I see you have an entrepreneurial spirit. You’re sitting on an idea God has breathed into you to create wealth. You are a Kingdom financier.

Be encouraged. Be strengthened in spirit. Test the word. Pray over it. When He confirms and you have peace in your heart at the thought of stepping out, it will be time to lunge forward.

Blessings upon your new venture.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.

Hebrews 11:1-2

Faith is perhaps the most talked about word from the Bible, yet most people don’t understand it. We’ve all heard that first sentence, but I’m guessing many of us don’t have the second sentence memorized.

It’s important because it provides CONTEXT. And context is important.

You’ve also no doubt heard the other most popular verse about faith:

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing the word of Christ.

Romans 10:17

Uh… What? What does that mean?

Let’s take what we just read and let it add further context to the first one.

What is faith? It is being sure of what we hope for and it is what we are certain of yet do not see. How do we get faith? Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. And this is what the ancients were commended for.

Case Study: The Life of Abraham

The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.

“I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

So Abram is approached by a voice. For all we know, he heard a voice and nothing more. This voice made him promises based on his obedience. And he was told to make four MAJOR life changes:

• Leave your familiar surroundings
• Leave your community
• Leave your extended family
• Go to a place you’ve never seen before

So Abram left, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Haran. He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

This, friends, is faith. Don’t confuse it with what some religious groups essentially call “wishful thinking” or “willing yourself to agree with something”. That’s not faith. There is a formula for faith. It’s quite simple, and if you let it, it will revolutionize your thinking by its simplicity.

God speaks + You hear + You believe + You obey = Faith

Whether it’s directly from God’s mouth to your heart, through a friend, or through Scripture, God is constantly speaking to you each and every day. Whether you’re listening is up to you. Whether you’re believing what you hear is more affected by the posture of your affection and desire.

But faith isn’t reasoning yourself into abstaining from cigarettes or alcohol. It’s not doing good deeds to feel good about yourself or to try to earn your way into heaven. Faith is believing what you hear God say.

That’s it. It’s that simple. Abraham was going about his life when God spoke to him and told him to leave his hometown and everything familiar. He trusted God and chose to go. He didn’t know what would happen along the way. He didn’t have a roadmap. He just obeyed. And he obeyed because he believed it was better to obey this God than to do what felt comfortable.

And it was counted as righteousness to him. In Hebrews, God commends Abraham especially, calling him “the father of all who believe.” We also know from Scripture that by faith Abraham was deemed righteous by God.

All throughout the 11th chapter of Hebrews, we read about men and women of faith. These people trusted God. That’s what the Bible means when it says over and over again “By faith, Noah…” and “By faith, Abraham…” and “By faith, Enoch…” God spoke to them, and they believed him.

That, my friends, is what faith is.

What has God said to you? If you’re not sure, pray this prayer right now with me:

“Holy Spirit, thank you for speaking to me. What are you trying to tell me through this article?”

Now stop. Just listen.

That happens because we adopt labels without considering their origin. To these people, “organic” might as well be “low fat” or “no carbs”. It’s just a ploy to get people to spend more money on their health.

Unprocessed, organic, real foods aren’t trends or fads like Weight Watchers. They’re foods in their natural habitats, unaltered by any chemicals or processes that would alter their molecular structure and which could infect a person during consumption. The most common toxic intruders are pesticides or genetically modified plants (GMOs).

Pesticide - a chemical preparation for destroying plant, fungal, or animal pests.

At some point, either the 1700s or the 1800s, pesticides such as arsenic became widespread in order to fight off pests and rodents. To preserve crops so the farmers wouldn’t lose money or starve. Later on came the scientific discoveries that made genetic modification possible.

Before pesticides, fruit was just fruit. Vegetables were just vegetables. Meat was meat. Salt was the preservative. Additional flavors were herbs and other spices found in plants.

In other words, food was ALWAYS organic because there was no alternative.

It’s not a fad. It’s not a gimmick. Put simply, man and woman ate whatever God placed on the earth.

You don’t add sugar into your gas tank and expect it to run just like it was on pure gasoline. Your body is a natural complex organism, made for natural food. Eat food without unintended additives and your organs can process the food just fine, without backing up or clogging or congestion.

It’s a simple concept, when you step outside your 21st century mindset.

For too long, you’ve mismanaged the word of the Lord, preferring to hide out in the camp of entertainment. The future doesn’t not come because you were too busy watching television. Destiny doesn’t wait forever.

This is a time of sobering, where we who have been promised much have a choice to make. Will we continue to sit on the sidelines and watch others carry the torch? Or will we take up the promises of God and wear holes in the carpet with our prayers?

Will we lay siege to the Kingdom of Heaven until it’s been appropriated in our own lives? Will we be the ones who scrap and pull the corners of the Kingdom to touch earth and stitch them together fast?

Will we show up?

Therefore do not let what you know is good be spoken of as evil. For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit, because anyone who serves Christ in this way is pleasing to God and receives human approval.

Romans 14:16-18

“Someone has tricked us into trying to earn a place in the family into which we were birthed.”

I came across this statement online and it stunned me. Summarize all of our myriad of struggles in one sentence, and there you go.

We are wasting precious time trying to earn position we’ve already been birthed into.

The difference between two groups of Christians I know is that one group believes all the sanctification and salvation is already done while the other believes it’s an ongoing process until we live with Jesus forever.

The irony is that both are correct. We are positioned with all blessing and favor of a son or daughter of the Most High God. We have been given every privilege and freedom of a family heir.

But the ongoing freedom we still need to seek is in the realm of our thoughts, beliefs, and assumptions, and understandings. We have everything, but we don’t access it because we don’t fully believe that they’re truly ours. This is why, post-salvation, we are commanded to “be transformed by the renewing of your minds” and instructed that “we demolish (our own internal) arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

I’ve seen enough movies and read enough stories to know that if the son of the King never grasps the authority, power, and influence which are rightfully his, he will never experience the life that is already rightfully his. He can abdicate his role if all he does is accept the reality that his dad is King. He can enjoy being the son of someone really important and powerful and live in his shadow or he can step into his role and share in the creative responsibilities he was born into.

My Prayer

Let this sink into our hearts, Father, and retroactively set us free from years of insecurities and comparisons and self-doubts. Set Your Bride free from the thoughts and beliefs which entangle us when the provision and position are already ours.

Amen.