Check the level of your faith (Part 1)
Each of us has a faith, including those who do not believe in God. Even those who do not believe in God believe in something or someone. According to the Bible, faith is defined as the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things that are not seen (Hebrews 11:1). That means that we believe in things we cannot demonstrate physically, things we cannot see with our physical eyes.
One day Jesus called Peter who stepped out of the boat and walked on water. At one point, Peter watched the wind that was strong and began to sink, but Jesus stretched out his hand to restrain him and said: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"(Matthew 14: 31). If Jesus said that Peter had little faith, it means that people have different levels of faith and especially that faith can GROW. The purpose of this teaching is to help you develop your faith because no one has ever reached perfection.
The Bible says that we walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5: 7). In other words, we do not depend on what we see with our physical eyes but on our spiritual eyes. A born again child of God is supposed to have spiritual eyes. These are the spiritual eyes to guide us in everything we do as the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4: 18: "we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal"
This verse (2 Cor 4: 18) is the basis of this teaching because it is extremely important to understand that the visible things (problems we face in the reality of life) are temporary but the things which are not seen are eternal.
Some Christians do not know that we live in a world divided in two parts: the visible world and the invisible world. Everything we see in the visible world starts in the invisible world before being manifested in the visible world. This is why you can see something (a person, a gift, a situation ...) in a dream and that dream came true one year later in the visible world. The explanation is simple: The day you had the dream, the thing already existed in the invisible world but you could not see it with your physical eyes because physical eyes do not see things in the invisible world.
In the second part, we will understand that God already has a wonderful plan for us but this plan has already been accomplished in the invisible world. We must play our part to the blessings of God be transferred from the invisible world to the visible world.
To be continued.
Chris Ndikumana
Check the level of your faith (Part 2)
Let's start with this promise: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29: 11).
By this, we understand that God has already planned a better future and hope long before our birth. This is also confirmed in Ephesians 2: 10 where Paul writes, saying that we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them in the visible world.
As we saw in the first part, we are called to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5: 7). This means that our prayers, our words, our attitude and everything we do must necessarily comply with the invisible things and not with visible things because what is seen is temporary, but the things unseen are eternal.
The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please the Lord (Hebrews 11: 6), regardless all we can offer him.
He who has faith has the physical and spiritual eyes simultaneously but the one who has no faith has only physical eyes.
Let us take the example of the prophet Elisha and his servant Gehazi: One day, Gehazi woke up in the morning and found a crowd that surrounded the city with horses and tanks. He was very scared and spoke to his master Elisha by asking him: “Alas, my master! What shall we do? "(2 Kings 6: 15). The answer of Elisha is very interesting. He said: "Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them" (2 Kings 6: 16). But Gehazi saw no one around him. He saw the enemy and he could not see the army that Elisha spoke because Gehazi only had physical eyes but Elisha in addition to physical eyes also had spiritual eyes.
If you have faith, you are supposed to see things that ordinary people do not see as we walk by faith and not by sight. He who walks by sight can never have total peace because the world we live in is full of bad things that are very discouraging.
As Gehazi could not understand the message of his master because his view was limited in the visible world, Elisha had to pray that God opens the eyes of his servant by saying: “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see. Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha "(2 Kings 6: 17). Gehazi was not physically blind but he was spiritually blind. He who is spiritually blind keep crying and complaining because of the problems he sees around him in the visible world but ignores what happens in the invisible world. We see that God finally opened Gehazi spiritual eyes and he could see what his master saw. To be continued in Part 3
Chris Ndikumana
Check the level of your faith (Part 3)
We all need to see what happens in the invisible world otherwise we will never be satisfied because the physical world is filled with problems and imperfections. If you see someone complaining or crying, it is because the visible world shows him unpleasant things and the devil takes the opportunity to convince him that God has forsaken him. What the devil does not want you to discover is that God has the solution for your problem because the solution is in the invisible world. Whoever complains ignores that murmurs and complains block the materialization of divine blessings that are still in the invisible world.
In writing to the Ephesians, Paul said, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1: 3). We see that God has blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places i.e. in the invisible world. Instead of crying and being discouraged, you must rather praise God for his greatness and thank him because he has already provided a solution for your problem ... I will talk about it later.
Let us go back to the story of Elisha and Gehazi. In the second part, we saw that God answered the prayer of Elisha because He opened Gehazi’s spiritual eyes so that he could see what was going on in the invisible world. Just after the answer to the prayer, Elisha prayed another prayer that surprised me: He asked God to strike all the Syrians with blindness and God has also granted that one (2 Kings 6: 18). This means that not only the Syrians did not see what was going on in the invisible world but after the prayer of Elisha, they could not even see what was happening in the visible world.
