Becoming a Man of Unwavering Faith (6 page)

Third,
follow His plan
. As a man of faith, the most important thing in the world is to get into God’s plan for your life. God is the architect of the universe. If He can put together a universe as intricate as ours and see to every meticulous detail, surely He can draw a plan for our lives. There is a good, acceptable, and perfect will of God for you (Romans 12:2). And in order to experience
the power of prevailing prayer, we must follow God’s plan for our lives.

Fourth,
habitually practice what is pleasing to God
. Make it a point to find out what is pleasing to God and make living that way a priority in your everyday life. Listen to what the Bible says about how we are to live: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:15–17).

As you follow these simple guidelines, you can learn many ways to enjoy and practice prevailing prayer in your life. As a man of unwavering faith, make prayer a constant and enjoyable part of your life.

I
n the account we have been following of the prophet Elijah and his servant on Mount Carmel, he told his servant, “ ‘Go and look toward the sea….’ And he went up and looked. ‘There is nothing there,’ he said” (1 Kings 18:43
NIV
).

As demonstrated by Elijah, the third quality of a man of unwavering faith is that his faith is strong when there is no evidence of the answer. Men of faith keep going even when they don’t see the answer coming. When the situation says, “There’s no evidence that God is going to answer,” you go on because you have the Word of God.

Elijah kept believing when he saw nothing happening in the physical realm. That’s precisely what God started with in the beginning. He created the universe out of nothing. So if you want to be God-like, start with nothing and speak the Word of God until what you desire comes
into being. He is the God who “calls those things which do not exist as though they did” (Romans 4:17).

Maybe you have nothing. You’ve just about given up. You’ve prayed, you’ve looked to God, and there’s still nothing to show for it. People are telling you, “It’s not working!”
Stand your ground. Keep holding the Word of God up to Him.

In Jeremiah 1:12, the Lord says, “I am watching to see that my word is fulfilled” (
NIV
).
If God promised it, He will do it.

Elijah knew, and a man of faith knows, that life is a battleground. But he also comes to understand that the battle is won when he listens to his spirit-man rejoicing over what he
knows
to be true by faith through revelation knowledge gained through the Word of God.

In 2 Kings 6, an amazing story is told of the prophet Elisha, who was the disciple of Elijah. The Syrians were fighting the Israelites, and every time the Syrians moved, the Israelites knew where their enemies were ahead of time. So the Syrian leader got all the people together and said, “I want to know something in this counsel of war. Who is for Israel, and who is for us? There must be a spy in the camp.”

One of the servants responded, “None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom” (v. 12). They said, “You mean there is a prophet down there who can understand these things?” Yes was the response, so they sent the whole army out to get that one man! That is how afraid the enemy was of the man of God. They sent an army down to get Elisha.

That is the way it is going to be with us. God is going to move in the supernatural. You may not know it, but the enemy is afraid of you. The Bible states, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). Satan trembles at the very thought of you as a man of faith.

The servant of Elisha awoke in the morning and looked out at the great host of the Syrian army, with its chariots and horses. All this young man could see was the enemy, and his natural response was to panic and cry out, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?” (v. 15).

But when Elisha got up and walked out to assess the situation, he also saw those hundreds and possibly thousands of Syrian horses and chariots out there and said, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them” (v. 16).

I can imagine that young man saying, “Elisha, I don’t
know how you’re counting, but one plus one equals two, and we are clearly outnumbered!”

Elisha responded, “ ‘L
ORD
, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.’ Then the L
ORD
opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (v. 17). The host of heaven surrounded the Syrians!

Elisha didn’t say, “Look, God just created some angels.” No, those angels were there in the invisible world all the time. Just because God manifested their presence by making them visible in the physical dimension at that moment did not change the fact that they were already present. The answer was there all the time.

What was true for the servant of Elisha is true for us as we begin to experience God’s touch upon our lives. You see, salvation has existed for you ever since Jesus died and purchased it with His blood. Healing has been yours, eternal life has been yours, and financial blessing has been yours.

Sometimes you do not immediately see your new job or your healing or prosperity or your victory over an addiction, but that does not mean it is not yours. Just as your angel is by your side and you are convinced by
the Word of God that he lives in that invisible world watching after you, so too your healing or your prosperity is there. As far as God is concerned, His promises are all yours. You can rejoice by faith that they are yours, even though they have not yet been manifested.

