Have Faith in God pt 1

In this episode of Woman in the Word (Part 1 of a 2-part series), we begin unpacking the powerful words of Jesus in Mark 11:22–25: “Have faith in God.” What does it truly mean to live with bold, unwavering faith—not just when life feels steady, but in moments of doubt, delay, and difficulty?

In Part 1, we focus on the foundation of faith—what Jesus meant when He called His followers to trust God completely. We explore how faith goes beyond feelings, inviting us into a deeper confidence in God’s character, His promises, and His power at work in our everyday lives. Together, we’ll reflect on what it looks like to pray with expectation and believe God even when we don’t yet see the outcome.

If you’ve ever wrestled with doubt or felt like your faith falls short, this episode offers encouragement and truth rooted in Scripture. It’s a call to shift your perspective, anchor your heart in God, and begin walking in faith with renewed confidence.

Stay tuned for Part 2, where we’ll dive into the connection between faith, prayer, and forgiveness—and how letting go can unlock what God wants to do in and through you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Woman in the Word, the podcast where we dive into scripture, ask real questions, and walk through the Bible together, one honest conversation at a time. I'm Felicia Parker, I'm your host, and I'm so glad you're here. So whether you're new to the Word or you've been studying for years, there's a seat at the table for all of us. So grab your coffee, open your journal, or put on your walking shoes, and let's get into it. Hey, happy Wednesday and welcome to the Woman in the Word podcast. I am so excited that you're joining me today, as always. And I want to thank those that have regularly been listening, and I want to welcome those who are new to the podcast. Today I am excited. We are talking about have faith in God. I'm excited about this conversation, so let's go. Have you ever thought about all the things you put your faith in? Let's just practically apply this. So if you're in a restaurant, you're at your house, you're at church, you sit down in a chair and you have faith that it's gonna hold you up. You trust that this chair is not gonna collapse and you're gonna fall to the ground. Now, there have been a few times though, I won't lie. Um there have been some chairs that look questionable, and I was like, I don't know if this is gonna hold me up. But usually we sit down and we don't even half think about will this chair hold me up? Will it support me? Will it do its job? And y'all know where I'm going. God is calling us to have faith in him more than we have faith in anything else in this world, and we pick up in scripture in Mark 11, 23. Actually, let's jump back just a little bit. Mark 11, 22. Jesus is talking to the disciples about a tree. If we go up just a few verses, Jesus cursed a fig tree because he came upon this fig tree as they're journeying, and he sees that this fig tree has leaves, and so he walks up to it to see if it has fruit. And it did not have any fruit, and so therefore, Jesus cursed it, and he said he cursed it from the root, and that no fruit would ever grow on that tree. And let's just put a pin in it really quick. Our life should not look like we're producing something, but as you get closer, you realize there is no type of God fruit being produced because God lets us know very clearly in scripture that our life should be producing fruit, like it talks about in John chapter 15, verse 1. It says, I am the true grapevine, and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that does not produce fruit, and then he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so that they can produce even more fruit. So if we connect that back to Mark 11, we see how Jesus walks to a tree that should have had producing of fruit and it was not. It had the leaves, it had the look of producing, but it wasn't truly producing. And so Jesus curses this fig tree with his words, and within you know the next day or so, the disciples walk by and they notice wait a minute, this tree has withered up from the roots and died. And we pick up in verse 21, it says, Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, Look, Rabbi, the fig tree you cursed has withered and died. Verse 22. Then Jesus said to the disciples, Have faith in God. Verse 23, I tell you the truth. You can say to this mountain, may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea, and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. Verse 24, I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe you've received it, it will be yours. Verse 25. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your father in heaven will forgive you of your sins too. And I find it so interesting that Jesus connects the words that he spoke to the faith that we are to have in God. And he says, Have faith in God. You can say to anything, to any circumstance, any situation, any giant, you can say to it because you have faith in God, and you can believe that you will see what you're saying because of where you've placed your faith. Hey, I just wanted to take a quick pause in our conversation and introduce you to uh the lover of your soul if you have yet to meet him. I would love to lead you in the prayer of salvation. So if you'd repeat after me, that'd be awesome. Dear God, I know that I am a sinner and I'm in need of a savior. I confess that Jesus is Lord and I want him to be the Lord of my life. I believe that you raised him from the dead to rule and reign for all of eternity. Forgive me of my sins and cleanse me with the precious blood of Jesus. I thank you, Lord, for dying on the cross just for me. In Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, if you just prayed that prayer, I want to welcome you to the family of God and just say congratulations. Now, I don't believe that Jesus is saying, Hey, be reckless with your words and just, oh, I believe for this, I believe for that, I believe. No, no, no. I think he's letting us know that when it lines up with the will of God and the word of God, we can ask for anything in prayer, and we can trust and believe that we will see what we're saying based on where our faith is placed. Now, there's a few things I want to break down in this scripture. First, he lets us know you have to have faith in God, and then he lets us know what faith in God will do. We can speak to a mountain, basically, we can speak to an impossible situation and we can see it moved, we can see that thing change, we can see that mountain lifted up and thrown into the sea, out of the way, gone, disappeared, no longer present. If we place our faith wholeheartedly in God, and then he says, But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. So he's letting us know whatever you have faith for, as long as you're placing your faith in God, whatever you're believing for, whatever you're praying for, it will come to pass. But if there is doubt in your heart, that will hinder you seeing what you are believing. And he makes it very clear in verse 24. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you received it, it will be yours. That believing cannot be diluted with doubt. And doubt is one of the communication ways in which the enemy gets into our heads, into our hearts, and it flows out of our life. And we have to be so careful, allowing doubt to take residence in our mind and in our heart, because it will then cause us not to see what we're believing. So hear this if you see something in your home, and um, let's say it's a squirrel, hypothetically, and you say, hmm, this is interesting. I just saw a squirrel in my house. I know that's random, but I just saw a squirrel in my house, hmm. I need to call, you know, the pest control company. That's different than saying, hmm, I see a squirrel in my house. It's okay, they can stay. And if more come, it's fine. That's how doubt shows up. Like this uninvited individual steps into your situation and is wondering, can I stay here? So if God says you're an overcomer, doubt will say you'll never overcome. And you have to decide in that moment, will you choose to have faith in God or will you allow that doubt that's knocking on the door to come in and take residence in your heart and in your mind? Because if you let it in, now it's going to pollute the faith that you have in God, and you won't see yourself as that overcomer, or you won't be able to overcome that thing because you now allow doubt to sit on the couch, kick its feet up, and watch your TV.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

