Some years ago a man named Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, an extraordinary Russian dissenter who broke away from communism, was at a speech at Harvard University and said that in the Soviet Union they had rejected God, and in the West, we have forgotten God. He said that of the two, what the West had done was more dangerous. To have once known the Lord and to walk away is far more dangerous to have never known the Lord. To have known His sweetness, His goodness, His mercy and loving kindness, and to walk away… That is incomprehensible. I’ve been in those countries that rejected God. But, for the United States, we don’t have an excuse. Because, we haven’t rejected God, we just forgot that He is God.

R.W. Shambach was a great revivalist who held tent meetings. He said, “You don’t have a problem. All you need is faith in God.” That is so true. We need our faith to get activated. Whatever is not of faith is sin, and without faith it’s impossible to believe God. You have to believe God and know that God is. He’s a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Deuteronomy 32:18, “Of the Rock that begat you, you are unmindful, and have forgotten the God who fathered you.” That’s Old Testament. We came from the Rock. The Lord saw how they had forgotten Him. Forgotten to acknowledge Him. Forgotten to honor Him. Forgotten to give Him what He’s due. When the Lord saw it, “He spurned them because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.” The NAS says, “You neglected the rock who begot you. You are unmindful and have forgotten the God who fathered you. I will hide my face from you. I will see what their end will be for they are a perverse generation children in whom there is no faith.” God said He was going to turn his face from them because there was no faith in them.

Faith is probably one of the most important ingredients in our Christian understanding. It helps us become all that God wants us to be. I want to minister to you about what faith means to us in our daily walk with God. Too many of God’s people are not operating in faith in God, they’re operating in ‘faith in something’. Faith is the opposite of self-reliance. Faith is not natural to us, it’s supernatural. It is of and from God, and it is dependent on God. Faith is not something you can figure out in the natural. There are things God does that cannot be figured out. Faith is one of those things. If you don’t operate in faith, as a Christian, you won’t have victory in your finances. You won’t have victory in miracles and healings. It’s not possible in the natural. That’s why God gave every one of us a measure of faith, because we can’t live in this world and be His voice and His servants unless we have faith.