Lecture

I don’t know if you ever thought about it before, but could it be possible that sometimes you are the test for somebody else? You are the Moses to some Israel, and they look at you as the person who is causing the problem. Could that ever happen? Could God think about you and say, I think I’m going to put her on the opposite side of this and let her try to cope with being the source of the test. What a challenging thing that is. Or, could it be that God uses you to strengthen somebody’s faith, who is undergoing a test to help them succeed?

Let me give you an illustration of this. Years ago, I got a call from one of my good friends out on the West Coast of America that has a nice big church. And he said to me, “Bruce, I need a vacation. And I want to take my wife away—we’ve been in ministry a long time—for a month on a vacation. And I wondered, could you come out to the church and preach for me for four weeks while we’re gone?”

I said to him, “Ken, I would love to do that for you. I love your church. You know how I care about you, this would be great.”

So I fly out there and we’re talking on a Saturday and he said, “You know, we’re going to listen to the sermon on Sunday morning, then we’re going to go and we’ll see you in four weeks.”

I said, “That’s great.”

Well, God showed up Sunday morning and Ken comes, and he says, “You know, I think we’ll probably spend another day or so with you.”

I said, “Oh, that’s okay. But you know, we’re here so you could leave, not stay.” Well, the next couple of days, we met with his staff at his request, and he was in the room and God began to move some more and he stayed the next day.

And he said, “You know, I think, oh, I think my wife and I decided that we’re going to spend this week and leave after next Sunday.”

And I said, “Ken, come on. The deal was you would go on vacation.” Okay. So during the week, we went out to lunch and I said, “Let me ask you a question. What’s your dream about the church? What’s the next stage of growth you want?”

He said, “Oh, we want to start some new churches.”

I said, “That’s great, Ken. How many do you want to start?”

“We want to start maybe two, maybe three.”

I said, “Okay. And over what period of time?”

“Ten years. Two or three in ten years.”

Well, we’re very good friends. And I said to him, “So how do you feel about that?”

He said, “Well, I feel that that would be a challenge.”

And I said, “Okay, two or three in ten years. Why are you so unbiblical?”

He said, “What? I’m unbiblical in starting churches?”

I said, “Ken, how long did it take to start a new church in the book of Acts?”

He said, “I don’t know. I never thought about that.”

“Well, if you found out, would it make any difference, what the model is to start a new church?”

He said, “Well, I guess it probably would. How long?”

I said, “The shortest was three weeks and a new church was started and the longest was eighteen months, a year and a half, and it was started. You’re going to start two or three in ten years? That’s between, you know, three and five years.” And I ribbed him a little bit. I said, “Ken, you don’t need God to intervene to do that. Come on. How about stepping up with a larger vision?”

He said, “Oh man, I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

I said, “I don’t know. It’s not my church, it’s God’s put you here as a shepherd of this church. I’m just challenging you to think a little bit outside the box because that’s where God lives. God lives outside of our little boxes.”

And that week God began to move, and he came to church on Sunday and God showed up even more. And he said, “We’re not leaving this week. We’re going to end up leaving maybe for two weeks.”

And we went out for lunch again that week. And I said, “Hey Ken, what percentage of the people that live in this area in California don’t go to church?”

He said, “92% of the people that live here do not go to any church.”

I said, “So how motivated is God to start a new church? Because there aren’t any around for the people to go to.”

He said, “Well, He’s, I guess He’d be pretty motivated.”

“That’s right. And how many do you think it would take to make a real difference?”

Well, throughout the week we went back and forth as he wrestled and we prayed and he finally came up and he says, “You know, maybe we can start, maybe we can start ten churches.”

“Ten churches, you’re kidding me. Wow. How would you feel about that?”

“Oh, I’d be amazed.”

“How would heaven feel about that?”

“No, heaven would be thrilled. And can you imagine the number of people that would come into the Kingdom because of this?”

I said, “Okay, what’s your biggest challenge? What are you afraid of?”

He said, “We don’t have the money for this.”

“Well, were you budgeting a certain amount to start a new church?”

He said, “Yeah, we’re not a very wealthy church. And we thought maybe we could raise $50,000 for each of the two or three churches, which would be a huge amount.”

I said, “Ken, what’s the largest amount you’ve ever raised at the church?”

“$165,000. That was the biggest we’ve ever raised.”

I said, “Okay.”

I said, “Ken, do you know what the average is in America anyway, to start a new church? I don’t mean in somebody’s home, but I mean to rent a building and to get staff and to get going into it and start quicker, let’s say?”

He said, “I don’t know.”

I said, “Ken, it’s $186,000 to launch a church and to pay the initial cost to get it off the ground to become self-sufficient. And you want to do it for $50,000? And this is an expensive part in California.”

He says, “What do you think we should try to do?”

“We should raise $200,000, Ken.”

“Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, no, wait, you’ve got to be kidding me. $200,000 times 10 churches is $2 million. What do you think? We don’t play the lottery, Bruce. There’s just no way this is going to happen. And my church isn’t a wealthy church.” And it wasn’t a wealthy church.

I said, “I wonder if God really wants this done.”

“Yeah, God wants it done, but there’s no way, no way.” So God showed up again.

And I said to Ken on week number three. I said, “Ken, is it okay with you if I change my sermon on week three . . .”—I was only there for four weeks—“and raise, see if I can’t raise the money from your church to start ten new churches.”

“No, absolutely not. I don’t give you permission to do that.”

“Well, why not Ken?”

“Because I don’t want to embarrass you, my friend.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s no way. There’s no way. The biggest amount we’ve ever had in our whole church was $165,000. You want to raise $2 million from our churches and there’s no way possible, that’s not going to happen. I don’t want you to be embarrassed. The answer is no.”

I said, “Ken, I can’t be embarrassed.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because this is up to the Lord and His wealth and His riches and how much does He want new churches planted here to then open the door and provide? I’ll just be the encouragement.” Absolutely not. He wouldn’t let me talk about it. He didn’t go on the last week. He never left. He never left on vacation and his wife didn’t want to go either. We met with the staff and there was a lot of dreaming taking place about this. They started picking out locations. If God would give them the money where they would start and what staff would move where, and God was moving. But man, was it testing Ken’s faith. And guess who sourced that? He did, by using me to challenge him. But now Ken didn’t have the faith to do this. And I said, “Ken, please give me permission as you’re the pastor of this church, give me permission to do this, to let me ask your people to support this and to launch churches.”

