Excerpts from teaching on Faith from 2007

[Basilikos]

The Spirit spoke to me and said “YOU MUST EARNESTLY CONTEND FOR THE FAITH THAT WAS ONCE DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS. YOU HAVE TO EARNESTLY CONTEND FOR IT.” Now why would the Spirit of God say that and I know it’s in the scripture somewhere, it may be in Peter somewhere, but why would he say “earnestly contend for something” if it was something that just happened be, do you know what I mean, if it was something that was going to come to you automatically. And I think as we have shared before a lot of people perceive faith as being some type of a thing that they possess that they use to accomplish things in God. It’s kind of a worker together when they really begin to be convinced that what God said He will do they engage their faith to apprehend that thing that God is revealing or speaking to them. Now that’s pretty much the way Copeland and Hagin and all these others that you can go back and read, like Brannum and a lot of them over the years, they saw faith. Wigglesworth saw faith pretty much in that same light. E. W. Kenyon saw faith in that type of a light. But I’m going to tell you, the scripture doesn’t show it in that type of a light and the Spirit of God definitely doesn’t speak of it as in that type of a light. There is a working together of those elements, but it’s not anything that is necessarily controlled by us.
We are going to find out that faith itself, I believe, as I’ve said before, is the action of the Spirit of God in you that takes place when you receive and believe what the Living Word of God has said. It is something totally separate from your control, separate from your power, it is something that is engaged by our believing that what God said He would do He will also perform, but it is not anything that we ourselves do. Although you do possess it within your being, it is there, if the Living Word is there. If the Living Word isn’t there then you have no faith.
I spoke the other day that there were only two verses of scripture that faith is even mentioned in the entire Old Testament, only two. I brought those. Deuteronomy 32:20 He said “I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be, for they are a very forward generation, children in whom is no faith.” Now what that simply says is that have refused to receive and hear what the Living Word of God was saying. Amen! They refused to receive and hear and he was just kind of saying “I will hide my face from them.” In other words, “my appearance will not be made known to them. They can’t see Me, they can’t comprehend Me.” That’s way back in Deuteronomy 32. Then also in Habakkuk 2 “Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by faith.” Amen! So it’s not he who esteems himself to be something or even if you are rated highly by those that are around you, the thing that makes the difference in you is the Living Word of God.
If you have the Living Word of God in you, you have received and believed that what God said He would do He is also going to perform, then through God’s mercy and grace which He sent to us in that Living Word, it activates and releases God to do in you because we are now yielding and letting God do what He is capable of doing and the one that is putting all that together is faith that is contained in His Word. But you don’t have to do that. Could you imagine all of us trying to take all the different ingredients and put them together…and I think that’s what I’ve heard a lot of you guys say “Well which one comes first? Let’s see, was it this, or was it that?” What must we do to work the works of God? BELIEVE!

[Basilikos]

