Unlock the transformative power of faith and how it can be your anchor amid the world’s relentless changes. This episode takes you through a profound journey that examines the necessity of faith in God as we face the unpredictable nature of modern life. We often find false comfort in the tangible – the solidity of our homes or the allure of our possessions – but I’ll show you why these are mere shadows compared to the fortress that faith can build in your life. As we navigate historical shifts and current crises, from economic turmoil to geopolitical tensions, discover how faith not only pleases God but also activates His presence and blessings, providing a foundation of stability and divine favor. Embrace the habit of faith just as effortlessly as you trust the mechanisms of your daily routine, like flipping a switch or starting your engine. In this discussion, we draw meaningful parallels between the art of parenting – particularly the strategy of conditional generosity with teens – and our spiritual relationship with God, revealing the power of faith in creating a life of divine support through life’s storms. Dive into the conversation that goes beyond theory, offering practical guidance on fostering a faith-driven existence that stands tall against the tide of uncertainty. Tune in to affirm faith’s strength in pleasing God and enriching our lives with unwavering support and grace.
Key Takeaways:
- Without faith, it is impossible to please God.
- Develop a habit of faith and apply it to all areas of life.
- Having faith in God’s system can lead to blessings and help in various aspects of life.
Where To Dive In:
0:00:00 Introduction to the podcast and book promotion
0:02:41 The world is on the verge of change
0:05:15 It is impossible to please God without faith
0:06:55 Examples of everyday faith
0:10:07 Applying faith to different areas of life
0:11:57 Parenting approach: explaining consequences instead of losing temper
0:12:54 Linking generosity to happiness and being pleased
0:14:26 Having faith in God’s system and walking by the spirit
0:15:44 Maintaining faith regardless of worldly threats or challenges
0:16:49 Pleasing God leads to blessings and divine intervention
0:18:21 Faith activates blessings that non-believers may not experience
0:18:54 Importance of activating faith in various aspects of life
0:19:18 Encouragement to live by faith and please God
0:19:18 Life-changing benefits of living by faith
0:19:18 Closing remarks and invitation to tune in next time
About the host:
Steve Gray is the founding and senior pastor of Revive Church KC. He has been in the full time ministry for over 40 years and was launched into national and international recognition in the late 1990’s as the leader of the historic Smithton Outpouring, and again in 2009 when he lead the Kansas City Revival which was televised nationally on the Daystar television network. Steve is also a veteran musician, songwriter, recording artist and published author. His books include When The Kingdom Comes, Follow The Fire, and My Absurd Religion.
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Transcript:
0:00:00
You don’t want to miss today’s podcast. We’re going to talk about why have faith in God? And you know why? Because it pleases God. And when you please God, you’re going to activate God. And I want to teach you how to do that today. Now I want to remind you about the book. If you only knew, the guide to a clueless generation. I don’t want you to be clueless. And many of the things I’ve said today are in this book. It’s a booklet, you can read it in a hurry. It’s only five chapters. And guess what? It’s still free to download. That’s probably going to change.
0:00:27
And we have books, the regular books you can put in your hand now, and we’ll be selling those. They’re not very expensive, but just to make up the cost. But right now you can get it free. You need to get it because it’s going to help you understand what’s going on in America and what can we do about it to change our future. A flood of bad things might be trying to come, but it’s not impossible. It is preventable. And that’s what this book is.
0:00:54
Hello everyone. Welcome again to more faith more life podcast. I’m so glad to be together with you today. And we are going to talk about faith. And I like the subject why? Why we should have faith. Why have faith in God? Why have faith in God? Now when it was said in Mark eleven, Jesus said that to his disciples. They were talking about, look at, they’re in Jerusalem, look at all the beautiful buildings around us and all the structures.
0:01:20
And you can kind of do that today. We got the best looking churches in the world are here in this country, and the biggest and the best, unless you go back, know the big cathedrals in Europe. But the modern day buildings, some of the best modern day looking buildings in some cities are the churches and more than one all scattered about. And so we can sometimes get off on the buildings and feel a security that maybe everything’s okay.
0:01:45
And the fact that we have a beautiful building. And that’s what they did. They looked at the temple and said, look at this magnificent temple. I guess with such a great building as this, things must be going okay. And it wasn’t going okay. There was a lot of corruption, as you know, and Jesus had to go in and clear it out and make proclamations. When they say, look at all these beautiful buildings.
