The Measure Part 2 - Kingdom Faith with Pastor Marci

Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast

from St. Augustine, FL.

Now enjoy this message. Glory to God, say I have the

faith of God. Say I have the God kind of

faith. Come on, say it again.

I have the God kind of faith. Come on, Hallelujah.

Do you have the God kind of faith?

That's what we've been talking about, Amen.

And I just believe we have to ask ourselves, do do we really

have the God kind of faith? Do we see our lives and the

faith working in our lives the way that he describes what faith

is through the Word of God, Amen.

Because we say many people think they have faith, but true

biblical faith can be found only through what the Word of God

says faith is, Amen. What does the word of God say

faith is? And last week we started our

journey talking about Kingdom faith and that we have all been

given the measure. Say I've been given the measure

and we talked about the fact that though we've been given the

measure of faith, each and every one of us are responsible,

right, to determine what return or what measure our faith will

become. Because we said last Sunday when

Pastor was, well, not last Sunday, but the Sunday before

when he talked about the seed of the word.

And we talked about the fact that there should always be your

face should always be producing something within your life that

you can tangibly see and what it's up to you whether that is

going to be 3060 or a hundredfold return, right?

And so the measures been given to us, the seed of faith or the

seed of the word has been given to each and every one of us.

And we talked about the fact that it came the minute we

believed in our heart and confess with our mouth that

Jesus Christ is Lord. The seed of faith was planted.

The seed of faith then can begin to germinate or grow or increase

within our hearts and in our lives.

But we see that there were several things that just as

Pastor said out of Mark Four, that try to come in and choke

the word out of our life. And so everyone of us have to

determine, are we going to let our hearts be a place where

nothing come on? Are we going to have good

ground? Because if we let the Word or

the seed of faith that's been planted within our heart,

planted in good ground, then we should be able to expect and see

3060 or a hundredfold return of our life producing that which we

believe. So we talked about last week how

faith came, and we talked about the fact that faith is the

exchange or the currency of the Kingdom.

So any promise that God says that belongs to us as a child of

God in His Word, how are we going to receive that promise?

We have to receive it by hearing what the Word says about it.

We have to then believe, believe that word that he spoke.

And the evidence of us believing the word that was spoke is that

we will speak it out. Not only will we speak it out,

we will act it out because faith without action is what dead.

And we went through all of these things, but biblical faith only

will come from the Word of God. Biblical faith.

This is why we have to ask ourselves, is our faith built

upon what Grandma and Mama has told us?

Is our faith built upon what religion has taught us?

Is our faith built upon our experiences or our opinions of

what faith is? Or is our faith true biblical

faith built upon what the Word says?

Faith is what faith looks like, and we gave a huge demonstration

last week of those that walked in faith in the Word of God,

Amen. Out of Hebrews 11, the hall of

faith is what it's called, Hebrews Chapter 11, and we read

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

verses one through 40. Yes, we did.

Yes, we did. All right.

And we saw a true picture of what biblical faith looks like,

OK. And the fact that a lot of times

what we saw with those who actually walked faith out in

their life, it was always putting them in a situation to

where they were in the unknown. They were in, they lived in the

unknown. But the way American church and

Christianity looks today, nobody wants to live that way because

every example that I see through scripture of people living by

faith, they were in a peculiar situation or circumstance or

something was taking place that they would not be able to live

by. And we talked about this by

sight. God did not create us to live by

sight, He created us to live by faith and we read many

scriptures where he says the righteous should live by faith,

right? That those we should walk by

faith and not by sight. The just shall live by faith,

right? We read all of these scriptures

and so therefore we said this last week that true biblical

faith, and we have to say it that way because so many people

have what they say faith is, but it is in a lot of crazy

thinking, OK, we said this, that faith is a spiritual law in the

Kingdom of God. It's a spiritual law.

And that law started the minute we believed in our heart and

confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord.

The same way we we heard the word, we had to believe, receive

the word that we needed a Savior, that we had to believe

the word that we needed a Savior, and then we had to

confess Him as Lord of our life. That is a spiritual law in the

Kingdom or the law of faith. And that is how for the rest of

your life you will receive the promises from God through that

law of what we could call believing you've received,

speaking it out, and then acting upon it.

And so we saw last week as well that we have to be those that

live by faith. That means that we are going to

have to build our life upon faith.

To live by it means we build our life upon it.

And we said this, that faith was what?

A firm persuasion based upon what you believe and accept this

as truth because there's many people that believe Jesus Christ

is their Savior, but that's the only truth that they believe

about Him. So there's many truths within

His Word or promises within His word that belongs to every

believer, but you can only believe Him based upon certain

things that you want to receive from Him.

And many people choose not to receive healing from Him, even

though it's a promise that belongs to all who will believe.

Do you see what I'm saying? So it's based upon this firm

persuasion is based upon what you believe and what you accept

is truth. You know, we don't get to just

choose our own truth or live our own truth as a believer are the

truth is supposed to be formed in our life from the word of

God, not from what some psychiatrist says or what some

psychologist says or what some book says on how we are to raise

our children or all of these coaches that are now coaches on

Instagram, life coaches. My life coach comes straight

from the word of God. This is what I build my life

upon. So we saw that faith is a is a

firm for persuasion based upon what you believe, what you have

accepted as truth and that you adhere to it.