Matthew 6:30 where He says “Wherefore if God so clothed the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven shall He not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith.” Amen! Now if faith is the instrument by which we reach out to apprehend and take the things then Jesus would actually be slamming their faith. Do you understand? What He was saying is “You’ve not heard what I’ve been saying. You’ve not heard the law and you’ve not heard the prophets.” He said, “If you had heard the law you would have been wanting Me to come and if you would have heard the prophets you would have known when I was coming.” So what He was saying was is “Here God made all of these provisions, He clothed the grass, and fed the birds and all of these different things and here I am and you don’t know who I am and if you did know then you would know that you can be clothed upon just like that.” But He said “Since you haven’t heard, you don’t know and you’re not looking and you’re not believing, you really don’t have a clue as to what is going on.” So He is saying “O ye of little faith.”
I want you to notice that, it’s awesome that when He is talking to those who have heard the scriptures and have had them ministered to them the whole time, He keeps telling them that they have little faith or no faith. But the ones that are outside whether it’s the Syrophoenician person or if it’s somebody from one of he outer regions, when they come in Jesus says “Great is your faith,” the centurion “Great is your faith.” So I mean how did they get faith when they couldn’t even hear the word? They couldn’t even hear the scriptures. They weren’t even subjected to or permitted to hear the reading of the scriptures. They were dogs and trash in the eyes of the elite of the nation. It had nothing to do with hearing scriptures or reading scriptures it had to do with hearing Him Who spoke, that’s where the scriptures came from. Right? They wrote when He spoke. So when He’s telling them that, he is saying “O ye of little faith” He is really identifying to them that “You have not heard, not just Me, if you would have heard My Father, and you had heard the law and the prophets, then you would have heard Me. But you can’t hear me because you haven’t heard them.” And that’s why we are so concerned about what we’re going to put on, what we’re going to eat, what we’re going to wear, we’re so concerned and freaked out about tomorrow that it should be a testimony to us that we’re not trusting and believing in Him today because tomorrow, by the Grace of God, will become today. When tomorrow comes, it will cease to be tomorrow and it will be today. Well, you can’t believe for tomorrow today, you believe for today, today and tomorrow takes care of itself. Right? Amen!
Matthew 8:10, I’m going to try to stay with some of these because I want to move through them. The centurion when he said “I too am a man under authority having soldiers under me and I say to this man ‘Go’ and he goeth, and to another ‘come’ and he cometh, and to my servant ‘do this’ and doeth it,” when Jesus heard it he marveled and said to them that followed “Verily I say unto you I’ve not found so great faith, no not in Israel.” Amen! Now notice, Jesus heard and from His hearing, what was he hearing? What happened? You see, that’s the incredible thing about the Living Word of God is that if it’s coming straight from the Lord or if it’s being given to you by a messenger directly from the Lord, when you hear the Word of the Living Word of the Lord it will produce faith in you. When Jesus heard it, it produced faith in Him. He received it. He recognized the manifestation. It was not empty words. It wasn’t just something somebody was throwing out there. Jesus heard it and he went “Can you hear it?” O man, He goes, “I’ve not heard anything like this in Israel because I’m hearing My Father’s voice come out of that man that hasn’t even known Him, but he heard!” Amen!
You see if faith is just some type of a thing you carry around in you, you can’t hear it, you can’t see it. Do you understand? If it’s something inside of you, you can’t hear that and see that, but Jesus heard it. Amen! And once again, this was a centurion that really had nothing to do with the whole nation of Israel and Jesus basically clarified it. Were there other people like that in Israel that Jesus just hadn’t met yet? Nope! There weren’t any there and He knew that. He said “This one has great faith. He’s really understood what the Living Word of God spoke.” He believed it and received it and he’s responded, the faith in him engaged him to go to Jesus who had no duty to the man and he said “I’ve got a servant. You don’t even have to go. Just send the Word.” Why, because the Word contains the faith to accomplish the work. The faith is the servant of the Word! Halleluiah! You see faith doesn’t serve you, it serves the Word unless you are manifesting the Living Word of God which you have really become! But if you knew that then He would have never had to have sacrificed. Right?
So what is Truth? Contend for the faith, in other words, contend to hear what he is saying to you. That is the most important thing in us. I think Sunday one of the themes was “Did God say this stuff?” I mean, did you hear somebody say that God said that, or did you hear God say that. It’s a big difference. I can tell you all day what God said to me but unless you believe God said that to me, it won’t contain the power to produce in you what it produced in me. But if you can believe that it is Him who spoke that in me, and receive it as it truly is, not the word of man, but the is the Word of God, then it will still contain the same power to produce in you what it produces in me and what He intended so that it does not alter the very nature and the character, it remains Spirit and when it comes forward, the same Word that set them free would set us free and can affect us, right? But you see if we believe “that was a good message” or “that was a good sermon” or whatever, if you don’t hear the Living Word of God speaking to you it won’t change you. And that’s why we say – Jesus even said it – “Quit looking at Me! Don’t look at Me as if I’ve done something.” When the apostles healed the man at the Gate called Beautiful they said “Why do you look at us as if we’ve done something? It wasn’t us, it was faith, not our faith, it was faith, it was in the Name of Jesus.” Halleluiah! Are you with me? I’m telling you, the Truth will make you free. It allows you to begin seeing things more perfectly and I’m going to tell you, when the Truth comes it begins to change your life, but you have to embrace it.
There were probably a million people heard Jesus Christ and I’m going to tell you, when He made it to the cross, He was by Himself. Amen? Except the two thieves. Although there were a whole lot laying back, even Peter was denying because of the fear of death. It wasn’t his fault. Jesus knew he had the fear of death in him just like the rest of us did. That’s why He came to make free and send us His Spirit that cries “Abba Father” inside of us. We’re no longer afraid. The fear of death no longer holds us in captivity. And when Peter got free from that captivity and he wasn’t afraid of death anymore, he stood up on the day of Pentecost and said “Men and brethren, let me tell you something.” Amen! You see, there’s a freedom and the liberty by what God is bringing and putting in us and I’m going to tell you that you can lay around and let the enemy beat on you all you want to because he loves it. He enjoys doing that and you know why – because we are the manifestation of God’s glory and for him to do that to him it’s like some kind of reward that he gets for his own rebellion. But God doesn’t have to do anything else than what He’s done. His Word works. His Word does. Amen. His Word will accomplish what He sent it to do and He’s still speaking and that’s what we’ve got to get in our head.

