Building Dynamic Faith

By Jerry Falwell

Though perhaps better known for political activism through his creation of the Moral Majority, the late Dr. Jerry Falwell's personal activities confirmed his passion for being a pastor and a Christian educator. Out of this desire to teach and lead, he wrote Building Dynamic Faith so that readers would know God better and see their lives radically changed for Him.

Divided into 31 chapters, Building Dynamic Faith is perfect for a month of daily readings, but it is more than simply a devotional. Readers will progress from a simple understanding of faith, to practicing the skills needed to exercise their faith, and finally to experiencing the blessing of God through answered prayer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Jul 1, 2007
• ISBN: 9781418552596

Book preview

Building

Dynamic Faith

Jerry Falwell

i-xii_1-228_0001_001

Copyright Il_i-xii_1-228_0002_001 2005 by Dr. Jerry Falwell

All rights reserved.

Published by World Publishing, Inc., Nashville, TN 37214

www.worldpublishing.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright Il_i-xii_1-228_0002_001 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright Il_i-xii_1-228_0002_001 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright Il_i-xii_1-228_0002_001 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked LB are taken from The Living Bible. Copyright Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, Illinois, 1971. Used by permission.

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 — 09 08 07 06 05

Dedicated to

My Grandchildren

Trey

Charles Wesley

Caroline

Paul

Jonathan, Jr.

Jessica Natalie Nicholas

I hope you read these stories of your grandfather

and pass them on to your children and grandchildren.

These stories of faith are my spiritual legacy to you.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Building Dynamic Faith

Foreword: George Herbert Walker Bush, President 1989–1993

Introduction: God Wants to Stretch Your Faith

Day 1 Searching for Faith

Day 2 The Things God Uses

Day 3 Overcoming Roadblocks to God

Day 4 You Have to Make a Choice

Day 5 Developing a Dream

Day 6 Walking by Faith

Day 7 Getting with God

Day 8 Growing Your Faith

Day 9 Putting Your Life Plan to Work

Day 10 Intentional Prayer

Day 11 Growing Through Steps of Faith

Day 12 Focused Prayer

Day 13 Facing Obstacles

Day 14 Walking Uncharted Paths

Day 15 How Can I Have More Faith?

Day 16 Grasping God’s Word

Day 17 Conversion Is Just the Beginning

Day 18 Discerning Faith

Day 19 Making Faith Statements

Day 20 The Prayers of Many

Day 21 Extreme Conditions

Day 22 Having Continuous Revival

Day 23 Thinking the Unthinkable

Day 24 Sympathy in Action

Day 25 Learning from Mistakes

Day 26 Winning Again After a Big Loss

Day 27 Rejoicing in Victory

Day 28 Learning Faith in Defeat

Day 29 Praying with Others

Day 30 When Your Faith Doesn’t Seem to Work

Day 31 Today Counts

Notes

Appendix: Daily Scripture Reading Plan

Index to Scripture

Index to Principles

Foreword

GEORGE BUSH

July 18, 2005

My friend, Jerry Falwell, has come up with a fascinating concept in this new book—a 31-day process for growing one’s faith.

I have long admired Jerry’s own faith which led him to build a great church, a very successful university, and, of course, a successful television ministry.

I am confident this new noncontroversial book will help us learn practical lessons to gain greater faith. Incidentally, this is an honest book, for in it Jerry Falwell deals with his own failures and doubts as well as with his victories.

I hope this book helps all readers attain greater faith and growth in that faith.

i-xii_1-228_0007_001

George Herbert Walker Bush

41st President of the United States

1989–93

INTRODUCTION

God Wants to Stretch Your Faith

Your life is going to be changed this month because you’re going to study the greatest life-changing topic in the world, faith. Jesus said, If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall move a mountain that is a barrier in your life, and cast it into the sea (Ma 17:20, My Translation). It is my prayer this book will help you learn how your faith can move mountains!