And he said, “No, I don’t have the faith to do that.”

I said, “Ken, I don’t need your faith.”

“What do you mean?”

“I have enough faith for it. I don’t need your faith. If you want to just take a jumper cable and put one end of the battery cables on your heart and attach it to my heart and just come along and watch God work.” Why? I had the faith for this for him. I did. God granted me that faith and I just had it, and I was helping him in his test of faith.

Well, he finally broke down and gave permission and God showed up in the services. He just did. He just did. And the people wanted to be a part of launching a church. And after one of the services, oh man. You know, certain things happen in the ministry that affect you for the rest of your life. This is one of them. In fact, there’s two of them.

So after one of the services, you know, the people came forward, gave money and some of them pledged money for the period of time. And there was a knock on the door, because in between services, they put me in a separate room with a cup of coffee and I could rest a little bit. And there’s a knock at the door and the associate pastor’s wife—I knew him and her, very terrific couple—comes in and she’s weeping, she’s openly weeping. I’m wondering, oh no, what’s the matter? I got out of my chair. I said, “What’s the matter?”

She said, “Oh my husband and I really wanted to be a big part of starting a new church and underwriting some of this. But we don’t have any kind of money like that. And I only have one precious thing that’s worth a bunch of money in my whole life.” And she said, “It’s my grandmother’s wedding ring with big diamonds in it.”

And she starts crying and she says, “I put it in the church envelope today and my husband and I are going to start this church. We’re so thrilled.”

And I says, “You know, I think heaven is shouting your name because how God loves when His children sacrifice to do something that’s important to God.” And I said, “I’m so proud of you as another believer to a believer, this is terrific.”

So she leaves. I close the door. I can’t drink my coffee. Guess who’s knocking on the door now? Her husband. He doesn’t know she just left. He doesn’t know. He comes in. He’s a little red-eyed. He said, “You know what my wife just did?”

I said, “Tell me.”

“She just gave to the church, her most prized possession, her grandmother’s diamond ring.” And he said, “She was weeping the whole time because it meant so much to her.” And he said, “I want to ask you a question.”

“Okay.”

“Do you think it’d be okay with Ken if I said to him, ‘Ken, would you keep the ring in the safe at the church and take money out of our paycheck, every paycheck until it’s paid for how much it was worth and then I could give it back to my wife as a celebration?’”

I said, “Knowing Ken and knowing you and knowing her, that’s terrific.”

So God kept working and working and on the last service, last service. At the end, from way back there in the back of the church, a cute, very attractive young couple almost, almost come dancing down the aisle. Almost, not fully, just almost. Not a skip, but almost a skip, holding hands. I’m thinking to myself, man, look at this. This is terrific. They come up, they’re beaming and they’re a little bleary-eyed. It didn’t make sense to me. And he says, “We’re engaged.”

I says, “I could tell, congratulations.”

He says, “We’ve been saving for almost two years for our wedding and our trip away, our honeymoon. And as we sat there. . .” and then he looks at her and she’s smiling up at him, you know? And he said, “You know, as we sat there, we both realized we would rather, we would rather help launch a church than have the money for our wedding and our honeymoon. God’ll provide. And we just wanted to say to you, thank you for helping us do this.” And they left, skipping away. Oh.

That Saturday night and Sunday morning, $2 million came in or was pledged. And that church . . .

Sometimes there’s somebody else around that can help you navigate through the challenges of a difficult test and sometime, could it be that God uses you to stretch somebody else’s faith? But my question now is, what happens when there’s nobody around? And your faith is weakening and you’re afraid, oh man, I’m going to go through the stages of a test failure. I’m going to go from situation, to source, to sovereign. I’m going to complain and I’m going to contend and I’m going to reject that. I’m going to despise and I’m going to rebel. And I don’t want to do any of those things, but my faith is getting stretched and it’s getting weak. What on earth can I do?

Aha, now you’re asking the right question. What can you do? Is there anything you can do yourself, by yourself? Nobody else helping you because many times in life, our test of faith is private. Nobody else really knows about it unless you tell them. Are there steps you can take? Just think about what I’m saying. Are there steps you can take for a test success and take that draining faith that you have and take a step and watch your faith go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa? You’re the same person, but you did something because you were initiated and knew the secret of what to do when you need more faith.

Could it be, could it be that the amount of faith you have, is up to you? It’s not up to Him. In round terms, it’s up to you. Let me see if I can’t prove that. And then we’re going to jump into five steps you can take that in a short period of time immediately changes the amount of faith you have in the middle of a test.

So let’s go. We are in a series called “The Testing of Your Faith.” And I want to talk to you about session four, “The Steps for Test Success.” Look at the title of our introduction. “The Level of Our Faith Is Our Responsibility.” What? Wait, wait, wait, wait. It’s my responsibility to increase my faith? Yes. Why? You let your faith go down. Wait, wait, wait. Nobody forced your faith to go down. God wasn’t supernaturally depleting your faith, right? It’s the situation you’re in. And it’s your response to it. And it goes, ugh. Well, if you let it go down, if you permitted it to go down, doesn’t it just make sense to you that you can raise it back up again?

Let me see if I can’t demonstrate this to you. It’s a well-known passage of Peter walking on the water. So they’re out in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and there’s very tumultuous weather and Christ is way out, way out there, way out there. Their unsure it was Christ actually. And Peter says to Christ, “‘Lord, if it is You . . .” That’s how far away He was. “‘. . . if it is You, command me to come to You on the water’” (Matthew 14:28 NKJV). “‘. . . command me to,’”—this is really something—command me to walk on the water. So He said, “Come,” and that’s an imperative in the Greek. Jesus commanded Peter. Come on. So “. . . when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus” (Matthew 14:29).

