Tested Faith
ROMANS 1:17- 17 FOR IN IT THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IS REVEALED FROM FAITH TO FAITH; AS IT IS WRITTEN, “THE JUST SHALL LIVE BY FAITH.
- The righteous ones of God will live by faith.
Everything you obtain from God is by faith. From faith to faith.
There was a board put up in a place. ‘Be careful with people who say ‘I only cry in the rain so people don’t see my tears, such are people who pee in swimming pool!’. Even in the church, I am saying ‘beware of such people- those who sit with a long face, those who don’t say amen, or those who do not worship God or clap their hands in response to the Lord, amid His Word being preached.
Your blessing, your breakthrough and your miracle, your healing, your deliverance and your Samuel is about to manifest.
- In the Old Testament there was Hannah. She had no breakthrough. She knows that it is herproblem. It is one thing for you to know your problem, and another thing altogether when everyone else knows your problem. It can be embarrassing.
- She needed to see her Samuel. She wanted to see the Samuel within her come out. The blessing that is inside you will come out.
This is the season for your blessing inside to manifest on the outside. What is the breakthrough inside me? It is time for it to come out!
- Hannah decided that she would go to Shiloh
- She decided to go into the presence of God. Decide to enter into the Presence of God. Don’t be a mute spectator in God’s presence. Touch Him and lay down the burdens of your heart before HIM and pray with all your heart, glorify God and see your breakthrough.
Shiloh means tranquil. A peaceful place, a place of rest. That's your place alone with God where you are not getting any alerts on your phone, no pop-ups of somebody commenting on your Facebook post.
- Not tempted to look at Instagram. It is a place where you are alone with God. It is my place of being alone with God, my place of encounter with God, the place of my breakthrough in God. I won't go out the same way I came. I came by faith. I will receive what I believe for, I will receive if I diligently seek Him.
- She is very clear she needs a breakthrough. You need that encounter. You need to find your rest in Christ. You need that barrenness to do. You need that deliverance. You can't afford to play church, can't afford to sit there quietly. You need to find your rest in Christ. Maybe the person sitting next to you doesn’t need it but you do.
- Hannah did not complain even once before God
- The Greek word for ‘complain’ is to have a secret debate in your heart. An inner debate with God. A conversation within you- ‘Why only me? Why don't I have a response from God? Why don't I have a breakthrough?’ This is only on the inside but nothing is visible on the outside. Hannah did not even have that inner debate with God. She just continued praying.
Just because you are not saying that doesn't mean it is not there in your heart. She refused to complain and she refused to have attention drawn to herself. But she went to Shiloh.
The most frustrating place to be in your life is to have half-hearted devotion. 3. Hannah was not half-hearted
- She moved by faith. She had the awareness that God would answer her. She entered into the Rest and peace in God’s presence.
She only wanted the attention of God upon her.
- She went to Shiloh even before she had her breakthrough and after the breakthrough.
- She did not forget the presence of God both in good times and bad times. Some people get that new job and you won't see them for 4 weeks in church. She honoured the presence of God.
Never be so blessed that you have no time for Shiloh.
- People change and life changes. But the only one who doesn't change is God. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Shiloh is your solid place.
- It is the place where you can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. In bad times Shiloh will encourage you. In good times Shiloh will keep you grounded. Hallelujah! I am stepping into the Presence of Jesus.
GOD is opening up your secret place within your home. It may be inside your cupboard, inside the store room, behind the fried. Wherever no one else will find you and you will be alone with God. God is opening a place within your home for an encounter with God.
1 SAMUEL 1: 8- THEN SAID ELKANAH HER HUSBAND TO HER, HANNAH, WHY WEEPEST THOU? AND WHY EATEST THOU NOT? AND WHY IS THY HEART GRIEVED? AM NOT I BETTER TO THEE THAN TEN SONS?
- Elkanah asked, ‘I am not better than ten sons?’ Remember this
If you want your breakthrough, a good life will always try to replace a God life.
- Elkanah says ‘Don't cry. You have me, baby’! Elkanah was a good man. But Elkanah is no substitute for what God has got for you. Some people say ‘Why pray so much, why give so much?’ • Some things want to make you settle down. Settling means - to give into the gravitational pull. You won't go up but you'll come down! You don't reach for what God has got for you. Just to chill. Take it easy. Don't get your hopes up. This is pretty good. Where you are is pretty good. With that kind of voice or a situation in life, you will never step into receiving your Samuel. • Hannah said, ‘No, I am not going to settle. There is a promise of God within me’. In alignment with the potential that God has placed in your life, HIS Hand and His Holy Spirit will bring you out. I am pressing into everything that God has got for me.