Think of some obstacles you’d like to remove from your life; God can move them if He chooses, through your faith. So dust off those old dreams and dream again. Dream big! Read every day’s devotional in the next month so you can grow a dynamic faith. These devotionals will help you develop a life purpose, then they’ll help you develop a life plan so you can accomplish your life dreams. Get ready for God to do exploits for you. It can happen if you plan and believe God for them.

Think of the mountain barriers in your life that hold you back from accomplishing your dreams. You may experience a God event in this month, so don’t miss a single day. Each day will build on the previous day, all with the purpose of developing a dynamic faith in your life. You could get a health-answer to prayer or a money-answer to prayer, or a relationship-answer to prayer.

Why one month? Because it takes time to grow anything. Giant oaks are not grown overnight, and no one becomes an overnight giant for God. Think of how long it takes a baby to learn to walk. Even after a first step, the baby will probably fall a few times.

I’ve found in my own life that even when I began walking by faith, I still stumbled a few times. I’ve had to get up and start again. So these lessons stretch over one month to give you time to learn some lessons and then apply them. And if you stumble, you’ll have time to get up and start again.

While these readings take one month to complete, no one can become a person of great faith in that short of a time. So look at these devotionals as the basic training that equips soldiers for their duty. These are basic lessons in faith, and every one of them is important. They are the foundation for your lifetime of growing your faith.

I’ve spent a lifetime walking with God, and I’m still learning valuable lessons of faith. These daily readings include some of the first lessons God taught me about faith. When I was praying for a few hundred dollars, I was learning to trust God for millions. I want you to learn some of the lessons that God taught me.

I have started each chapter with a faith experience from my walk with God. I am not suggesting that I am perfect, nor am I saying that I’m the best model of faith that you can find. On the contrary, I’ve included my mistakes and failures. We’ve all stumbled on the journey of faith. But even in my failures, I’ve learned lessons of faith. There were great victories—building Thomas Road Baptist Church, Liberty University Il_i-xii_1-228_0010_001 , and Moral Majority—and these taught me that God answers prayer. I’ve included many types of illustrations to help you see how faith works.

Trusting God for Big Dreams

I’ve begun this book by telling some of the greatest answers to prayer in my life. These chapters are designed to develop an attitude of faith expectancy in you. After you begin studying faith, you should be stronger than ever, so you can move some mountains in your life.

Later, you will learn some basic skills of talking daily to God about the things in your life. Just as my faith got stronger as I trusted God for answers to prayer, so you can develop dynamic faith through daily prayer. Just as a baby must learn the basics of walking before he runs, so you must learn some basic faith skills to develop mountain-moving faith.

You’ll learn certain things to develop dynamic faith. But the most important lesson is to focus on your goals. Arunner must develop the attitudes, skills, and endurance to run the marathon, but learning the lessons of wrestling will not help win races. In the same way, there are many lessons to learn in the Christian life, and one of them is learning to focus on the things that will develop your faith.

You must develop your personal faith if you are to move mountains. But rather than looking at the mountain, keep your focus on God and the things only God can do. Although you’ll always face obstacles, your strength comes not from dealing with obstacles, but from God’s ability to move them as you pray and trust Him.

You cannot grow your faith unless you purpose to grow it. If you want something you’ve never had, then you must do something you’ve never done. You must take a leap of faith into God’s provision. Your faith will grow today if you do what God has told you.

Growing Daily

Often people ask me, How can I have faith like you? or they request, Teach me to have greater faith. I thought about trying to write a single book on faith, but then I had a better idea. Let me help you make the journey to dynamic faith for one month. Each day we’ll talk about a different aspect of how to develop dynamic faith. As God has taught me, so you can learn the same lessons. Each day you’ll see a section called Experiencing Faith. This section includes some very practical suggestions for things you can do to develop more dynamic faith.

In the end don’t compare your faith to my faith or to anyone else’s faith; rather, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus (He 12:1–2). Jesus is your example for faith. Let’s compare everything in this book with the Word of God. In the final analysis, your life and ministry must be grounded on the authority of the Bible, because only the Word of God can grow your faith (Ro 10:17).

I haven’t said everything I could say, but I’ve tried to include the basic things you need to know and do to develop mountain-moving faith. May God bless this book to its intended purpose.

Sincerely in Christ, Jerry Falwell Summer 2005

DAY 1

Searching for Faith

If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.

(Mk 9:23)

Today you begin a one-month journey that can radically change your life. Every one of us wants to know God better. I do. And I know you do. So as you read each day, I’ll tell you—step-by-step and day-by-day—what God did to develop my faith. It’s been a life-journey for me, and if you’ll follow the suggestions in Experiencing Faith at the end of each chapter, you’ll see your faith grow more dynamic every day.

This first chapter focuses on the first great challenge to faith. I learned some foundational lessons from an apparent failure in my first faith challenge. That experience helped me triumph over my reluctance and ignorance. I think you will have similar growth experiences as your faith blossoms and grows. I’ve included this story first to help you overcome any reluctance you have in following God. You will probably find parallels to what God is doing in your life.

As a matter of fact, this first story contains core elements of faith that helped me plant and build the 24,000-member Thomas Road Baptist Church, plus the 21,000-student Liberty University Il_i-xii_1-228_0010_001 and the politically influential Moral Majority. I mention these not to boast, but to let you know God did it and I give all credit to Him. It is not the size of the miracle of faith that matters, but the size of our God.

You too can develop dynamic mountain-moving faith. We serve the same God, and He wants to do just as much for you as He’s done for me and many other people of faith. So don’t stand on the outside looking in. Promise yourself you’ll read every chapter and do each assignment in the Experiencing Faith section. Plan to get from this book all that God has for you.

We all have plans and dreams. Latch on to the Lord in faith because Jesus said, Have faith in God (Mk 11:22). And with the greater faith you’ll learn through this journey, you can move any mountain-obstacle that keeps you from fulfilling your dreams. Jesus promises, For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says (v. 23). So dream big!

My First Great Test of Faith

When I was a freshman at Baptist Bible College in the fall of 1952 I began attending High Street Baptist Church, one of the early megachurches with more than two thousand people in attendance. I was lost in that big church. Pastor W. E. Dowell suggested that I volunteer to teach Sunday school in the junior department.

The junior class superintendent, Max Hawkins, took one look at me and decided I was not a good candidate. He had seen plenty of pink-cheeked Bible student volunteers begin with enthusiasm, but quit when the work became tedious. He told me outright, I don’t have much hope for you Bible student types. Hawkins explained, You start strong and fade fast. I stood my ground, insisting I wanted a Sunday school class. Okay, Falwell, he conceded, you can have one 11-year-old boy. That will be your test. If you can handle one student, just maybe you can handle more. One of Hawkins’ aides hung a curtain around a table and two chairs in the corner of the general assembly room; I didn’t even get a classroom. I would teach there, and Hawkins would be watching in the wings.

On my first Sunday, I met Daryl, a rather shy young man with dark brown eyes, large blotchy freckles, and curly blond hair. Daryl was my first real congregation. I taught from the Bible and he listened. After two weeks, the poor kid got desperate or bored enough to bring a friend for company. The weeks crawled. Nothing happened. After six Sundays, I approached Max Hawkins to tell him I was quitting.

Give me back the roll book then. Mr. Hawkins reached out for the book. I didn’t think you would make it. I didn’t want to give you the class in the first place, but did it against my better judgment.

No, I responded with some anger and hurt, I’m not going to quit. I gripped the roll book and pulled it away. Hawkins just shrugged his shoulders and walked away.

I went back to the college and asked the dean of students for a key to the empty dorm room on the first floor. Each afternoon for the remainder of the year, I went and prayed from 1:00 to 5:00. There was no mattress on the bed, and I stretched my body over the springs. God broke my heart over my failure with the small Sunday school class. I realized if I was unfaithful in little things, God would never bless me in big things.

