Welcome to the Quality Christian Living podcast.
Once again I am your host David Friend. We're
continuing our series on the Holy Spirit and
today's topic is Holy Spirit gift of great faith.
So we're gonna really get into this and I believe
the Lord's got something special for us today.
How do we receive the gift of great faith and
which scriptures will help us to best understand
how to have great faith or even just faith? Does
the Holy Spirit decide who receives a gift of
faith? And from this I believe we will better
understand the difference between feelings and
faith. A very important topic, so let's get into
it. But first, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank
you once again for your love, your goodness,
your kindness, your faithfulness, your mercy.
I thank you for my salvation. I pray you would
bless those who are listening in today. I invite
the Holy Spirit to come in and take complete
control. I yield everything I've done to you.
Holy Spirit, guide us and direct us. Teach us
what you would have us to. get into and what
we should avoid. Thank you for that now. I pray
you would bless it and I pray that all those
who are listening in would receive exactly what
they're looking for. Father, I thank you again
for your touch, your hand upon us, and I thank
you for this Holy Spirit series that's being
received so well. I give you praise for it and
thank you for it now and give you all the glory
for what's about to take place in Jesus name
I pray, Amen. Well, we're going to get right
into this today because we've got a lot to cover
and I try my best to stay below the 30 minute
maximum. That seems to be the amount of time
that people show the most interest and you can
keep their attention. So I hope that you'll be
blessed by this. To get started on today's podcast,
we must read a scripture. I believe that will
help us build a foundation for great faith. and
it's found in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse
11 in the New Living Translation. It is the one
and only Holy Spirit, the word says, who distributes
all these gifts. He alone decides which gift
each person should have. Now, there's something
that I could have read before that, but I chose
not to because I felt that I wanted to make that
statement jump out because it's the Holy Spirit
who decides. He distributes the gifts, all the
gifts, including the gift of great faith. So
this particular scripture is referring to the
gifts of the Spirit that we read about in 1 Corinthians
chapter 12, verses 7 through 10, and it includes
all these things. I won't read all those verses,
but basically, Basically it includes the gifts
of advice or wisdom and knowledge and gift of
great faith, gift of healing and performing of
miracles and prophecy and discerning of the spirits
and tongues and interpretation of tongues and
all of these gifts we'll be talking about in
upcoming podcasts. But today's particular podcast
is going to deal with understanding great faith
and understanding that the Holy Spirit is the
one who decides who receives that and who does
not receive that. So let's get ready. to help
us with that. We're going to focus on the gift
of great faith because so many people Desire
faith they want greater faith. They want more
more powerful faith. They want to have consistent
faith. They want to have faith. That's unshakable
They won't have faith that's just filled with
power and I believe that that's available to
us But we've got to understand exactly how the
Holy Spirit operates and how we can receive this
this gift of greater faith We all receive a certain
amount of faith when we receive Jesus Christ
as our Lord and Savior It comes upon us because
of faith and then we're given a measure of faith
So we'll get into that maybe a little bit in
this podcast but definitely in podcasts to come.
Matter of fact I did a podcast here a few weeks
ago entitled dealing with unshakable faith. That's
kind of faith that we all want to have faith
that doesn't waver in the midst of trials and
challenges and difficult you know things that
we're facing in our lives so we want to understand
all of that but today let's focus on great faith.
Now it doesn't the scriptures say just faith.
You know the Apostle Paul was talking about great
faith. The Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Paul
to refer to great faith not just faith. I believe
this passage promises us that we have faith.
