Day 39 - Principle 15: Apply the Principles of Faith

Heb 11:6 is one of my favourite verses:  Without faith it is impossible to please God for everyone who comes to Him must believe that He is and the He is the Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.  It reminds me of Jesus' words in Mat 6:33: But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.

Faith is central to prayer.  If you don't believe what you pray you are either fooling yourself or trying to impress the people within earshot of your prayer.  Both are foolish and a waste of time.

Faith is defined in Heb 11:2 - It is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

The central concept is trust.  Faith means that we trust God that He is honest and that He can and will do what He has said He will do.  Over the years people have said that faith means that God

• can do what He said;
• will do what He said; or
• has done what He said.

Personally I like the last one best - God has already done, prepared, made available everything that He has stated in His Word, e.g. healing, and we take hold of it and appropriate it through faith.  To me faith simply means knowing the truth that will be.

It is that simple, but you have to back it up with knowledge and relationship.  You can only really, truly and totally trust God when you know Him intimately.  The better you know Him, the easier it is to have faith in Him.  See the Day 37 post.

He is an awesome God, deserving of our worship, praise and adoration.  He is also our Father and His eyes are continually running to and fro throughout the earth, so that He can show Himself strong on the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards Him (2 Chron 16:9). God has a great, great desire to show Himself strong on your behalf, to open the windows of heaven and shower you with so much blessing that you will not have room enough to receive it.  Go to Him, like a child, and put your faith and trust in this awesome, wonderful, magnificent God Whose one desire is that you should know Him.