[Basilikos]

Matthew 8, lets go a little further. They get into a ship in the sea and is being tossed around, verse 23 “He entered into a ship and his disciples followed him. And behold there arose a great tempest in the sea insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves, but he was asleep.” I mean think about that, I know we’ve probably all heard this a number of times. “And his disciples came to him and woke him saying ‘Lord save us we perish’ and he said unto them ‘why are you so fearful O ye of little faith.’ Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm.” Amen! Now look, they went to him and said “Lord, save us. Lord do you not care that we’re going to perish.” So He gets up and rebukes the storm and they marveled. Would you marvel if the Lord rebuked the storm and it calmed right down? You wouldn’t think you would. What is an indicator is this. They really didn’t know He was the Lord because when the marveled they said “what manner of man is this?” Are you with me? Now these are the disciples, the ones that have been walking with Him and hearing Him and I’m not picking on them because if I was there I would have done worse than them. I’ve been walking with the Spirit inside – they didn’t have the Spirit inside of them. Don’t think they did, they didn’t. He hadn’t yet been given.
On the day of Pentecost He comes and it changes these guys. These guys are transformed just like we should be transformed. Why – because the life, or the one that produces the faith and the Word came forth. See we were shut up to that faith. The Spirit brings the faith because the Spirit is the one that brings the Word. You can’t hear the Word apart from the Spirit. In any case the Spirit comes and brings the life to the Word. And that life to the Word was the Faith. And that Word that they had heard, the faith comes, the Spirit enlivens it, it produced in them what it was He said and they understood what He meant when He said what He said and therefore they walked then in the revelation of what He said. They were transformed in a moment, in “the twinkling of an eye.” That corruptible that they were, the first man of the earth “earthy” put on the Lord from heaven. There was a new heaven and a new earth. Halleluiah!
He says “He arose and rebuked the wind and the sea and there was a great calm and men marveled saying ‘What manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him.” Amen! Don’t deceive yourself into thinking that you have done everything that there is to do, that you are believing God and you’re believing His Word and that what He said He will perform and do, because I am going to tell you when those things engage, heaven and earth might pass away but there isn’t anything will stop that Word from manifesting. Whatever God said, He will do. Amen! Now I’m not talking about the scriptures as you know, but don’t hear what I’m not saying – God can quicken these words to you in here and they can become alive. That’s why you hear me sometimes talking about resurrecting the scriptures. That’s what I am talking about. Sometimes nobody will hear God except for He speak to them out of what is in here. Now they put God in a box, but the simple thing is they can read this and quote it all day long and it won’t do anything but make them hoarse. But if the Spirit of God speaks to them out of that Word right there, it will contain the faith it takes to produce what He said. Amen!
Now there’s another whole level that we will get into sometime where we start understanding that everything produces of its own kind and we were actually produced by the Spirit but when God made the earth and all these other things, He spoke to the elements to do that. But when He made us He spoke to Himself, right? So by the Spirit God brought us forth through the Word. Amen! So then, as the Word, it is our very nature and element that contains faith within it as well. Amen! But that faith is actively working to produce in us exactly what that Word is. It isn’t something that you can channel out here somewhere, but the Spirit and the faith that is working in you through that Word which you have become actually begins to shape and to form you to where you begin to make decrees and declarations and those that come out of you that are the Living Word of God and are the Spirit of God even though it appears that it may have originated in you although it didn’t, unless you understand who you are, then the same faith it takes to produce that word that comes out of you, do you understand?...the same faith that produced the Word that made you will be contained in the Word that comes out of you. But I’m going to tell you, I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not there yet. I know that’s a possibility. I’m moving to that, but I’m going to tell you it is achievable. How do I know? I’ve seen my Master do it. Amen! Halleluiah!
Matthew 9:1 “And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city. 2And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” Amen! He saw their faith. It was just hanging out of them. Amen! I’m going to tell you that the Word of God manifests itself prophetically, there’s a prophetic manifestation of the Word of God that actually engages this realm by an action. Are you with me? It engages this realm by an action. “Moses, what’s that in your hand?” He engaged this realm with an action and what did it do? Split the sea. Pretty cool, huh? These guys through responding to the Living Word of God in them engaged in an action. That action was “rip the roof off of this place and let the guy down.” And guess what? When they let him down, the faith that was in them did an incredible thing it forgave the sins of the man that was on the mat. Amen. And guess what? That word of forgiveness healed him. It was contained in the same Word. There was no difference and Jesus knew that even before the cross.
The power and the authority to produce what it was, was actually contained in the Word and here Jesus spoke and said that. He said “You’re really released because of what these guys did.” They acted upon the Living Word of God, the faith of God that moved them to do this – are you with me? – brought you into the focus of the Living Word of God and Living Word of God says “be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you.” He didn’t say “I forgive you your sins” HE SAID “Your sins are forgiven you!” Amen! Halleluiah!
But He saw their faith. A while ago He heard it and when He heard it he felt faith moving. He knows faith. He knows the work of faith because He was of the Word, right? He knew it when faith entered. The thing is we don’t know it a lot of times when faith enters. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we feel it and we go “Wow what is that?” We engaged! Boom! And when you engage the Living Word of God it begins to produce and you are going to feel it. You can feel it. But whether you feel it or not, you just simply know that when you engage it it’s going to produce what God said it would do. Amen! Halleluiah!
