Faith

How to Make a Faith Transaction With God — Part I

by J.W. Phillips
06/18/25
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How to Make a Faith Transaction With God—Part I

Faith has been heralded for its importance, trumpeted for its outcomes, lionized for its heroes, lauded for its accessibility, and subsequently summoned from every believer—but without explanation!

People are told to exercise faith, but they aren’t told how to do it. By omitting needed operational instructions, Christians won’t be able to receive from God, except in those instances mercy undertakes.

Jessie Penn-Lewis declared: “Faith—real faith in God, and a faith transaction with God—alone translates the facts of Scripture into experience.”¹

Since all of the attendant joys of our intimacy with God are parceled out in response to faith, it is important to know how to make a faith transaction with God. 

Sin

The first prerequisite for a successful faith transaction with God involves a decisive distancing from sin. “It is the great moment of our lives,” Oswald Chambers declared, “… when we decide that sin must die right out, not be curbed or suppressed or counteracted, but crucified. It is not done easily; it is done by a moral wrench.”²

Hebrews 12:1 says we are to “lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us.”

John MacArthur invited Christians to imagine a track meet where a man about to run the 440 approaches the starting line with a suitcase in tow. You would think to yourself—and, no doubt, say to the person sitting next to you—this athlete can’t be serious!

And that is God’s opinion, exactly! Anyone purposing to run the race of faith just can’t be serious if personal sin hasn’t been dealt with first. To tolerate sin is to forfeit the race before it has even begun.

I John 3:21 asserts that “… if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence toward God.” However, if our heart does condemn us, we won’t have the confidence in God essential to faith.

If you want to live the life of faith, the first order of business is that iniquity separating you from God (Isaiah 59:2).

Strength

The second order of business prerequisite for a successful faith transaction with God involves a right regard of our strength. This may sound like a strange thing to say, but personal strength will hinder faith just as surely as sin will.

In fact, many believers are kept from faith more because of their strengths than because of their sins.

F.B. Meyer wisely counseled:

Many of us are too strong, self-reliant and resourceful to get the best that God can do. Wait a little, till your strength begins to faint beneath the burden and the noontide heat, till the energy that was your boast has slowly ebbed away and you are left without might. Then the Mighty One of Jacob will draw nigh to you and impart both power and strength.³ 

The biblical account of Jacob wrestling with the angel is most intriguing, and at the same time very instructive—especially when it comes to understanding faith. The narrative indicates a power struggle between Jacob and the angel that was strongly contested—that is, until the angel touched Jacob’s thigh!

Now, the thigh is the strongest part of the body, and therefore it is a fitting symbol for natural-man strength. It was precisely for this reason that God was determined to dislocate Jacob’s thigh.

The underlying principle was this: Jacob would have continued a life that put him in a needless struggle with God, if Jacob had continued trusting his own abilities.

Explaining this truth, G.D. Watson said of the Lord:

He must break us down at the very point where we are strongest, where our energy is lodged, be that in head or hand or heart … in whatever point in our being we may fancy we are the best, in whatever locality there is stored up the most of self … there is where the last resistance must expire.…⁴

Jacob’s grappling with God took on a different character once Jacob’s strength failed him. From that point on Jacob then held on to God with a determined dependence.

Now, had Jacob limped away in defeat that day, he would have remained a loser all his life. What brought about an entirely different result was the fact Jacob didn’t retreat in defeat but instead held on to God for dear life. This response caused God to say Jacob had won.

Won? But why would God say that? Because once Jacob, out of weakness, cast himself upon the Lord, saying, “I will not let You go unless You bless me,” the Lord couldn’t walk away—not from a resolute reliance like that! Therefore, the power of God that overcame Jacob that night could now overcome his enemies, too! All this, because of Jacob’s decision to reach out to God while in a state of obvious weakness.

Is this a lesson you have learned? It took even the Apostle Paul many years to learn it: that God must wean us not only from our sins but also from our strengths. Finally, though, he did learn this lesson when God told him, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (II Corinthians 12:9).

Oswald Chambers made this precise point in his book, Shade of His Hand.

The Bible indicates that a man always fails on his strongest point. Abraham, the man of faith, fell through unbelief; Moses, the meek man, fell through losing his temper; Elijah, the courageous man, fell through losing heart ….⁵

And we may add that Solomon, the wise man, fell by becoming a fool!

Scripture

The third way to increase faith is through the informing and inspiring of Scripture. If one separates faith from Scripture, the result will be nothing more than humanism, or some version of eastern religion that places faith in faith and not in God.

A.B. Simpson asserted, “Your faith must rest on the great principles and promises of the Bible, or it can never stand the testing of oppositions and trials, which are sure to come.”⁶

If faith is to be based on the Word, then the much-too-casual Christianity that neglects the study of God’s Word will pay a heavy price for this neglect. E.M. Bounds observed: “Ignorance is always an exposed condition. Ignorance is open to attack and surprise by day and night.”⁷

Ray Stedman used to say, “Woe to the man who has to learn the principles at a time of crisis.”⁸ Because by that time, often, much damage has already been done. The enemy has already exploited his advantage.

W.E. Boardman expounded faith’s relationship with Scripture in this way.

In the commandments, God reveals himself as a requiring God—in the promises as a giving God. Faith relies upon him in both his promises and his commandments—yielding in implicit obedience to the one, and putting forth the hand of assured confidence to take the other.⁹

Romans 10:17 stipulates that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” According to D.L. Moody’s biographers, it was this verse that radically elevated the ministry of this Chicago-based preacher to a ministry that eventually became worldwide.

For many years, this relatively unknown pastor used to pray that God would increase his faith—but, despite these prayers, nothing all that spectacular resulted. However, when D.L. Moody discovered this verse in Romans, he said that instead of closing his Bible and asking for more faith, he reopened his Bible and started receiving its truths as if God himself were audibly speaking.

This dynamic catapulted this uneducated shoe salesman to become the most respected evangelist in the world for more than two decades! Hundreds of thousands listened to his preaching.

G.D. Watson offered eye-opening advice. Will you consider his words?

We often suppose that faith is made strong by receiving great encouragement, by having quick and abundant answers to prayer, by high states of joy, by lofty visions of divine things; but in reality these things do not strengthen our faith as much as we fancy. Our faith is to be nourished on the promises of God.¹⁰

Notes:

  1. Jessie Penn-Lewis, All Things New, (Fort Washington, PA., CLC Publications, 1996), p.82
   
 2. Oswald Chambers, Conformed toHis Image, (Fort Washington, Christian Literature Crusade, 1950), p.61.
 
  3. F.B. Meyer, Christ in Isaiah, (Fort Washington, PA., CLC Publications, 2001), p.30

 4. G.D. Watson, The Secret of Spiritual Power, (Nicholasville, Kentucky, Schmul Publishing Company, 2009), p.12

  5. Oswald Chambers, Shade of His Hand, (Grand Rapids, Discovery House, 1991), pp.19, 20.

  6. A.B. Simpson, The Fourfold Gospel, (Alchua, FL., Bridge-Logos, 2007), p.169.

  7. E.M. Bounds, Winning the Invisible War, (Springdale: Whitaker, 1984), p.106.

 8. Luis Palau, Heart after God, (Multnomah, OR., Multnomah, 1978), p.17.

 9.W.E. Boardman, The Higher Christian Life, (Charleston, S.C., Bibliolife, n.d.), p.125

 10. G.D. Watson, Soul Food, (Hampton, TN., Harvey Christian Publishers, 2000), p.23.