Imagine you're trying to achieve something, you have a great plan for your life and you are thinking of it, you imagine this thing and you go through all the work, the training, the prayers, and all the sacrifices involved for you to achieve this very thing and you believe you have all this faith, you say you have all the faith in the world and you believe in whatever faith you believe in and you just decide to go for it. You do all these things to cover the fact that we don't believe. So for us to talk about this, I want to be able to break it down for you. This is, young people please calm down, I am Michael Uzor and I'm very excited to be here and we're going to go through different ways to answer this topic.
The first one is historical, the second one is contemporary, the third way is biblical and the fourth way finally is my own personal example.
George Lucas, the filmmaker for Star Wars was a well-known man and he's still well known today. Before Star Wars, he actually came up with a movie called American Graffiti and in this movie it describes Modesto in California and a group of teenagers in this kind of early 60s world and this movie was made on a tight budget. George Lucas was actually living in a one-bedroom apartment at the time so this was pretty much his breakout movie and of course while putting together this movie, he will put all this effort into a movie not believing that it's going to become something and lo and behold it did become something. It became a box office hit and it was nominated for best movie at the Oscars and it was a cult classic even today. Now this was before he did Star Wars and I wanted to use him because although he's not of faith that I know of, he shows a great example of faith in the sense that although he did not have all the right equipment, all the money, all the marketing tools, he still went ahead and achieved what he envisioned and even more than that because it was a stepping stone to a greater height which was Star Wars.
Contemporary wise, we see a lot of examples of faith which is not faith where they tell you to have positive thinking with all these self-help books and all these motivational speaking. It can pump you up for a while but at the end of the day you know if it's not right here in the heart and I'm not talking about the physical heart but in your spirit, there's nothing that will produce results. We're in a time now where everything's about being at the right time and everything being perfect before we make or we do anything.
Even biblically we see there's examples of people who showed faith to the ultimate max and I say this because in Genesis chapter 12, Abraham is met by God but not physically. He hears a voice starting from verse 12 from Genesis chapter 12. It says,
"Now the Lord has said unto Abraham, get out of your country and from your kindred and from your father's house unto a land that I will show you and I'll make you a great nation and I'll bless you and make your name great and you shall be blessed or be a blessing and I'll bless them that bless you and curse him that curses you and in you shall all families of the earth be blessed. So Abraham departed as the Lord has spoken unto him and Lot went with him and Abraham was seventy-five years old when he departed out of Haran."
So here the Lord speaks to Abraham and Abraham is told to leave his father's land, his family, and his friends and to go to another land which is Canaan where he was going to bless him and curse anyone who cursed him. So Abraham just goes in Hebrews chapter 11. It says,
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."
In Genesis chapter 12, you see here that Abraham believed God without seeing him, and even before he spoke in Josephus when the Jewish people describe Abraham, this is according to his book, it says that Abraham would always look at the stars, the trees, everything that was created. Even though he lived in a pagan land where they served many gods, in his heart he believed that there was only one God. As you can see, when God spoke to Abraham, in this powerful display of God conversing with man, you see here that Abraham immediately left. He believed and then the substance through what the Lord said, that reference point of him speaking, telling him to leave and go to a better land, moved him to that hope which was to one day see or to experience or to know that substance come to pass. In Genesis chapter 26, Isaac is digging a well and he keeps on digging it, keeps on digging it and he finds. Eventually, the enemies that were stopping him from digging it, seized the movement, and they made peace with him. Now what kept Isaac digging? That was the promise that Abraham received from God. That was the substance of Isaac's faith. So what is faith then? Faith is a spirit and faith is the spirit of God. In my own life, I've seen faith in different examples but the main one is that when I was saved.
I remember saying to the Lord because of what he did that I am going to read the Bible every single day for the rest of my life. I said this because the Lord had done a great thing for me and he has saved me. I'll work on a separate article on this but he has saved me. I promised the Lord I was going to read every day and it was a covenant I made with him and it took me three years to finish this but in that space of time, even when I was asleep and I was really tired, it was past midnight or I was really, really tired or maybe I forgot, the Holy Spirit would tap me, you know, just spiritually and tell me to start to read and I would read the Bible and within three years, I finished reading the entire Bible, start to finish reading one chapter a day and the reason why I can say this is because the Lord had visited me, he encountered me but I believed him and him saving me was my point of reference, my substance because faith is a substance of things hoped for. I hoped that as I continued to read my Bible every day I would be able to continue my fellowship with him and continue to experience that amazing experience, that's all I can put it as, as that time he saved me so that was what I was hoping for and each time I read the Bible, I have that same fellowship, that same love, that same kindness, that same mercy, that same grace that the Lord Jesus gave to me for free.
And though it's the evidence of things not seen because at the time I had not seen Jesus but because it was evidence of things not seen that it became faith so faith is a spirit as it says in 2nd Corinthians Chapter 4 Verse 13 where it says:
"We have the same spirit of faith according as it is written I believe and therefore have I spoken we also believe and therefore speak."
This belief that Jesus has given me I want to also speak because I believe that Jesus is my Lord and Saviour and I want you guys to also belong to him you know he cares for you and he wants you to spend your life with him as it says in 1st Peter 5 verse 7: casting all your care upon him for he cares for you. I want you to be able to say with me this prayer the Lord's prayer to come to him to know Jesus and have true faith that has substance, not faith that is just based on positive thinking or based on motivation. It's not its faith that's based solely on what the word of God says: Lord Jesus, I come to you as a sinner and I humbly repent from my sins I believe that Jesus Christ is Lord I believe that he died and rose on the third day and I ask that Jesus come into my life and be there with me be my Lord and Saviour and dwell within me through his spirit and wash me with his precious blood I ask that Lord you do this for me so I can be part of your wonderful church the bride of Jesus Christ
As you said, you are now part of this lovely lovely family and you're part of the church not only that the angels are rejoicing
This is young people please calm down. We were talking about faith today. I am Michael Uzor. Thank you for watching the video. Like, comment, let me know what you think, and I'll see you on the next one
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