Study Notes

Foundation Statement: Protect your faith from things that kill your faith

 

I.      Mark 11:22-Have faith in God-That’s not a suggestion, that’s a commandment

A.    He didn’t say pray and ask God for faith, He said have faith in God; You have to lay hold of faith, take it, possess it

1.      Have-To lay hold of a thing, possess, own, to hold, to have or hold in hand

2.      I have faith in God, I lay hold of faith in God, I possess it and hold it in my hand

B.     Have faith IN GOD

1.      People say to today, “you got to have faith” WRONG; you need to have faith IN GOD; You just have to have faith that it’s going to work out for the best – WRONG; You need to have faith in God

2.      You walk by faith IN GOD-2 Corinthians 5:7; Faith IN GOD is your victory-1 John 5:4; The just shall live by faith IN GOD-Galatians 3:11

3.      What happens is people talk about doing it by faith (and leave out the “in God”) and with that terminology it’s you and your faith and it leaves God out of the equation and before long faith has just turned into legalistic self-effort and then the pressure is on you and your faith to get the situation turned around and that just won’t work

4.      EX: You have to forgive by faith, WRONG; You have to forgive by faith in God and that means as an act of my will by faith in God I’m going to ignore how I feel and forgive and I have faith in God that as I do that He’s going to help me, grace me, empower me to do it

II.     Mark 11:22-Have the faith of God or have the God-kind of faith – The God kind of faith works by the God kind of love         

A.    Galatians 5:1-6-In Jesus the only thing that means anything, that produces any power (the ability to get results) is faith working by love

1.      They don’t have faith in God, they have faith in the law and w/o faith in God the anointed one and his anointing will profit you nothing

2.      Faith in God is what accesses and activates the anointed one and his anointing in your life to produce results

3.      Avail-To be strong, can, be able, avail, prevail, have power, wield power, have strength to overcome, be a force, profit, be valuable

B.     Faith without love will be inoperative, won’t work, won’t put forth power, won’t work for you, won’t be effective

1.      Works-To be operative, be at work, put forth power, to work for one, to effect, to show one’s self operative, active, powerful, energy

2.      Love energy is what makes faith go

a.    1 Corinthians 13:2-Without love faith becomes useless and cannot perform the functions it was created to perform

b.    EX: Like a cell phone with a dead battery; you got the phone but it can’t perform any of the functions it was created to perform

3.      Only the God kind of love will make the God kind of faith go (EX: You got to put premium gas in some cars)

C.    Always attach love to faith because without love faith can’t function

1.      1 John 5:4-Whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world; this is the victory that overcomes the world even our faith (which works by love)

2.      Hebrews 11:6-Without faith (which works by love) it’s impossible to please God

3.      Hebrews 11:1-Now faith (which works by love) is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen

4.      Mark 9:23-If thou canst believe (which works by love) all things are possible to him that believes (which works by love)

D.    Faith works by this, I only do what the father shows me to do and say what the father tells me to say; that’s what makes faith work because that is what love is, doing what the father told you to do-John 14:21

III.   The opposite of love disables faith; Strife, division, unforgiveness, being critical are faith killers

A.    Your faith is one of the most precious things that you have and you got to protect your faith from things that would harm it (1 Pet1:7-The trial of your faith, much more precious than gold-Prov20:6-A faithful man who can find?-Lk18:8-When the son of man comes shall he find faith on the Earth?)

1.      EX: It’s like the things that you have on your phone that can drain your battery quickly that you need to shut off; They are phone killers; now they don’t really kill the phone, but they drain the battery and when the battery is dead it kills the phone

B.     You have to understand this about the enemy: Your faith is the biggest threat to his triumph in your life

1.      There are people who love God and love one another that know little nothing about faith and the enemy just walks all over them

2.      There are bunches of verses telling you to hold fast to your faith because the enemy is after it (Hebrews 3:6,4:14,23,10:33)

3.      The enemy is interested in disabling your faith and that’s why he puts such an emphasis on targeting your love walk

a.    Why is the enemy so interested in strife and division? Is it just because he likes it? No it’s because strife and division kills faith and with faith destroyed he’s able to work freely, unfettered by the faith of believers

b.    The reason he puts any emphasis on your love walk is because he wants to destroy that faith

4.      James 3:16-Why where envying and strife is, is there confusion and every evil work? Who’s behind those evil works? The evil one. How do you get rid of the evil one? You resist him in faith (1 Peter 5:9). There’s every evil work because love isn’t in place to make faith go to make him go

C.    We are going to be 2 Thessalonians 1:3 people; Exceeding faith, abounding love  

IV.   Mark 11:25-When you stand praying if you have anything against anybody forgive (because unforgiveness will mess this whole process up)

A.    23-Jesus is teaching them about the power of faith in God and He’s teaching them how to do what he did to the fig tree; He’s teaching them about availing power, strength to prevail and overcome and he’s teaching them about faith working by love-Matthew 21:20-21

1.      Faith in God is that when you say what God gives you to say you have faith that God will bring it to pass

2.      I believe that what I say will come to pass because God gave it to me to say and I have faith in God to bring it to pass when I say it

3.      You get the words from the Father and say what he tells you to say and then believe that what you say will come to pass because you have faith in God to bring it to pass

B.     24 (AMP)-Whatsoever things you desire when you pray believe (which works by love) that you receive them and you shall them; that’s a marvelous promise that can be deactivated by unforgiveness, strife, division (faith killers)

1.      1 Timothy 2:8 (AMP)-I desire therefore that in every place men should pray, without anger or quarreling or resentment or doubt in their minds, lifting up holy hands