0:02:07
To Jesus, his response was, have faith in God. And you know why he made that response is because there was going to be a big, big change in Jerusalem and in Israel due to the Romans that would come and destroy those buildings, especially the temple in 70 AD, just some 40 years later, about things were going to change. And that’s why I want to talk to you today. First of all is I feel such a pull to try to tell people from the Holy Spirit, to tell people things are going to change.
0:02:41
If you’re new to listening to me, then that’s something you need to grab hold of. But I’ve been saying it for years, last few years, to prepare our church and the people I’m associated with, to prepare your mind for change, things are going to change. It’s similar in my book. It’s similar to when if I was doing this podcast, which I couldn’t in the 1930s, 1920, 919, 30, and I was doing a podcast and I’m saying, have faith in God. And they’d say, why did you say that?
0:03:13
Because things are going to change. And the whole world changed from 1929, well before in Germany, but 1929 on up to 1930, then on into the, into 1945 when the Nazis and the party was defeated, Hitler was defeated in Europe, and so the whole world changed. Millions and millions died. It was a horrible change. And so now we’re at the point where it’s like we’ve stretched the rubber band. You stretch a rubber band only so far, and then it’s going to snap.
0:03:48
And we’re stretching the rubber band where it’s almost ready to snap. Everything is in place. We just had known we have North Korea shooting off missiles. We say, you can’t do that, and they did it anyway. We have an alliance happening between Russia and China and probably North Korea. And then we’ve got the conflict in the Middle east and in Ukraine, and all these are signs of things are going to change.
0:04:13
We have the economy, our economy, United States is stretched so tight now, we’re printing money we don’t have. We’re living on borrowed money. The economy is in a mess with our countries being flooded by other people from other countries that are not wanting to be Americans. They’re wanting to get in. They’re being planted into our country. Not all of them, of course. So just so much that our world is going to change.
0:04:42
You can’t stretch this rubber band much farther until it snaps. So that’s why I’m saying today, have faith in God. And I want to say, why have faith in God? Because this is the point where you want to know that you have to believe. Have faith in God. All right, and the reason that it’s important, because the writer of Hebrews said it is impossible to please God without faith. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God.
0:05:15
Now, you may be a churchgoer, you may not, you may be going a lot, you may go a little, you may not go at all, whatever. But this applies to everybody. Without faith in God, without faith, it is impossible. Impossible. If God says something is impossible, it is impossible, right? And we kind of lean on scriptures that say nothing is impossible with God, right? Except this one is. This is impossible because this goes on you.
0:05:43
Without faith, it is impossible to please God. And so faith believes in the unseen world, right? Faith is the substance of things hoped for, but it’s evidence. Faith is the evidence of the unseen world, of things you can’t see. It’s speaking about those things. It’s living according to the unseen world that pleases God. Now, if it’s impossible to please God without faith, then why are you trying, why do you not have faith or why do you not have that faith in God? We try to please God.
0:06:20
How do most of us try to please God? We try to please God by our behavior, right? By being good. We try to please God. Well, we should be good. But in this case, it is impossible to please God without faith, right? Now let me tell you something I already know you have faith. How do I know you have faith? All right, every time you walk into a room and you flip the light switch on, you have faith. You have faith that if you do, the switch lights are going to come on.
0:06:55
If you didn’t have faith, you wouldn’t flip the switch, right? You just wish lights would come on. Now, let me give you an example. I wonder if anybody’s ever done this besides me. Have you ever been, let’s say, at your house and the electricity goes off and it stays off for some hours or whatever, how many of you have ever had the electricity go off? But you walk into a room, the electricity is off, but you walk into a room and flip the light switch anyway and you go, oh, how dumb can I be? I know the electricity is off, but your faith, your habit, you had a habit of faith, right?
0:07:33
You had a habit that if you flip the switch, lights are going to come on. Now, in this case, they didn’t come on, but they will eventually again, right? They didn’t come on, but the point being is you had a faith habit even when you knew in your brain the electricity is off. Your faith habit flipped the switch anyway. And then you go, oh, what was I thinking I knew the electricity was off. And so when we develop faith, we get a faith habit.
