Spiritual Gift of Faith: What can it do for us?,Ep 2-43
Welcome Back! I am your host Dawn Simmons and in this episode of Conquering Our Unseen Enemies we are continuing our discussion of the spiritual gifts and this episode is specifically devoted to the gift of Faith. What we are talking about here is a supernatural level of faith. It is the greatest of the 3 power gifts. I would even argue that it is the greatest of all the gifts because without it, you can’t operate in any of the gifts. You have to have a supernatural level of faith in order to know without failing that what you are doing in His name is going to do what it is supposed to do. We don’t all have this level of faith. We don’t all operate at a level where we can speak in His name and know that every time we do, it will come to pass.
There is a lot more to it than that, we don’t see all the time and development a person puts into their relationship with the Lord to get to the point where you can speak and know that God will move when you speak because of your relationship, because of your motivation, because of your objective, because you are honoring Him and he is therefore honoring your faith in Him.
What we are going to do in this episode is slice up faith a little bit so we can understand there are different types of faith. Faith operates differently in different situations, and it all works for its prescribed purpose.
First we are going to take a look at all the gifts which we read about in 1 Corinthians and summarize all of the gifts. Then we will dig in and look at how most people understand faith.
1 Corinthians 12:4-11.
4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.
7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.[b] 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.
To summarize what Paul shared, the 9 Spiritual Gifts are: wisdom, word of knowledge, faith, healings, miraculous powers, prophecy, discerning of spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.
The gifts can be categorized by what they provide to the receiver. The Holy Spirit is the giver of the gift and we, Holy Spirit filled believers, are the receivers of the gifts.
· Gifts we use out of the Power we have from the Holy Spirit are: faith, healings, miraculous powers
· Gifts we have where the Holy Spirit uses us in Revelation are: wisdom, word of knowledge, discerning of spirits
· Gifts where the Holy Spirit uses us and are Spoken are: prophecy, tongues, interpretation of tongues
One of the misconceptions I want to clear up is we are truly speaking of gifts of the Holy Spirit. Specifically, an action or a behavior that produces an outcome as a result of the Holy Spirit’s supernatural activity provided to us in a gift.
So the gift of Faith is a power gift. Have you ever met someone who exudes faith? Usually it is someone older, mature in their faith and in their life. No matter what happens, they are not shaken. They will take every situation and filter it down to what God says and proclaim that over their situation. Simple as that. People look at them and are like “but what about….” And they will stop you in your tracks and stand on what they just said over that situation. They are unmovable, unshakeable and you cannot tell them anything that what they know God will do over their situation. Don’t we all want to be like that? Well, we have to spend time with the Lord to get there. On our way to getting there we are going to need to understand there are 3 other types of faith that function in the natural we need to become friends with first.
We are going to go over each of these 3 types briefly first so we can get to the supernatural level. I am presenting these in order, your faith has to grow in this order in order for you to be able to have a faith elevated to the supernatural level.
First is what is referred to as saving faith in Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—” So we need to be saved first and our salvation is through our faith in who we believe Jesus is and what He did for our sins, his death and resurrection.
Second, is just a simple faith, some call it general, but most people operate in simple faith. Paul describes it in Romans 12:3, “For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” When we think of simple faith, it is what every believer operates in as they pray and move in their lives. We have to have this level to have encouragement in the Word. This level of faith is increased the more we read His word and understand who He is.
The third level of faith is more complicated. The third level I call “Faithfulness” because it is through our faith that we change and become more Christlike. This level of faith is where most of us are always trying to attain and feel like we never truly measure up. It’s like a ladder where somedays we climb up and then, some days we go down a level. Imagine it as a ladder with 9 rungs we are trying our best to get up but even on our best days, it can be a challenge for all of us. Any guesses what I am referring to here? This third level is called “faithfulness” because it is part of our goal to live our lives with the fruits of the spirit. Galatians 5:22 puts it this way, “ But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
I believe most of us focus on all of the other 8 gifts and leave “faithfulness” out in the cold a bit because it doesn’t seemingly get tested the way the others do. Using myself as an example, forbearance, gentleness, and a dash of self-control, these are where I am weak, I am weak when I am in the car. For some reason I cannot climb the ladder when certain drivers are in front of me. I can’t understand their logic when they cut me off for no apparent reason, I can’t understand why they aren’t moving when we should all be moving, I can’t understand their inability to press the accelerator in their vehicle to at least get to the speed limit. These are all challenges for me and I have to keep apologizing to the Lord for my lack of forbearance, gentleness and self-control. I know they don’t hear it when I am loudly questioning their behavior inside my car, but I still did it whether they know it or not so I apologize.
