OUR DAILY BREAD NO. 22 – FAITH IN GOD 2 A beautiful morning yet again. It is wonderful and beautiful. Any day the Lord has made is beautiful. Yesterday we saw that trusting and believing in what God has made is really not on. We should instead believe in the Creator himself. Believing in God’s creations like the stars, moon, sun, trees animals etc shows that something is not well with us. Believing in God is called Faith. You must totally believe in God, what he says and what he does totally. God requires us to have faith in him. It is a requirement for every person to have faith in God. Faith means total dependence and reliance with God. Unquestionable reliance and dependence in God. God expects us to use our minds to see what he create, read his word, imagine, think and make conclusions that he really is the only one to believe in and to trust in. Infact according to God there is no excuse at all for human being not to have faith and belief in God. Romans 1: 20 says “Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen; they are perceived in the things that God has made. So those people have no excuse at all!”. Thus as people we just don’t have an excuse though we often plead so many excuses. Without this faith and this believing in GOD IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO PLEASE GOD!!! A person who does not believe in God or trust in God cannot please him. Without faith its impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6), so our relationship with the Lord is dependent on it. Faith is what brings the things God has provided for us from the spiritual realm into the physical realm (Heb. 11:1). Our faith is the victory that enables us to overcome the world (1 John 5:4). Everything the Lord does for us is accessed through faith. Every born-again Christian already has the same quality and quantity of faith that Jesus has. Thats awesome! In Ephesians 2:8, Paul says, For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Its Gods grace that saves us, but not His grace alone. If that were so, then everyone would be saved because Gods grace has come to all men (Tit. 2:11). We have to put faith in Gods grace, but the faith that we use isnt our own human faith. This verse says that faith is the gift of God. There is a human faith that is inherent within every human being, and there is a supernatural faith of God that only comes to those who receive the good news. Human faith can only believe what it can see, taste, hear, smell, or feel; its limited to the five senses. Using natural human faith, we can sit in a chair weve never sat in and believe it will hold us up. We fly in airplanes when we dont fully understand how they work, and we dont know the pilot, but we trust that everything will be okay. That takes human faith, which God gave to every person. Human faith can only believe what it can see, taste, hear, smell, or feel; its limited to the five senses. Using natural human faith, we can sit in a chair weve never sat in and believe it will hold us up. We fly in airplanes when we dont fully understand how they work, and we dont know the pilot, but we trust that everything will be okay. That takes human faith, which God gave to every person. What if I asked you to sit in a chair you couldnt see? Or what if the chair was missing one of its legs and was falling over? You wouldnt sit in a chair like that with human faith. Would you fly in a plane if you could see that the engine was falling off or the tires were flat? Your senses would forbid it. Yet when it comes to God, we have to believe things that we cannot see. You havent seen God or the devil. You havent seen heaven or hell. You havent seen sin; therefore, you wouldnt know what you would look like if your sins were taken away. However, you have to believe in all these things to be born again. How can you believe in things you cant see? The answer is that you cant believe in invisible things with human faith. You need Gods supernatural faith. Romans 4:17 says, God ... calleth those things which be not as though they were. Gods faith goes beyond sight. Gods faith operates supernaturally, beyond the limitations of our natural faith. The context of this verse from Romans speaks about how God supernaturally blessed Abram and Sarai with a child in their old age. Abram was 100 and Sarai was 91 when Isaac was born. The year before Isaacs birth, when Abram still did not have a child by his wife, God told them the child was coming, and He changed Abrams name to Abraham and Sarais name to Sarah. Abram meant high father, but Abraham means, to be populous, father of a multitude. God changed Abrams name and called him the father of a multitude before it came to pass. Romans 4:17 explains this action by saying that God calleth those things which be not as though they were. When the Lord created the universe, Genesis 1:3 tells us that He created light on the first day but didnt create the sun, moon, and stars until the fourth day of creation (Gen. 1:14-19). The Lord called light into being first and four days later created a source for the light to come from. Thats not the way natural man does things. We are limited, but God calls things that are not as though they