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FAITH IN GO

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

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FAITH IN GOD

Preface

(faith in God, not yourself or other things)

Mark 11:23 says, 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.”

He said not to doubt in your heart. He is not talking about your ability to move it. He is talking about your faith in God to move it. Whosoever can have whatsoever! You are a whosoever, and God has the whatsoever! You MUST have faith in God to receive it.

When you pray, BELIEVE. Sometimes you have to back it up with faith building acts according like fasting and praying. Do what you are supposed to do, and let God do what only HE can do. We need to wait on God till it comes to pass, and shut up our murmuring and complaining. God knows what He is doing.

We will be laughed at for believing for the impossible, but we have faith in God. We have no confidence in the flesh. We are going to wait on the Lord till we see it done.

FAITH IN GOD

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

Mark 11:22 says, “And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God.” We keep trying to have faith in ourselves when we need faith in GOD. This is so simple and so straightforward from the heart of God that we miss it. It is a commandment for us to have faith in God.

He said not to doubt in your heart. He is not talking about your ability to move it. He is talking about your faith in God to move it. Whosoever can have whatsoever! Are you a whosoever? God has the whatsoever! You MUST have faith in God to receive it.

We are so scared that God is not going to answer prayer that we take all kinds of precautions to keep from dying! We need faith in God. If I had faith in man very long, I’d soon end up shipwrecked. I find if I have faith in God and get down to praying, I don’t regard what I do or don’t have. I regard what God has.

Jeremiah 32:27 says, “Behold, I am the LORD, the God of all flesh: is there any thing too hard for me?”

Mark 11:23 says, “. . . he shall have whatsoever he saith.” Who is he? Whosoever. Whosoever shall have whatsoever - that is a broad promise!

If you had faith in yourself to get it, what would you need faith in God for? If you didn’t have a need, you wouldn’t be asking for something from God. We have tremendous needs, and God can supply ALL OF THEM.

Philippians 4:19 says, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” It is not according to my riches. I don’t have enough to supply you with riches. I can only give you a little bit of what God has given me simply because I don’t have all that much, but God has an endless and boundless supply.

I had faith in certain individuals, but I found they failed me. We know to do right, but sometimes we don’t do it (see James 4:17). Then we come under condemnation and feel guilty. The next time we go to pray it is in our face.

1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If we plead the blood of Jesus, and we ask God to forgive us, He will set us free from the things that hold us bound, and the things that continue to move us in the direction of sin. God wants to set every captive free. The best way to get there is to have faith in God.

Jesus gave us a key to the kingdom of heaven when He says to have faith in God. I know my shortcomings, and my failures, but I also know that God cannot lie, and God cannot fail. If I have faith in God, then I have taken on something that cannot lie or fail! Don’t you know we need something that cannot fail!!!

There are some things about me that can fail, but one thing about me that cannot fail is the Holy Ghost fire that is in my soul. As a child of God, somebody in me is greater than me. 1 John 4:4 says, “. . . greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.”

If God has placed that thing in you, you need to stir up the gift of prayer and seek the Lord. God said He will meet with you. If you have faith in God, whatsoever you ask, He will give it to you. You have to believe this is true.

Romans 10:10 says, “For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness. . . .” You can know to do something, but you can’t do it if you really don’t have a full commitment. You need a heartfelt commitment to God. You have a love toward God and the things of God. You don’t fully understand everything yet, but God has called you to press in and on with Him. If you believe God will draw you, He will. If you yield over to the Lord more and more as He draws you, you will find you will have whatsoever you ask for.

I have a list of things I need, and I numbered them. We find that God does not give them in that order. He may go - one, seven, three, six, and five. It may not come in the order I wrote it down, and sometimes God gives me things I didn’t know I needed. God knows our needs, and He also knows our shortcomings and why we can’t get that need met until God touches us.

We need to become totally dependent on God. Pretty soon all the devices and well meaning efforts of men will fail. We need to depend on God even to feed us in this last hour. At one time Elijah was totally dependent on God for his daily meals which He sent in the mouth of a raven.

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

When you pray, BELIEVE. He worded it that way because when you pray, you don’t always believe. Sometimes you have to back it up with faith building acts according to God’s Word. Sometimes you have to fast and pray.

