Faith - Part 3

Hebrews 11:6 “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

This morning I was all set to use the post that I have already prepared two days ago which is about how God walked me step by step to understand the faith that is pleasing to Him. But, I have this habit which I hang on to very close to my heart when I am writing a post that I personally feel is a heavy subject.  A heavy subject for me is when you take the stand and you are basically alone in your belief. Times like that, my heart is closer to God for two reasons:

1)    I feel the loneliness of standing for something that I know is true and the only way I will be vindicated is when the world will be no more. So, I need God’s friendship

2)    The other reason is that I would rather die than knowingly or unknowingly lead people in the wrong direction that would lead them to Satan or away from the arms of my Father.

So, I have a habit of going to God even though I already know what the subject should be. I learned to practice this habit a few years back when I learned what David did in 2 Samuel 5 after he was crowned king over all Israel. In verse 17 when the Philistines were at his doorsteps in the valley of Rephaim, instead of going straight out there and fight them, David inquired of the Lord, just in case God had another plan. David did not pray because he was looking for a sign from God, but because of his faith in Him and His relationship with Him.

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So, as I sat there, meditating on His word and His will, my heart was heavy because I would hate to know that I wrote anything that was just my opinion to some extend. I was looking for some bread crumbs from Him just to confirm that I should continue posting or not, then, He met with me. He knew what I was looking for, He reassured me of His will and He said to me. You are not as alone as you think you are and this question of  “fall away” that man is trying to put their own spin on, is right there in the Bible. I said, well I know it is all over the Bible but…. , before I finish my thought He said I am referring to the story of Adam and Eve that is right there in the Bible.  Only then, I realized that I never thought of it this way. Then He said if Adam and Eve had all the privileges they received through me and one of them was to walk with me so closely, yet their lack of belief in me caused them to fall away from grace, why would Christians be exempt?

I am going to say something that will make me sound so stupid, but I have to share it anyway.  Only when I heard God say “their lack of belief in me” I realized I always see Adam and Eve disobedience, but I never focused on what they did as a lack of faith in Him. Yes, I can hear myself saying that, I also realize this is something that even a babe in Christ already knows yet, it totally escaped me. The conversation between God and I went on and on, and I was truly happy and felt free.

Then I sat down while thinking about faith, I came to the conclusion since the word “faith” is about taking God at His word to the point where we can confidently act on what comes out of His mouth, then it all makes sense. What comes out of His mouth is so precious that He promised and warned us that Heaven and earth will pass away, but His words shall not pass away! He also said His word abides forever. God takes what comes out of His mouth seriously. So serious that He tells us that it is a matter of life and death.

Adam and Eve did not keep God’s covenant with them, they questioned His integrity and second guessed His word. Whenever we break God’s covenant with us, we do it because there is unbelief in our heart.  Any time we act contrary to God’s word, we reject Him over and over again. Whenever we act contrary to God’s word, we tell Him we do not believe that He has integrity. Hence the writer of Hebrews said in Hebrews 11:6 much more than “we must believe” he added onto it that we must diligently or earnestly seek Him. This word means a life purposely lived for Him. This word also involves a deeper commitment with complete awareness of Him. But, Satan fills our mind with unbelief, he keeps us occupied with our shoddy Christianity and tells us that we will be okay. He helps us find joy in saying those verses chapters after chapters when in reality, inwardly, we do not reflect what we profess. While Satan cannot see what is in our hearts, but 99% of the time, Satan finds the foothold that he needs to mess up with us simply because he watches us. He can tell what brings us more pleasure, he can tell where our weaknesses are, and what to use against us to undermine us in our walk of faith with Him.

As God reassured me this morning, when we do not have faith, we reject Him pure and simple and we reject everything He is offering us. We are living in a culture where the emphasis is put on God to keep His word.  If I read one more time that God cannot lie, I will die. Yes, it is good to know we serve a God who cannot lie, but that is not where our problems really lie. People are not interested in telling others that we too, God has given us guidance to follow through His word and we better get in line with His plan. Our culture makes it look like even when we reject Him we will be okay. But it is not biblical at all because the Bible keeps warning us. Without faith it is impossible to please God and God will always test our faith through trials, adversities and pressures of life to give us an opportunity to respond and show that we truly believe beyond our words and beyond our activities.

