sing it now Jesus is the answer for the world today above there's no Jesus the way today we're going to be talking about the principles of Faith as we've already seen faith is the very basis of the Salvation process and our means to get completely whole so we need to understand these principles and one of the good things that in the Bible there is a whole model of faith that we'll call the trial of your faith it turns out that all of these Faith principles fit into a particular pattern that is very much like a criminal or a civil court case in the courts that we have today and then after we look at that we want to look at how do we increase our faith and we want to look at how do we assess Faith what does the Bible say about faith this going to be a little bit of a review of what we talked about last time it says faith is the inner conviction that something will happen or that is already occurred it talks about it's the substance of Hope the evidence of Things Not Seen let's look at that verse for a second Hebrews 11:1 says now now Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of Things Not Seen and you hear that word evidence we're going to see that later as we put this all together now what kind of evidence do we actually have in life that has to do with faith we have two types first we have natural evidence see I know that all of you in this class today have tremendous Faith how do I know that because you're sitting in your chairs the fact that you sat down in that chair means you have natural faith that the construction of that chair is going to hold you or you wouldn't be sitting there so we learn things in life and we learn to trust those things based on what really happens to us this is what Jesus said to Thomas though about natural Faith Jesus said to him Thomas because thou Hast seen thou Hast believed blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed so God wants us to go beyond this thing called natural Faith to Supernatural faith that is based on God's word the Bible says in Romans 1017 so then Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God so when I hear the word of faith it becomes reality to me and we'll be looking at two words here in the future there are two words when we're talking about hearing the word of God it can either be logos which is the general principles of the word of God or it can be Rama and this verse is talking about the Rama of the word of God when I know that it applies to me when it's spoken to me directly faith is the means of receiving salvation we've seen that over and over again uh the Bible's really clear on that faith is the key of Supernatural manifestations and answered prayer Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them verily I say unto you if you have faith and doubt not you shall not only do this which is done to the Fig Tree but also you shall say unto this Mountain be thou removed and be thou cast into the sea and it shall be done righteousness or holess comes through faith victory over our problems comes through faith without faith we can't please God we've looked at all those verses before everything that is not of faith is sin remember why because if we're trying to meet our own needs and we don't believe God to meet our needs then we're going to take advantage of other people to get our needs met the promises of God are received through faith and patience this is Hebrews 6:12 be not slothful be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises and faith is the beginning of the process of maturity in second Peter chap 1 it starts out and besides this give all diligence add to your faith virtue and virtue knowledge and knowledge Temperance and Temperance patience and patience godliness into godliness brotherly kindness and a brotherly kindness charity or agape love but it all started with faith didn't it we've got to be saved first Faith begins when we hear the promises of the word of God spoken to us the word Rama is God speaking to us and we know God is relating to us directly then it affects us and we learn to believe think of Faith as trust that if we really trust somebody how does that develop only through relationship only when it specifically has to do with me we must accept what is spoken and believe it or it will do us no good if you won't act on your faith it really doesn't affect you and make any real difference look at Hebrews 4:2 For unto us was the Gospel preached as well as unto them and the word preached did not profit them being not mixed with faith in them that heard it it is a drawing of the Holy Spirit and what Jesus has done for us it helps us want to accept and believe the word of God John 6:44 and no man can come to me except the Father which sent me draw him and I will raise him up on the last days but we are the ones who must decide to believe and live by faith Hebrews 10:38 now the just shall live by faith but if any man draw back my soul will have no pleasure in them now how do We believe We must believe in the heart and I'm laying some Foundation here for the future as we look for that trial of faith and I'm going to suggest that the heart consists of the innermost being of man and I want to prove to you that when we're talking about believing with a heart that we're talking about the mind the emotions the will and the spirit let's look at some verses here Matthew 13:15 for this people's heart is wax gross and their ears are dull of hearing and with their eyes they have closed lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them understanding is a function of what our mind Mark 12:33 and to love him with all of the heart and with all of the understanding and with all all of the soul and with all of the strength and to love his neighbor as himself is more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices and love is an emotion Hebrews 4:12 for the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing Ascender of the Soul and Spirit and of the joints and the marrow and is the discerner in the thoughts and the intense of the heart intense are your will and finally in Romans 2:29 for