Many people think, "If God's mercy is following me and His mercy brings all the benefits of God's presence into my life, why am I not experiencing all those benefits?"

There is a simple answer to your question. It is not enough to have God's mercy directed towards you. Like everything else in the Christian life, your faith activates that mercy to bring it into manifestation.

The Bible is full of promises for believers—promises of healing, abundance, peace, safety, and so much more. Yet most believers never see those promises become a reality in their lives because they never develop faith for those promises.

Faith is the key.

Ephesians 2:8 tells us it is by faith that we are saved: "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."

According to Colossians 2:6-7, we must live the Christian life the same way we got saved: "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught...."

In other words, you successfully live the Christian life the same way you started it—by faith. Romans 1:17 echoes this truth: "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith."

Now you can begin to see why so few Christians experience the benefits of God's abundant mercies. They have no faith either to receive these benefits or to live in them.

On the contrary, they have faith in the idea that God is mad at them, that He's "out to get them," that He's just looking for an opportunity to zap them.

Is it any wonder then that so few believers can really understand the mercies of God?

The good news is, you can make a change in your life starting right now. How? According to Romans 10:17, by hearing the Word, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God."

Source: Answers Awaiting in the Presence of God by Creflo A. Dollar, Jr.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers