Dearly Beloved,
The process of faith has four processes: Hearing, Conception, Formation, Birthing. Kenneth Hagin in his little booklet, ‘How to write your own ticket with God’ speaks of four processes: Say it, Do it, Receive it, Tell it. He received it from the story of the woman with the issue of blood who heard & speak to herself, reached out and touched Jesus, received her healing and finally confessed that she was the one who received her healing (Mark 5:25-34). He also mentioned these four points occurred in the story of David and Goliath, where David kept saying, “What shall be done for the man who kills Goliath and takes away the reproach from Israel?” (1 Samuel 17:26, 30). Then he went out and slayed Goliath and everyone told of his exploits. Hagin mentioned that he received these four points in a spiritual vision from Jesus. These four points contained the principles found in the four processes of faith.
In the process of hearing, we have Scriptures that speak about how true faith is authored by our Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:2). We received the beginning of our faith through hearing God’s spoken word (Romans 10:17). All acts of faith are not born of the human will or flesh but they are energized by the spoken word of God into our individual lives. Man must not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out from the mouth of God (Matthew 4:4; Deuteronomy 8:3). It is the spoken word of God that energizes the life of faith that pleases God. In the healing of the lame man on the way to prayer, while everyone looked in wonder at the apostles for the notable miracle done on the lame man who had never walked before, Peter proclaimed that it was not their own power or godliness that made the man walked but rather it was faith in Jesus Name, the faith that comes through Him that has given the man perfect healing (Acts 3:12, 16). The first and most important thing in the walk of faith is the ability to hear God. Without hearing, there is no faith.
STEP ONE: The Hearing of Faith
For the woman with the issue of blood, her faith began when she heard about our Lord Jesus through the words of many people speaking of Him. She must have heard of His many miracles which He did (Mark 5:27). In her own life, she was also desperate for she had spent all her money for a cure and none of them were effective, and she grew worse (Mark 5:25-26). From this case we know that hearing is not necessarily hearing directly from God but it includes hearing of the works and acts of God upon others and believing that it is possible for our own lives, too. Although Jesus did say that My sheep hear My voice, it is obvious that there is a growth from lamb to sheep and lambs have to follow the sheep until they themselves can hear the shepherd’s voice (John 10:27). There will always be people on earth in every generation who hear God’s voice in their own way and who are obedient to what they hear. Those learning to hear God’s voice must learn from those who do and through time learn to hear God’s voice for themselves. There is a path of growth from baby lamb to adult sheep. That process include feeding upon the word of God (John 21:15; 1 Peter 2:2). Sometimes God speaks but it is not heard. God told Elijah that He had told a widow to feed him but the widow was ready to die of starvation and apparently never heard God (1 Kings 17:9). For the woman with the issue of blood, all the wonderful things she heard about Jesus must have awakened a desire to be healed by Jesus and perhaps somewhere in her spirit conscience, she felt that God was speaking to her heart that she was to be healed also by Jesus.
It is possible to hear and seemingly received but not enduring for the lack of roots. The seed planted by the wayside are those who hear but never believe (Luke 8:12). Those on the rock are those who hear and believe for a while but in a time of trial or temptation, fall away because they have no root (Luke 8:13). It is interesting that there are two groups of people who hear but never truly conceive in faith. The first group is easily recognised for they do not believe in the first place. Remember that this lack of faith or unbelief is caused by an individual free choice which they must be responsible for in the day of judgment. The lack of faith or unbelief can be their lack of faith in God’s direct speaking to them or their lack of faith in the words of faith proclaimed by the faithful messengers and witnesses of God. In His own home town, people who had known Jesus physically could not believe that He was the Messiah, the Anointed One (Mark 6:1-6). They could not believe because their natural eyes are opened but their heart is closed to what God was saying and doing in their midst. Isaiah and the apostle Paul faced this problem when they proclaimed the word of God to the Jews (Acts 28:26-28). The second group of people are also interesting for they “believe for a while.” All belief and faith have to be tested. Those who only believe because it is easy to believe or convenient to believe do not truly have faith. Even our Lord Jesus had to be tested in His own belief that He was and is the Son of God. In two sample recorded temptations, He was asked to proof that He was the Son of God. The devil implied that he might not be by the big word “IF” (Matthew 4:3, 6). At other times, people are afraid to believe because of the fear of being ostracised or rejection. The parents of the blind man who was healed knew that their son had received a miracle from Jesus but because they feared the Jews, they dare not openly confess their faith in Christ (John 9:22). Beware that it is possible to believe for a while and then fall away. It is truly those who endure in their belief until the end who receive the promises of God (James 5:10-11). It is faith with longsuffering that possesses the promises of God (Hebrews 6:12). The major thing lacking in the Hebrews was the lack of endurance which Paul sought to address (Hebrews 10:32-36).
