I’m sure we’ve all hear the expression, “When the student is ready, the teacher appears!”
And how true that is! It is a fact of this life that you do not get the things you need until you are ready to receive them. For example, I never got my first driver’s license until I had a need for it. I did not receive training on how to pack a horse, until I had need of packing a horse. I did not receive medicine until I was ready to be healed… the list is endless. It is just the way things work in this world and it is how we learn by acquiring knowledge at the time and place that we need it. Before we need it, we don’t need it! We have no use of it. We are not ready to receive it.
What I am getting at here is that you do not seriously expect to receive a thing, until you have a need for that particular thing.. whatever it may be. And when you believe and are ready to receive it, you will receive it.
Many times we ‘wish’ or we ‘hope’ for something… a new job; a vacation; a nice house with a view - whatever it may be. But what is a wish? A wish is really just a desire with no action behind it. No goals set nor passion to achieve it – nothing more than an expressed and longed for want. A hollow thought for something.
Hope, on the other hand, seems to have a bit more passion behind it. “I hope I can be allowed to go to the game. I hope I can get a new car. I hope I can get that pay raise. I hope, I hope, I hope.” We can spend our lives wishing and hoping.
The thing about hoping is that it is always in the future. If it was past tense, we’d already have it. If it was present tense, we would not need to hope for it because we would be receiving it now. So hope then, is always in the future tense. “I hope tomorrow is a nice day…I hope I get that pay raise next month…”
Enter Faith. Faith is far beyond hoping and wishing. Faith is knowing. Faith is now.
To have Faith is to believe. A belief is something concrete. You know that you know that you know. For example: you can have Faith that your kids will turn out alright, because you put the time and effort into them to bring about that result. You can have Faith that God loves you, because you have seen the proof and understand what Christ did for you on the cross and you take His Word for it that it is done. He cannot lie so it’s a given that the thing is done. You cant’ see it, but you know beyond factual belief, that the thing is so.
There are two kinds of Faith…one is sense-knowledge Faith.. and one is Spiritual Faith.
Sense-knowledge Faith is the kind of faith that lets you walk into a room and flop into a chair, ride an elevator, get in an airplane, and a thousand other things we do each day. We can flop into the chair because we can be pretty well assured that the chair will hold us. We see it has all it’s legs, it looks solid, or we may have seen someone else just get out of it. But we apply what we know by our senses before we actually do any flopping. Or airplanes – we may not actually see the pilot but we know that the law protects us in that an airplane must have a sober pilot. Our senses give us the knowledge that we can act upon a thing.
Spiritual Faith is different. This kind of Faith is an expectant Faith of a future event based on what we believe. Again, there’s the example of our Faith in our kids turning out right. The example of having ‘Faith’ that God’s laws and principles are true. Having Faith in your ability to do the right thing. Faith in the things you cannot see but believe for – that is the kind of Faith I’m talking about here.
Hope is for the future, but Faith is NOW.
Scripture defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.” (Heb 11:1). So, using the example of the kids turning out ‘right’ you can see that the ‘substance of things’ is the teaching and the effort you put into raising them. The evidence of things not yet seen’ is your knowledge of other kids turning out right from proper teaching, even though you can’t see it in your own as yet. So you can have belief and Faith in the result.
Belief and Faith differ though. I can believe through sense-knowledge for the physical things in my life. “The chair will hold me. There is a pilot on this plane. My car will start.” I can believe those things, but I can also do so without needing faith. I’m simply believing in the proven – facts.
Spiritual Faith takes us into another realm altogether. Faith in God. Faith in your righteousness in God. Faith that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you. This kind of Faith is knowing passed and beyond hope. It is knowing beyond a belief. This kind of Faith is when you know a thing simply just is or it will be.
I have wrestled for a long time over exactly how to understand why Faith is such a force, for my own understanding. I think I finally have it!
In Mark 11:23 (KJV) Jesus put it this way:
“For verily I say unto you. That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass, he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Vs 24: Therefore I say unto you. What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that receive them, and ye shall have them.”
I don’t know how many times I have read those words. Quoted those words! But last night as I lay reading them over once again, the light went on!
In order to believe for a thing, you must be ready to receive the thing!
Remember the opening statement above? “When the student is ready, the teacher appears.” Well, it is the same creative principle at work here. When you are ready to receive a thing, it will appear if you speak for it out of your readiness to receive it. Not think about it, but say it out loud. Jesus used the word ‘say’ three times here for a reason.
“…For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45)
Awesome! I will take some of that please!
First we speak about that for which we desire. We talk about our dreams and our visions, our deep desires. and the things we are excited about. We use our imagination to see a thing in our possession. In other words, we make ourselves ready to receive it! We prepare for the event! We ready ourselves to possess it!
Think about it! I remember as a child, when we -as a family - got word that the adoption papers had been approved; we prepared a crib and a whole room for a new baby’s arrival! So first we talked about it and expressed our want. Then we believed we would receive and put the thing into action. We readied ourselves and kept speaking an expectant faith in the achievement of our dream. We do the same process with all things! If you are getting a new car, you clean a space for it in the garage. If you buy new furniture you prepare a space to put in it before the deliver man arrives. You talk about it and you expect it to come to you. Expectant Faith. This is the creative force!
Awesome! Get ready to receive!