That you adhere to it so firmly that not only do you just

believe it and adhere to it, it actually you allow it to govern

your life, life, right? This faith is supposed to govern

what we think, what we say and what we do.

It's supposed to govern what we think, what we say and what we

do. So our lives and what we, how we

talk, what we're meditating on and the actions or the fruit of

our life will be evident. You will be able to see if

people are truly living by what they believe because there will

be evidence of it within their lives, right?

Every day. And so he says it this, we say

it this way too. It's an assurance.

It's the reality of your what you are believing.

It's confidence or conviction, right?

A firm persuasion or a confident expectation.

This is true biblical faith and we saw this out of Hebrews 11/1

and three, I want to reread it Hebrews 11/1 and three, it says

now faith is the substance or assurance.

I added King James and the SAB together.

So now faith is the substance, the assurance of things hoped

for, the conviction or evidence of things not seen, say not

seen. This is what we're going to

focus on this tonight. The not seen, the not seen.

So it's the conviction or evidence of things not seen.

For by it the men of old gained approval.

And by faith we understand that the world's listen to this.

By faith we understand that the world's were prepared by the

Word of God. By the Word of God we know in

the beginning in Genesis, what did He do?

He said in Genesis one, let there be.

And what was there? He created the world.

He created everything we see in this world by His word, we can

be assured, we can be firmly persuaded.

We should have the conviction that His word will form, will

create whatever world we see that we want to live in.

And if we want to see the promises of God, then we have to

base our faith on what the Word says about our marriage, what

the Word says about our finances, what the Word says

come on about healing and health in our body.

What does the Word say? Because that is what I'm going

to build my faith upon. That is the substance of what

I'm going to build upon and that is going to create the reality

in the natural, in this natural realm.

And to do that it will always be unseen.

To start, it was all. It was unseen to God before He

created the world, but then He spoke it and it came into

reality and he said in a mark we read this last week, Mark 11/22

to have the God kind of faith, the God kind of faith.

So if he says something and can create it, then what is He

saying that we should be doing? Saying something and what?

Creating it. But we have to believe what

we're saying. And that belief has to be based

upon what his word has said, right?

It's not just, you know, whatever.

No, it's what the Word has said belongs to us.

So by faith we understand that the world's were prepared or

created by the Word of God so that what is seen was not made

out of the things which are visible.

And he tells us this is the kind of faith that we are to have,

has given us the measure of that faith.

And therefore we are people that are not going to be able to live

by what we see in this natural realm or this natural world.

Period. We can't live by that.

True people of living by faith is not going to live by what we

see in this natural realm. We're going to live by the

substance of faith, that substance.

And we said that stop substance was to be the foundation or the

structure, that word substance. Let me find that again.

It means that thing that we're setting up under to support us.

It is concrete. Come on, It is the foundation,

the substance of faith. Get that?

The substance of faith is what we are to build our foundation

upon, not anything else. Not anything else.

And faith, before it is brought into reality, cannot be seen.

It cannot be seen. We know that there's wind.

You can't see the wind. You only see the effects of the

wind. So wind is not seen.

What you see is the effects of the wind.

So faith is not seen, but what you should see is the effects of

your faith within your life and whatever promise God says

belongs to you, right? So you should see the evidence

of that. That is the substance that

you're building your life upon. That is the foundation.

And we have to act, truly ask ourselves, is, is that my

foundation? Is faith truly the foundation of

what I've built my life upon? Because we know that many people

say they have faith. And this is great to reiterate

because they say, oh, yeah, I believe that there is a God.

I have faith that there's a God. But they don't know how to

appropriate that faith to where they live by it every day.

And he tells us that we are to live by this, right?

We're to live by it, not just believe that there's a God and

that he can do anything. But actually, what Pastor has

taught us, I believe that what he says that we can do and he

can do, he'll do through me, through me, through us.

That's where we have to be, OK? And faith we saw last week is

useless if it's not activated, if we're not acting on it or we

are not believing God. And the most of the time that

it's going to be activated is in the situations, the tests, the

trials, the circumstances where it looks like you're going

under, where it looks like your marriage is falling apart.

When it looks like, come on, you're not going to be able to

make your mortgage when it looks like these are in the unseen.

This is in the unseen realm that you are to apply your faith

within those moments and in those times.

And that is to really lives by faith.

I'm not going to live by what I see.

I'm not going to live by how I feel about the situation.

I'm not going to live by so we can sing about it, but I'm

finding a lot of people are actually doing it in the midst

of these situations. OK, So we have to stir ourselves

up in faith because we said that in Second Corinthians.

He says, test yourself to see if you're in faith.

So this is a test of what true biblical faith looks like.

And we should test our lives according to what true biblical

faith looks, not not according to our imagination and what we

think or how we think, right? And this, this is always, always

a heart, always wanting to say, am I in faith in this situation?

