Faith vs Obedience

We have been taught to treat faith as a great belief in what God can do. But faith that only goes that far is crippled. The Bible says that it is vain, dead (James 2: 20)

Faith is simply trusting God enough to go all the way with Him. It is trusting Him so much that His suggestion is stronger than any other command from anywhere or anyone else.

Faith must originate with the word or order God has released. It is not psyching people to have faith in God because ‘Faith comes from hearing the word ... of God’ (Romans 10:17). Teaching people to believe without teaching them to recognise God’s voice is akin to showing thirsty people a big fast flowing  river without helping them with something to fetch it with or at least show them  a place where it is safe enough for them to use their hands to drink.

Hebrews 11 is called the chapter of faith in the Bible. Yet do we realise that the heroes we read about were not made so by the breakthroughs we think demonstrate faith but by the choices they made, some which for the most part had very adverse consequences, even death for them? Why would someone prefer torture to release and be treated as a hero of faith? Would that not be treated as foolhardy were it not a response to a word God had spoken to them?

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me (John 10: 27) that is the essence of faith. Hearing God’s voice and obeying it. Faith that goes any other direction is disqualified as a faith that should have God in it.

Does God love the Somalis? Did Christ die for them? Does He have an agenda for reaching out to them? Is He still the Lord of the harvest? Has He spoken concerning those He will use to reach this nation? Who has heard that voice and who has the faith to obey that voice? That will be my man of faith. Going to USA with a green card does not require faith, just luck – and this does not come from God otherwise it would not be called lottery which is actually gambling, and that is sin. Even if we were soft and did not call it sin it still would not qualify as faith, however far we stretched our arguments. Faith is simply going where God has asked you to go – because you are then joining His team and will therefore be connected to His great power.

Such faith is what Christ said will be able to move mountains, however small it is. This is because it is hooked on what God has said and is therefore is hitched to His chariot and will not require much from your side to move.

Faith that does not result to or is not a result of obedience to God’s word  could result with what we see in Matthew 7. Firstly by having a people whose lives have no foundation and secondly by having these senior ministers being sent to hell yet they had demonstrated big workings of faith. How so? They had preached and prophesied much, and in Christ’s name. They had cast out demons in Christ’s name. They had performed miracles in Christ’s name. What more do we need to demonstrate that they believed? By the way this does not include those who are using Christ’s name to deceive people, even using witchcraft in Chris’s name because these know they are in it for the money. The former knew they served God with their all and so they will ask Christ why. The answer is as simple as it is clear, they did not do what Christ had ordered them. Could believing have such dire consequences? They confessed Christ and even used their ‘faith’ to work for Him. But they did not OBEY what He had told them. Such faith is thus not only dead but even worse – detrimental to my eternal destination.

I therefore challenge us to ask to get a clear word from God concerning where my faith should lead me. I believe that there are many very successful ministers who are in the group Christ talked about not because they are not ministering but because they refused to move on when God ordered. And why? Because they had established very stable structures that they couldn’t just leave for the insecurity of moving to the places God required. Why should they leave a church they have built from scratch and made it a mega church and go to the missionfield where even their food is not assured? And by this time their children are about to go to college? They therefore continue to minister in their past tense, even sometimes having to recycle their formerly ‘powerful’ sermons when God refuses to cooperate to inspire them with convincing messages. 

The greatest danger to Saul was not the Philistines but the kingdom and its security. It was easy when it was the enemy because he then was confident he was in God’s team. But he became insecure when God issued orders that led people to question his leadership because then the choice was between the visible and the invisible. He couldn’t risk to have his army scatter from him. Yet the desire to be in the right books with his troops is what costed him the kingdom.

Are you in a business God wants you in? Is your profession what God has for you. You see the fact that long ago He told you to be a lawyer does not mean it was fixed on stone. He is the God of a new thing. He might have told you to be a lawyer to prepare you to go to Somali to help the new church to establish good structures. Paul’s legal training made him the choice vessel to take the Gospel to the Gentiles. He may have ordered you to become a doctor so that He can send you to Sierra Leone to handle the devastation of war.

In short what God made you was not a permanent address, just a marker. He took me to study broadcasting engineering not to make me a permanent employee of the media houses but to take me places in terms of ministry. I am able to be very versatile on the mission field. Not only can I preach and teach but I am able to handle media equipment and even handle electrical issues. My technical training from Form 1 is a tool God has been able to use almost everywhere I have gone. I have gone on missions and was the only electrician and that was the reason God sent me for such mission. I therefore do not dictate how God will use me. I just listen to the order and obey. What He has in store once I obey is squarely in His hands.

Let us display our faith by listening to God for the order He has for us. ONLY THEN WILL WE BECOME HEROES OF FAITH. God bless you