It's up to us to believe for faith and that faith
carries us through any challenge that we will
ever face in our life. Faith to Christ. for physical
or mental healings I know I've been fighting
a lot of battles over the years with physical
health issues and had to have my faith increase
and had to have the strength of the Lord to carry
me through these things and praise the Lord he's
healed me in every situation that I received
three different times in my life where my health
was so bad that it was probably going to take
my life but praise to our living God he delivered
me from all those illnesses I give him all glory
and praise now the Holy Spirit is the one who
gives the gift of great faith he's the only one
that's what the scripture told us in first Corinthians
chapter 12 verse 11 we read it quickly again
it is the one and only spirit who distributes
all these gifts he alone decides which gift each
person should have so we have to go to the Holy
Spirit for this so we must ask him for great
faith. Now I believe there's nothing wrong with
asking the Holy Spirit for great faith. We go
to the Father. The Bible tells us Jesus taught
us how to pray. We go to the Father in the name
of Jesus. So we can go to the Father and say,
Heavenly Father, I pray in the name of Jesus
that I would receive greater faith. And I ask
the Holy Spirit to give me greater faith, more
powerful faith, more consistent faith, faith
that takes me beyond my ability, the realm of
my understanding, takes me to a new level of
faith and trust and confidence and belief that
God's Word will bring me through and that I will
receive this faith to be able to pray for a great
miracle and we can do that and pray for that
and I would encourage you to do that. Now the
gift of faith comes to us as we hear and believe
and accept God's Word because that's where the
beginning of faith is. Faith comes from hearing
and hearing the Word of God and we've got to
understand that we've got to hear and got to
believe. Hearing is one thing actually hearing
it but we've got to hear it to believe it. You
know when the pastor preaches a sermon we hear
it but do we really Do we hear it? I mean, do
we really receive it? Do we take it in? Do we
allow it to become part of us, to become part
of our thought process, our minds, our heart,
what we think about, how we think, and how we
act? That's what faith is all about. Faith is
there, and everyone knows it's there. We all
have faith. I mean, just as simple as me sitting
in this chair. I have faith this chair is going
to hold me up, right? I also have faith that
this microphone is going to record this, and
I have faith that this recording will go out,
and I have faith to believe that people will
listen to it, people be touched that the Holy
Spirit will help them and bless them and touch
them and that people receive Jesus Christ as
Lord and Savior that they'll listen to these
podcasts and they'll commit their lives to the
Lord and have a close walk with God or they'll
stay with me to learn various topics we're talking
about that they all require a certain amount
of faith but in order to have a deeper faith
a greater faith we've got to rely totally upon
the Word of God we got to believe it to hear
it and accept it we must read God's Word we must
know God intimately, we must ask for faith. It's
only then that the Holy Spirit decides who receives
great faith. Now, if I was in a classroom right
now, and I used to teach community college, junior
college level for a number of years, and when
I did that, I would ask for a show of hands for
people, you know, did they understand what I
was talking about? Or when I was preaching, I
would ask people, as a pastor, I would ask people,
how many people understand what I said or agree
with what I said or believe what I'm saying?
Raise your hand, just let me see that hand. And
when you do that, I'm asking for confirmation.
On a podcast, I don't get that. I don't have
any way of knowing or hearing, so I have to have
faith and trust in God to believe that he is
going to use this podcast to reach out to people.
And I thank God for it because now in nearly
just under four years of doing this podcast,
we've been blessed to see it go throughout many
countries around the world, and I just thank
God for that. He is the one who's received all
glory and honor for that. Now the gift of great
faith is supernatural and comes only from the
Holy Spirit. The gift of faith is our source
of hope. and the gift of greater faith is our
source of hope and strength. The gift of great
faith is proof of God's power through the Holy
Spirit that can influence the world. I believe
that. I truly believe that. When you walk around
with faith, strong faith, great faith, people
look at you and they say, I don't know how they've
got that or how they receive that or I want to
receive what they've got. And it's not that you
have anything to boast in, but it's just simply
that it's something that will draw people to
us. If we confess that we believe in Jesus Christ
and someone hears that, they're going to want
to know why. It's because of our faith in Jesus
Christ and receiving Him as our Lord and Savior
and our faith to believe we're going to spend
eternity in heaven with Him that draws people
to us. So having a gift of faith and having that
faith operating in our lives, it impacts others.