In Matthew 26:41 Jesus said, “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation. . . .” The devil can’t hit you from your blind side if you are watching. God’s eyes are 360 degrees. If we continue to watch and pray, He will show us when the enemy is coming up behind us. I believe God will keep us in our walk. Isaiah 58:8 says, “. . . the glory of the LORD shall be thy rereward.”

Jesus said to have faith in God. When you get down to pray you are supposed to believe that you are going to get something. Some Christians only pray a token prayer. They know they are supposed to pray for others, but they don’t realize that you have to bind the devil off of that soul and body. You have to expect God to do it, and then watch Him work.

Once in a while, when my dad and I worked together in carpentry, one of us would get a hold of a “hot” wire. It is a shocking experience. It will get a hold of you and sometimes you just can’t let go. If we get down and pray with confidence in God we will get something! God has more power than a 110 line, a 220 line, and all the power plants in the world. God called everything into existence out of nothing. He called things that were not as though they were, and they became because He said it. (See Romans 4:17.) When I pray believing God, it will come to pass.

God has something good for His children. He has healing, salvation, deliverance, a blessing and the baptism of the Holy Ghost. All things are possible to them that believe. If you will get a hold of God in prayer, and get in contact with His power, believing you are going to receive, you are going to receive something!

You can pray in unbelief. A father in Mark, Chapter 9, came to Jesus. His boy was devil possessed, and the foul unclean spirit tore him and tried to kill him. The man asked Jesus to deliver his son. He couldn’t get it in church. Jesus asked him if he believed. He brought him to Him, wasn’t that enough? You can bring a lot of things to the Lord, and not believe Him to do a thing about it. People do it every single day.

When we get down and pray and ask God for anything, we should be expecting Him to do it. Folks are praying in unbelief, only hoping God will answer. Let’s get free and have some faith in our souls. We need to KNOW SO instead of just hope so when we ask God for something. We need to know God is going to do it as we wait on Him.

Jesus said whosoever can have whatsoever they ask if they doubt not in their heart. The man who brought his son to Jesus had doubt in his heart. Mark 9:23-24 says, “Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.” He had to get delivered of unbelief. He had a certain amount of faith, but he didn’t have enough faith to deliver his son. He called upon Jesus, and he didn’t let the past failures of the disciples, of his own, or of the church stop him from the victory he knew belonged to him and his son. Jesus answered his prayer for faith, and He delivered his son.

Matthew 15:22 says, “And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.” He tried her a few times so she would hold fast.

Some of you are praying for things, but you will be tried. Some of you will be tried even in the fire, before the answer will come. A simple example is when you ask the Lord to save your loved one. The Lord will try you to see if you really mean it. Are you willing to stand in the gap and do what it takes to see them delivered? When the very one you are praying for chews on you for serving God, do you still love them enough to pray for them?

God wants us to believe and to hold fast. Don’t let go till God answers. That way you will have faith in God, not in the one you are praying for. They can’t help themselves in many cases. You don’t have faith in yourself, because you can’t help them any more than you already have. We find we have a case then that GOD has to answer. Anyone in the Bible who ever did anything great in the name of the Lord had to have total faith in God’s ability to move, and faith in His ability to move them.

Sometimes we are able to pray and believe for somebody else, but we have all kinds of trouble believing for ourselves. We need to have faith in God and bypass us and them. We have to get on a higher plan than we are now. God wants us to know how to do it.

When ye pray, believe. When ye pray, believe. When ye pray, believe. Some people don’t believe God is going to do it, even while they are praying. Faith has got to be moving with prayer. Prayer can go all along to the end of time, but without faith it is DEAD. Without faith it will do no good for you or for anybody else. However, if you pray believing, Jesus said you can have whatsoever you want. Don’t limit the Holy One of Israel.

Abraham had an impossible situation. He was about 100, and his wife was ninety, but God promised Abraham and Sara a child. Romans 4:19 says, “And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sara's womb:” His body was dead as far as having children was concerned, and Sara had always had a barren womb, but Abraham did not look at the situation around him.

Romans 4:20 says, “He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;” You stagger at the promises of God and pray in unbelief when you regard the ability of yourself or others to produce it! It has nothing to do with you or me producing it. When you pray, you must have faith in God’s ability, not yourself, or you will fail every time.