Or have I responded differently and and I responding differently

in whatever circumstance I'm going to?

Or do I go straight to the word and do I believe the word, speak

the word, act upon the Word no matter what I see, right?

Do I act upon the word no matter what I see?

Am I firmly persuaded that my faith that's built upon him will

not fail? We said the Weymouth

translation. Read it this way out of Hebrews

11. Now faith means that we are

confident of what we hope for, and convinced of what we do not

see, say, do not see. Moffett translation reads it

this way. Faith is the title deed of

things hoped for, putting to prove the things not seen.

Faith is the title deed. The title deed, it is done.

I own it right. Hallelujah.

So faith will always operate in the unseen.

Let's talk about this tonight. Faith is the substance that is

unseen. Pastor had ministered a sermon

called the Unseen Principle a long time ago.

How many of you were here when he did that or remember that?

So we're going to just kind of read not, I don't have his

message. We're just going to be talking

about the unseen principle. So one of the greatest examples

and scripture that we see that lived by faith was Abraham.

Abraham, who is called the father of faith, also was called

the father of us all. He was our example, He was our

father. He was the father of faith, the

father of us all. And I would like to look at his

life and how he lived by faith and he lived in the unseen.

OK, now let's go to Romans chapter 416 through 20.

Romans say my faith is out of this world.

Say it again, my faith is out of this world.

Say my faith is out of this world.

My faith is out of this world. Come on, it's out of this world.

It is not of this natural realm. It's not our faith is out of

this world. Hallelujah, which would be a

good title for this message, though it wasn't.

But so look at Romans, as I said, is everybody there?

Because we see here through Abraham's life.

It says, therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace

to the end, the to end the promise.

Excuse me, to the end the promise might be sure to all the

seed, not to that only which is of the law, but to that also

which is of the faith of Abraham, which is US, who is the

father of us all. As it is written, I have made

thee a father of many nations before him who he believed, even

God, who quickened the dead, and called those things which he not

as though they were, who against hope believed in hope that he

might become the father of many nations.

According to that which was spoken.

So shall thy seed be without becoming what?

Weak in faith, he contemplated his own body, now as good as

dead, since he was about 100 years old, and the deadness of

Sarah's womb. Yet with respect to the promise

of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in

faith, giving glory to God. Hallelujah.

So we know Abraham and Sarah, God promised them a child and

they were up of age, that they, neither one of them were in

child bearing age, right? They were old OK and we see that

God spoke this promise to him and said you will have a child

and you will be the father. What of many of of all these

people in the nation, many nations and we see here Abraham

he said this that he what called those things which be not as

though they were so faith did not go by what he saw in this

natural realm. Faith, the God kind of faith

will always defy natural laws. Always God's faith will always

defy natural laws. It can supersede it because his

faith is out of this world. So it doesn't matter how dead

your circumstance looks. It doesn't matter what's going

on in your life. If we would take up the faith

his what his word calls faith, a firm persuasion, a confident

expectation and begin to let it operate within our lives, then

we would begin to start calling those things that be not as

though they were. That be not as though he said

his word would would be as though he said his word would be

in whatever situation you may go through.

And that is the substance of faith, his word.

It's the substance that we are to build our life upon, and it's

going to go against everything we see in the natural.

Everything we see in the natural.

Abraham had to believe. What did it say?

Hope against hope, according to that which was spoken by God.

His word is what He has said. So whatever was spoken in His

Word, that's what we are to believe in the midst of whatever

circumstance we're going through or whatever situation we're

going through. And what did he do?

He did not contemplate when translation said that the

deadness of Sarah's womb, He didn't contemplate it, right?

That means, guess what? He did not meditate on that.

But what he meditated on was what God had promised him.

And so his faith was in what God had promised him, not with his

circumstance or the evidence of what he was seeing in the

natural. Because faith will always

supersede it. Because our faith is to be out

of this world. It does not function like this

world system. Come on it doesn't function like

this world system. I want to reread James chapter 2

James 2 · chapter mention

because James chapter 2 which is what we read last week and I

James 2 · chapter mention

didn't elaborate on Abraham but they mentioned Abraham in James

James 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 and I want to read it again in James chapter 2 verses.

James 2 · chapter mention

Actually we read last week 14 through 26 but I want to start

in 18 and listen to this. It says, now someone may argue

some people have faith, others have good deeds.

But I say, how can you show me your faith if you do not have

good deeds? I will show you my faith by good

deeds. Because we started, we talked

about the fact that faith will act.

Faith will do what it believes. Verse 19, you say you have faith

for you believe that there is one God.

Good for you, good for you. This is those people.

Oh yeah, I believe there's a God.

Well, good for you. OK, but do we live by it?

Because he goes on to say this. That's good for you.

Even the demons believe this. So you have the faith of demons.

It's all if all you do is believe that there's a God.

Good for you. Think about that, because does

this faith work in your life every day?

Because if not, you're no better than a demon.

Come on, let's just say it like that.

You have no more faith than what a demon has.

The demons believe this and they tremble in terror.

