Ventures in Faith
By Virginia Brandt Berg
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God has given us five senses: feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling. When we taste something that is sweet, we have the evidence that it is so, because our taste has given us this evidence. No matter what anyone else says, we know it’s sweet, because we have evidence. This same application can be worked out with the other senses.
Now in our spiritual life God gives us faith to witness to us of spiritual things, just as our five senses bring us the evidence of temporal things. We accept what our five senses tell us. Why do we not accept faith as the evidence, for it will bring to pass and absolutely make real to us all that we take by faith. Matthew 8:13: “As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.”
Just as our taste is the evidence that the thing we partook of was sweet, so our faith is the evidence that we have the thing we have asked for. Faith is not an uncertain sort of thing, but is a principle which operates in the spiritual world as surely as the unseen principle of force does in the material world.
In the social world—that is, the human sphere—faith is a principle that binds families together and cements friendships. It is the very foundation stone of commercial confidence and business transactions between men. Why is it thought strange then that this same principle should be applied in the spiritual kingdom? For just as an unseen force of attraction holds the material world together, and an unseen principle holds the social and financial world together, just so an unseen law of faith is the underlying force which holds the spiritual world together. It is the mightiest force in the spiritual world, the active creative force, which produces effects and brings things to pass. Just because faith in God’s promises is not in the natural realm, it is nonetheless a real, active force in the universe.
Faith is practical. The law of faith is just as real as any other of God’s laws. And so God says, “The just shall walk by faith”; “without faith it is impossible to please God”; “this is the victory that overcomes the world, even your faith.”1 And then He gives a very simple, clean definition of faith, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.”2
When we are asking God for something, it is absolutely necessary that we have the authority of His Word upon which to stand. We must get ahold of His promises—not only commit them to memory, but get them deep down into our hearts, ingrained into our beings. We must find the authority in God’s Word, and then faith will come of itself.
God’s Word says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing, by the Word of God.”3 You can never have faith for anything if you are not sure God has given you authority to ask for it. If you really believe the scripture means, “Whatsoever things you desire,” then you will have faith for “whatsoever things.”
It would be impossible to stress too much the committing to memory of some of the outstanding promises. Here are a few that have been standbys of many faith warriors for years: Mark 11:24, “Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” Mark 9:23, “Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.” 1 John 5:14, “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask any thing according to His will, He heareth us.” 1 John 5:15, “And if we know that He hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desire of Him.” Jeremiah 33:3, “Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, which thou knoweth not.”
You may not be able to commit a great many promises [to memory], but even one or two will so strengthen your faith in time of need that you will wonder how you ever got along without knowing them before.
Eight practical suggestions for getting things from God
First: A surrender, complete and unconditional, unto the Lord; a laying on the altar every part of the life, past and future; heart and mind; will and emotions; hopes and desires; plans and ambitions; in fact, all.
Second: Study God’s Word for the building up of faith, reading promise after promise until they are ingrained into your heart.
Third: Commit at least one promise to heart (three or four, if possible); know it thoroughly.
Fourth: Claim this promise definitely of the Lord. Hold it up before Him, saying: “This is Thy Word on which Thou hast caused me to hope.”4
Fifth: Close the deal with God. Make the transaction very definite, literally writing your name on the dotted line.
Sixth: Count it done; it is a closed matter now. You are not to go back over the same ground, except to point back to the time you made the transaction, saying, “It was at this moment I drove the stake down and took the stand of faith.” Now, “having done all, I stand.”5
Seventh: Stand now on the promise you have taken. Stand on the Word of God. Stand, notwithstanding every onslaught of the Enemy. Stand, though doubts and fears would try to move you. Stand, saying, “I believe God’s Word against everything else; I believe, though every natural sense of my own makes it untrue. "Let God be true, but every man a liar, that thou mightest be justified in thy saying.”6
Eighth: Praise. Thank Him now for the answer; praise Him for His faithfulness. The parcel has not been delivered at your door, but you have closed the deal with Him over the royal telephone, and there is in your heart a very sweet trust and precious confidence in His promise, while you are waiting for the doorbell to ring. We began with prayer, but we end with praise. “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able to bear, but He will, with every temptation, make a way to escape.”7
I want to beseech you that you take some new ventures in faith. There are many adventurers in the world. Vast fortunes have been spent in exploration. Many have risked their lives and many have lost them for the sake of discovering new territory.
Can we not as Christians venture out on the promises of God into new realms of faith and blessings? Can we not venture out and scale the heights to higher ground? Are we so fearful, so lacking in real courage, that we cannot step out upon God’s promises and risk our all on His faithfulness? No matter if Peter did sink for a moment beneath the waves, he at least had the courage to venture out.
Are we always going to stay in the same little circumscribed limits? If we will not venture out and put His Word to the test we will never know what He means by “the great and mighty things” He speaks of in Jeremiah 33:3: “Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and show thee great and mighty things, that you know not.”
His Word says He will lead you out into a larger place. He will “show you a new thing.”8 Someday an emergency will come into your life, when only God can help you, and you will need a strong faith—you will need to know how to appropriate these promises for your desperate need.
Then there is also the wonderful possibility of blessing and service for others, as you see God’s Word fulfilled in their lives. The possibilities of the faith life are unlimited. We have only touched the dim outer edge of what God has for us.
Jesus said, “I am come that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly.”9 The faith life is indeed an abundant life. The promises of God are so numerous, so all-inclusive, that there is a promise for every need: hundreds of promises in God’s Word; promises abundant, unfailing, inexhaustible, exceeding great and precious promises.
Originally published 1934. Republished on Anchor April 2012. Read by Bethany Kelly.
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