he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not of the letter whose praise is not of men but of God so it's also the spirits so do you see why I say we must believe in our mind our emotions our will in our spirit now what if I only believe in my mind that's called mental Ascent what if I only believe in my emotions that's called feeling Faith what if I only just want to do it that's called presumption but if it gets down to my spirit and I know it that is what really is the faith of the heart that I'm really talking about here now I'd like to go to that trial of the faith that we talked about a bit earlier and put this together and then continue to paint you a picture of how Faith actually works in our lives and how we can all win that trial of our faith first let's see where that all comes from look at 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 7 and the trial of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perisheth though it be tried with fire might be found under the praise and the honor and the glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ Christ so we're going to have a trial right we need to Now find out the rest of the parts of that trial in a trial what do we need well we're going to need to have an attorney right where do we get this attorney from 1 John 2:1 my little children these things write I unto you that you sin not and if any man sin we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous an ad Advocate is the word lawyer how about a prosecuting attorney or an opposing attorney in this story Revelations 12:10 and I heard a loud voice saying in heaven now has come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of His Christ for the accuser of the Brethren is cast down which accuse them before God day and night so Satan is the Accuser do you see how that all fits together now let's take a look at a chart of what we're going to be looking at here and put some things together and then we'll get back to our principles in a little bit the chart is at the end of this chapter and this is called the trial of your faith and I want to point out some things about this chart and then we'll blow it up and get into the individual details of what is going on okay the first thing on the left hand side we see it talks about a qu iring Faith the fight of faith and holding on to our faith then in the middle of our chart it gives a different steps that we go through of developing this Faith from salvation to the law to Gathering evidence to a confession to action to manifestation to permanence and on the right hand side of this chart we have the different things in the court that we have in our society today and we're going to relate these all together in the court analogy we have the law we have the presentation of evidence the jury deliberations the verdict the sentence the appeal the sentence Begins the parole hearing and finally justice prevails and that's what we're going to be looking at here as we continue going through that chart so what do we need now we have have a trial we have the prosecuting attorney we have our attorney what else do we need at this particular point we need to have a jury and who is the jury I'm going to suggest the jury inside of you is your mind your emotions your will and your spirit that's the heart of the case and it's the jury that we're going to have to convince and it's the jury that is going to determine how this trial of Faith actually comes out in your life and I'm going to suggest to you that all of us are going through trials of faith and especially when there is a crisis in our life are we going through a trial of our faith and as we look at this particular thing let's look at what we need to get this trial going right now is it that I can just go down to the court and hold a trial about anything I'm going suggest the answer is no in order to have a trial about anything first you have to have a law and what is the law we're dealing with here that is the logos and that is what God has said and that's the law that we live by and the universe functions by and if I can't find it in the script scriptures can I claim it no I can't but it takes more than that the logos is not enough I have to get from the logos I have to prove that it applies to me see as an example if I say that I want to be forgiven of all of my student loans and the reason I want to be forgiven is because after I got my degree I worked in one of the outlining Mental Health Centers here in Kansas and there's a law that says that if you do that they will forgive your student loans but what if I never worked at one of the mental health centers in Kansas can I apply that to me absolutely not because I don't fulfill the qualifications of of the law that we're talking about here so I have to establish first that the law applies to me what's the next thing that I need after that I have to gather the evidence don't I so let's go back to that to acquire evidence in our spirit we must persevere in prayer until we know that we have the answer John Advan zini has a book called Faith EX Enders and what it's talking about is presenting that evidence see throughout your life Satan your accuser has been presenting evidence against you evidence that you're no good evidence you're never going to amount to anything evidence that you have sinned and you've messed up your life and therefore you are hopeless and if you want anything from God what are we going to have to do present evidence to our jury and convince ourselves we are forgiven because of what Jesus did we are okay because of who we are in Christ we are worthy to go on with our life and to be blessed or whatever that promise happens to be and we know in the Bible and it says in many places that we must persevere in prayer persevere with God in what we're doing to see that happen we can win any case and where we're accused of being inadequate of sins because of what Jesus did upon the cross because he paid the price for them let's say I'm in a situation and the Satan has presenting all this evidence against me of all my sins of everything that I've done wrong what do I say I