Weekly Articles

                                                                                                      Faith Receives What You Believe

                     “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1

Whenever we mention the law of faith (Romans 3:27) we must understand that it is a spiritual law that operates in the kingdom of God. Faith is a way of life for a believer because the bible declares that the “just”, those who are in right standing with God and thereby declared righteous, shall live their life by faith (Romans 1:17). Faith then must be described as a lifestyle, and not just a season or movement. We obtain faith by hearing the Word of God (Romans 10:17), and we have defined it as a practical expression of your confidence in God and His Word. You practically express your confidence by your doing because faith requires action. The confidence you have in what you believe moves you to act on that which you have heard and believed.

We receive our faith by hearing the Word of God. Every believer is given a measure of faith upon receiving salvation (Romans 12:3) and is then responsible for developing, or cultivating his faith. We develop our faith by taking the Word that we hear and meditating on that Word until we move that Word from our intellect (head) and plant it in our heart. As we spend more time meditating in this Word it builds our confidence so that we now accept this Word as more real than what we can perceive with our natural senses because we have nurtured this Word and now have the confidence to believe that we will receive it. You have built your confidence by spending time in this Word and growing in the grace and knowledge of God until that Word came alive within you. Now the action you put with it is you living what you believe. It cannot be seen in the natural yet, but you have received it as real in the spiritual realm, therefore you now walk and talk it as if it has already manifested. Faith is present tense, while hope is future. Faith says I am out of debt, while hope says one day I will be out of debt. Faith confesses that by the stripes of Jesus I am healed, while someone who just believes says hopefully one day I will be healed of this disease. Believing by itself does not describe faith, but it is the expression of your confidence of what you believe in by your actions that speak of your faith. Because faith is now, what you believe you call those things which have not manifested as though they were (Romans 4:17) just as God did. Your faith has already received that which you believe, and you put action behind it by stepping out on what you believe. Everything that you do and say now lines up with what you have received in your spirit. Your confessions now line up with what you believe; your attitude lines up with it; you live in preparation of receiving what you perceive to be real in the spirit realm because faith exists in the spirit realm before it will be manifested in the natural. Faith receives what you believe now. Mark 11:24 confirms this by saying that “what things soever you desire, when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you shall have them.” Faith allows you to receive what you believe at the moment you pray. Faith is present tense, not maybe later I will receive, but faith allows you to receive it now. And because you have received within what you believe, you now walk in it as though you had already received it, thus the scripture tells us that “we walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). This is the prescribed way of living for the believer who has placed his trust in God and His Word. Second Corinthians 4:18 explains it this way: “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.” While you may be experiencing some symptoms of sickness or disease, in the unseen you see that by the stripes of Jesus you are healed. Your action to what you believe is not in accordance with what you can perceive with your natural senses, but by what you receive as real in the supernatural.  While the pain may be real, what you believe about it according to the Word is more real than what you feel; so your confession remains the same; by His stripes I am healed. Faith is a spiritual concept that the believer lives his life by. Faith allows you to receive what you cannot see as if it is already real. Not like Thomas in John 20:25 who stated that he would only believe if he first saw it. This is not bible faith, and this will not please God. Real bible faith is having the confidence to believe the hope that you found in the Word, and your actions say that you have received them because you are now making confessions in line with what you believe as though it was already manifested.

Faith receives what you believe because that word “substance” in our text is translated as “assurance”, and certainty”, “confirmation”, and “confidence.” Faith says that you can be assured of what you hope for as if it is real. This then allows you to go ahead and receive what you believe because of your assurance that you have this thing based on what you believe the Word says. That Word that you have found, and have placed your hope in, is the confirmation to what you believe. When situations and circumstances try to sway you from what you believe go back to the Word, your confirmation, and hold on to what you have received when you first believed. You received it by faith, and that settles it. You are assured that you will receive it, and the Word of God is the confirmation that you will hold on to until the thing is manifested in your life. Go ahead and enjoy it now because your faith has already allowed you to receive it.