Faith may be the most misunderstood topic in the entire New Testament. Because of man's idea of how to be right with God, we still try pleasing Him by works. We try with a carnal, unrenewed mind walking in the Law. We no longer observe the ritual of the Law, but we continue trying to please God by the deeds of the flesh. We have loaded people down with guilt and condemnation for years. We've put such rules as poverty, forbidding to marry and many more upon God's people.
By observing the deeds of the flesh, we've ignored the righteousness of faith. Yet, today in the Church, we have those who oppose the teachings of the new covenant. We've had and still have, those who stand against the Word on poverty, healing, the gifts of the Spirit and the promise of righteousness. These aren't people who don't love God, but people who have no understanding of faith.
When the "renewal of the faith" word came back into the Church in the early 1970's, many went beyond the true word of faith. Still, it was because they had no clear understanding. In Proverbs 4:7 (Amplified) we read that, "The beginning of wisdom is; get wisdom (skillful and Godly wisdom) for skillful and Godly wisdom is the principal thing and with all you have gotten, get understanding (discernment, comprehension and interpretation)."
We, in the Church,have dismissed the teaching of faith and have stayed as old wine skins in the same traditions that we've always walked in. We still operated in the traditions man made to please God like dressing a certain way, wearing our hair a certain way, not wearing jewelry and make-up and others.
Because the people wished to be pleasing to God and to be right with Him, we subjected ourselves to these laws of man. We read in Hebrews 11:1 (Amplified) that "faith is the substance of things hoped for." In the Church, the people's hope was to be pleasing and right with God. The motive was right, but the process was wrong. Since God judges the heart and the motive, He was able to receive the people who had by faith accepted Jesus, but still walked by sight.
The Word of God is wisdom! When you read His Word, it is wisdom. We wrap it in leather, we emboss is with gold leaf and treat it as sacred (which it is), but we still have no understanding of it. With all of our getting, we're to get understanding.
Without the leadership of the Holy Spirit, there is no understanding of the word of wisdom. Jesus said in John 6:63 (Amplified) that, "It is the Spirit Who gives life (He is the life giver) the flesh conveys no benefit whatever (there is no profit in it) the words (truths) that I have been speaking to you are Spirit and life." Verse 64 goes on, "But (still) some of you fail to believe and trust and have Faith."
Many different things have been taught by many different people in the body of Christ for many different motives. Some have been taught to keep the people dependent upon the minister instead of the Lord. The true Word is taught in order to bring each individual person into a relationship with the Father. And it's taught so each and every person in the Church knows how to pray and hear from God on his or her own.
Faith is the only way you can reach, fellowship, receive and be pleasing to God under our new covenant. "Without faith it is impossible to please God according to Hebrews 11:6 (Amplified). The reason it's impossible to pleas Him without faith is because works will exclude the finished work of Jesus and the accepted sacrifice of God and put salvation into the works of man again. Only faith in the finished work of Jesus is pleasing and acceptable to our Father.
In the covenant of grace that we're now under, faith is the most important thing. We read in Ephesians 2:8 that we are "saved by grace, through faith." The grace has been given by God, but must be received by man through faith. Without faith in what God has done through Jesus, man will still be lost. We cannot reach God by any other means. Grace has been given for the forgiveness of sin, for right standing with God, for our justification, for our healing, for our redemption, for deliverance from the curse of the Law, for the blessing of Abraham to come upon us and for our adoption into the family of God becoming joint-heirs with Jesus, Himself. Grace has provided all these things and many more through Jesus. Everyone of these things must be appropriated by faith. Romans 8:32 (Amplified) says, "For in the gospel a righteousness which God ascribes is revealed, both springing from faith and leading to faith (disclosed through the way of faith that arouses to more faith). As it is written, the man who through faith is just and upright shall live and shall live by faith."
This scripture (from the Amplified version) helps us see that in the same we receive Jesus by faith, the unfolding (by understanding) of the whole gospel or Good News and everything else in the covenant is received, by faith. When we receive Jesus by faith, we find that this same faith is the way we receive everything that He did for us.
There's no other way to receive what God has done for us in Jesus other than by faith. We keep thinking that things aren't working because we must be doing something wrong or we aren't praying enough or we're not walking in love. All of the things in our covenant come by our faith in our Sacrifice Lamb. It isn't based on our good works, but in our faith in the Lamb Who was offered and accepted by God on our behalf. When the Sacrifice was accepted, you were accepted. When Jesus was accepted as our Lamb, grace was extended to every man, woman and child who will receive, by faith, what God's sacrifice has done.
In Romans 3:27 (Amplified) we read, "What then becomes of (our) pride and (our) boasting? It is excluded (banished, ruled our entirely) on what principle)? On the principle of doing good deeds? No, but on the principle of faith."
So, you see that everything in our new covenant of grace has already been given and provided for all things. There's nothing left for the believer to do to have all the blessing overcome and be poured out on him, than to by faith, let God be God. We don't seem to understand that faith must be extended into every part of our walk with Him. It already is ours through Jesus, but it must be accepted (like salvation is to all the world) and received by faith. Even the free gift of salvation doesn't profit the lost unless they will accept it by faith.
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