Be grateful for everything you have in your life. Yet have faith for more.
- Settling is easy. Giving up to the gravitational pull is easy. But no, I want more impact, more reach. I want to see the manifestation of everything God has spoken to me.
The Holy Spirit is the law of lift!!
The Holy Spirit will lift me up. Where does my help come from? Whatever is pulling you down, fear, bondage, relationships, sin, whatever it is, God will give you victory by the power of the Holy Spirit. My next levels and my breakthrough must be revealed.
- The Israelites in the Old Testament did not have enough. They had cucumbers and garlic. They left that place when God brought them out and they were in the wilderness. In the wilderness, GOD gave them manna. Now they have just enough. They were better in the wilderness than they were in Egypt. But they still desired to go back to Egypt.
- Whatever the addiction might be- Insecurity, lust, pride, fear, envy, all this is Egypt. God saved us from Egypt by faith and His grace. We received Him, got baptised and are following him. Though you might not have reached that place of ‘more than enough’ we are in a good place. But still if you feel like walking back into the wilderness, that bondage must be broken today.
- May the Lord set you free this morning from that pull backwards. Move forward, like how the Jordan parted when the ark of the covenant was carried by the priests, may you be set free. • Lay your hands on your head and say- that bondage is breaking over my life in Jesus' name.
The devil wants you to stagnate, and get stuck. Smith Wigglesworth says ‘if you have stood in the same spiritual level for 48 hours then I have backsliding!’
Don't settle, don't stagnate, don't be stuck. I am coming out of every gravitational pull in the name of Jesus. Prayer will bring you back!
- Certain people don't want to pray out loud. You still have not seen your Samuel. For you to say that my Samuel is here, either you should be crazy or you should have faith! But something has to tell you there is a Samuel in you.
There is a blessing of the anointing, a prophetic blessing within you. In prayer go forth. Believe in God, believe in God!!
- Hannah decided that she would give back to God what He blessed her with
- If you will share, I will give you more! says the Lord. If you give, the Lord will give you more! If an earthly father knows to give you good gifts how much more does the Heavenly Father give you? Be willing to share your barbies, kids!’
- The Holy Spirit taught me something. God broke my theology.
The Lord's supply into a believer's life is more than His demand.
- I have preached that provision comes where there is vision. God said ‘it's not like that. Your vision may be small but my provision is bigger.’
- Inside God’s heart is 1000 acres, but in your heart it’s 10 cents. Your faith has to come to the same level as God’s faith and God's vision. For that to happen (for your faith to rise that much), God says, ‘I will first give you the big provisions so that you can believe that God can get you that 1000 acres too’! Share that with others.
Give and a good measure will be given back to you, pressed down and overflowing! God will release such supplies upon your life.
RW Shamback says- ‘You can't beat God giving’. Anything that you give to God will never leave your life. Not just money but anything that you give God. Even if they are your children What you give to God will leave your present but that will go into your future and it will multiply. |
- We see the manifestation of this in Hannah’s life in 1 Samuel: Hannah gave Samuel to God and God gave Hannah 5 children.
Half-heartedness is a torture. Give it all! ‘Whatever you want Lord it is yes. Whatever you ask Lord, it is yes!
Holy Spirit says- Your Samuel is about to come.
MARK 6:5-6- 5 HE COULD NOT DO ANY MIRACLES THERE, EXCEPT LAY HIS HANDS ON A FEW SICK PEOPLE AND HEAL THEM. 6 HE WAS AMAZED AT THEIR LACK OF FAITH.
- Jesus could not do anything because of their unbelief. In the previous chapter we heard about Jesus casting out 6000 demons by one Word.
Deliverance can happen in one word, in the Name of Jesus.
- In the Jesus name, 6000 demons came out. Whatever is standing against you will be cast out in Jesus' Name. In Mark 5 we see that the woman with the issues of blood for 12 years was instantly healed. In the same chapter, Jairus’s daughter rose from the dead. Demons were cast out, healing happened, and supernatural miracles happened but in the next chapter in his own town, nothing happened because of unbelief. From there in chapter 87 again we see miracles. There were miracles before, there were miracles after but in between in his town, there were no miracles. Let unbelief leave your life. I renounce unbelief in Jesus Name!
