Take everything that you learn of the principles of this walk, the truths that you have learned, and start putting them into action. Instead of being just one who dreams of things, learn how to bring your dreams into reality. Instead of being one who retreats or withdraws from life, enter into it, and live it vigorously and aggressively with faith. It’s a time for action.
Lord give us a revelation about dreaming—visualizing the thing, then putting faith to it and believing. The most active people in the world are dreamers. There are dreamers who are passive and do nothing, but there are others who dream and become the greatest doers in the world.
This is a day of body ministry, and this means that every member of the body is going to contribute; they are going to do something, everybody’s going to edify. That is absolutely contrary to what the world has. Worldliness is deadly to body ministry because it makes you a receiver instead of a giver.
From the beautiful translation of the book of James in Weymouth’s Testament in Modern Speech, we read, What good is it, my brethren, if a man professes to have faith and yet his actions do not correspond? James 2:14. Do you know what that means? If you are going to believe something you had better act on it. You have to act on it.
Faith is like love—you have to express it. Love without the expression of it dies quickly. It dies, because the expression of it is the thing that feeds your spirit. And the same is true of faith—you have to express your faith. Faith is a word of action.
Can such a faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is poorly clad or lacks daily food, and one of you say unto them, I wish you well; keep yourselves warm and well fed and yet you do not supply their bodily needs: of what use is that? So also faith, if it is unaccompanied by obedience, is dead in itself. Nay, some will say, you have faith, I have action: prove to me your faith apart from your corresponding actions, and I will prove mine to you by my actions. A man can’t prove that he has faith when he has no actions; but when you have actions, you can prove your faith. You believe that God is one, and you are quite right; evil spirits also believe this, and shudder. But, idle boaster, are you willing to be taught how it is that faith apart from obedience is worthless? Was it not because of his actions that Abraham our father was declared to be righteous, when he had offered his son, Isaac, upon the altar?
You notice that his faith was cooperating with his actions, that by his actions his faith was perfected. Do you want to have a glow in the spirit? Then start worshiping and acting.
One of the greatest mystics of all time was Daniel, in charge of 127 countries under the king of Babylon. He was in a difficult political position, especially for a foreigner; yet here was a man who could still get the revelation and visions and dreams of the whole, course of human history.
When Joseph was interpreting dreams he was not off in a corner of the dungeon—he was the administrator over the whole prison. From there he went to the top next to the Pharaoh in twenty four hours. The man who can do the job is a man of action. A man that gets revelations from God is a man who is busy.
There are anticipatory actions which turn faith loose. When Jesus walked up to the tomb where Lazarus was, He turned to some of the people and told them to roll away the stone. Couldn’t Jesus roll that stone away? Of course He could; but He had to demand of them some kind of action that was anticipating a result, that would cause them to come to grips with their unbelief.
The minute they would come to grips with their unbelief they would stand there and see the power of God raise their brother from the dead. Let them struggle, let them strain, let them roll that stone away. It was an action that was bringing forth the faith that was in them.
Passivity expresses unbelief; action expresses faith! And when you do something because you believe, you turn loose the faith that has to be there. You may be stymied, but do something about it; do something! Anticipating, you pray for rain, but you take your umbrella with you. You anticipate God’s going to do something. So, say to yourself, “Listen! I’m going to act, I’m going to believe and I’m going to act like I believe!”
It is when you act like you believe that your faith is bolstered and becomes strong and expressed. This is not a day for being a spectator; it is a day for being a participator. Life was made for living, not for looking.
You notice that his faith was cooperating with his actions, that by his actions his faith was perfected. And the Scripture was fulfilled which says that Abraham believed God, and his faith was credited to him as righteousness, and he received the name of God’s friend. You all see that it is because of actions that a man is pronounced righteous and not simply because of faith. In the same way also was not the harlot Rahab declared to be righteous because of her actions when she welcomed the spies and sent them off another way? For just as the human body without a spirit is lifeless, so also faith is lifeless without obedience or corresponding actions. James 2:23–26.
