Faith, just like everything else, has an origin; faith’s origin is the Word of God. Too many Christians are trying to manufacture faith outside of the Word. In the same way that you cannot produce a carrot without a carrot seed, you cannot produce faith without the Word; the Word is the Seed. Faith is not something we decide to possess. I have heard myself make the statement, “I am just going to believe God;” unfortunately, at the time, I did not realize how erroneous the statement was. I cannot make a decision to believe. Living, spiritual faith is a result; it is not a decision. It is the outcome of abiding in the Word of God. How many Christians are fooled into believing that they possess faith when they, in reality, do not?
You can test yourself and prove if you have spiritual faith by asking yourself one simple question, “What verses do I have to back up what I say I believe?” If you cannot provide verses that support what you say you believe, then you do not have spiritual faith. You need the Word if you desire spiritual faith: faith that will move the mountains in your life!
The sole source of faith is the Word of God. Faith is not based on you, your circumstances, your “good deeds,” or others; genuine, Biblical faith is exclusively founded on the Word of God. Fundamentally, you must be in agreement with the fact that you cannot acquire faith without the Word of God. You will have to remain focused on the Word of God, as opposed to your circumstances, if you are going to live by faith. Fixing your eyes on the unseen requires a steady diet of the Word of God.
Faith has been misunderstood due to the improper use of the Word of God. In the same way that we can misuse a chair by standing on it or sitting only on two legs, we can misuse the Word. People have faith in a chair’s ability to hold them because of their experience with the chair. If every time you sat in a chair it would collapse under your weight, then you would soon lose your faith in the chair. A sturdy chair will not just collapse under a person; the person must cause the collapse by using the chair in a way it was not designed to be used. People have progressively lost faith in the Word because of improper use. Many times we use the Word as a rulebook instead of a love letter; this misuse hinders faith. Instead of reading to be in relationship with our Savior, we are reading because we falsely believe that it will keep us in His good graces. This is undeniably wrong. The Word is for our good; it is our tool to stay away from sin and to walk in the Spirit. The Word is not something we must try to live up to; the Word is the way to live!
We must use the Word correctly. We must see the Word of God as the love letter that it is and we must abide in it. If we are misusing the Word and it is not coming to pass in our lives, then we only have ourselves to blame in the same way the chair is not to blame when we misuse it. The Word was designed to enable us; not for us to try to live up to it (Deuteronomy 30:14).
As we encounter various trials in life, we must be convinced that faith is the victory that will overcome any situation we come up against (1 John 5:4). We must also be convinced that we need the Word in order to produce faith in our lives. For every trial we encounter, we also need a steady intake of the Word on the subject of that trial. We need to discover what God has promised regarding the trial we are experiencing; we need to plant the Seed.
