12 Foundation Stones

 

WHAT? WHY? HOW?

(Editor) Faith is so important in life as a Christian, it’s the different between success and failure. If we have faith, we open ourselves to all of God’s power, but if we don’t, we are stuck, left to fend without the power that he has to give. The following quotes are taken from a GN about the Offensive, which is the Family’s new witnessing push. I’ve adapted the text to fit general life, as the concept of faith is the same in any situation. When it talks about the ‘new weapons’ or ‘weapons’ it means the things like prayer, praise, prophecy, calling on the keys of the kingdom, etc. These are the things that pull down God’s power to change situations in our lives, but we need faith before even using them. So this class is all about that, faith. What it is, why we need it, and how to avail ourselves of it.

WHAT?

The starting point, before you pick up any other weapon, is faith. The Lord said, "The Word, My promises‚ will give you faith, and that's the starting point when fighting and defeating the Enemy." Faith is the password, the foundation of power, anointing, and victory. "This is the victory that overcomes the world, even your faith" ( 1John 5:4 ). "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen" ( Heb.11:1 ). It's the "title deed," as explained by Dad ( ML #T ). It comes from the Word, and it grows; but it can shrink if you neglect your spiritual life. The Lord said faith is our "biggest and baddest" weapon!

WHY?

Faith is really the starting point. We have to have faith in order for everything that the Lord has promised to come to pass. We need faith to obey His Word, faith to step out and try new and different things‚ faith that the Lord can use us in new ways‚ faith that we overcome obstacles.

Faith is vital. It's the first step. It's what will enable us to walk through open doors, take advantage of golden opportunities‚ and follow God wherever He leads. It's what will help us to say yes to Jesus at every turn--yes to taking risks, yes to doing what God has for us in life.

God thinks big--and to get big results, we need big faith! Faith is what will drive us, help us to do the impossible, and to put action behind our beliefs and visions, to persevere when things are tough, and catapult us over obstacles. Faith is also what will help us to wield the spiritual weapons‚ which are vital in our lives. As the Lord said, "All the weapons work together; they're all powerful and all needed, but faith is the secret to using any of them to their full potential" (ML #3658:30, GN 1220).

Sometimes faith seems a little bit mysterious‚ but it's actually not complicated. You don't have to try so hard to dissect it or understand it. We live by faith and walk by faith and it's our "title deed," but faith is also manifested by action and obedience. It's a "doing" word, because faith without works is dead (James 2:26). You don't have to feel like you have faith‚ or think that you have great faith. Just start doing the things that faith gives you the power to do, and you'll realize that you truly do possess this valuable treasure--and the more you use it and feed it, the stronger it will get.

(Dad: ) You've seen those space shuttles launch in movies or documentaries, and the boosters that fire up so much power that it propels the shuttle into space. Your faith is like those boosters, and both individually and cumulatively you have immense power. But that power has to be put into action; it has to be ignited. The fuel and energy contained in those boosters is useless unless it's powered up.

Unlike those boosters on a space shuttle that are rapidly used and then fall off as the rocket and shuttle make their way further into space, your faith will remain strong and powerful as the energy that will drive you forward. Faith is what will stir you to put God's Word into action, to believe that all things are possible, and to make them happen.

(Jesus) Have you ever seen those sports interviews in which they're interviewing an athlete after a victory or a game that they won and they ask them what gave them the edge? What gave them the upper hand so that they were able to defeat their adversary? They often say confidence that they believed in themselves, they believed in their team‚ and they believed that they could win.

Faith is having confidence in Me. Faith is knowing that you can trust Me completely--not just to be there with you, but for a victorious outcome. Faith knows that no matter what comes your way, or what you face, I will bring you through it; I will get the victory for you regardless of the circumstances.

20. (Jesus) Faith isn't something you just "have" naturally. You gain it through putting Me to the test and experiencing My power. Faith is built up one layer at a time‚ ever increasing your size and strength, till you become a quarterstaff in My hand to beat down the most aggressive foe. Faith grows, it's built over time‚ and the more your faith is tested, the more faith you'll have.

