Walk by Faith

 Walk by Faith

Feb 2, 2025

2 Corinthians 5:7

7for we walk by faith, not by sight—

Hebrews 11:1

1 Nowfaith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

One the comments on my previous blog was to remind me that we walk by faith, not by sight. This is absolutely correct, but doesn’t contradicts my previous comments about needing to have a vision in order to walk by the Spirit.  These are two types of sight. The first point in walking by the Spirit is that you must have a spiritual vision to know which direction you are supposed to go. The Corinthian and Hebrews verses are saying something different. Faith is based on things that we don’t see with our physical eyes. That doesn’t mean that the things we have faith for are any less real, it is just that we can’t yet see them in the physical realm. Watchman Nee points out that the word translated as “assurance” in this version can be translated as “substantiating”. This means that our faith in something that we can not see brings it into physical reality. The fact is already real, but we can’t see it until it is substantiated.

So walking by faith and walking by the Spirit are really aspects of the same thing. When the Spirit gives us a vision of what is to be and directs us in the way we should go, we have to walk in faith that this spiritual vision, which starts out as a hope, will become manifest in our lives as we follow the directions of the Spirit to bring this vision into reality.

An example of this would be if the Lord gives you a vision of having a healing ministry. Walking in the Spirit says that you need to start by taking a step of faith by preparing yourself, getting the proper training, and doing whatever else is needed to establish a ministry. As you continue to walk in faith, and follow the guidance of the Spirit, you will begin to have opportunities to pray for healing and if you are faithful to the vision, you will then begin to see people healed. The people being healed were unseen when you began, but they were seen in your vision of the ministry that the Lord into which the Lord was calling you. Eventually, the results, or fruit, will be seen by everyone, so the healing are both seen and unseen, depending on the time. By faith, hope in things that are unseen, can become seen.

Note also, that the second step of walking by faith, taking a step, usually involves something unseen. This step may even contradict what you think of as a logical step in the right direction. It is a step in faith. Let me give you an example from my own life. Way back when, just after we were married, we had a vision to minister to the broken hearted. We were receiving training and setting up a household in Pittsburgh. We bought a house which was older and began to fix it up. Shortly after that, we were called to move to Alabama. Now the logical conclusion was that purchasing a house in Pittsburgh was contradictory to the call to move to Mobile. However, as the Lord continued to move we continued to fix up the Pittsburgh house while planning to move to Alabama. As it turned out, after a year of home remodelling, we were able to sell the Pittsburgh house at such a profit that it paid for the move to Mobile. It didn’t seem to make sense at the time. We could not see it in the natural, but in the Lord’s plan it all worked out for the best and we were able to sit under some of the most anointed leaders of the time in Mobile, AL. The unseen became seen and the Lord’s plan worked out even when it didn’t make sense to us.

So I urge you to walk in the Spirit and to walk by faith. Both are aspects of fulfilling your plan and purpose for doing all that the Lord has ordained for your life.