THE REWARD OF FAITH

TEXT: JAMES 1:6, MATTHEW 17:20 

“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.” (James 1: 6-8).

“He replied, "Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."(Matthew 17:20).

What is faith? The dictionary defined faith as complete trust or confidence in someone or something- faith is absolute trust in someone or something. The scripture defines faith as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1).

Now that we have explained what faith is, the question here is who should we have absolute faith in? The only person that we can put our absolute faith in without being failed is the only wise God- the Lord Almighty. Hebrews 12: 1 says “Looking unto Jesus the author and the finisher of your faith… Jeremiah 17:5 buttressed this by saying “This is what the Lord says. Cursed is the one who trusts in man who draws strength in mere flesh, and whose heart turns away from the Lord.

Do you wonder why the Lord is advising us not to put our trust in fellow man? The reason is because God knows that there is limit to what human beings can do- our strength, wisdom and knowledge are limited as human beings. Only the almighty God is the unlimited God. Nothing limits Him if He’s set to do a thing.

Human being may promise to do something for you and they may genuinely have the mind of helping, but because of the limited power, strength and wisdom of human beings, they may faith you. Only God will not fail you; that is why He is the only one we should put our trust in.

The reward of faith is that when you put your faith in God He will not disappoint you- He will not fail you, He will bring your expectation to pass. As good as that sounds, there is more to it. To walk with God in faith you have to “leave your brain behind you” What do I mean? Faith requires what does not make sense to ordinary mind (example is when Jesus spat on the ground and used it to heal a blind eyes). It is scientifically proven that human brain is wired to protect and guide human being against any harm. That is why when you want to embark on any new idea, task or endeavour, your brain automatically tries to talk you out of making the move to do what is planned because your brain wants to protect you from “danger”. When walking with God in faith and you are told to do what is “humanly unreasonable” your brain will “enlightens” you not to do it because it makes no sense- this makes trusting God and walking in faith to be impossible.

There were people in the bible that got the rewards of their faith in the word of God- the Lord did not disappoint them, their expectation were made to come to pass.

King Jehoshaphat in second Chronicles 20 defeated all the people that waged war against his nation only by singing praises to God as the Lord instructed him to do. He won the battle without any weapon - without raising his hands to fight! The wall of Jericho came down flat only by marching and shouting of the people of God- they followed the instruction of God with faith and they had victory.

If Peter was using human wisdom when Jesus told him to go to the river to catch the first fish and open its mouth to get money for them to pay their tax, Peter would have said no- but because Peter had done away with his human brain (wisdom) his faith in Jesus made his expectation to come to fulfilment.

To cap it all, I will talk about Abraham’s faith- he was called the father of faith because of his “dangerous” faith in God. He demonstrated his faith to his son Isaac when God told him to sacrifice the boy for Him. When the boy asked the dad that he could see other thing for the sacrifice except the Ram, the father told his son that the Lord shall provide. Abraham believed that God is a loving God and wouldn’t allow him to sacrifice his long awaiting son. Lo and behold, the Lord proved himself as the ever faithful God again- He provided the Ram as Abraham expected!

The take home today is to be steadfast in your faith to God knowing well that the Lord will reward you by granting you the expectation of your heart and give you victory on every side provided you did not doubt Him.

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