Join John and Brandi Belt as they discuss the importance of putting action to your faith.
The Transcription
Fun testimony from our house. This morning, when I got up, I realized we only had one day left of coffee. And I had ordered a shipment, but it would not be here until Friday. So I was trying to figure out what exactly we were going to do. And it just so happened that our favorite coffee place has a coffee truck that was just in a neighborhood next door. So we were able to get up early this morning and go grab some coffee. And our kids were delighted because the donut truck happened to be next to the coffee truck. So just happened to be there. Of course, so a good day for everybody.
But today, we just want to talk to you a little bit about active faith. You know, faith is a substance. And it’s the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen, you know, there’s a big difference between hope and faith, a lot of people live in a place of hope instead of faith, but the promises of God, or to the faith of God. And one of the big keys to faith is that it’s always active. Faith is always moving, it’s always at work, you know, and James to even talks about faith without works is dead. So we just really want to encourage you in this season, you know, God is speaking to you, we have no doubt God is is loving you, he’s speaking to you, he wants to spend more time with you. Even it feels like you’re already spending a lot of time we highly encourage more time God’s a God of relationship. But in the midst of that he’s probably beginning to give you revelation and promise and prophetic vision for the future. And it’s so critical when he does that you begin putting action to that as a step of faith. So John, do you have a good example of how God maybe has has called you to do something in faith and you put action to it?
Let me see. You know, I tell you, my faith roots go back a long way. The very first Bible study that I ever did was on faith. And it was at home Bible study a long, long time ago. And basically, I looked up every scripture on faith I could find, and I basically just got to have the concordance and had 100 scriptures, and pretty much just read all those scriptures on faith. And so faith is a huge foundation for my life. And I think it’s always important that we’re believing for something, you know, and we step out in faith, we find ways we can step out. Now, as far as the testimony, I can’t think of any events coming to mind. Right? I didn’t know she’s put me on the spot like that. But I do remember God’s faithfulness, there was a time when we are in Florida for about seven to eight months. And all of a sudden, God told us that we’re going to move to Oklahoma City, I received a dream and God said, you’re going to move to Oklahoma City. And we’re like, how are we going to do that we don’t have the money. We don’t have the provision. We don’t have any of that. And then suddenly, about within a few days, Randy comes up to me, she says, I don’t know what it is. But it just looks like all the sudden we had $10,000 in our account. And I thought for sure we haven’t paid the IRS or you know, we miss something somewhere. But sure enough, I mean, we had paid all our bills, all this kind of stuff. And this money just simply appeared in our bank account. I was totally cool. But it was what we needed to get Oklahoma City because we just didn’t have the money to do it. But God had spoken, you’re gonna go to Oklahoma City, it’s like, fine, we just need to provision to do that. So you know, God is faithful. And that’s a testimony of his faithfulness. And we just believe and yeah, we put action to it any practical ways we can put action to things we tried to do that, you know, if God speaks to you, then you know, hey, he gives you a promise, then put some feet to it and do something that connects with that and activates what God has given to you as a promise.
Yeah. And so even that testimony, John sharing, you know, we were being active in connecting with people that already lived here to talk to them about housing, and making preparations for how to move and things like that, even though we didn’t see where the provision was going to come from at the time. And that’s a great testimony and example of putting action to faith. You know, right now, maybe God has been speaking to you about getting a book publish. Well, if you’ve never written a book, a great way of putting some action to that would be make an outline for a book, pray into the topic of the book, start writing the book, you know, all of those things are still action that you have to marry with your faith. You know, people will often say, you know, how do you explain faith? And honestly, the greatest explanation of faith is actually the demonstration of it. It’s Say yes, you know, when you get into Hebrews 11 and 12, it’s all about the saints and the patriarchs of faith. And really, you see over and over and over, they’re putting action to what God has promised that they’re putting action. And so that’s really what we just want to encourage you during this time is to really be active in your faith. Now, that doesn’t mean be foolish.
