Noah was called to build a boat, a boat on dry land. There were no bodies of water near Noah. He had never experienced the kind of rain that God was talking about.

The questions for Noah were this: Was he going to have the kind of faith that is “talk about it faith,” or was he going to have “action faith?”

How long did Noah build that boat? One hundred and twenty years is the answer.

Year after year Noah worked on the boat, not ever having any kind of experience with what God was talking about. All he had was His word.

You can talk about your faith or you can prove your faith. You can have a faith that is in your head, or you can have a faith that is proven by the hammer and nails that are in your hand. Noah had “Dry Land Faith.”

Here’s my question: How do you get the hammer and nails into your hand? Let me suggest that there are three keys that can help us move our faith into action versus just talking about it.

Dry Land Faith Key #1: Knowledge brings faith.

Knowledge of the truth in God’s Word brings faith. Faith is believing something, requiring something to believe. The new age movement believes that we can “believe things into existence,” which is not the same kind of faith that we believers should have.

Our faith is based upon the truth in God’s Word. Knowing what God’s Word has to say about something gives us the ability to believe it. Our faith should be based upon God’s Word.

Romans 10:17 says, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

For example, how can you have faith to pray for a healing, believing that He will heal you, if you didn’t know it was God’s will for your healing? This is why Satan works so hard to tell the church today that it may not be God’s will for them to be healed! Why? Because it casts doubt, the opposite of faith, upon the hearts of God’s children! How can you lay hold of the promises of God if you don’t know what they are?

We must first know the truth, then believe it. That’s biblical faith!

Mark 9:23 says, “Jesus said unto him, ‘If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.’”

Dry Land Faith Key #2: Faith and a pure conscience.

How can you confidently approach God when your conscience is dirty? The truth is you can’t!

Hebrews 10:22 says, “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (emphasis added).

We need to have a true heart of full assurance of faith and washed clean from an evil conscience.

Dry Land Faith Key #3: Faith works through love.

The third key to operating in faith is to be rooted and grounded in love so that your faith will operate through love. The Bible tells us clearly that all believers should be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ if we want to experience the fullness of God, who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. When we are grounded in the love of Christ (Ephesians 3:16-20), we are told to put on the breastplate of faith and love … the two go together like hand and glove!

1 Thessalonians 5:8 says, “But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation.”

As we walk in the Spirit, the love of Christ will begin to flow through us and will give birth to much faith. Among the fruit of the Spirit, we find both faith and love.

Galatians 5:22-33 says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law” (emphasis added).

When the love of Christ is flowing through us, it brings forth much faith. God’s Word tells us clearly that faith works through love.

Galatians 5:6 says, “For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but faith which worketh by love” (emphasis added).

The Bible defines faith as “being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). Thus, in biblical vernacular, faith is a channel of living trust—an assurance—that stretches from man to God. In other words, it is the object of faith that renders faith faithful.

Faith is the assurance that God’s promises will never fail, even if sometimes we do not experience their fulfillment in our mortal existence. Hebrews 11 underscores the fact that we trust God to fulfill His promises for the future (the unseen) based on what He has already fulfilled in the past. Thus, our faith is not blind but based squarely on God’s proven faithfulness.

Noah was so sure of this that he worked to build a boat on dry land for 120 years without a cloud in the sky or any drops of rain hitting his head. 

How about you, where does your faith stand? I am striving for Noah’s kind of faith, “Dry Land Faith.”

Rev. Terrance J. Rollerson is pastor of The Compass Covenant Church in St. Paul.