Now Faith Is

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1

This verse is very important to us. I like to think of Hebrews 11:1 as the classical, scriptural, technical definition of faith. It's one thing to have a definition; it's something else again to understand what that definition means to us personally. To be able to memorize and quote it is wonderful and certainly appropriate. But if we don't know what we have memorized and how it affects us personally, then it's of no real value.

I was not brought up in church. I was born again after I was married. But once I did accept Christ, I began to have a hunger and thirst for the Bible. I didn't know how to read or study the Bible. I didn't know that it was alive and real. I didn't know anything about faith or how to appropriate the promises of God. I thought it was a wonderful book, something we were to cherish and keep forever no matter how ragtag it might become. After all, it was the Word of God.

I thought we were supposed to memorize the Scriptures and treasure them. I never will forget memorizing the 23rd Psalm. Oh, how beautiful! How poetic!

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.

It was beautiful, but I didn't know it was supposed to work for me personally. I was lying when I said, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." When I quoted it, I was in want. I couldn't pay my bills. I had no money in my pocket. I didn't own a car and was hitchhiking to work because I couldn't afford to ride the bus. Yet I was quoting, "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want."

You see, I didn't know how to appropriate that. I quoted it. I loved it and treasured it, but it wasn't working for me. That's the way Hebrews 11:1 will be if you don't understand what it's saying.

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

I am using the King James Version of the Bible. In it the first word of the sentence is Now. I had always taught that the word now represented time. For instance, I could say, "We have an emergency situation. The Fire Department needs to get into the yard next door. Smoke is coming from the rear building, so we want you to move your car." You ask, "When? In fifteen minutes, or now?"

So the word now can mean a time. It can mean present tense. I always took it to mean that for faith. But I was challenged on several occasions by some people who said that the word now does not appear in some manuscripts.

I began to do some very critical analyzing of the original language, manuscripts, and many translations. I discovered that the word now does not appear in some of the original translations. The verse reads: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

In other translations the word now is used, not as a noun indicating time, but as a conjunction that ties together verse 39 of chapter 10 with verse 1 of chapter 11. Some manuscripts use the word but. It could be the word therefore. We would read Hebrews 10:39 and 11:1 like this:

But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. But faith is the substance of things hoped for.

-or-

But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition; but of them that believe to the saving of the soul. Therefore, faith is the substance of things hoped for...

Faith does have a time, and it is one of the most important things you can ever learn about faith. When I use the word faith, I'm not using it in the normal sense. For instance, People will ask, "What faith are you—Protestant, Catholic, or Jew?" It is a misnomer, biblically speaking, to ask, "What faith are you?"

When I use faith, I am referring to the active, dynamic power activator which releases the power of Almighty God in your life and circumstances.

I want to be as accurate as possible. I don't mind changing if I find that I don't have all the truth. Some ministers will go to their graves believing and preaching some foolishness just because they are ashamed to stand up and admit, "I made a mistake." If they find that something is not true, they will stick with it anyway to keep from having to change. Where did ministers get the idea that they have to be perfect in order to be effective? I don't mind making changes because I intend to be right. If I don't have all the information, I will find it and add it to my repertoire.

So, let's drop the word now and make faith the first word of Hebrews 11:1.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Now we have another situation. When we say, "Faith is," it is different from saying, "Faith was" or "Faith will be." We are still presented with a time reference, a point in time. You see, faith has to be at a certain time. So we need to find out when faith is or when it was or when it shall be. Is faith yesterday, today, or tomorrow? That's very important.

Christians say, "I know God is going to do this. I know He will do it." But "going to" and "will" never happens. It just doesn't work that way because that isn't faith.

I hear people say, "Brother Price, I know the Lord is going to heal me someday in His own good time, if it's according to His will. I have confidence. I know God is going to."

If God is "going to" (which is future tense), that means He hasn't done it yet. If He has already done it, then He wouldn't have to. They say, "I know God is going to heal me." Well, if He's "going to" (future tense), then He hasn't. If He hasn't, then He lied to us because His Word says that with Jesus' stripes, we were healed. (1 Pet. 2:24.) Were is past tense. That means we already are healed according to God.

