Faith To Possess And Faith To Release

Pastor Albert Kang

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him...” (Hebrews 11:6) 

he Bible tells us that it is only through faith that we can please God. Therefore faith is the communicating factor between God and man and is vital for our spiritual growth. When we come to God we should have the absolute confidence in God’s Word and the assurance of His promises. There should never be a hint of doubt, even though we may not able to sense God the way we like. God is invisible and does not often reveal his presence to us through our physical senses. God is a spirit and He reveals to us in our spirit. That is the reason why He is seeking for true worshippers to worship Him in spirit and in truth. Let’s check out the words of Jesus that confirms this truth: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24)

Faith means that we should depend upon our physical senses or feelings to determine the spiritual things of God. We have to depend upon the promises of God. The Lord however does not just leave us in a lurch. Through the Holy Spirit, He gives us the spiritual sense of “revelation”. We may call it our spiritual sixth sense. When Saul the Pharisee was persecuting the Christians, all he had was the physical senses in operation. Then on the road to Damascus, the Lord Jesus, through these physical senses, shocked Saul into a real spiritual experience (Acts 9). For the following three years, Saul who later became Paul the Apostle, spent time with the Lord in Arabia (Galatians 1:16-18). That was the time when He developed his spiritual sense of “revelation”. In all his epistles, one can observe how effective this “extra” sense helped him to stay connected to the Lord.  God was constantly revealing to Paul so that he was able to use divine wisdom and minister to all the churches and fellow Christians.

God speaks to every child of His. We do not need to go through other people or special channels to reach Him. If anyone tells you that he or she can speak to God in a way that you cannot then you should be very careful with this person. We must be careful not to make this sense of “revelation” into something mystical. This is definitely not like the “third eye” as mentioned in the teachings of some Oriental religions. The sense of “revelation” has to do with our faith in the Lord. When we trust Him, He speaks to us. It is as simple as that. I must emphasize that there is nothing mystical about it.

God wants us all to exercise our faith. A Christian who does not exercise his faith is like a car without petrol. The vehicle system may be completely operational but that alone is not enough. Without petrol, it has no power to move. Similarly, the Christian life may be effectively operational but without faith, nothing is going to happen.

The purpose of faith is to possess the promises of God. God is “Jehovah Jireh”, our Provider. What He promises, He provides. What He provides, He wants us to exercise our faith to acquire. For example, when God gave Israel the Promised Land, He did not miraculously place them in the land. He wanted them to exercise their faith to possess it. They had to face the fearsome gigantic race known as the Nephilim and also countless difficulties. In the midst of all that, they would have to trust God for strength to conquer and overcome.

Initially, they did not and so they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. They stayed until they had the faith to do so. This is how the Lord will train us too. We will stay in our position of frustration until we take the steps of faith. Our Promised Land is not so much a geographical location but our lives. Any faith that we exercise will pertain to gaining victory for our lives. Day by day, we become more and more like Jesus. Christ-likeness is the ultimate goal of our existence.

Another aspect of faith that is missing in most Christian lives is the surrendering part. The faith to possess is incomplete without the faith to surrender or release. Faith to possess is the harvesting aspect and faith to release is the sowing aspect. Harvesting alone will terminate future crops. It has to be released into sowing. As the cycle of harvesting and sowing is important for all natural crops to flourish, it is therefore vital for us to recognize that our faith also needs this cycle for our spiritual development.

For example, Israel was not to just keep the Promised Land for itself. It was to become a servant-leader so that the people from other nations would get to know the one-true God. Through it, the Savior of the world would come too. Israel failed to recognize that and therefore did not exercise the second part of their faith – the faith of release.

Often time, our failure in exercising the faith of release lies in our lack of humility. Humility is the key to a successful cycle of faith life. When Abraham was given Isaac, he recognized that God had blessed him with a son of promise. Isaac was not like his other son, Ishmael who was a son of the flesh (Genesis 16). The Lord never asked Abraham to give up Ishmael but Isaac as a sacrifice. Why? The Lord will never ask us for what He does not promise. Isaac came by the way of faith and he has to be released back to God by way of humility. Abraham was humble enough before the Lord and was willing to release the son who was closest to his heart back to God. God did not take Isaac but instead blessed Abraham. The faith to possess is the beginning of our Christian walk. The humility to release is the maturing process. Faith may open the hands of God but humility opens the heart of God. Faith gets us to the Promised Land but humility gets to Promises of God to the world.

Do you know why God wants us to give tithes and offerings? Do you really think that God needs our finances? If the great God is the Creator who has created all the wealth in the universe, why should He even bother with our little finances? The purpose of his request is to give us the opportunity to exercise the second part of our faith – the faith of releasing.

When you started out in your career or business you wanted God to be your partner. God was most willing to be your partner because He loved you. God was not greedy. Most partners would ask for a fifty percent share but God only wanted a ten percent share. What a good partner!  However, when you started to make money, your memory suddenly failed you. You have forgotten your partner. Now you are swallowing the ten per cent that is God’s share. This is dangerous because you are robbing God. It is bad enough to rob a human being and how terrible it is, when your victim is God. When you get retrenched or lost out in business, and you ask God to help; do you think God is going to be your partner again? Think about it!

When we are doing well, we sometimes lost the humility to acknowledge that our efforts and wisdom in gaining financial freedom are gifts from God. We sin like the way Satan did because when we become financially independent, we also want to become independent from God. Sin is doing things independent of God. That is why Jesus said that it would be easier for the camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God (Matthew 19:23-24). It is nothing wrong to be rich but it is every thing wrong when our riches become more important than God. When we only have the capacity to possess and no capacity to release back unto God, the blessings will cease. On the contrary, if we returned to God what is His and also give more than it is required then the Lord will not only pour out His blessings but also stop the devourers from devouring our blessings.

The prophet, Malachi affirmed this: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My house, and test Me now in this,” says the Lord of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven, and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows. Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it may not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the Lord of hosts. “And all the nations will call you blessed . . .”(Malachi 3:10-12).
James echoed Proverb 3:34 when he said, “But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble’” (James 4:6). The scriptural formula is very simple: If you want God to oppose you, just go ahead and act out your pride. Oh, how terrible it is for that person who thinks nothing of having God opposing him. Paul said in Romans 8:31 – “If God is for us, who can be against us?” Conversely, may I add that if God is against us, then who can be for us? Therefore, if you want more grace and mercy, humble yourself before God. Be faithful in releasing what God has blessed you with; be magnanimous and generous in helping others. Bring the tithes and offerings to the church faithfully. The mind, heart and act of humility will open wide the door for God’s presence. Let’s do it! It is only through humility that we can demonstrate our complete faith in the Lord - the faith not only to possess but the faith to release.