I receive the life and faith of God. From faith unto faith.
LEVELS OF FAITH
LESS FAITH
- Jesus talks about two sets of people as those with less faith- People who keep worrying about tomorrow, or worrying people.
- If you keep worrying, your hair will grey or fall, but there is no other benefit! • 60% of people in the US have mental issues, depression and anxiety.
Anxiety attacks are broken today in Jesus' Name.
- You have a God who cares. If God is for you who can be against you? My tomorrow is better than my yesterday. It applies to everyone, young and old and is a truth from God’s Word.
When you realize this Biblical truth- my future is better than the past, all your fears will leave!
- In the first Book, there were Adam and Eve, two people worshipping. In the end, in the Book of Revelations, there are multitudes and multitudes praising God.
The glory of the latter days is greater than the glory of the former days.
- Your tomorrow is better. Don’t be anxious.
- Daniel and Joseph saw dreams. Joseph said ‘Tell me the dream and I will interpret.’ Daniel said ‘I'll tell you the dream and also the interpretation!’
- The ministries improved and the anointing thickened. As the years and ages passed, the glory became greater, the giftings increased and the power manifested more and more. Your ministry Is not from your past, it is getting better.
- Don’t live in the brain realm or the intellect realm. Your mind is not in your brain. Mind is your consciousness.
- Lazarus died and went to sit on the bosom of Abraham, and Abraham (his master) died and went to hell. Their body and brain went into the mud. But their soul and mind went to heaven, they could see, feel and speak.
Mind is a spiritual entity.
- May the darkness controlling your mind be broken in Jesus Name. Intelligence is in the brain but your mind is a spiritual entity.
You need to know to protect your mind with the Word.
- Anxiety disorders be broken. Depressive tendencies be broken. Intellectual unbelief and negative thought processes be broken.
- The second set of people with ‘Little faith’ are those who look at their situations and allow situations to rule over them.
Do not look at your situation. Your best days are still ahead.
- Isac sowed in the season of famine. He did not see clouds, he did not see rain but that very year he harvested a 100-fold. A child of God is not under the situation but is above the situation. God will give you the harvest that no one has. This year! God will see your faith and bless your house, your land, and your children with what nobody else has, just like how Isaac was blessed with a harvest that nobody else had.
- Doctors and advocates will only tell you about situations. Believers don't look at situations and walk. They walk by faith.
- Peter was drowning in the water. He looked at the situation and Jesus said to him, ‘Why did you doubt you of little faith!”
This is a testimony of a pastor- a doctor diagnosed cancer in a pastor’s wife. He called the pastor and broke the news to him. The pastor started to thank the Lord and praise God. The doctor asked him puzzled, why he was thanking God at this news. The pastor replied, ‘I am rejoicing because I am going to see one more miracle!”
Whatever your situation, declare that ‘I am going to see another miracle’. I will see God's glory.
A story- It was raining heavily and all the birds were drenched and then they saw the eagle all dry. When they asked him how he managed to stay dry, the eagle replied and said, while it saw the clouds gathering, it started to fly and soar over it. This is the year to soar high.
I am going from faith unto faith. I am going to soar. May this manifest in your life. Mark 11:22- have ye faith in God. Have faith of God.
- The faith which God gives. This is the 3rd level.
- The faith that God gives you generously.
- When God said let there be light, HE did not open the corner of his eye to see if it would happen. HE knew it would happen!
- I was in Africa and was watching Pastor Chris praying for healing – the one thing I observed is he doesn’t turn back to see after he prays for a sick person, he just moves to the next person, he doesn’t check to see if he is healed or not. He has that God kind of faith.
The God kind of faith.
- There is no word “suppose” or “maybe” in God's vocabulary. May you have the faith to command certain things. May you grow and increase
Faith is God. Faith of God means is the faith that is standing a test.
1 PETER 1:7-7 THESE HAVE COME SO THAT THE PROVEN GENUINENESS OF YOUR FAITH—OFGREATER WORTH THAN GOLD, WHICH PERISHES EVEN THOUGH REFINED BY FIRE—MAY RESULT INPRAISE, GLORY AND HONOUR WHEN JESUS CHRIST IS REVEALED.
- This is a precious faith. It will stand the test of time. It will stand every kind of test that is thrown at my life. Because it is God's faith. It is precious faith. It is precious faith.
You see the statues of many celebrities in the wax museum. You are not a wax statue. faith inside of you is alive. Inside any furnace, you will come out because you have God’s faith.