 Okay, good morning everyone. Good morning. Hope you're all doing well. Had a refreshing weekend Okay, that's great. All right, so we'll pray and then we'll continue to study about the subject called faith So who would like to lead in prayer today? Anyone? Okay, it's open Invitation is open for online as well as on campus students. Anybody would like to lead in prayer? Okay, just pass the mic to her. That's great. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this very Morning and for long you kept us well and today we are about to start the class We ask for your guidance and the teacher whole spirit teachers guide us things We are going to study help us to understand well and and take us to to the deep meaning of every and each scriptures Lord Help us guide us and later focus on study while we're studying and Whatever we study will remember it will buy at everything as we are teaching us and we always should believe on you This small prayer I'm asking Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Thank you. Nelson so So far we've understood what is faith we've understood How faith is applied especially in the life of Abraham we have seen how he has walked in faith and in the last class We saw some connected terms such as hope such as love how to apply All of these together that that's what we saw and then we also looked at the fact that Yeah, in a believer's life we need faith at every step so from the beginning I shared that there is something known as saving faith saving faith is the measure of faith that God gives us to To receive salvation obviously when we listen to the gospel we need some faith to believe is that is that right or wrong? We need some faith, right? So that faith is known as saving faith So the journey of faith itself begins by putting our trust in the Lord. All right And as we continue we said that we have to live by faith We have to you know, trust God for the fulfillment of his promises by faith gain victory by faith and Also, we said that faith is very essential to walk in the spirit so when it comes to Receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit, we need faith without that we can't receive it Okay, and also the manifestation of the gifts of the spirit So as long as we have faith the gift will flow, but if there is no faith then the flow will be hindered That's why when it comes to you know any manifestation whether it is speaking in tongues or prophesying or You know discerning in the spirit miracles healings faith is important We need to build ourselves up in faith very strong and when we are strong in the faith There will be a flow right of the manifestation of the gifts of the spirit and then we saw how Paul He said that When he finished his journey that he had completed the race by faith. I have fought the good fight of what? Good fight of What is the scripture? Faith okay, correct sister get to thank you for helping me with that So Paul said that his life was a journey where he fought a good fight of faith So in all things it's about keeping our faith Maintaining our faith growing in our faith and achieving the purposes of God by faith Okay, so that is what this life journey is all about and so for a believer If we think that at some point we started with faith and then you know, that's it then we will not be able to Glorify God Okay, because it's like we are we are high on faith at one point and then we come down and we're not really Journey with God consistently so that consistent walk of faith Is what God expects from each one of us? So today what we will see is we will see how we can develop this faith Okay, how we can Nurture our faith. So there is this subject chapter 9 which says We must Constantly nurture and develop our faith and in this way, we will equip ourselves to constantly walk in faith It's like if we were to bring in a plant, okay a little small plant Which is actually supposed to grow very big imagine with me Okay, maybe some some plant that you're bringing we let's say in India We are very familiar with the maybe a people tree or a banyan tree or something like that So you bring in such a plant put it in a pot a tiny tree But the destiny of that plant is what? Have anyone has you have you seen? People tree or banyan tree Are they huge? Yeah, so they end up becoming so huge Okay, similarly our faith can become very strong. It can become You know really great however when we start off in our faith journey, it's like You know the way Jesus described. He said mustard seed Okay mustard seed the journey begins with a very small portion or a small amount of faith But finally what what happens it becomes into a big tree Similarly when we think about faith in our hearts We must not think that okay My faith is so small and I'm just going to work with this faith. Maybe right now our faith is small maybe right now our faith is small for You know the manifestation of the gifts of the spirit Maybe right now our faith is small to step into our ministry Or our faith is small to believe God for the promises Maybe our faith is small and we're not able to do what God is calling us to do But that's not the end because that seed of faith What should actually happen? It should grow So when you think of a small plant which has a great destiny If we nurture it nurture simply means you take care. How do you take care? How do you take care? Yeah, you pour some water you put some manure you you trim it you you're Slowly doing everything which is required for the plant you keep it in a place where it will not die So what's happening? We are? Taking care taking care of that