Walking by Faith - Part 3 - Faith Sees

What does it really mean to walk by faith?

How do you pull all these components together so that you can walk by faith in God and in His Word?

I'm glad you asked that question because on the Faith Builders broadcast today and all this month, we're going to be looking at how to walk by faith and what the walk of faith looks like in the life of the believer.

I'm so glad you joined me today.

Let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 7.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

This is where we've been beginning throughout this series.

And it's a very short statement that the Apostle Paul makes.

And he says, For we walk by faith, not by sight.

We walk by faith, not by sight.

And we've talked about how the Amplified Bible says we regulate our lives and conduct ourselves by our convictions or our beliefs respecting man's relationship with God.

And it said, therefore we walk not by sight or by appearance.

And we've dealt with, you know, individuals that try to not walk by what they see, but they're not regulating or they're not convinced and walking by faith.

You can't do that.

You've got to understand the natural man and woman, just by nature, we're designed by nature to walk by what we see, to believe it if we see it, right?

To if we feel it, we believe it's real.

If we see it, we believe it's real.

If we can touch it, handle it, feel it, then we believe it's real.

Faith operates outside of all of those.

All right?

Faith is this conviction that something is true.

And I I encourage you to go back to our YouTube channel and watch all of the previous broadcasts.

But the reason is we talked about this earlier.

Faith is a conviction that something's true.

You see it in the Word of God and you become convinced that what you see is true.

And then you begin to regulate your life according to what you believe is true.

All right.

And so by just the nature of faith, when you're regulating your life by faith, you're going to, by the nature of what faith is, walk contrary to what you can see.

All right.

And again, because we covered so much ground, you should go back and watch the previous broadcast, but not walking by what you see is not denial.

All right.

I was in uh the emergency room with a person one time, and the doctor came in, and uh it was a family member, and we had gone up there for a uh they had a a very high temperature in their body, and they were also battling cancer.

And the doctor came in and said, Well, we really don't have a uh an answer for you about what caused the fever, and they made this statement, they said, but we did find that these tumors have spread, and they begin to say where these cancerous tumors had spread.

And this family member of mine that I love dearly made the statement while the doctor was there, they said, I don't have any tumors.

I don't have any cancer, I don't have tumors.

All right.

That was not faith, that was denial.

As a matter of fact, the challenge that I had in trying to help that individual was the fact that they would never come to the place where they would say, I'm dealing with this, but I'm convinced I'm healed.

I'm convinced that by the stripes of Jesus I'm well and whole and complete.

All right.

Now I use that illustration because that's not what not walking by sight is.

Faith is not intimidated about what you may be dealing with.

Faith is not intimidated by the circumstance.

Faith is how you change the circumstance.

All right.

The way that you walk by faith and not by sight is you are more convinced that what the Word of God says is real than what you're dealing with.

My pastor says it this way what you see is a real thing, but it is it is not the reality.

What you feel is a real feeling, but it is not the reality.

All right, the reality is what the Word of God has to say.

Hallelujah.

And so many try to not walk by what is seen without regulating their lives by faith.

Faith, we know from Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Faith then is the channel through which we order our lives.

Faith is how we live.

All right, the source of faith is the word of God.

Ah, Romans 1:17 says, for in the good news, a righteousness which comes from God, this is Weymouth, is being revealed, depending on faith and tending to produce faith.

Romans 1:17

As the scripture has it, the righteous man shall live by faith.

So living by faith is conducting your life as if you are all that God says that you are, and that you have all that God says that you have.

All right?

Not like you will be, or not like you will have, you are and you have it now.

You are and you have it now.

Hebrews 11:1.

Hebrews 11:1

Such a familiar scripture.

If if if you've heard one message on faith, you've heard this verse.

But it says, now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

One translation says, faith is the title deed.

Another says, faith means we have full confidence or being certain.

So again, title deed, full confidence, being certain, all of these ideas are found and contained in faith.

Because faith, by definition, is the conviction that something is true.

The conviction of the truth of anything.

And he says it's the title deed.

When I have a title deed, it regulates the way I interact with the thing I have a title for.

All right?

If I have the title deed, I'm fully confident.

I'm completely certain.

If you have the title deed to a vehicle and someone steals it from you, you have no trouble calling law enforcement and saying, my vehicle has been stolen.

It is mine.

I have the title.

All right?

Your interaction with that thing is an interaction of full confidence and being completely certain.

Where your faith is concerned with anything, that is when you know faith has come.

When you're fully confident, when you're completely certain.

Hallelujah.

I know that I know that I know that I know this is what's going to happen.

Hallelujah.

Paul made this statement.

He said, I have no doubt that God will turn all of this.

Right?

He said, we've gone through this, but God will turn it.

I'm absolutely convinced.

All right.

When you're convinced, when you're fully confident, here's what will happen.

You'll begin to expect.

When you're fully confident, you'll begin to expect.