say your honor I object none of that applies to me because I've already admitted I did all those things was already tried and convicted of all these things but Jesus paid for them he paid them all in full my record is already stamped paid in full so therefore none of that evidence can be used again I can't be tried twice for the same crime secondly again when evidence is presented against me for all the things I did what can I say I can say your honor I object you can't admit that evidence because that evidence is about my old man that's who I used to be and that old man died and you can't convict somebody that is dead of anything Romans 6:6 knowing this that our old man is crucified with him that the body of sin might be destroyed that henceforth we should not serve sin so you see what's going on here a lot of the stuff that the devil has been presenting against me and unfortunately a lot of stuff that Christians present against themselves is no longer admissible in court because either it's applying to my old man who has died or it's applying to something that I did that I've been convicted of and Jesus Paid the price for it so what do I need to do I need to present more and more evidence to my mind my emotions my will and my spirit until my spirit who is the foreman of my jury is convinced enough that I'm willing to bring the verdict it's not good enough for me to just believe it in my mind or in my spirit or in my emotions or in my will Because unless the for of the jury the spirit is convinced unless I know that I know that this is true I will not bring the verdict now if you look back at your chart you're going to see what it says is that when I'm finally convinced in my spirit then the next step is called confession that is when I start speaking out what I believe and that is bringing the verdict 2 Corinthians 4:13 we have the same Spirit of Faith according as it is written I believed and therefore I have spoken we also believe and therefore speak so we have to speak it what's the next thing that has to happen action if you really believe this are you going to act according to it James 1:22 be ye doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves verse 217 even so faith if it has not work is dead being alone now how much Faith do I need to bring that verdict and to act upon it only enough to overcome my unbelief in the courts they call this Beyond A Reasonable Doubt Matthew 17:20 and Jesus said unto them because of your unbelief for verily I say to you if you had Faith as a grain of mustard seed you shall say into this mountain remove hence To Yonder place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible to you mustard seeds are very very small just enough to overcome your unbelief so you can declare the verdict and you're willing to speak it out now after I bring that has this manifested yet no it hasn't I believe believed it I've act on it I've thought about it what's the next thing it's got to actually materialize at some point and before that happens we're going to have all sorts of evidence thrown against us because even though we have a sentence and we even have a verdict what do we not have we haven't overcome the appeal yet and then the appeal the devil or Satan is is going to throw all sorts of things at you to convince you that this is never going to manifest it's never going to really happen in your life our faith will be Tried by circumstances and of course God wants it to be that when physical circumstances contradict what the word of God says that we choose the word of God over those physical circumstances and our faith must not waver the Bible makes this really clear James 1:6 but let him ask in faith nothing wavering for he that wavereth is like the wave of the sea driven with the wind and toss for let not that man think that he receiveth anything of the Lord what is wavering it's when your spirit says one thing and your mind your emotions and your will say something else and you're going back and forth maybe it's going to happen maybe it's not going to happen but it has to happen our lack of faith can be based on a lack of knowledge or inadequate evidence it can be based on hardening of our hearts it can be based on the physical senses on symptoms that we might have we might not believe because we feel we're unworthy and faith can be confessed with hope it's a story that my pastor used to tell about the town he was in in that particular town there was a bar though of course he didn't frequent the bar there was a sign in the window and that said free beer tomorrow what do you think happened when you came in the next day and asked for your free beer they just pointed to the sign and it said free beer tomorrow and so therefore you never got your beer and that's the way it can be that we can have this hope that God's going to do something for us but if we never get to the place that we know it's going to happen and it's going to happen at a particular time and that's what we call the point of contact it never occurs a supernatural battle occurs between the time we have heart faith and when we see the manifestation and this is clearly brought out in the Book of Daniel Daniel 10:12 then said he unto me fear not Daniel for from the first day that thou did set thine heart to understand and to chasen thyself before thy God thy words were heard and I am come for thy words but the prince of the kingdom of Persia with stood me one in 20 days but Lo Michael one of the chief princes came to help me and I remained there with the kings of Persia it says that after Faith there's a battle in the heavenlies to see this manifest in this particular case the evil spirits were able to resist it and keep it for happening for 21 days now what is this that's the appeal that's the resistance because the sentence hasn't actually occurred the person doesn't really go to prison until the appeal has been resolved even after the manifestation occurs we must still hold on to our faith and act according to our faith because even after we have it even after as an example you were healed the devil is still going to convince you that