small plant and if you keep taking care then ultimately what'll happen? Ultimately become a huge tree But for that someone needed to nurture it in the beginning someone needed to develop it Right the same holds true for our skills Maybe you know we God has called us to be a worship leader Okay, I'm just saying and to lead worship in song We discover a grace on our lives. We're able to sing. Okay, but what has to happen after that? That's a seed God has given a seed now what to do Correct, so you have to nurture you have to develop even the skill the grace that God gives us It needs to be built up so very similar I just want us to understand that even faith can be nurtured and developed So all of us can walk in very very strong faith in God But it's not going to happen if you take the faith put it on the shelf right keep it in the cupboard lock it and Then you're expecting every day my faith has to be strong I have to be able to use my faith. How can it grow because we are not even nurturing it Okay, so that's not how faith can be developed There's something that needs to be done in order to develop the faith. So there are some You know some concepts some insights in our chapter today, which we will look at and We'll see that you know even in the lives of early believers So here there's a passage from the book of Thessalonians Thessalonians is what we are doing in church right now So hopefully you have a background about Thessalonians that this church was developed during the second missionary journey of Apostle Paul And he went to Thessalonica with a small team and he was there only for four weeks So in four weeks, whatever God led him to teach he taught in that church He helped the believers to grow in the Word of God. He strengthened them Okay, but even after a year we noticed that the church was very strong Because they grew in their faith. They developed themselves in the faith, right and they became strong So, you know Paul writes to them different things, but in 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 Verses 3 and 4 we can look at verse 3 maybe so is somebody able to read 2nd Thessalonians chapter 1 and verse 3. It's there in the notes. You can just look and read We are bound to thank God always for you Rather as it is fitting because your faith grows exceedingly. Okay, so What does he say? He, Paul talks about the Thessalonian believers. These believers have become strong in God They did not give up on God even when they had a Situation where they had to experience persecution Okay, but What is Something that he is explaining in this one line Anyone are you able to pick it up? Just look at that line again The last pole the second portion of that line and the love of every one of you all bonds toward each other Okay Go further read further so that we are cells Worst of you among the churches of God for your presence and faith in all your Persecutions and tribulations that you endure Fine. So see he's saying there are two things which the believers are doing which is their love abounds for each other meaning they're living in love for one another and then it says that Your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure second is they are enduring But before that, what does he say? About faith. What does he say before that? Yeah, correct. What does he say? grows exceedingly Okay, remember that faith grows exceedingly which means that Our faith can grow it's not that God gives us a measure of faith and You know It remains the same. It need not remain the same The faith that God gives us Okay That faith can actually grow that faith can actually Mature that faith can actually develop itself and that is what we want to note here He's telling the believers that these believers are so strong in God I told us for almost a year under severe persecution these believers were very strong in the Lord Okay But how is it that they kept this kind of strong faith? One is they had love for one another and then they maintain Patience and endurance which helped them to keep that faith And their faith had grown You got it their faith had grown So that is what we must expect in our faith journey throughout our lives We may have started with the level of faith, but hopefully now we should have another level of faith Right, hopefully when you all graduate you should have another level of faith when your ministry You must keep going higher in faith every year of your ministry should increase in the faith So our faith must grow exceedingly it can grow Exceedingly you and I need not remain in the same place with the same level of faith Right, we have to increase our faith or nurture and develop our faith So that is something very encouraging. Otherwise we we may Feel very bad about having oh, I my faith is so small, you know as compared to so and so I am not able to move You know in in these matters So like even for my my own life example, I can tell you Especially when it came to the practice of the gifts of the spirit, right the gifts of the spirit particularly prophecy It was a big struggle for me because like when we started out You know how people say things like oh, I can see this I can hear this God is saying this God is saying that and I would be like I can't hear anything. I can't see anything What are they talking about? Okay, but we'll also see how you can nurture it. How can I develop my faith that we'll see but When it came to my experience in the gift of prophecy, it was somewhat like that So it was always a struggle and I would wonder God. How am I going to develop my faith in? Prophecy, how am I going to be able to have that faith to move in the gift of prophecy, right? But eventually I'll share with all of us, you know some ways in which we can grow our faith, right? So eventually the faith started growing So maybe one quick thing I can tell you is in APC. We have these weekend schools You may have seen right like Saturday Saturdays earlier. It used to be Saturday Sunday, but now it's only Saturday. So I started attending the weekend schools not once not twice I don't know how many times I actually attended the weekend school because you remember. What did we learn about faith? How does faith come? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the what of God so if I want faith For the gift of prophecy. What should I hear about? About prophecy, right? So I need to spend time in that truth of God. That's when Faith will come and I'll be able to move. So eventually like as I started attending as I started Meditating on those scriptures slowly like little by little, you know, there was one picture here and one picture there I could see something I could sense something in the supernatural We keep asking you are you sensing something? Are you hearing something? It started happening little by little little by little even now it's very little but As long as we strengthen ourselves as long as I strengthen myself in that area So then I need to meditate more on those scriptures pertaining to hearing from God Then what will happen? Faith will increase and then the manifestation will come. So that is how we must nurture and develop our faith. Our faith can grow exceedingly Okay, can you say that my faith can grow? Faith can grow exceedingly Okay, repeat that my faith can grow exceedingly So we don't have to remain at the place where our faith is right now Our faith can grow it can develop it can mature itself now Let's come to this thought about how to nurture how to nurture our faith What what do we know about that? How to develop I told us if there's a small plant you have to pour water you have to take care protect it You know, maybe put manual. So what will we do regarding our faith? How to nurture the faith? You already know all the answers you just have to say it Okay, correct. God's word isn't it? I just said faith comes by Hearing and hearing by the word of God. So the word of God is The place from where you and I can obtain our faith So the more we engage in the word of God, okay The more we take time in the word of God Faith will grow now we can depend on many other things we can depend on You know, maybe just Sunday service, right? You just go to Sunday service and whatever the preacher teaches on Sunday. That's it. So someone said that If we don't read our Bible if you don't have our own personal study, it's like Just eat living on snacks anybody is it possible to eat snacks like little children? They only want snacks. Okay. What what does the mom say you won't grow up You won't become big and strong if you don't eat your food if you're just going to have your snacks So sometimes we just depend on maybe a Sunday sermon Maybe a sermon that we heard or you know one or two worship songs and we feel yeah Now my faith is going to become so strong All that's nice, but it's not like you know solid meals food, which you need for your own Growth and your strength. So when we take Time in the word of God you set aside time to read the Bible to study the word To constantly be in the word and one of the things that has happened here is all of you are now Enrolled in the Bible college and every day You are listening to the word like you are understanding the word you are believing the word So what will happen? That's where the growth and the development will come growth and development of all kinds particularly of our Spirit man the spirit man will begin to grow and become stronger because faith comes The faith is coming as you're listening to the word of God faith comes By hearing and hearing by the word of God. So over there in that scripture We'll talk more about you know how to apply this how to get faith from the word But in that particular scripture this word of God if you read that in Greek word of God That would be the term Reema Okay, Reema is the utterance or The spoken word of God the spoken word of God or something that you know, we are Hearing from God, so we could even look at this as let's say, you know when somebody is preaching a sermon They are preaching the sermon. It's one set of notes maybe But as we are listening to the sermon what happens to us we feel like God is speaking to me Yes, I know. Yeah, so because There it's like God's word his spoken word. It comes into our spirits something You know Particular that God is actually pointing out so it's like an inspired word it comes to us and We begin to act on that word we begin to live according to that word So there are in as far as the Bible is concerned There are two words that you will learn about one is logos So the Bible is logos that is the written word written word of God But there is something known as Reema Reema or R. H. E. M. A. Which is the inspired Word or the spoken word of God So for us our hearts must be Open to hear from God. So when we are reading the Bible We can just read it like a history book, you know, you read Verse 1 to verse 31 finished today is over next. Okay, just keep reading because You have to read the Bible every day but if we want to develop faith, right, I Must be trying to hear the voice of God in what I'm reading I must be trying to listen to what God is speaking to me Okay, that's what Reema is all about Logos is it's already