Faith is the only catalyst that brings us through a life of intimacy with Him. We have something to say about whether we want this life or not. When we decide to go our way while we are paying Him lip service, we force His hand and He cannot do anything else but act according to His nature. How many times God has to explain to us that every time we reject His grace we will lose. Lucifer tried that, as well as Adam & Eve. The stubborn Israelites also learned it the hard way, so why, with all these examples and warnings we still tempt God? 

The Israelites thought they were superior because they found grace in the eyes of God so they felt and acted like He owed them. Doesn’t that remind you of us Christians today? When we take His Salvation for granted we put God through the same thing the Israelites put Him through. We act as if everything is permissible for two reasons.  One of them is that Christ died for us and the second one is that God cannot lie.  Yet, we keep saying with our mouths that we serve a God who does not change. So, if for a minute you are thinking without Satan’s blocking your mind can you see how this does not make sense?

The next time you are trying to convince yourself that shoddy Christianity is good enough because God cannot lie and He has to honour His word ask yourself “ Have I honoured my commitment to Him?” Do I truly live a life that shows that I take Him at His word? Do I stand on all His word or few verses that make things easy for me? TEST YOUR OWN FAITH!

Faith - Part 2

Hebrews 3:12-19 “ See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.  But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.  We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.  As has just been said: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts  as you did in the rebellion.” Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Egypt?  And with whom was he angry for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies perished in the wilderness?  And to whom did God swear that they would never enter his rest if not to those who disobeyed?  So we see that they were not able to enter, because of their unbelief.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
Hebrews 3:14-19 The saints' privilege is, they are made partakers of Christ, that is, of the Spirit, the nature, graces, righteousness, and life of Christ; they are interested in all Christ is, in all he has done, or will do. The same spirit with which Christians set out in the ways of God, they should maintain unto the end. Perseverance in faith is the best evidence of the sincerity of our faith. Hearing the word often is a means of salvation, yet, if not hearkened to, it will expose more to the Divine wrath. The happiness of being partakers of Christ and his complete salvation, and the fear of God's wrath and eternal misery, should stir us up to persevere in the life of obedient faith. Let us beware of trusting to outward privileges or professions, and pray to be numbered with the true believers who enter heaven, when all others fail because of unbelief. As our obedience follows according to the power of our faith, so our sins and want of care are according to the prevailing of unbelief in us.

Brothers and sisters, you cannot read Hebrews 3:12-19 and minimize what you read by playing fancy footsteps around it. You are neither allowed to use one or two Bible verses to justify the reason why you do not heed to these verses. I do not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings nor insulting you or judging you. I am simply sharing with you that the God that I got to know the past fifteen years do not take kindly when we assume that a presumptuous faith will do. We have examples throughout the Bible from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation. When it comes to our faith in God, Satan is no joke. The kind of temptation that caused the fall of Adam and Eve is very alive today.

When you cultivate a childlike mind, as you read a verse like Ephesians 2:6 you do not go prancing around as if God never wrote anything else. As a child of God, if indeed you have received true Salvation and Satan is not reigning in your life, then you go directly to God through humility and patience, you tell Him that your mind is not able to reconcile these verses in Hebrews 3 and the fact that we are supposed to be saved by grace alone so no one can boast. I promise you, He will love the fact that you would rather come to Him in your ignorance than believing glibly what some Satan’s child is telling you to believe.  If your heart is right, He will always take you further and reveal His word further. The truth is, Ephesians 2:6 and Hebrews 3:12-19 are true and consistent and God does not contradict Himself. But, to go on understanding more, you have to know Him, sit at His feet, worship Him with your life, carrying the cross He puts in front of you. You have to live a life that shows you understand the depth of the sacrifice He made on the cross. You have to learn what it truly means to find rest in Him. You have to know what it means to live and walk in the Spirit. Above all else we have to live a life that shows we are truly living in union with Him. And we have to live with complete reverence for who He is. All of what I have mentioned in the way we are to live this life of faith in Him, is about His grace getting us there because, alone, we do not have the capacity.

