Delve into the essence of steadfast faith in a world rife with uncertainties. Navigate the complexities of today’s challenges—from geopolitical tensions to the digital revolution—while drawing strength from timeless teachings. Beyond theoretical discussions, this segment serves as a practical roadmap for infusing your daily life with authentic faith. Learn how faith finds expression not just in beliefs but also in transformative actions like tithing and active church involvement. These practices are more than rituals; they’re avenues to a richer communion with the Divine. As we wrap up, discover how an unwavering faith can profoundly reshape your relationship with God, bringing the spiritual realm into tangible reality and enriching your journey in ways that resonate deeply.
Key Takeaways:
- Faith in God is essential for a fulfilling life and to please God.
- Believing in God’s existence is the first step towards developing faith.
- Diligently seeking God leads to rewards and blessings in life.
- Walking by faith and following God’s ways can bring positive change to our lives.
- Having faith in God provides an advantage and protection in a changing world.
Where To Dive In:
0:00:00 Introduction to the podcast and book giveaway
0:01:25 Review of part one: the importance of having faith in God
0:03:31 Potential big changes that could happen in the world
0:06:02 The necessity of walking by faith and pleasing God
0:08:07 Practical ways to exercise faith in daily life
0:10:14 Believing that God exists and rewards those who seek Him
0:11:23 Kingdom of God is among us, seek Him for rewards
0:13:36 Find clues in the Bible on what pleases God
0:14:33 Serve God through the church and charity work
0:15:51 Believe in God’s existence and actively seek Him
0:16:21 Seek God with excitement and determination
0:17:52 God is a rewarder, seek His ways and character
0:18:53 Walk by faith, have faith in God’s rewards
0:19:28 Life will change, world will change, have God’s advantage
0:20:37 Faith pleases God, brings substance to our hopes
0:21:31 Believe in God’s existence and seek Him diligently
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
Don’t miss the next podcast. Why have faith in God, part two? I’m going to give you the clues how to get that faith operating so your life will never be the same again. All right, another week. We know we have another week. Giveaway of the book if you only knew, taken from the words of Jesus, if you only knew the way that leads to peace. So it’s called if you only knew, a guide to the clue generation.
0:00:26
And so it’s going to cause you not to be clueless because you’re going to see clues in there that are going to help you understand where we’re going. And if we don’t like where we think our country is going, or politics is going, or where our church is going, or our lives are going, whatever. If you don’t like the direction you see this book, it’s only five chapters. It’s a short little booklet, will help you understand what you need to do to change that.
0:00:52
And anything bad that you feel like it’s not going well is preventable. We can prevent disaster if we know how. And this book is going to tell you how, and it’s still free. More faith, more life. Go there and see the QR code and you hit that and you can still download the ebook. Soon we’ll have the regular copies. If you’d rather hold a book, which I would, I like to hold books, we’ll have that and it’ll be for sale probably soon, but right now you can still get it free. So go to more faith, more life, get the book, get caught up on what God’s saying to America today.
0:01:25
Hello, everybody, and welcome again to another podcast of more faith, more life, where today we’re going to talk about part two, why have faith in God? And pretty important, right? Why have faith in God? But before we get to part two, let’s review part one just a little bit for those that maybe missed part one. Okay, let’s review it just a little bit. Why have faith in God? Okay, so we went to the scriptures and we talked about that. Jesus said, have faith in God and he told them to have faith in God.
0:01:54
Meaning referring to things in your lifetime are going to change. There’s going to be a big change in Jerusalem, there’s going to be a big change in Israel, a major change. And it’s going to be 40 years later when that big change actually takes place. But he warns the disciples to have faith in God. And the reason is, when big changes come, we need to have faith in God. Otherwise we panic. We don’t know what to do.
0:02:19
We don’t know how to operate. So what are some of the big changes that could happen? Well, we could have a world war easily right now, easily. It could break out. Some believe it will, some believe it’s delayed. I think a lot of people believe someday, probably in your lifetime, depending on your age, obviously, but probably could be in your lifetime, a world war and involving different nations. This is even more important because now we have nuclear weapons and other nations have them too, not just us, and it’s not just Russia either.
0:02:54
Something to think about. And then you read about possibly the economy collapsing and going into some kind of a depression like maybe we had in the 1930s, but it might be a little different because they tried to put ways that that not happen again, but to inflation or a depression or go into some kind of financial plunge that changes the finances of our country. There’s also those that want to change it to digital money, where we don’t have money, hand dollar bills anymore. So all these things are in the wind of change.
