What Faith Really Is

Excerpt from Dr. Jack Hayford's Daily Devotional

‘Constancy to God’s Word brings success in life – the success born of obedience. Faith is not so much the power to acquire or to bring something into my life; as it is the power to obey God’s plan for my life. To walk by faith is to stay on God’s ordered paths, which naturally lead to the things He has planned that will fulfill us and make us fruitful servants.

Faith isn’t an effort to acquire things by bursts of spiritual energy. It is simply staying on track in the pathway God’s Word has ordained. Faith isn’t a ritual of speech as much as a response in obedience. God’s promises are already there in the path of His will for your life. Faith simply walks forward; moving in His way.’

– Dr. Jack Hayford, Chancellor of The Kings University

and Founding Pastor of The Church on the Way

At the time when I read that devotional by Dr. Hayford, I so needed that encouragement. I thought I didn’t have any faith or that I didn’t know what faith really was because I hadn’t seen ‘the things’ I had believed and sowed for manifest in my life.Perhaps you’ve thought the same.It’s not that you won’t receive; it’s that you haven’t been obeying His plan. Matthew 5:33 says to, ‘Seek first the kingdom of God’; that means doing His plan or in other words – doing what you were created to do. Then as you do, ‘…all these things shall be added to you.’ The problem is that you've used your faith for things without first completing His plan.

Pray this with me: Heavenly Father, please forgive me for trying to use my faith for things without completing your plan for my life. Please forgive me when I doubted and believed that my faith wasn’t working because I hadn’t received those things. Lord, I know You won’t reveal Your whole plan for my life; but will You show me Your plan for today and remind me to ask You again tomorrow and for the rest of my life until it is fulfilled? In Jesus’ name.