Question. How far did Peter walk? Because Christ is way out there, right? If that’s you, if that’s you, He’s not right here. He’s away out there. “Come.” Most people think Peter walked two or three steps and then started sinking. I’m going to prove that’s the exact opposite of what happened. “But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me’” (Matthew 14:30)! And immediately Jesus walked all the way over to Peter. Uh-uh. Do you realize what this text is actually revealing? Jesus stretched out His hand. What did He do? Peter had walked all the way out to Christ. Do you realize that? And he was in this, he was in fingertips. Yes, but what happened?

He took his eyes . . . “When he saw that the wind was boisterous,” that’s the situation. He took his eyes off the power, which is Christ. And he looked at the environment and he said, There’s no way I could be walking on water. And I’m scared to death, and down he goes. So immediately, immediately Christ stretches out His hand and caught him. But what’s very fascinating is what was Christ’s reaction? “‘O, you of little faith’” (Matthew 14:31). Wait, wait, wait, wait man, that was a lot of faith. Nobody else in the boat got out, nobody else said, Hey, Peter’s doing it. Let me do it too. Nobody else did.

But here’s the question for this session. Why did you doubt? Why? You didn’t have to doubt. Do you see what He’s saying here? Why did you doubt? Peter, you didn’t have to doubt. It was in your control. You didn’t have to doubt. Wow.

Another passage in Luke chapter eight, Jesus said to them, “‘Where is your faith’” (Luke 8:25)? Where did it go? Where is your faith? By the way, it should be right here. And it’s not. Where did it go? What’s Christ revealing? It’s up to you to what you do with your faith. Where is it?

Next passage. So the apostles are in the middle of all these things and they say to Christ, “‘Increase our faith’” (Luke 17:5). Do you know, Christ’s answer to that was no. Not one time, that I could find anyway, in the entire New Testament, does Christ increase anybody’s faith. He doesn’t. What does He send them? A test to strengthen and increase their faith, but not to supernaturally give a gift of more faith. He doesn’t.

Now look at this next verse. “So Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Have . . .’”—present, active, imperative. “‘Have faith in God’” (Mark 11:22). I command you. I command you. Keep on having faith in God. That’s a command, and Christ’s commands, we are to respond and obey. So I am commanded. I am, hold onto this. I’m commanded to have faith in God. And if I permit myself not to have faith in God, is it true? Is it logical? If a command comes to me, have faith in God and my faith is going down, am I obeying that command?

Let’s see if we can’t go a little bit further with this. And “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3–4 ESV). Now I want to just show you how powerful our faith is. Take a look at this. You know this passage in Ephesians 6, “Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace” (Ephesians 6:14–15). I did this this morning at six o’clock, this very verse. I did this. I put those pieces on in my mind. I did. “. . . above all . . .”—above all that you do—“. . . taking the shield of faith.” It’s what? My faith. “Taking the shield of faith.” Is it powerful? “. . . with which . . .”—your faith, you will, you, you, you will be able, not God—“. . . you will be able to quench every single fiery dart of the wicked one” (Ephesians 6:16). Oh my goodness. This shield of faith is powerful when you’re being attacked, but I’m the one that will be able to quench it because of what I believe. But if I believe that is out of my control, you’re going to be clobbered by the fiery darts of the enemy because you don’t know what to do. But if your faith is strong and you used your faith, you will quench the darts of the enemy. This is big time important. Are you getting this?

Alright, let’s go back to our major chart and add where this session is. Session one, we covered this chart, that our response is to be joy and rejoicing. The reality is we’re in a trial that tests our faith, our responsibility is to endure until it’s perfectly finished. Therefore, this transformation, the genuineness of my faith, I become more godly. That’s the result and the reward is earthly and heavenly.

In session number three, the previous one, which was the failure. Now we’re flipping it over and we’re dealing with this side. How do you build up your faith if you want to? The average person thinks It’s out of my control, that my faith is someplace in my body or in my soul I can’t get to. It’s not, I can’t control it. Really? Have faith in God. You can control it. And the moment that you cross off the lie that you can’t, is the moment you’re prepared to get initiated in session number four. How? How do I do this? What are the steps to do this?

Let’s move on, part one. I took all the New Testament and read every single verse in the New Testament with “faith” and “believe” and “faithful” and “trust.” And I wanted to find out what are the levels, the levels of faith that’s possible for a person? And I found seven of them. Take a look at this. “‘O woman . . .’” said Christ, “‘. . . great is your faith’” (Matthew 15:28)! That’s a quantity. Great is your faith, that’s an amount. So you can have great faith. Second, “‘Why are you fearful, O you of little faith’” (Matthew 8:26)? That’s another. “One who is weak in the faith” (Romans 14:1). What’s weak in the faith? It means you got some, but whenever there is opposition or tribulation or persecution or whatever that hits you, you fall right down. It’s not little or great. It’s just not strong. Whew.

Now, level number four. “‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt’” (Matthew 14:31)? Why did you doubt? What is doubt? Doubt is you believe this much, and you don’t believe. And that’s doubt put together. Doubt is believing some and having unbelief in the rest of it. It’s split. And that is doubt. Then it says Christ “rebuked their unbelief” (Mark 16:14). Whoa, this is great belief, little belief, weak belief, mixed belief, unbelief. “Some were persuaded . . . and some disbelieved” (Acts 28:24). What’s that talking about? This is in the story of the fact that Christ resurrected Lazarus and everybody knew. Everybody knew he was dead for three days and he stunk when he came out of the tomb, right? Everybody knew, nobody argued the point. Nobody argued the point and the people who came and saw Lazarus, heard the story, all the people around that particular area, they believed, but some, watch this now, some would not believe. They would not believe. That’s a willful choice. Watch this, a willful choice. I won’t believe, I know it’s true. I’m not believing it. This is disbelief. I won’t believe.

And the last one says, “an evil heart of unbelief,” “an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12). What is this? This is anti-belief. This is hard. This is not just not believing. This is corrupting other people, it’s an evil heart and they’re departing, they’re leaving. I don’t want any part of Christianity or whatever it is.