0:03:31
And so we need to have faith in God. Now, over to the book of Hebrews, though, it tells us this. This is where we got into part one also, that without faith, it is impossible to please God. Impossible. Now, if God says something’s impossible, you better bet it’s impossible, right? Yeah. You better make sure you understand impossible means impossible. And so it’s impossible without faith. Now, we talked about a little bit about, I know you have faith.
0:03:59
I use the light switch as an example. When you walk into a room and you hit the light switch, you’re doing it by faith. It’s a habit. It’s a habit of faith. You don’t mentally think faith. Do you understand that? See, when you walk by faith, it’s not a mental faith. It’s not like, oh, I better do faith. Right? Now you get to where faith is, a lifestyle of a habit that you get. So you walk into a dark room, you turn the light switch on, you do it by faith that you believe the lights will come on.
0:04:28
If you didn’t believe the lights would come on when you flipped that switch, you wouldn’t flip it, but you do, and the lights come on. I use the example of being in a storm or something, and the electricity goes off and there’s no lights. And all of a sudden you walk into a dark room, and just out of faith, habit, you flip the light switch and it doesn’t come on. You might do it in another room just out of habit, thinking, oh, you’re thinking why did I. I know the electricity is off, but out of habit, a faith habit, you have faith that the lights come on and you’ll keep doing it because the lights, you know, will eventually come on. One of these moments, then you’ll flip the switch and the lights will come on because electricity is back.
0:05:09
And so we do things by faith. We start our car by faith because we know it’s going to start. Right. We just have faith. It is. So lots of things we do by faith, but we don’t do God things. We have faith. We have faith that our car will start, the electricity, the microwave will work, even faith that if we work all week, we’ll get a paycheck, or every two weeks we have faith they’re going to pay us. We’re not worrying. All week, maybe.
0:05:35
What if I work all two weeks and they don’t give me any money? You don’t worry about that because you’ve settled that before. And your faith says, if I work for two weeks, they’re going to pay me. You have faith in them. And so now the Bible says, have faith in God. And without that faith in God, you’re not going to please the Lord. It’s impossible for him to be pleased with your life if you’re not walking by faith and have faith in God operating in your life.
0:06:02
And a lot of people don’t. A lot of people believe in God and the Bible says that’s good, but even demons believe in God, but they don’t act in faith. Demons believe in God, but they don’t do anything that the Bible says. They’re not going to do what the Bible says to do, but they believe in God, but they don’t obey God. They believe in God, but they don’t have faith in God. And so that’s the difference. You can believe in God, but now you need to have faith in God and start operating in faith by praying in faith.
0:06:36
Giving money in faith, that’s one of the easiest things to do is give money to your church or to a ministry, preferably your church. If you attend church, you should tithe to the church where you go. And it’s so easy to do. Just you go into a store and you hand your credit card, you go to the store, you hand them some money, go into store, you write a check, you don’t think anything of it because you expect to pay for the stuff that you’re receiving, the stuff you’re getting when you go to church, you’re getting something, then you should expect to do it. And you should do it.
0:07:09
Do it by faith, though. Don’t just throw some money in a basket or an envelope or something. Don’t just throw it in there. Do it by faith. You’re doing it by faith because you have faith in God that, that pleases him to give. It pleases him to do it by faith. And you’re going to get a return. You’re going to get a blessing from God because you’re doing something by faith that pleases God. Reading the Bible and believing it, find something in there to believe.
0:07:38
Don’t just read and try to find something that you’re doing wrong, like, oh, boy, am I a sinner. We had enough of that. Go read it and see who you are. Maybe you’re doing something right. Maybe there’s something you could do more. Because we need to do the word. Remember, the Bible says, you say you have faith, but I will show you my faith by what I do. So if it’s impossible to please God without faith, we’re going to have to start doing some faith things.
0:08:07
Maybe go to church by faith. Get your kids in church by faith, give by faith. Right. Read the Bible by faith, pray by faith, and other things you can do. Reach out. Love by faith. You say, well, they don’t love me back. Well, love by faith. Do it by faith that if you’ll sow that love, if you’ll start showing love, you’re going to get love back. All right, so that’s the first part. And I also use this example in raising the kids in our house that I didn’t ever have to lose my temper or yell or scream because I told them ahead of time what kind of household we’re going to have. And then if they weren’t doing things the way they should, their attitudes weren’t right or they doing stuff that I didn’t agree with.
0:08:51
All I did is tell them I’m not pleased, I’m not happy. And so when I’m not happy, I’m not generous. When I’m not happy, you should try this. If you’re a parent, if your kids are old enough, right? Zion’s here with me, producer, if your kids are old enough to understand it, but I’m not pleased. I’m not happy. And when I’m not happy, I’m not generous. I’m not generous with the tv or I’m not generous with the car, I’m not generous with your phone because I own your phone, I own the car, I own the tv, and I’m just not feeling generous because I’m not happy.