It influences other people's lives. Now a scripture
that helps us to have great faith is one that
is just so powerful. But before I read it, I
want you to think about this. Only the Holy Spirit
can reveal what this scripture is saying to us
and what it means. Have you ever done that? Go
to read a scripture and you start to read it
and then stop. Say, Holy Spirit. Can you explain
this to me? Can you reveal to me what this is
speaking to me, what it's saying to me? I think
that's what we should do when we approach reading
the Word of God. So when I give you a scripture,
and I give you something I believe that's going
to be helpful and powerful, I need to stop and
say, Holy Spirit, is this the one that I should
use? And then I need to ask you, listening in,
to ask the Holy Spirit to help you receive what
the scripture's saying. Because remember, all
scriptures are inspired, they were inspired by
the Holy Spirit. Some people say, well, Paul
wrote this and Paul wrote that. John wrote this
and Peter wrote that and all that, and that's
all good and well, but it was the Holy Spirit
who really wrote it. It was the Holy Spirit who
gave them what went into the Word of God. And
so, Holy Spirit -inspired scriptures can come
to us, and then the Holy Spirit can inspire us
to receive His Word spoken through someone else
to meet a need that we have. and those words
were spoken, some of them, thousands of years
ago. And in the case of Jesus Christ and the
Apostles, just over 2 ,000 years ago, these words
were spoken and they're powerful and they're
lasting and they never let up. All right, now
I'm ready to read the scripture. It's a pretty
basic one, Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 1. Now
faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the
conviction of things not seen. Now, if you're
a non -believer, then that's confusing, because
how in the world can faith, which is something
you can't see, assures us of anything, things
that we hope for, and that is the conviction
of things that we can't see. But when you're
a follower of Jesus Christ, faith... You can't
explain your faith in Jesus necessarily. It's
hard to explain it to people. But when you have
something that's in your heart, in your mind,
and it's all that you are, it's who you are,
it's how you think, and how you act, and how
you react, it's only brought upon because of
our faith and our trust in God's Word, and our
faith and our trust in the Holy Spirit, and our
faith and our trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord
and Savior, that He's going to take us through
everything in life, and we've got to rely upon
that. So faith then becomes unassured. God's
word is assurance. The New King James Version
also has a little different way of translating
Hebrews chapter 11 to 1. It says, now faith is
the substance of things hoped for. And then the
evidence of things not seen. Now, I did a series
of podcasts here back, I'm not sure, probably
a year or so ago, I'll tell you how to pull those
up later on in the podcast, but I did a series
of podcasts dealing with faith and hope. Matter
of fact, it inspired me so much I wrote a book
on it entitled, Faith for Miracles. I wrote another
book entitled, another faith book entitled, How
to Receive Everything from What we call nothing
and that's basically believing for something
that we can't see that it really is and it's
going to happen it's called calling forth those
things that are not as though that they are well
this is all faith and it's all inspired by the
Holy Spirit because without the Holy Spirit we
wouldn't have we wouldn't be saved we wouldn't
have the power of faith in our life we wouldn't
have any opportunity to receive great faith in
the Holy Spirit a comment I probably should say
right now that I hadn't plan to say this, but
I believe the Holy Spirit wants me to share this,
is that great faith can come and go in our life.
We can have really great faith at one moment,
the Holy Spirit's operating in that, giving us
that, and then we lose, we pull back and we don't
have the trust and the faith or the confidence
because we're going through something, and maybe
we'll have a little lesser faith than what we
had before. So remember, the gift of great faith
comes from the Holy Spirit, but that doesn't
mean that the faith that we have isn't vital,
isn't important, and if it's not great faith,
it's still faith, and it's still good. Now, what
does it mean when we say the Holy Spirit decides
who receives the gift of great faith? Now, some
people might say, well, that's not fair. He's
favoritism. Well, it's not favoritism. The Holy
Spirit is drawn to people who are drawn to Him.
And if you want great faith, then we need to
rely upon the Holy Spirit's direction and guidance.
I believe we're more likely to receive the gift
of great faith if we're seeking God, if we're
seeking a closer walk with God. a closer day
-to -day, minute -to -minute experience with
the Holy Spirit. Now, some people say, well,
you can't live minute -to -minute with the Holy
Spirit. I have to say, yes, you can. Yes, you
can. That doesn't mean you're perfect. That doesn't
mean that you're speaking about Him constantly
and not doing anything else. I mean, we have
to go to work and do our jobs. You know, we have
to do certain things with people and we're not
always involved in it. But we can have a day
-to -day, minute -to -minute experience with
the Holy Spirit because He lives and dwells inside
of us. And because He dwells in us, He's always
available. to us and we're always available to
hear from Him. And He's many, many times wanting
to speak to us when we're in the middle of other
things and getting distracted and losing our
focus on the things of the Lord or something
spiritual in our mind and heart that the Holy
Spirit will then try and help bring us back in.
