Activate Your Faith

Introduction

When you activate your faith in the true and living God, it can position you to receive blessings from God that otherwise may not be made available to you. Where’s your faith? This is a question we’re asked when we experience difficult situations in life. Life has a way of presenting situations that can cause a person to ask themselves, Where is my faith in God?

Faith in God is not a blind leap into nowhere. I relate faith to a psychological term called object permanence. Psychologists say it is one of the developmental stages that an infant goes through. Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. It is acquired by babies between eight and twelve months of age and it helps them develop secondary schemes in their sensory-motor coordination. This step is the essential foundation of the memorization process.

When babies play peek-a-boo, for instance, they cover their eyes and think you aren’t there. As they get older, however, they realize that out of sight doesn’t necessarily have to mean out of mind. Every child of God should know that faith is part of the essential foundation of the spiritual process that helps one to understand object permanence. Even though what we may need from God may not be seen, heard, or touched, we must have faith that it exists.

Every child of God needs to develop his or her own faith process that I will call spiritual object permanence. This sensory-motor coordination connects our present physical state with our desired spiritual state. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Heb. 11:1, KJV). Faith says that objects have permanence even beyond our perception. You may not see it, hear it, or even be able to touch it, but faith tells us that God can bring it to pass. Life may be playing the infant game of peek-a-boo with you. Spiritually, your eyes may be covered because you cannot physically see what God is going to bless you with. But as a child of God, you must have the assurance that even though you can’t see it, God can bring it to pass.

While growing up in the Church, in Christendom, in the Arena of Angels, in the Family of Faith, in the Household of the Heavenly Heralders, we may have been told when facing difficult decisions or troubled times to hang in there. The only problem with this spiritual statement was that it was a mere statement. The statement was not an answer to our anxieties or solution to our situations. It was merely a statement to console a current calamity.

In many of life’s difficulties, no one can give you definite direction in making a decision or point out to you a pathway to peace from perplexing problems. They might simply say, Keep on keeping on. The Lord will make a way somehow.

Although it is true in the general sense—the Lord will make a way somehow—that spiritual statement from seasoned saints was not the medicine needed to cure the malady that mesmerized the moment. It was only a band-aid to cover the wound of the bewildered believer from their binding battle.

There are many believers who are meandering in the maze of mediocrity and living beneath their privilege as children of the King, those who are from a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy (1 Pet. 2:9–10, KJV).

I do not believe it is a lack of faith in God that is the problem. I truly believe it is a lack of knowledge of how to exercise our faith in God that is the problem.

If we as believers in the living Lord are going to stop living defeated lives and start being more than conquerors (see Rom. 8:37), as Christ has called us to be, then we are going to have to activate our faith in God and access His blessings.

This book is not intended to be an exhaustive scope on faith and God’s blessings. It is simply a thought-provoking starter intended to help you as a believer in the risen Savior start a journey to activate your faith in God and receive all of the blessings that God has in store for you.

This book is not intended to suggest that a person can earn salvation or work to be saved. I believe salvation is based solely upon the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.

You don’t have to be a serious searcher of the Scriptures to have faith in God. But if you are tired of the norm and tired of the status quo when it comes to receiving blessings from the Master, this book is for you.

If you want the spout of the Spirit to speak to your soul, then read on. If you want your faucet of faith to flow freely from the Father, then read on. If you want to be blessed by God, then read on. You can take your spiritual life to the next level by activating your faith.

Activate

Your Faith

Chapter One

It’s Your Choice

When God created human beings, He gave us the freedom of choice. Choice is simply the ability to choose or prefer one thing over another. As humans, we make choices every day. Life is filled with choices. The choices we make in life often determine the quality of life that we enjoy. The choices that we make today will affect our lives in the future.

We also have a choice as to whether we will obey God’s Word, follow His commands and receive His blessings, or if we will choose to disobey God and do things our own way and not receive the blessings of God. The power of choice is a powerful option in the life of humans.

Choice is an option every human possesses. The power of choice can be either used or abused by us as individuals. Before we make a choice or decision in any situation, we should consider the calculated cost involved in making the choice. The choices we make in life have a way of charting the course of our lives.

We can wisely and intelligently use our power of choice to make decisions in life that will benefit us in a positive way, or we can act with a little less wisdom and make decisions based on choices that were not well thought out. Those choices can bring consequences with them that are not beneficial for us.

In the early chapters of the book of Genesis, we learn about the creation of all things, including humanity. We learn about the responsibilities God assigned to Adam and Eve, and we see right away that God presented choices.

When God created Adam from the dust of the ground, He gave Adam the responsibility of taking care of the Garden of Eden. God made every tree pleasant to look at and good for food. In the midst of the garden, God placed two trees: the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

God also placed rivers in the garden. God placed Adam in the garden to dress it and keep it. In Genesis 2:16–17, we find these words: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (KJV).

God had created a peaceful paradise for Adam and Eve to enjoy. All Adam had to do was to keep the garden. Adam and Eve had free reign in the Garden of Eden.

There was a serpent in the garden that the Bible says was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made (Gen. 3:1, KJV). The serpent enticed Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit. Next, Eve offered the fruit to Adam, and he did eat also. We find this account in Genesis 3:2–7, And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons (KJV).

We see in this Genesis narrative a choice that God gave Adam. God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yet they chose to eat of the fruit of it. As a result of the choice that they made, Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden of Eden by God. The result of Adam’s choice affected all of us.

The Apostle Paul explains that the sin that Adam committed in disobeying God not only affected him and Eve but all of humanity. Romans 5:19 contains these words, For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (KJV). This teaches us that the sin of Adam caused all of humanity to be born sinners. The sinful nature is a corrupt nature that all of humanity inherited from Adam when he ate of the forbidden fruit.

But the end of Romans 5:19 says, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous (KJV). The one referred to in this is Jesus Christ, who is sometimes called the Second Adam. Because of the finished work of Jesus the Christ on the cross of Calvary, believers now have victory over sin. Sin no longer has dominion in the lives of God’s children. Christians have been declared righteous because of the blood