0:09:24
I’m not pleased. And I would tell the kids, but you know what? You can turn that around. All you have to do is make me happy. And when I’m happy, I’m generous. I like to give, and when I’m pleased, I like to do things for other people. But if I’m unhappy, I might say I’m unhappy. I’m not pleased. I’m not happy. I’m not feeling generous. I think I better take that phone back and right away they understand.
0:09:48
All they got to do is make me happy and they’ll get the phone back again. Stay calm, be solid, be consistent, and it works. And you don’t have to yell and scream or lose your temper. All right? So without faith, it’s impossible to please God. If you please God, God’s going to be generous. Right? Just like I used myself as an example. He’s going to be happy. He’s going to be pleased. He’s going to be generous. He’s going to be in a giving mood.
0:10:14
He’s a support move. He’s going to move on your faith. He’s going to honor your faith because it makes him pleased, it pleases him. Makes sense. Okay, so that’s review of part one. Now, part two. Without faith, it is impossible to please God because we must also believe that he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him, that put effort into finding him, finding who he is, connecting with God.
0:10:47
And he is a rewarder. So you have to believe that he is. You have to believe that God exists. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. You have to believe the same verse, so you have to believe that he exists. And that’s a big. And that he rewards those who put effort into finding him, that seek him, that want to know him, that do God things that help, like prayer, like reading the Bible, like going to church and just having faith in God’s system.
0:11:23
Jesus announced, the kingdom of God is among us. You better believe that. And if you believe that it pleases God, and then because the kingdom is here, you can get rewarded from the kingdom, he’ll reward those. And you can put that any timetable you like if you think it only happens. Okay, so after I die or at the judgment or at the end of the age, I’ll get a reward? You can, but I don’t do that. I just take it. He rewards those that diligently, honestly, with effort, seek him.
0:11:58
And I don’t put a time frame on it. It doesn’t say when I take it now he’s going to reward me in this life and the life to come is what I believe anyway. He’s going to reward me because I have put effort in trying to find him. I’m seeking him to find him. He’s important. Finding out what God thinks, how God thinks. Finding out what God says about different things. Not just assuming that I know what the Bible says and just know a few scriptures, but I’ve read my Bible. I’m seeking what is God like?
0:12:33
When I read the Bible, I always got sermons on my mind because that’s what I do and what I’ve done. And I like to look for clues. I like to find clues, what pleases God. And then when I go preach, I’m telling people the clues that I found, and we already mentioned tithing is a clue. It’ll open the windows of heaven. It opens blessing, tithing, giving, generosity. Give and it’ll be given unto you. And so I find clues in there about prayer. And we just found another clue, didn’t we? He rewards those who diligently, consistently heartfelt, seek him to know him, to find him, to serve him, to speak for him, to bring his ways, operate your home based on the kingdom of God, ways that the fruit of the spirit, the love and the joy and the peace, patience, the kindness, all those things, you put that on yourself, that pleases God because those are his ways. And so you expect yourself to act that way.
0:13:36
You don’t give yourself the liberty to lose your temper or be unforgiving or be angry at people or be offended and still be a Christian because that doesn’t please God. So why would you do that? You do things that please God. And so that’s biblical. You learn in the Bible what pleases God. What do I do? How do I please him? The Bible says when you’re in the army and you’re military, you do the things because you want to please the commanding officer, right?
0:14:04
In our case, maybe our commanding officer is Jesus, right? And we want to do things. We want to please our commanding officer. And we’re not in this to serve ourselves. We’re in this to serve God. And you need to find some way to serve God, some way that makes him is pleasing. And I love it when people go to their church and through their church to serve, because churches serve in many ways. Like our church gives to different mission people overseas.
0:14:33
We give in town to people and different things. And so you don’t have to go do that. And sometimes we don’t have to go do it. We go give it to an organization that already takes care of poor people. So we give money to them to help them, rather than us open our own little poor person shop to help them. We just give money to people who already know what they’re doing with it or a prison ministry or whatever.
0:15:00
So you don’t necessarily have to go start a prison ministry yourself. Go to church, give, find out what charities or what work your church does in the community or gives to missionaries. And so every time you give to that church, you’re also giving to those missionaries, right. Because the church supports those people. So I really like that. I like it. If you serve children in the church, children really need you to serve.
0:15:25
There’s all kinds of ways you can serve because you want to serve the Lord and in that capacity. So I like that a lot. Using the church as your springboard to be a servant, because there’s so many things that churches need people for today and so believe that he exists. So without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And so you must believe that he exists. That’s the second thing. And then the third would be.