Lately the Holy Spirit's told me, I really feel
He's led me to pray that every single day that
He convicts me that I need to have a closer walk
with Him, that He impresses me that I need to
have a closer walk with him and that I will feel
his presence more and more as I make decisions
as I talk to people as I'm driving across the
city whatever it might be that I'm doing I want
the Holy Spirit to guide and direct me and I
believe that's really what the Holy Spirit wants
in order to give us a stronger dose of faith
if you will so what does it mean when we say
that the Holy Spirit decides who receives the
gift of great faith well first we must understand
I believe that because the Holy Spirit decides
who gets this gift that we've got to put our
trust in Him to do what only He can do. Not everyone
will receive this gift of great faith. That's
what the Bible says. It's not for everyone. But
I believe there can be a humongous, a huge amount
of people who can receive great faith. Maybe
it's only for a moment. Maybe it's for a day.
It may be for a lifetime. But we must pray. That's
how the Holy Spirit decides who to give that
prayer to. I believe that. Who to give that gift
of great faith to. We must pray and ask for stronger
faith. Now everyone who becomes a Christian receives
the gift of the Holy Spirit and a measure of
faith. Now I'm not going to get into that right
now because that will take me off in a different
direction but everyone who's a follower of Jesus
Christ receives the gift of the Holy Spirit.
When you say Father I'm sorry for my sins I ask
you to forgive me and cleanse me from all unrighteousness
I promise to serve you all the days of my life
I confess you as my Lord and Savior I receive
you come into my heart give me life filled with
your guidance and direction and your joy and
peace for I receive you and I walk in you in
Jesus name I pray amen when we pray that And
we mean that, and it's real in our life. The
Holy Spirit comes to dwell inside of us. And
then we're given a measure of faith. It's a portion
of faith. To some, it's larger than other people.
And it's interesting we understand that because
there are various levels of faith that each and
every one of us has. So the gift of great faith,
or any faith, is a supernatural anointing to
trust God. Really, small faith, big faith, it's
still, there's a certain level of faith there.
And it's It's enduring trust. It's enduring trust
and evidence in God's promises. It's unwavering
faith. whether it be great faith or little faith.
Romans 10, 17 says this, faith comes from hearing
the message of Jesus. Now, I'm not sure what
translation that is, but what they're saying
is we get faith from hearing the message of Jesus,
so when we share Jesus with other people, they
can receive enough faith to receive Jesus Christ
as their Lord and Savior, and their walk with
God begins. It's interesting to note, I've preached
on this before, I've written articles on it,
I've commented about it in the books that I've
written on faith, and that is that Jesus calls
faith faith great, and he calls faith small.
You know, he looked at his disciples once and
he says, I've never seen such little faith. Oh,
ye of little faith, he says. He just was irritated
with them. And yet he saw a centurion who told
him, if you could just heal my servant, you don't
need to go to my house. You need to go there
at all. I believe I have faith to believe that
you can heal my servant. And Jesus said, I've
not seen such great faith in all of Israel. He
referred to this man. who was a centurion in
the army, if you will, and this man stood up
and had great faith to know that Jesus didn't
have to go and lay hands on his servant, that
Jesus could just speak the word. And so Jesus
said that your servant's healed. And so there's
levels of faith, and so don't beat yourself up
if you feel your faith is weak. But on the other
hand, if your faith is weak... then we've got
to analyze and find out why is it? Are we trusting
in God's Word? Are we praying daily? Are we seeking
God daily? Are we reading at least some of the
Word of God daily? And I'm not saying hours and
hours and hours of it, but a portion of our day.
I think one of the best things that we can do
to walk in the presence of the Holy Spirit and
have greater faith is to have a daily devotional
of some kind. It might be getting up and praying
over a list of people to pray for. It might be
reading a devotional that somebody's written.
I personally read one. every day I've done that
for many many years it just kind of gets me off
track gets me on track I should say in the in
the right direction and when I'm reading that
devotional it's kind of set me up for having
greater faith for that day and there's scriptures
in my devotional and I read some comments and
then I pray over people and it just kind of gets
me going how long does that take sometimes it
takes 20 minutes sometimes it takes an hour it
just depends on what it's what it's going to
be for that day but I feel like that helps me
to stay in line and helps me to walk in the Spirit.