When you get down to pray you might say, Oh, Lord, there is no way I am going to be able to receive this. You get down to pray so that you CAN, so you have faith in God so you can receive it.

Romans 4:20 said Abraham, “. . . was strong in faith, giving glory to God.” If you are strong in faith in God, you give glory to God. If you are strong in faith in your own ability in God, you are giving glory to yourself. Give all the glory to God.

The church is in the position where when we get down to pray almost nothing happens. Many times it is because we have faith in OURSELVES in God. We have faith in what God has given us. A portion of that is acceptable, but we need to have faith in God, so that when something happens we won’t brag in our ability, but we will give all the glory to God. 1 Peter 5:5 says, “. . . God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.”

Romans 4:21 says, “And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.” Not many people are fully persuaded about God’s ability. We need to quit looking at OUR inability. If we had the ability to do what God does, we would not need God. We believe God can, but we have trouble believing God will. What is God’s will?

3 John 1:2 says, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” Revelation 3:15 says, “I would thou wert cold or hot.” Exodus 15:26 says, “. . . for I am the LORD that healeth thee.” Joel 2:32 says, “. . . whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered. . . .” John 3:8 says, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

What promises! This is God’s will. His will includes exceeding great and precious promises. Impossible things with us are possible and common place with God. Growing arms and legs out on a human are no problem with God. He did that when you were in your mother’s womb. He can do it now that you are out of it. God has not forgotten how to make a hand, and a leg, and a mind for those who have lost it. God still casts out the devil.

God can do all things, and Philippians 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” We need to have faith in God and in Jesus’ name He will answer.

For a long time I had faith in my ministry. I was trying to get my ministry in such a place that I could have faith that God would answer every time. I have to get out of the way. John 3:30 says, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” That is the way we need to be with God.

Abraham believed God was able to perform His promise to him. God promises us nothing except He can also do it. You have to line up with His Word, and then when you pray, you can have faith in God.

I have less faith in myself than ever before in my life. I realize I have to make a transformation. I have to have full faith in God. Jesus did not have faith in Himself only when He was going to the cross, and He was wrestling with the world in Gethsemane. The biggest battle ever fought in the human heart was found in Gethsemane. It was won by Jesus Christ as God strengthened Him, because He had faith in God. In Luke 22:42 Jesus said to the Father, “. . . not my will, but thine, be done.”

He quit having faith in His own will, knowing that it meant his own survival. He would rather die in the will of God than to have his own will. He did die, but he rose again. The same is for you and me if we will trust the Lord. That was ultimate faith in God, and He is teaching that to us.

During Jesus’ ministry, some of the disciples and many of the people began to leave Him when they realized there were obligations and requirements. Jesus asked if the twelve were going to leave also. John 6:66-67 says, “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away?” Jesus is asking today, Are you going to backslide too?

Isaiah 43:12 says, “. . . ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God.” Our lives should show that Christ Jesus is alive.

John 6:68 says, “Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life.” Jesus is our source and there is nowhere else we can go. We have a choice. When we get down on our knees we can turn to our brethren or ourselves, or we can turn to GOD and have faith that He is able to do what we ask.

We look around and it looks like some things are getting worse. Sometimes we think God needs some help. I saw a sign in a mechanic shop once. “Labor is $10 per hour. Labor is $15 per hour if you watch. Labor is $20 per hour if you help.” Have you ever tried to work with somebody jabbering in your ear about something totally unrelated? If you are trying to adjust the fuel injection on your automobile, and a five year old gets in there and starts banging with a big wrench, you may have a problem with that.

Do what you are supposed to do, and let God do what only HE can do. We need to believe God, and let go, and let God work. We need to wait on God till it comes to pass, and shut up our murmuring and complaining. God knows what He is doing. Jesus bought us with His blood; He can change us and redeem us.

In Acts, Chapter 27, Paul was in a ship in a storm. Usually the prisoners were chained so if the ship went down, the prisoners would die. It had been days since they had seen the sun, and all hope was lost. The shipmen tried to sneak away and leave the soldiers and the prisoners on board, but the soldiers stopped them. Paul didn’t have faith in the boat, or the oarsmen, his guards, or the life boats, especially when they cut them off.