In the next verse (2 Kings 6: 19), it is said that Elisha led them to Samaria. Try to imagine the scene: hundreds of armed men on horses but all became blind and they had to follow one man (Elisha). I do not know how he managed but I guess they had to line up one after the other and follow Elisha who could see in the visible and invisible world at the same time. He led them to the king of Israel, but since they were very weak because of blindness, Elisha decided not to do them any harm and asked the king of Israel to feed them and they returned them to their Master in Syria. What is interesting is that in verse 23 (2 Kings 6: 23), it says that Syrian troops never returned to the territory of Israel.
What lesson can we learn from this? The children of God, born again, are supposed to drive or guide the unbelievers (people who are not saved) to the truth because believers are supposed to see what happens in the invisible world. It is shocking to see children of God or even the servants of God who go begging up to the unbelievers when things go wrong. Sometimes the pagans mock the children of God because of their attitude.
In the fourth part, I will show you five ways by which we can check the level of our faith.
Chris Ndikumana
Check the level of your faith (Part 4)
There are five ways in which the level of our faith can be tested:
The attitude: Our attitude is an indicator that clearly shows our level of faith and it is more evident when we go through hard times. He who walks by faith must always expect something. If you visit a friend on a day before his trip, you will find out that everything is ready for the trip.
Or if you visit a pregnant mother for a couple of weeks before the delivery, you will notice that she took time to prepare for the coming of her baby. Women of faith buy diapers and baby clothes before the birthday and not after. Whoever knows God's promises in His Word behaves like someone who expects good things despite the hard times he may be passing through.
Words: If you have a positive attitude, you will confess positive words. In the contrary, if you only murmur and complain against God, it is clear that your words will be negative. If a glass contains water up to the middle, the one who has faith will say that the glass is half full but the person who does not have faith will say that the glass is half empty. Both are right, but they have a different attitude. Do you want to check someone’s level of faith? Spend the day with him and check the nature of the words that come out of his mouth. The checking is easier when someone is passing through some hard times. The purpose of this teaching is not to judge others but it is to check the level of your faith so that you may pray and ask for it to grow.
How to give: Another indicator that never fails when checking your faith is your way of giving i.e. when it comes to support God's work or helping the poor (widows and orphans). Someone can give the impression of being very spiritual because of his zeal in God's work or the hours he spends in prayer but when it comes to give or to support the work of God or the poor, he prefers to hide. The fact that he does not want to give is a clear proof of his faith weakness because his physical eyes show him that he will lose by giving but he who has faith rely on his spiritual eyes that show him that giving means to sow and if you sow in a good soil you will eventually reap.
A farmer who sows a seed in the ground hopes that something will come out of the earth because his faith is based on the law of the nature. God wants us to be like this farmer and that our faith would rather be based on the Word of God and His promises.
In the fifth part, I will end this teaching by talking about the other two ways of checking our level of faith.
Chris Ndikumana
Check the level of your faith (Part 5)
In the third part, I said that there are five ways by which we can test the level of our faith. I have already talked about the first three ways which are the attitude, words and how to give. Today I will talk about the last two ways:
Thanksgiving: We do not need faith to say thank you after having received something but he who has faith can say thank you before seeing the thing with his own eyes simply because he has spiritual eyes. Remember that we do not walk by sight but by faith (2 Corinthians 5: 17).
Let us see what the Bible says when we ask for something in prayer: “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we HAVE the petitions that we have asked of Him"(1 John 5: 14-15).
This verse is very interesting because it says that if we pray according to God's will, we know that He hears us but the interesting part is the one that says: "we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him". In fact, we do not possess it physically but spiritually we have it.
Your behavior after prayers can tell the level of your faith. He who knows that he possess the thing he asked for (in accordance with God's will) behaves like a pregnant woman who prepares the birth of her child. She will not wait for the fulfilment of the thing she asked for but she will start to give thanks before the fulfilment of the promise. This is actually the secret that many Christians ignore. Thanking God for the things we have not yet seen make easy the fulfillment and the devil cannot do anything about it. If you know that God said 'Yes', keep on giving thanks until you see the thing with your physical eyes.
Prayer: Your prayer life is another indicator that shows the level of your faith. If you have great faith, you will find pleasure in spending more time in prayer, but every time you do not want to pray, know that the level of your faith has fallen significantly. God's Word says that God is enthroned in the praises of Israel (Psalm 22: 3), and John had the revelation that the prayers of the saints are like incense (Apocalypse 5: 8), which means that when we pray, God comes down and takes pleasure in our prayers. Therefore, I would like to encourage you to pray even when you do not feel like doing it, because even the opposition you can feel comes from the flesh but the spirit is always willing (Matthew 26: 41).
Here is the end of this teaching and I hope that these five ways will help you to check the level of your faith. Continue to meditate on the Word because faith comes by hearing (Romans 10: 17). Read the bible, listen and read the teachings and especially endure the trials permitted by God because they strengthen our faith (Jacques 1: 2-6).
God bless you
Chris Ndikumana