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When you get to know God, you learn to see things with a different set of eyes, “your spiritual eyes” and this is why Paul said: “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.” Don’t make the mistake of missing out on the key word there. Paul says “those who believe” Then you ought to examine yourself to see if you truly believe. Does your life reflect the word of God? How is His word changing you inwardly? Or do you believe in vain?

If you are dead set on claiming for instance Ephesians 2:6 and you do not want to have anything to do with Hebrews 3 it does not matter what spin you put on it, what you have is nothing short of presumptuous faith. You simply presume certain things in your own strength and your own understanding because that’s what convenient to you. Satan actually knows that about you better than you do and he not only succeeded in tempting you, he moved on for the kill and you are no wiser. I know most of you are going to say “wait a minute, most people believe in this way.” Well, for one, hell is going to be more populated than heaven so there is no surprise there. Secondly stop being a sheep because most people are going the wrong way, don’t follow them, and follow Christ. Stop living your spiritual life because it feels and sound good. Stop tweaking God’s covenant, and stop trying to find loopholes like you are a lawyer fighting to win your case.

Sto

p putting a spin on it to make it feel like if you go forward claiming your inheritance, it feels like lordship salvation. It is simply recognizing the plan of Salvation was conceived by one architect and He alone knows what is needed. He put it forward, He paid the price for it and He alone tells us how it all works out, hence the whole Bible. We go forward embracing the whole Bible, because we recognize that we are nothing and we need Him. Also, we go forward because we are grateful that He actually thought of a plan to reconcile with us.

Jesus Christ Himself gave us an example of this kind of presumptuous faith and how God feels about it. Satan in his audacity tempted Him in Mathew 4:5-6 “Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple.  “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’ --- Does the word God really say that? Did Satan lie?  Well, take a look at Psalm 91 start reading from verse 11 “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. ….. “Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him;;” When you read this you realize Satan did not twist God’s word and he did not lie.” What was Christ’s answer? Have you ever pondered on those words uttered by our Lord and Savior?

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ – I do not know about you but when I pondered on those words before I knew Him well, I knew I had to go further than what I was being fed by man because certain things are written in black and white and I did not think I could use an excuse with God. Even with a minimum understanding, I knew if Christ was not exempted from living a presumptuous faith then why would I be? All I understood from Christ’s response there, when I was a baby in the faith was that Christ was telling me that every word of God is important and had to be applied. How? I did not know yet. Personally, I felt God contradicted Himself like crazy but I was not trying to insult Him or taking advantage of Him, He knew this was the extend of my understanding. But, as I went forward, He taught me.

I beg of you, do not take those words in this post and try to make someone else tell you what to believe. In fact, I do not want you to take my word for it because it is not about me. I am not going to be the one deciding if you deserve hell or heaven. Take it directly to Him who is the supreme authority. When you take certain things to a pastor or a mentor with a hidden motive because you are seeking someone to tell you that it is okay to remain in your shoddy Christianity and God will honour His word, you do not fool God and you will pay the consequences of your actions. What I said above, in no way means that you are not to talk to your pastor or your mentor. There are great pastors out there who have been literally placed by God to feed us and guide us to Him. My point is, at the end of the day, in the depth of your heart, you already know what you want to believe and what is convenient.

Part 3 tomorrow...

Faith - Part 1

Heb. 11:6 "But without faith it is impossible to please Him"

1 Peter 1:7 “These have come so that your faith--of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire--may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

Hebrews 11:1-39 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary describes faith in this way:  “11:1-3 Faith always has been the mark of God's servants, from the beginning of the world. Where the principle is planted by the regenerating Spirit of God, it will cause the truth to be received, concerning justification by the sufferings and merits of Christ. And the same things that are the object of our hope, are the object of our faith. It is a firm persuasion and expectation, that God will perform all he has promised to us in Christ. This persuasion gives the soul to enjoy those things now; it gives them a subsistence or reality in the soul, by the first-fruits and foretastes of them. Faith proves to the mind, the reality of things that cannot be seen by the bodily eye. It is a full approval of all God has revealed, as holy, just, and good. This view of faith is explained by many examples of persons in former times, who obtained a good report, or an honourable character in the word of God. Faith was the principle of their holy obedience, remarkable services, and patient sufferings. The Bible gives the most true and exact account of the origin of all things, and we are to believe it, and not to wrest the Scripture account of the creation, because it does not suit with the differing fancies of men. All that we see of the works of creation, were brought into being by the command of God.” 

