Living Hope Fellowship Church

YOUR FAITH MUST GROW

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

YOUR FAITH MUST GROW

Preface

(living by faith)

          Hebrews 10:38-39 says, “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.  But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.”

          For soundness of mind and peace in my spirit I have to believe God’s Word. 

          God gives us grace to obtain all the promises of God.  Our faith is an investment.  Our fallen mind says faith is a risk, but by God’s Word we understand that it is by faith that we will obtain a good report! 

          I pray that God will deal with every heart that reads this message and that their faith will be perfected.

YOUR FAITH MUST GROW

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

          Hebrews 10:38-39 says, “Now the just shall live by faith: but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.  But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul.”

          Hebrews 11:1-2 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  For by it the elders obtained a good report.”

          The just shall live by faith.  If there wasn’t something to faith, then it couldn’t be tried!  It is a spiritual substance.  You can’t try something that doesn’t exist!  The Bible says that the just shall live by faith.  Before you were justified by the blood of Jesus Christ, (before you were saved), you lived by misplaced faith - faith in the wrong things - faith in your self, the world, and various other things.

          Romans 12:3 says, “. . . God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.”  When the Spirit of God deals with your heart, that measure of faith can be moved out of the world and put into Christ, and you are born again.

          We choose whether to be justified by the blood of the lamb and to be born again, but we never choose the time or the hour.  Jesus said in John 6:44, “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him. . . .”  When He deals with you, you can use the measure of faith God already gave you to connect with the Lord and be born again.

          Now our faith is used for something else.  The ability for us to live on higher ground is dependent on the growth of our faith. 

          Jesus spoke in Matthew 17:20 about having faith as a grain of mustard seed.  Matthew 13:31 says “. . . The kingdom of heaven is like to a grain of mustard seed. . . .”  Verse 32 says, “Which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.”

          We can sit in the shadow of that tree from the heat of the day and the times!  The devil can tell if you have faith, and people of faith can tell if you have faith or not.  God obviously can tell if you walk by faith or not! 

          Faith is tangible in the spirit.  Faith can be felt, and it can be won or lost, it can grow or die.  Your attitude, your outlook, and where you allow yourself to go is determined by your faith.  If you compromise your faith you will go places you would not go if you didn’t compromise your faith. 

          Immediately after God said that the just shall live by faith, he said, “. . . but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.” 

          Hebrews 11:6 says, “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.”  God loves faith; it pleases Him.

          We have a choice of trading our faith that pleases God for something else.  Esau did.  Cain did.  Ishmael did.  Many people have traded faith for their own reasoning, a word of the enemy, other people, or just by giving up. 

          When you give up, the first thing you give up is faith.  You try to eek out your own way of dealing and doing.  You are not dependant on the same thing when you have faith.  Your dependency switches, and your comfort switches.  God says your outcome switches!  Faith in God literally takes you out of hell and places you in heaven if you hold fast to God.

          Faith is an instrument of God’s grace to perform God’s will in a fallen world.  Jesus told us how to pray.  The model prayer is the “Lord’s Prayer”.  This is the way He wants the church to pray.

          Matthew 6:9-10 says, “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.  Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.”  It takes faith to believe that is possible. 

          Faith does not pick and choose out of the Word of God what to believe.  True faith in God comes from God’s Word.  Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

          He says, “I am the God that healeth thee.”  You say, “Yeah, but. . . .”  That’s not faith.  When we make exceptions to God’s Word, we trample our faith in God.  When things don’t work out because we left our faith in one form or another, God will get blamed for it, but it is our fault.  It may be through seduction of the enemy, reasoning of men, or carnal mindedness. 

          Romans 8:7 says, “Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”  The measure of faith God originally gives to every human being, when locked on to, will never doubt God’s Word.  It will believe God for more and more.  Faith most grow.

          Signs will follow them that believe.  How will we know if the church is living by faith in these last days?  It is when everything is taken away from them.  The devil is banking on the fact that you are not fully living by your faith.  

          You are living by some other things along with your faith, but God wants us to have a pure foundation on faith.  If your bank account fails, will your faith go down with it?  If your health begins to waver, will your faith go down with it?  Will you take desperate measures or get angry with God?  If so, your faith is not perfect in that situation. 

          The devil is banking on us rejecting what faith we have, but God wants us to believe Him for ALL that He has.  Elijah was not made rich so he could eat every day.  He had to believe God was sending a raven with his hamburger every morning and evening.  It was a time of drought, but he drank from the brook.  From heaven God fed multiplied millions of the children of Israel in the howling wilderness, even though they murmured and complained.  God intended that they live by faith. 

          As soon as we pass our faith test, the sooner we will get on into Caanan land.  We still have to fight the giants.  Our faith will be tested there too.  Is there anything we don’t have to believe Him for?  NO. 

