Is your faith real or are you pretending? Discover the answer using these 5 ways to examine your faith. You can start living by real faith today!
Whatever you need today, faith is the answer. There is nothing God hasn’t provided or won’t provide for you in this life, and faith is the key that unlocks the door. That’s why it is so important to your spiritual life. Faith pleases God (Hebrews 11:16). It’s how you received salvation. It’s power that brings signs, miracles, wonders and manifestations of His promises. The Lord is looking for people with faith to show Himself strong to (2 Chronicles 16:9, NKJV).
Faith will change your life.
If you need a manifestation of God’s power in your life today, but haven’t seen it yet, faith is the answer. Mark 11:22 says, “Have faith in God.” You might say, “I don’t feel like I have faith.” The faith we have didn’t originate with us. God gave us a measure of His own faith (Romans 12:3). That means you have a measure of what created the universe in you. When you look at the night sky, the sun shining, the birds in the air, you have to remind yourself, “I have a measure of the faith that made those things inside of me.”
You just have to learn how to use it.
“Faith is not a movement. Faith is not a group. Faith is not a doctrine. Faith is how God Himself functions and it’s how He told us to function and live.”
Keith Moore
At the 2018 Southwest Believers’ Convention, Keith Moore called believers to a higher level, challenging us to discover the truth behind one pressing question—how do you know if your faith is real or if you’re pretending?
2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves” (NKJV). Does that mean faith isn’t always what it appears to be? Apparently so, because in 2 Timothy 1:5, Paul tells Timothy that he recognises his “unfeigned faith.” To feign means to fake, and Paul is saying here that he knows Timothy’s faith is unfeigned, or genuine, rather than fake. That is why we are called to examine ourselves—to take an honest look at the state of our faith, so we can make adjustments and get on to victory!
Is your faith real? Here are 5 ways to examine your faith.
1. Do You Overuse This Phrase?
We, in the Word of Faith circle, understand the power of our words. We know we will have what we say (Mark 11:23), so we are careful to speak only right words and refrain from speaking words against the desired outcome. In doing so, we have come to a place where many times we are misusing and overusing the phrase, “I’m believing.”
We say, “I’m believing God for this. I’m believing God for that.” But oftentimes, what we’re really doing is substituting the word believing for wishing or wanting. You see, just because you need or want something, doesn’t mean you’re believing. Or as Keith Moore says, “Don’t assume that because you’re saying you’re believing, you really are believing.”
If you’re trying to convince yourself to have faith by saying this, it won’t work. Saying “I’m believing” is not how faith comes. Faith comes by hearing the Word of God—not hearing yourself say, “I believe.” That’s why it is important to fill up on the Word of God every day by reading it and listening to teachings. But there is a big difference between having heard and hearing.
Revelation comes from allowing and expecting the Word of God to be quickened to your spirit and change you on the inside.
So, when 2 Corinthians 13:5 says, “Examine yourselves,” we begin here. Next time you hear yourself say, “I’m believing,” pause a moment and examine yourself. Am I really believing? If not, wait. Wait for what? For faith to come. Keep renewing your mind and building your faith until you feel it and know it’s there—faith boiling over. Then, and only then, is the time to say, “I’m believing.”
That’s why Keith Moore says about your words,
“If you’ll be more selective, you’ll be more effective.”
Watch Keith Moore teach at the 2018 Southwest Believers’ Convention about how you can move from “pretend” faith to fully persuaded faith that gets results!
2. What Are You Standing On?
When you say, “I’m believing,” the next question to ask is: based on what?
Real faith has a real foundation. And that foundation is that you have heard from God about your situation either in His Word or by His speaking to your spirit. If you are standing on a scripture, it must be one that has been quickened to your spirit and within the context of all other scripture.
Keith Moore shares a story about a young student who was attending Rhema Bible College years ago when Brother Kenneth Hagin Sr. was frequently on campus. Brother Hagin drove a Bronco truck at the time, and this young man decided he wanted to believe for Kenneth Hagin’s Bronco. He decided to stand on Mark 11:23 that says you can have whatever you say, and Mark 9:23 (NKJV), “All things are possible to him who believes.”
The problem was that he was pulling scripture to stand on without considering the Bible as a whole. Second Timothy 1:5 tells us that we are to rightly divide the Word of God, which means to handle it correctly and consider every verse in context, and against the other verses in the Bible.
That’s why it is important to also consider 1 John 5:14 (NKJV), which says, “If we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.” Well, not everything is His will. Before you take a stand on the Word of God, be sure what you’re believing for is actually His will for you. (By the way, the young man didn’t get Kenneth Hagin’s Bronco. Kenneth Hagin continued to drive it for years!)
Faith that is built on a solid foundation comes when you have heard from God.
How do you hear from Him? The more time you spend in the Word of God, the quicker you will recognise His voice. Whatever you need to believe for today, there is a word in season for you, and if you’ll have ears to hear, the Holy Spirit will quicken it to you. Having heard from Him will build your faith and increase your expectancy. For example, you could say, “I’m believing Keith Moore is going to come mow my grass and babysit my kids.” But that is only possible if Keith Moore told you that. You can’t have faith that he’ll do that unless you heard him tell you he would.