STEP TWO: Conception of Faith
Once the word of God has been truly received and a measure of endurance occurred, it enters into the conception stage. At this stage, spiritual nourishment and the spiritual environment of faith are essential to the development of the substance of faith into physical manifestation. It is still possible to abort the process of faith through carelessness and worldliness. Like the seed that is sown amongst thorns, the cares of this life, riches, and pleasures of life causes no fruit at maturity (Luke 8:14). Many people had a good beginning but never received a good ending. Jeroboam’s kingdom of ten tribes was gifted through prophecy and established by God’s word, with a promise of a lasting dynasty (1 Kings 11:38). Instead his disobedience killed of every single male heir in his line (1 Kings 14:10). Saul began well with humility but completely caused God to reject him for all his frequent disobedience (1 Samuel 10:1, 9; 15:11, 23).
Abraham conceived the promise of a child of his own for approximately twenty-five years before God finally gave him a child of his own through Sarah at the age of one hundred years (Genesis 15:6; 17:1; 21:5). He had always believed God from the start of the covenant relationship and in the process of time thought that it was fulfilled in Ishmael but when God spoke of a child with Sarah, he again believed although he had a brief moment of incredulous laughter (Genesis 17:17-18). At ninety-nine years of age, Abraham now needed two miracles, one for himself and one for Sarah, yet he held strong and did not waver that God was able to do this (Romans 4:19-22). Perhaps he had thought that Ishmael was the promise child for thirteen years but when God appeared and clarified that this was not so but rather that his promise son was to be through Sarah, though feeling incredulous for a moment, he immediately obeyed God and circumcised himself with all his household and look forward to a double miracle from God without wavering. The journey of faith through conception can be long and filled with our own thinking that God is working in a certain way but there needs to be a humility of faith so that at each point when God corrects our thinking, we immediately flow with the new understanding that God gives.
Ishmael was Sarah’s idea and Abraham accepted that this might have been God answering his prayers and keeping the promise given when God made a covenant with him (Genesis 15:4; 16:1-4). For twelve silent years, there was no record of conversations between God and Abraham, perhaps because Abraham thought that God had already answered his prayers through Ishmael. God always answers prayers not always be the method we choose and certainly not by the works of the flesh. There was no miracle in the birth of Ishmael, it was pure natural arrangement. God also had a fullness of time in bringing forth the fulfilment of His promise to Abraham. Abraham’s life seems to be in large cycles of twenty-five years and it was the completion of a cycle of faith walk (in the land of Canaan for twenty-five years) that God again appeared to him to get him ready for his blessing at the age of one hundred years old. There are also many side blessings of faith, for Abraham was sterile when he conceived Isaac miraculously and after that remained virile through the resurrection power of God, such that he remarried after the death of Sarah to Keturah and had six children with her (Genesis 25:1-2).
Conception involves continually doing all the commandments of God. Moses took one year to build a Tabernacle for God. He had to ensure that everything that was done was according to the visions that he had seen of the details of the tabernacle. Conception and the third step of formation are related as one is getting impregnated by the seed of faith and the other is being watchful through the pregnancy until it reaches full term.
