Faith Is Not What You Think

Using Faith That Works

So I have this thought, an idea, that I want to present to you. Just the word faith alone is enough to confuse every believer, even though we think we know what it means. The word faith can mess up even the ones who already show an interest in following our Christian walk or becoming a full fledged follower of Jesus Christ.

Without this thing called “faith”, you can never be the uncommon person you’d hope to be. In fact without “faith”, you’ll never become a “next-level” person. (To the left, I’ve not been here in a while.) How do you expect to be special, significant, a leader, without having what very few have to become great, faith? Faith is an attribute of the uncommon, record-breakers. Allow me to expound.

What it takes to please the One who is unlike anyone else?
It’s said that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” Have you ever considered what is takes to do that? In other words (for my non-Christian friends), how do we go beyond what seems humanly possible or believe that we can? It was said that it was humanly impossible for a person to break the world record for the long-jump until Jesse Owens did it in the 1930s. However, that impossible record has since been broken twice. What does that say about doing the impossible; it’s possible with faith.

If it takes faith, then we need to give a little more thought to this word, faith. Well, I’ve often heard others answer the question, “what is your faith?” They start to define their religion, they define what their church’s creed is, they define that they are a Christian, or that they believe the Bible. We come up with these superficial answers which I call popular thinking. Popular thinking says that I’m going to answer in such a way that it’s okay with the culture that I’m in. We do what’s common. We have phrases that our culture can accept and we won’t stray from that. Did you happen to think that if you don’t ever stray from culture that you will remain like the culture? No different.

“And it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that God exists and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him.” – bible.com/116/heb.11.6.nlt

It takes something called “faith” to please God, the One who made you, and become an extraordinary person. Let me say this off the bat, not everyone pleases God and not everyone will go to the next level, but you can. In fact very few will ever please God. It’s not something that common people do.

Examples of faith.
If you think back on some of the examples that the Bible gives us, you’ll see a direct contrast to what we do today as it relates to having faith. That’s an indication that we are common. It’s an indication that there is some improvements that you/I can make with regards to this subject of faith.

Faith in its simplest form can be illustrated in the story of Abraham. God gave him a vision for his life that didn’t exist and although it seemed too unbelievable for a normal human-being, Abraham went along with it. If you were to ask Abraham what is faith, he probably wouldn’t quote a scripture. He wouldn’t tell you what church or denomination he was. He wouldn’t even tell you that he was a follower of Christ. Of course, Christ didn’t exist in the days of Abraham. But he would say something more like this… I believed God for something that couldn’t happen to me without His help. And as a result, He gave me much more, that’s my faith.

If you ask Noah, Noah what was your faith, what would Noah say? Noah would say, you know God instructed me to build a ship. I believe that I needed to build a ship and He did a whole lot more with the actions I took. He allowed me to create a vessel that had never been created and to save the planet. What I call “faith” is doing what doesn’t make any sense to any other human-being and the results were unbelievable (you know the story).

What is God saying to you, so that you can use your faith? Why won’t you do something with that dream God’s planted in your heart? It’s there for a reason. I’d venture to say that you are the next Abraham or even the next Noah waiting to see how following God’s instructions will give you results that you could never, ever imagine. Because that’s what God does and when we allow Him to do that for us, we become “next-level” people.

A simple illustration in faith.
Let me take you back to when I taught our daughter, Tamia, how to ride a bike for the first time. So I decided to remove the training wheels and it was time for the real deal. This act reminded me of how faith works, but in simple terms that I could understand. I had enough faith to believe that she’ll be able to ride that bike and I instructed her that I believe (have faith) that she could. So here’s what happened she jumped on, took off, and started riding.

You have people in your life that you coach, train, and tell that you believe they can do something they’ve never done before. In the same way, having faith for our daughter to ride her bike, said I believed she could do something that she’d never been able to do before. That’s the same thing that God is asking out of you. He says that there is nothing in this world that can please Me other than you believing that you can do something that you have never done before. Now that’s faith.

That’s what faith is. Believing God for something in your life that has never been done before, never happened that way, or has never been proven to be a success in anyone else’s life but it is possible in your life.

In light of faith, I think about the mission, the message, and the service that our company, Kerry Clark & Company, is destined to do and there is no proof that we’re going to be able to accomplish these things. Yet, I have faith that God can do something that He’s never done for any other person on this planet through us.

Faith is not just a statement of being or answer you give in a casual way. Faith is your belief that you’re created to do what no other person can do and something that’s humanly possible without help. What’s your “faith” statement?

Until next week, share this web-post with a friend. Thanks for visiting nolongercommon.com; you’re on your way to becoming a “next-level” person.

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