So we’re very active in our faith that our family is not going to get sick with a Coronavirus. We have not really any concerns about that we’re not saying it’s a scam, or that it’s not made up or not real, we’re not seeing any of that, because we’re just saying, we believe that we each go abide under the shadow of the Almighty. And so we’re not concerned about our family. And so some people would say, well, in faith, then go and, you know, go shopping every day. But that’s just not honoring the leaders that God has put over us. And so we’re trying to be active in our faith in other ways, by praying for people that are maybe feeling discouraged by it, or fearful of it, you know, we’re not necessarily we went to the coffee truck this morning, and we weren’t afraid to have someone else maybe touch our drink, where I know some people are. And so anyway, we’re sharing all of that to say, we’re not talking about going out and being foolish with our faith. But it is important that you put action to it, you know, and faith is not the acceptance of truth. It’s, it’s a substance that’s in you, that’s moving and mobile. And so anyway, we just want to spend a couple of minutes talking about faith tonight, and really doing something with what God has given you.
And sometimes God just puts a desire in your heart. And in that is part of who you are, you know, he’s put this burning desire for you to do something, well put some feet to that. Take some practical steps to see that happened. I can’t remember God actually speaking to me, John, I want you to do soaking music. I don’t remember that there was not a moment where God said you are supposed to create music, you are supposed to do all these different things. And I never thought that, but I wanted to do it, I had a desire to do it. And because I had a desire to do it, I stepped out in faith. And I began to use a 486 Pentium processor computer to create music. And if you guys know what that is, it’s an antique to the max. It’s a classic computer. I made that thing it burped and did all kinds of stuff. To make that thing happen to do the first CD that I ever did, I used what I had. And so you just take what you have at the time. And God honors that. And he’s faithful with it. And since then, I’ve done so many albums, you know, so just be faithful with God with what God has put in your hands.
Yeah, and if you’re not even sure where to start with a promise, or with vision God has given you everything gets birthed in prayer, you know, the reality is that you can come up with the best plans, you can get the best marketing, you can, you know, go to every business school, you can go check out, you know, the who’s who guide of how to do whatever. But in reality, if you don’t have it birthed in prayer, it will never really be fruitful and manifest anything. So if you’re not really sure where to start, that’s really the best place to start is just spend time praying, spend time really seeking God on it, getting clear direction on it. But then as he’s giving you insight, and as he’s giving you direction, begin taking steps with that. Absolutely. So we want to just pray that God would begin to stir your faith tonight, and that you would begin to have enough boldness and courage to put some action to it.
You know, and God can do something in the midst of the worst circumstances and you might be looking around. So this is not the time for that. Oh, yeah, actually it is it’s the perfect time for it. The time that we think it’s not the best time is usually the time that God wants to do it the most. And so don’t even think for a minute that God doesn’t want to do something right now. He wants to do something in you. And he’s always creative. He’s always giving creative ideas. He’s always pouring out His Spirit and pouring in light and Revelation, and leading us and guiding us as we’re faithful to him, hey, the Lord orders our steps.
You know, plan in your heart, the thing that God has put in you to do, make a plan for it and he will order those steps for sure. So we shouldn’t pray for you tonight. Lord, we just thank you for every person watching Lord, we thank you for stirring faith within them. God faith that’s moving and active Lord, that we are not a people that hear Your word and do nothing but we are doers of the word Lord. And so we thank you tonight, Father for just downloads from heaven and blueprints from heaven on how to put action to faith. God how we can begin to take steps like we maybe have never expected got an even things that seems so beyond what is possible in the natural order that you would be in to bring it down to where we are today. We got those vision sends those dreams, those desires of the heart, Lord, that You would be into birth those and prayer and each and every one of us, Lord and bathe them in prayer. And then Lord, you would give us those next steps to bring it to fruition.
Thank you, Father, that this is a new month, it’s April 1, and I just thank You, Father, for the blessing of the Lord this month. I thank you for breakthrough for every person in the name of Jesus, I thank you for prosperity, I thank you for abundance more than enough. All their needs met. And above that, Lord Jesus, we just thank You that You do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can ask you thank Father and we just thank You for Your blessing upon our heads. Yes, the blessing of the Lord is upon the head of the righteous and the blessing of the Lord makes one rich and as no sorrow to we thank you for the fullness of your abundant life in us today. Lord, we thank you for that in Jesus name.