In that room I read books that motivated me to greater prayer challenges. Andrew Murray became my favorite author. I began praying for myself, and I began to pray for Daryl’s salvation, the other boy, and their families.

Then I read the biography of George Mueller, the man I consider to have the greatest faith since the apostle Paul. Mueller’s life taught me to think big, to tell God what I wanted, and to believe God for miracles.

These and other books challenged me to pray confidently so I could minister confidently. These books challenged me to pray for big results. When I learned to pray big, it changed my whole attitude toward serving Christ, and it gave me fruit for my ministry.

The next Saturday morning, I got the two class members, then went looking for their buddies and friends—anyone who was 11 years old. Every Saturday I cut a swath across every playground and empty lot, seeking 11-year-old boys. I did everything I could to get them to come to my Sunday school class.

Every Sunday I loaded my 1941 Plymouth with children and drove them to High Street Baptist Church. The Sunday pickup route soon outgrew my vintage Plymouth, and I organized my fellow college students who had cars to help transport children to Sunday school.

I gave a Bible to each boy in my class and showed them how to study, underline, and make notations. I told Bible stories. I read and explained Bible lessons from the Old and New Testaments. I had memorization contests, when the boys quoted the verses they had learned by heart and received prizes for their work. I found that teaching the Bible was the best way to learn it for myself.

At 11 A.M. I would march the whole class into the sanctuary so that they would hear Dr. Dowell preach the Sunday morning sermon. At the end of almost every Sunday worship service, I stepped forward with one or more boys, and I led them to pray to receive Christ at the altar, then submitted them for baptism or church membership. On weeknight visitations to their homes, I often led parents or older brothers and sisters of my 11-year-olds to faith in Christ. My class moved from the curtained corner into its own Sunday school room.

When I quit teaching at the end of my first school year at Baptist Bible College, I had fifty-six regular members, and attendance in special class activities often swelled to more than a hundred 11-year-olds. All the boys became followers of Christ, and many of their mothers, dads, and friends did also. I realized for the first time that if I would pray and work, there was unlimited potential in the service of Christ.

Steps to Finding Faith

Let me share the principle that I learned from this experience that will help you find and use faith. Look at your gifts, talents, and longings to see God’s purpose in your life. Max Hawkins hurt me when he said, I don’t think you’ll make it. I had a nonchalant attitude, and I hadn’t really taken responsibility for the class. When I saw that God was working in my heart, I knew I had to succeed. When you see what God is doing in your life, it’ll be the beginning of your spiritual growth. If you’ll stay with the lessons of this book, you’ll get dynamic faith. God can do it for you because, He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it (1 Th 5:24).

In that empty college dorm room I got spiritual strength from Bible study, prayer, and reading the great books of Christians. Their faith built my faith. Their trust in a great God motivated me to learn more about Him and to believe Him for the same miracles that they experienced. In the same way, I want the experiences of this book to challenge you to believe God for great things in your life.

The more you talk with God, the more you will trust Him. You can get a vision of the potential of prayer from biographies of prayer warriors, including those whose stories are told in the Bible. God uses these giants of prayer to recast your vision and rekindle your fire. When you get dreams to believe God for great things, you will begin praying for great things. Your faith will grow as God answers.

That is experiencing what the Bible teaches, from faith to faith (Ro 1:17). It is going from small faith to larger faith. What seem now to be gigantic answers to prayer may be small compared to the future things God has for you. Also, from faith to faith means going from saving faith to serving faith. It means going from trusting God for strength to get through the day to trusting Him for your family and intimate circle of friends, and then moving out to trust Him wherever He leads.

Probably you are not a pastor of a large church or connected with a large ministry. God may have placed you in a secular occupation, or given you a season as a homemaker, or given you an opportunity to minister regularly but intimately with a small group