Chapter 3 - Speak What You Believe
Remember that according to James chapter2, Bible Faith is “conviction or persuasion plus corresponding action.” Faith also has a vital principle and a mental disposition. In Second Corinthians 4:13, the apostle writes, “We have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke.’” The word spirit here is not referring to an entity or deity, but rather means vital principle and/or mental disposition. So, when Paul says, “we have the spirit of faith,” he is saying, we have the vital principle and mental disposition of faith. Remember, vital means “foundational, necessary for life.” There are other corresponding actions to faith, but this is the foremost corresponding action to your faith. The vital principle of faith is that “faith speaks what it believes.” Faith also has a mental disposition or mind-set. There is a way that a person who is walking by faith has his or her mind-set. The mind-set of faith is that faith is always present tense.
When Jesus says in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly,” He uses the word zoe. The Greek word zoe means life. So, in order to experience the God-Kind of life, you have got to exercise the God-Kind of Faith.
In His earthly ministry, Jesus was, and still is, he Living Word.” Therefore, everything that comes out of His mouth was “the living Word of God.” When you look at the ministry of Jesus, you have to understand that, or else you will not be able to distinguish between how He could speak to situations and see results, and when you speak to them and nothing changes. The difference is that everything He spoke was “the living Word,” and therefore, everything He said affected the circumstances. So, He could speak “peace” to the wind and because He had just spoken “the living Word.” He could say to a sick man, “Your sins are forgiven” and it would be so because He had just spoken “the living Word.”
In order to get those same results, we have to make sure that what is coming out of our mouths is “the living Word.” I am not “the living Word,” and neither are you – I know you are special, but you are not there yet – you are not “the living Word.” To get the God-Kind of results, we have to make sure that we do what Jesus did, and that is to speak t he Word of God to your circumstances and situation. You must holler back. Jesus did not have to think about it because that was all that was in Him. He did not have to go to the Scripture, get and renew His mind to it because His mind did not need renewing. His mind had never tasted of sin and did not have to recover from a fallen state. It did not have to come back from negative experience. Our minds do, and that is why we must renew our minds to the Word of God and make sure that the Word of God is coming out of our mouths.
Since everything that came out of Him was the Word, He could respond immediately to everything. He could spiritually respond immediately. He could respond without stopping. He could respond without taking a time-out. Everything in Him was the living Word, but it is not so with you and I., We have our experiences, our lower nature to contend with. We have things that are still in us. What we have to do before we holler back to our situations is make sure that what is in our mouths is the living Word. We have to say, “Wait, I am not going to respond out of my emotion; I am not going to say what I feel” Do you see this?
God Himself exercises this very principle in order to affect change and bring the desired result that He wanted in the earth. This is how Jesus lived, worked miracles, and walked in power. Although Jesus was “the Living Word” in His earthly ministry, He also was in the flesh. He was 100 percent man and 100 percent God. The Jesus part of Him was 100 percent man; and the Christ part of Him, which was on the inside, was 100 percent God. So everything He did, He accomplished as a man anointed with the Spirit of God within him. It is important to understand this because, if you do not, you will look at His ministry, words, and accomplishments, and say, “Well, he did that because He was Jesus.” No, He did it because He disciplined Himself to not allow anything to come out of His mouth that was not God’s living Word. If you do what Jesus did, you will have the Jesus-Kind of results because that is the God-Kind of Faith.
