…and I want to share with you a recent lesson. One of the things about lessons and destiny is you never stop getting them; you never stop experiencing them. It’s amazing! So let me tell you something that happened to me recently that really sparked something in me, causing me to go back to the drawing board regarding who I am in God and in my belief and how God flows and operates. There is something particular, something personal, that I have had on my radar, something that I desire. I’ve been talking to my wife about it, kind of picking at it and looking at it. It’s huge; it’s significant. I wouldn’t necessarily say it is a necessity, but another part of me knows it is. Sometimes, when you’re a spiritual person, there can be something that God wants to bring into your life, but you have this sort of false humility, and you say, «Well, it’s not a necessity,» but really you’re only saying that because you don’t have the faith to reel in what God has caused you to desire. So, one morning, I had been toying around with this thing, and out of nowhere, God spoke to me as I woke up and said, «The reason why you don’t have this thing in your life is that you don’t have faith for it.» God told me, in essence, that I lacked faith. He said, «Mr. Pack up and move to Denver; you lack faith. Mr. Start a church 13 years ago with no members, no money; I wasn’t even ordained at the time! I didn’t even know what pastors do; I’m a business guy. But yet, I launch out and do it. Mr. All these things, believing God for these huge things—why no faith part in me?» But I knew it was true. I knew it was true.
I talked to God for a moment; I didn’t understand it because I’m thinking, God, how can I be this man of faith? I’m preaching to people, they’re getting saved, I’m planting churches, and they’re growing. I’m praying for the sick, and they’re getting healed—so all these things are happening. You ask my prayer, but you tell me? Now I’m confused because there’s evidence of faith all around my life, yet you’re telling me that I don’t have faith. You say that this problem, this lack, this need, this void in my life is only a void. God told me it’s only a void because I don’t have faith for it. I wanted to argue with Him; I thought, «I can prove to you I have faith!» But I knew it was the voice of the Lord saying, «Your problem is not that I can’t or that I want it; it’s not even that you can’t, it’s that you don’t have faith for it.» And it messed me up; it sent me back to the spiritual drawing board to try to understand faith. How can I have faith here but not have faith there?
As I began to seek the Lord about it, He started to talk to me about the various levels of faith. Can we talk about them real quick? There could be anything that could be 15, but for the sake of this message, there are five levels of faith. The first level of faith is the faith to believe in God. Hello, somebody! I believe in God. You know, at nine years old, I accepted Him in church, and I accepted the Lord as my Savior; that was it—that was one level of faith, believing in God. The second level of faith is the faith to walk with God. Are you tracking with me? I began to allow that faith, that belief in God, to guide my steps. That’s the second level of faith, right? The third level of faith is the faith to take leaps of faith. Periodically, when you’re called to take a leap, if something is right there and you’ve been there before, and you have to do something, you find yourself at this bridge. In Purpose Awakening, I talked about the bridge of faith. You see this gap between where you are and where you’re trying to get to, and you take that leap of faith—that’s the third level of faith.
The fourth level of faith is claiming something by faith. You’ve been there before, right? You went on that audition, or you went for that job, or whatever. You’re not just claiming it; you’re claiming this house, claiming this car—whatever you claimed, right? All these are levels of faith, but there is another level of faith that many of us never get to, never walk in, never exercise. The fifth level of faith is the lifestyle of faith, where it’s not just faith to believe, it’s not just faith to walk with God. It’s not just faith to periodically take your leap of faith and say hallelujah and then go back to normalcy. It’s not just faith that when you find yourself in a situation, you claim it by favor—you muster up your faith and you…