Can you imagine how conditioned a woman today would be to sin and wickedness if she were a harlot? If God would bring her into this church and say, “All of you good moral people: this woman I declare righteous because she has befriended a prophet in the name of a prophet, she has befriended the cause of God as the cause of God. She has had faith in it: like Rahab, I will count her to be righteous.”
Wouldn’t your good souls begin to shrink up and rebel at that? And yet that is what God has been doing in the world. He finds somebody that will take one step, like Abraham and He says, “I will count you righteous.” Why? “Because you were ready to put a knife in your boy, when I told you to and only an angel of God stayed your hand. I will count you righteous. I will count you as My friend, I’ll credit it because you have expressed your faith in action. It was hard, going up that hill leading your son and knowing that you were going to put him on an altar and sacrifice him. That is faith!”
In this day God is saying the same to us. This is the day of the body ministry, the day of the restoration. Do you believe it? Do something about it! Do you want to serve God? Do what you can, start in where you can. Do you want to believe in this walk? Do something tangible. Pray, help out—do something to show your faith. Be at the house of God, ready to back people up. When you find a brother or sister that needs some help, pray for them. Do something constructive about it. Your action can be only a symbol, but it is enough! It can be a token; it can be evidence.
To avoid some of the dangers of this age and life that is passive, children need to learn to use their imagination. When they are quite young they should be able to create stories and as soon as they can write they can put things together. They can make up little tunes; they can play church. They should not be given a lot of things that automatically entertain them and demand no imagination. Today children have toys with switches they can turn on to make them run to and fro. The child just sits there and works it—he is not getting exercise, he doesn’t have to think, he is not using his imagination. After a while the frustration of playing with that kind of toy causes him to break it and he doesn’t know why. He picks at it and tears it apart because this kind of toy is not what he needs.
Get children something they can play with, something they can think with. Teach them something; let them learn by doing as soon as they can. When they sit in front of a television set they are receiving and being conditioned without any thought or imagination of their own—everybody else is determining it.
But let them spend a rainy day without the television set and make up a story and act it out. They will benefit a great deal in activities where they have to create their own stories and play “Pretend.” Children should pretend, they should imagine, they should create. The imagination of a person’s heart can be so susceptible that these children can pretend and play like they are waiting on God and prophesying, and it is just one little step over until you find them actually waiting on the Lord and really prophesying. They can begin by playing and pretending that they are prophets of God, and the next thing you will have little Samuels in the church that are walking with God.
You may be able to see a baseball game better on TV than at the stadium, but remember, there the camera man is deciding what you are going to see, and you miss the excitement of the crowd. Does anyone ever go to a baseball game without ordering a big sack of peanuts or a hot dog? When you go to a baseball game there is that participation; there is the feeling of things; you can watch people. You learn not only from the game, but you can learn a lot watching people. Be a “people-watcher!” You are not a “people-watcher” when you sit with your face glued to the television. We need more firsthand experiences of life for our children. Our hearts should be open to what God is teaching in this.
There is also something that you can learn spiritually from it. In this day you can let somebody else bring the Word and somebody else prophesy and you can say, “Isn’t that wonderful!”
Do you know that you can sit in a classroom and learn a lesson, but it is said that you only retain twenty-five percent of what you hear and read without putting it into action, maybe less. But you retain fifty percent of what you learn if you put it in action. If you want to retain the things of God that are here, pray to God and come back and prophesy a little prophecy, give an exhortation. Do something. So you’re not an Isaiah: it doesn’t make any difference: prophesy, get in and pray. Do it.
When you start doing these things you are becoming a wonderful person in the Spirit moving in God. If you don’t do these things it is amazing how much you can lose in a church.
