When faith is mixed in your life, life will become an adventure! When you start trusting God with your life, watch out! Adventure is coming to you! You never know what good things will happen. God loves to surprise His kids with good stuff.
But if we want to use faith and see things happen, we’re going to have to learn how. And I’ve found out that there are two important things that you must have in order to use faith to the fullest. I call it the two-fold constitution of faith. I call it that because I think of faith as God’s way of getting things done on earth. It’s sort of His constitution.
Attitude is the first vital part of faith. When you look to the Spirit of God for direction, you must have a positive attitude. You must speak good, faith-filled things and repeat what the Scriptures say if you want the power of faith to work for you. This is the confessing part.
Action is the second vital part of faith. That’s when you receive the direction from the Spirit of God and act on it! You cannot just talk. You must act on the Word. This is the possessing part of faith.
If you mix attitude and action in your faith you can produce any manifestation that you desire in this life, provided you have a deep sense of need and a strong hope of supply.
Get Up and Go!
Faith is an adventure. But you won’t be going on any adventure by just talking about it. You’ve got to get up and go! You can confess until you are blue in the face, but if you don’t reach out there and possess what God has given you, you won’t have it. Try mixing that confession with possession and you’ll see something happen! Just like attitude and action, confession and possession work together. You really can’t separate them at all.
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Now! Not tomorrow. Not next week. Now faith is! The church world has it mixed up. God is saying Now faith is…. They are saying, “Is faith now?” Wrong. Now faith is! Get it?
When you’re flat-out tired, when do you want to sleep? And when you’re hungry, when do you want to eat? I don’t know about you, but when I’m tired I want to sleep now. When I’m starving, I don’t want to eat later. I want to chow down now! That’s how faith is. It’s now.
Thinking about eating makes me remember my dad. It seems like Daddy was always hungry! When I was a small boy, I’d watch Daddy walk right up to Mama when she was in the kitchen frying up dinner. (Dinner, of course, was always fried or stewed because we lived in southern Louisiana.)
Daddy would hug Mama, then steal a chicken leg off the plate beside the frying pot! Mama thought he was just being affectionate, but I saw what was up. He was hungry! I mean, if she caught him, which she did most the time, she’d fume! She’d holler at him until he scatted out of the kitchen.
See, just as much as you want that food now, so faith is! And you thought I was getting off the point, didn’t you?
Faith: It’s Like Money in the Bank
When I begin to believe for something in my life, I use faith. I put faith on the line. I don’t just stand around confessing. I put action behind my faith. I do everything in my power. God does everything in His power. I don’t try to cross over into God’s area.
I can’t make it happen. But I can prepare the best way I know how for God to make it happen. I can do my part! God always does His. The finished product is a manifestation of whatever I was believing for.
It’s when I combine action and a strong attitude of faith that I see manifestations coming. Before they ever get to me in the natural, I’m seeing them with my spirit. If I need something, I create an image in my mind of the finished product. I start talking like it’s mine in the natural. God’s doing it. It’s like money in the bank.
See, my faith brings that manifestation to now. I see it now! Then, it makes no difference how long it takes to manifest in the natural, because I’ve already put my attitude and action in check. I’m possessing.
To me, it’s a done deal. And that’s why it’s never long before I see the manifestation in the natural come to pass. That may sound a little crazy if your mind isn’t renewed to the Word. God never does things the way we think He should, because we’re thinking with a natural mind and God, on the other hand, is supernatural. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts (Isa. 55:9).
Our thinking needs to be renewed by the Word of God so that we can start thinking more like Him. Ephesians 5:26 says He will sanctify and cleanse you by the washing of the water of the Word. Grab that Bible and start scrubbing up that old crusty mind. Wash that baby with the Word of God until it sparkles likes Jesus’ mind!
God’s Way Is the Right Way!
The first thing you have to accept is that God’s way is the right way. He established the power of faith, so it works His way, not your way. If you want to see a manifestation of God’s power in your life, you have to use faith His way. And that means renewing your mind so that you can start to think more like Him.
You can’t live by faith with an unrenewed mind. That’s why time in the Word and time with the Lord in prayer is so important. They renew your mind so that you can fully grasp faith. If you don’t take time to get to know the Lord, if you don’t take time to renew your mind with His Word, then you will find yourself becoming double-minded, going back and forth between doubt and faith. And that’s miserable! It isn’t faith and it won’t bring results!
So do you want to understand how faith really works? Great! Here it is: First you get a good attitude of belief. You believe with your heart until you can see that manifestation on the inside of you. Then, you act on your good attitude of faith by taking opportunities that God gives you. You don’t sit around aimlessly waiting.
You act by doing what you can in the natural, believing God through your prayers, actions and speech, and you allow Him to do what He can in the supernatural. Once you really believe and aren’t aimlessly waiting (which is attitude without action), once you bring your faith into the now (with attitude and action), then the manifestation of what you’ve already been seeing with your spirit comes to fruition in the natural world. In a nutshell, that’s faith!
Faith is knowing that you can’t exhaust God’s provision. Faith is knowing that God is too much! Every time I approach God I know He’s gonna bless me with more than I can think or ask. I know it. I expect it. And that is why it happens. I’m not arrogant in myself. I’m confident in God! He’s the one doing it all. I’m just obeying what He said.
In fact, I get ready for God’s blessing. And yet I’m still not able to receive the full blessing of God. Why? Because it’s too much! God astounds me! He just knocks my socks off! And when He does, I’m not afraid to let whoever is standing nearby know about it!
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers
Jesse Duplantis, minister of the Gospel, motivational speaker, television personality, and best-selling author, has been in full-time ministry since 1976 and is the founder of Jesse Duplantis Ministries, located in the Greater New Orleans area of south Louisiana in the United States of America. With over four decades of sharing his unique blend of humor and faith around the world, generations of believers have been inspired by his messages and countless numbers have come to know Jesus Christ as Savior through his ministry.
Known for his unflinching, status-quo-breaking messages and humorous take on experiences in the life of the believer, Jesse continues to draw large audiences of believers through social media, television, and meetings held around the world. With speaking engagements booked years in advance, Jesse Duplantis continues to keep an intense traveling schedule, flying throughout the United States and the world preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. With no booking agents pursuing meetings for him and no set fees imposed upon churches for speaking engagements, Jesse chooses his outreach meetings based on the same two criteria he always has: invitations that come in and prayer over each one. This uncommon way of scheduling in today’s world means Jesse’s many followers may find him speaking in some of the largest churches and venues in America and the world, as well as a great many small and growing congregations, too. No church is too big or small for the Holy Spirit, as he says.
Side by side with his wife Cathy Duplantis, the co-founder and chief of staff of Jesse Duplantis Ministries and the senior pastor of Covenant Church in Destrehan, Louisiana, Jesse continues to fulfill his life’s calling by daily taking up the Great Commission of Jesus Christ: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15). Through social media, television broadcasts, books, and other ministry products, as well as through many evangelistic meetings, the JDM website, the JDM app, and Voice of the Covenant magazine, Jesse Duplantis continues to see growth in his ministry and expand each year while maintaining his roots. Jesus is the center of his life. The salvation of lost people and the growth of believers is the purpose of his ministry. And for both he and his wife, every day is another day to “Reach People and Change Lives, One Soul at a Time.”