Faith for Successful Living

Date: 30 August 2008
Speaker: Rev Casey Treat
Venue: City Harvest Church

Mark 9:22-23
And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”
Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

Success = Living with purpose, fulfilling God's destiny for your life.

What you believe decides what He can do in your life.

Proverbs 4:23
Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it spring the issues of life.

"Issues" = The borders of your life.

Mark 6:3-6
Is this not the carpenter, the Son of Mary, and brother of James, Joses, Judas, and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” So they were offended at Him.
But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, among his own relatives, and in his own house.” Now He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them. And He marveled because of their unbelief. Then He went about the villages in a circuit, teaching.

"He couldn't", because they would not believe.

Romans 1:16-17
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, “The just shall live by faith.”

"The just shall live by faith." is repeated 4 times throughout the bible.

The gospel is the power of God to those who believe.

Faith is your connection to God. Everything you do, do it by faith.

Ephesians 2:8-9
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

"By grace", "through faith" = Without faith you cannot have grace.

John 6:29
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent.”

Romans 10:8-10
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

Believe makes reality.

Romans 10:17
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

Faith is like a spiritual muscle. Exercise your muscles to develop greater abilities.

It is a choice to believe, it is a choice to doubt.

James 1:5-8
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.

Faith changes negative circumstances. Faith frames your future.

Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.