Yet we say, "He's going to." That's a contradiction of terms and why it never happens. That's why multitudes of Christians who love God die premature deaths from all kinds of disease and illness. They think that it's God's will because He let it happen.

That would be like saying, "It must be God's will because He let that man rape that woman." If you're going to say it was God's will because He let it happen, then it was God's will that the bank down the street was robbed; it was God's will that a con man cheated some people out of their life savings; it was God's will that a war started and thousands of people were killed. To say these things would be missing the point altogether.

But there is a time when faith is faith and when it's not. I could say, "Faith is the substance," or "Faith was the substance," or "Faith will be the substance." If I say, "Faith will be the substance," that's future tense. "Faith was" has to be past tense. "Faith is" has to be present tense.

I can't say, "Faith was," and it be present tense. I can't say, "Faith will be," and it be present tense because will be and shall be are future.

If we say, "Faith is," we still have it in the present tense, and that's when faith is faith. Faith has to be now. Its time frame is always present tense.

We could turn it around and say, "Now faith is." Even though the word now doesn't appear in the original, we could put it there without adding to or taking from the original statement, "Faith is."

That is present tense. To say "Now faith is" simply compounds and reinforces it.

So we have the time of faith. Faith is now. If it's not now, it's not faith. Why? Because faith is. Faith is now. Now faith is. That is one of the most important things you will ever learn about faith. Faith is always present tense. Faith is always now.

No matter how sincere you are or how desperate you may be, if you aren't operating in the present tense—now—you aren't operating in faith. There is no guarantee that what you desire will come to pass because God is not obligated to operate on anything other than faith. He is a faith God. He demands faith. Everything He does is by faith. When you say, "I know God is going to do something," you're not in faith. You are sincere, but you aren't operating in faith because faith has to be now. You can't say, "God is going to heal me." You have to say, "I believe I'm healed."

I may not feel healed or look healed. All the tests may say that I'm not healed, but I have a choice between what the tests say and what God says. Since God is the designer, constructor, and maintainer of the building I live in (my body), He ought to know more about it than anyone else.

That's why I always take my car to the people who made it. No one in the world can know more about a product than the people who designed and built it. That doesn't take anything away from other mechanics. I just have confidence in the ones who made it.

Well, God knows more about me than a doctor. God is the Master Mechanic. He told me that with Jesus' stripes I was healed. He doesn't say I'm going to be; He says I was. That's past tense. Faith would say, "According to God's Word, I believe I'm healed." I nave put it in the now.

If I say, "I know God is going to heal me," I could die saying it. That's why many Christians have died without ever seeing the difference. They thought they were in faith.

Someone says, "It must not have been the Lord's will because Brother So-and-so died and he believed God could heal."

We don't get healed because God can heal. We only get healed because we put God's principles into operation now.

I believe the bank could give me a million dollars, but they don't. I could walk in and say: "You have plenty of money in the vault. I've looked at your profit and loss statement. You could give me a million and never miss it." I wouldn't get a dime like that. Just because they have money and I have an account there doesn't mean I'm going to get a million dollars.

Likewise, you can be a Christian and believe God can heal you, but that doesn't mean you will get healed. If you aren't operating according to God's Word, you could die of a broken toenail!

Faith is now. It's always present tense. If you say, "I'm expecting God to do something at such-and-such a time," you're not operating in faith. You have to say, "I believe I'm healed now. I believe all my needs are met now."

I said that, even when I had no money, when my bills were not paid. You may think I was lying, but I wasn't. I never said my bills were paid. I said, "I believe my bills are paid. I believe I'm healed."

Why believe it? Because my heavenly Father told me I was healed with Jesus' stripes. I believe what my Father says, my confession is: "I believe I'm healed."

Physically speaking, I may feel like forty-five miles of unpaved road! I may feel terrible, but I'm not saying how I feel. I'm not even talking about the way I feel. I'm only talking about what my Father says about my condition. He says that I'm healed.

If I want God's power to work in my behalf, I have to say what He says. I have to confess what He says about me because what He says must be the truth.

