It is said that it would be a very thin piece of paper that only had one side.  Everything has a flip side.  God is love, but on the other side of that great love is the fact that God is consuming fire, and He is not mocked.

Faith also has a flip side.  One would impulsively say that the flip side of faith would be unbelief.  That is not incorrect, but what I want you to see is that unbelief is often driven by fear, and fear fosters more unbelief.  The devil has you right where he wants you, when you have fear in your heart.  I used to think that the devil’s goal for individuals was to take them to hell for eternity.  He will surely do all he can to keep people from coming to Christ, because once they are in Christ, they can do damage to his agenda, but I now think that he doesn’t care all that much whether you go to heaven or hell, he just wants to use you while you are here.  The devil promotes fear, because to the degree that you have fear, you also have unbelief, and as long as you are in unbelief, you cannot receive anything from God, not can you operate in the power of God.

There are several instances in the Bible, where Jesus said to someone, “Your faith has made you whole.”  We tend to add our explanation saying that it was God who made the person whole, but that their faith was the conduit by which the miracle was received.  Being made in God’s image and after His likeness, we have the potential to achieve more than we often realize.  Behind it all, of course, there is God, but God so made us, that when our minds are filled with faith, great things can happen. 

People in the field of psychiatry have long since known that, even people who have no real religious beliefs can very often change their situation, as a result of changing their minds.  We sometimes hear the phrase, “mind over matter.”  This, in no way, negates the teachings of the Bible, concerning faith, it simply shows that God programmed some things into us, that He intended to be used through the workings of faith in God.  At the tower of Babel, in Genesis 11, God scattered the people over the face of the earth and confounded their language, “lest they accomplish everything their hearts imagined to do.”

For the believer, all of this is very good news.  It means that, “all things are possible to him that believes.”

We all know the saying, “Seeing is believing.”  Well, that’s exactly how the unsaved people of this world operate, but the Bible teaches to believe God’s word, based on what hear, not what we see.  In John 5:24, Jesus said, “Assuredly, I say to you, anyone who hears my word and believes on Him who sent me, has everlasting life...”  In John 20:29, Jesus said to Thomas, “You have seen and believed, but blessed are those who have not seen, yet they have believed.”

Romans 10:17 says, “Faith comes by hearing…the word of God.”  When you speak the word of God, concerning your situation, two things happen: first, when you say it loudly enough for your ears to hear it, faith is built in your heart.  Secondly, when you speak it, faith is released and brings about changes that will only come about through the exercising of faith.

James 2:17 says, “Faith without works is dead, being alone.”  The message that James has for us is that when we really believe, actions will follow.

At the most basic level of our faith filled actions, is what we say.  There are two options:  say what the culture, our feelings, and the devil say, or to say what God says.  For example, God says that you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all the things that you need will be added to you.  But what do you say?

If, as the Bible says in Romans 10:17, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God,” then that is where we get the kind of faith that God rewards.  Not only is that where we get it, that is the only place we can get it.  There is no more faith to be found anywhere, except that which is produced through God’s word.  You may state your beliefs as something contrary to the Bible, but if you do, your faith is not biblical faith, and God will not reward it.  In the gospels, we see people who may not have known a great deal about the Bible, but they believed the word of God that they had heard, that Jesus was the Son of God, able to do all things, and God rewarded their faith.