But I know believers that don't even have one ounce of the fear

of the Lord. But demons tremble because they

do believe there is a God. They know that there is a God

and they know that they will give answer to that God and they

have more fear of God than we do.

Just a side point. Because the American church has

lost all reverence and fear of God because they still want to

just live the way they want to live.

Look what he says in verse 20. How foolish.

Can't you see that faith without good deeds is useless?

Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be

right by God or right with God by his actions when he offered

his son Isaac on the altar? And aren't you glad that God is

not ever asking us to have to offer our children because He

offered His only Son in our place?

But how many of us say we have all this wonderful faith and go

to all these grand, wonderful faith conferences and can echo

everything that we're supposed to say Faith does, how faith

comes, what faith, how you to act upon it?

But yet we don't believe Him and actually do the Word every day

in our everyday life, in our everyday life.

To me, that is useless, right? And so he lets us know because,

you know, the American Church does not believe in sacrifice

any longer. Nobody wants to have to

sacrifice anything. They don't want to sacrifice

their time to serve. They don't want to sacrifice,

you know, their finances. They don't want to sacrifice

walking in love with somebody that may have done them wrong.

Come on. They don't want to sacrifice

their time. They don't want to.

They don't want to sacrifice any law, but they do want to say

they have faith in God. They don't want to sacrifice

anymore. And we're going to be a church

that's going to have faith that endures till the end because

we're seeing many people that are falling away from the faith

and not enduring, and they don't endure because they just simply

don't believe what His Word says that it is and that it can do.

It's just as simple as that. It's it's not some big

revelation, OK? It's not a big revelation.

This thing on how we, I wasn't even feel, I wasn't even, I had

not even been taught faith and was living a life of faith,

didn't even know that I was living a life of faith.

But you know what? I did know what his word was

telling me to do and I believed it.

And guess what else I did? I acted upon it had no

revelation of the AB CS of faith, had no revelation that I

have to believe and speak and and act.

But what I did know is what the Word was telling me to do.

And guess what I did? I obeyed that.

And every step of the way, God always took care of every single

need, every single thing. Hallelujah.

And the sacrifices that were made were done by faith and what

He was asking and requiring of me.

And there was always a sacrifice and there was always a

requirement to be able to do what He was asking of me to, to,

to do. And we, we said this, that when

he called pastor and I to ministry, we were living in

Georgia at the time and we're going to a Baptist Church, a

Baptist Church. That's where our faith was.

We had no idea. We picked up US and our two

children at the time, loaded up a pickup and headed to Georgia

because Pastor heard the Lord say go to Georgia, you know, and

live with my father because at the time he was not born again

and all these things and that he was going to get a job and we

were going to, you know, whatever.

He was coming off of a, a National Guard tour at the time

and we knew nothing. And actually my husband was

reading the Bible and he had picked up a little booklet from

Charles Stanley and in it he was talking about faith according to

Charles Stanley's faith, right. And that was the seed of faith

or the measure of faith that we were walking in at the time.

And all he knew is we are supposed to pick up and go, no

job, nothing. Well, that was a sacrifice

because I mean, you're asking me to just pick up and go with you.

And, you know, whatever. I don't even remember how long

we had even been married by them.

Only maybe four or five years. Not even that long.

And so we we sold everything, picked up and loaded up the

pickup and you know, you've heard the story.

It was on the 4th of July weekend when we were moving up

there and didn't even get out of what was at Lake City and a

overpass had collapsed, collapsed in the middle of the

highway. So 4th of July weekend still in

Florida in Lake City, the middle of right, no breeze.

I mean it's 4th of July and it's hot.

It's 90°. We're in line for.

We are in traffic for four hours with a child that hated the car

seat in the 1st place, which was Chase, Pastor Chase, who

screamed bloody murder every time you put him in a car seat

and got carsick all the time. And so he's screaming he's hot.

What happens? We are in this Interstate for so

long, car stop, just start pulling off the side of the road

because they're overheating. So everybody's overheating and

we finally get to a gas station. We cut our car off and it

wouldn't crank back up. And you heard the story where

the one guy showed up, put the pliers on one side of the jumper

thing and a tire iron on the other.

One Junior and with short shorts and it's his no shoes, no shirt.

It was welcome there at that Jiffy store and with the pockets

of the shorts, you know, the front pockets hanging out.

He was our Angel that day, junior, and he cranked our car

right up with his bare hands and those two things.

And we took off to Atlanta and, you know, the rest is history.

Maybe we'll get into some of those testimonies, but we had

nothing, you know, and here's my husband telling me I'm going to

get a good job. We're going to, you know, all I

wanted was a, a house with a white picket fence.

And you know, somebody that worked 9:00 to 5:00.

So he got a good job all right. And they were getting ready to

send him. He was working for like a DAPA

corporation or something. And he was doing mainframes with

the computer stuff and was get, they were getting ready to send

him so that he could see that he saw in the paper in Atlanta that

they could start making six figures.

So we're, we're going for it, right?

The American dream. And but God arrested him on his

way to work one night because he was working shift work and he

had that open vision of him preaching.

To masses and was called into the ministry.