No matter how long you've been doing this, I've been walking by faith for over 30 years.

And I mean in the Bible definition of walking by faith.

Not just hanging on, not doing my best, all right?

Walking by faith.

And I still have to take time to begin to build expectation.

What are we expecting?

Right?

Because if you're just expecting more of the same, you're going to get more of the same.

Because you get what you expect in life.

Walking by faith means living a life of expectation.

I'm living a life of expectation.

There in Hebrews 11:1, it says faith is a substance of things hoped for.

Hebrews 11:1

That word hope, it one of the strongest definitions is to expect.

So in order to be fully confident and completely certain, I have to be fully confident and completely certain of something.

Alright?

I have to be certain of something.

I have to be expecting.

Alright?

I have to be hopeful.

I have to have an image.

What are you expecting?

What are you wanting to see?

What image do you have?

Hallelujah.

Do you see that?

That colors everything that you do.

All right?

And it can be as overly simple as if you see yourself as a failure, you're going to act like a failure.

All right?

You know, the thing about it is none of that's inevitable.

But you go the direction that you see.

You go the direction that you expect.

It affects your performance.

It affects what you're able to do.

All right.

If you believe that you're going to fail in an endeavor, listen, there are just spiritual dynamics.

I'm not a physician, I'm not a neurologist.

I don't know what happens to the brain.

I have no idea.

People can tell me, but I don't know.

But here's what I do know is that when you begin to look at yourself as a failure, there are just spiritual dynamics that go into that.

What you see is how you're going to begin to speak.

If you see yourself as a failure, you're going to say, make statements like, I can't, I always fail.

I'm not going to be able to do this.

I'm not going to be successful.

And Jesus said you'd have what you say.

So to be fully confident and completely certain, I have to be expecting something.

And that's where many times things are missed because people try to walk by faith without developing the image of what they're walking by faith for.

That's why God tells us over and over in the Word of God who we are, what we have.

All right?

He wants us to take that image of what he said, put it in our mouth, begin to declare it, and begin to see ourselves that way.

Hallelujah.

How you see things is how it's going to be.

And the beginning of that process is how you think is how you're going to see, and that's how it's going to be.

That's why Romans 12, 3 tells us, or excuse me, Romans 12, 1 and 2 tells us that we have to take the word of God and do what?

Renew our mind.

All right, renew our mind.

James says that by receiving the engrafted word, it will save our soul.

Your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotion.

It will preserve your soul.

It will restore your soul.

It will cause you to think differently.

All right?

When you look in the Word of God and you're being convinced, what's happening as well is your mind's being renewed and you're going to start thinking differently.

And then you're going to start seeing differently, and then you're going to start being different.

Alright?

I've got to see myself that way.

Listen, I've watched this even in just pretty much secular situations.

Years ago, I read a book by a man, and he said that he was on a weight loss journey.

And he said that he was looking through a magazine and he saw a picture of a man that was trim and fit, and he was modeling a certain garment.

And he said, I took that home and put that on my mirror.

I'm on this weight loss journey.

And he said, I did not want to be a model, but that is how I wanted to look.

I wanted to be fit the way that man was fit.

Now this man was a Christian and he believes in these, he believed in these Bible principles, he's in heaven, but he was not preaching at the time.

He was talking to people about how to be a success in their endeavors.

And he said every morning I would get up and I would see that picture, and I had my confession.

I'm going to be such and such pounds.

And I would see the picture and read the confession.

Do you see this?

See his thinking's changing.

His thinking's changing.

How's it changing?

He's expecting something.

For faith to work effectively, I have to be expecting something.

That's why a statement like this will never receive from God.

Well, Lord, whatever your will is, that's what I want.

Well, God knows what his will is, but he expects us to know what his will is.

He expects us to paint the picture.

When you go around all the time and you're saying, my family will only love life and see good days, you're painting a picture of loving the life you have and seeing good days.

You're painting that picture.

Hallelujah.

You're building expectation.

And you can attach faith to expectation.

See, this is Bible hope, the substance of things hoped for, the substance of things expected.

This is not natural hope where people say, well, you know, I hope so, I hope it happens.

They have no picture of it happening.

So God tells us over and over again in his word who we are.

John 3 16 says we're loved by God.

Why does he tell you that?

So you can exercise faith that you're loved by God.

He tells you you're loved so you see yourself loved by God.

He said in 1 John 3.2 that we are the children of God.

We're God's children.

So why does he tell you that?

So you can expect him to react and respond to you like a loving father responds to his children.

He said, We are of God in 1 Corinthians 1 30.

All right, I am of God.

I am out of God.

God is my Father.

Jesus said that in John 17, he said it twice.

He said, I want them to see that they are not of this world, just as I am not of this world.

Now that's a picture for you.

That I'm not of this world the same way Jesus was not of this world.

Why is that?

I am of God.

My parentage comes from God.

My DNA comes from God.