21. Expect Me to strengthen your faith by putting you in faith-inducing situations. They are generally pretty trying at the time, but always result in greater faith if you put Me to the test and watch Me do the miracle. With time, you will be strong enough to stand firm in the fiercest of gales.

HOW

* Be willing to take steps, especially if they stretch your faith.

* Let your mind stretch. Your faith is almost always limited by your mind and what you are willing to accept as possible. Push the barriers back.

* Don't let past failures, or fear of future failures, hold you back.

* The basic principle of all faith-and-action rules is doing! Get started. Once you know the Lord's plan, get to it.

* Be willing to do the hard work that comes with putting your faith into action. Faith is the underlying belief that a plan is workable and achievable. But any great venture requires slogging it out at times, elbow grease, and perseverance to see it through, and sometimes even to simply get it off the ground.

* Invest time in proving your faith once you know something is God's will. Don't fizzle out at the first sign of trouble. Don't give up too soon. Faith takes the challenges, both expected and unexpected, as they come, and tackles them matter-of-factly. It doesn't just will them away; it devises a plan for the solution and then puts it into effect.

* Be positive but also be realistic. Putting faith into action does not mean you're unrealistic. It means that while you're projecting into the future and aiming toward the heavenly vision, you are also translating what that means into practical, everyday steps that you can take with God's help.

* Faith requires a will to work. Faith doesn't lazily wait for a bolt of lightning from the sky before acting. The "bolt" may be on its way, but faith won't be idle during that time; faith will be hard at work, both trusting the Lord and also actively doing what it can.

* Don't feel bad about having to change plans a little along the way. Faith is not afraid to adapt plans, because it's confident that God is in control. Change is a fellow laborer alongside faith.

* Don't be stuck in a rut as to where your faith can take you. Expect that it can take you great distances, and then get busy proving that.

* Expect some setbacks, but don't let them hold you back. Learn to work around, over‚ under, or even through them if need be. Setbacks often bring to light elements that were not fully accounted for in your plan, and as a result they can help your plan to be more successful in the long run. Faith will give you the right outlook on setbacks and help you take advantage of them as stepping stones to success. (Jesus) Faith is at its finest when it's been through the wringer and still comes out with a grin. That's how durable your faith should be.

* Celebrate the victories along the way, even the little ones. Even celebrate the unexpected problems you had to resolve that then resulted in victory. Be sure to credit faith in your victories‚ so that you see how the Lord took your faith, stretched it, purified it, shaped it, and then through it gave you results.

* Ask for prayer from others if you feel your faith is under attack by the Enemy. Fight back at the first sign of the Enemy's attacks.

* When things don't turn out as you expect them to, ask the Lord why. Part of strengthening your faith is taking things back to the Lord for His insight and reasoning, and not just assuming that things were a failure or that they just didn't work, or thinking that you didn't hear clearly from the Lord. If you just assume that you got things wrong, then that can weaken your faith. However‚ hearing from Him about such situations can tremendously strengthen your faith.

* Be faithful to read the Word. Also, read the Word on topics that are pertinent and appropriate to your current life experiences. The Word always helps to strengthen your faith and increase your vision. Then the Enemy won't be able to use your lack of faithfulness as a "cigar" that curtails and limits your faith by taking away your confidence that you're in line to receive God's blessing and answers to prayer because you're obeying.

* Listen to faith-building stories and testimonies from others. Seek them out.

* Be around people with faith. Don't hang around people who lack faith. (That's one of the best ways to either feed or kill your faith.)

* Hear from the Lord personally regarding your life. This will give you more faith for what you need to do, and will also help you to accept and use your anointing more fully.

* Keep a log of answered prayers and fulfilled prophecies. It's a great faith booster and also an excellent praise time aid.