So where are you at this point? And the point is, how do you move in this direction? How do you do that? Well, let’s see if we can’t give you some tools. Part number two, “The Power Tools That Increase Faith.” I’ve used all these tools and every one of them affects my faith. If I use it correctly, it doesn’t have to take very long in which I will have much more faith as a result of doing the process of using these power tools.

Number one, this is just astonishing. To me this is one of the most amazing points in this session because most people think when they’re being tested in faith and they’ve understood that God’s behind it, I don’t know, I don’t know what we think. We think that God’s behind it and He’s a little bit, you know, ticked off a little bit or, come on, do better than that. What’s His attitude? Is He aloof? Is He uninterested? Is He a little bit upset? Is He saying, Doggone it, you again? What’s His attitude about your test of faith that He sent to you?

Take a look at this passage. It’s the well-known passage we started out with. But wait till you see where it goes. “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:2–4). Now what we don’t understand is what follows. It is a part of the same passage. It’s not a new paragraph. It’s a continuation of the thought of the test of faith you’re in. “If any of you lacks wisdom . . .” When? When you are in the middle of a test of faith. When you’re in a trial, we typically don’t know what to do and we can’t figure it out. That’s why it’s completing there, “If you lack wisdom,” which is broad knowledge, especially in knowing how to act in a specific situation, I don’t know what to do. That’s how you feel in a test of faith, then it tells you something shocking. Let the person who’s in a test of faith that’s lacking wisdom, “let him ask.” This is an imperative. God commands you, “. . . ask of God” (James 1:5).

Ask what of God? For wisdom. When? When you’re in the middle of your test of faith and you don’t know what to do. Do you realize what God is saying? He’s saying I sent you the test, I know how hard it is, how long it is, how severe it is, who’s involved, where it’s taking place, what my goals are, I’m the Almighty. And this is a major gift to you and I’m making it so you can’t figure out what to do because I want you to ask me for my help. What? I command you, ask of God, God wants to be involved. He doesn’t want to be separate from this. He wants to go through it in partnership with you. Look what He says. “Let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally . . .” (James 1:5)—generously, unconditionally. He gives what to everybody who asks liberally? Wisdom. What? Yes, God will give to you wisdom about your test of faith. And He’s going to give it to you a lot, enough, but here’s the shocker. He’s not going to give you the answer and He’s not going to stop the test or else there’s no benefit. He just gives you enough wisdom for you to break through to the next level in your test. It’s what you need.

He not only gives it to you liberally, this is interesting. “. . . and without reproach” (James 1:5), meaning, what is God’s attitude about me in His test, asking Him for help? What’s His feelings about that? It says “without reproach,” means, He doesn’t find fault with you asking. He doesn’t reproach you or bring shame to you. He doesn’t disapprove what you’re doing. He wants to be asked because He wants you to realize He’s not only the source of the test, He’s the source of the wisdom to go through the test. He’s for you. God doesn’t want you to fail the test and He’ll give you an abundant amount of it. And He’s thrilled to be asked. Do you see how big of a mind shift this is? This is another initiation moment, isn’t it? Right there, where you’re thinking about God in a different point of view. He wants you to ask for help and will it be given?

Look at these next words. This is just too much. “. . .and it . . .”— wisdom—“. . . will be given to him” (James 1:5). To all, to all. It will be given to him. What’s God promising? If you ask, I will give you plenty and I’m glad you asked, and it will be given. What’s that called? That’s called a promise. A promise. I promise you. But uh-oh, this is surprising, in the same paragraph, “But let [the person who asks] . . . “—it’s an imperative again—“. . . ask in faith” (James 1:6). Meaning, you can’t kneel down next to your bed in a crisis or an ordeal or in a marathon or in a cluster or in a loop and say, Dear God, please give me wisdom like You promised, and then get up and say, You know, I don’t know if God’s going to help or not. Why? You’re in a test of faith. And you’re just saying, I don’t trust You. I don’t believe You’re going to keep Your word. I know you promised that You will come through and give me the answer, but I don’t really believe it. I’m not sure of it.

So what’s God’s attitude about this, in a test of faith, not having faith in Him, woohoo. Oh boy. “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting.” Don’t be uncertain. Don’t say “I hope,” don’t hesitate to believe, don’t distrust. And then it gives us a very sobering word, “. . . for he who doubts . . .”—doubts what? That God will give you the wisdom you need. “. . . is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man . . .”—the person who’s having doubt—“. . . let not that man suppose . . .”—or imagine or expect—“. . . that he will receive anything from the Lord.” Oh man, you were just asking for wisdom, but if you come with unbelief into my throne room, when I’ve promised you, with doubt, don’t you anticipate you’ll receive anything from the Lord. Why? “He is a double—minded . . .”—two-souled, uncertain, divided in interest or thoughts, a divided man, unstable, unstable, unsettled, disorderly—“. . . unstable in all his ways” (James 1:6–8). Oh man.

You know what the principle is? It’s best not to ask for wisdom if you’re going to doubt God. Now in the middle of writing this point, you know, so often God does this to me, because I often say to Him, I don’t want to teach anything to anybody else that I’ve not gone through, and I’ve lived and I’ve learned the lessons personally. So I have authenticity. I have integrity to message. So we got contacted by a certain person who needed something. And I said to Darlene, who was down to my office at our home. And she had some sliced apples with peanut, crunchy peanut butter, which I love at three o’clock in the afternoon. And I said, “I think this is a test of faith.”

And she backed away and she says, “Oh I think it is too.” And we both realized this, we’ve had this same test six times in a row and this was the first day, first day we ever realized it’s a loop and a loop, three, four, five, six and we didn’t know it. But all six times in a row we failed the test and thought we had passed, and we didn’t. And we didn’t know what to do.

And I showed her this, although she knew this passage and I said, “Sweetheart, why don’t we ask God for wisdom about what to do?” Because we don’t know what to do. And we didn’t know what to do. We could argue either direction. So we paused and prayed and said to God, after we asked for wisdom, “We hereby promise to You, We will not doubt Your promise. We will not have any shred of doubt. We know You keep Your promises and we know Your wisdom will come.”

Well, the next day she came down a little bit before three o’clock with some celery. And I said, “Sweetheart, do you know the answer from the Lord yet?”

