Faith 1.9 Pentecost and the Holy Spirit

Faith defined as (Divine Evidence and Conviction) allows us to fit some pieces together that simply won't fit if we use the contemporary definition of trust and belief. One is the idea that faith begins with Him. The definition I have presented to you requires His initiating the contact, this definition of faith also allows Him authorship whereas faith defined as our belief and our trust drops the authorship into our hands. Faith as I have defined it also provides us with insight into the idea that Faith is a gift that is not merited. Ephesians 2:8 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”. NIV

What is it talking about? Is it Grace? Of course not, the word Grace means unmerited goodness of God, so to say that grace is not “of ourselves” is foolish. The Apostle is speaking of faith when he says it is not “of ourselves” it is the gift of God. So we understand that faith is a gift that is unmerited. This also falls in line with the definition I have suggested in these writings, if faith is our belief or our trust then it is of ourselves we are responsible for it and whether we have enough of it or not will fall squarely on our shoulders. 

The definition I have provided also allows for us to have faith and do nothing with it. James told us we can have faith and do nothing with it and it will still be faith just dead faith.

So to conclude this particular definition of the Christian term Faith I would like to present a possible flow to this and conclude with how it brings about new birth or being “Born Again”.

We are dead spiritual due to natural decent from Adam; we are spiritually dead and have no thoughts of God other than what He prompts in our hearts and minds. When he does, we can either receive those thoughts and act on them or reject them. Either way they are faith. Act on it and it is living faith don’t act on it and it is dead faith but God has given us faith in both instances. The interesting thing about this is His initiating the contact; I’ll pick up this idea another time but for now let’s move on. When we respond He gives more faith and so on until it leads us to a realization of our internal spiritual needs. Once having been persuaded we begin a journey to the cross at which point we begin to raise up the sin offering that was provided for us by the Son of God. Now when we have presented nothing but the blood as atonement for our sins God acknowledges His acceptance of that sacrifice by giving us a faith (Divine evidence or conviction) about our own standing with Him. He communicates this with us in various ways which makes it clear to us as His individual children, but as He does this in such a way as to identify us with all His other children so there is no distinction we are all equal. Using a couple of phrases from the Bible I will attempt to describe in general terms what saving faith looks like.

God accepts our sin offering and shows it in a manner similar to the Old Testament fire falling on the thing, but in a way that is peculiar to the Christianity. God testifies of His acceptance of the sacrifice we are offering by communicating to us clearly that our status is now His child, He provides us with our adoption papers so to speak in that in that moment He sends the Spirit of Adoption into our hearts, this is none other than the Holy Spirit (the one given to the first man in the Garden of Eden) by so doing He fulfills His promise to the first fallen of mankind. In the same moment He pours His love out into our inmost being and in doing so we know we are His dearly loved children. Through these Divine evidences and convictions we are now established in Him and we know in that moment we are His child and that the sin offering was in deed sufficient and we are a new creature breathed to life once again. This evidence is true faith, it is complete enough and by it we are “saved” or “Born again”. This faith is what the early church had and knew it is what changed the course of history not just then but at various times since when men and women began to seek something more than a form of religion. There is so much more to share on this subject but I sincerely hope this helps you in your journey to a deeper walk with Him. I will post more on other words and phrases in future posts.

HIS T2 

Faith 1.8 What is saving faith (Born Again)

Wow what a worn out statement and again a misunderstood one. Currently about the only thing this "Born Again" means is,"Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior". To fully grasp this phrase we need to understand a lot more. I am not saying you have to know these things to be "Born Again" well then again maybe I am. The intention of this blog is not to convert but to clarify and strengthen the understanding of anyone who reads it.

The words "Born again" were first uttered to Nicodemus by Jesus and you will find it in John chapter 3:3. The statement that Jesus made was to a religion professor in the Jewish teaching system, an expert in religion, and Nicodemus didn't know what the term meant either. The key to this statement reaches back to the Garden of Eden when man disobeyed God's command. You see when man was created God breathed into his nostrils the "breath of life" this should be understood as follows, "God blew into man the Holy Spirit" and man became a living soul. When man disobeyed that Spirit was withdrawn and man spiritually died. Every child born to mankind after that suffers the same fate and is spiritually dead, it was this condition that Jesus was referring to when He spoke to Nicodemus. In response to this Nicodemus had no idea how to get his mind around this it was a statement that while true and extremely deep, was the essence of Jewish teaching. The problem with Nicodemus was that somewhere in his education they had glossed over this little tidbit and the entire thrust of Nick's teaching was one of doing instead of being. At the time Jesus walked the earth as a man the Jewish people were nit picking about every little point of law and had lost the purpose of the law which was to point out that man was spiritually dead.

If you follow what I'm saying you realize that anybody who breaths is spiritually dead and for that to change they have to be made alive spiritually if they are to dwell in a place of spiritually living beings or Heaven. So how does that happen? Consider this, if in the beginning God breathed into man the Holy Spirit or Breath of Life and man became a living being what do you think has to happen if we, who are physically alive but spiritually dead, are going to come alive spiritually? Makes sense that the thing that originally made us alive would be the thing we need to make us alive again. This is exactly what Jesus told Nicodemus, "You have to be born of water and the spirit. So to conclude mankind in our natural state from birth are spiritually dead and need to have God breath once again the Holy Spirit into us. The reason Jesus came and died was to pay the price Justice demanded and you have to remember this isn't a mean old god who made Jesus die, it was God Himself in the form of His Son who paid the price.