I have to see myself that way.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says, we are a new creation, a species of being that never existed before.

All right?

So that's what you're expecting.

You're not expecting the actions of the old man.

You're not expecting the actions of the old woman.

You're expecting the actions of the new creation, of the new creature that is in Christ.

And as you declare that, you're convinced of that.

Now remember, you got to spend time feeding on it to be convinced.

Hallelujah.

And when those thoughts come, those thoughts of the old man, the old person, you go to the Word of God.

No, I am a new creation in Christ Jesus.

According to 2 Corinthians chapter 5 and verse 17, I'm a new creature.

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

This creation never existed before.

You're building the image.

You're building your expectation.

2 Corinthians 5.21 says, We are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

Hallelujah.

I am when?

Right now.

And so by being convinced concerning that, I see myself as righteous.

I see myself as in right standing with God.

I see myself as in God's right, as right in God's eyes, and I begin to expect the benefits of that righteousness.

Hallelujah.

All of these things are a picture of what we are.

Why?

So I can live that way by faith.

I live like I'm loved by God by faith.

I live as if I'm a new creature by faith.

I live as the righteousness of God.

How?

By faith.

Why?

Because there's times that you're going to get up in the morning and you're not going to feel like a new creature.

You're going to feel like the old creature, but you are the new creature.

And you're the new creature by faith.

You're convinced.

And so you don't go act like the old creature, you act like the new creature.

Because you are convinced.

Hallelujah.

Romans chapter 4 and verse 18.

Romans 4 · chapter mention

See, living by faith is seeing what God said and believing that picture more than you believe what you can see with your natural eyes.

I see what God said, and I believe that more than I believe what I can see with my natural eyes.

In Romans 4.18, I want to read it to you from the Amplified Bible.

It says, For Abraham, human reason for hope being gone.

Well, we know what he was believing for, to be the father of many nations, to have a son.

At this time, he's 100 years old, 99, right?

And Sarah is in her 90s.

And it says, human reason for hope being gone, hoped in faith that he should become the father of many nations, as had been promised, so numberless shall your descendants be.

Abraham had no reason for human hope.

The Bible says that he knew his body was dead.

One translation says, yet he did not consider that to be a reason God wouldn't do what he said.

Now notice this.

He had no reason for human hope.

But he had a picture based on what?

What God had said.

Now here's something so important.

He owned it.

He owned it.

I'm big about ownership.

And here's what I mean by that.

If I make a mistake, I own it.

I made the mistake.

Right?

That was my mistake.

In order to fix it, I have to own it.

Alright?

Abraham owned the picture that God gave him.

He made it his own.

Hallelujah.

One translation says, he did not see his reason his body as a reason God would not do what he had said.

What possible reason could there be that God will not do what he said when you have the word of God?

God will do what he said.

Why?

Because he cannot lie.

See, that's what you got to get the picture of God not being able to lie.

He cannot lie.

If he said it, that will come to pass in my life.

Had Abraham not had a picture, there would have been nothing for him to attach his faith to.

There would have been nothing to attach his faith to.

Why?

The Bible says his body was dead and Sarah was barren.

If that's your picture, you're not having a child.

Not gonna happen.

Hallelujah.

Many will say, Well, God can.

Well, can what?

What can God do?

Well, anything he wants to, what does he want to do?

I gotta have a picture.

I gotta have a knowledge of it.

Many say, Well, I just believe God will.

Again, will what?

What will God do?

When you hear somebody say, Well, you never know what God will do, that is just sure evidence they've never been in the Word of God and seen anything that God said he would do.

That's a person without a picture.

Without a picture, what can you be convinced of?

If I don't have a picture, what can I be convinced of?

If I say I have a financial need, I wonder if God will meet it.

With that mindset and attitude, no, he will not.

Why?

Because there's no faith in that statement.

But when you go to the Word of God and you read the scripture that says, My God shall supply all of your need according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus, now I have something to build a picture from.

My needs being met according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.

And then what can I do?

I can attach my faith to that.

I can begin to regulate my life according to that.

And every time I look and I see lack, what do I do?

All of my needs are met according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.

What am I doing?

Regulating my life by faith.

I see the picture, I'm regulating my life by the picture.

What will God do?

Exactly what he said in his word that he would do.

That will change your life.

That sounds like a simple statement, but when you come to that comprehension that God can be expected to do exactly what he said in his word, that changes everything.

That changes everything.

What's the picture?

What picture do you need to get?

Of yourself being healed, of your finances turning around, your family being saved, your life coming to peace, to joy.

I'm declaring over you that you will only love life and see good days, that you have all sufficiency in all things and abound to every good work, and that God will save your family, and he'll contend with those that contend with you and save your children.

I'm so glad you joined me for this whole month of broadcast.

It's been such a blessing to be with you, and I look forward to getting together with you again in the name of Jesus.

Go build that picture today.

And remember to build your faith and frame your world by the word of God.

God bless you.

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