* The key to our having faith is in hearing the Word of God. I want to emphasize this: the key to having faith is not in obeying the Word of God – the key to having faith is in hearing the word of God. Now I believe in obeying the Word, and we must obey God if we want to have His blessing on our lives. But it is not obedience that produces faith. Rather, it is faith that produces obedience. And faith only comes by the Word of God.
This is not my idea. God made this very plain in Romans 10:17 when He said, "So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." This scripture passage says that if I hear the Word of God, "faith comes." In other words, faith shows up. So all I have to do is hear the Word of God. So there is something about hearing the Word of God produces faith.
Now I know the Bible says that I must be a doer of the Word as well. James
The reason that a lot of people are not doers of the Word is because they don't really have faith. The more faith you have, the more you will obey. The more you obey, the more the presence of God will manifest in your life. And the more often you live in the presence of God, the more you will prosper and succeed.
Every one of us can prosper, and everyone of us can be successful! And the way we begin is by hearing the Word of God. So start to make the Word of God part of your life. Listen to His Word whenever you can. Read the Bible daily. Memorize Scripture passages, meditate on them, and write verses on notecards to tape on your mirror. If you hear his word consistently, faith will naturally come. God promised that it would. And as your faith increases, you will find that you are walking in obedience. As you walk in obedience, you're going to have the presence of God on your life. And if the presence of God is with you, you're going to succeed!
There are no words to describe the blessing of having God's presence in your life. Right now I can feel that the favor of God is on my life, and it is a wonderful thing. It is so wonderful that I don't want to do one single thing to mess it up! The favor of God makes you feel that nothing is impossible. The favor of God makes you feel that anything you attempt to do for God will succeed. Because when you sense that God is with you, you know your efforts on His behalf will not fail.
What could possibly be worth losing that blessing, that favor, that manifested presence of God? I don't want to walk in disobedience, because I know that if I disobey God, His presence will leave my life. And I don't want to lose His presence or His favor!
So it really wasn't a hard thing that day at the airport to leave a note on the car I had bumped. It really wasn't hard to decide that we would miss our plane. It was easy to do the right thing – when I remembered that God has called me to be faithful in small matters, as well is great, as I live out my destiny according to His will.
I want to walk in the destiny God has planned for me. And I know that if I am to be set over much, I must be found faithful in little things – even a crack in a piece of plastic on an old car.
Eventually I received a call from the lady whose vehicle had been damaged. I apologized for the accident and gave her our insurance information so that she could get her bumper repaired. But before we got off the phone, she said, "I just have to ask you a question. I have shown your note to everyone in my office, and no one can believe that you actually left a note. It would have been so easy to just drive away. We don't know if you're a saint, a space alien or what – but none of us can figure out why you would leave a note."
The woman was an unbeliever. Yet she recognized that there was something different about my behavior. So I was able to explain to her the reason that I had left that note. I was able to share the gospel with her and tell her how Jesus Christ had changed my life – that he could change her life also. "You said that everyone in your office wants to know why I left that note," I said to her. "Be sure that you tell them. Be sure to tell them that the reason I left that note is because Jesus Christ has changed my life – and He wants to do that for all of them, too."
There is nothing on this earth that can compare to the joy of a moment like that, when the presence of God rests upon you as you do something important for Him. But it all begins by being faithful in the smallest things – by being a faithful steward. If I had not been faithful to do the right thing about the accident, I would never have had the opportunity to be God's messenger to the people in that office.
Faithfulness – good stewardship – causes us to be successful in everything we do. It causes us to have the favor of God and His presence in our lives. So be faithful in little things. Be a good employee, a good steward "as to the Lord" (Colossians
Rejoicing in Truth!
*Excerpted from From Dream To Destiny by Robert Morris (Regal). Available this week as part of the Living Free teaching series.
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