The doctors may have told you there's no hope. Your bank account may be empty and creditors may be knocking at your door. There may be trouble in your family or on your job. Your problems may be stacked so high, you feel as if you can never overcome them.
But God can bring you through even circumstances such as these in triumph. He can do for you what He did for the Israelites. Exodus 10:23 says that when darkness covered the nation of Egypt in which they lived—a darkness so thick the Egyptians couldn't see each other or move about for three days— “all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings” (NKJV).
Think about that! If you'll dare to believe God's Word, you can have light in the middle of a dark world. You can have protection in a dangerous world. You can live healed in a sick world. You can live prosperously in an impoverished world. You can live free in the middle of a captive world.
But you can't do it by dragging around in an attitude of defeat. If you want to walk in consistent victory, you must develop a spirit of faith and persevere in that spirit—even when pressure is on you.
People with the spirit of faith always receive the blessings of God. They may go through tests and trials, but they come out supernaturally every time.
The apostle Paul gives us some powerful insight in 2 Corinthians 4 about how to cultivate that spirit: “Since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, 'I believed and therefore I spoke,' we also believe and therefore speak. … While 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” (vv. 13,18).
The first and most fundamental fact these verses reveal about the spirit of faith is that it believes. Faith believes God's Word just because God said it—whether natural circumstances seem to agree or not.
Faith reaches into the realm of the eternal, grasps the promises of God and brings forth a tangible, physical fulfillment of them. It brings spiritual blessings. It brings the natural things you need. It brings healing for your body. It brings action in this earth.
I like to think of it this way: When you believe the Word of God, you open the window to your life and give God the opportunity to move and turn things around for you.
That's what the spirit of faith does. It stands in the midst of the most impossible circumstances and believes God anyway! Then it begins to speak. It doesn't say just any old thing, either. It speaks the Word of God.
Now, that may not be what you have done in the past, but it's what the Bible teaches. The Bible says, “We also believe and therefore we speak” (2 Cor. 4:13). If you want to change your circumstances, you must have faith in two places—your heart and your mouth. What you believe in your heart and say from your mouth continually is what comes to pass in your life.
Right now you may be thinking: I really want to do that. I want to walk and talk by faith. The problem is, every time I look at the mess I'm in, I get discouraged.
Then stop looking at that mess! Instead, focus your attention on the promises of God. Keep His Word in front of your eyes and in your ears until you can see it coming to pass with the eyes of your spirit. Say it before you see it and you will see it.
I'm not saying you should act as if your problems aren't real. They are real. But according to the Word they are temporal. That means they're subject to change. And you can be assured that if you keep your focus on God's Word, they will change!
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