Claim Your Victory Today

Copyright © 1993, 2006 by Dr. Creflo A. Dollar

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Scripture quotations marked amp are taken from the Amplified^®Bible. Copyright ©1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.lockman.org)

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version.^® NIV^®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Warner Faith

Hachette Book Group USA

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New York, NY 10017

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First eBook Edition: October 2006

ISBN: 978-0-7595-6919-5

In the early days of my ministry, God placed
two individuals in my life who impacted me eternally.
Bishop C. L. Carter, Sr., and Minister Laura M. Carter provided
spiritual oversight to me as my pastors and as my teachers.
They cared for me like a son.
Their Christ-like examples, wise counsel, and
faithful prayers made all the difference in how
God set me on His divine course for my life.

I dedicate this book to them for their hearts of love
and compassion pertaining to the gift of God they saw in me.
With all my heart, I bless them with my enduring love—always.

Before We Begin: Is Your Faith Out of Order?

Let all things be done decently and in order.

—1 Corinthians 14:40

Frustration. I see it on the faces of many believers who tell me they just can't seem to get "this faith stuff" to work for them.

I can sympathize. Early in my Christian life, I too spent a lot of time scratching my head and wondering why I wasn't seeing the miracles I needed so desperately. Now I know that the key to seeing miracle-working power operate consistently in our lives lies in understanding the divine order of faith.

When I talk about "divine order," I'm referring to the fact that God has ordained everything in heaven and on earth to operate according to a predetermined sequence or order. This is especially true where spiritual things are concerned. God's heavenly Kingdom is a place of order.

For example, under the Old Covenant system, the high priest followed a very strict, very detailed sequence of actions before he dared to enter the Holy of Holies. He didn't go waltzing into the Most Holy Place anytime he pleased. I assure you, he would have done so only once. Such a cavalier attitude toward God's prescribed order would have cost him his life. There was a process that had to take place before the high priest could operate in certain aspects of his calling.

The same is true for you and me where faith is concerned. We will never see the miracles and promises of God that will move us from the problem to the solution until we come to understand the divine order of faith.

FOLLOW THE PROCEDURE

Even in everyday life, there is an established order to follow in much of what we do. As the pastor of a large and growing congregation, I frequently run into people who fail to follow the set order. From time to time, for example, an irate church member will come up to me and say, "Pastor, I've been trying to get in to see you for five months!"

I respond by asking how he or she has gone about trying to see me.

"Well, I've dropped by your office several times, and you're either gone or busy or you have someone in your office."

Immediately the problem is evident. there is a simple and well-established procedure in our church for arranging to see the pastor. It is spelled out clearly in our new member orientation. Anyone who wants to see me merely needs to call my secretary, set up an appointment, and show up on the day and time set. That's all there is to it.

I have established a clear order for arranging my office schedule. If you don't follow the order, you probably won't get in to see me. The same is true in the Kingdom of God. The Lord has a set order for everything. First Corinthians 14 makes that very clear:

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints. . . . Let all things be done decently and in order.

—1 Corinthians 14:33, 40

NO ORDER, NO MIRACLES

When you neglect God's divine order, His blessings don't flow. Divine order is a prerequisite for miracles and blessings. This truth is illustrated vividly in Jesus' feeding of the five thousand. Before the people could be miraculously blessed, they had to get in order.

When you neglect God's divine order, His blessings don't flow.

For they were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, Make them sit down by fifties in a company.

—Luke 9:14

Can you imagine the chaos that would have ensued if the disciples had started randomly handing out food to that hungry mob? There would have been a riot!

There's no getting around it. Follow God's set order and you'll get the desired results. ignore it and you'll end up frustrated and defeated.

So does God have an established order when it comes to overcoming problems? Yes. The Scriptures give us a clear pattern for moving from any problem—be it sickness, debt, lack, family strife, or anything else—to the solution. These steps will work for anyone at any time, regardless of how overwhelming the circumstances are, because these steps represent God's divine order of faith.

Over the years, there has been a lot of good teaching on faith. But I've heard very little on God's prescribed order for using it. I believe that's why we have so many so-called faith failures and so many frustrated Christians. Most don't even know there is a divine order of faith, much less understand what it is.

In the following pages we'll see that God's word lays out a simple ten-step order for getting from any problem to a miraculous solution. It doesn't matter if you've been a Christian for fifty years or if you were born again five minutes ago. If you will submit yourself to this order, your faith will produce. God's word guarantees it.

If you will submit yourself to this order, your faith will produce. God 's Word guarantees it.

Before you can submit to God's divine order for faith, however, you need to have a good working understanding of what faith is.

YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH

The just shall live by faith.

—Romans 1:17

Child of God, the time for playing church is over. The King of kings and the Lord of lords is on His way back. And the key to surviving and even thriving in this unprecedented era is knowing how to operate in faith.

We are living in extraordinary times. Signs all around us shout the fact that we are living in the final days of history. in this critical hour, knowing how to operate in faith can literally mean the difference between life and death.

Knowing how to operate in faith can literally mean the difference between life and death.

That's why it is vital for you to start developing your faith now. If you wait until a crisis is upon you to start learning how to live by faith, you'll be in big trouble. Those who put it off until the last minute will find that it's too late.

NO AVOIDING TROUBLE

Regardless of the time in history in which you're living, if you're a believer one thing is certain: you're going to have trouble. It's not only likely—it's guaranteed. in John 16:33, Jesus says:

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

It shouldn't come as any great shock when, as a believer, you experience tribulation or trouble. Jesus said it would happen. But praise God, that's not all He said. He also admonished us, "Cheer up! I have overcome the world!"

