Most of us are failing to appropriate what God has already made available to us because of ignorance.
“Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2 Peter 1:2-4).
These verses say that all things that pertain to life and godliness are given unto us through the knowledge of God. Without this knowledge we can spend the rest of our lives begging and asking for something God has already given us. Certainly, faith must be one of those things because without faith it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6).
The amount of faith that you operate in is directly proportional to the revelation knowledge that you have of God through His Word.
Why is it that some of us have found it very difficult to operate in faith? It is because we either don’t have the real knowledge of God’s Word in us, or we have let the Word slip and be choked by the knowledge of the world. Fear comes through carnal knowledge, just as faith and all things that pertain to life come through godly knowledge. Most Christians today (even Spirit-filled Christians) are full of the knowledge about how to operate in Satan’s system but are ignorant about the knowledge it takes to prosper in God’s system. It is not really a faith problem that exists, but it is rather a Word problem.
Galatians 5:22 states that faith is a part of the fruit of the Spirit. Have you ever seen a plant struggle to bring forth fruit? Have you ever heard an orange tree moan and groan and complain about how hard it is to produce oranges? Of course not. It’s the nature of an orange tree to produce oranges. If the orange tree is protected and given nourishment, it will automatically produce fruit, unless it’s starved or attacked by some outside force. So it is with the Christian. Faith will automatically be the product of our abiding in the Word, which is Jesus (John 1:1, 15:1-7).
The problem has been that the knowledge of God’s Word has not been abiding in us, or the carnal knowledge of the world has choked the Word of God that was there. You cannot serve two masters (Matt. 6:24). A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. He cannot receive anything from the Lord (James 1:7-8).
Matthew 6:22 gives us the promise that if the eye is single, we will be full of light. That means that if all your attention is focused on God through His Word, then the only thing that you will be full of is God and what His Word produces. This is a spiritual law that is repeated in Romans 8:6, which says, “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” If we are experiencing anything but life and peace, it is because we are carnally minded. You cannot have life and peace without the knowledge of God. On the other hand, you cannot experience any form of death without the knowledge of the devil and his system.
Hebrews 11:15 says that if Abraham had been mindful of the country that he came out of, he might have had opportunity, or might have been tempted, to have returned. But, since he refused to think on Satan’s knowledge, he could not be tempted to turn back. Praise God. If Abraham could do it, we can do it too. Second Corinthians 10:4-5 says we can bring every thought into captivity and under the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But since our minds have already been grounded in the knowledge of this world, it is impossible to just cast that carnal mind out. You have to be thinking on something. Romans 12:2 says, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Our minds have to be renewed, and that is done by meditating on the knowledge of God as revealed in His Word.
Your mind is similar to a computer. It simply acts upon the knowledge put into it. If all you have is carnal knowledge, then all you can be is carnal. We saw it in the previous article that we reap what we sow. But praise God, you can reprogram yourself with the Word of God.
You are not incapable of living a life of faith. Quite the contrary, if you have been born again, you have already been given faith as a part of the fruit of the Spirit. However, you can’t function in it if you don’t know that it’s there or if you don’t have knowledge of the laws that govern it.
The laws of aerodynamics have been in existence since creation, but man didn’t have knowledge of them until recently. Many people scoffed at the idea of flying, just as many people ridicule the faith message today. They used to say, “If God meant for man to fly, He would have given man wings.” We’ve seen that assumption proven false. It wasn’t God who was keeping us from flying, it was our ignorance of the laws that govern flight. It hasn’t been God who failed to give us faith, we have all been given the measure of faith (Rom. 12:3), but God’s people have been perishing because of a lack of knowledge of how that faith works.
The knowledge of God and how faith works is hidden for you, not from you, in the Word of God. Pray Ephesians 1:15-23 with me, as a prayer to receive the knowledge of God. Believe that you receive, and watch faith begin to be produced in your life.
“Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints, Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers; That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him: The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come: And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.” (Eph. 1:15-23).
You cannot get a revelation of something that doesn’t already exist.
Paul wasn’t praying for the Lord to give us anything new. He was praying for us to receive a revelation of what is already ours.
The Christian life is not an attempt to get more faith, more anointing, or to get closer to the Lord. We already have these things in their fullness. We just need a revelation of what is already ours.
Dr Doug Mamvura is a graduate of Charis Bible School. Feedback: drdoug@corporatemomentum.biz or Twitter @dougmamvura