THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL LIVE BY FAITH

   When the pandemic first happened the Lord immediately said to me, “Peggy, there are giants in the land, are you going to believe the report of the ten, or the two?” I knew He wanted me to stay very close to His heart. I began to guard everything I listened to and filtered everything I heard through Him.

  This began a journey of a deeper trust and confidence in my Lord as I maneuvered through this time of uncertainty, clinging to Him and keeping my ear pressed tightly to His Words.

   The Lord then led me to John 6.

   “As Jesus sat down, He looked out and saw the massive crowd of people scrambling up the hill, for they wanted to be near Him. So He turned to Philip and said, “Where will we buy enough food to feed all these people?” Now Jesus already knew what He was about to do, but He said this to stretch Philip’s faith.”

   Philip answered, “Well, I suppose if we were to give everyone only a snack, it would cost thousands of dollars to buy enough food!”

   But just then, Andrew, Peter’s brother, spoke up and said, “Look! Here’s a young person with five barley loaves and two small fish . . .but how far would that go with this huge crowd?”

John 6:5-9 TPT

   What was about to happen was beyond anyone’s realm of thinking. How could they possibly feed thousands of people with so little food? Philip couldn’t see any possible way of feeding that many people in the natural, he just could not wrap his brain around what Jesus was asking him. Philip looked at the natural, but Jesus was looking at the super-natural.

   As I sat in this passage, I just couldn’t stop hearing over and over in my head, “Now Jesus already knew what He was about to do, but He said this to stretch Philip’s faith.”

     We are in a time that our “faith” is being tested and stretched! Jesus wants us to know that He is “looking” and He “sees” the situation that we are in. He is saying to us in this time, “Surrender your anxiety! Be silent and stop your striving and you will see that I am God. I am the God above all the nations, and I will be exalted throughout the whole earth.” (Ps. 46:10 TPT)

   What we are seeing in the natural is overwhelming and can seem like an impossible situation. The report of the ten is constantly bombarding our ears, telling us to cover ourselves with fear. But the report of the Lord says to, “be supernaturally infused with strength through our life-union with the Lord Jesus.” (Eph. 6:10 TPT) Jesus already knows what He is going to do! He has a plan and it won’t look like anything that we can reason out in our head or explain. “This is why it is so crucial that we be all the more engaged and attentive to the truths that we heave heard so that we do not drift off course.” (Heb. 2:1)

   “Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1) Faith empowers us, strengthens us and moves us, and “without faith living within us it would be impossible to please God.” (Heb. 11:6) As believers in Christ, we are called to live by faith. “The righteous shall live by faith.” (Gal. 3:11)

      Because of what Jesus did on the cross, we have victory over the enemy. We can go out from the place of victory because the end has already been determined! We have already been equipped with the weapons required for the battle, the full armor of God!

 “Be strong in the Lord (draw your strength from Him and be empowered through your union with Him) and in the power of His (boundless) might. Put on the full armor of God (for His precepts are like the splendid armor of a heavily-armed soldier), so that you may be able to (successfully) stand up against all the schemes and the strategies and the deceits of the devil.” (Eph. 6:10-11 AMP)

The “Belt of truth”:

“Put on truth as a belt to strengthen you to stand in triumph”(Eph. 6:14 TPT). The truth is that God can do “exceedingly abundantly above all than we could ever ask or think.” (Eph, 3:20 NKJ) As we fix our eyes on Jesus, (Heb. 12:2) and stand in the truth of God’s Word, we most certainly stand in victory and triumph!

The “Breastplate of righteousness”:

“Put on holiness as the protective armor that covers your heart.” (Eph. 6:14 TPT) Leviticus 20:26 says, “You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be my own.” (NIV) He has set us apart to step out in obedient faith for His purposes. As we wear the protective armor of God we are covered and hidden in Christ Jesus. (Col. 3:3)

The Shied of faith:

“For it is able to extinguish the blazing arrows coming at you from the evil one!”(Eph. 6:16 TPT).  

We can be assured that we will prevail against the giants that come against us, based on what we have already experienced in the Lord. He is faithful and as we look at our past history of His faithfulness, it gives us steady legs to stand strong.

The helmet of salvation:

“Embrace the power of salvation’s full deliverance, like a helmet to protect your thoughts from lies”. (Eph. 6:17 TPT) John 8:44 tell us concerning the enemy, “he’s full of nothing but lies—lying is his native tongue. he is a master of deception and the father of lies!”

As we put on the covering of the helmet, we also need to guard our eyes and ears, filtering everything that enters in. As we do this, the giant’s threats cannot affect us or deter us from standing in what God has called us to be.

The sword of the Spirit:

“And take up the mighty razor-sharp Spirit-sword of the spoken Word of God.”

(Eph. 6:17 TPT) “God’s Word will not return to Him void,” (Is. 55:11). If He says it, it’s already a done deal, and that is exactly what we need to count on. Stay in the Word and lean in, hide it in your heart, and cling to it for dear life! “For the Word of God is living and active and full of power (making it operative, energizing, and effective). It is sharper than any two-edged sword.” (Hebrews 4:12 AMP)

   In 1 Samuel seventeen, when David came against the giant, Goliath, with just a sling and a stone, he wasn’t intimidated or fearful by what he saw with his physical eyes. Even though it was not logical to the natural mind that a young man should defeat the Philistine giant that had bullied the whole entire Israelite army. But David had a history in experiencing God’s faithfulness and he knew that defeating the giant did not depend on his own strength or skill. He had such a deep confidence in his God because he truly understood that “what is impossible for man is possible with God.” (Luke 18:27)

   “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, who you have defied. This day the Lord will deliver you into my hand.  (Sam. 17:45-46 NKJ)

   There are giants in the land, and with our physical eyes they look big and intimidating.  We cannot fight them with the logic of our mind or with weapons of this world. As we turn to Jesus we can stand with the same confidence of David and proclaim,  “Jesus already knows what He’s about to do!”

   Jesus said, “I promise you, if you have faith inside of you no bigger than the size of a small mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move away from here and go over there,’ and you will see it move! There is nothing you couldn’t do!” (Matt. 17:20 TPT)

   It was not the size of David’s stone that took the giant down, but rather the size of his faith. And the stone that David used against the giant that day? Well, I suspect that it was just about the size of a  “mustard seed.”