Came home the next morning and told me this grand vision.

And do y'all know what my comments were?

I did not marry a pastor. That's good for you, but that is

not who I am ever wanted to be, ever want to be right and said

you going to be doing this thing on your own.

And that's where I was spiritually.

OK. And you know, so all of these

things, I mean, we're living in my dad's house and you telling

me we call and going into the ministry.

I said I'm not pastor wife material.

I mean, don't you know, I was a teenage dropout pregnant girl?

I mean, you know, that's not pastor wife material.

You know, I had in my mind what I thought a pastor and then

every pastor wife I really ever had known looked miserable,

wasn't really raised in church, you know, or anything.

But it did not look like this grand life that you're, you're

telling me we going to make 6 figures.

And now we going into the ministry where they didn't wear

makeup and had buns in their hair and I cannot play the

piano. My mom didn't make me finish my

piano lessons. I mean, this is what I

envisioned, you know, and I said we might as well sign the papers

now because that is not what I signed up for.

I didn't even know what I signed up for at the in reality, OK,

but anyway, but God had other plans And you know what I had to

do? I had to surrender my life to

His plans. I had to sacrifice my life to

His plans. I had to make a decision.

Am I going to live out the Word of God for my life and for what

He is saying or what He is requiring and begin to start

living by faith and not by all the circumstances and the

situations that I was encountering on a regular basis

with this husband of mine? So then, you know, he gets, you

know, so he's telling me he's called to the ministry.

We didn't know what that meant. We had no clue what that meant,

had nobody in the ministry in our family but a stepbrother.

And I said this last week that now doesn't even serve the Lord

and has a pot farm. OK, He's into the municipal

marijuana stuff and actually was the very first person that sewed

into our ministry when we started this church at Gamble

Rogers and gave us all of the sound equipment to start with,

but now doesn't even serve the Lord and has a pot farm.

So what does that tell me? His faith did not endure.

He was in Bible college and felt called to the ministry.

And that is the only person we knew.

Like, OK, so my husband's like, well, I mean, if God's calling

us, I guess we need to go to a Bible school, you know, because

I made good grades and everything, so surely I can go

find a Bible school. Well, that was the only Bible

school we knew of, which is where he was going.

And I said this last week and it was a living hell when we then

he tells me we weren't even in Georgia very long, not even two

years. And at the same time got

pregnant with Brianna and moved into an apartment in Rose,

Roswell, GA. And it was infested with

roaches. My dad was trying to talk us out

of moving into this apartment. Stay with me, stay with me, it's

fine. So we move into this apartment

and did not stay there two days, packed everything back up and

move back it. How do you think that made me

feel? You know, I didn't want to have

to, you know, put down my pride and go back and live with him.

And, you know, now this new found, you know, thing of

knowing you're called to ministry and to be a pastor and

yet you can't even move into an apartment, be there for two

weeks, whatever. I don't know.

But all I do know is in that night of sleeping in that Roach

infested apt, I had to take a pregnancy test and found out I

was pregnant with little old Brianna, right, Who's 30 now,

you know, so here we are, you know, in Georgia.

He's telling me he's called to the ministry.

We moving having to move back with my dad.

This is all within like not even six months period of time, you

know, that all these things are transpiring and then tells me

we're going to pick up and move to South Carolina.

Columbia, SC is where this seminary was that my stepbrother

was going. So that's all we knew.

So now he's telling me we're going to sell any little

belongings we had left and now we're going to move to, we had

to load up a U-Haul and move to South Carolina.

I'm pregnant, right? I'm all these things.

Now he is jobless again because we're moving.

He couldn't keep his six figure, you know, job, which we never

obtained to believe me anyway. So we get to South Carolina and

now we're in a place where we don't know anyone other than the

stepbrother. It's still it's a Baptist

seminary at that, which is what we call cemeteries today, right.

Baptist seminary no job. I mean, was just miserable and

not knowing, having a clue what's happening and no money

until he, he started doing some side jobs with somebody through

the church where my stepbrother was going to.

But it was barely enough. You know, my kids don't even

know that that Christmas, the only Christmas presents that

they got was because someone knew we had moved there from the

other church we were going to in Georgia and asked if they could

their Sunday school class could bless our children with

Christmas gifts. I didn't.

My kids don't ever know that, but of course they got presents

from their grandparents and then this Sunday school class wanted

to send our children Christmas presents and thank God they did

because we had nothing. They don't even know that when

we then God calls us to Rhema out of that cemetery and thank

God I prayed us out of South Carolina.

I'm serious. My husband, I was still so

locked up. I had never told him that I was

actually filled with the Holy Ghost because he was a good old

Southern Baptist boy. And I was so locked up and

didn't trust people and didn't trust what he would have think

would have thought. And so I never told him that I

had gotten filled with the Holy Ghost at a Church of God.

And so during that six month span that we were in South

Carolina, I started praying in the Holy Ghost every single day

while he was at cemetery. And listen, I started praying in

the Holy Ghost. I mean, I was like, this is not

where I am supposed to be. This is not what my life is

supposed to be. We had no money, you know, I

mean, just it was miserable. It was just miserable.