written everything is given here. What is Reema? Reema is the inspired word God starts to speak to me Okay, he starts to Point something out to me and he wants me to go ahead and work on that. So that is Reema Okay, now the scripture says Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So both reading the Bible, it is valuable I'm not saying, you know, just by reading the Bible, you won't get anything. No, it's God's word as you engage in it Something you will get out of it But we get the most out of it when we are trying to hear the voice of God through what we are reading Okay, and how do we hear the voice of God? It just gets clearer and clearer. No, the more familiar we become with scriptures It becomes clearer not just that as we want to study scriptures There are some tools and there are some right principles That we have to use to Interpret the Bible as well and that way, you know, we can apply the word in the right manner and it will strengthen us so in this way We've got to continue to nurture ourselves with the word of God. I said that Reema is a spoken word of God Now even though, you know, God speaks into our spirits One practice, we'll talk about this later, which you and I as believers need is The practice of confession or declaration So we can take the word and we can speak it to ourselves For example, just some time ago, we all said loudly. What did we say? What did we say sometime back? correct Yeah, my faith grows exceedingly. So what is that? It is a confession Based on the word of God. So when I make a confession I'm speaking to myself And I can hear my own voice Right. So the word that God has spoken to me I can speak it back to myself And the more I speak it to myself, what will happen? Faith will grow Faith will increase We'll read about the power of declaration the power of confession As we go further in our in our studies But the point that I'm making is one is Spend time in the word of God Okay, not just to Read through it, but to really hear the voice of God. What is God saying to me now? So when we move like that Faith will increase Okay, and the word that God speaks to us we can speak back to ourselves So whatever the word promises us we have to tell ourselves like I said earlier like the declaration on Sunday We make our declaration This is God's word. This is God speaking to me. I am who God says I am. So what is that? I'm speaking to myself We are speaking to ourselves and We can hear our voice That and it goes deep into our spirits and it begins to build us up Okay, so faith comes by hearing and hear by the word of God The word of God More specifically is the spoken word or the reema Okay, so the word that God speaks and when God speaks it to us, we should speak it to ourselves Okay, everyone understood what I'm trying to say Yeah Not complicated Okay, thank God Because uh, look at the faces. It feels like I'm I don't know what I'm saying Okay, but you are understanding that's good All right. Yeah some comments here in the chat Now moving on I said we must spend time in the word, right So how to spend time in the word? There are A couple of useful practices which we can We can Apply and we'll see That it will really give us a lot of clarity as far as the word is concerned. So what are these useful practices? We must Meditate Okay, what is meditate go to the Himalayas anyone No, sure Meditate in the word of God everyone's going to buy a ticket to go someplace to meditate pilgrimage No, biblical meditation is not like that. It's different So what is meditation? Meditation in the word of God, okay There are a couple of words which we can look at There's a word known as Haga H H A G A H and Siak Okay, Siak both of these mean Meditation So the word Haga These are both Hebrew words and Haga simply means to reflect Or to Imagine or to ponder or Think about so When you look at the life of Joseph God gave him a dream that he's going to be You know, God is going to raise him up. He's going to be a blessing He will be exalted and his brothers will bow to him. So that was a dream which God gave him No We can only Imagine that he must have thought about it again and again and again And considered that image that picture and and said Okay, this is what God is going to do How is he going to do that? What should I do? When is it going to happen? What's what's he doing? He's reflecting Or he's thinking about it He is um in other words We are saying he the Hebrew word Haga meditate on it Okay, so we must similarly meditate On the word that God Speaks to us for example The uh Psalm 23 verse 1 it says the lord is my shepherd I shall not want right the lord is my shepherd So when we consider that word the lord is my shepherd and we rightly interpret it What does it mean? It means the way a shepherd takes care of his sheep My god will take care of me Okay Now now that I have the word of god, I must meditate on it. How to meditate? I will reflect I will think About God's help. I will think about God's goodness I will think about God's faithfulness So I am thinking pondering Reflecting on that one one subject. That's it. The lord is my shepherd. That's all But what's happening within me? Meditation So when we talk about Meditation in the word of God, it's not empty. Mine is not empty. Sometimes people think that's what meditation is But as far as the bible is concerned Mine should not be empty. Mine should have the word of God So I put the word of God inside and I start to think about in in different ways In fact another word Another way to really understand meditation is Have you seen um, have you seen a