The people who are active, somehow, are the ones in whom faith continues to grow because they have put it into action. Oh, maybe you’re not scrubbing the floors, but you are giving your money. Everything that you do is an investment in the church, you’re coming to the services, you are trying to put it in action. You are communicating it: you learn something, you tell it to the next minister or Christian that you see. The minute that you pass it on, your own faith in it becomes ten times greater than it was before. When you are quiet and passive, your unbelief will gnaw away at your soul. But if you open your heart to a truth, repeating it, passing it on, doing something about it, your faith becomes strong.
If you would like to become a person of action, have faith in this walk and take some anticipatory action. Do one simple little thing. Wives—do you want to be submissive and serve your husbands? Before you start praying long prayers about it, imagine yourself as a wonderful, beloved housewife, a submissive wife—everything that your husband wants. Then buy a spool of thread to sew the buttons on your husband’s shirts, as a symbolic act of the discipline of submission.
You have left your first love? God said in the book of Revelation to the Ephesian Church Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent and do the first works. Revelation 2:5. Go back—a little action here—it is not pretending, but anticipate a return to your first love.
Let’s say there is a drought and you are going to pray for rain. You go down and you invest in an umbrella; you invest in some rubbers, you invest in a slicker. We’re believing God for rain in this place so you get ready for it.
Do you think God is going to send a revival and you are going to be greatly blessed? Make arrangements now for a baby sitter, because you are going to be going to services every night. That is a symbolic act. You want to be a prophet of God, so you take some action that anticipates it! You decide that you will enroll at the university and take a class in New Testament Greek. You take one little step. It does not make you a prophet, but every day that you go to your classes you are anticipating what you are going to be.
An action is motivating your faith, keeping it alive, keeping your focus on the thing that you are believing for. It is setting it in action. That is the whole principle of a hope chest, and that is why so many girls with hope chests get their hopes. What they really want is a man, but they start off with a hope chest. What are they doing? They are having a lot of faith. Are they going to sit around and feel sorry for themselves? No, they buy sheets, blankets, tablecloths, and silver. They are getting ready for something. It is anticipation. The dream is there—along with action—and faith is coming up. It helps them and the next time they meet the right man, they are not quite so bashful, thinking “Maybe he’s the one I’m getting the hope chest ready for.” They are anticipating something; yes, they are. Look for an action that destroys your unbelief
Do you want to be a people of action? Do you want to be a people that create? What would have happened if Michaelangelo had been exposed to a television set for five or six hours a day when he was a little boy? We never would have had his great masterpieces of art. They have to be created out of stone and plain canvas by a man who has thought through: who can think, who can do, who can create. It is never too late to start planning, start doing something. Write it out; express it. You have a deep feeling—don’t let it die there, dormant and sterile and barren; write it down. Put it into action.
You have a vision to do something but you can’t quite do it. You know you can do one thing; take one step. Maybe there is a project that needs a great deal of support. How are you going to do it? Maybe all you can do is make a token offering; you can give a dollar. It can’t begin to cover it but it is a symbolical offering. Sometimes people can’t do it all, but they make one little step forward and God honors it and the thing comes to pass. Their faith actually brought it into being.
Now, what is it that you want? Stop and think today. What is it that you want more than anything else? And today we will take one little action, one little step. We will position ourselves, in the name of the Lord and we will do it. When David Livingstone was a boy he heard an old Scotchman delivering a sermon, and when the offering plate was passed, David Livingstone asked that it be put on the floor. He said, “I have nothing to give, but I give myself,” and he stepped into the plate. This was a symbolical action. It seemed wild and crazy, but that man moved a world for God—opened up a dark continent to missionary work with one little step.
What can I do? What can I be? How can I pray? We move out, because we are determined that we are going to dream a dream, we’re going to visualize a change. Then we are going to open our hearts, and we’re going to believe God with a Scripture behind it, and we are going to make a step. That is exactly what we are going to do and God will open up the creative, marvelous walk of the end-time that way.