Month: July 2013

What does it mean to “walk by faith” and how does it differ from the statement to “live by faith”? Where does this concept come from anyway?

Most Christians will quote the Apostle Paul’s writings to the churches in Rome (Romans 1:17) and Galatia (Galatians 3:11) as the source for these words, though it is also included in the Letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 10:38, arguably also written by the Apostle Paul), but it is clear in each of these epistles that Paul is quoting from elsewhere. So, where did Paul get this? He got it from the prophet Habakkuk.

Interestingly, this statement in Habakkuk is actually a direct word from the Lord Who is speaking to Habakkuk when He contrasts the just (or righteous believer) with the proud. God says that the proud man’s “soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4 NKJV). Paul actually adds another aspect to this concept in his letter to the Corinthians when he writes, “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7 NKJV). It’s this additional aspect that I want to focus on now.

What does it mean to walk by faith, and how does it differ from living by faith? Furthermore, what does Paul’s phrasing “not by sight” mean? Actually, the word “walk” is intended as a metaphor for living, as in walking through our lives day by day until the end, so there really is no difference between the intent of the words “walk” and “live” in these two statements. As for the phrase “not by sight,” this means that we don’t allow visible circumstances to alter our faith’s invisible reality.

To walk or live by faith means multiple things, such as letting our faith in Christ direct our daily lives, which is what most believers understand this to mean, but there’s a deeper meaning here that too many Christian believers are ignorant of. This deeper meaning applies the definition of faith given in Hebrews 11:1 (“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”) to the practice of overcoming negative circumstances in our lives.

For instance, if God has given us a miraculous healing from a sickness in our bodies and then the symptoms return sometime thereafter, we are faced with a crisis of faith as to whether we have lost our healing. The believer who lives by faith will choose to focus on the fact of the miraculous healing rather than on the apparently new symptoms of the disease and refuse to accept that the disease has returned. This is one of Satan’s cleverest tactics for stealing one’s healing (or anything else God has given us, for that matter).

To live by faith in this context then is to look not at the natural circumstances in which we find ourselves (what we see with our physical eyes) but rather to look at the spiritual reality (what we can see with our spiritual eyes) that exists beyond the physical reality. The spiritual reality is that we were healed, despite what the apparent physical reality may be trying to convince us to believe. The actual reality will therefore become whichever we choose to accept, whether the spiritual reality of the healing God gave us or the seeming physical reality which Satan is foisting upon us to deceive and dissuade us from believing in and retaining the spiritual reality.

I realize this sounds confusing, but try to look at it this way. The physical symptoms which seem to have returned are a mirage. They appear to be real, and maybe they even feel real, but they are not real. After all, were you previously healed of the disease or not? There’s where you need to focus your faith! If you know the healing was real when you received it, then continue to focus your faith on its reality, rather than on the mirage that Satan is using to attempt to steal your healing. If you give in and accept that because the symptoms have returned the disease has returned, then Satan wins and you lose your healing. The symptoms will remain and, for all intents and purposes, the disease has returned.

However, if you reject the symptoms as the satanic attack that they are and refuse to believe that the disease has returned by continually reminding yourself of the fact of your healing, the symptoms will eventually go away and you will keep your healing. You might even rephrase the Apostle Peter’s words at the end of 1 Peter 2:24 to apply directly to yourself by saying something like this: “Get away from me, Satan! By Jesus’ stripes I HAVE BEEN HEALED, and you can’t take that away from me!” This very exercise proves the truth of the words in Hebrews 11:1 and 2 Corinthians 5:7.

This same principle of exercising faith works with anything else God has given us from the spiritual realm to the physical realm, too. Remember, Jesus said Satan’s MO is to “steal, kill, and destroy” (John 10:10), and Satan has been a liar and a murderer from the start (John 8:44), so don’t believe his lies, NO MATTER WHAT!