TD Jakes - Without Faith It Is Impossible to Please God
If the day you lose your hope is the day you lose your life, then the devil isn’t so much after your faith; he’s after your hope—that you could be better, that you could rebuild your life, that the second half could be the best part, that the best is yet to come, that God has more for you, that you’re important to God, and that God has a plan for your life. Then all things are possible to him that believes. The enemy is doing everything he can to destroy your hope. He will always let somebody bring you bad news. Oh, but I’m like the wicked witch; don’t let nobody bring me no bad news! I’ll hang up on you. I can’t let it in; I’ll cut it off the TV set; I’ll stop watching it because I know you’re trying to infect my faith.
The devil is a liar! My faith is the substance of the things I hope for; it is the evidence of the things not yet seen. Evidence is admitted into court; it is proof, it is receipts; it validates. «Eyes have not seen, ears have not heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for them that love Him.» This is the evidence of things unseen. Remember when you were a child how you had imagination? You had great imagination; you believed! Somebody told me the other day they jumped out of the window because they thought they could fly. When you stop dreaming, you stop flying. I have a question: What took away your hope? When did you stop dreaming? Did the voice do that to you? Did you let the circumstances take away your hope? Did your mama prefer and your sister kill your hope?
Faith is the substance of things hoped for; it is the evidence of things not seen. By it, the elders obtained a good report. They weren’t good, but they were able to get a good report by faith. Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him as righteousness. He wasn’t righteous; Abraham wasn’t righteous, though maybe I should take you back to the Bible because Abraham was not righteous. I’m not saying he wasn’t a good man, but he was not righteous; but he believed God, and it was counted unto him as righteousness. I go crazy talking to accountants, no disrespect to any of you, but you drive me crazy because, to me, I bring the money in; I bring it in. Here it is: This is what we got.
«No, we can’t account for it like that; we have to put it in this column.» I said, «Just put it in the bank! I don’t care what column you put it in; just put it in the bank.» «Well, if we borrow from this column and put it over here, it’s all the same money; but it’s how you account for it that passes the audit.» Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him as righteousness. He wasn’t righteous, but God marked it up on the ledger as righteous because he had faith. Faith is like food stamps: you ain’t got no money, but we’ll take it like money.
Come on, I’m gonna teach it till you get it! Everybody else walked in the store with money and American Express and MasterCard and Visa, and here comes Mammy Wilson with a bag full of food stamps, but she got just as much food as everybody else because the food stamp was accounted for. I want you to understand why people hate you: because people hate you because they know something about you, and they know you ain’t that righteous, and they know you ain’t that holy, and they know you ain’t that good, and they saw you do something stupid, and they heard you did something stupid, and they’re fussing at you right now saying, «I ain’t gonna listen to her. I’m not gonna listen to him.» But what they don’t know is God is a bookkeeper; according to the books, you’re righteous.
Stop acting like you ain’t! Walk in what God said; talk in what God said; move in what God said; preach in what God said because according to the books. Thank you! You think you’re waiting on God, but God is waiting on you. God is waiting on you to believe what He said about you, not what you remember about you. For by it, the elders obtained a good report. Watch this, I can go a little deeper: through faith, we understand. Through faith, we understand. Faith is the truth we stand under. Through faith, we stand under; it is my covering. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed.
Now, when you read that in the King James Bible, it sounds like he’s talking about the creation; he really isn’t. Because when he says, «Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God,» that is true of the creation, but in this particular text, he is not using the Greek word cosmos; he’s using the Greek word eons, which is ages. Through faith we understand that the ages were hemmed in by the word of God. That my future is locked in—that He’s got a hedge around tomorrow! I’ll prove it to you by the Bible: Satan, Lucifer, said, «Go curse Job!» «No, I can’t curse Job; you’ve got a hedge around him.»
I can’t remember; a curse speaks to how you’re going to end up. How can I mess with his future when you’ve got a hedge around his future? Through faith, we understand that the eons were framed by the word of God. Your tomorrow is already fixed! If you’re down on your knees crying about how you’re going to make it, wondering how you can get there, saying, «I don’t see the way, I don’t have enough,» God said, «Shut up! I got it already framed in!» That’s enough for somebody to start running right there! The witch can’t curse you; the warlock can’t curse you; your enemies can’t curse you because God’s got you hedged in. Your tomorrow is in His hands; your next week is in His hands; your next year is in His hands. He’s got the whole world, it is His whole wide world!
Now we’re going to the creation: so that things that do appear were not made of things that do appear. Honey, would you come here for a minute: nothing you’ve got on—not your earrings, not your dress, not your shoes, not your ring—nothing you’ve got on started out as material. It started out as an idea! Then they picked the material according to the idea. It didn’t start out as material; it started out as an idea. The material didn’t pick the idea; the idea picked the material. It passed over wool and passed over cotton; it passed over linen because the idea had a specific design in mind and said, «Once I find what matches what I’m thinking in here, I’m going to do out there what I’m thinking in here.»
So what would you rather have—the dress or the idea? That’s why I say money is the cheapest part of me because the money doesn’t make me! If all you took was my money, you didn’t get much. Now if you’d taken my mind, I’d be in trouble! But as long as I got my right mind, I can get me some more money! I can make another dress; I can create more earrings; I can get more shoes. As long as I have the idea, the things that do appear, yes sir, were not made of things that do appear. Did you know God has designed the future for you? Hallelujah! And He’s already got the right material in mind—the right weight, the right time, the right place, the right moment, the right way!
And if you would get out of God’s way and stop trying to design your own life and plan your own future and manage your own stuff and fix yourself up and just give it all over to God and say, «Whatever you want me to have, I’ll take it. Whenever you think I’m ready for it, I’ll move toward it. Whatever you design for me, I’ll go for it.»
If you would step back, that would be faith. But because you got your mouth in God’s design, that’s not faith. And without faith, it is impossible. Sing all you want to; preach all you will; dance all you want to—you cannot dance your way into favor! Can I go a little bit further? Thank you, honey! So if faith is so important, Bishop, how do I get it? Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Wait a minute! So if I’m going to have faith, I’ve got to protect what I hear. Okay, so I got to shut down all these voices, external and internal, because they create a belief system that either cancels out my blessing or grows my blessing. If I’m sick in my system, I’m going to be sick in my substance—that’s why when I talk to you like this, I’m talking about how you think because if I’m sick in my thinking, I’m going to be sick in my results. I’m going to self-sabotage everything God has for me because I’m not clear right here. Are you hearing what I’m saying?
By faith, Abel offered up a more excellent sacrifice than Cain; and through it, his blood yet speaks. By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, built an ark for the saving of his house. So Noah built a boat with no water in his backyard, willing to look like a fool and wait on the rain to catch up with what he built. Some of you are going to have to build something that looks like a fool and wait on the rain to catch up with you! Where are my innovators at? See, most people are building their future around the past and how it used to be, but people who are innovative build around how the future is going to be.