Many believers are failing in their spiritual walk because of their inability to walk by faith and not by sight. They tend to go with the saying “To see is to believe.” However, the mark of true disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ is the ability to go up to the level of faith where they are willing to defy the laws of nature. To accomplish this, the apostle Paul said, “So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor. 4:18). This is obviously easier said than done. Unless we are walking by faith, we cannot fix our eyes on the things that are unseen because these are spiritual things. These include the reality of heaven and earth, and that Jesus Christ is Lord in heaven, here on earth and under the earth.
The Bible defines faith as “the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1). This definition requires that we do not live by the principles of this world if we want things to happen God’s way. These principles were laid down in Scripture, more particularly in the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus gave us illustrations and examples on how we need to live our lives here on earth to benefit fully from God’s eternal plans and purposes for us. There was even an instance when Jesus himself demonstrated that he can defy the law of gravity when he walked on water. While we know of no one who can walk on water in recent history, the Bible recorded not only Jesus walking on water but the apostle Peter as well. Peter was able to do so only when he was walking by faith, but the moment he saw the wind and the waves and started to walk by sight, he also started to sink (Matt. 14:27-31).
It should not surprise us if we are unable to go up to that level of faith where we can defy the laws of nature. Even the disciples, who were with Jesus, found it difficult to walk by faith. When Jesus wanted to feed the multitude, they could not believe that they would ever be able to serve food to everyone. They reasoned that it would not only take eight month’s pay to buy the food, but there were also no stores in that remote area where they could buy enough food to feed five thousand people. However, as demonstrated by Jesus, there is nothing impossible with God. He multiplied the five loaves and two fish and fed all the people with twelve basketfuls of leftovers (Mark 6:35-44). This same situation was later repeated and the disciples still did not have the faith to do as the Lord commanded them. But as compassionate as he was, the Lord asked the disciples to bring to him the seven loaves they had, and again multiplied these to feed four thousand people with seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over (Mark 8:4-8).
In walking by faith, we need to be fully convinced that Jesus’ words have power. We have to be like the man who came to Jesus begging him to go and heal his son. When Jesus said, “Go, your son will live”, he took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on his way, his servant met him with the news that his son was healed. When he inquired as to what time the boy got well, it was exactly the time when Jesus told him to go home (John 4:49-53). It is only when we are able to take Jesus at his word that we can see miracles. We do not have to question the wisdom of his word. We only need to walk by faith and not by sight. If the man chose to walk by sight and ignored Jesus’ command, his son would have not been healed.
To emphasize the need to walk by faith, the apostle Paul said, “Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:6). If we want to be in the Lord and reap all the blessings that he promised, we have to be away from the body and start walking in the spirit. If we always walk in the flesh, we will miss the spiritual blessings that God has designed for us to reap. As mentioned earlier, this is not always easy to do. We need to die to our worldly ideas and ways so that we can follow the ways of God. We know that his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts higher than ours.
Therefore, let us learn to walk by faith and not by sight. We can accomplish this by allowing the Lord Jesus Christ to lead the way. Let us take him at his word and not doubt. Let us rise above the challenges that we face by fully trusting in what the Lord can do, not letting our minds limit his power. Let us go beyond what our eyes can see because the things that we see are temporal but the things that we do not see are eternal. Praise the Lord!