0:15:51
And he rewards those who actively seek him, seeking him out. And you know how to seek. Yes, you do. I did a test one time, and in church I was teaching on seeking the Lord. And after one of the sermons, I did several sermons on it. And after one of them, somebody came up to me and said, well, I’m just not sure how to seek. Well, how do I know if I’m seeking the Lord? And I said, surely you know the answer.
0:16:21
Everybody knows how to seek and go after something. But in the next service came along, I taught them how to seek. And here’s what I did. So they’re all sitting in their pews, all where they always sit this. When we were in the country, I may have done it. When we’re here in the city, I can’t remember. So before the church service started, I snuck under one of the pews and taped $100 bill to it, $100 underneath someplace where somebody’s sitting.
0:16:49
And I went ahead and preached on seeking and seeking the Lord and all the stuff I wanted to teach and thought, well, I guess. And then I tested them. I said, listen, if you think you don’t know how to seek, let me show you an example right now. And I said, right now, under the pew, somewhere in this room is $100 bill. The first person that seeks and finds gets to keep it. Wham. The place went crazy, especially with the kids.
0:17:19
Kids and teenagers. They were the first to jump up, they’re on the floor, they’re crawling around. They don’t care who’s in their way. They don’t care whose feet is in their way. They don’t care whose feet they stomp on. And sure enough, 110 each kid there, he found it. He found the $100 bill. And you know what? We learned how to seek. We learned how to seek. That’s how you do it. You get excited. You go after it. You start searching, you start reading, you start praying, because you want that $100 bill. Or in our case, we want the reward.
0:17:52
Whatever God has for us, he’s a rewarder. And I like that, too. It doesn’t sound like he rewards once. It sounds like he’s a rewarder. On and on. It continues on through your lifetime. He will reward you for giving him time, your talent, your money, your thoughts, your heart, your prayers, your bible reading, your character. You try to have the character of God and copy God, so to speak, and his ways and his love and his attitudes.
0:18:24
And you need to read what some of those are and read it and see it for yourself all through. Psalms are great to read. I’ve told people the book of Mark is a good one. It’s the shortest one to the point. That’s a good one to read. So get into the word of God, but by faith. Now, faith pleases God. So where does your faith go? First of all, your faith says God exists. Okay? That’s like, turn on the light. My faith says electricity in this room right now exists, okay?
0:18:53
But in our case, our faith says he’s going to reward me. That’s my faith talking. God is going to reward me for diligently, persistently, right? Energetically, whatever word you want to throw in there, seeking him, finding him, connecting with him, walking with him, considering him, talking with him, living that life, and he will reward you. So when God is pleased, what does he do? He rewards. He rewards those that believe he exists and that those that seek him.
0:19:28
Your life is going to change. Your life will change if you follow this simple clues I’ve given you today. To walk by faith, to have faith in God. Plus, then I believe the world is going to change. I believe it’s due for a change. I believe the rumblings we see today in society, on our streets, some of the protests, some of the crime, some of the immigration, that’s out of control, too. Drugs, politics, other nations wanting what we have, all the pieces fit.
0:20:01
And then if you seek God, God will tell you about that, and he’ll get it into your spirit saying, yeah, the world is going to change and you’re going to need to have faith in God. You’re going to need some rewarder on your side. You’re going to need a God that’s pleased with you on your side, and it’s going to make a difference. So then when you have that, because we’re in the kingdom of God, pleasing God by faith, then if the world changes around us, it doesn’t affect us like it affects everybody else because we have a kingdom operating in our life called the kingdom of God and all the blessings of the kingdom. We got God help, right?
0:20:37
We have an advantage over everybody else. We’ve got God help. We’ve got the God advantage because we walk by faith, not by sight and not by feelings for faith, it pleases God. And faith gives substance to the things you’re hoping to happen in your life. It brings substance to it like it’s so real, even though it hasn’t happened yet. And it gives us the ability, it makes substance to things we hope for.
0:21:01
And inside our hearts we have evidence of the unseen world. We know it’s here today. I know the unseen world is listening. I know there’s angels, I know there’s God, there’s a spirit of God, all the unseen things, I know that, right? Because I have faith and faith gives me the evidence that the unseen world is part of my life and operating in my life and doing things in my life, and I want to do things in God’s life. Are you getting this today?
0:21:31
So without faith, it’s impossible to please God, for he who wants to please God must believe that he is, that he exists, and that he will reward you for diligently, consistently, energetically finding him out, seeking him out, locating him in your life where he’s inactive and he’ll be an active God and your life will never be the same if you’ll follow this simple thing and have faith in God. Are you getting this today? Until next time, bye.