0:08:01
You can have faith. You have faith that when you like, in my car, if you push a button, I got a push button start. If you push the button, put the foot on the brake, push the button, it’s going to start. I have faith it’s going to. Rarely does it. Never. It always does. My faith works. My faith works. I have faith in it that it’s going to work. If I say I’m going to come and pick you up at 02:00 and I go and push the button and it starts, I have faith I’m going to be there at two because I have faith my car is going to work. I don’t sit around my house going, oh, what if it doesn’t work?
0:08:37
What if it doesn’t work? What if I can’t get it to start? I don’t even think about that. I say, I’ll be there, too. I go push the button, it starts and I go, and that’s how faith works. And so you have faith. You have faith that your car will work. You have faith the lights will work. You have faith that your microwave will work. If you push the number on it, it will work. And so you’re operating in faith and you’re not worrying that your microwave won’t work. You don’t even think about it.
0:09:02
You have a habit of faith when it comes to appliances or you go to the ATM, you want to withdraw money. You don’t drive the whole way there, oh, what if it doesn’t work? What if I push all the buttons and money doesn’t come out? What are we going to do? No, you have a faith habit. You just don’t even think about it. If money didn’t come out, you’d really be surprised. You’d be surprised, wouldn’t you? And so tighten that up.
0:09:29
We have faith that’s operating in the everyday world. We just don’t call it faith. Now, what if you had faith in God in the same way towards God, that it was a habit of faith? You think in terms of faith. So when it comes time to pay your bills, you have faith that it’s going to work because God is on your side. Because by faith, what have you been doing? Faith pleases God. And if you’re not pleasing God, then you’re not going to get the help from God that you’d like to have. It’s not that he doesn’t like you, it’s not that he has judgment on you, it’s faith pleases God.
0:10:07
And then if you’re not walking by faith and you’re just hoping that you can please God anyway, it’s not going to work. He makes it obvious. And so you need to have faith in God, and you apply your faith to your job, your home, your children, and you begin to believe God’s word and you believe in the kingdom of God, which you can’t see. It’s invisible, but you know it’s working. You know the kingdom is here.
0:10:33
And so you give generously. God is a generous God. So, like I try to get people to understand, you need to tithe to your church, you need to tithe because that is your faith working. Somebody might say, well, I don’t believe the tithe is for today, okay, I have a teaching on that that probably will change your mind. But nevertheless, do it by faith. Do it not by law, do it by faith, not because it’s a law, but because you want to exercise your faith and you want to give 10% of what belongs to God. It still belongs to God, whether it’s Old Testament, New Testament, and anyway, and you do it by faith. I tithe by faith.
0:11:14
I always have. I don’t know, 35 years I’ve been tithing over, way over 10%, but nevertheless 10%, that’s something you can do by faith. And then if you start looking running short, it doesn’t look like it’s going to work out. Start praying, talk to God, start speaking faith. I know God’s going to get me through this because I have faith in God. Now, if it’s impossible to please God without faith, then why are you trying? Okay, now let me explain this. How when I raised my kids, okay, so when I raised my kids, I never lost my temper. I don’t ever remember yelling and screaming at them or threatening because I’m angry.
0:11:57
Cross that line as an angry parent, I don’t ever remember doing that. I don’t recollect that. And here’s the reason why. When things would not go right, especially when they were teenagers and they wouldn’t be doing what I want them to do, or they weren’t acting the way I wanted them to act, or they were doing things I didn’t want them to do, I didn’t lose my temper and yell and scream. I would go to them and say, look, here’s the problem.
0:12:23
You doing this causes me, I am not happy, I am not pleased. That’s it. And why is that important? Because I tell them, look, when you make me happy when I’m happy, I’m generous when I feel good, and I am pleased at what I see around me. You know what? I am generous, and I like to give money and I like to give gifts, and I like to see you use that phone and enjoy the phone that you’re carrying around with you, because I’m happy with the way things are.
0:12:54
I am pleased with how things are going. So enjoy the phone, enjoy the blessings, enjoy the car, whatever, because I’m happy and I’m pleased. But if I’m not happy, then I don’t feel so generous. And you know, kids, right now I’m not happy. I’m not pleased with what I see. And so you know what? I’m not feeling generous when it comes to the car. And you know what? I’m not feeling generous when it comes to that phone.