cow? Everyone seen a cow? Okay, so how does a a cow chew the cud? She cuddled Yeah, sorry sister She cuddled Yeah, um, so Keep chewing right does it on slow process? Yeah slow process and uh quite continuously. So if you look at a cow He'll be chewing something the whole day and you're wondering what is there to choose so much But that is meditation That is meditation Because we take a verse Or a scripture or what God is saying. It's in our minds The whole day or maybe the whole week the whole year We are thinking and thinking and thinking painting pictures in our minds. Okay. God the lord is my shepherd It means it means Right, this is what God is saying to me. This is how God is going to lead me This is how God protects me. This is how God cares for me. You see it's only one verse, but what's happening The depth of that scripture It's like treasure. God is opening it up to us You got it That is meditation, but If we don't meditate it's like the lord is my shepherd. I shall not want he make it me to lie down We know the whole passage But nothing is inside nothing has really gone inside So it's like taking the complete Essence or the power of that passage and absorbing it That is meditation So when we say faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God We have to become people who are meditating on the word of God take time to think and Absorb what God's word is saying and in fact Another word to describe this haga is mutter. Okay, mutter. So mutter means when you when you say something repeatedly for example you can say You know Unfortunately, you know people may mutter wrong things like oh, I'm not good enough. I'm not good enough. Sometimes they say it So often and then they keep hearing it So what happens? It starts to affect their mind the mind remains unrenewed But if we start to mutter the word of God And say, you know, this is God's word. This is God speaking to me. I am who God says I am I can do what God says I can do I would become everything God is what are you doing? You're just repeating it repeating it repeating it to yourself Right. So muttering means speaking uh to ourselves repeatedly Okay, so that is also meditation So as far as meditation is concerned, it has it it has all these sides to it think about the word Speak the word repeatedly confess the word repeatedly then our faith All these are sources for our faith to grow for our faith to be developed Okay, for our faith to become strong in God. So in this way, we can strengthen The other Hebrew word is siac. Um, which again means to uh, utter Or you could even say speak Or converse Same like mutter. So whatever God's word says We have to speak it to ourselves For example, like I think Psalm 91 says he who dwells in the Shelter of the most high will abide in the shadow of the almighty and then the next scripture the psalmist says I will say of the Lord. He is my refuge. He is my fortress. What's happening? He understands that He who dwells in the shelter of the most high will abide Or there is the protection of God on us when we are in God But based on that, what does the psalmist do? He says I will say Because God is my protection. I will say he is my protection I will say he is my shelter. He is my fortress. I will say it with my mouth Okay, so that is also Meditation we understand but then I have to make that my confession I have to make that my declaration So that is siac speaking to ourselves Do we all speak to ourselves or is that just me? Oh, you guys don't speak then it's okay. No problem You do Yeah, so then make that a word make that word based Right speak what the word speaks to yourself rather than um What are the other ideas that come to our mind which we can speak to ourselves One is of course God which I'm saying you speak that whatever God is saying you speak that to yourself But what are the other sources? What we Correct sometimes it's just our own thoughts right our own thoughts influenced by the world influenced by people Um, and we we meditate on that Okay, or it can be from satan Because satan puts thoughts in our minds He'll say didn't did God really say don't do this The way he tempted Eve so even satan can put thoughts in our minds. So there are essentially three sources One is God one is a satan and one is ourselves So which thought should I keep in my mind and meditate on? Yes, God's thoughts. Okay, so we will we will ensure that we are Deeply thinking about what God is saying to us thinking is one second is to yourself what God is speaking Whatever God is speaking you have to speak it to yourself think about David. Okay, David Very young man. He goes to just give lunch to his brothers and he hears about this situation where a huge Philistine is Challenging the armies of God. Okay, but You see his confession He speaks so positively everyone else says that oh, we will surely be defeated, but David says who is this uncircumcised Philistine? Right? And he's Confident that I I can bring him down. So look at his confession because he is Thinking about the way God thinks about him, you know as a warrior and so he is able to take down the giant Because his mindset or his process of thinking is in line with what God is saying to him Okay, so in this way we must really replace Even our thoughts Not that our thoughts are wrong, but if our thoughts are Influenced by God or in other words renewed mind Renewed mind is powerful, but otherwise no, you know We we cannot just succumb to what our mind is saying. So that is a little bit about meditation Now, uh, some more helpful practices would be one is meditation. All of us understood. What