And and I told y'all last week I had like $14.00 to my name to

our name and had to make a decision whether I was going to

buy baby formula or pay my tithe.

Back then I didn't even know how the principles of faith worked.

All I know is his word said to tithe.

So I made a decision to buy her cow's milk which was $200.00,

two dollars and something a gallon at the time.

Put my tithe in the offering and that very week we owe I opened

up the door and there was groceries filled in bags on our

front doorstep. So because I'm praying in the

Holy Ghost and I'm crying out to God and saying this is not my

life. I don't want this life.

What have you? What are you doing to me?

What have you asked of me? What have I done to deserve

this? I mean, what have I done to

deserve this, right? I mean, I was saying it all.

And you know, there was not really the only faith that I had

was in what I knew in the word of God.

And so he got us out six. I mean, one one day he walked.

Well, I'll tell you what happened.

He was having to ride a bike to the cemetery every day, and

that's how he had to get there. He was riding a bike and in

South Carolina there's hills, guys, right up and down these

hills. His wheel flew off of the bike

and he flipped and wrecked and had to get a ride on the side of

the road with somebody, a complete stranger.

He shows up with this wheel in his hand and the bike in the

other hand and some random car that showed up dropping him off.

And I walk outside and I'm like, what is up?

And he said, I think we need to move back to Florida.

I said, I think you're right. I think you're right.

And so we loaded up the pickup again from South Carolina with

bald tires on our van and bald tires on this trailer from a

friend to help us pull this, whatever we owned at the time.

And the tires were so bad, the friend that loaned us or the

yeah, that loaned us the trailer and ended up buying us new

tires. He's like, you're not going to

make it to Florida with these tires.

And this is how poor we were, guys.

And and so we get back to Florida.

Well, he goes to work for Orkin and we're moving.

We moved in with his mother. So yay for me.

That was fun times with three kids, her, her other son, his

brother that passed away and that was another whole scenario.

But anyway there's so many stories I could tell.

Y'all just want story night of how we had to live by faith.

Hallelujah. And so anyway, let me see if I

can move on from here. Oh, glory to God.

Is this helping anybody? Listen, this is called living by

faith. This is called do you believe

his word or do you not? This is called, there's going to

be things that he's asking you to do.

You're not going to want to do. You're not going to want to

sacrifice. You're not going to want to

sell. You're not going to want to have

to do this, to do that in which he's asking of you.

But I'm telling you what? No risk, no reward.

No risk, no reward. We would not be doing what we're

doing today if we had not risked it all.

Everything, spirit, soul and body risk it all.

Let it all go and completely trust in who he says he is.

Apply it to your everyday life. Walk this thing out, carry out

what he tells you to do. And I'm going to tell you every

time he will come through every single time.

Because if there is no risk, there is no reward at the end.

And he is not in. Listen, true biblical faith does

not look like this mamby pamby, Sissy American stuff that we're

seeing today across this nation in churches.

I'm just telling you, it is not real faith.

It's not real faith. It is not comfortable to live by

faith. It is not easy to do the things

that he is requiring of you to cut people out of your life, to

cut off this, to cut out that, to say I'll never take another

look at that. I'll never do that again.

I'll never. I mean, come on.

These are the things that he's asking of us to truly grow and

mature as the body of Christ. There's going to be sacrifice.

There's going to be suffering, which nobody wants to hear

today. It's, I mean, I suffered, but I

suffered in the grace of God. I suffered in the rest of God.

I suffered in the plan of God, in the will of God, and the only

thing that really suffered was my flesh and my will to align my

will with His. I mean, my kids don't even know

that I had to sell blood platelets while we were at Rhema

to buy them Christmas presents 'cause you could go multiple

times during the month. And we didn't have the money to

buy them while we were at Bible school.

So we would. We found out that you could get

20 to $40 every time you went to give blood platelets downtown

Tulsa. So that's what we did.

And yet we can't even give our time to serve His body.

There's requirements, guys, to live biblical faith, true

biblical faith. That means He's going to ask us

to give when it hurts. He's going to ask us to do

things when it is not convenient, when it is not

comfortable, and when you want to say no.

But if you do it, come on, there's going to be real faith

operating in your life. Hallelujah.

So we've all been given the measure of faith and he expects

us to walk it out. And we have to be people that

listen in the natural. In the natural, there's no

groceries. This is what I'm seeing.

No food for my children in the natural.

But my God is out of this world, so I couldn't look.

Look at the empty cabinet. What I had to look at is that

God, you said that if I tithe, that you would open up the

windows of heaven and pour out upon me a blessing.

Oh, Hallelujah. You told me that if I sowed my

seed. Come on and put it in the ground

that my God would supply all of my needs and I'm in a need right

now. And my need is is that I don't

see anything that. But let me tell you something.

And you know what else he said? That his righteous would never

have to beg for seed. And I'm going to tell you we

never had to beg for seed. We never had to beg for food.

We never had to beg even though many a times, and I think maybe

it was more pride than even faith sometimes because you

know, all along I'm thinking I never got food stamps.

