Faith Works... How does it work?

What Gives? Why don't I receive?

Believing, Asking, Receiving, Faith, Seeing Results, Prayer of Petition... These are all great things. But why aren't more people seeing results? Why do people of Faith have so little? Why is it that when trouble comes most of us, like the apostles in the boat fear we will drown, rather than standing up and speaking to the storm "Peace be still!" 

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden on the Lord, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.

I've been wondering about that myself lately. What do I need to do to securely fasten myself to The Rock of Ages? A great man once told me that there are no complicated solutions. Complicated problems always arise because the basics are not being done. Whether you are building a house, building an excel sheet, or building a life... Whether you are playing guitar, creating a painting, or conducting a sales interaction... the basics are always the same for the field you are in. All guitar players have to work with the same set of rules in order to play a song. No matter how simple or complex the song is, there are basic things that work on a guitar. For example, if the guitar is out of tune you can be doing all the right things and not getting the right sound. Yellow paint and Blue Paint make green. Adding a little of this or that, more of this or less of that will change the dynamic. But Yellow and Blue make green. If you are aiming at Purple you won't get there with Yellow and Blue. You need to make a change. 

I want to take a look at SEVERAL scriptures and then dissect them to talk about the themes we find there. There are some basic things that apply to life and The Word always deals with these themes. As I've been meditating on these for weeks here is what I've found.

Scripture References:

Psalm 55:22

Cast your burden on the Lord, And He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.

John 14:12-17

12 "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. 13 And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. 15 "If you love Me, keep My commandments. 16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

John 15:7-11

7 If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. 8 By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. 9 "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 10 If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.

Matthew 6:25-34

25 "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? 28 So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; 29 and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31 Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

1 Peter 5:6-7

6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time, 7 casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

James 1:5-8

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Ephesians 3:12-21

12 in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. 13 Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. 14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Let's take a few things from this:

• Psalms 55
• Cast your burden on the Lord and HE will sustain you.
• This allows you to NOT BE MOVED
• In other words, being moved by the situation indicated you are not casting your burden on Him.
• John 14
• Have Faith in Him/Believe in Him: and you'll do as He did, plus more. 
• If you don't do as He did, it's because you don't believe/have faith.
• Work on believing and you'll see more results
• Believing with the HEART not just mental agreement
• Part of doing as He did, is ASKING and He'll do it for you! Just like HE asked HIS Father and it was done for Him.
• Whatever/Anything you ask in my name I'll do...
• Ask anything in my name and I'll do it...
• John 14 Tells twice to ASK and HE'LL DO IT because it's SO HARD to believe that!
• John 15
• Abide: Exist, Continue, Rest, Stand Firm
• Abide in Jesus! Let The WORD (which is Jesus) dwell IN YOU! Then ASK what YOU desire and it will be done for you. 
• Keeping His Commands (The Word) is how you abide in His Love.
• Abide in HIS LOVE... Meditate on HIS LOVE for you until your love for Him and others is the natural result, the overflow. 
• The Father is glorified through you asking and getting what you asked for, not by your sickness and poverty!
• By Keeping in The Word, until LOVE dwells in you to overflowing you will have JOY.
• Matthew 6
• "Do Not Worry" is stated THREE times in these few sentences! This is not a suggestion it is a command! 
• Worry cannot add to your life! This verse doesn't say that you can't add to your life, or even your natural height, but that WORRY will not do it! 
• Vs 31 tells us how worry is processed: Therefore do not worry saying... Speaking worry roots it down further into your heart and produces more of the same. Of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks, and faith is released by believing with the heard and confessing with the mouth. Faith comes by hearing... and hearing (accurately) comes from The Word. (Romans 10:6 Romans 10:17, Luke 6:45)
• Confess means: To say the same thing as.
• When a criminal is accused of a crime and he confesses, he is saying the same thing as the accuser. 
• If Faith comes by hearing and is released by saying/confessing then fear can also come by hearing and is released by saying. So you are releasing Faith or Fear with the words you speak. Not just a confession you speak in the morning for a few minutes. It's the words you speak throughout the day, the words you speak after you hung up with a customer that angered you, the words you don't say out loud but allow to rotate in your mind and refuse to extract and replace. 
• Imagination is highly developed words. When words start to take root they become images, in order to process the memory of them. Are the images of your mind, as you drive, fly, or simply walk down the hall to your next destination images of worry or faith? 
• What do we do instead of worry? 
• We SEEK FIRST...
• We seek The Kingdom of God (God's system of operation and God's agenda)
• Are you motivated more by what God can do for you or what God can do through you for others? Are you setting your mind on the agenda of God? Are you asking God what assignments he has for you today? Yes I know you have work to do today, maybe it's not "ministry" work. But there are PEOPLE involved in your job. Customers, co-workers, people... those people have spirits and needs. What word can you speak, through the anointing, to change a life. 
• ONE Word from God can change your life forever! If that's true, let God speak a Word THROUGH you to change someone else. It doesn't have to be all spiritual in presentation. Meeting someone as you pass by, finding out they aren't feeling well, and saying "Be healed", calmly and peacefully (not religiously) can minister healing to them, if you believed what you said. 
• You won't likely have faith to minister healing today if you didn't spend some time praying this morning, allow the anointing to wash over you and rise in you, and get instruction from God on His agenda for today. 
• God says that you shouldn't think about tomorrow... that means all you need is His Agenda today!
• We seek His Righteousness. 
• This means we seek to renew our mind to the fact that we are THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD! 
• 2 Corinthians 5:21, Ephesians 4:24, Romans 5:19, and Romans 3:22
• As we fill ourselves with righteousness consciousness we become God inside minded. We begin to realize that we DESERVE everything God promised. No because of anything WE did. We didn't deserve it on our own. On our own we deserve lack, poverty, sickness, death, and hell. 
• As I seek His Righteousness, realizing that I have been MADE The Righteousness of God, I have every RIGHT to every BLESSING that God promised. 
• It's not about works. Serving as an usher doesn't make me better able to get The Blessings of God. Giving doesn't make me better able to get The Blessings of God. I Serve because I LOVE HIM! I Give because I LOVE HIM! I am BLESSED because HE LOVED ME! That is seeking His Righteousness! 
• It means seeking that HE has made me righteous! I am WORTH it! Worth is not determined by the item being valued, rather it is determined by the one who is willing to pay the cost. The housing market in the USA has corrected because people aren't willing to pay that much for a house. The house was only worth $750,000 because someone was willing to pay that. Now it's worth $250,000 because that's all someone is willing to pay for it. It if it's worth $750,000 to you... KEEP it!
• God determined my worth by paying for me with His Son! Therefore if I'm worth HIS SON how could I possibly doubt that He'd want me to have ALL THINGS to richly enjoy? (1 Tim 6:17, Romans 8:32)
• 1 Peter 5
• How do I cast care? How do I trust him? How do I get God's BLESSING on me to increase me? Prov 10:22 says that the BLESSING makes me rich? How?
• I humble myself, by casting my care on him, and HE exalts me! PRIDE refuses to cast care. Fear and Worry are therefore, Pride. 
• James 1
• If any lacks, ask, ask in faith without doubting. 
• Doubting = Double Minded, Unstable, Tossed about by the winds of circumstance, more likely to believe what he sees than what he knows of The Word. 
• This applies to Wisdom. It also applies to anything you ask of God. As confirmed throughout the scriptures. "Ask and it will be done for you" seems to be among the several recurring themes of Jesus' ministry. 
• Ephesians 3
• Faith gives us:  boldness, access, and  confidence. 
• Confidence in who or what?
• Confidence in HIM. Confidence in who HE is, what HE does, His Will!
• The Anointing of Jesus dwells in our hearts through faith as we are rooted and grounded in Love. 
• By meditating on The LOVE of Jesus for us, we are being rooted and grounded In Him. 
• This rooting and grounding in LOVE firms up our faith, for faith works by Love. Gal 5:6
• As we increase in Love and Faith we are able to witness Him do WAY MORE than we can ask or think. 

Conclusion

So I see that the pattern here is thus: Doubt cripples faith. Faith is firmed up In Love. Worry is Fear is Pride. The way to rid ourselves of worry is to cast our care on Him. We abide in Him and as His Word abides in us, we ask for what we need and it's done for us. In casting our care on him, refusing worry, but instead choosing faith in The Word, we are not moved. Doubt moves us. Faith in The Word and Casting Care keeps us firm and unmovable. Over and Over and Over he tells us to simply ASK. How often do we worry, and never really ask? Or we ask, but then doubt he'll act on our behalf? How do I cast care? Well, worry is practiced by speaking, and faith is practiced by speaking. I begin to catch my thoughts, words, and imaginations and bring them in line with His Word. I choose to believe that He Will! As temptation to worry tries to take me I begin to meditate on His Kingdom Agenda and how I am the Righteousness of God!

Thank you Jesus... to be continued...

Darrell G. Wolfe