were. Thats supernatural. Thats the kind of faith we have to use to receive salvation. We have to believe in God, whom we have not seen, and believe that our sins are forgiven, which we cannot prove by natural means. It takes Gods supernatural faith to receive salvation. Where do we get it from? We get it from Gods Word. Romans 10:17 says, So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. We access Gods faith through His Word. When we hear Gods Word, the Holy Spirit empowers it, and if we receive the truth, Gods supernatural faith enters us. We were so destitute that we couldnt even believe the good news on our own. God had to make His kind of faith available to us so that we could believe in Him and receive His salvation. We were saved by using Gods supernatural faith to receive His grace. Once we receive Gods supernatural faith at salvation, it doesnt leave us. Galatians 5:22-23 says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, FAITH, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law (emphasis mine). Faith becomes a permanent part of our born-again spirits. We sometimes use the God kind of faith thats present in our spirits and other times we dont. The truth is, it is always present. There is no lack of faith within any true Christian. There is just a lack of knowing and using what God has already given us. Romans 12:3 says, God hath dealt to every man THE measure of faith (emphasis mine). God didnt give us different measures of faith; we all received THE measure of faith. If I were serving soup to a lot of people, and if I used the same ladle to dish it out, then that ladle would be THE measure. Everyone would get the same amount of soup because I would use the same measure. Thats the way it is with Gods faith. He only used one measure. All born-again Christians received the same amount of faith. Thats what the Apostle Peter said in 2 Peter 1:1; Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The Greek word that was translated like precious in this verse is isotimos, which means of equal value or honor. We have the same faith that Peter used when he raised Dorcas from the dead (Acts 9:36-42) and when he made people whole by touching them with just his shadow (Acts 5:15). We also have the same faith that Paul had. Paul said in Galatians 2:20, I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. Paul did not say that he lived by faith IN the Son of God but by the faith OF the Son of God. The measure of faith that Paul had was the same measure that Jesus had. It was Jesus faith. If there is only one measure of faith (Rom. 12:3), then we also have the faith of Jesus. We have the same quantity and quality of faith that Jesus has; therefore, we can do the same works that Jesus did, if we receive this truth and begin to use what we have (John 14:12). Because many Christians have not understood this, they have spent their time asking for faith or for more faith. How is God going to answer a prayer like that? If I gave you my Bible and then you turned around and asked me for my Bible, what could I do? I would probably stand there in silence while I tried to figure out what was wrong with you. Thats the reason there isnt an answer when we beseech the Lord for more faith. We already have the same faith Jesus has. Our Lord did say that He had never seen such great faith as the centurion manifested (Matt. 8:10), and He also spoke of His disciples little faith (Matt. 8:26), but He was speaking about how much faith He saw. None of us use all the faith weve been given. In that sense, some do have more faith than others, but technically, it is more faith that is being exhibited or that is functional. We all have been given THE measure of faith. This is a major truth that will totally change your attitude and the results that your faith produces. Most people dont doubt that faith works. They just doubt that they have enough faith to get the job done. If Satan can blind you to this truth, then he can keep you from using the faith you have. Understanding this truth will radically change things. Philemon 1:6 says, hat the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus. Notice that Paul isnt praying that Philemon will get something more from the Lord. He was praying that his faith would begin to work as he acknowledged what he already had. The word acknowledge means, to admit, recognize, or report the receipt of. You can only acknowledge something that you already have. We already have the faith of God, and it will begin to work when we acknowledge this. The more you know about faith and how it works, the better it will work for you. If all you knew was that you have the same faith Jesus has, then that would remove hopelessness and motivate you. People would eventually see results if they just kept trying, but they give up easily because they believe they dont have what it takes. That is not true. The Lord has given us everything we need, including all the faith we need. We just need to acknowledge what we have and begin to learn the laws that govern the operation of Gods faith. Bishop James
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 00:14:55 +0000
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