If I'm not who He says I am, then He lied to me. If He says I'm healed, but I'm not, then He lied to me. If He says I'm the righteousness of God in Christ, but I'm not, He lied to me. If He says I'm a new creature in Christ Jesus, but I'm not, He lied. If He said He would supply all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus, but He doesn't, He lied to me. If He says, "Ask and you shall receive," but I don't receive because He didn't come across with what I asked Him for, He lied.

You know, it's a terrible thing to accuse God of lying, especially when His Word says that it's impossible for Him to lie. God can't lie, so what He says is the truth!

Faith Is the Substance of Things Hoped For

According to Hebrews 11:1, faith is the substance or things hoped for. If faith is the substance of things hoped for, then it is obvious that hope without faith has no substance.

What does substance mean? Substance is that which can be perceived or contacted by your senses, your basic five bodily senses. You can smell it, see it, touch it, taste it, or hear it. In other words, substance is something which makes an impression upon your sensory mechanisms.

In place of substance, we could use the words tangibility or materiality. Faith is the substance— the materiality, the tangibility—of things hoped for. This tells us that hope doesn't have tangibility or materiality. Hope doesn't have anything that our senses can perceive unless we add faith to it. That's why hope won't do anything for us.

Hope is a goal setter. I might say, "Praise God, I hope that one of these days I'll be able to pay off all my bills and have money left over. I hope to pay off the mortgage on my house. I nope to be able to put my kids through college. I hope one day to be financially independent of the circumstances." That's a good hope. But you can have hope like that and be poor the rest of your life, never able to pay all your bills. Hope doesn't have any substance.

Hope is like a dream. Dreams can be so real. You could dream that you were flying the fastest jet ever built, maybe going to Mars or Jupiter or Saturn. Maybe you were traveling to the stars, heading for the Milky Way galaxy. It was so exciting, and just as you were about to reach the climax of your dream, just as everything was about to come into focus and you could almost reach out and touch what you had been dreaming about, suddenly the phone rang and woke you up. It was someone who had the wrong number! You hung up the phone and tried to go back to sleep. You wanted to pick up your ream. But poof, the dream was gone and you couldn't get it back.

Do you know why your dream went poof? Because dreams have no substance, no tangibility. When you awaken, the dream is like a bubble that bursts. Suddenly, it's gone!

Hope is like a dream unless you put faith to it. By putting faith with your hope, you give it substance. So faith is important.

Hope sets the goal. You must have some goals. For instance, I have a dream: I see 20,000 people in two services every Sunday, streaming into Crenshaw Christian Center. I see people standing in line just to get into the 10,000 seater. I see it! I have that hope. But right now that's all it is —a hope. I have pictures of it—artists' conceptions —and plans, but it's not tangible yet. That's what sets the goal for me.

I have faith behind that hope, and faith will bring it into manifestation. Faith will make it tangible. In the meantime I have high hopes and those hopes set the goal. But my faith will bring it to pass.

You must have hope, but hope without faith won't do you any good. You can say, I'm hopin' and prayin'; but you will go down the tubes just hopin' and prayin'. Faith is the substance (tangibility, materiality) of things hoped for.

Faith Is the Evidence of Things Not Seen

What is evidence? I think the best word you can use to describe evidence is proof. But what is proof? Proof is that which substantiates or validates the existence of something you don't presently have. Simply: Proof says that something exists that you don't presently have. Proof takes the place of the thing that it is the proof of until that thing arrives on the scene. Once that thing arrives, you no longer need proof of it. You don't need evidence if you already have it.

That lets you know that faith is a temporary thing in any given spiritual transaction in your life. Faith is only temporary for that transaction until the transaction comes to pass. When it does, faith moves on to another challenge, then another, and another. You no longer need faith for this because it has come to pass. Faith was the evidence of the thing not seen. When you start seeing it, you don't need faith for it. You actually have it.

Faith is the evidence (or proof) of things not seen. What's the first thing you think of when you hear the word seen—eyes or visual perception. This is where many people miss it on faith. They read this verse, then go around trying to see something physically with their eyes.