And no shame on anybody that lived.

Food shamps should not be your source and supply.

As a child of God, you should not live on that.

No, what you should live on is the word of God, the bread.

Come on, every word that proceeds out of his mouth.

We didn't have food stamps. And I thought to myself, well

how stupid. All these years later, well how

stupid, why didn't we go get food stamps?

I didn't know you could get WIC and milk for.

I could have had formula for my baby, but really I was just too

prideful probably. But in my pride, I learned how

to what? Trust in God, Have faith in God,

because this government is not my source.

That's what I learned. But I learned it the hard way.

And nobody wants to go through the hard way of true biblical

faith to actually learn how to exercise faith and live by it.

Hallelujah, I'm telling you this works every time.

It works every time it works. Never had to beg for bread.

He always came through. He always supplied because we

always did what his word said to do and we believed it and we

acted upon it and we lived by it.

Hallelujah, Hallelujah. So that your faith.

The measure of faith can grow and increase in your life some

3060 and 100 fold. If you don't exercise when

there's nothing, guess what? It's not going to grow.

It's not going to increase to where, as I said, Brother Hagin

used to say, how can somebody act like they're going to

believe God for $100,000 and can't even believe God for gas

to put in their car? You see that?

So you have to what? What do you have?

Start with the measure of faith that you have, just like the

widow woman. What do you have?

You know what she said. All I have was this, a little

bit of flour that I'm going to make for me and my son.

This was her confession so that we can die.

Have you ever felt like you were going to die?

I have, I have. We're going to die if this don't

come through. I mean, you know, we're going to

die if God don't come through. But what we do have is faith.

We've been given the measure of faith.

And therefore, I'm going to stand upon what His words said

and believe God in the midst of these situations where you feel

like you're going to die and that you have nothing else.

This is true biblical faith. So Abraham, listen, this is what

he he had to be a person that said, listen, I'm not going to

look at the deadness of the womb, but I'm going to in hope

against hope and belief in faith, I'm going to believe and

call those things that be not as though they were because my life

is built upon the promise of God.

My life is built upon the word of God.

Faith is the substance that I have built my life upon.

So therefore you had to what, walk it out?

And did it happen for Abraham overnight?

And what if he would have shrunk back?

Because Hebrew says, right, he has no pleasure in those that

shrink back from faith. What if he would have quit?

Believe it. What if he would have quit

calling? Well, I can assure you we

wouldn't see the things that he was able to see.

So say my faith is out of this world.

We are not to live by what we see in this natural realm.

Hallelujah, glory to God. Now let's read Hebrews.

We'll close with this Hebrews again about Abraham.

Did I finish reading James about Abraham?

OK, OK, let's read Hebrews about Abraham because I wanted you to

see this. So starting in verse one.

And it goes like this. Now faith is assurance of things

hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

For by it men of old gained approval by faith.

We understand that the world's were prepared by the Word of

God, so that what is seen was not made out of the things which

are visible by faith. Abel offered to God a better

sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony

that he was righteous. God testifying about the gifts,

and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks by faith.

Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, and he was

not found because God took him up, for he obtained the witness

that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God and

faith. And without faith it's

impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe

that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him

by faith. Noah, being warned right by God

about the things that were not seen, not yet seen in reverence,

prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by

which he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness

according to his faith. And Noah is a whole nother, one

you could talk about. But by faith, Abraham, when he

was called, obeyed by going to a place which he was to receive

for an inheritance. And he went out not knowing

where he was going. This is my life.

Call pastor when next time you see him.

If some call him apostles, some call him pastor.

Why don't we start calling him Father Abraham, which is what my

sons used to call him, because this was my life.

We just going to go and we don't know where we're going, how

we're going, or what we're going to do when we're getting there.

OK? But God, it said.

But by faith, Abraham, when he was called obeying and going out

to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, he

went out not knowing where he was going.

But by faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as

in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac Jacob, fellow

heirs of the same promise. For he was looking for the city

which has foundation whose architect and builder is God.

By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive

even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered him

faithful who had promised. Is he faithful?

Hallelujah. He is faithful to His Word.

So Abraham is a perfect example because there were many even

tests that Abraham had to go through.

He had to OfferUp Isaac, right? He had to go to a place where

God had called him and he didn't know where he was going.

He had to call those things that be not as though they were to

conceive a child. These were three testings that

Abraham had to go through with his faith towards God.

So again, this is an example of him not being able to live by

what he saw. He had to live by faith.

He had to live by faith, which is out of this world, out of

this natural realm. And what did he do?

He had to believe it. But not only did he have to

believe it, he had to act upon it.

And he's a perfect example of him believing well, receiving

the promise of what God said, believing the promise of what

God said, calling forth the promise of what God said,

because he called those things that be not as though they were,

and then acting upon what God had said to do by offering up

his son Isaac. So Abraham's that perfect

example of someone who lived by faith, who is the father of our

faith, the father of us all, and actually walked it out and saw

the reality of his faith in action, saw it in the reality

after he had to believe in the unseen.

Amen. He had to believe in the unseen.