“Yep.”

I said, “I do too.” And God had given both of us wisdom that we did not know the day before. And we called this person on the phone, and we told them this was the sixth time, was actually the seventh time, six times in a row, we had done the wrong thing in seeking to help them and that we weren’t going to do it again. And was it okay with them?

“Yes, it is okay with us. And we think you’re probably right.”

What did we discover? 24 hours later God gave us the wisdom and we had no confusion about it, no uncertainty about it. Power tool number one, I think is the one you should use instantly. Pray, pray for God’s wisdom. And we have a little logo here that looks like this. Pray for God’s wisdom. Pray God’s wisdom.

Number two, let’s take a look at this in live action in 1 Samuel 17, David and Goliath’s story. “Moreover David said, ‘The Lord, who delivered me. . .’”—past tense, past tense—“‘. . . from the paw of the lion “‘and from the paw of the bear . . .’”—future tense—“‘. . . will deliver me “‘from the hand of this Philistine’” (v. 37). Here’s David facing a very difficult test of faith. How’s he going to handle it? Is it pretty intimidating dealing with a giant like this one? He’s just a little bit more than a kid. Yes. What does he do? He goes back to the past and he remembers, doesn’t he? He even vocalizes some of God’s works in his life. He purposefully linked them. Put that together. He purposefully linked them.

What did he do with that? He then took that faith that he got from remembering this part, remembering it, and he brings it all the way into the future. God will deliver me; therefore, I’m going to go to war against the man. You go backwards to bring it forwards, to bring it to the present. That’s the key. It’s not that you just remember, but you get faith from it because your faith remembers how God did something in the past, strengthens you up. Then you bring it over to the future. God’s going to interact again. And then you bring it into the present. Remember, remember God’s works. Review God’s miracles and works in the Bible to increase your faith.

Now let’s take a look at this in the disciples’ lives and Jesus. “But Jesus being aware of it, said to them, “‘O you of little faith.’” Now watch what Jesus does. Yeah. But wait, watch what Jesus does, learn from it. “‘Why do you reason among yourselves because you have brought no bread?’” They’re wondering about what? What can they eat? “‘Do you not yet understand? Do you not yet understand, or remember. . .?’” Ooh. Going in the past, He’s going in the past. “‘. . . remember the five loaves of the five thousand and how many baskets you took up yourself?’” Not only did the loaves feed everybody, but you had all these extra baskets full of food. Don’t you remember that? Can’t you go in the past and remember a major miracle, bring it over to where you are now and trust me in the same way? “‘Nor [don’t you remember] the seven loaves of the 4,000 and how many large baskets you took up’” (Matthew 16:8–10)?

What’s Christ saying? Use your past to build your faith about your future and present and walk in it. Do you do this? And I’ve done this for, my goodness, 40 years. This one right here. How do I do this? I do this in reading the Bible and seeing how people, how God interfaced people that were struggling and how their faith grew, or it failed and what happened. And then I began to read the biographies of the spiritual giants in church history. You know, like George Muller and Hudson Taylor and Wesley and Calvin and Luther and General Booth with the Salvation Army and D.L. Moody and Charles Finney and William Carey and George Whitefield and William Tyndale and Fanny Crosby and Amy Carmichael and Jonathan Edwards. I wrote a bunch of them right here. I’ve read over a hundred of these. Why do I read those autobiographies or biographies about these people? Because they did significant things for God, and it records what their struggle was and how they broke through. And time after time, you can find your faith being built by remembering what God did in the Old and New Testament and bringing it over or what God did in your life and bringing it over. That’s how you do it. You build this.

Psalm 78, last passage. “That they may set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God,” Not forget the works of God, “But keep His commandments; and may not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation, a generation that did not set its heart aright.” How do you set your heart right? “And whose spirit was not faithful to God” (Psalm 78:7–8). They did not keep the covenant of God, they refused. “They refused to walk in His law and . . .” they,—there it is again—“. . . forgot His works and His wonders . . .”—His miracles—“. . . that He had shown them.” He did the works to show them. “Marvelous things He did in the sight of their fathers, in the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan . . . In spite of this they still sinned, and did not believe in His wondrous works” (Psalm 78:10–12, 32).

Now, do you understand how powerful this is? For instance, I was leading a group of about thirty presidents of ministries and was challenging them to move forward on a brand new, very difficult situation. And the whole room was filled with fear. It was filled with fear. There was no faith in the room, and we were losing the battle as faith, you know, like a big balloon going, some more of these men and women just expressed their fears. Everybody else agreed. And I didn’t know what to do. And I had two flip charts in front, and I said, “I just want to stop for a minute and let me go over here to this flip chart. Would you tell me a few miracles in the Old Testament?”

“What?”

“Yeah. Just give me some miracles of the Old Testament.” And they began to give them, and I began to write them down. I didn’t link it to anything. And we wrote more miracles and more miracles of God’s power and more miracles and more miracles and more miracles, new page, more, didn’t make a comment, more miracles. What was I doing? I was helping them remember, come on now. I was helping them remember. Why? They were dealing with this, you know, this threat that we were all feeling. And we were feeling this big. That’s how it felt in the room. And I felt the same way. And they were looking at this, saying, “Oh man, we can’t possibly do this.” And we were failing the test. Then I came over to the other flip chart and I said, “Give me some miracles of Christ and the apostles.” And we began listing them.

Now, this is what happened. After one of these, something changed in the atmosphere. And what happened in the room was everybody began to laugh. There was no jokes. Everybody began to laugh. Why? The remembering destroyed the fear. And instead of us looking at this way, we realized this threat was really this big and that God was this big. And what were we afraid of? And it broke. And there was a major miracle that accomplished it before that day was over.

What’s my point? Do you ever do this when your faith is failing? Do you ever go back in time and just say, you know, what has Christ done, what has God done? What has God done in my life? That’s when you start telling the old stories of your parents or your grandparents or your uncle or your own life, and you start telling stories. When our grandkids are together, sometimes Andrew and Eric will say, “Hey granddad, come on, tell us some of your stories.” What happens when I tell the stories of the miracles? That builds their faith in God to use them.