What are eyes to your body? They are sensory mechanisms that feed information from the outside world to your central nervous system. They allow you to see what is going on around you.

If the word seen in Hebrews 11:1 actually meant seeing with the physical eyes, it would be cheating and robbing us of four-fifths of the body's ability to feed information to us from the material world around us. Some things can be seen but not heard, heard but not smelled, smelled but not touched. If we relegated the word seen to the visual part of our anatomy, we would be robbed of all the other parts of the anatomy that feed information to us.

Therefore, I submit to you that the word seen in Hebrews 11:1 does not mean visual perception, but rather sensory perception. Things seen are in the physical realm; things unseen are in the realm of God, the spirit realm, or we could say in the realm of faith.

With this in mind, let's say it this way: Faith is the evidence or proof of things not perceived by the senses. This immediately alerts us to the fact that if we intend to walk by faith and be successful in that walk, we have to leave the realm of the senses. We can no longer look to the physical body to find out where we are with God. We can't look at our bodies.

In the past we have evaluated whether we were healed by the way our bodies felt or looked. We looked at our flesh and said, "I have pain, so I must not be healed. The doctor says I have a tumor, so I must be sick." We have been walking by sight, not faith. We have been walking by our senses rather than by the Word of God.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't deny the realm of the senses. But we are to operate by a higher law—the law of faith—which will change what the senses perceive.

Now if faith is the evidence or proof of things not perceived by the senses, then we must realize that faith is temporary. It takes the place of the thing it is the evidence of until that thing arrives.

Archaeologists may go out on an expedition to gather fossils and bones of prehistoric animals. As they are digging into the side of a mountain, one of them hits something solid. When they move the dirt and look closely, they see something gleaming white. This may be a bone, so they keep digging until they have a bone exposed in the side of the hill. Eventually they uncover the skeleton, fully intact, of a tyrannosaurus rex, a prehistoric animal that lived many millions of years ago.

As they are looking at their wonderful archaeological find, sticking out their chests because of their discovery, suddenly the ground begins to shake. The earth begins to rock and reel like a drunken man. Then they hear thundering footsteps. Boom! Boom! Boom! They turn in the direction of the sound and up over the hill comes a tyrannosaurus rex! They don't need any more bones as evidence. They have a tyrannosaurus rex in the flesh. The bones were fine until the real thing arrived. The bones would have been good proof or evidence of its existence, but now they don't need the evidence or proof. They have the real thing!

That's the way faith is. Faith takes the place of the thing it is the evidence of until that thing arrives. If faith takes the place of something tangible, then faith must also be tangible. I like to call faith "the sixth sense." Just as seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling are the sensory mechanisms of the physical body, faith is the sensory mechanism of the spirit.

Remember, you are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a physical body. You contact God with your spirit or with faith.

If faith is the evidence of things not perceived by the senses (and it is because the Bible says it is), then how can we know at any given time what our faith is the evidence of without some way to know what the thing is?

For instance, if you have never seen an elephant or heard the word, how would you know when you saw one? You wouldn't. You would have to have previous knowledge about what an elephant looks like so you could know when you saw one.

Since faith is the evidence of things not seen or perceived by the senses, then there must be another way to perceive things. There is: with our faith or our spirits. But where do these things come from? They come from the spirit world. That means there must be another world that exists concurrently with this physical, three-dimensional world. There is. It's the world of God.

How do we know what's in that world? By God's Word. His Word becomes our source book, telling us what is in the spirit world or in God's realm. To know what is in God's realm, we have to read and study His Word. Then at any given time we will know what our faith is the evidence of.

How? Because God's Word tells us.

It's somewhat like looking at television. To know what is on, you get a TV guide. You find the listing for that day and time. You look at your watch and say, "It's 7:00 p.m." The TV guide shows that Lassie is playing at 7:00 p.m. on Channel 5. You always wanted to see Lassie, so you turn to Channel 5 and you watch Lassie. You needed the TV guide to tell you what was being aired.

Well, God is transmitting from His great transmitter in heaven. He is on the air 24 hours a day. He never goes off. To know what is being aired on God's great transmitter, you have to turn to your guide—the Bible, God's Word.