He had to believe that there would be a seed within him for

his wife to conceive in the deadness of their womb.

He had to believe it, and it was not seen.

And how long did it take her to conceive the promise?

And do we give up? Do we give up in the midst of

the things that God's asking of us?

Or are you one, that I'm going to walk this thing out so that I

can see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

I'm going to see what he promised me.

I'm going to walk it out. I don't care how long it takes,

look at Noah and his faith and listen.

These people were not even born again.

These people were not even filled with the Holy Ghost and

God required of their faith to be put into action and to live

by it. Noah having to build an ark when

they had never seen rain and was mocked and ridiculed, called

crazy. And some of us don't even like

it when people talk about you because of what you believe.

And he put up with it day in and day out, doing what God had

said, building that ark, doing all the necessary things to that

was required of him to be able to live by what God spoke over

him that he needed him to do in the earth.

And that is the same faith. This is true biblical faith.

This is what he's still requiring of believers today.

It is not this comfortable Christianity that America has

made. It's not.

There are things that are required for us to live by on a

daily basis of sacrifice of of things that we're going to have

to give up to be able to produce true biblical faith for people

to see what the Kingdom really can offer people's lives.

Amen. And I'm going to tell you, it

don't ever stop. This is the faith law that

whatever he's asking, whatever we're doing, we are going to

have to receive it. We're going to have to believe

it, We're going to have to speak it, and we are going to have to

walk it out. If we are going to see the

promises of God within our life, if we're going to see the the

reality of the Kingdom in demonstration in our life, then

we are going to have to walk these things out.

That's being required of us. And the majority of it is us

just, you know, him requiring us just to grow spiritually.

And that's a sacrifice. I remember when I was having to

grow up spiritually and grow in. And I'm not there because we're

always should be growing until he returns.

But we should be in a place where we've matured.

And it's evident. But I remember, you know, having

to cut friends off because there was a requirement that, you know

what? I can no longer hang out with

these that are partying. You know, that was a

requirement. Oh, God forbid you tell people

they have to cut people off today.

Oh, you're a cult. Seriously.

Oh, God forbid, you know, he say, you know, you really

shouldn't be listening to that type of music because it's only

promoting lust and it's only promoting anger.

And it's only, I remember him speaking to me and say you can't

listen to that any longer. It is not good for your

spiritual growth. You're no longer going to be

able to, you know, do this. I mean, because he was requiring

more for us to grow spiritually. And therefore there was things

that he is requiring to cut out of your life so that you can

grow and that you can mature. And once you get to a place,

he's not saying you can never speak to them people again, but

you're not going to habitually hang out with them because they

want to party and drink. And God's trying to separate you

out of this world. So there's requirements, there's

things according to his Word so that we can grow and mature.

And those things are sacrifices. And you have to put up with the

people saying, oh, you just think you're better now that

you, you know, you and Earl got married and, and y'all are

living for the Lord. You think you're better than us

and you don't want to come over and, you know, have a cookout

and party and drink beer anymore.

What is that? You know all these things.

Well, who knew he actually wanted us to be holy?

Who knew he actually was calling us into the ministry when I was

having to do all those things? Who knew that I had to drive

around in a $400.00 car because that's all we could buy?

And I was embarrassed because I had drove way nicer ones before

I met him. But guess what that was doing?

Stripping down my pride. But guess if I wouldn't have.

You know my son used to hide in the back of the seat when we

pulled up to the school because of the hoop Dee we were driving.

Literally $400.00. That's all we had because our

van had gotten repossessed. You know what we learned?

Completely surrendered everything.

Everything. That's why I don't care what

people think. They don't know where I've come

from. They don't know what God has

proven himself to do through my life.

They don't know the sacrifices. They don't know the things.

So they get up and they want to say what they want to say.

You know what? None of them can live the life I

lived. It was all by faith.

It's still all by faith. To get beyond myself, to believe

God for others, to pray for others, that their seed would

increase, that their marriages would be blessed and prospered

when all I knew was divorce. But yet I have heaven on earth

now when He stays right. Just teasing, but I had to learn

how to submit. And you know how I learned how

to submit to my husband through submitting to God, submitting to

his word. And I know many people that

don't submit to the the word of God.

And that's why there's a submission problem, because once

you learn how to fully submit to the Word of God, you have no

problem submitting at all to anyone, to anyone.

Because I fear God, fear God, and I want to submit to what His

Word says in every area of my life so that I can walk this

thing out and see the promises of God and see a return of faith

being produced in my life. Amen.

And that's what He wants for you, every single one of you.

We want to see faith arise in people's lives, people to

overcome all the nonsense and just start living by faith and

walking this thing out every day in your life.

And you do it by simply believing what His word says,

acting upon it, speaking it out, doing it every day, in every

season, in every circumstance, in every situation.

Let me tell you, there should not be any season that you are

not living by faith. That means my faith is active at

all times, at all times. Active faith, active faith in

whatever it is, because nothing is impossible for those who will

believe or have faith. And what God has said above,

what we're seeing in this natural realm.

Amen. Thank you so much for listening

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