Your Faith Is The Victory

Introduction: Are you frustrated by the struggles in your life? Do you feel like giving up because you’re just not seeing the miracles you need so desperately?

Jesus said that in this world we would have trouble. But praise God, that’s not all He said. He also admonished us, “Cheer up! I have overcome the world!”

How can we achieve God’s promised victory when we face hard times? Through Faith. Faith is fresh, alive, powerful and as relevant today as at any time in history. If you’re going to overcome the world rather than be overcome by it, you’re going to do it with your faith.

We don’t have to guess how to live a life of faith as we face life’s hardships. God’s Word lays out a simple plan for getting from a problem to a miraculous solution. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been a Christian for fifty years or if you were born again five minutes ago. If you submit yourself to God’s order for doing things, your faith will produce the products and results that God’s Word guarantees!

Divine order is the secret to unlocking God’s treasure chest of blessing. It the God ordained way through everything in heaven and on earth operates. God has a predetermined sequence and order through which we must follow if we expect to receive miracles, deliverance and any other spiritual thing in God’s heavenly kingdom.

Even in everyday life, there is an established order to follow in much of what we do. When you want to see your doctor, you must follow a procedure to visit him, or answer and solution to your physical malady will be delayed or forfeited altogether. When follow established procedure that has been set in order for us, things flow easier and we get what we desire.

God’s kingdom is a kingdom of order and God is a God of order. The Lord has a set order for everything. I Corinthians 14:33,40 makes this very clear:

“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints…Let all things be done decently and in order.”

When we neglect God’s order, His blessings don’t flow. Divine order is the condition that set for miracles and blessings. This truth is illustrated vividly in Jesus’ feeding of the five thousand. Before the people could be miraculously blessed, they had to get in order.

Luke 9:14 tells us “For they were about five thousand men. And He said to his disciples, Make them sit down by fifties in a company.”

Can you imagine the chaos that would have ensued if the disciples had started randomly handing out food to that hungry mob? There would have been a riot!

There’s no getting around it. Follow God’s order and you’ll get the desired results. Ignore it and you’ll end up frustrated and defeated.

So does God have an established order when it comes to overcoming problems? Yes, I believe He does. The Scriptures give us a clear pattern for moving from any problem – be it sickness, debt, family strife, or anything else – to the solution. These steps will work for anyone at any time, regardless of how overwhelming the circumstances, because the steps represent God’s divine order of faith.

I. First, Understanding Faith –

A. What Faith is not?

1. Faith is not feeling that prayer is answered and has not the slightest relationship with feelings and sense-evidences.

a. The average person who seeks to exercise faith depends upon what he can see, hear, or feel.

b. Sense-faith is based upon physical evidence or upon the emotions and feelings of the soul.

c. All who take this road as the basis of faith will sooner or later be deceived.

d. Faith should be based upon the Word of God regardless of any sense-knowledge, or feeling-evidences.

e. People are constantly looking to feelings as to whether prayer has been heard or not.

f. If they happen to feel good, or if something happens that encourages them, they think that it is easy to believe, but if reverses come and feelings take wings, these same people are in the depths of despair.

g. They are quick to accuse God of being unfaithful and untrue to His Word.

h. If they do not go this far they are quick to imagine that it was not God’s will to grant the answer.

i. They become satisfied to go without what God has plainly promised.

j. At the times when men think they have all the faith in the world because of feelings, they have the least in the world, and when they think they have the least, they have more than at any other time in their lives.

k. Many people are surprised to get answers to prayer because when they prayed they thought their faith was nothing.