I don't have all the answers, but I certainly
know the one who has them, and I'm going to read
his word and seek his word to get the answers
that I'm looking for. Now here's an area I promised
to cover when I introduced this podcast. What
is the difference between feelings and faith?
Feelings are emotional and can be easily impacted
due to our circumstances. It's very important
to understand that. Faith is a strong reliance
on God's Word and His promises. Faith is, as
we know, as we read about in the Word of God,
it's substance. It's an assurance. It's a conviction
of things hoped for. Feelings are things that
we're thinking about or that we'd like to see
happen, but we don't have a plan of attack. We
don't really have the Holy Spirit helping us.
Feelings are things that typically our body is
trying to handle. I feel good one day. I feel
bad the next day. But having Hope and trust and
confidence in God to have greater faith will
carry us through every day. Faith will keep us
above the circumstances we're going through.
Now I've used this comment before but I got to
use it again and that is look at the Apostle
Paul. Some of the greatest things that he wrote
was in the middle of his greatest trials in prison.
When he wrote the epistles and wrote Philippians
and Galatians and Ephesians, when he wrote these
words, he was in prison for some of these and
he was facing horrendous trials. In prison, he
said, I learned to be anxious for nothing. but
everything through prayer, petitions, with thanksgiving
I made my request made known to God and the peace
of God that passes all understanding will guard
my heart and guard my mind in Christ Jesus. That
is great faith. That is great faith in the midst
of circumstances and I'm really praying and believing
that God is going to help all of you who are
listening in to have that kind of great faith
in the midst of any trial that you might have.
The Holy Spirit can help us to focus on our faith
and not rely on our feelings. Now I got to start
wrapping this up. There have been several key
events that have helped me to experience greater
faith. I believe the Holy Spirit gave me a gift
of great faith on several situations, many, many
times over the years, in many situations for
other people in my own life. My first experience
was when I was diagnosed with kidney failure.
I was only 25 years old, a brand new Christian,
and the doctor said, this is going to take your
life, and the Holy Spirit told me. pray, drink
a lot of water, but pray and pray and pray and
trust God and believe. And I was healed and I
was restored from that. And then later on in
life, I came down to making the decision to stay
in business, to go into full -time ministry.
And my wife and I needed a touch of greater faith
to be able to step out in faith, to close our
business down, stop our source of income and
go to work for the church for free. And God blessed
that and has prospered it. And now that we've
been operating in that church now for some 28
years, the senior pastors for almost 18 years
and then a total of 28 years being involved in
being a pastor in that church. A third time was
when I had cancer issues, and a fourth time I
had cancer issues. I was told that my life would
only have six months to go, diagnosed with multiple
myeloma bone marrow cancer, an incurable disease.
They say to this day it's incurable, but God
touched me, and I believe by God's grace and
His mercy, I've been healed in Jesus' name. So
these are things that happened in my life. I
just want you to understand that. I don't go
around saying, well, nothing bad ever happened.
to me. No, I struggle with things. The Bible
tells us that rain falls on the just and the
unjust alike. So I'm going to have to wrap this
up. My time is running out. We'll continue speaking
in this vein in this direction as we continue
on. Our next podcast is called, I believe it's
going to be, The Holy Spirit Teaches Us Faith.
But in closing, I want to pray for you. So let's
do that right now. Heavenly Father, for those
who are listening in, I know many of them have
come and listened to this because they want greater
faith, and that's wonderful, that's honorable,
it's just awesome. And I just pray now, Lord,
that these things we've taught about being led
by the Spirit of God will help them to have the
greater faith they need, to be faithful to the
Word of God and faithful to prayer and seeking
the Holy Spirit daily and asking for His guidance
and direction literally to take care of us and
lead us every moment of our life. So I pray you
would bless them and that you would... Bless
them with greater faith and understanding of
that faith that will believe for it. anything
because with great faith nothing is impossible.
