(by Dr. Larry Ollison)
As a Christian, you have been given something the world does not have. A power has been made available to you that can solve all your problems and defeat any enemy that comes against you. As a Christian, you have access to power that can help you accomplish the impossible - the ultimate power - the power of grace.
Before you become a Christian, you are spiritually defenseless. When the devil attacks and tempts you to sin, you don't have the ability to resist. Envy, strife, gossip, hatred, and all the works of the flesh can come in and take control. Just being a decent human being seems like a hopeless task! But after you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have within you the ability to not live in
defeat any more. You now can access God's grace and develop faith. With these two "power partners," you have the potential to move mountains and eliminate any obstacle that would hinder or bind you.
The Apostle Paul wrote much of the New Testament and laid the foundation doctrines of the church. He established the government of the church for us. However, he could not have done this on his own. He had to have a supernatural force helping him. That supernatural force was the power of grace: a special endowment to do that task.
We are to build on the foundation Paul laid, but we can't do it under our own power. We can only do this by using the same power Paul used. That power is grace.
We know faith is equally as important as grace. Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith." Faith is the catalyst that activates God's Word, causing what we believe to come to pass. Grace for salvation is always available for the non-Christian - we are saved by grace - but faith contains the belief and the power that activates grace.
As Christians, we know we are to walk by faith and not by sight. We believe God will do what He said He would do. We know it is impossible for God to lie. Titus 1:2: "In hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began."Hebrews 6:18: "That by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie."
We know what God says is true. We can take it to the bank. We can count on it. That's what being a faith person is. We walk by faith and we live by faith. We know when God says it, it doesn't matter how things look around us. It doesn't matter if everything appears to be falling apart. If God says it will be a certain way, it will be that way. A person in faith believes it has already been accomplished
because God has said it.
"For we walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). When someone in the world hears faith spoken, they usually don't understand. Since they go by what they see, they can't understand how things could be any other way. But a person in faith says, "It doesn't matter how it looks, because I'm going to look at what God says. You can look at the problem, but I'm going to look at the promise.
I'm going to focus on the answer instead of the question. I'm going to stay focused and believe God's Word and what He said." That's faith.
Faith is simply believing that God has done what He said He would do regardless of how things look, and believing it so completely that everything you say and everything you do is based on what you believe and not on what you see. That's faith.
