The Problem of Faith — An extract from Rob’s Book ‘Taking Up Your Cross’

There has been so much teach­ing on faith over the years that most of us are con­vinced that faith is so pro­found and so elu­sive, who can pos­si­bly have it. I will attempt here to sim­plify what I believe faith is.

When God parted the Red Sea, did Moses have faith? Did Moses just decide to have faith to part the sea and then com­mand it? Moses had faith that God would deliver Israel from the hand of the Egyp­tians, but he did not have any idea how God would per­form the deliv­er­ance. But God had an idea and He said to Moses, “Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground.” (Exo­dus 14:16) Moses obeyed this clear com­mand from God and it was done for him. Moses obeyed and it was called faith.

Moses was told by God to lift up his rod and the Red Sea would part, so the faith of Moses was in line with God’s will. Moses did not make the deci­sion to part the Red Sea and then try to muster faith to do it. It is writ­ten that Moses cried out to God in prayer. This was no ordi­nary prayer, this was des­per­ate prayer, as the Egypt­ian army was on their tail. When God told Moses to raise the staff, a mus­tard seeds worth of faith was placed in the heart of Moses. He then con­fi­dently stretched out his hand over the Red Sea. In response, God sent a strong east wind that blew back the water all night long until the ground was dry enough to walk on. The Lord glo­ri­fied Him­self by part­ing the Red Sea and all Moses had to do was be obe­di­ent and do the sim­ple act of hold­ing up his staff. The chal­lenge and point to be made here is, do we know God that well that we could speak to Him like Moses could and be able to hear His voice just as clearly?

We have this strange under­stand­ing of faith that we have not got it if we decide to pray for some­one and they don’t get healed. But faith always comes from obe­di­ence. Jesus could only do what He saw the Father doing. “I tell you the truth, the Son can do noth­ing by Him­self; He can do only what He sees his Father doing, because what­ever the Father does the Son also does.” (John 5:19) When at the pool of Bethesda, Jesus saw God go up to one crip­ple only, so Jesus obeyed and said, “Be healed.” By faith Jesus healed one man. He didn’t heal the rest of the crip­ples at the pool, for He was obe­di­ent to only do what He saw the Father doing. Jesus could hear His Father tell Him, “Heal that man,” and by His obe­di­ence He had faith and He was healed.

The prob­lem today with our faith is one, we think it has to do with our own power to believe, and two, we are not tuned into God enough to only do what we see the Father doing. If we could hear God’s voice clearly and if He said to you by way of rev­e­la­tion, “Tell that moun­tain to throw itself into the sea,” and you obeyed, you would only need the faith the size of a mus­tard seed to see it done at your word. Just like Moses who obeyed God at the Red Sea, the moun­tain would be lifted up just the same. We will have faith to move moun­tains when we spend enough time in the pres­ence of God and form a trust rela­tion­ship with Him.

I wrote the fol­low­ing to do with faith in my book, God’s Heart Cry for Revival:

A man or woman mighty in prayer is a man or woman of great faith. Faith and prayer go hand in hand. You sim­ply can­not pray and believe for any­thing with­out faith. On the other hand, if you want faith, you should start pray­ing and believ­ing. You can­not pray with­out faith, and you can­not have faith with­out prayer. You exer­cise faith in prayer. EM Bounds said, “In the ulti­mate issue, prayer is sim­ply faith… More­over: when faith ceases to pray, it ceases to live… Prayer projects faith on God, and God on the world, only God can move moun­tains, but faith and prayer move God… Faith is kept alive by prayer.”

If we have faith enough to believe in Jesus as Lord and Sav­iour, with­out see­ing Him, then we have a mus­tard seeds worth of faith. It is writ­ten in Matthew 21:21, that with a mus­tard seeds worth of faith we could say to this moun­tain, “Go, throw your­self into the sea,” and it would be done for us. But, the angels of Heaven (who would do the lit­eral act of lift­ing the moun­tain and throw­ing it) will not respond to your com­mand, unless it is in line with God’s will. Only with a true rela­tion­ship with God and Jesus directly, could you have that sort of power with God. I can­not move moun­tains by my own faith to believe for it, but if Jesus told me to com­mand it with a promise that He would hon­our my word, I would have the faith. You see, His power is to be used with His approval, or else it is called abuse.

We must know God, there is no other way, and He must have total con­trol over what we say and do. Then if God tells you to com­mand in the name of Jesus that a moun­tain be thrown into the sea and you obey, it will be done for you. But, if we do not know Him and are not hear­ing His voice; or are unsure that what we hear is the voice of God; or our own loud thoughts and desires, then we could make an embar­rass­ment of our­selves and our God. His power and our author­ity is always to be exe­cuted with His autho­ri­sa­tion of use, or else we will fall into all sorts of temp­ta­tions and push peo­ple away from Christ rather than draw them nearer.