You can turn to 1 Peter 2:24 and find that divine healing is playing on one channel. It says, With his stripes ye were healed. Philippians 4:19 says, My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. So you turn to that channel, and faith becomes the medium of exchange. Faith is that which transfers things from the spirit or invisible world into the physical world.

You have your guide, God's Word, so you have evidence and proof of healing. You don't go by what your body says. It may say you are sick and are going to die. The doctor may confirm that, but you have a choice.

You are the confirming witness. You stand in the middle of the road. You can swing to the senses, or you can swing to the spirit. You can swing to what your senses are telling you or to what God is telling you. You have to decide which one you should believe, which one has the better track record.

The Word of God says that with Jesus' stripes you were healed. If you were, you are; and if you are, you is! And now faith is.

You may say, "But, Brother Price, that doesn't make sense." I know. It's not supposed to make sense. It's faith! That's where your problems have been all along—because of your senses. Your physical senses tell you that you are sick.

God isn't telling you that you are sick. He is telling you that you are well. He is telling you that you are more than a conqueror, while your senses are telling you that you are whipped. God's Word says He has not given you the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. (2 Tim. 1:7.) But your senses tell you that you are scared. Which are you going to confess? Which are you going to believe? Which are you going to act on? The one you choose is the one you will have in your life.

There is a verse I want you to see in order to stress the importance of God's Word. Romans 10:8 says:

But what saith it? The word is nigh thee (that means near), even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach.

God's Word, the Bible, is called the word of faith. When we preach the Word, we are preaching faith. When we preach faith, we are preaching the Gospel. When we preach the Gospel, we are preaching good news.

When you get news, what are you getting? Information. Once you gain information, you become the possessor of knowledge. In this case the information and knowledge is about God, about God's Word and His realm.

Now notice Romans 10:17. It says: So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

What does the Word of God do? It's called the word of faith, so that means it produces faith in the heart of the hearer. That's why we have to preach it and teach it.

Faith comes by hearing the Word of God. You will never get faith, by reading and studying the Bible. Faith does not come by reading or studying; faith comes by hearing. Don't ask me why, but that is how God has designed the system. You can gain revelation knowledge by reading and studying, but faith comes by hearing.

If preachers are not teaching the Word of God, there won't be any faith in their congregations. You can always measure the level of faith in a congregation by the level of spiritual ministry coming from the pulpit. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing, and hearing, and hearing, and hearing.

Some people think they are so super-spiritual. They read Romans 10:17 as, "So then faith cometh by having heard." They say, "I don't know why

Pastor Price is preaching on that. I've heard that before."

Romans 10:17 doesn't say faith comes by having heard, meaning, "If I heard it once, I have it." Faith comes by hearing, and hearing is present tense—continuum ad infinitum, or forever. It just goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

Faith comes by hearing. That's why it's important for you to be careful about what you hear, why Jesus said in Mark 4:24, Take heed what ye hear. That's why you need to be careful about what church you attend. What you hear will affect your faith, either positively or negatively.

That's why you need to be careful about the kind of music sung in church. Some people get upset with me because I won't let our choir sing certain kinds of songs. I refuse to let them sing unbelieving songs that will keep them in bondage.

Some people have such a mixed up concept of God because all their lives they have heard the song: God works in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. In other words, God is so mysterious that we can't understand Him; we don't know what He means or what He is going to do. That kind of thinking will build unbelief into your heart.

What you hear is very important. When people die and you keep hearing the statement, "The Lord took him," you would get the idea that God is a murderer. Then fear would come. You would be scared of God and try to hide from Him. After all, if the Lord took him, He may take you! That gives you a distorted, unwholesome, unscriptural attitude about God.

You have to be careful what you hear on radio and television, even though it may call itself "Christian." You have to be careful about the tapes you listen to, the church you go to, the preachers you listen to.

Remember, faith comes by hearing. Don't keep going to a church where the preacher tells you: "The Lord is making you sick. The Lord is testing you. The Lord has a purpose in it. Just stay there and be strong because the Lord knows just how much you can bear."