WHEN EVERYTHING AROUD YOU PULLS YOU DOWN, THE WORD, AND THE FAITH IT GVES YOU, WILL PULL YOU BACK UP

Without continuous strength from the Lord, you don't have any power or spiritual energy. You're empty and don't have anything to battle with. When you have to hear and be immersed in all kinds of vicious lies from the Devil, then you can't help but be affected by it, it influences you.

You shouldn't feel condemned about it, because that's just the way it is. Like Dad has always said, words are real things. Words are powerful; regardless of whether they're the Enemy's words or the Lord's Words, they have power. It's not just the Lord's Words that have power, the Enemy's words have power too, and they influence people and sway people. So you shouldn't feel condemned if hearing the Enemy's lies and negative input makes you feel discouraged or depressed, or maybe even temporarily doubting or questioning.

You can't help it if it makes you feel that way, but you can go on the attack and do something about it. You don't have to let the Devil just walk all over you without your putting up a fight! The only solution is to make sure you get some positive input of the Lord's Words! The only counter-action, the only antidote for that is God's Word and His promises. But if you don't get that, then you're going to be weakened.

The Lord's not kidding when He keeps telling us over and over that His Words are Spirit and they are Life, that they're quick (alive) and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, that they're the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, that their entrance is what gives us understanding, as well as all the other things the Lord says about His Word! He's not just saying those things to supply you with beautiful literature, nor to give you some theoretical principles that sound nice. He means for you to do something about it. He wants you to apply it and make it work for you. He wants you to get it into your heart and every fiber of your being and let it empower you to rise above the negative words of the Devil that would drag you down.

With His Word as your weapon, you have to actively resist and fight and overcome all of that negative input that you are subjected to. The only way to win is to have sufficient input from the Lord! That's just one of God's principles; that's the way the Lord has set things up; that's the way it works. There's nothing we can do to change it, the Lord has set it up so that the negative input can only be countered by positive input from His Word. So no matter how strong we may think we are, if we get a lot of negative input, but don't get the Lord's antidote for it, then we're going to be weakened. That's just the way it is, that's the way the process works.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT ALWAYS BEING PERFECT, JUST BE FAITHFUL THIS ONE MOMENT

I think one of the best verses I could give you for the coming year, & for that matter the rest of your life & ministry is: "he that is faithful unto the end, I will give a crown of life!" (Rev.2:10) now, that is not talking about salvation. The lord is talking about your faithfulness in service, if you're faithful from now unto death, from now till the day you die.

Just stay faithful & keep on being faithful every day. You can only live one day at a time; you can only be faithful one day at a time. So don't worry about when you weren't faithful yesterday or whether you're going to be faithful tomorrow, but do your best to be faithful today. Forget the past & tomorrow will take care of itself, or the lord will take care of it. Just be faithful today, every day, one day at a time, & you'll be faithful unto death & you'll inherit an eternal crown of life!--and I believe that's going to be some kind of an actual halo or shining crown, that you're going to shine like the stars for being faithful! Praise the Lord?

If you think about trying to be faithful the rest of your life, that just scares you, that worries you. That's just too big, you'll never make it. But what about today?--weren't you pretty faithful today? Give the lord a little credit & thank the lord for what a miracle it is! Look how long he's kept you already! You worried about all those days & all the events to come, & you had many worries, nearly all of which never even happened. Here you are! You're still here, you're still faithful!

So quit trying so hard! Quit worrying about it! Quit trying to work it up or even pray it down! The church used to say, "don't work it up, pray it down!" well, I can't even depend on praying it down. I just have to depend on the lord keeping me faithful, that's all, & trust him that my faith won't fail, because my faith comes from him. Faith is a gift of god, so praise the lord!

Now doesn't that help you relax a little bit? Just remember, only the lord can keep you faithful! You have to give him a little cooperation, you have to listen, you have to read, you have to obey, but that's the easy part. It's his job to keep you faithful! So don't worry about it. Just be faithful.