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SPEAKER_01 8:44

We see in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 5, it says, We take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. I feel like this is so connected to Mark 11, where it says, Have faith in God and do not doubt, but truly believe. We have to take that thought of doubt that shows up, knocks on the door, and says, Hey, will you believe the lie that I'm trying to tell you? Or will you submit that thing to Christ and cause it to be obedient to Christ? Meaning, no, I'm gonna stay in line with walking in faith and not allowing doubt to take up residence. I'm going to have faith in God and I'm not moving. No matter how long it takes to see it, no matter what I see before I see it, no matter what it sounds like, no matter what it feels like, no matter what I want to say to myself, no matter what others are saying to me, no matter the doubt that's banging on the door, I am going to take every thought captive and make sure it's obedient to Christ. And Christ lets us know He doesn't say anything outside of what the Father tells him to say, and we are supposed to be imitators, therefore we don't speak anything in opposition to what the word says. So if the word says that I'm an overcomer, if the word says that I'm healed, if the word says that my God is my supplier, if the word says that I am loved and I am called and I am set apart for a good work, if the word says this, that's what I believe. And if doubt tries to come in and say something otherwise, I have to choose in that moment to take that thought captive and to give it to Christ and leave it there for it to stay in obedience to the word. I take my doubt and I leave it at the feet of Jesus because at the feet of Jesus, doubt can be handled well way better than in my mind, in my hands, or in my heart. And I want you to understand, doubt will live almost like in a petri dish where you do a science project and you leave it there and you see what bacteria and different things will grow on this specimen. You leave it there long enough and things begin to grow. And if I leave doubt in my mind, in my hands, in my heart long enough, it will begin to grow and it will literally crowd out the faith I have in God. But I tell you this: if I take it captive and I cause it to become obedient unto Christ, that thing's gonna die there because doubt can't live in the presence. And and hear me, doubt is allowed to take up residence when we have distanced ourselves from God and His Word. So if you haven't been in the presence much, if you haven't been in your word, more doubt will come. And the thought of, oh, maybe, maybe I'll maybe I won't ever overcome this thing. Maybe this is just how I am, maybe this is just my circumstance, maybe this is just how my marriage is gonna be. Maybe these are just how my children are gonna are gonna be. Maybe this is just how my health is supposed to be because of my age, my gender, my all the things that doubt will try to use to get you to believe like it's common sense. You've got to cast it at the feet of Jesus and allow it to become obedient to Christ. And the way we do that is we stay in the word, we stay in his presence, and we stay planted on the fact that we have decided to submit to God and leave our faith there. We can't put our faith anywhere but God. It has to be rooted and grounded in the truth of God's word. And the more we spend time in his word, the deeper and stronger our faith will grow. It talks about that in Ephesians 3, verse 16, that in verse 17, that Christ, He will take residence in our heart and that the love of God will grow roots deep down in us so that it keeps us strong and firm. Y'all, if we step away from the word and we step away from this mirror that shows us, y'all look in the look in the mirror of God's word and you'll see spots of doubt on your face. Kind of like my face. If I look at my face in the mirror, I've got freckles, right? Let's say if I look in the spiritual mirror, I'll see spots that say, oh, doubt, doubt is right there. Uh-oh, doubt's right there as far as your marriage, doubt's right there as far as your children, oop, doubt's right there as far as your your health. Oop, doubt's right there as far as your calling or your future. And you say, Oh, I've gotta clean my face because now I'm looking in the mirror and now I can get clean because I see what's there. If I am not in the word, which is the mirror that allows me to see and expose me to what's there, y'all. I will allow doubt to sit in me and on me, and eventually it will come out of me. And now I'll be speaking words of doubt to other people. And now I'm contaminating their faith because of the words that I'm speaking because I got away from my mirror, y'all. Thanks for hanging out with me in the word. I hope it encouraged your heart and gave you something to carry into the rest of the week. If it spoke to you, share this with someone who might need it too. And hey, don't forget to follow or to subscribe so you don't miss out on what's next. Until then, keep showing up, keep listening, and let his word lead the way.