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When I started going through the wilderness with God, there are times I truly did not know what to do and I needed help figuring out my next step. As I went through this process, I understood Abraham’s decision to go to Egypt when there was famine in the land that God planted Him. I also understood why he made the tremendous mistake of having a child on his own. Prior to my own wilderness with God, Abraham was a symbol of faith but mostly his defiance and his cowardness stood out.  But, I came to understand when God is working out the gift of faith in us, because we are not mature enough and the nature and substance of faith is found in not knowing, to add to the ordeal, we don’t understand God’s way well enough, so we assume if we take matters into our hands by using our own God’s given common sense, we should be fine. We do not see it as a disobedience to God and we do not mean to sin either. 

As I was seeking help to understand how to move forward with God, I went to three different leaders of the Church (two were elders) on three completely separate occasions I got the same scripted answer every single time. The answer was for me to start doing stuff, choose between the choices that I have and pray God to block my way if He does not want this for me. In their defence I have to say most of the pastors all throughout the internet, the mega television evangelists and many more out there have all used this analogy. What is strange is that I have seen pastors who have solid faith in God also used this analogy. Sometimes, I am not sure if they use it because they want to please more people out there or if it is due to the lack of experiencing God. Either way, God taught me that this way is wrong on so many levels, I would need to write a specific post to talk about it. 

About 18 months after I left the Church, the guy who led me to Christ invited me to work with him in church planting. As I went there to investigate things I was already on my fourth year in the wilderness and I was still waiting for God’s leading before getting involved in any kind of big venture.  While I did not ignore any opportunity offered to me, but I always left it to God to make the call. So, I was talking to two people that I met and these people were already involved in the Church planting ministry, they were trying their best to entice me. I started explaining to them how I am waiting for God to show me where exactly He wants to use me before I make a commitment to any project. One of the past elder of the Church that I left behind, interject himself in the conversation as if because of his status he had something that I did not have. So, he interrupted us to tell me how wrong I was to wait for God to make decision for me and that we are given common sense and we ought to use it. Somehow he thought this would be a big finale as he stood there, and said: “there is nothing wrong with using common sense along with God.” – I did not say a single word and since the people I was talking to did not know Him, no one made any comments. 

What this guy did not know is that years prior to this encounter with him,  God showed me how disobedient he was and how in spite of everything that God put Him through, (believe me when I tell you he was going through a lots of trials in his life) God was not able to get this guy to a place where he would stop and think in the spirit before making the numerous decisions He made in order to go forward with God. As God is my witness I am telling you the truth. At one point God showed me so much about this guy, I wrote an email to my Bible group leader and explained all that I have been seeing and how deep this guy disobedience was getting with God. I received an email back saying “you cannot confront him.” I replied back that was not my intention.  You see, the reason I sent the email to my group leader was because they were all part of the same leadership consortium and I was hoping that someone in the leadership would get hold of what was going on and perhaps come alongside of this guy at one point. Did I handle it wrong? YES BIG TIME.

This was during the time God used to show me things about people and I did not know I was supposed to pray for them. Nevertheless God always sustains me when I get bad advice from people and He always walk alongside of me to make sure I stay the course.  Walking in the Spirit is so essential to our Christian faith. This ex Church elder never realized that his walk with God is the equivalent of the Israelites walk of faith that we find when reading 1 & 2 Kings. We find that many kings failed because they could not bring themselves to the point of destroying the high places their predecessors erected. So, they have learned to worship God on their terms. (Man’s way) If we say we believe in Scripture, then we have to believe that God recorded these things about the high places in 1 & 2 Kings for a reason. While we might not have high places in the same way, today’s Christians have to deal with high places in their hearts.  

The truth is, when it comes to faith we can’t be satisfied with words we repeat like in Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  We have to learn to live diligently as we are told so that we can grasp the opportunities that God bring into our lives to get us there and to test us. Yes we find solace and great joy in repeating those words, but God wants us to take them one step further by allowing Him to work them out in us. That’s what’s pleasing to Him.