Becoming a Man of Unwavering Faith (3 page)

I
once visited the Vatican in Rome. There are numerous paintings and statues of the twelve apostles on the walls and in the halls, and they’re all bigger than life. In fact, some of them are huge. I think it’s safe to say that the artists and sculptors captured the way we tend to think of the apostles—towering men of faith who rose up and changed the world.

But the apostles weren’t bigger than life—they were flesh and blood just like you and me. Somehow, because they’re in the Bible, we think they weren’t like us. But that’s not true. They were ordinary men, with wives and children and bills and all of life’s challenges.

In the book of 1 Kings 17 and 18, the Old Testament prophet Elijah was a man of great faith, one whom I admire deeply, but the apostle James tells that he also “was a man with a nature like ours” (James 5:17; 1 Kings 17:1).
Nature
means “passions and sufferings.” He was an ordinary man just like you and me, subject to the same passions we have.

Yet Elijah had such great faith that
when he prayed that it wouldn’t rain, it didn’t… for three and half years!
“And he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit” (James 5:17–18; 1 Kings 18:42–45).

You’re probably thinking,
Pastor Osteen, how can a person have enough faith to stop the rain—period? Let alone for three and half years.

To answer that, let’s start where the Word of God starts. The Bible says, “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Hebrews 11:6). It also states that without faith in God, it’s impossible to be born again or to go to heaven: “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” (Ephesians 2:8–9).

So that we all have the same capacity to receive the gift of salvation, God has given each of us the same measure of faith. The apostle Paul wrote,
“God has dealt to each one a measure of faith”
(Romans 12:3). God wants every
person to come to saving faith, and we all start out with the same measure, the same size of faith—enough capacity to bring us to salvation.

Once we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, through our salvation we “become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and we can never be more righteous than that. We cannot grow in righteousness.

But we can and must grow in faith. Clearly, the Bible says, “Your faith is growing more and more” (2 Thessalonians 1:3
NIV
). To become a man of unwavering faith requires that you grow mightily in your faith as Elijah did in his life.

The more you use your arms and legs, the more you walk and jog and exercise, the stronger and fitter your muscles become. But if you don’t use a muscle, you’ll lose it.

That’s the way faith is. Faith will
grow as you use it. The more you use it, the stronger it grows. But this growth is a gradual process.

You aren’t disappointed in a baby because he can’t stand or run a marathon. You don’t expect a baby to do that, but you do expect the child to grow, become stronger, start crawling, then pull himself up and hold on to things, and finally to take a step or two. Eventually, you know the child will be able to walk and run.

That’s the way your faith is. It grows gradually as you use it. Many people make the mistake of trying to jump up and run in their faith life when they are just babies learning to crawl.

I asked a man one time, “What do you do?” He said, “I don’t work. I just live by faith.” It was no surprise to me that he was deep in debt. That kind of behavior is not faith; it’s ignorance. The Bible says if any man doesn’t work, he shouldn’t eat (2 Thessalonians 3:10).

I remember when my congregation and I began to believe God for our first new buildings. Our first sanctuary had been converted from a feed store and seated 234 people. In 1969, I had been having great evangelistic meetings all across the country, and things had gone well. During my absence, we needed to expand, so a new church was built to seat 700 on adjacent property.

After I returned to Lakewood Church, it was clear
that more expansion was in our future, but I realized my faith for getting new church buildings wasn’t very strong. I had not really exercised my faith in that area, and my faith had not been truly challenged. The first thing God showed me was to gather a group of men from the church. He showed me what each man was able to do and how to challenge each man to have faith to do what he could toward one building and then another.

We developed a little bit… then a little more. In 1975, a wing was added on each side of the auditorium to seat a total of 1,800. In 1977, the building was again expanded to seat 4,000 and then to 5,000 seats in 1979. Then, we stretched our faith muscles and a beautiful 120,000-square-foot sanctuary seating 8,200 was dedicated debt free in 1988. In 1991, we dedicated a two-story, 37,000-square-foot Children’s Center, where we ministered to over 2,500 children weekly. Then a Family Life Center, a three-story, 62,000-square-foot office and educational building, was completed debt free in 1993. We started small and worked toward the big.

You need to develop your faith gradually as you go along. Use your faith. Stretch your faith, or it will never grow.

Faith is simply believing God will do what He said
He will do. It is believing the Word of God.
The New Testament uses two Greek words for the Word of God. One is
logos
, which is the revealed will of God, the plan of salvation, contained in the Bible. The other is
rhema
, which is a word God speaks to you personally. Suddenly, a scripture comes alive because God Himself is speaking it to you directly.

Faith not only comes from the
logos
; faith comes by hearing the
rhema
of God (Romans 10:17). Once God illuminates, speaks, or brings His Word to your attention, believing it is easy, because with that
rhema
comes faith.

There have been many times when God has quickened particular scriptures to me as I was reading, and it was as if He were reading it straight to me. He made a promise in His Word, I read that promise, and then He quickened that promise to me. I knew the promise would come true, because I had both the
logos
(the written Word) and the
rhema
(the spoken Word). My faith was strong, because I knew God would do what He said He would do.