Suppose I told my wife, “Dodie, I put one thousand dollars in your coat pocket for you to spend on whatever you want. It is in the coat hanging in the hall closet.” Think of what she would do. First, she would rejoice because she believes me. Second, she would begin to make plans as to how she would use it. Third, she would begin talking to everyone around about the blessing and joy she had received.

Even though she does all these three things, she has not yet seen or felt or heard the rustle of the thousand dollars. All she has is the word of a person she loves and trusts. But because she believes me, she talks, rejoices, and makes plans by faith that I am true to my word.

Isn’t it strange how we will act on the word of a lawyer, a doctor, a financial planner, or a loved one, and yet won’t act on the Word of God?
A man can lie, but God cannot lie!

As you walk out into the Word of God—the great forest of God’s eternal truths—you will find the abundance God has put in your pocket as a man of faith.
He freely gives you salvation, healing, prosperity, strength, victory, and the ability to overcome temptation and Satan. It is all there in the spirit world. It is in your spiritual pocket. You have not yet touched it. You have not seen or felt it yet. All you have is the Word of Almighty God who cannot lie!

By faith you can reach into the invisible area and experience God’s power at work in your life.

Consider this truth: “Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]” (Hebrews 11:1
AMP
).

Faith goes into the Word of God, believes God, and foresees as real fact what is not yet revealed to the five physical senses
. “By faith we understand that the worlds [during the successive ages] were framed (fashioned, put in order, and equipped for their intended purpose) by the word of God” (Hebrews 11:3
AMP
). The worlds were
equipped and fashioned by the Word of God.

Isn’t it silly that some people never venture into the treasure house of God’s eternal truths and then wonder why they don’t have any faith or any ability to believe God? Oh, how this truth ought to make us live in the Word of God!

As a man of faith, you must start with the Word of God and believe that the invisible
God is
. “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6).
The invisible God is!

Not only is God there, but every blessing we need is there, and the first principle is to believe that they
are,
without seeing any evidence. Did Jesus die for your healing? Prosperity? Salvation? Blessings? Victory over sin and the powers of darkness? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

You must believe that this invisible God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, and that you must diligently seek His invisible blessings. The Bible says that we should read the Word of God and seek Him as for hidden treasure, as for gold and silver (Proverbs 2:4). If you will diligently seek any blessing you find in the Word
of God, God will reward you by manifesting it to you.

When the blessing or promise manifests, the man of faith isn’t shocked. Instead, he says, “I knew what happened today was already mine all the time. I’ve been praising God continually, because I saw it was done in that invisible world, and now it’s visible!”

Do you need a confirmation of that truth? “By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith” (Hebrews 11:7). Noah was informed by God of an event of which there was
no visible sign as yet
.

You see, as men of faith, that’s all that happens to us. We step into God’s bank filled with His magnificent eternal truths, and God says, “Here are My promises for you. I have them in your name, so receive them by faith.”

The Old Testament character Gideon was threshing wheat behind a winepress, hiding for fear of the enemies of Israel. He was frustrated, fearful, discouraged, and feeling like a failure. God sent an angel to him, but the angel didn’t say to him, “Hail, thou scaredy cat. Hail, thou cringing coward!”

The angel came to Gideon from the invisible world and said, “The L
ORD
is with you, you mighty man of valor!” (Judges 6:12).

Gideon responded, “Who else is here? Do you mean to tell me that I am a mighty man of valor?”

Now, the angel could have and might well have said, “Yes, that is exactly how God sees you. It’s all yours, whether you ever take it or not. You are a mighty man of valor. I bring you news from the spirit world!”

Gideon rose up and began to act as though he were a mighty man of valor, and he found out he was! His story of bringing deliverance to his nation is legendary.

This is the exact principle that Jesus Christ was teaching in Mark 11:24: “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” Jesus asks you to believe it is yours in the invisible realm on the basis of God’s Word. He does not ask you to believe that it is already manifested in the physical realm. But He said that as you believe it in the invisible realm, He will see that you get it in the visible, physical realm.

As a man of faith,
believe you receive in the faith realm, and you shall have it in the natural realm.

God is a Creator. He wants you to join hands with Him to see His miraculous power create things for your
every need. He wants to help you reach the world with the good news about Jesus. The building blocks for God’s creative power are not in the natural realm, but the invisible.

Our business as men of unwavering faith is to believe that what God says is true, to confess it, to rejoice about it, and to act as though it is true. Jesus will see that it is manifested. These are the building blocks of faith.

S
TAND YOUR GROUND
.

Keep holding the Word of God up to Him.