, peace, comfort and most important hope for a better life and future even after death. Isn’t that powerful? I just get so excited when I see the promises in the word of God. I feel like shouting at the top of my voice and magnifying the glorious name of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. My friends, mark down all the promises of God in your Bible and meditate on them daily. They are written for your benefit. The Bible writers were not trying to fill up paper. They were writing down the will of God for your life. God’s word is His will for your life. Take it seriously. Read your Bible and study it with full confidence knowing that it is God’s love letter for His children, that is you!

Thank you for reading this article and I truly believe this has fed your spirit and soul. Have a blessed day.

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