I am sure you have heard of the phrase, “faith without works is dead”. I am confident that everyone + their mother has heard it. I can pretty much bet my life on it. And if you’re anything like me, you heard it but you don’t know where it is exactly in the Holy book. I had to look it up, + I found it a few different places, but the latter portion of James 2:26 reads the best. Okay, we know the phrase, we know where to locate it in The Bible, but what does that mean? We love to recite things without truly understanding the message being the words. Luckily, you have me! Someone who knows the ins + outs of faith, someone who eats faith for breakfast, lunch + dinner. I am pretty much a faith expert, so allow me to explain.Untitled design.png
Let us first establish what faith means. Usually I will go to Google for a definition, but this time, I am taking it to The Bible. Hebrews 11:1 states faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. In Layman’s terms, if God inspired you to believe it, He will manifest it. Or as I love to say, if God put it in your heart, He will place it in your hands, IF you choose to believe it. Thats a HUGE “IF”, too. That is the key to faith, believing. If you don’t believe it will happen, it won’t. The concept of faith is so easy, yet the application of faith is the true challenge. God wants to give you an abundance of things (not just materialistic things, either), but if you don’t trust that He is capable to fulfilling every promise, you will never see it. People think the opposite of faith is doubt. Nope! Doubt is simply a symptom of having a lack thereof. The true contradictory component to faith is sight. Humans only trust things they can physically see. “I’ll believe it when I see it”. Does that sound familiar? Of course, it does. We are always relying on what we can see + only going with that. You see, we as humans have intense trust issues. Especially when things are taking longer than we would like. That’s when we take matters into our own hands. Most of the time, messing up the plan that God has set before us. God is God alone, + He does not need our help, even when we think He does. Faith allows us to trust God + submit to the process. Faith is trust, just in slow motion. Speaking of slow, in order to practice faith, we must have the patience to endure. Patience is a virtue, for real. SO going back to James 2:26 (faith without works is dead), works can be translated into the word “worship”. That means the scripture would read, “faith without WORSHIP is dead”. Uber true. Constant worship is the way you will be able to stay sane during those seasons of “in between” blessings. Boyyyy do they get tough. Okay, so let’s recap: you need faith to live out your dreams. Faith is LITERALLY the vehicle to allow you to maneuver through life + manifest the vision God gave you. With faith you will also need:
1). To believe
2). Trust
3). Patience
4). Worship.
With those things, you are ready to take over the territory God already ordained you to have. You cannot fail. But remember, everything starts with faith.
As you can tell my my video, I take faith very seriously. We are not made right with Christ by all the good deeds we do, or by how well we obey His laws. God calls us righteous by our faith. With faith, we can bring the impossible into the possible. Faith is the only explanation I will be in my loft by June 1, 2016 while having $0 to my name on May 20, 2016. Faith will be the reason my first car will be a black 2016 Mercedes Benz CLA250. Faith is the reason I can declare what I want + be confident that I will receive everything I just named. Faith is the reason I was even able to quit my job to take NeNe Talks Love full time. Look at all the great opportunites that has come my way since then. Most of all, faith is the reason I am able to have peace + joy in season like this where in the natural, looks like all hell’s breaking loose. “Faith is a major key”, DJ Khaled’s voice. It all boils down to faith. Not just faith for the sake of faith, but faith in My Savior, my Lord Jesus Christ. In The Bible it talks about having faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains. Not saying that you can see huge results with small faith, but you have to start somewhere. That mustard seed will grow + grow as you learn to trust God, + before you know it, the mountain will consume itself. Give faith a try. You will see what I am talking about. You will experience the testimonies that I shared. Once you do, you will live the life God intended for you …. Full of joy + stress free. Until next time, love yourself. Love God first, + exercise your faith. I guarantee you won’t forget it.
