Notes to Remember:
"Faith has nothing to do with your emotions. Faith is outside the realm of emotions."
"Faith has nothing to do with your emotions. Faith is outside the realm of emotions."
Chapter 4 – Faith-Fear Connection
The enemy knows that you are of no danger to him if he can separate you from your faith. If he can separate you from your conviction or persuasion plus your corresponding action, if he can get you to shut up and to stop speaking the Word of God or if he can get you in such a place where you are so cognizant of your circumstances, your situation and your lack to where you say, “You know what? This does not work; I am going to stop speaking the Word of God,” the he know that he has you. He knows this. It is a faith fight.
Once you learn this and you understand the faith-fear connection, you will see how much of a faith fight it really is. Faith and fear are connected. They are two different ends of the same rope. Fear actually is faith. It is just the other end of faith. The faith fight is a fight for what is coming out of your mouth. Most Christians believe God’s Word – if they ever read it or if someone ever speaks it to them. The problem is that we do not understand that believing or conviction alone is not faith and we thing that because “I believe this” then it should be happening. No, it is not going to happen until your believing or conviction or persuasion is coupled with a corresponding action, and the vital corresponding action is speaking what you believe.
Again, when we talk about Bible Faith, we are really talking about the biblical definition of faith, not your definition or religion’s definition. Looking through our various texts, we have discovered that the Bible tells us that faith is “conviction or persuasion plus corresponding action,” which means that believing by itself is not faith. Faith is only that which can be seen or heard. I realized that we have established this truth on several different levels, but it is especially important when you are dealing with the faith-fear connection.
It is a faith fight and you must understand the faith-fear connection. First Timothy 6:12 reads: “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” Again, you and I are involved in a fight for our faith. In fact, it is the only fight that the Bible tells us believers to fight.
The Bible says in Ephesians 6:12 that, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, ageist powers….” That is to say that we wrestle against demonic forces. However, I say again that we are not called to fight demonic forces – we are called t fight the fight of faith because the enemy is after your faith. His desire is not to make you feel bad or to make you sick. The enemy desires you faith because our faith is the only thing that makes you and I dangerous to him. And if he can get your faith, then he know that he has your victory.
First John 5:4 says: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcome the world – our faith.” When the Bible says this, it does not mean that you will overcome simply because you are born of God. We mistakenly think that because we are Christians, we will overcome. God says, “No, that is not so. The victory that overcomes the world [or the way to overcome] is by faith.” The implication is that what is born of God has His nature and His character, and therefore, acts like Him. If we are to act like God, then we are to respond to circumstances and situation like He does – speak His Word and change the circumstances. You will not overcome simply because you are born again.
I know religion has taught us that we will win every victory because we are blood-washed and our name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, but that is simply our registration. It’s what gives us the legal right to speaks God’s Word! If you do not discipline yourself to exercise your faith by getting the Word of God in your mouth, then you can be saved and still defeated for the rest of t you earthly life because it is a faith fight.
Faith has nothing to do with your emotions. Faith is outside the realm of emotions. Faith is not just believing and it is not emotional. It is an act that co-responds, or an action that answers back to what you say it is what you believe. Again, speaking is the primary act of faith. It is the first one. You will not do other acts if you do not first do that one.
Look at Second Corinthians 5:7 where the Bible says, “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” If we put our working definition for faith in the verse, it reads: “For we walk by conviction or persuasion plus corresponding actions, not by sight.” A more accurate word for”sight” would be senses. God is not referring to visual perception here. If that were the case, then it would be okay to walk by touch or by one of the other senses. The walk of faith is a walk the leaves the realm of the senses. It does not ignore the senses; it simply does not speak what the senses tell it.
Again, we walk by faith and not by sight. We all know that to walk is to move forward. God tells you and I how to move forward – that is, how to get form where you are to where His Word says you are supposed to be. You will not get there by attending church. You will not get there by bing a bishop, elder, or deacon. You get there when you learn to discipline yourself – to cause your conviction and your corresponding action to line up.
Remember that the vital principle of faith is that “faith speaks what it believes.” Therefore, you move forward by believing (conviction or persuasion) plus speaking what you believe (corresponding action) because this is the vital principle of faith. God gave it to me like this: You have a rope, and w will call this rope “Bible Faith,” or conviction or persuasion plus corresponding action – it is a rope of faith. On one end of the rope we have what is called the “God-Kind of Faith,” as Jesus instructed in Mark 11:22-23 to “have faith in God,” which again means the God-Kind of Faith or the brand of faith to which only the believer has access. That is why you were born again – so you could have access to the God-Kind of Faith.