Elijah understood this. He didn’t just decide one day, “Well, I’m a man of faith, and I’m tired of rain, so I’m going to stand out here and stop the rain. It’s a slow day, and I don’t have much to do. I haven’t seen many miracles
lately, so I’ll just call on God to shut up the heavens.”

No, when Elijah prayed, he was functioning in the
logos
, the Word of God, and I believe God quickened it to his heart. How so? Imagine that one day Elijah was reading the covenant between God and Israel in Deuteronomy 11:13–17, and the Lord quickened it to him.

This passage states, “So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today—to love the L
ORD
your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul—then
I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil
. I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the L
ORD
’s anger will burn against you, and
he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce,
and you will soon perish from the good land the L
ORD
is giving you” (
NIV
).

Elijah knew the Word of God and was painfully aware that the people had turned away from God to worshipping the idol Baal, a false god. Clearly, God promised He wouldn’t send the rain if the people turned to false gods. So when he prayed that God would shut up the heavens, he was praying in the knowledge of God’s
Word. Elijah held God’s Word up to Him and prayed earnestly for God to keep His Word, and He did.

A man of faith knows what the Bible says. When you’re going through a trial, find what God says in the Bible and hold it up to Him. Remind Him of what He said. “Put Me in remembrance; let us contend together; state your case, that you may be acquitted” (Isaiah 43:26).

You perhaps are asking, “Well, if God says He’s going to do it, why doesn’t He just do it? Why do I have to remind Him?” Because
prayer is the power that moves the hands of God
. And when you stand on God’s Word and remind God of His promise, it makes your faith grow. It strengthens your trust in God.

For example, God isn’t automatically going to bring your children to faith. Deuteronomy 28:41 states that one of the penalties for sinning is that you’ll have children but not enjoy them. Now, as a Christian, Christ has redeemed you from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13). You can stand before God and say, “God, You said if I served You, I would enjoy my children. I believe You are going to fulfill Your promise because You never lie.” And God will begin to act in your behalf to bring that promise to pass.

God isn’t automatically going to fill your bank account with money. The curse of the law is to want things but to be poor and to drag through life. The Bible says that Christ redeemed us from that curse. God’s blessing is that you will be the head and not the tail, you will lend and not borrow, you will be on top and never on the bottom (Deuteronomy 28:12–13).

As Elijah did, you must know what the Word says, take it to God in faith, and believe He will cause it to come to pass in your life.

God clearly stated that He would stop the rain, so why didn’t He do it before? He was waiting for someone who would read the covenant, act on it, stand on it, and believe Him to bring the results. Elijah had to believe and act on that promise from God, which he did, and for three years and six months it didn’t rain.

Then Elijah had a remarkable showdown with the 450 prophets of Baal before the children of Israel on Mount Carmel. He told the people, “Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the L
ORD
. The god who answers by fire—he is God” (1 Kings 18:23–24
NIV
).

The prophets of Baal spent all day trying to call down
fire from heaven. They cut themselves and went through all their ceremonial rigmarole. Elijah stood over to the side and taunted them. “Shout louder,” he told them. “Maybe your god is asleep or on a trip.” Finally, the exhausted prophets gave up.

Then Elijah gathered the people around. He repaired the altar of the Lord with twelve stones and dug a trench around it. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces, and laid it on the wood. Then he told the people to fill four large jars with water and pour it on the altar. The people filled the water jugs and poured them on the offering three times. Elijah wanted to be sure nobody thought there was any trickery involved.

Then Elijah prayed, “O L
ORD
, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, O L
ORD
, answer me, so these people will know that you, O L
ORD
, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again” (1 Kings 18:36–37
NIV
). And fire fell from heaven, burning up the sacrifice, the wood, and even the stones, the soil, and the water in the trench around the altar.

The people responded by falling down and crying, “The Lord—He is God!” Then Elijah commanded them to seize the 450 prophets of Baal and kill them, which they did in obedience.

Given what had happened, Elijah then went off by himself to pray for rain. Why?

Because the people had repented and turned back to God. Now, according to Deuteronomy 11:13–17, they were in a position to receive rain, but the rain wouldn’t automatically come. Elijah had to earnestly pray for rain. He had to stand in faith and believe that God would honor His Word just as He did when the rains stopped.

That is what you have to do to get your needs met. Even though God has promised it, and you see that it belongs to you, you’re going to have to earnestly pray in faith, believing God will do what He said.

You can’t just sit around and say, “Well, God said He would do it, and I’m going to just let Him do it.” No, life is a fight. The apostle Paul said to fight the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12). You have to take hold of your victory.

You have to rise up and earnestly pray, even though God has already said it. There has to be some effort on your part. You have to exercise your faith and believe God for the answer.

That’s what Elijah did. He was a man of faith, and in the next seven chapters I will show you how Elijah demonstrates seven qualities of a man of unwavering faith.