So how do you move forward with this initiation? You have to buy into the truth that my level of faith is under my control. It’s not under Satan’s control. It’s not even under God’s control. It’s under my control and He commands me, have faith in God. Keep on having faith in God. And if your faith is going down, you can ask for wisdom in the situation. Or you can remember God’s works. So think about this, eh, right? Pray God’s wisdom. Remember God’s works. In your own life just be picturing yourself and doing this with your left hand pointing in your past. I’ll be using my right hand because it pictures it, remember God’s works.

Let’s go onto the next one. Power tool number three, this is Joshua. “The Lord your God will expel them . . .”—the giants that were still left—“. . . from before you and drive them out of your sight.” That’s about the future. He will expel them. “So you shall possess their land as the Lord your God . . .”—Ah, what did He do?—“. . . promised you. Therefore, be very courageous to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses” (Joshua 23:5–6). What did he do? He went to a promise. He’s standing here and he grabs a promise God made and brings it back into the test of faith he’s in. God promises and I bring this back. So what is power tool number three? Claim, claim God’s promises. Claim God’s promises.

So how does this work? All right? Pray, right? God’s wisdom. Remember God’s works. Go to the future now. Claim, claim it for yourself. Claim God’s promises. These are three tools you can use any time that you need to use them. 1 Kings 8. Think about this passage. “‘Blessed be the Lord,’” I think it’s Solomon who’s saying this, “‘Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel, according to . . .”—watch this—“‘. . . all that He promised. There has not failed one word of all His good promise, which He promised through His servant, Moses’” (1 Kings 8:56). What’s Solomon saying? He’s saying, go all the way back in time to Moses who promised all these things that God revealed to Moses. And he gave the promises to the people and here’s Solomon and Solomon’s looking back to Moses, Moses in round terms about 1,500 BC. Solomon’s about 1,000 BC in round terms. You know what Solomon’s saying? The promises God gave to Israel 500 years ago. Not one of them didn’t come true. All of God’s promises. And guess what? All of God’s promises still do come true, but you have to go out with your faith and grab them, grab it and bring it back to your life.

Romans chapter four, look at how Abraham did. “And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about 100 years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. He did not waver.” Look at these words though. Don’t miss the obvious that we all miss. “He did not waver at the . . .”—come on now—“. . . promise . . .” How’s he keep his faith strong? He grabbed a promise and claimed it. “. . . promise of God,” promise of God, “through unbelief” (Romans 4:19–20). He didn’t waver. He didn’t waver at the promise. Will the promise come true or not? I’m not sure if God’s going to come through, is God trustworthy or not? Is He a liar? Does He keep His promises? He keeps His promises. “Being fully convinced . . .”—ah, that’s the key—“. . . that what He had promised He was able to perform” (Romans 4:21). This is a powerful truth. Claim God’s promises.

Look at [2 Peter 1] verse 4, “By which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises,”—exceedingly great and precious promises—“that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature” (NKJV). How does God, how does God feel about His promises? Have you ever thought about this? Why does God give specific promises? Why? You ever had your children come to you, especially when they’re younger and they really want something and you’re ambivalent, whether you’re going to give it to them or not, you’re going to okay it and finally you say, “Well, okay.” And then what do they say? “Dad, come on promise.” What do they want to do? They want to nail it down. Because if dad promises, there’s no doubt about it’s going to happen. “Come on, promise.” Why? It gives assurance to the person who needs the promise. Why do you need the promise? To believe that what He’s promised is valid for you to grab a hold of and act upon it because God keeps His promises.

Now I need to make a quick comment here. Let’s say there’s a lady who’s married, is 42. And for whatever reason, can’t have children. She goes to the Bible, and she takes a hold of the promise God gave Sarah at 90 years old to have a child. And she claims that verse for herself. What’s heaven saying? Heaven would say, Hey, wait, wait, wait, wait. That promise wasn’t given to everybody. That’s a specific promise to an individual, you can’t claim for yourself. So you got to understand, right? Because there’s a lot of people mistaking and stopping to believe in God, because they took a promise that God never gave to them. And then God doesn’t come through, because He said, I didn’t give that promise to you, what are you getting mad at me about? So you have, in a sense promises, which are, they’re individual I guess you could say. God to one person or a family or a nation. And then there’s promises, which are universal they’re to everyone. These are the kinds of promises you want to look for, the general ones that are made by God, for anybody who takes them.

Then there’s one other key issue you need to understand. One of them is an unconditional promise. What does that mean? There are no conditions connected to it. I will do this. Nothing to do with you. I’m going to do this. Then there’s something over here—conditional promise. It is, if you do this, then I promise to do this. But if you don’t do this, there’s no promise. So what you got to be careful about is to make sure that a promise you’re grabbing is universal, right? Not to an individual, and secondly, that if it’s conditional that you do your half of it and then God will keep His half.

Now, if you don’t mind, the further we go into the deeper stuff, the more I’m going to give you some illustrations. And if you don’t mind, from my own life, because I’m able to explain it more fully than trying to read something about somebody else’s life. When Darlene and I and our younger daughter, Jessica and our son and our other daughter, we all moved to Africa, and we were helping people in Southern Africa to do things that helped them. And one of the issues that really bothered us was there was so much hunger at that time going on, especially in South Africa, in that area of Africa. And we wanted to try and help. And we found out that if we helped the people plant little vegetable gardens next to their huts or their shacks and helped them, plant them and show them how to water and how to let their plant grow and then take some for seed that they could generate their own food. We called these the never-ending gardens.

And when our family moved down to Africa in the first six months, we began planting these gardens in Tembisa just outside of Johannesburg. And we saw a major shift in people’s lives because they had food security for the first time. And at the end of that, we wanted to plant more, many, many, many more, more gardens. And we set an impossible goal to plant ten thousand of these small vegetable gardens, ten thousand in a year. And we’d fly back, and we’d encourage some of our family and friends, come on back, help us plant the gardens and share your faith with the people as they plant the garden with you. And then you had to take a picture of that garden with the people inside their house, standing there to count your picture. And at the end we planted ten thousand gardens.