Matthew 8, lets go a little further. They get into a ship in the sea and is being tossed around, verse 23 “He entered into a ship and his disciples followed him. And behold there arose a great tempest in the sea insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves, but he was asleep.” I mean think about that, I know we’ve probably all heard this a number of times. “And his disciples came to him and woke him saying ‘Lord save us we perish’ and he said unto them ‘why are you so fearful O ye of little faith.’ Then he arose and rebuked the winds and the sea and there was a great calm.” Amen! Now look, they went to him and said “Lord, save us. Lord do you not care that we’re going to perish.” So He gets up and rebukes the storm and they marveled. Would you marvel if the Lord rebuked the storm and it calmed right down? You wouldn’t think you would. What is an indicator is this. They really didn’t know He was the Lord because when the marveled they said “what manner of man is this?” Are you with me? Now these are the disciples, the ones that have been walking with Him and hearing Him and I’m not picking on them because if I was there I would have done worse than them. I’ve been walking with the Spirit inside – they didn’t have the Spirit inside of them. Don’t think they did, they didn’t. He hadn’t yet been given.
On the day of Pentecost He comes and it changes these guys. These guys are transformed just like we should be transformed. Why – because the life, or the one that produces the faith and the Word came forth. See we were shut up to that faith. The Spirit brings the faith because the Spirit is the one that brings the Word. You can’t hear the Word apart from the Spirit. In any case the Spirit comes and brings the life to the Word. And that life to the Word was the Faith. And that Word that they had heard, the faith comes, the Spirit enlivens it, it produced in them what it was He said and they understood what He meant when He said what He said and therefore they walked then in the revelation of what He said. They were transformed in a moment, in “the twinkling of an eye.” That corruptible that they were, the first man of the earth “earthy” put on the Lord from heaven. There was a new heaven and a new earth. Halleluiah!
He says “He arose and rebuked the wind and the sea and there was a great calm and men marveled saying ‘What manner of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him.” Amen! Don’t deceive yourself into thinking that you have done everything that there is to do, that you are believing God and you’re believing His Word and that what He said He will perform and do, because I am going to tell you when those things engage, heaven and earth might pass away but there isn’t anything will stop that Word from manifesting. Whatever God said, He will do. Amen! Now I’m not talking about the scriptures as you know, but don’t hear what I’m not saying – God can quicken these words to you in here and they can become alive. That’s why you hear me sometimes talking about resurrecting the scriptures. That’s what I am talking about. Sometimes nobody will hear God except for He speak to them out of what is in here. Now they put God in a box, but the simple thing is they can read this and quote it all day long and it won’t do anything but make them hoarse. But if the Spirit of God speaks to them out of that Word right there, it will contain the faith it takes to produce what He said. Amen!
Now there’s another whole level that we will get into sometime where we start understanding that everything produces of its own kind and we were actually produced by the Spirit but when God made the earth and all these other things, He spoke to the elements to do that. But when He made us He spoke to Himself, right? So by the Spirit God brought us forth through the Word. Amen! So then, as the Word, it is our very nature and element that contains faith within it as well. Amen! But that faith is actively working to produce in us exactly what that Word is. It isn’t something that you can channel out here somewhere, but the Spirit and the faith that is working in you through that Word which you have become actually begins to shape and to form you to where you begin to make decrees and declarations and those that come out of you that are the Living Word of God and are the Spirit of God even though it appears that it may have originated in you although it didn’t, unless you understand who you are, then the same faith it takes to produce that word that comes out of you, do you understand?...the same faith that produced the Word that made you will be contained in the Word that comes out of you. But I’m going to tell you, I’m going to be honest with you, I’m not there yet. I know that’s a possibility. I’m moving to that, but I’m going to tell you it is achievable. How do I know? I’ve seen my Master do it. Amen! Halleluiah!
Matthew 9:1 “And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city. 2And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.” Amen! He saw their faith. It was just hanging out of them. Amen! I’m going to tell you that the Word of God manifests itself prophetically, there’s a prophetic manifestation of the Word of God that actually engages this realm by an action. Are you with me? It engages this realm by an action. “Moses, what’s that in your hand?” He engaged this realm with an action and what did it do? Split the sea. Pretty cool, huh? These guys through responding to the Living Word of God in them engaged in an action. That action was “rip the roof off of this place and let the guy down.” And guess what? When they let him down, the faith that was in them did an incredible thing it forgave the sins of the man that was on the mat. Amen. And guess what? That word of forgiveness healed him. It was contained in the same Word. There was no difference and Jesus knew that even before the cross.
The power and the authority to produce what it was, was actually contained in the Word and here Jesus spoke and said that. He said “You’re really released because of what these guys did.” They acted upon the Living Word of God, the faith of God that moved them to do this – are you with me? – brought you into the focus of the Living Word of God and Living Word of God says “be of good cheer. Your sins are forgiven you.” He didn’t say “I forgive you your sins” HE SAID “Your sins are forgiven you!” Amen! Halleluiah!
But He saw their faith. A while ago He heard it and when He heard it he felt faith moving. He knows faith. He knows the work of faith because He was of the Word, right? He knew it when faith entered. The thing is we don’t know it a lot of times when faith enters. Sometimes we do. Sometimes we feel it and we go “Wow what is that?” We engaged! Boom! And when you engage the Living Word of God it begins to produce and you are going to feel it. You can feel it. But whether you feel it or not, you just simply know that when you engage it it’s going to produce what God said it would do. Amen! Halleluiah!
So in this particular situation, it was others that were responding to the Living Word of God. Their yieldingness and letting the Living Word of God move them into position brought somebody else into a position to receive. Amen! So if these guys are disobedient, it could have hindered the one who couldn’t have brought himself there, it could have hindered him from being moved into a position to believe. Are you with me? There are many, like I said, there is an administrator to this whole thing. He orchestrates it.