          This country was founded on faith in God and in the Lord Jesus Christ.  That is why God’s blessing is upon us and why we have reserves, but the rich, fat American church and most Americans feel that if God does not come through today, we have our reserves.  We must repent and put our faith in Christ Jesus alone.

          The man who built his barns bigger and bigger had faith in his goods and his barns.  His faith was not focused on God who could feed him.

          I believe God makes people rich so they can distribute to those who have need, and to further His kingdom.  He said in Deuteronomy 8:18, “. . . remember the LORD thy God: for it is he that giveth thee power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant. . . .”

          If you are not living by faith, you are drawn back into perdition.  The only way you are going to get a miracle or get healed or delivered is by faith in God’s presence first.  Then the Spirit of God who honors faith blows His Spirit on it.  It catches fire and becomes alive. 

          The bush Moses turned aside to see was alive with fire but was not being consumed.  The Spirit of Life of God Almighty was on that bush.  When it got done, I believe it went right back to its greenery.  In normal circumstances fire would be a destructive force, but on that bush was God’s type of fire that lifts up, burning away anything that’s not right, anything dead, anything that is not of faith!  It caused a man named Moses to turn aside to see!

          God can use anything.  Don’t limit God.  The children of Israel saw God’s great miracles time after time, yet they limited the Holy One of Israel.  Their faith had limits.  God wants us to take the limits off of HIM.   When you say, “Lord, I believe you for anything,” He will allow just most anything to come your way.  If you say, God I believe you for everything, God says, “Then you don’t need anything, and I will take everything away to where you have nothing.  THEN you will believe me for everything.”  You said it.  Do you mean it literally?  Do you understand the process?

          We may in these last days learn to do without, so all we DO have is God.  We will be purified.  We will be anointed.  Real needs will be met, not our personal lusts and foolishness in general. 

          Where did the miracles and the change in whole nations in the Bible come from?  People had faith in GOD.  Some people have more faith in themselves than they have in God.  If God says something and it does not come to pass immediately, we start helping Him rather than waiting on God.  We might say, God said it.  I will just sit here.  If He kills me, I will die.  Nowhere in the Word of God has anybody ever died waiting on God. 

          When our faith is tried and it begins to waver, we resort to ourselves and anybody else after that who is smarter, greater, quicker, stronger, richer, or whatever!  That is not living by faith. 

          If we live or die, get rich or poor, or do anything at all, it must be by faith!  When has God destroyed anybody who believed in Him?  When has God let somebody down who trusted in Him?  God has not let you down - you have trusted to yourself.  You pulled away and made your own arrangements.

          Philippians 4:19 says, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”  This applies to you if you are born again. 

          3 John 1:2 says, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”  He will provide soul salvation, baptism of the Holy Ghost, food for you, strength for your body, soundness of mind, power to help other people, and ministry of every sort, yet we don’t believe it!  If we did, we would live differently.

          For soundness of mind and peace in my spirit I have to believe God’s Word.  I am testifying with my personal witness now.  I am not 100 percent there in faith, but I am telling you I am further now than I have ever been in faith.  I am not going to rejoice in my own devices or trust in my own abilities (self faith) or the abilities of another human being. 

          God is your salvation, your healer, your deliverer.  The Word of God says so.  When you second guess the Word of God you are in for TROUBLE, confusion, and anger.  People blame God, but He is the author and finisher of our faith! 

          Our faith is not a finished work yet.  Our faith is tried that it may be perfected so we will believe Him for any thing and ALL things.  Everything will come against you; your faith will be tried.  You may be trusting God for your next meal, because you don’t know where it is coming from.  Some may say, Who’d want to serve a God like that? but God WILL provide your next meal if you trust Him for it. 

          What is your greatest personal need right now? 

FA I T H!  The just shall not live by money, or doctors, or friends, or family.  Luke 12:30 tells us that the Father knows our needs, but Hebrews tells us that the just shall live by FAITH.  He wants us to believe that He will provide those things! 

          God gives us something to cross from this realm into the spirit realm; it’s called faith.  He gives us grace to enter into all the promises of God. 

          I know of a man who had two daughters who were seriously ill.  He requested prayer for them by first saying, Pray that I’ll have more faith!  I love that.  What is wrong with our faith? 

          Our faith needs work!  If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you’ll be slinging mountains like tennis balls.  Do you understand the power in faith in God?  Faith in God brings God, and He can do anything. 

          It’s not a money problem or a health problem.  It’s not a family problem or a religious problem.  You are having a problem with your personal faith!

          You can’t take off walking across a lake under natural means.  It takes God to hold you up.  He wants us to act on our faith for ourselves and for other people.  The prayer of faith shall save the sick, cast out devils, and win souls to Jesus.

          Take the word faith and put the word investment there.  What do you have invested in God?  Our fallen mind says faith is a risk, but we understand that by faith we will obtain a good report.  I pray that God will deal with every heart that reads this message and that their faith will be perfected.  Amen.

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

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

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail  livinghope@hughes.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

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.