At the end of that, we saw huge differences among the people and our son and I began talking about how many gardens do we think God wants us to plant next year? And as a result, cutting back a whole story into a little one, we came to the conclusion, let’s add a zero to that. Let’s grow ten times, ten times more from ten thousand to 100,000. 100,000 gardens—just start counting to 100,000. And David and I, we were talking, he said, “Dad, how are we going to do this?”

I said, “I don’t know, Dave, I don’t know how we planted the amount we did last year.” And I was going back to speak in New York and actually in Connecticut to about 110 men that worked in Wall Street as, you know, people in the financial area. And I said to the man in charge, “Do you mind if I ask these men if they’ll come down to a country in Southern Africa and help me plant vegetable gardens for the people, the orphans and the widows and the people really struggling with food security?”

He laughs and he said, “You don’t understand, all these guys have their own gardeners. Some of them have more than one. They never have dirt underneath their fingernails. They’re not going to come.”

I said, “Well, if is it okay with you if I asked them to come?”

And he said, “Well, all right.” So at the end of my session with them, I challenged them to come, literally on the spot. And 100 of them, 100, 100 of them came. And I said to them, as we arrived, that we wanted to plant 10,000 gardens in a week because this was already April. And we had to plant 100,000 in a year and we didn’t know how to do that. We had no idea how to do that, but we knew God wanted nobody to go to bed hungry. God didn’t want people to go to bed hungry and to die of no food, to die of no food. I remember our son, David, he was going around with a film crew, and he went into one of these villages and the pastor of this church was very, very skinny, and he says, “David, would you, ah, would you pray for my wife?”

“Yes, of course.” So he invited David into this shack and his wife was laying there, obviously dying. I mean just barely skin and bones. And David was in tears.

He told me, he said, “And I, dad, “I turned to the pastor, and I says, ‘Does she have AIDS?’

“‘No.’

“‘What’s the matter?’

‘She’s dying of hunger.’” Think about this. This is real. So we announced, we were doing this in Swaziland, which is a small country in southern Africa. And we announced in the media that we’re going to plant 10,000 gardens in a week. And of course, they’d never heard of such thing—rich Americans, especially from Wall Street, coming down to plant gardens. And they had the TV cameras and the radios and the newspapers every day. And I met with the king and the prime minister. And I said on Friday night, “Let’s have a big party when we celebrate 10,000 gardens.” And I invited the US Ambassador, the king, the prime minister, the department of economic development, all these people into this big tent we set up to celebrate. And these guys said to me, “Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, you’re not really telling people are going to plant 10,000 gardens in a week? We can’t do that.”

I said, “I know.”

“Well, we should change the goal.”

I said, “No, we can’t change the goal because I think the Lord led us to set 100,000. If we don’t learn how to plant 10,000 a week, we’ll never reach it.”

Well, we sent out, we had all the vans and the seedlings and all the rest of it. And we went out the first day, you know, everybody came, came back at the end of the day, exhausted. And they said, “We planted 300 gardens today. That’s it. You’ve got to change the goal.”

“No, I’m not going to change the goal.” So that night we changed the strategy and went out and planted 600 gardens the next day, until it came to Thursday, and we had 3,000 gardens planted and everybody was really exhausted. And I said to them, “I’m not coming with you on Thursday to plant gardens.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going to stay in my room and I’m going to beg God to give us His strategy to reach from 3,000 to 10,000 in a day.”

And they all said, “This is impossible.”

I said, “Yes, it is, it’s impossible for us, but with God, nothing is impossible.” So what did I do? Was this hard for me? Of course it was. Did I have an answer? Of course I didn’t. What was I stepping out of? The boat. I was stepping out of the boat. Yes. Was there a storm? Yes. Could I defend this? No. Did I believe it? Yes. Did I believe God wanted these people to have food? Yes. So what did I do? I used this principle and I tried to find a universal principle that I could use. So I laid on the floor on my face, right? Laid down on the ground. Not on the ground, on the floor of my hotel room and I said to God, I had my Bible.

I said to God, “I’m not.” I said to Christ, actually, “I’m not getting off the floor till You tell me what to do.” And I claimed this verse, these verses, and I read them out loud to Christ. I said, “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh” (Isaiah 58:7)? That you share your bread with the hungry, “Then you shall call, and the Lord . . .” Listen to this promise. Then, when you do this, then you shall call. I was calling, on the floor, “And the Lord . . .”—Conditional, if you do this, you’ve got to call, the Lord will answer you, your cry—“and he will say, ‘Here I am’” (Isaiah 58:9). Here I am. If you’re doing this to help the people in severe need and you call out to me, I’m going to say to you, here I am. If, here’s the condition, come on now, put this together. You’re to learn how to do this. “If you extend your soul”—your heart—“to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light shall dawn in the darkness, and your darkness shall be as the noonday. The Lord will guide you continually” (Isaiah 58:10–11).

And I said to God, “I am claiming this promise from You.” I’m doing this, our family’s doing this. We’re using our money. We’re flying back to the States to get people to help, we’re recruiting South Africans to help, we’re recruiting Swazis to help, the kids who have no parents because of AIDS and the poor people and the grandmothers, we’re doing this, and we don’t know what to do. We need You to answer us and say to me, Here I am, and this is the answer. And the next passage I used was this one, Psalm 68, “Sing to God, sing praises to His name; extol Him who rides on the clouds, by His name Yah, [Yahweh] and rejoice before Him.” As a father, God is “a father of the fatherless,”—the orphans—“a defender of widows, is God in His holy habitation” (vv. 4–5).

What did I do? I said to God, “You are a father to the fatherless. That’s who we’re helping, and You are, You are a defender of the widows we’re trying to help. We don’t know, but You know. Growing from 3,000 to 10,000 is humanly impossible, but it’s not impossible with You. You fed 5,000 for Pete’s sakes with a couple fish. Tell me what to do. I’m not getting off the ground until You fulfill Your promise.”

You mean I laid there? Yes. Why? God doesn’t lie. He is omniscient and knows everything. And He’s omnipotent, has all power. I don’t need to know, He knows. I don’t need to have the power, He does. At two o’clock in the afternoon, He told me what to do. He did. And I knew what to do.

