You Must Believe!

The other day I was speaking to a dear friend after Wednesday night service, and he was telling me about an Evangelist who had traveled to Africa to minister the Word of God, but as it turned out his trip ended up being more of a learning experience for him. While in Africa spreading the gospel, this Evangelist met a women who in the name of Jesus raised 16 people up from the dead! Wow! can you imagine the kind of faith it would take to raise that many up from the dead? Some denominations teach that these things have done gone away with when the last Apostle died, but on the contrary these things still go on today!

Jesus says in John 14:12, "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father." Jesus says in Mark 11:24, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." Jesus was always talking about faith! It is impossible to please God without faith! A good example in the Bible that shows what faith can do is the women with the incurable issue of blood. She had been seen by every doctor in the land and no one could cure her, but she didn't give up. She said, "If I could only get close enough to touch Jesus' garment I will be healed!" She fought her way through the mob and did it! Mark 5:30, "At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, "Who touched my clothes?" And verses 32-34 "But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." You see the power came from the Holy Spirit, but faith was what activated the power! The power of faith is weaved throughout the gospels. Jesus was always saying, "Your faith has healed you." He never said pray and if it be God's will it will happen and if it doesn't then it wasn't His will. No, No, No! His will is for us to have faith! Not doubt!

Now don't be running off in a ditch and start claiming Christian Science on me. Today we have people practicing doctrine based off a scripture they miss interpreted. To experience the full potential of your faith you have to use solid fundamentals. First of all faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. (Rom 10:17) You can't expect to get the results with your faith if you never hear the anointed word preached. Once you hear the Word of God preached you need to put the Word to work in your life. In other words, be a doer of the Word of God. James 1:22-25 "But don't just listen to God's word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don't obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don't forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it." Often times people want to confess it and believe for blessing to come into their life, but they forget that it is the doer of the Word that receives the blessing! When used in the right way faith is a power to be reckoned with! God promises to bless those who sincerely do the work of the Father to glorify Him! Some may say, "I've tried that and it don't work!" Yeah well I can grantee that the problem lies with the man and not God. God is always faithful to His Word! God never said to be a tryer...No, He said to be a doer!

Now when you are praying like Jesus says to in Mark 11:24, "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." It is critical that you find scripture to stand on when you pray. God's word is full of promises to those who have the faith to believe them. Like I said earlier you can not expect to receive blessings without doing something. In this case when you pray the action is to believe. If it is healing you are believing for from God, then dust off that old Bible and find the scriptures that tells you that He bore you sickness and disease and meditate on it! Confess it with your mouth till you believe that you have received it in your heart, then go into your prayer closet or where ever you go to pray to God, and praise Him for your healing. So many want to see the healing then believe they received, but that is not what the Word says to do! Believe you receive first! Then it will be given to you! I can't stress how important it is to find scripture to back up what you are believing for. If God promised it then it is rightfully yours if you have been adopted into God's family. But avoid foolish babbling and foolish thoughts of material prosperity that don't benefit the kingdom! Yes it is true God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus! (Phil 4:19). And yes it is true that God doesn't want His children to struggle financially! But you can't expect God to go against His Word and bless you without you being a doer of the Word! Yes God wants to bless you, but not at the expense of jeopardizing His faithfulness to His Word.

Now before I close I want to stress something and lay it out there and make my point clear. There is a denomination out there that does a great job of getting souls saved, but at the same time they turn these once lost souls loose with bad doctrine. Teaching Calvinism (once saved always saved) it is false doctrine! I repeat false doctrine! This denomination gets these souls saved and then these folks go out into the world claiming to be Christians and live their lives as if nothing ever happened. So they continue on in their sinful perverted lives believing in a lie that there is nothing they can do to lose their gift of eternal life. They never submit to Jesus or make Him their Lord. They never crucified their flesh and they never renew their minds. The issue with this is that this false doctrine corrupts the flock, and other babies that are still on the milk of the word get consumed by the wolves in sheep's clothes. Anytime you teach that it is okay to give Satan a foot hold in your life there should be an immediate red flag going up in your spirit. If there is not then something is wrong. This same denomination also rejects the essential gifts of the Holy Spirit that edifies our walk and allows our spirit to commune with the Father. Why would a denomination want to restrict our ability to talk to the creator one on one and fellowship with Him? There is only one thing I can think of and that is many have yielded to their own natural human faith, and choose to not fully have faith in God. To have faith in God is to have faith in God's Word. If someone rejects the word then he rejects God Himself. Don't listen for one minute to these ravenous wolves who twist the scriptures to conform the Word of God to their beliefs. That is an abomination to God, so don't be fooled.

We believers don't have to be scared to be approached by people from this denomination. God has given us His Word (the Bible) and with it we are to filter out all the lies of this world. And that goes for false doctrine too. I am not saying this to condemn anyone but to rather make it aware that it is critical that we read and study scripture and that we practice it in our lives. This is our only defense against the enemy who prowls around looking for whom he may devour. By strapping on our full armor of God we can walk boldly and confidently in this world not bothered by the trials and tribulations in our lives because we understand that we are not here for long and that in the end it all works out for the good of those who love God!

In Christ,

Eric R. Cox