you're not healed that it did not really happen and that's what we call the parole hearing that a person still has a chance of getting out of jail if they can show additional evidence that they acted well in jail or evidence has changed or something and the whole thing can still be overturned let's take an example here to put this all together here in a little picture here and this is the example of when Jesus came to the disciples walking on the water in Matthew 14:29 and Jesus said come and when Peter was come down out of the boat he walked on the water to go to Jesus now let's think about this let's go back and see the logos is there anything in the Bible that says that we can walk on the water no but Jesus was doing it and Peter asked and Jesus said Rama come and Peter must have believed enough in his heart his mind emotions and willing the spirit that he put his foot out of the boat and started walking in the water so what do we know he had sufficient Faith didn't he he had enough Faith to actually walk on the water to see this thing manifested so you realize these things can happen very very rapidly can't they but when he saw the wind boisterous he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried saying Lord save me what happened the devil threw more waves more wind at him and he saw the natural circumstances and his Faith turned to fear and because it turned to fear he began to sink but notice in verse 31 and immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him oh thou of little faith wherefore this thou doubt notice he said little faith why because the faith didn't stand against those symptoms against those physical things and therefore it didn't stand up and it did not continue to function what are those different terms about faith let's just divert here for a second and look at those what is dead Faith it's when we will not act upon it what is perfect or mature Faith it's when we're able to act on the faith and our confidence does not waver what is little faith it's like with Peter when he was overcome by the circumstances and fears of his soul what is great faith great faith is when it is so strong that no circumstance or natural evidence can shake it what is sufficient faith when you have enough Faith to see it manifest it and hold on to it and what is saving or effective faith when it causes yourself to be saved or it's effective in your life of what it does overall and what is no faith no faith is when your mind your emotions your will and your spirit has really no faith if we lack Faith fear will overwhelm us and we'll be unable to carry out the directions of God we are to use our faith not performance approval or worldly gain as a measuring Rod of our value and this is Romans 12:3 for I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think but to think soberly according to as God has dealt to every man a Measure of Faith and the word there is measuring Rod some people misinterpret this to mean that we're talking about a Measure of Faith to get you saved no this is a measure of comparison and we said before that as your faith grows so does your salvation your sanctification your wholeness as a person and this is the way we're to look at ourselves and we're really to measure what is going on there in our lives but the question is if what happens in our lives Is So based on faith like this is it possible to increase our faith because some people have sort of taken the position of saying say no God's the one that provides faith and that's all that we can do about it here's the verse but let's look at that at Amplified looking away from all that will distract to Jesus who is the leader and the source of our faith giving it maturity and Perfection for for the joy of obtaining the prize that was set before him he endured the cross despising ignoring the shame is now seated at the right hand of the Throne of God it's saying Jesus is who we're believing in and Jesus is the one who brought this Faith to the highest level that's what it's saying but the question is can we increase our faith and I'm suggesting that yes we can let's look at second Thessalonians 1:3 we are bound to thank God ours for you brethren as it is meat because that your faith groweth exceedingly and the charity that's love of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth their faith was increasing exceedingly let's take a look at that but first how do we evaluate faith I'm suggesting it's three-dimensional first we can grow our faith in intensity and strength second we can increase the areas that we are believing for and third we can increase the areas that it applies in our heart do we have faith in our mind your emotions our will and our spirit the primary and most important way to increase faith is to build a deep trusting relationship with God remember faith and trust are the same thing how do we get someone to trust you by having a relationship with them by experience building a faith foundation in God's word is required to begin a life of faith I need to know that I can rely on the word of God there's a book out called new evidence that demands a verdict by Josh McDow and it shows you that the Bible and the word of God Is So authenticated that it has many more documents and much more validity than all of ancient history the client must be taught the principles of Faith that's why we're talking about those now in this particular class we must learn how to hear the voice of God remember that Greek word Rama see I need to be able when I'm reading the word of God I need to be able to hear God saying this is for you I need to hear him speaking to me and of course he speaks to me primarily through intuition but could also speak through prophecy or dreams or any other way the client must make himself available to hear and receive additional Revelation from God I'm the one that has to get that evidence and present it to my jury so that I will really believe see it's my job to build this Faith within me the Bible in Philippians 2:12 and 13 says that we're to work out our salvation with fear and trembling for it is God that will work in you to