That's garbage! You are the caretaker of your ear gates. Watch what goes into them because what goes in your ears will affect what is down in your heart. What is down in your heart will affect what comes out your mouth. What comes out your mouth will control your life. According to God's Word, by your words you will be justified and by your words you will be condemned. (Matt. 12:37.)

Your words, basically, are inspired by what you hear. Again, Jesus said to take heed or be careful about what you hear or how you hear. Why? Because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

So faith and the Word go hand in hand. If the Word is going forth, faith will go forth. If the Word isn't going forth, there won't be any faith. Faith and the Word of God are synonymous terms. We could use them interchangeably. Faith and the Word are like the wet with the water. If you get the water, you get the wet. You may ask a waiter for "a hamburger, hold the onions," but you can't say, "Bring me a glass of water, hold the wet." Wet is a characteristic of water. It's automatic: if you get the water, you get the wet. So if you get the Word, you get faith. Faith goes with the Word like wet goes with the water.

With what we have just discovered in Romans, chapter 10, about faith and God's Word, let me give you a paraphrase of Hebrews 11:1. I want to show you what a difference it makes when you change some words based on the principles we have studied.

Hebrews 11:1 says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Paraphrase: "Now the Word of God is the substance (tangibility, materiality) of things hoped for; the Word of God is the evidence or proof of things not perceived by the senses."

You have to know what the Lord says, not what your body says. Your body may say one thing while God's Word says something else. Remember, God doesn't confirm your body. Mark 16:20 says, And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following. That means the Word has to go forth first, then there will be signs following to confirm the Word. The Word is the substance of things hoped for. The Word is the evidence of things not perceived by our senses.

With this in mind, let's look at 2 Corinthians 4:18. It says:

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal (temporary, subject to change); but the things which are not seen are eternal.

This verse brings into view two things: the seen and the unseen. It says,

While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.

How can we look at something that is not seen? With the eye of faith, because faith is the evidence of things not seen.

Now let me give you a Frederick K. C. Price paraphrase of 2 Corinthians 4:18. See if you can go along with this based on what we have already discovered about Hebrews 11:1 and Romans 10. Paraphrase: "While we look not at the things which are seen (perceived by the senses), but at the things which are not seen (perceived by the senses) for (because) the things which are seen (perceived by the senses) are temporal (subject to change); but the things which are not seen (perceived by the senses) are eternal."

By seeing this, you can readily understand the difference between true biblical Christianity and Science of the Mind, Christian Science, Unity, and metaphysical cults. They sound a great deal like us when we talk about faith. But there is a line of demarcation, a very important distinction and difference.

For instance, Christian Science would say, "Brother Price, there is no such thing as sickness and disease. It's all a state of mind, simply a maladjustment in your mental processes. Once your mind is rectified and changed, you will not be seeing such things as sickness and disease."

What a slap in the face of God! If that were true, poor old God didn't know that, because one of His seven redemptive names is Jehovah-Rapha, which means, "I am the Lord that healeth thee." How could He be the Lord that healeth thee if there is no such thing as sickness and disease? God would have to change one of His redemptive names.

Science of the Mind says, "Brother Price, there is no sickness and no such thing as a literal devil or Satan. It's all a state of mind."

That is exactly what the devil wants. If he can trick you into thinking that he doesn't exist, he can easily break your head and rip you off. Then you will end up blaming it all on God, saying, "The Lord took him!"

But that's not true. Let me show you the difference. As Christians, we don’t say that there is no sickness, no disease, no poverty, and no fear. Second Corinthians 4:18 proves that there is. Again, it says, "While we look not at the things which are seen ...." If the things which are seen did not exist, how could we look at them anyway? Why would we need to look at something that isn't there?

We look at the things which are seen. If they can be seen, they are real; they exist. What this verse tells us is not to deny their existence, but rather to deny their influence and control over us. That's the difference.

Don't say that sickness isn't there and that it doesn't exist, because the Bible says, By his stripes ye were healed. How can you be healed if there is no sickness or disease? What could you be healed of? It looks like God and Jesus would have known that.