0:13:21
In fact, I think maybe I’ll just take that phone back right now. It’s my phone. Anyway, I’m paying for it. I’m going to take that phone, I’m going to hold on to it until I get happy again, until I get pleased again. So if you can please me and you can make me feel pleased and happy and satisfied, you know what? I’ll feel generous again. And then phones will come back and cars will come back and money and blessings will come your way.
0:13:46
Didn’t have to lose my temper. Didn’t have to yell and scream. I just said, look, all you have to do is make me happy, right? Make me pleased. And it worked. It worked for me. And I never had to lose my temper. I just explained to him, now all you got to do is make me pleased again. And that’s how it works with God. God gets generous when he’s pleased with us, right? He’s not mad at us, but he’s not pleased with what he sees because faith please him. He wants us to have faith in him, faith in his system, faith in his word, faith that giving time, talent, ability is worth it. It’s valuable, it pays off.
0:14:26
And you have faith in God’s system that you go to church, you believe in God, you pray, you walk by the fruit of the spirit, where you try to put that standard on yourself to have love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and those things, and you require that of yourself because you want to walk in the spirit, because you have faith in God, that walking by the spirit is better than walking in old testament or King James walking in the flesh or walking in the natural feelings that everybody else know, they get angry they get jealous, they throw a temper tantrum, right? All those things that people do, and they criticize other people, they judge other people, they get offended. You know what? Normal, regular old people, that’s what humans do, but not me, because I have faith in God that walking by the spirit is going to pay off.
0:15:22
Walking by the spirit is the way to walk. Walking by the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, those walking by the spirit going to church, because God created church, worshipping him, giving my time to him, giving my money to him is worth it. And I know a lot of other people, they’re not doing it. They’re not doing it. These people don’t do it. They seem to be good, but I want to please God.
0:15:44
And there are times when the world changes that you need to have a habit. Just like flipping on the light switch, pushing that button to start the car, you have a faith habit that if the world changes, what has that got to do with me? And so recently I was asked, what about what’s going on in the world? Because there are threats of economy and terrorism and wars in different places and threats of war and housing market doesn’t look good, and the banks and the economy, all those things.
0:16:15
And he said, what do you think about that? Because if that’s going on, then it looks to me like that evil is really moving. I said, hold on, hold on. Yeah, that’s true. Those things are happening. What’s that got to do with me? I’m not in that kingdom, I’m of another kingdom. My kingdom goes on in spite of that and corrects that and helps me. So I want to walk by faith. No matter what I see, no matter what everybody else does, no matter what happens in the world, my faith is in God and in his system.
0:16:49
And when I do that, I please God. And when I please God, he helps me through the outer parts, because that’s not his kingdom. He can override it. He has the ability to increase finances and increase what you have, multiply what you have. He has the ability to make blessings come, things not break, surprise. Finances come in answers that you needed, answers come, bonuses come, you get a raise at work, you find a better job.
0:17:19
Things happen in relationships better. Your kids are loving you and they love God and they love you, and there’s a family tie there, that’s a blessing. And all those things can come about in your life because then God is active, because he’s pleased, right? Just like I said, if I’m not pleased with what I see in the house, then I lose my generosity, I’m just not in the mood to just give out and give out and give out. I hold back until I’m pleased again.
0:17:47
And so I did that as a parent. It worked very well, and I think I taught them a lesson about God. If you please God, the blessings will come, the help will come, the encouragement will come, the multiplication of things that continue to work. They don’t break just on and on. The blessings come, and financially, then you have that God advantage. Financially, where God will stretch the money, God will increase, surprises will come, raises will come, just things will happen, God, things will happen when God is pleased. Are you getting that today?
0:18:21
So here’s the first part. I’m going to try part two next time of why have faith in God? But this is part one, why have faith in God? Faith pleases God. When God is pleased, it activates an enormous amount of blessing that others who don’t live by faith, and it doesn’t mean they live by sin, doesn’t mean they’re bad people, but they don’t live by faith. And so faith pleases God. And so you need to activate your faith in the word of God, in the character of God, in the ways of God, in the spirit of God, all those ways.
0:18:54
And things you can do by faith, there are things you can do. And even financially, when it looks like, oh, my, I can’t afford to tithe sometimes or I don’t have afford to give, that’s when you know, please God and do it by faith and watch God work. Are you getting this today? I hope you are, because I want you to start living by faith, acting by faith, living to please God, and your life will change forever.
0:19:18
Until next time, bye bye.