is meditation? Okay, fine. So we can practice meditation now few more Important practices are Contemplation okay contemplation means thinking deeply thinking deeply about one subject or One thing that God is speaking to us. So don't feel ashamed to take time to think deeply in the word Uh Somewhere we feel good to tell others that I read the whole bible or I read it two times. I read it twice It's all good as long as Something went inside yes or no otherwise just scanning through It's a little helpful But what is contemplation? deep thinking So we are yes, I may have read five verses But what what has happened? I've thought deeply about it. Maybe the woman who broke the alabaster jar And she poured you know the Nard on the feet of jesus So when I think deeply about it, it helps me understand what is worship Okay, how should I worship? I should give my all I should give my best. I should um, you know, um Be with the lord. You see what's happening I'm thinking deeply about that one incident and that one incident is teaching me lessons to live by That is contemplation when you're deeply thinking about a subject So I'm not saying don't read the whole bible. Please read. Please read, you know as many times as possible, but also Uh Engage with deep thinking deep thinking that is contemplation Most of the sermons that you um that you hear Right by by many people. How does it come? They are deeply thinking think about this. This is just one subject faith One word faith, but for four months. We are teaching on faith Deeply we have to think what is faith how to get faith how to build faith So deep meditation is what is called as contemplation. Now the other practice is visualization Visualization what is visualization? The name itself suggests Think deep correct. So that is contemplation Meditation is repeatedly you're thinking Uh contemplation is similar you're deeply thinking. What is visualization? Imagination correct. See imagination is one thing where you don't have to pay any money Right, you can be sitting here, but you you could be like Oh looking at the mountains of Uh, whatever some nice mountains sitting in class, but mind is somewhere else Imagination, right, but if we utilize imagination in the right way It can be very very productive for us in the As far as reading the bible is concerned We can use our imagination to paint the pictures that god wants for us For example, maybe we are unwell But going by the word of god, I paint the picture of a very healthy healthy me Okay, so uh, maybe someone's uh very weak right now But in their imagination as they're confessing the word of god standing on the promises of god, they can see themselves strong They can see themselves, you know serving the lord mightily In the mind you can paint a picture in line with what the word of god says or um, you know For example, remember I I shared about one particular pastor in south korea who built his church became so It has become so big But he shares about how he used to have pictures in his mind about a large church when he had 43 people in his church, but What is that it's actually a biblical principle called as visualization Based on what god is saying picture yourself Picture yourself picture yourself ministering picture yourself Serving picture yourself being strong in the lord picture yourself as a blessing to many people right picture yourself You know prosperous resourceful Giving to others so when you go by the word of god and you begin to picture in this way You begin to walk into it not because it's just vain imagination No, in this case god is saying that god is saying, okay, I will bless you You will be a blessing to many nations. So whatever god says As we pray we can ask god god paint my mind with new pictures new visuals about the future And that is a part of our faith building exercise Okay, and and we begin to see that we begin to move with that and it motivates us. So that is visualization We can talk so much more about visualization, but I think I'll have to stop it But you see even in visualization simple exercise like if you take sound 23 the lord is my shepherd, right We can visualize so in our mind We can imagine it's like jesus is going in front of me Jesus is telling me what to do. What is that? You're picturing right imagination So that way i'm full of the word. I'm thinking the word i'm seeing the word in my mind And it begins to really build my faith. So that's visualization then Finally confession. So we'll talk about confession later But confession is to simply speak the word. The word is there Speak it out All right, so, uh, what are the four things to meditate in god's word for four terms that I thought No tea if you don't tell me this four words quickly Contemplation Okay before that meditation Yes, okay meditation contemplation Visualization and confession confession. Okay four So, uh, as we make it a practice our faith will be built up. All right, let's stop now We'll go for a break and uh, we'll we'll come back in 10 minutes. So, uh, new del I can see some Feel free you can you can go there are some questions here on the chart. I'll see if I can Answer So, uh, nudel is asking Some questions about spiritual father and mentor Um vision and calling Discipleship. Okay. Uh, let me see nudel. I uh, suppose I will give you some resources to look up because, um Some of these questions are not they may not be directly Um connected to what we are speaking today Right, so I I will share some resources so that you can get answers to your questions Okay, thank you. We'll we'll connect in about 10 minutes. Thank you