We are going to talk about the first gift of power, the gift of faith.
This gift of faith is like a steppingstone to bring us into the exercise of the other two gifts of power, the working of miracles and the gifts of healings.
When the gift of faith comes upon you, you are changed in your personality to a different person, a great boldness comes over you. You will say things you normally would say, and will be surprised you said that, often words of knowledge and wisdom will go along with it.
For example, you are ministering in prison and none of the inmates are listening to you. All a sudden the gift of faith comes upon you, and you change into another person, you tell certain inmates what they have been convicted of, and how they messed up their lives, and all of a sudden you have their attention.
Or you own an orchard field in Florida, and a deep freeze is coming, and the word of faith comes on you and you say none of my orange trees will die. And everybody else’s orchard fields around you are destroyed but yours’ is not. Now you can charge a higher price for your oranges.
Faith is presented in the New Testament in several different forms. And it’s necessary to distinguish between the various forms of faith.
I will reveal to you three main different forms of faith.
First, what I call faith to live by. Paul says the just or the righteous shall live by God’s faith. This faith is an ongoing, personal relationship of commitment to God, and it supplies the ability and the motivation and the direction for the whole Christian life. This is a kind of faith that every Christian must have to be a Christian.
Then there’s the fruit of faith, which is listed in Galatians chapter 5. Now fruit is always an aspect of character.
The third kind of faith is the gift of faith, supernatural faith, a faith above the human level, God’s own faith imparted for a moment, different than (the faith given to you in which, you no longer live, but Christ lives through you). This kind of supernatural faith is imparted according to the sovereign will of God by the Holy Spirit, usually when He gets upset or feels deep compassion about something and determines He is going to change it through you.
In a certain sense, the gift of faith corresponds to the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge.
It’s a supernatural impartation of just a tiny portion of God’s own faith to accomplish God’s purpose in a certain situation.
Jesus spoke at one point about faith like a mustard seed. So, this is a mustard seed of God’s faith that he imparts to us. You cannot move a mountain, unless the gift of faith comes upon you.
I want to give some examples from the ministry of Jesus.
Mark 11: 12 Now the next day, when they had come out from Bethany, He was hungry. 13 And seeing from afar a fig tree having leaves, He went to see if perhaps He would find something on it. When He came to it, He found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. 14 In response Jesus said to it, “Let no one eat fruit from you ever again.”
The disciples were listening to what He spoke. Then a little later in the chapter, we find what happened when they passed the fig tree again next day.
And as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the fig tree withered from the roots up. And being reminded, Peter said to him, Rabbi, behold, the fig tree which you cursed has withered.
Mark 11:22And Jesus answering saith to them, ‘Have faith of God;
He did not say “have faith in God”. This is not your personal faith in God, it as a gift of the Spirit “the gift of faith”
I want to point out just some simple facts about that incident.
First, Jesus simply spoke to the tree. He didn’t do anything else, but he spoke with faith, and what he said happened.
When he was questioned about it by his disciples, he answered them, have faith of God. In the original Greek, what it literally says, is have the faith of God, or have God’s faith. And that’s the real explanation.
This gift is God’s faith. It’s a tiny mustard seed of God’s faith imparted at a given moment for a specific purpose. It’s supernatural faith. It’s not faith on the human level. It’s divine faith supernaturally imparted by the Holy Spirit. It’s rather like the word of wisdom and the word of knowledge. It’s a mustard seed of faith.
Then Jesus said, when you have that kind of faith, you can say to a mountain, be removed and be cast in the sea, and it’ll happen.
Whatever you say with that kind of faith is just as effective as if God said it himself, because it’s God’s own faith. And a mustard seed can move a mountain.
You see, the emphasis there is not on the quantity of faith, but on the quality. If it’s God’s own faith, it just takes a mustard seed to move a mountain.
Now, I want to give you some other examples of this gift of faith from the New Testament. It’s the gift that is normally exercised in the casting out of evil spirits.
The first time I tried to cast out a devil I failed. This guy was possessed. One moment he did not know where he was, the next moment he would be in extreme pain, the next moment he would be talking in demonic voice that was not his own. He started coughing up stuff and I thought the devil came out, and then a thought spontaneously entered my mind. I am still here, then he turned and the demon said out loud, I am still here, my faith did not work. Now I wait on the Lord, get filled with the Spirit and ask the Lord for the gift of faith.
Normally, it’s a word spoken in faith that produces the result. For instance, it says about the ministry of Jesus in Matthew 8, 16, When evening had come, they brought to him many who were demon-possessed. He cast out the spirits “with a word” and healed all who were ill.
When he confronted evil spirits, he spoke to them the word of faith and authority, they had to obey him.
Acts 16 where Paul and his company were followed by the slave girl who had a spirit of divination. We read there how Paul spoke to the spirit; he discerned it was a spirit of divination. He said, I command you, in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. The spirit had to obey him. He spoke with divine faith, with divine authority.
Also, there are several cases in the New Testament of people being raised from the dead, being brought back to life. In almost every case you’ll find, it was this gift of faith that produced this result.
For instance, Jesus met the funeral procession of the son of the widow of Nain He stopped the procession, touched the coffin, and said, young man, I say to you, arise. The dead man sat up and began to speak.
The word of authority and faith brought the man back to life.
Again, when Jesus stood outside the tomb of Lazarus, who had been dead 4 days in the tomb, Jesus simply cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus come forth”, and immediately the dead man began to move out of the tomb, this was “the gift of faith” expressed in a word of authority.
And again, in Acts chapter 9 and verse 40, Peter is confronted by Tabitha lying dead on a bed in the upper room. All the widows are mourning and weeping. Peter goes up by himself, kneels, prays, and then he turns to the body and says, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes. When she saw Peter, she sat up.
So, you’ll see that in almost every case of a person being raised from the dead, the gift that produced that result was the gift of faith.
When we begin to operate in the gift of faith, we should not feel an exalted sense of own importance and power. But, feel a tremendous sense of responsibility.
We should realize that in a certain sense, God has committed to us a kind of power that’s almost frightening.
If you have the right kind of faith, “God’s faith”, whatever you say will happen.