We all have our issues, and when I hear people talk about them, faithfulness is always at the bottom of the pack. It’s not thought much of because we focus on all the things we aren’t instead of all the things we actually are and will become. What I really want to say is, “Stop letting your challenges dictate your level of faith and maturity in Christ.” When we get caught up in all we struggle with, we neglect to fully partner with God because we think we aren’t worthy to move forward into supernatural levels of anything. That’s a lie from the enemy and we need to deny any of those thoughts from a place in our mind and heart. The Lord cares about our heart and our willingness to seek Him. Grow through all of that and elevate your faith.
With that behind us, now let’s talk about why the gift of faith, supernatural faith, is the greatest of the power gifts and I hope this ignites in you the desire to pursue it. Once you have it, nothing can stop you, the enemy cannot move and you can undo what the enemy has done.
When you look at the power gifts, faith, working of miracles and healings, faith is needed for the other two to be able to happen. You can’t work a miracle if you don’t have the faith it is going to happen. How can you heal someone if you aren’t sure if it’ll work? Faith, Supernatural Faith is required. Faith, I think gets a bad rap though because you cannot see faith. It is intangible so it is overlooked. A leg growing back, a person raised from the dead, you cannot miss that. If you saw either of those things occur, you would be mesmerized by that gift and the action that you witnessed. You don’t witness faith, you can’t see it so you can’t qualify it’s importance.
Let’s look at an example in the Old Testament that required faith and as a result of it, a supernatural event occurred. We are going to 2 Kings 6, and this is just a snippet of other acts of faith and miracles that occurred. If you haven’t read this in a while, take a look, its really good reading. We are going to start with verse 11, and we are starting with this King being upset because the Lord is revealing all of his plans ahead of time to his prophet so the King cannot overtake Israel. “ This enraged the king of Aram. He summoned his officers and demanded of them, “Tell me! Which of us is on the side of the king of Israel?”
12 “None of us, my lord the king,” said one of his officers, “but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the very words you speak in your bedroom.”
13 “Go, find out where he is,” the king ordered, “so I can send men and capture him.” The report came back: “He is in Dothan.” 14 Then he sent horses and chariots and a strong force there. They went by night and surrounded the city.
15 When the servant of the man of God got up and went out early the next morning, an army with horses and chariots had surrounded the city. “Oh no, my lord! What shall we do?” the servant asked.
16 “Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”
17 And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
18 As the enemy came down toward him, Elisha prayed to the Lord, “Strike this army with blindness.” So he struck them with blindness, as Elisha had asked. “
So Elisha was dealing with a huge challenge. I don’t think any of us have ever had a King and his whole army against us, coming and surrounding our home to kill us, I hope not anyway. Elisha was not afraid and he used his level of faith to have a heavenly army that was also present be revealed to his servant, his servants supernatural eyes were opened at Elisha’s request. Then, that’s not even all, by Elisha’s words the army coming against him was stricken with blindness. He didn’t say, kill them, he knew that blindness was enough, and he showed a level of mercy and was satisfied that blindness would take care of his problem. And it did.
That level of faith still exists. A supernatural level of faith is exhibited when the words spoken by the individual operating in the gift of faith is powered by the Holy Spirit and enabled to come to pass.
So let’s talk about some real life examples of this in my life. These are examples that do not include healings or miracles the way most people define them so we can discuss those during those specific episodes. I want these examples to really just be about the supernatural faith needed to accomplish a task we could not in the other levels of faith we have already discussed.
Last year sometime I did an episode, I don’t recall what it was titled, but it was about a particular demon and in it, I made a comment and I joked during it. I was referring to Jesus casting demons out of a man named Legion and that the name Legion was referring to the number of demons the man had which was thousands. My joke was that I had not met anyone with that number of demons and I said I doubt I ever would, or I hoped I never would. Watch what you say, I should not have been flippant because I kid you not that Sunday at church a pastor approached me and asked me to talk to someone. I spoke with her and then we agreed to meet a few days later on a Tuesday. That woman, we did do a deliverance which was what I was asked to do, and that woman had hundreds, there were too many to count. So many were coming out so quickly we couldn’t keep track. That wasn’t my issue. Her strongman was one of the strongest I have ever encountered. He was very aggressive and at one point would not let me speak to her again. This demon was trying to engage me to derail my objective. To be able to complete that, I had to rely entirely on my supernatural level of faith. I had to know that the Holy Spirit had control and continue to follow through. Most of the time the demons don’t want to talk, that one had no problem telling me what it thought of me. When you are operating in a supernatural world, a world you truly only have limited knowledge of, it can be unnerving if you do not have yourself firmly planted in your faith in who the Lord is and that he has overcome the enemy. It could be easy to be deceived.