[WatchmanRay]

We are going to find out that faith itself, I believe, as I’ve said before, is the action of the Spirit of God in you that takes place when you receive and believe what the Living Word of God has said. It is something totally separate from your control, separate from your power, it is something that is engaged by our believing that what God said He would do He will also perform, but it is not anything that we ourselves do. Although you do possess it within your being, it is there, if the Living Word is there. If the Living Word isn’t there then you have no faith.

Isn't it refreshing to know where faith comes from, it makes believing so much easier ! All I have to do is hear what he is saying, resting in the fact that the ingredients, the substance is in the WORD to produce what he said it would! Now that is Hebrews 11 manifest! GLORY ;D

[WatchmanRay]

Deuteronomy 32:20 He said “I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be, for they are a very forward generation, children in whom is no faith.” Now what that simply says is that have refused to receive and hear what the Living Word of God was saying. Amen! They refused to receive and hear and he was just kind of saying “I will hide my face from them.” In other words, “my appearance will not be made known to them. They can’t see Me, they can’t comprehend Me.” That’s way back in Deuteronomy 32. Then also in Habakkuk 2 “Behold his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but the just shall live by faith.” Amen! So it’s not he who esteems himself to be something or even if you are rated highly by those that are around you, the thing that makes the difference in you is the Living Word of God.
If you have the Living Word of God in you, you have received and believed that what God said He would do He is also going to perform, then through God’s mercy and grace which He sent to us in that Living Word, it activates and releases God to do in you because we are now yielding and letting God do what He is capable of doing and the one that is putting all that together is faith that is contained in His Word. But you don’t have to do that. Could you imagine all of us trying to take all the different ingredients and put them together…and I think that’s what I’ve heard a lot of you guys say “Well which one comes first? Let’s see, was it this, or was it that?” What must we do to work the works of God? BELIEVE!


From this statement we have not know how to believe, or what to believe so I GUESS we have not really been believers,we had salvation [thank God] but to to do the the things that he said we could do we have to believe that what God says is what he will do .

but you know what, if you dont understand that the Faith to do the works is contained in what he said, then he is not able to glorify the father through you!

So what must one do ? REPENT change your mind, thinking!