To learn more about the details for activities happening during the 10 days, please read here. Each day we will be sharing a devotional here on the KCI Blog, which you can follow via RSS here or by signing up to the emails here. Read Day 4's devotional below.

Day 4, Faith that breaks new ground

Today's reading is Deuteronomy 11:10.

“The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden.”

This is a time for the church to rise up in faith, empowered by God’s strength and take new ground that we have never taken before. This will be like nothing we have ever experienced or taken and it will not be achieved by our own efforts. It will come as we learn to live day to day by God’s amazing grace and move by the power of His Holy Spirit.

In Deuteronomy 11:10, God reminds the people that where they were going was not like where they had come from. God had given them the victory and it was now time for his people to live in his favour and take hold of their full inheritance.

Egypt was not the destination. It was not a place God wanted them to stay. Egypt was oppressive and intimidating. It was hard work and hopeless and the people of God felt trapped by their circumstances. God was calling them to rise up in faith, move forwards and cross over into this new season by faith.

This was the journey they were now on. The journey of faith. Hebrews 11:29 tells us that: “By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as on dry land.” And now God was calling them to take the promised land by faith.

If God is our strength to conquer, faith is the means by which we receive this strength. We can not make ourselves strong but we can be confident in God’s word and decide to believe and ensure our speech, expectations and actions line up with what we say we believe. It is by faith that we will take new ground.

Ephesians 1:3 makes clear our Heavenly Father has “blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.”

Think of it like this - a God sized, heavenly warehouse, stock piled with every blessing, promise and miracle that we will ever need. Faith is the delivery system of God’s strength. Faith is the super highway that transports the spiritual blessing into our lives. Faith is the amazon package that brings the answer to your door! Imagine this warehouse, so full in heaven and you never place the order!! (Vasti is good at placing orders in both warehouses, Heaven and Amazon)!

Faith is how we take hold of the blessing and the victory. Faith is how we take new ground.

As you pray today, believe God. Have faith in Him and watch the limits fall off of your life.

What would happen if you actually take God at his word?

How would you see yourself if you believed what He said about you?

Through these 10 days I have been listening a lot to the song “No longer a slave.” You can listen to it here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8TkUMJtK5k). The lyrics are Biblical and powerful:

“From my mother's womb, you have chosen me, love has called my name. I've been born again into your family. Your blood flows through my veins. You split the sea, so I could walk right through it. My fears were drowned in perfect love, you rescued me and I could stand and sing.  I am a child of God… I'm no longer a slave to fear. I am a child of God.”

The writer of the song has clearly understood that there is a power that comes by simply believing God’s word, by receiving it in your spirit and declaring it with faith.

Faith moves you on in your life in the most incredible ways and transports you to a season where you live knowing nothing is too difficult for the Lord.

But you need to believe. You need to have faith. You need to trust God.

When I was just a boy, Dad took me swimming and in the deep end told me to jump into his arms. I took some convincing but eventually decided to trust him and made it to the other side! That’s what it is like with our Heavenly Father.

He is saying to you today that it is time to jump into His arms and see what only He can do for you. We need to cultivate a simple and bold faith that simply trusts God. As a church it is time to make the ‘faith jump’ and take new ground.

Faith is about looking to God and not looking at our circumstances - 2 Corinthians 5:7, “For we live by faith, not by sight.”

Faith is about speaking with a confidence that comes from knowing God - Philippians 4:13, “I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Faith is about being quick to receive and accept God’s grace. It’s not about you. It’s all about God - Ephesians 2:8, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”

Faith is about cultivating a lifestyle of stepping out boldly even when you don’t have all the answers and resources - Romans 1:17, “The righteous will live by faith.”

Faith is about denying yourself, your instincts, your will and ways and following Jesus - Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Faith is conquest by the blood of Jesus - Romans 3:25, “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith.”

I firmly believe that for us to conquer, we have to rise up with a new level of faith. The men, the women, the younger, the older, the new Christians and those long established. Everyone needs to rise up in faith.

Faith is like a substance that we receive in our spirit from God. The more we have of it, the more it squeezes out the doubts, the fears, the arguments, the intimidations, the disappointments, the past, the negative, the failures, the present circumstances. When we receive the substance of faith, there is not room for anything else.

Hebrews 11:1 (NKJV) says, “[ By Faith We Understand ] Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith helps us understand the miraculous. The substance of faith is made up of hope in God and irrefutable evidence of things not yet seen that will soon become a reality.

The Amplified version of this verse is very cool too: “The Triumphs of Faith: Now faith is the assurance (title deed, confirmation) of things hoped for (divinely guaranteed), and the evidence of things not seen [the conviction of their reality—faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses].”

Let’s pray that through the 10 days we will receive the substance of faith. Faith is going to move us from where we are to where we want to be.

Prayer

I’m not blind to my circumstances and I do not want to waver through unbelief regarding your promises. I worship you and praise you and give you all the glory for all you have done. Lord, strengthen my faith. Fully persuade me by your spirit so that I may live with your power and experience all that you have promised.

Declaration

Full of faith. I am a child of God. I gain access to the promised land by God’s grace through faith.