So Thursday night at a big banquet in this great big tent, it’s the next night, we had all these famous people coming and the news is going to be there on, live on TV. I tell the guys what to do. Brand new. None of us had the idea. Friday, late afternoon, all the vans with all these guys in them. And I was, I had my pad like this, and I was waiting for them as they drove in and they opened the window and I stuck my head out and I said, “How many gardens did you plant today?” And I wrote it down. How many you, how many you, how many you? So everybody in the van, then the next van, the next van, the next van. That night, I said publicly in front of this whole tent of all these parliament people and business people and government leaders and the queens were all there. I said, we had a dream that God didn’t want your people to go to bed hungry. And we had a dream to plant 10,000 vegetable gardens for the orphans and the widows and the very poor in a week. We knew we couldn’t do that, but we knew that God wanted it done and He had the power to do it. And although we just had 3,000 of the 10,000 done yesterday, and everybody said, that’s impossible, we believed God wanted it to be done. And I’m here to report to you that we don’t have 3,000, 4,000, 5,000, 6,000, 8,000, 10,000. We have 11,820 vegetable gardens were planted in a week.

Did we reach our 100,000 by the end of that year? Yes, we did. What’d we do at the end of that year? We added another zero. You mean you grew from 100,000 to a million? Yes. How many were planted? A million. God has no limitation. What did it all boil down to? One person who knew God hated the thought of these kids going to bed with no food and the widows, claiming His promise, believing in Him and His power and His desire so much to act upon it. That is where great works are done, by normal people who know that we have a great God who has a great heart and will share and say, I’m here for you. What do you need? I hope you hunger for life like that.

Alright. Let’s move on to the next one as we wrap up. There’s a well-known passage we have here, 1 Peter 1, “In this you greatly rejoice, “though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials,”—the tests of faith—“that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (vv. 6–7). It’s for our good. As I’ve said over and over, it’s a gift that God gives to us. What happens however, for most believers, when they’re in a marathon or a crisis or an ordeal or a cluster or a loop, and it goes on and on past our expectation point? They become angry at God. And they doubt God’s motive when God says, I’ve done this for your good at the end, but not in the middle. You’ve got to go through the process.

So what is this truth to be? We doubt His purpose. So how can you go from a lack of faith where you are really getting upset with God, to having faith in God, without doing the prayer, God’s wisdom, remember God’s works, claim God’s promise? You take your arms together. You bring them up toward heaven with your thumbs up. And what do you do? What do you do with that? What do you affirm? What do you say about God? The very thing you’re starting to doubt. That is, reaffirm God’s purposes.

What are His purposes? Remind yourself that your trials are not for your harm, but always for your benefit. The second your faith is going down, “I reaffirmed that my Father in heaven is for me. He is always good all of the time. There is no exception. He’s doing this for my good. I trust Him. He loves me. I love Him. This is going to have a wonderful end. I believe in God. Yes, yes!” You just break through. Christ’s comment, have faith in God. Put your faith in God, because you can.

You know these passages. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28). Power tool number five. What does this all build up to? It starts here, right? Pray God’s wisdom. Remember God’s works and bring that faith back. Claim God’s promises like I did. Bring them back. Use them. They’re given to use them. Father, You said this, I believe you. And He’s here in this and so are all the angels and reaffirm God’s purposes. What’s all that to do? It’s to achieve something inside of your heart and cause you to make a commitment.

Look at this next passage. 1 Peter 4. “Let those who suffer according to the will of God . . .” According to the will of God. Suffer according to the will of God? Yes. It’s called a test of faith or persecution. “Commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator” (v. 19). Joshua, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). What is this? What is the whole goal of it? It’s to bring it all the way back to your heart, to commit your faith, stir up your faith until you pledge to faithfully endure your trial.

Well, I hope that you’ve gotten a lot of help and encouragement. You can use any of these at any time you want, but I want to kind of summarize this part three, “The Steps for Test Success.” And these are the five steps down here. Pray. Remember. Claim. Reaffirm God’s purposes. Yeah. Let’s take a look at this. Number one, pray God’s wisdom. He’ll give it to you. Number two, remember God’s works. But notice these arrows come out and come back. It’s getting more of your faith back because you did remember. I remember the lion and the bear, fighting Goliath. Claim God’s promises and bring it back to where you are. Reaffirm God’s purposes right in the middle when you’re doubting it, get rid of the doubt and commit your faith. Commit to endure in the middle of it.

The conclusion, “The Confidence to Increase Your Faith.” This is a closing verse for us. It says this in Hebrews 10, “Therefore do not cast away your confidence.” Don’t let your confidence sap and sag down, don’t. Don’t cast away. “Which has great reward. For you have need of endurance.” Don’t lose your confidence that God’s working all this out for you. “So that after you’ve done the will of God, you may receive the promise: ‘For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith.’” You use your faith in your life, but here’s the warning. “‘If anyone draws back,’”—shrinks back, withdraws. Shrinks back from what? You have need of endurance. It’s in your test. If you draw back and your faith goes away and you fail your test, what does God say? “‘My soul has,’” oh, “‘no pleasure in him’” (Hebrews 10:35–38). He didn’t have to do that. She didn’t have to do that. I’m right here. I’m always for you. You’re meant to pass that. And what will come to you is if you did, My soul has no pleasure in a man or woman who does this, who draws back and says, I can’t. Of course you can.

Therefore, as we wrap this session up, in your workbook, we have two different columns. If you avoid using these steps to success, versus if you advance with the steps to success, if you don’t use them, you’re going to have powerless faith, you are. If you use these, any one of them or all of them, you’re going to have powerful faith. You’re going to feel like you’re a victim with weakening faith. And I can’t change it. I just wish I had more faith like such and such, but I don’t. It’s not my fault. It’s your fault. It’s your fault. It’s my fault if that happens to me. This is when you’re a victor with increasing faith. This is a passive mindset. It’s a victim mindset. It’s a wimp, it’s a powerless person and Christ says, I get no pleasure for the person who runs away. I want them to remain strong and believe in me. And a proactive mindset.