A few years ago we had some pretty bad fires in this area. There is another one going on today because of the high winds these last few days. We call this Fire Season in California. Anyhow, the fire was not contained at the time, there were so many going on that resources were limited. We had firemen coming from all over the country to help us here. Many people were evacuated, businesses were closed, our county was surrounded in a ring of fire. It was arson by the way. So the source of the fire was intentional and evil in nature. As it was coming through the canyon area near my house I could see it getting closer and closer. I live up on a ridge, there were houses below me and across the main road running through the canyon. There was very little loss of life and in that area of the fire, not much loss of human property, there was loss of wildlife unfortunately and wildlife habitat which is serious because that takes years for recovery.
Northern California was in worse shape than we were, that was the same time the fire in Paradise, California was happening which devastated that poor town. Anyhow, my husband was up north helping with the fire in Paradise area. The military assists in these fires as well. So essentially I was on my own, with one son here and all my animals. I had nowhere to evacuate to because the few family members I have here were all in the same boat I was in with these fires. My company offered to put us up in a hotel, but a lot of hotels were full from people in a worse position than we were. At one point I had had enough of all this and decided that if Jesus can calm storms, then I can calm a fire. Maybe this seems silly to you, but to me it seemed reasonable. The fire was started by evil and Jesus overcame all evil so I should be able to overcome this fire. So I stood in my backyard and I started telling that fire to first go the other direction to protect the houses that were coming in its path. It’s hundreds of acres of wilderness so I wanted to first get it to go back and then get it to shrink. There was no one there to come into agreement with me so I just started and I had to really rely on faith in that because you feel like one little person against a raging fire, it’s no match in the natural. I knew that it was also no match in the supernatural. I prayed, I prayed and I prayed. It was very important not to let what I saw in the natural influence my faith. This was no ordinary request. If I let what I could see influence me then I would have to acknowledge that I saw no change for hours. I had to be more that what I saw. I had to believe that what I was asking for would be done because I was asking. I had to believe that behind my words was the power of God no matter how big that fire was as it consumed the mountain side. I took pictures through the night and it took maybe 3 hours, but finally I saw a change. The fire was reversing. It had already burned the area it came from but it was no longer moving forward and it was going backward. There were no firefighters where I could see because there were no structures to protect. In those fires they will let the hillside burn if there are no resources to address the hillside so they can focus on the houses.
Once I saw the fire reversing, then I moved onto requesting containment. That took days, but it happened. Things that we don’t normally think we can pray over are possible when we operate in the Gift of Faith. Don’t limit God to the usual. Supernatural Faith provides us with a foundation to move on His behalf and change outcomes, overturn evil, and break bondages that have held nations for centuries. Through supernatural faith we can accomplish anything. If you don’t believe me, then believe Luke, Chapter 1, “For with God, nothing shall be impossible”
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I hope this has been time that inspires you to want to learn to grow in your relationship with the Lord and build your faith to partner with Him at a supernatural level. We want to grow in Him and learn how to work with Him to build the Kingdom and Conquer Our Unseen Enemies. The more we grow the more our life will change, and you can help change the lives of anyone around you who is willing.
If you know anyone who might benefit from this, please share.
As always, let’s discuss our Top Show points:
· Supernatural Gifts: Faith
· 1 Corinthians 12
· Power Gifts, Spoken Gifts, Revelation Gifts
· 3 types of Faith before Supernatural Faith
o Saving Ephesians 2:8
o Simple Faith, Romans 12:3
o Faithfulness, Galatians 5:22
· Gift of faith often overlooked, we can’t see it, we can’t quantify it
· 2 Kings 6: Story of Elisha and opening spiritual eyes of his servant and striking enemy army with blindness
· Story of a deliverance that required supernatural level of faith on my part
· Story of wildfire that required supernatural level of faith on my part to change course of fire
· Develop relationship with the Lord to develop your level of faith
· With God, nothing is impossible, Luke 1
We encourage you:
· To have an active Bible reading plan, it will be helpful in gaining wisdom and understanding and it is required for the gift of spiritual discernment
· If you want to learn more about how to Hear God's Voice, visit our website, lovingconversationssalo.com. My book, Loving Conversations: How to Pray and Hear God's Voice has helped so many people in their relationship with the Lord, check out the testimonials. There is also a companion Study Guide and two devotionals out based on the Loving Conversations Book. Those are available on the website www.lovingconversationssalo.com.
· Follow us in Instagram, @conqueringourunseenenemies
I have enjoyed our time this week and look forward to spending time with you again next week!