Walk By Faith By Pastor John Mateos Ong

Take a moment to imagine if God was like some of the world’s worst leaders, those who killed someone that doesn’t obey them or their program. Can we just imagine if God was like Hitler who killed almost all of the Jews, or like Mao Tse Tung who does not only manipulated and tricked his people just to reign over them but killed some that opposes his propaganda? Though God has the power to do that over us, He chose not to. God is not the same as the world’s historic leaders because God is a faithful leader. But rather than obey a God that is easy to love we chose to rebel and neglect his faithfulness to us.

As the Bible said in Deuteronomy 7:9, He keeps His covenant of love to thousands of generation for those who love and keep his commandments. So if we strive to keep our faith to Him, if we walk by faith with Him, we will be more like Him each day.

Here are the 3 things that determines faith:

• Price- There are times that we do certain things for God, and sometimes it requires us to go all out, to the point we sacrifice everything we have in order to pursue our Lord’s will. That is faith.

• Possibility- This is a type of faith we give to the Lord after we have ensured that we are certain into this particular decision. In here we usually think twice, and we have doubts in putting our faith to God because we are not sure in sacrificing and surrendering ourselves.

• Profit- This type of faith is like bargaining, where we usually say “Lord, if you fix my family, I will do this” we tend to bargain something we want or need in the moment in exchange for our faith to the Lord.

While there are a lot of things that determines our faith in God, here are some problems with our churches that can also affect our faith to the Lord:

• Building

• Facilities

• Manpower

• Education & Training

• Lack of Discipleship Program

• Money

1. Faith is the currency of Heaven

In the story from 2 Samuel 24:24, David built an altar with his own silver and sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings just for the Lord. With his faith with God and his sacrifices, David’s prayer in behalf of the land was answered and the plague stopped. While in a similar story from Matthew 17:20, when the father of the demon-possessed boy ask God why they can’t drive the demon out of the boy, Jesus lectured them about their faith. He said that if they only have faith even in a size of a seed, nothing will be impossible for them. For Jesus, you don’t need to give out material things to receive what you need for he just wants your faith and He is ready to give you everything He promised to give.

2. God’s faithfulness is manifested in different forms and ways

And yes, you just have to believe in Him, for it is proven from the story in Isaiah 55:8-11 that He is greater than all of us here on earth. His ways are greater than our ways, and his thoughts are greater than our thoughts, and even His words are so powerful it can reach anyone and anything that he desire to reach. In a similar story form 1 Kings 19:11-13, the Lord appears to Elijah but not in the flesh but in a gentle voice after strong wind, earthquake and fire. The Lord uses different ways and form to meet our needs. For example, if we pray for patience He doesn’t give us patience instead He gives us the opportunity to be patient, also when we pray for courage He gives us the opportunity to be courageous. So as He is faithful to rule us with his ways, we too must also give our faith to Jesus even in any circumstances.

3. Faith always leads to action

In James 2:18, it said that faith must always be accompanied by deeds, because in the same way, faith without action is just dead. So, if we are saying that we have Faith in God, we must also show this faith through our actions.

Now that we know this, what we can do is to continue practicing the words of Jesus and go all out for Him. Surrender everything to Jesus for only Him can do what He thinks is the best to do with our lives. Let’s keep our faith for we have a faithful Lord ready to do everything for us, His loyal worshippers.