The Word of God tells us that, that faith comes
to carry us through the challenges that we face
in each and every day. So Father bless them Father,
may your face be upon them and shine upon them
Father. And I pray Lord that people would start
even right now to start let these scriptures
sink into them and receive the fullness of your
blessings that faith comes from hearing the message
of Jesus and that faith is the assurance of things
hoped for in the Well, I hope this has been a
blessing. My goodness, this has gone fast. I
don't remember doing a podcast that flowed smoother
and quicker and went through it. I'm just so
thankful to the Lord for that and helping us.
So I pray that if you... have questions about
this that you continue listening to our podcast
series on the Holy Spirit and when you're talking
about the Holy Spirit you're going to be talking
a lot about having faith. If you'd like to know
more about the Quality Christian Living podcast
you can go to davidcfriendauthor .com and when
you go to there right on the front page there'll
be a link to the podcast we've done. This is
podcast number 325 so there's a obviously a lot
of them that we've done in nearly four years
and if you Scroll down on that list of podcasts,
then you'll see teachings on faith, teachings
on finances, teaching on what it means to experience
miracles in your life and how you can have faith
for miracles. I've talked about how to get out
of debt. I've got books there to help people
understand how to help veterans going through
challenges in their life, because I was obviously,
many of you have listened before and heard that
I was a veteran in the Vietnam War. And so bottom
line, there's a lot there that's available and
that you'll get to know more about quality Christian
living. to my podcast you can do that by going
to see PNShows .com or wherever you listen to
your podcasts. Well, I truly believe that this
has been blessed and led by the Holy Spirit and
I pray that you will tune in to our next podcast
coming up when we're going to talk about the
Holy Spirit teaches us faith. We're going to
get into trying to understand exactly where in
the Word of God does it show us that we're being
instructed how to have greater faith. Where does
the Holy Spirit show us exactly how people of
weak faith can have stronger faith and get into
examples of great faith that came out of people
who quite frankly had very little faith to start
with. So I believe it's going to be blessed to
the Lord and I hope that you'll let your family
and friends know that we're continuing on our
series on the Holy Spirit and we're going to
hang in there for a little bit and how faith
and the Holy Spirit work together. I want to
close this out with just a couple of questions
that people have sent in and asked to get information
on. So for example, what does it mean to be led
by the Holy Spirit? in our daily lives. Well,
let's just kind of look at that for a second.
You know, the bottom line is we've got to deny
our flesh and deny our thoughts and yield ourselves
to the Holy Spirit to take us through the things
that we are faced with each and every day. Here's
another question. How can someone recognize when
the Holy Spirit is speaking to them? Well, I
like to think about that, that when I have peace
in my life, I know that I'm not hearing from
the devil. I know that peace comes from our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit comes
to give us and peace. So to identify when I believe
the Holy Spirit is leading me and guiding me,
it's going to be something encouraging, something
positive, something that's lifting up. Good advice
for people, or it's correcting my own life, things
that I need to do differently, and that type
of thing. But to recognize the Holy Spirit basically
is that when you have peace... from what you're
hearing, then you know it's from the Holy Spirit.
Remember what Jesus said in John chapter 10 and
verse 10. He says that the devil, well, he called
him the thief, but he's referring to him obviously
as the devil. The thief comes to kill, to steal,
and to destroy. He says, but I've come to give
people life and give it to them more abundantly.
So I want to close this with a blessing. I just
want to thank you so much for listening in to
the Quality Christian Living podcast. Lord, I
pray that you would bless these folks that are
listening in and keep them and that your face
would shine upon them. I pray that you would
be gracious to them, Lord, that you would give
them peace. I pray, Lord, that they would Prosper
and be in good health even as their soul prospers
and for ask that in Jesus name So until next
time I pray that God will richly bless you I
pray that you will receive faith beyond your
wildest Imaginations and I pray that you would
continue to seek each and every day a greater
stronger relationship with the Holy Spirit Remember
Jesus sent him to be our counselor give us comfort
to be our backup He's got our back and the Holy
Spirit is there to help us. He's right there
inside of us If you know Jesus Christ as your
Lord and Savior, you can go directly to Him anytime.
If you don't know Him, then receive Him as Lord
and Savior. Ask for forgiveness of your sins
and receive Him this day. And I know that He'll
come into your heart and change your life. Thank
you once again for listening to Quality Christian
Living. I am your host David Friend. May God
richly bless you.