STEP THREE: Formation in Faith
All things in the natural are formed and shaped by things in the Spirit (Hebrews 11:3). Faith is the substance (hupostasis) that comes from God’s Word, authored by our Lord Jesus (Hebrews 11:1; 12:2). Worlds were framed (formed) by the word of God (Hebrews 11:3). The word ‘frame’ comes from the Greek word ‘katartizo’ which means ‘to perfect, to fit or frame, to complete, to join together.’ This implies a process of time and a ‘layering process’ by which the spiritual mould is being cast to create something in the natural dimension. All natural dimensions exist based on the spiritual dimension for the spiritual is eternal while the natural is temporal (2 Corinthians 4:18). When we are impregnated by the seed of faith from our Lord Jesus, layer upon layer is being built in the spiritual dimension as we continue steadfast in faith through the corridors of time. Like a baby in the womb there is a fullness of time for the birth into the natural world of a spiritual creation.
Just like Moses took one year, with the help of all the anointed artisans and resources from the nation of Israel, to build the tabernacle, the process of faith needs a time process to form in the spiritual what is to be birth in the natural. Towards the end of Exodus, the redundancy of the phrase ‘as the Lord had commanded Moses’ serves as the song of faith for all who want to walk in faith (Exodus 40:1-33). From beginning to the end, the process of faith involves continually hearkening to the voice of God and obeying each detail command until God is pleased. It is only when God says it is finished that it is truly finished. How do we know the process is complete? It is when God is well-pleased! (Hebrews 11:2, 5, 6). We must continually be well-pleasing to our God. Our Lord Jesus lived thirty years on earth in a life well-pleasing to God, before God declared that He is well-pleased and obtained the anointing of the Holy Spirit as the Messiah sent by God (Matthew 3:17). Well-pleasing to God means that God takes pleasure in us. Jesus was God’s beloved in whom He is well-pleased (Matthew 12:18). God kept declaring how well-pleased He is with our Lord Jesus, even at the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:5).
Jesus declared that it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us His kingdom (Luke 12:32). The process of faith is to bring pleasure to God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. It is not just merely creating things in the natural from spiritual substances. It is important to please God, and the soul that draws back from the walk of faith, will displease God (Hebrews 10:38). We must walk in the process of faith until we obtain a good testimony before our God (Hebrews 11:2). It is remarkable that we as God’s creation and tiny little creatures, could give such pleasure through our Lord Jesus to God our Father. The Father’s soul is filled with joy when we walk by faith and it is the ONLY way to please God (Hebrews 11:6). There needs to be diligence in the walk of faith in order to please God.
STEP FOUR: Birthing in Faith
The finale of the walk of faith is in the manifestation into the natural all that is done in the spiritual. We have many men and women of faith before us who have shown us the way. Elijah prayed for a long, long time until he pleased God so much that God agreed to stop the rain according to his prayers (James 5:17). He never gave up and never relent in his zeal for God. It took many, many years of fervent, dedicated, diligent prayers as he wept to see idolatry all over Israel. Finally, God gave him authority over the weather and he stood before Ahab and declared that there will be no rain, except at his word (1 Kings 17:1). ‘At Elijah’s word!’ What audacity, what boldness, what authority! The manifestation of Elijah’s word was so powerful that there was no rain nor dew for three years and six months. Oh there is great power when the manifestation of faith is finally birth! But long and lonely are the hours, days, weeks, months and years spent in prayer with God. Everyone rejoices in the manifestation but few want to pay the price of walking in faith, pleasing God for many, many years. Israel cried out that Yahweh is indeed the true God when Elijah confronted the false prophets with fire from God, but not many of them continued steadfast in God when they had the chance to reject idolatry and follow God with all their heart.
Nevertheless, it is the call to those who want to go all the way with God to be truly pioneers of the acts of faith from the spiritual world. For such will be those whom God raised in this end time of His bride and church, who will be well-pleasing to God and do mighty exploits.