The same is true with God.
Some situations are clear from the Word of God, but in many cases, you need to hear from Him before you take a faith stand and start believing Him to perform miracles. So many people end up disappointed because they made a decision to stand on a particular scripture without ever having heard from God. Then, when it didn’t come to pass, it weakened their faith, and they don’t understand why God didn’t move.
Spend time in the Word; spend time praying in the spirit. Expect to hear from God, and don’t take a faith stand until you do.
3. Are You Praying When You Should Be Saying?
Mark 11:23-24. You’ve heard it again and again, but has it become revelation to you? Faith doesn’t come from head knowledge. You could memorize every scripture in the Bible and still have no revelation. But if you read the Word of God as if it is life-changing, you’ll get revelation. Keith Moore defines revelation as “when the Spirit of God reaches inside you and turns on the light.” That is how you can get fresh meaning out of a verse you’ve read dozens of times before.
With that in mind, let’s look at Mark 11:23-24 with an expectant heart: “For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
Here is something very important to take note of—this scripture is not referring to prayer. It is an instruction directly from Jesus to us to speak to the mountain. He didn’t say, “Beg God to move the mountain.” He said you speak to the mountain.
In your situation, in your need, in your desire—examine yourself—are you praying when you should be saying?
There is tremendous power in saying. Jesus spoke to the wind, trees and even fevers. When Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever, Jesus came and rebuked it (Luke 4:38-40). He didn’t pray or ask the Father to make the fever leave. He spoke directly to the fever using the same authority He has given to us (Luke 10:19).
Your mountain can hear you. Use your faith, use your authority and start saying!
Don’t get used to sickness, lack or strife. Don’t accommodate it and allow it to stay. And don’t blame God and say, “Well, God, I’ve asked You to make this go away. Why won’t You help me?”
Prayer is powerful, and it has an important place in the life of a born-again Christian. So, how do you know when you should be saying instead of praying? When you pray the two prayers God can’t answer:
- Asking God to do something He’s already done.
- Asking Him to do what He told you to do.
In these two cases, He has said that you must speak, and you must believe. What must you believe? He said you must believe what you say (Mark 11:23). If you tell lies sometimes, you might have a hard time believing what you say because you know in your heart that sometimes you speak the truth and sometimes you don’t. Telling a lie, even only occasionally, undermines your ability to operate in faith because you have to believe what you say. You cannot waver.
Real faith will speak and believe what it speaks.
Watch as Keith Moore dives deeper into examining your faith to see if it really is genuine.
4. Do You Get Results?
“Real faith in a real God gets real results every time.” That is one of the indicators of real faith, according to Keith Moore. There is no such thing as a faith failure because faith works every time. Manifestations aren’t always instantaneous—there are times when patience needs to have its perfect work (James 1:4). But faith will always bring results because faith never fails.
Real faith doesn’t get frustrated. If you’re frustrated with your situation or frustrated with how long it is taking to see a manifestation—you’re not in faith. You believe you receive when you pray—not when it comes to pass.
Real faith is expecting—expecting God to work miracles, expecting to see manifestations of the Holy Spirit. How can you tell if you’re expecting? Excitement. If you have no excitement, you’re not in faith because you’re waiting for something to excite you.
He said, “You can ask for anything in my name and I will do it,” (John 14:13). So, examine your faith—Did you ask Him? Is it His will? Then be expecting. Faith is full of anticipation.
That’s the key to seeing miracles in your life—expectancy.
If you’re expecting, you will see results. God is always ready to do a miracle.
Find 3 Steps to a Miracle here.
Watch Keith Moore at the 2018 Southwest Believers’ Convention as he teaches you how to examine your faith and believe for miracles!
5. Are You Acting On Your Faith?
If you are operating in real, genuine faith—you will act on that faith. James 2:17 says, “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead” (NKJV). In other words, real faith has corresponding action—it does something.
What does acting on your faith look like?
Some people know they need to take action, so they go out and randomly do something and it doesn’t work. That’s because the action we take should be based on what God has told us to do. You cannot successfully operate faith principles apart from being led by the Spirit. That’s why Jesus said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7, NKJV). He will direct you when it comes to acting on your faith.
In John 2, on the occasion of the first miracle, we see this principle in action when they lacked wine at a wedding. Jesus’ mother asked Him to get involved in the situation and then told the servants,
“Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5). When they paid attention, He gave a specific instruction to “fill the jars with water” (verse 7).
With many of the miracles that occurred in the Bible, Jesus gave specific instructions that led to a manifestation. So, if you’re needing a miracle in your life, be willing to act on your faith, and “do whatever He tells you.”
When you use these 5 ways to examine your faith, you will be able to answer the question: Is your faith real? Keep this question in your mind, and meditate on it in your heart. Begin to call yourself to a higher level—be willing to be real with yourself and make adjustments where needed. Then, put your real faith to work and get the results you’ve always wanted!
