Our Covenant of Faith, Part 10
John
6:28-29 (Amp), then they said, what are we to do, that we may (habitually) be
working the works of God? (what are we to do to carry out what God
requires?) Jesus replied, this is the
work (service) that God asks of you; that you believe in the one whom He has
sent (that they cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His messenger.
To me, this
is the whole matter of what our new covenant is all about – that we put our
faith in what Jesus came to do. We keep
trying to find some kind of formula to make things work, when all we are asked
to do is believe (have faith) in what has already been done. Our righteousness has already been provided
(by faith in Jesus). Our justification
has already been provided (by faith in what Jesus has already done). Our healing has already been provided (by
faith in what Jesus has done). It’s not
a matter of having faith (Romans 12:3 Amp: the degree of faith apportioned by
God. Romans 12:3 KJV: as God has dealt
to each man the measure of faith). It is
a matter of what you put your faith into.
You can’t have faith for healing without faith in the healer who bore
your disease. It is not a matter of
being righteous enough, or good enough, or doing enough to deserve to be
healed. It is a matter of finding out
who our healer is and realizing that I get healed because of Him and not
because of me or my good works. We, as
Christians, still try to base what happens in our lives by what we provide, instead
of allowing God to do what He provides in our sacrifice Lamb.
When our
Father adopted us into His family, He took on full responsibility for us. We have laws in this land about absentee
fathers and make them provide for their own children. God is not an absentee father. Everything that was needed to succeed in life
(according to the will of our Father) was provided in Jesus. When you look up the word “salvation”, it
means temporal as well as eternal.
In Romans
10:8-10 Amp, we see the scripture that most of us use when leading someone into
salvation. In Romans 10:7, so faith
comes by hearing (what is told), and what is heard comes by the preaching (of
the message that came from the lips) of Christ (the Messiah Himself). Jesus told His own disciples in Mark 16:15-20
Amp: go into all the world and preach and publish openly the good news (the
Gospel) to every creature (of the human race).
Vs 16: He who believes (adheres to and trusts in and relies on the
Gospel and Him whom it sets forth) and is baptized will be saved.
Then He
went into some of the signs that were to follow, not just His disciples that He
was talking to at the time, but those that would believe what they preached. Then in Vs 20 Amp, they went out and preached
everywhere, while the Lord kept working with them and confirming the message by
the attesting signs and miracles that closely accompanied it. Amen (so be it).
Did you
notice that He didn’t confirm the man preaching, but only what they
preached? If faith in what God does
comes by hearing what God does (Romans 10:17), then how can the people put
faith in what they don’t hear?
We have
been hearing about going to heaven when we leave here, and that is a wonderful
thing, but we still have to live here until that time. Is God unable to take care of His children now? Are they just left to the mercy of a
diabolical enemy until then? Have we
been hearing about a father that will never leave us or forsake us or are we
simply not hearing the whole message of salvation?
The Gospel
(Good News) is that there is nothing left for us to do but receive by faith
what is already done. Are we so proud
that we will still blame our Lord for our own shortcomings instead of admitting
that we haven’t believed in the full price of His blood? The devil is very good at bringing condemnation
on us every time we fail at something to the point that we won’t preach it so
as to not upset the people. If we don’t
preach it, they can’t hear it. If they
don’t hear it, they can’t believe it. If
they can’t believe it, they won’t receive it, even though it is now already
ours (through faith in the one that provided it). We will never each out for it by faith and
allow God to do what He set out to do from the start and bring man back to the
full measure of His love.
In Mark 5
Amp, we read about Jairus and his daughter and also about the issue of
blood. In Mark 5:27 Amp, when she heard the reports
concerning Jesus and she came up behind Him in the throng and touched His
garment. The results were that she was
healed by having faith in what she heard concerning Jesus. She had never been in one of His meetings
because she couldn’t go out in public as she was considered unclean by the
law. She had never seen Jesus because of
not being able to go out. The only
things she had was faith in what she heard.
Jesus didn’t go there to heal her, and it wasn’t even Him who instigated
the healing; it was her faith in Him that loosed the healing (that was already
available) her faith in what she heard rose up and received what Jesus had
already bought. You find that Jesus
stopped and asked (who touched me?) of all the people that thronged Him that
day, only two people are recorded that received from Him – both by faith in
what they heard about Him.
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