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Principles of Faith

djones

// Doug Jones

Many people in faith circles have the misconception that all faith does is believe that it receives. This, however, is a narrow view as to what faith is all about. Faith is so much more than getting our needs and desires met.

We please God by faith. We live and walk by faith. We receive protection through faith. Ephesians 6:16 says, "Above all, taking the shield of faith." Now, for Christians to "take" the shield of faith, they first have to recognize it when they see it.

 

Years ago I was trying to fix a leak in a bathroom sink. My son was just a little tyke at the time. "Son," I said, "I need a crescent wrench." He was so happy to go to my toolbox. You could hear tools flying everywhere as he looked for the wrench.
He came running into the bathroom asking, "Daddy, is this it?"

"No son, that's a pair of channellocks."

He ran back to the toolbox—tools are flying everywhere. He came running into the bathroom again. "Daddy, is this it?"

"No son, that's my pair of
vice-grips."

During the nine years I taught in Rhema's Healing School, people often came to me the same way my son did.

What Is Faith?
In Healing School, people would ask about faith. "Brother Doug," they'd ask, "is this faith? No? What about this—is this faith?"

When I saw they had difficulty recognizing what faith was, I realized we had a definition issue.
According to Strong's concordance, faith is simply "a persuasion." Vine's dictionary goes one step further. It says that faith is "a firm persuasion; a conviction based on what you have heard."

Based on Vine's definition, we could quote Hebrews 10:38 as "the just shall live by their convictions." We all have convictions and persuasions on how to conduct our lives.

We're all persuaded about how we should conduct ourselves on our jobs. We're persuaded that we should work as unto the Lord and not as unto men. We have convictions that we're to work not only when the boss's eyes are upon us, but also when they're not. Isn't that right?

This is faith. It has nothing to do with a need or desire. It has to do with life. It has to do with "walking by our convictions and not by what we see" (2 Cor. 5:7).

Receiving the End of Our Faith
If change and blessings are going to come into our lives, we must act on our faith—our convictions and persuasions.

James 2:18 says, "A man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith [your convictions and persuasions] without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith [my convictions and persuasions] by my works." Verse 20 goes on to say that "faith without works is dead."

The word dead here means "unproductive, inactive, idle." Although we have faith, it's not doing us any good because it's idle. Friend, a lot of us have more faith that is lying inactive than we have faith that is active.

I stated earlier that we believe we ought to work on our jobs as unto the Lord and not as unto men. But if we're not releasing our faith through corresponding actions, then our faith in that area is dead. As a result, we shouldn't expect to be promoted or receive a raise. We shouldn't expect blessings to come to us through our place of employment.

To receive what we're standing in faith for, there's a team that needs to work together. It's the team of faith—persuasions, convictions—and corresponding actions. If this team doesn't work together, then our faith becomes dead—inactive, idle, and unproductive.

Let's put our faith to work. Let's put action to our convictions and persuasions. Let's live by our faith.