Applying Faith to Overcome Any Challenge

Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith (Romans 3:27).

Faith is described here as a law, a governing principle in God’s Kingdom.

There are spiritual laws that work with our faith, making us world overcomers. The AMPC translation of Romans 3:27 calls faith “a principle.” Let’s look deeper into each of faith’s cooperative powers that are spiritual laws and principles of faith.

Hope

Hebrews 11:1 states, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Hope comes first in our lives, and faith brings substance to those hopes. Hope is future tense, and faith is now. We’ve talked a lot about hope throughout this book, but according to Strong’s Concordance, biblical hope means “to perceive; to see, anticipate with pleasure; confidence” (elpois, G1680). Hope is the vision of our faith; without it we simply perish (see Prov. 29:18).

Satan understands the vital role hope plays in our faith. That’s why he attacks it so relentlessly. Hope inspires. It keeps us dreaming and imagining a good future, a future worth living for. You and I can go forty days without food, three days without water. But we cannot live a single day without hope. Hope works with faith like a thermostat works with an air-conditioning unit. Alone, a thermostat has no power to cool a house. The AC unit outside has the power to cool, but without the thermostat, the potential energy of that unit sits idle with no way for us to access its power. The unit itself gives substance to whatever temperature the thermostat sets and can keep the indoor temperature at a comfortable 72 degrees. Can you see how vital hope is to our faith? The thermostat of hope serves as the goal, dream, or vision that ignites the power unit of faith, bringing substance to our hopes.

 The faith of the Christian life is built on the “blessed hope” revealed in First John:

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure (1 John 3:1-3).

But this blessed hope is not just in the return of our Lord. It is that we will be like Him. Hope purifies us and directs us toward holiness in our lives. It inspires us to keep moving forward. As believers, we put our hope in the resurrection, in Christ’s return, and in the redemption of our bodies (see John 14:1-4; Rom. 8:23; 1 Cor. 15). We hope in God’s promise of a new heaven and new earth without darkness or evil (see Rev. 21). And this hope keeps us stable through the storms of life (see Heb. 6:19).

Romans 15:4 says, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.” Like faith, hope comes from the Scriptures. Receiving God’s Word creates hope and gives faith something to bring substance to. Get your hopes up! Envision the promises of God coming to pass in your life. Don’t let Satan steal your hope. Don’t let the world kill your vision. Allow yourself to dream. Love others but avoid intimate fellowship with hope snatchers, vision assassins, and dream killers. Without hope, your faith will have nothing to aim at. Never lose hope in the promises of God, even when you may be wavering in your faith.

Love

Faith is the byproduct of God’s love for you. As Galatians 5:6 (KJV) says, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love.” But there is so much confusion over what love is that people often struggle to recognize God’s love. Today, people speak of love as desire, anticipation, pleasure, or a virus that comes and goes. You hear about people falling in and out of love.

 It comes and goes like there is no control over it. They use the term to describe so many things it has become descriptive of nothing. “I love ice cream.” “I just love this weather.” “I love my dog.” “I love my wife.” But the love you have for your wife should be different than the love you have for your dog. (And that doesn’t mean you can prefer your dog over your wife!) With so many different definitions for the word love, it’s no wonder people don’t understand what it means when we say, “God loves you.”

We need a revelation of true love—God’s kind of love—so that our faith can work. We need to understand God’s love for us so it can destroy the spirit of fear in our lives. But how do we know God loves us? How do we discern His love personally? Paul’s prayer for the church at Ephesus may help. He prayed,

That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:17-19).

Wow! God’s love is limitless. His love is so great it “passes knowledge.” This tiny phrase is important to grasp. How can you know something that passes knowledge? Only by revelation.

Knowledge that comes from God and His Word supersedes knowledge that comes from our carnal minds and physical senses. We can’t discern God’s love by our circumstances. We can’t know it by feelings. Romans 5:5 (KJV) declares that God’s love “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit reveals God’s love to us and causes the fullness of Christ to be seen and known in our lives. Even our maturity into Christlikeness is connected to knowing God’s love in a way that “passes knowledge.” After knowing love by revelation, Paul declared “that we might be filled with the fulness of God.” God’s love brings transformation by faith into Christlikeness.

The passage of Scripture below describes four revelations of God’s love that you and I need to understand.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 John 4:7-10).