Stepping Out in Faith
‘The apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith!" He replied, "If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea,' and it will obey you.”’(Luke 17:5-6)
How many of us ask the Lord the same “Please increase our faith”? I say it before every meeting I speak at. Just because I have seen the Lord heal many people does not mean that I have much faith. I still need more faith. I still have to ask the Lord to ‘increase my faith’.
The Bible speaks of three types of faith.
1. Our faith in Jesus – confessing our sins and receiving Jesus into our lives as Lord and Saviour, to then live our life of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord.
2. Faith in action or ‘Stepping out in faith’ – to trust God to do the things He has promised us, as we preach the Gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons and deliver the oppressed. This is the area of faith I ask the Lord for, to increase my faith in the sense meant in Hebrews 11:1-3:
‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.’
This is a tremendous statement, for it shows us that the word of God is more stable, more concrete, more real than that which is visible, than that of the material realm in which we live. In the material realm we cannot see it. We need to understand this from a higher, spiritual, supernatural realm. After all, 2 Corinthians 5-7 says:
‘We live by faith, not by sight.’
Faith is greater than what we see. It is knowing God’s answer before we see it. It is walking in His victory before it arrives. We walk in faith knowing God will do it, not hoping He might do it but having heard the answer in prayer, we will then know beyond all doubt that He will do it as we obey Him. We will see this answer unfold before our eyes.
So how do we get faith?
A. We need to know we have received Jesus as Lord by faith with our hearts.
‘For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God..’ (Ephesians 2:8)
B. Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians was:
‘…that out of His glorious riches Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.’ (Ephesians 3:17-19)
How can Jesus dwell in our hearts, that we be grounded in love and receive strength to comprehend His great love and become filled with all the fullness of God? Simply by getting to know God in prayer. The more we wait on God, the more His Holy Spirit will give us the revelation of His love and increasingly fill us with His glorious love and presence until, like Paul, we can say (which is the next stage):
C. ‘I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.’ (Galatians 2:20)
His love, that took Him to the cross to die in our place, builds us up and raises us up with Him into a new dimension of living. His love then opens our eyes to His reality and victory and the knowledge of His will for us. This enables us to trust God in a new way.
D. Romans 5:1-2:
‘Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.’
Prayer becomes more and more wonderful as we get to know God more and more. We have access right into His presence and grace.
Above all, consider Romans 10:17:
‘So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.’
E. Let us consider Colossians 2:6-7:
‘As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.’
This is not just talking about having faith in God, but being rooted and established in our faith in God; our faith in the sense of living out our faith every day of our lives in every way, in the practical as well as the supernatural.
F. No study would be complete without a mentions of James 2:14-17:
‘What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food. and one of you says to them, “Depart in peace, be warmed and filled”, but you do not give them the things that are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.’
This is talking about practical faith. We need practical faith then we can move by our obedience into supernatural faith.
G. Another key verse is Ephesians 6:16:
‘above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.’
James 1:2-4:
‘My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.’
We need to face the trials of life with the positive faith God gives to us, steadfast and strong so that the problems of life no longer press us down but rather so that we use them as stepping stones into ever more victory, steadfastness and triumph in Christ, so as to:
‘Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.’ (1 Timothy 6:12)
Hebrews 12:1-2:
‘Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.’
H.
Let us reconsider Luke 17:5-6 where the apostles asked ‘Lord increase our faith’:
‘And the apostles said to the Lord, "Increase our faith." So the Lord said, "If you have faith as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be pulled up by the roots and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you.”’
What is Jesus actually saying? He is talking about the smallest of seeds, that of a mustard seed that grows into a giant tree. Could He be implying that our faith will grow from a small mustard seed into a giant tree? As I look back on the twenty five years where I have kept a diary of God’s working in my own life, I see this to be true, which is why I have included the testimony of His workings in my life in the last chapters of this book. We have to move in the smaller steps of faith before we move in the bigger steps of faith.
3 The Gift of Faith. A special supernatural gift of faith can come as God gives you a rhema word, that is, a specific instruction to do something for Him. I had this experience in Kenya when I knew I would have to pray for a man dying of AIDS. He was so sick that he could not sit up anymore and had to lie on the children’s mat in the front of the church. I asked the Lord ‘What about this man dying of AIDS?’ ‘I am going to heal him’ was the reply. ‘How?’ In the Spirit I then saw myself pulling him to his feet. I would never normally do that, but just then I was called forward to pray for this man. As I rose from the church pew, I could feel supernatural faith surge within me. I walked straight up to the man and took hold of his hand and, pulling him to his feet, said ‘Rise up and walk in Jesus’ name’. By the time he was on his feet he was healed! This rhema word and extra gift of faith was for this particular situation and, as a result of this man’s healing, a further 100 people accepted Jesus as Lord. Within a few weeks, this man was back to work with a clear ‘HIV negative’ certificate from the doctors.
This supernatural gift of faith operates for specific tasks that the Lord has for you, often for the bigger miracle healings. When I hear God say, ‘I will heal this person’, I tell them so; I tell them, ‘Within a few minutes you will be walking’. In Ghana I told a lady with paralysed knees from arthritis, ‘Within a few minutes you will be healed’ and, within a few minutes, she was able to walk up and down steps – on our website www.standlakeranch.co.uk there actually is a video of this. On the next day we visited her again and she came to meet us so excited about her healing. On another occasion, in Nigeria, a lady paralysed down one side of the body from a stroke, for 22 years and unable to speak, was healed in 2½ minutes, speaking out in Jesus’ name and walking.
To move in the gift of faith, you need first to hear God, believe God and obey God. As you obey God, you will see the miracle unfold.
Let me challenge you by asking, ‘Do you want to step out in supernatural faith?’
After all, Jesus challenges his disciples in Matthew 8:26:
‘But He said to them, "Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?" Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.’
Mark 11:22-24:
‘So Jesus answered and said to them, "Have faith in God. For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”’
This is yet more counsel from Jesus then to HAVE FAITH IN GOD and BELIEVE THAT YOU HAVE RECEIVED IT, AND IT WILL BE YOURS.
On my 2005 trip to Kenya, we visited Kissi, up in the hills, for an outdoor crusade when suddenly rain clouds began to come and the elders came in and said that it was going to rain and spoil the crusade. And I said, ‘If God wants the crusade, He can stop the rain.’ So we all prayed. Suddenly others came rushing in to the room saying they had just seen the cloud turn around! And yet it was not windy. We had a wonderful crusade in sunlight even though it was raining everywhere else. Through this, the whole village became Christians. And the churches united in evangelism to tell the neighbouring villages that Jesus is truly Lord.
Also for us to keep in mind is 1Corinthians 2:4-5:
‘And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, THAT YOUR FAITH SHOULD NOT BE IN THE WISDOM OF MEN BUT IN THE POWER OF GOD.’
Some Questions to Think About
What do the ‘increase our faith’ verses of Luke 17 v 5-6 mean to you?
Describe the word ‘faith’.
Name the three types of faith.
Where can you step out in faith?