God is constantly cutting off the life preservers that you have been looking over your shoulder at saying, Well, I’ve still got that. One day you will look around and there will be nothing around to hold you afloat. If God doesn’t do something, you are going down. This is the condition Paul was in.

Acts 27:20-21 says, “And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss.”

Acts 27:22-24 says, “And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee.”

Do you have others sailing with you on the ship? God gave a promise. Can you imagine going to a meeting and God telling you He is going to save every lost soul, every backslid one and every sinner? Wouldn’t that be glorious? The only way it can happen is if you believe God.

Verse 25 says, “Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.”

Some will say, Be of good cheer? You don’t know the trouble I am in. Instead of singing “Amazing Grace”, they sing, “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” and “Gloom, Despair, Agony on me”. I am a Holy Ghost filled Christian, but I have got a little bit of deep dark depression and melancholy.

It is ludicrous for a Christian to be melancholy. It is foolishness for us to be down in the mouth. We might have emotional ups and downs, but we are not going by our emotions; we are going by faith. If you have faith in God, forget what else you’ve got. We are going to have revival, so be of good cheer. Have faith in God, not in me or the church. See the difference?

Acts 27:25 says to be of good cheer, “. . . for I believe God. . . .” That sounds like HAVE FAITH IN GOD. He didn’t believe the oarsmen, or the captain, or the weatherman. He didn’t believe the meteorologist. He believed God. Folks, when you believe God, it doesn’t matter what the world, the flesh, or the devil says. God says He will answer.

Some people don’t know WHAT they believe God for. Be specific. Sometimes you have to admit some things that are not right in yourself. Remember the father that came to Jesus with his son that needed deliverance. It was hard for him, but he had to admit that his boy was devil possessed. You have to admit the truth and pray specifically. You have to bind the devil in the name of Jesus, instead of just praying that the Lord would ease his mind or that the Lord would straighten him out. You can’t offer a general prayer for some things. It may hurt you or break your heart, but you need to be specific. You need to believe God for what He told you.

Matthew 16:19 says, “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

If you won’t admit that someone is bound of the devil, you are not going to bind the devil, and he will continue to torment them. You have to get specific and you have to believe God according to His Word.

In Acts 27:25 Paul said, “. . . it shall be even as it was told me.” He said it was going to be exactly like it was told to him. He said in other words, We are going to survive. We are going to make it. He said not one soul was going to be lost. He said they were going to have victory in the midst of and in the face of total defeat and destruction. You read the rest of the account.

If they had not been shipwrecked, a man with a bloody flux on the island where they ended up would never have been born again, healed, or lived a prosperous life. Because these folks had a little trouble, he was delivered. Folks, there are some folks waiting on your trouble to land you right beside them.

I am not talking about you getting shipwrecked in your faith, but going through your trials and being purged from the things that so easily beset you. When you get free of those things you find people waiting on your ministry. People desire the things God has, but God wants to use you. You are probably the only person that can reach some of them. Do you have faith in God to do it?

Paul said, “I believe God,” and he told them to be of good cheer. It is getting harder for me to pray for someone when they come up with calluses on the inside of their lower lip from dragging it on the ground and from the whiplash where it catches on their foot!!! They are supposed to be saved; I’m not talking about sinners. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. There is a time your faith in yourself and others will fail you, but God will NOT fail you.

God told me we are going to have revival, and I believe God. Will you agree with me as touching revival? Matthew 18:19 says, “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.”

We are going to have revival in spite of melancholy, unbelief, and religion. We are going to bury these things under FAITH. We are going to believe God. Death is going to be swallowed up in Victory. Our faith rests in the Word of God and whatsoever God has said.

Numbers 23:19 says, “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?”

We are commanded to have faith in God, and Paul gave us a real example of that. We believe God for a change in our lives and in the world. We believe for this last day revival that is going to sweep us up into the presence of the Lord in the twinkling of an eye.

We will be laughed at for believing for the things that are impossible, but we have faith in God, not ourselves. We have no confidence in the flesh; we have faith in God. We don’t believe the evil reports because they are lies; we believe God. If it hasn’t come to pass yet, we know the Lord is doing it. We are going to wait on the Lord till we see it done.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL 62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord. Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.