Fear of change.  Fear of adventure.  Fear of the future.  Fear of the stock market.  Fear of the government.  Fear of terrorists.  Fear of self-sacrifice.  Fear of being afraid.  The list goes on and on.

The problem is that fear will rob us of our destiny in the unfolding of the Kingdom.  Consider the story of the scouts sent into the land of Caanan in Numbers chapter 13.  Ten of them came back paralyzed by fear, and would have forfeited their inheritance as a result.   Only Caleb and Joshua recommended that they take possession of the Land:

Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”  And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Numbers 13:30-33)

And so it is with us.  The church, instead of taking possession of the Land, has made itself content to sit on the hillside and gaze at the giants ravaging their inheritance.  Not all of us, mind you.  But enough of us have decided to forfeit our inheritance that we find ourselves almost without a place to call our own.

What’s the answer?  Perfect love, of course.

You see, a man without fear can impart courage to another person, but courage is simply the ability to operate in fear without losing your composure.   What we need is the complete removal of fear from among us.  The only answer is a renewed revelation of Jesus as the love-sick bridegroom God who lives and breathes to empower us to do exploits.

The world should seem a little less scary when we realize that the creator of the universe resides inside of us, and that His agenda is one of eternal benevolence on our behalf.

Dictionary.com defines the word “militant” as follows:  vigorously active and aggressive, esp. in support of a cause.

The bible says in Matthew chapter 11:12 that, “And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.”  The idea is that there are certain portions of the fullness of God’s Kingdom that can only be possessed by those who are willing to take radical measures in seeking God.

This is not the type of militant faith where we blow ourselves up because the world doesn’t do what we want them to do.  In fact, God has already shown us in his word that the world will grow progressively more preverse and evil until the coming of the Lord, so we might as well get over it already.  This is the type of militant faith where we do whatever is necessary to possess the promise of the Lord in our lives.

It might mean fasting and praying all night.

It might mean spending days or weeks in the secret place with Jesus.

Is there anybody out there who values the anointing and the presence of God more than friends, food, and fellowship?  Not that there’s anything wrong with friends, food, or fellowship, but if they prevent you from passionately persuing God, then they are idolatrous.  What if I told you that there was a HUGE pile of gold waiting for anybody who would fast and pray for two weeks.  I bet many more of us would be fasting and praying.  Jesus is the treasure, folks.  His power is the currency that will buy change in our nation.

We’re going to start by examining what is arguably the most important tool in your tool bag as a Christian: faith. What is faith?

Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

Faith is believing that Jesus is the son of God, that he died for your sins, that he was resurrected and taken to heaven by God, despite the fact that you’ve never seen him and all of this happened two thousand years ago.

Faith is knowing that God will do what the bible says that he will do.

Why do we need to have faith?

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

By reading that scripture we can see that our faith allows us to have access to God’s grace, which is the power from God that allows us to be saved from our sins through Jesus. It is a free gift, and you could never do anything to earn it. However, because you believe in Jesus, God has chosen to give you salvation as a gift. No faith, no grace. No grace, no salvation. Faith, as you can see, is very important.

Faith can also produce miracles. Take, for instance, the following story from the Gospel of Matthew:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.” Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”

The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour. (Matthew 8:5-13)

From this story you can see that the faith of the Centurion caused Jesus to heal his servant. The Centurion simply believed that his servant could be healed, and that Jesus was the right person for the job. This kind of faith can turn the world upside down.

How do you get faith?

The bible tells us in Romans 10:17 that “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” There are other ways to develop faith that the bible talks about, but one sure way to develop your faith is to begin to spend time in the bible and learn the message of God. I’m leaving a list of scriptures at the bottom of this post, and you can begin there. Check out these scriptures regarding faith:

Luke 8:22-25

Matthew 17:19-20

2 Corinthians 5:7

Ephesians 3:12

Check out the other Basic Training Articles:

Basic Training: Grace

Basic Training: Justification

Basic Training: Sanctification