The world really hasn't changed very much since Jesus' day. Sure, technology has advanced, but human nature is as mean and nasty as ever. without Jesus, this world is a hostile place. And even with Jesus, we still face trials and tribulation.

The good news is that Jesus tells us to be of good cheer because He has overcome. That knowledge, however, really doesn't help much unless we also understand how He overcame so we can do the same. We need to know what it takes to overcome poverty and lack, what we can do to overcome certain destructive habits, and what is needed to enable us to overcome sickness.

In 1 John 5:4, Jesus offers the answer to our questions:

For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

There it is. The first prerequisite for overcoming the world is being "born of God." There's no use even trying to be a world overcomer if you're not born again. Then the second part of that verse tells us what enables us to overcome—our faith. Jesus overcame the world by using His faith, and we'll overcome the world using the measure of faith God has given us.

Faith is the key. it hasn't passed away. it's not something out of a dusty old sermon. Faith is fresh, alive, powerful, and as relevant today as at any time in history. If you're going to overcome the world rather than be overcome by it, you're going to do it with your faith.

If you're going to overcome the world rather than be overcome by it, you're going to do it with your faith.

Too many people in the church today are trying to overcome their problems with pop psychology, government programs, or something they read in a magazine somewhere. The truth is, you can't separate victory from faith. To experience victory you have to have faith in God and His Word.

LIVE IT

God is serious about His people's commitment to operating in faith. In fact, four separate times in Scripture, He declares, "The just shall live by faith" (Habbakuk 2:4; Romans 1:17; Galatians 3:11; Hebrews 10:38). Now the Bible says, "In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established" (Matthew 18:16; see also 2 Corinthians 13:1), and here is the testimony of four voices proclaiming the same thing. Do you get the impression God wants us to live by faith?

If you're saved, you're one of the "just." When Jesus washes your sins away you are declared righteous by God Himself. And as one of the just, you must learn to live by faith.

You may say, "I tried that faith thing and it didn't work."

Well, the Bible doesn't say, "The just shall try it out." It says, "The just shall live by faith." You don't dabble in faith. You live it.

You don't dabble in faith. You live it.

SO WHAT IS FAITH?

Once you understand that trouble is inevitable and faith is the only thing that will overcome that trouble, the next step is to discover once and for all what this thing called faith really is. You may be thinking, Everybody knows what faith is. It means belief or trust in God and His Word. Of course, that's part of it. But real faith involves so much more than that, and any biblical discussion of the nature of faith has to start with Hebrews, chapter 11:

Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

—Hebrews 11:1–6

Notice the first three words of the first verse: "Now faith is." The first thing you need to understand is that faith operates in the realm of the now. God is not yesterday. God is not tomorrow. God abides in the eternal now. He didn't tell Moses His name was "I WAS." He called himself "I AM." That's good news, because when you're sick God says, "I AM your healer." When you need finances, He says, "I AM your provider." And when you're in trouble, you don't need deliverance someday—you need it now, and "I AM" is present to deliver.

The next remarkable thing these verses teach us about faith is that it is a substance. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for." In other words, faith is a literal, unseen material. It is "stuff." Verse 3 tells us that faith is the agency through which the physical universe was made:

Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

—Hebrews 11:3

Think of it. Everything you see around you is the product of faith-filled words. Think of God's words as spiritual seeds—seeds that have the ability to produce physical things like trees, planets, or money. That's why the Bible is such an enormously powerful thing. From cover to cover, it contains God's faith-filled words, specifically empowered to produce whatever you need in your life.

When you pick up your Bible, you hold in your hands the seeds to produce finances, healing, salvation of your loved ones, a sound mind, restoration of your marriage, or anything else you could possibly need. The tragic fact is that many believers are simply too lazy to pick up their Bible, get the seed out, and plant it. Far too many of us want to just line up in a prayer line, have a minister lay hands on us, and instantaneously— without any effort on our part—see all our problems solved. but it doesn't work that way.

Successful farming takes effort and hard work. A farmer's seed does him no good as long as it lies dormant in the sack. But when he plants his seed, he gets a harvest. Likewise, the seeds of provision in God's Word will never produce for you as long as your Bible gathers dust on your shelf.

The seeds of provision in God 's Word will never produce for you as long as your Bible gathers dust on your shelf.

"But what if I don't know how to plant the seed of God's Word?" That's what this book is all about. As I said in the opening chapter, there is a specific divine order for getting from the problem to the answer. In the next chapter, we will begin with Step 1 on the road to victory.

Think about It

1. What is "divine order"?

2. How did the Old Covenant high priest demonstrate divine order?

3. Read and study 1 Corinthians 14:27–33. What happens when God's divine order is ignored?

4. Read Luke 11:1–4. What do you notice about the order of Jesus' prayer? why is it significant?

5. Have you experienced "faith failures" in your life? If so, identify any that may have occurred because you were ignorant of God's divine order.

6. As a believer, how can you avoid trouble?

7. What are the two keys given in 1 John 5:4 for overcoming the world?

8. How have you tried to overcome your own lack, sickness, or sin?

9. If you are "the just," how does the Bible command you to live? How does a human being qualify to be "the just"?

10. When does faith operate? How do you know?

11. Explain how God created all things. Of what substance do all things consist?

12. Why is your Bible your most valuable possession? What does it contain that you must have to overcome the world?

Reflect on It

For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

—1 Corinthians 14:33

Let all things be done decently and in order.

—1 Corinthians 14:40