You don't even have to have faith for a whole day. You don't even have to have faith for the next hour! You don't even have to have faith for this hour!--not even for this minute, because a minute is a period of time. Just have faith for this moment, this split second, right now, one moment at a time! That's all you have to have faith for! That's all!

So you don't have to worry about waking up in the morning thinking, "have I got faith for today?" not even that! Just have faith for each little thing you do all day long. They always ask me, "how come you never know what you're going to do?" well, how am I going to know what I’m going to do? I don't know what the lord's going to do until he shows me or tells me or he does it!

"Be thou faithful unto death," he says, "& I will give you a crown of life!" you're going to get a special crown; you're going to have a crown that you can be proud of! That's what's going to show what you have done for the lord. And the lord wants the world to see it! He wants all creation to see the badge of your faithfulness, a crown of life!

(To Be Faithful Unto Death! ML 1717)

THE PROMISES GOD GIVES IN HIS WORD WILL HELP US HAVE FAITH, BECAUSE WE CAN STAND ON THOSE PROMISES AND HOLD GOD TO THEM

My promises to you are like gold bars, backing up the Bank of Heaven. They are solid, genuine, and will always fetch the price that you're asking for. They never devalue, they never tarnish, they never disintegrate. They're eternally valuable and always in demand. No matter how many times you draw on their value and worth, they remain intact, gleaming and beckoning to anyone who catches a glimpse of them. The more you use them and draw on their power, the more sought after they become. The more demand you place on them, the stronger they become.

I've given you your own share of gold bars in the Bank of Heaven. Your faith activates My promises to you. There is so much more that My promises can do for you; they can work so much more powerfully on your behalf than you've experimented with until now.

Don't let My good gold sit! Draw on it! Use it as collateral against absolutely anything that you need or want, and watch your seed of faith grow into a towering mountain that will make the world stand back in awe!

Sometimes having and manifesting faith costs you a whole lot. I know and see when something costs you so very much, and I bless accordingly. When you give Me a gift of faith, or you place something dear to you on the altar by faith, I take note of that.

When something is especially difficult for you, or when your heart breaks or aches over something you're giving up, you can be assured that I will not only compensate your giving or loss, but that I will reward you over and above the amount you gave, in a variety of heavenly currencies. Not just "cash," per se, but in other qualities, skills, gifts, and special allowances.

Once you arrive in Heaven, you will truly feel that you have never made a sacrifice, because you will receive so much more than you ever gave up. It will be My greatest pleasure to bring that beautiful, never-ending smile to your face on the day you arrive here to be with Me, and I give you your rewards.

Picture a sturdy hammock that's suspended between two tall, graceful trees. Picture yourself lying down in that hammock. The trees are strong, and the hammock has been fastened securely. There's no danger of it falling down or not being able to carry your weight. So you can lie there and rest, free from worry of falling, free from concern about how you have to keep the hammock up. You look up at the beautiful sky and you listen to the song of the birds. The sun's rays warm you, and you feel a gentle breeze. Faith, like the hammock, has the power to hold you up. Faith is a real and alive spiritual power and entity. When your faith is strong and exercised, then you can let go and lie back in the arms of faith, trusting that it will hold you up, trusting that it will keep you. So keep the faith, My loves, and let faith keep you.

Faith enough.--Two important words for you to remember. Sometimes all you'll have, or all you'll feel you have, is faith enough, because that's all you need.--Faith enough to take the next step. Faith enough to love the next person. Faith enough to receive the next message from Me. Faith enough to persevere in prayer yet again. Faith enough to do the humble thing one more time. Faith enough to know that I'll help you to get up again. Faith enough to hold on for just another minute. Faith enough to trust Me through another test. Faith enough to put My words into action today.

You don't need to have faith for everything all at once. You just need faith enough to do what I'm asking of you now, and faith enough to trust that when I give you the next instruction, you'll have faith enough to do that too.