As I was praying over this the Lord stopped me in my tracks and showed me again that faith is not given to us for its own sake.
In other words we are not just to wear faith like a badge and go round like a sheriff declaring “I have faith” “ I have faith” It struck me that many, even word people, are going around with that attitude and it won’t wash with God.

Faith was given to us as a kingdom tool to use. It is intend to bring breakthrough against the circumstances of life. We must use it or it will be ineffective in our life.

In my message I used the passage in Luke 17:5-10 to show Jesus sees faith like a seed placed in us which we are then to use like a servant. God’s nature is to sow a seed and watch it come to harvest. When a seed is sown in the right conditions it contains everything within itself to become the plant it represents and grow to the maximum of its potential.

I believe that the reborn human spirit provides exactly the right condition to sow faith into. The same is true for righteousness, love, joy, peace, etc. It is true for eternal life. In the same moment of the new birth everything is given to us to thrive in the kingdom.

The problem is we don’t do what Jesus said for our faith to grow and so do not get on to build the kingdom and courageously go out and make a difference in others lives.

Jesus shows us two things about a servant. First he has to follow orders until he is finished and second he needs to eat.
We grow our faith in the same way Our faith needs exercise and food.
It gets food by study IN the Word of God.
It gets exercise when we begin to declare OUT the Word of God to see a change take place.

It is time to operate in kingdom faith and set our faith to work

Consider this:

A farmer or anyone carrying seed to sow knows he needs soil. So he finds a plot of ground and prepares it. He gets rid of the stones and turns it over.
At that point all he can see is the ground.
It is the same with us over facing circumstances of life.
Maybe right now all you can see is debt.
All you can see is sickness.
All you can see is a poor job or no job.
All you can see is a barrier stopping you making progress.

Then the man sows the seed and from that moment on he looks at that piece of ground differently. He trusts in what he has sown and so now he sees the harvest and what he will make from that crop. He may even make future plans based on what he knows he will receive-i.e. he acts like harvest is there before it comes.

We need to do exactly the same with our problem ground. We must sow faith into it and then refuse to see it the same again.
It may not look any different for a while, but don’t go digging up what you have planted to check. Trust in faith to do its job
That is exactly what the master in Luke 17 did.
He set the servant to work and trusted it was done.

He set the servant to work by speaking out of his mouth. First to do the work in the field and then to prepare the meal.
We use our faith in exactly the same way. Effectively declaring over it what the Word of God says aligning our declaration with the end result we want. Then we dont let go until it is finished and becomes reality.
God placed faith in us for a purpose. In Luke 13:19 Jesus uses the same seed principle to describe the kingdom. The only thing that caused that seed to grow to its full potential was because it was sown in the soil. In the same way the kingdom will only grow when we get serious about using our faith and every other kingdom tool we have at our disposal so ultimately we come to victory and see the world won for Christ.