both will and to do his good pleasure so we do our part and then he will do his part the client must gather evidence to support the faith he wishes to have and there's a lot of different kinds of evidence for the different kinds of Faith you're looking for as an example mental faith in your mind studying the word of God articles about faith written in books magazine newspapers all give us evidence for our thinking for emotional Faith past experiences trusting relationships with people agreements with other people that believe that things will happen imagining faith will happen volitional faith our will fellowship with others that have faith speaking what we believe studying biographies of famous Christians and we see what they did then we want to see God working in our lives and spiritual Faith Revelation that we get directly from God Revelation that we get as we grow spiritually developing a close sense of experiential relationship with God experiencing God's presence meditating in the word of God walking by the spirit the client must object to and not allow negative evidence to be presented in his heart remember we talked about that you don't have to accept all that junk that the devil is throwing at you because Jesus has already paid the price for your sins and you are not the person you used to be the client should speak what he believes is true remember the confession in our trial of Faith the client should act on the faith he has before expecting it to manifest we have to realize that unless we act on it we can't take the next step we can use the building block approach of faith and the building block approach is I can believe God for where I'm at right now when I see that manifested that gives me more faith to believe God for the next thing and the next and the next thing building throughout my life the client can join in agreement with others to strengthen their faith this is where joint prayer groups come in he must stand in that Faith even in the face of adverse circumstances or physical evidence until he receives the manifestation of his faith so let's summarize those very rapidly here what do we do we can increase our faith through a personal relationship and an ever increasing knowledge of God we can hear and steud and meditate in the word of God until it becomes a revelation to us we can gather evidence to support the development of faith in a particular area in our lives or a particular part of our heart finally we can develop faith through experience but how do we evaluate this let's take a look at that and let's talk about faith assessment when we look at Faith assessment we know that we're dealing with several different areas first we can talk about analysis of the heart what is that do I logically think it's going to happen that's my mind do I feel like it's true and will happen those are my emotions am I will to act and what I say I believe that's my will and do I intuitively know that I know that it's going to happen my experience is that in all cases in my life when I knew that I knew it was really going to happen it happened another part of this is when is it going to happen and for that we use a method called the faith ladder and we simply ask ourselves a series of questions about what we really believe down in our spirit is going to happen and we ask ourself do you really believe that God's going to give this to me if I say yes then I'm going to say when is God going to give this to me and I'm going to ask in decrease in value well is it going to happen 10 years from now that's hope five years from now one year one month one day until I can say it's going to happen now I really don't have faith but then I have to determine how much I'm going to hold on to my faith is it still going to have occurred is it still going to be there one day from now one week from now is this solid can I hold on to this as we talked about in this whole question of the trial of our faith in this particular session and you can ask yourself those questions and then we integrate that all together in what we call the comprehensive Faith assessment that we have in your book and it's going to look at three different things first the area in which we're attempting to believe because all of us have different amounts of faith in different areas in our lives the level of development of faith in that particular area do I have sufficient Faith do I have little faith and finally do I have sufficient faith in the in what area of my heart is it my mind emotions my will or my spirit or is it the entirety of my heart and I want you to take that Faith assessment and in that Faith assessment remember we're not talking about is it just in my mind or is it what the word of God says we're asking what you really believe is going to happen deep down inside of your heart and it takes you through all these different areas of which you might believe and asks you do you truly believe that this is already manifested in your life do you really believe it's going to manifest when you think about the physical event in that particular period of time do you expect the event to physically have occurred at that time and from that we're going to look at each one of these areas and if you can't say that it has already happened and that it will continue to happen then we're asking you to write down okay where's my deficit is it in my mind my emotions my will or my spirit and take that Faith assessment to see where you are right now in your spiritual walk and later on in life you can take it again and again to sort of see is your faith increasing and of course we believe that it will increase in your life let's pray Lord we thank you that we can trust you and we can trust your word and we can believe on you and as we do you will answer answer our prayers you will meet our needs you will work in our lives and we can grow to become everything that you want us to be and we thank you that you've given us that trial of Faith Lord that we can win every time in our lives and we ask that you would increase our faith exceedingly and we give you the glory and the honor in Jesus name amen