I agree - what I am trying to do is to share some of my own personal first hand experience on turning the thinking faith into action faith - Obedience.... How do you start to turn the "I know I need to repent" into actual act of Overcoming in real life....
I seemed to have missed this, sorry...
Well, the first step is to speak it. The very first thing God did was speak. Every time you find a miracle, a word is said. Even the woman who snuck up on Jesus to touch His tsitsi had spoken to her heart, Matthew 9:21. Speech is very powerful because like arrows launched, words contain power of their own. Literally life and death are in the tongue. So the first thing to do is speak. Speak God's promises. As you quote them to yourself, faith begins to well up within you which you can take to the bank of heaven. Faith is the currency of heaven, literally. Faith is the "goo" that allows you to see the truth. Faith is the "goo" that allow the unseen to be seen. Real faith allows the impossible to be possible. Once you believe it, you're life will NEVER be the same again. God loves it when you give Him the glory and trust and believe in Him and His word. God change Abraham's name from "High Father" to "Father of a multitude" yet, he had no child of his own. Our own salvation starts by calling out to God! This isn't positive thinking. This is positive believing in the word of God and that it is real to your right now life. I wrote this elsewhere, but I'll post it here too:
Proverbs 15:4 "A wholesome tongue is a tree of life: but perverseness therein is a breach in the spirit."
The word "wholesome" is
מַרפֵּא which literally means "healing" or "cure". Remove the mem (
מ) (meaning "from" or "of") and you get רפֵּא which means "to cure" or "to heal" or "to make whole" or "restore". This is the meaning of the name Raphael (
רָפֵּאל) "God Heals" (
רָפֵּא אל)
Mem's pictograph is waters. So one could say Proverbs 15:4a can read: "a healing tongue, by the flowing waters from the Holy Spirit, is a tree of life". Some has said that
רפֵּא is "relax" so if we relax in the Spirit, we will be healed, because we're anxious for nothing, Philippians 4:6.
Proverbs 18:21 "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof."
John 7:38 "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."
Proverbs 14:30 "A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones."
"sound" here is again
מַרפֵּא whereas "envy" is like cancer to the bones. More often than not, arthritis is cause from bitterness. That it's not what we're eating, but what's eating us: anger, bitterness, unforgiveness, worry for tomorrow, to the point we worry when everything's great! You could say that a peaceful, tranquil heart is life to the body! A relaxed mind is life to the body.
Philippians 4:6 "Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God."
The word "be careful" is the same as "anxious", to "worry".
II Timothy 1:7 "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."
Fear leads to hate...fear births hatred. If you fear God beyond His due respect and awe it's the wrong kind of fear. If you wrongfully fear your boss, or mother-in-law, you will learn to hate them! In this verse "power" in Greek is
dunamis which mean
miraculous power - the power that flowed out of Jesus and healed them all and is the word Jesus used when He said who has "touched me: for I perceive
dunamis is gone out of me" (Luke 8:46)!
Dunamis is where we get the word dynamite! Love is
agape - not just affectionate love, but benevolent understanding love. The love that is I Corinthians 13 love. Finally the word for "sound mind" is
sophronismos which is translated in all kinds of ways, but the real meaning is "even keeled" "balanced". One version says that it is "safe and sound in mind and emotions; in proper control of one's faculties of thoughts and emotions." Or as I've heard "no stress" and at peace.
Now read II Timothy 1:6 "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands."
"Stir up" is to re-kindle and the "gift" is
charisma - which is the gift FROM the Holy Spirit, not the gift (
doma) OF the Holy Spirit. The gifts of the Spirit (healing, miracles, prophecies, etc) are
charisma! So what
charisma is Paul telling Timothy to re-kindle? So let's see what happened when Paul laid his hands on Timothy:
Acts 19:6 "And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them; and they spake with tongues, and prophesied."
Tongues - the only gift we can call by our will.
Satan is already defeated, so if he comes, don't "try" and defeat him, he's already defeated.
It's one thing pray FOR victory, it's another to pray FROM victory. It's one thing to fight FOR victory, it's another thing to fight FROM victory. One is from a point of view from defeat the other from rest. It's one thing to TRY to get healed, it's another to know you are healed, experiencing the symptoms of lies. You are the healed in Christ. Our place is a given, a place of rest in Christ.
Proverbs 16:3 "Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established."
Did God have faith to do what He did in Creation? Certainly. He knew He had the power to do what He said He would do - which didn't exist until He declared them out loud. "By His stripes I am healed." "By His stripe I was healed." In the office, when everyone wants to leave early on Friday, a worker starts a rumor "The boss is letting us off early Friday." By the time the boss hears it, he may think it a good idea. If it can work for a boss who isn't a Christian, what do you think will happen when you proclaim the word of God and its promises?