It doesn't tell us to deny the existence of things that we perceive by the senses. It is saying, "Don't look at them."

"Well, Brother Price, if I don't look at them, what am I supposed to do?"

Ignore them.

"How do I do that?"

The same way you would ignore me if you didn't want to be bothered with me. You would walk past me and act like I didn't exist with your little pointed nose up in the air.

That's what you are to do. Ignore it. Act like it isn't there. Don't say it isn't there because it is. Just refuse to look at it. Don't give it any credibility to lord it over your life.

While we look not at the things which are seen (perceived by the senses), but at the things which are not seen (perceived by the senses): for (because) the things which are seen (perceived by the senses) are temporal (subject to change); but the things which are not seen (perceived by the senses) are eternal.

What are those things that are not perceived by the senses? Those things that are in the Word of God, the realm of the spirit.

How do you contact them? By faith. Why? Because faith is the evidence or proof of things not perceived by your senses.

In 2 Corinthians 5:7 we find further revelation: For we walk by faith, not by sight.

What is sight? It is the same as see. What is see? The sense realm. What did we say that faith was? The Word of God. What did we say that sight means? The senses. So we could say, "For we walk by the Word, not by the senses."

God has made it so simple. We don't deny the senses; we just don't let them dictate to us. We let God's Word dictate to us, and that's what changes the senses relative to our personal and individual existence.

There is a time when we use the senses, when we operate in the sense world or the sense realm and deal with sensory things.

When you start to walk across a highway, but your eyeballs tell you that an 18-wheeler is bearing down on you at 77 miles per hour, you had better believe what your eyeballs are telling you. Don't cross the road now, or you will make a smash hit on Broadway! That's the time to use your senses.

But when it comes to the things of God, we have a tendency to still walk by our senses. Our senses are no good when it comes to the things of God. Because we get incorrect readings, we can make terrible and tragic mistakes.

People say, "I must not be healed; I can still see the tumor," or "I must not be healed; I still have the pain." Though they are very sincere, they are sincerely wrong and are not operating in faith.

You see, God can only confirm His Word. He is up in heaven, saying to His kids, "Take My Word. Give Me something to confirm. I can only confirm My Word. I've designed the system to work that way."

Instead of believing what the Word says, His kids are down here saying, "Oh, God, please heal me."

They should be saying, "Praise the Lord! I believe that I'm healed according to God's Word!" That gives God something to work with in their lives.

God doesn't confirm our begging or crying or pain. He only confirms His Word with signs following.

I'm not saying that Christians don't have pain. I've been there. I know it hurts. But confessing the circumstances is not going to change anything. You have to confess the Word. You have to start putting the Word out. When you do that, you put your faith to work and give the Father something to confirm in your life.

Yes, your faith will change the circumstances when you operate on the Word.

Dr. Frederick K.C. Price founded Crenshaw Christian Center in Los Angeles,

California, in 1973 with a congregation of some 300 people. Today the membership of that church which he pastors exceeds 16,000 people of various backgrounds.

Crenshaw Christian Center, with a staff of nearly 200 employees, consists of a School of Ministry and the Frederick K.C. Price, III, Elementary and Junior High School and Child Care Center.

"Ever Increasing Faith" television and radio broadcasts are outreaches of Crenshaw Christian Center. The television program may be viewed throughout the U.S. and in Australia, West Indies, Bahamas and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The radio program is aired on 68 stations across the country.

In great demand as a seminar teacher, Dr. Price travels throughout the world teaching the Word simply and in the power of the Holy Spirit. His God-given ability as a teacher enables him to simply and understandably transmit to others how faith works.

HEBREWS 11:1

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

The Word of God is the substance, tangibility, materiality, of things hoped for—the evidence or proof of things not perceived by the senses.

Your confidence in God's Word will cause you to step into God's realm. Goa confirms His Word with signs following.

When you speak His Word to a situation it is the evidence of things not seen—it becomes the substance of things hoped for.

Confessing the circumstances will never bring about the change you desire. But God has promised to honor His Word. When you put His Word forth you give Him something to confirm in your life.

God will change your circumstances because He is faithful to honor His Word.

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