When Jesus died on the cross He did so with the knowledge that on the third day He would rise again, but that is not the end of story, He did rise, but the mission was not over it required more. In the Old Testament the priest was required to bring the sacrificial blood to the altar and present it to God for the forgiveness of sins. A scarlet rope was tied to the priest's ankle just in case things went wrong, if things did go wrong the people outside the Holy place would drag the dead carcass (the priest) out and dispose of it. Jesus stayed with His disciples for a few weeks after the resurrection, but then told them He had to go to complete His mission. At that point He rose up into heaven, the Bible tells us that when He got to Heaven Jesus went before the throne of God with His own blood and offered it up as the payment for our salvation, which was what Justice demanded. It is at this point that many Christian teachings stop and that leaves us at the Nicodemus point, I don't want to do that so the next time I will attempt to bring this entire series on faith to a conclusion.

Faith 1.7 Saving faith and the answer of God

In the last post I described the Old Testament response to the correct offering with the correct heart of the person offering the sacrifice. I closed with the question "If the blood of bulls and rams brought fire from heaven what does the offering up of the blood of the Lamb of God bring?"

Around the mid 1950's evangelical preaching took a turn toward a formula of salvation that included phrases that called on the repentant person to repeat a prayer after the leader. When the phrase was completed the leader would then say to the person/people "Now you are saved" or "Now you are a child of God". With that statement the entire matter would be brought to an end. If the repentant person bulked at this the leader would say "You have to take it by faith" or "just accept it, you did what you were supposed to do now believe that God has done the work." When the repentant responded with "but I don't feel any different?" the leader would say, "It is not a matter of feeling it is a matter of faith". This is a partial truth, but it is based on the wrong definition of faith.

If faith were simply you and I believing enough then the the statement would be true, however if the definition of faith is as I have said then the issue is not one of me believing but God providing me with the evidence that He has done the work. The mere fact that the repentant person is questioning the matter should set off alarms in the leader, if that leader has any understanding of salvation. First and foremost doubt is not of God and if the newly pronounced Christian doubts their standing with God then they are not.

In Old Testament times if a sacrificial lamb is defective or if the person offering the sacrifice has added something to it that God has not commanded then the sacrifice would be rejected. In the case with the new convert several things may be going on including attaching to the sacrifice things such as our own good works, promises about our doing something to receive from God the salvation promised, or a heart not truly sorrowful for the lost condition. All of these things can be dealt with and must be dealt with. The sacrifice of Christ is the only sacrifice that is acceptable to God for the salvation of man.

Now here is a truth and is the truth in this matter, when a person lifts up before God the Blood of His Son Jesus the Christ then He does respond from Heaven giving us an evidence and a conviction that will stand the test of time. If a person is wise and there heart is truly hungry then they will press in close to the Kingdom and not stop until the fire falls on the sacrifice and fills the heart with Joy, Love, Peace, and a confidence that the person offering the sacrifice has been saved, is born again, is a child of God whose name is written in Heaven and they know that they know that they are saved.

If you lack this confidence then I encourage you right now to pray and not stop until you have the assurance of your own salvation. No man or woman can give you this confidence only God Himself has that power and since it is His family and He is the Father then you should not be satisfied with someone else trying to convince you of your standing in His family. Even the disciples needed this and Jesus knew it and told them to go into Jerusalem and wait for the promise. I tell you to do the same. I will speak more on this next time.

Faith 1.6 saving faith and the sacrafice

Adam and Eve are banned from the Garden of Eden. They had two sons Cain and Abel.

3 In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. 4 And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, 5 but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.

6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? 7 If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”

I want to ask a question and I wonder if you have ever considered this question about this particular story. What took place that caused Cain to know that God did not look with favor on his offering but that God did look with favor on Abel's?

I started digging into this and found an interesting truth about early sacrifices. It has to do with Fire. You see in Old Testament times when a sacrifice was presented to God in the right way and with the right heart and if the sacrifice was acceptable to God He answered with fire. If the fire did not fall then the offering was rejected and the person offering the sacrifice was also rejected. So bad offering no fire. Bad heart in the matter no fire. So when Cain offered his sacrifice, which was not the correct sacrifice, no fire and he was humiliated. He should have been because the sacrifice that was required was a blood sacrifice and the one he offered was a grain offering. The true depth of this problem is brought to light when we understand the heart issue here. Abel came before God with a blood sacrifice and by it was declaring "God I am a sinner justly deserving death, I offer this fat offering from the first fruits of my flock as a symbol of my heart felt brokenness and setting this sacrifice as a symbol of the great sacrifice which is to come The Lamb of God" Cain on the other hand came at this time of confession and sin sacrifice with a thanks offering declaring, "Thank you for blessing me I really worked hard for this stuff and I brought some of it not the first fruits just some I was able to spare" I have purposely distance the two by extremes because it represents the true underlying problem with the Cain sacrifice, he had no remorse and was offering this sacrifice out of duty while the other was offering out of a heart broken over his current fallen condition. 

You and I are called to offer up the Blood of the only begotten of the Father how we offer it and the intent of our heart speaks of our understanding of the situation here. Here is a great truth that follows the logic of this story and a complete breakdown of modern Christianity. In Old Testament times the acceptable sin sacrifice was to be without spot or blemish and was to be offered by a heart humble and acknowledging a true understanding of the desperateness of the situation/ The humility and preparedness of the person offering the sacrifice was so critical that the priest offering the sacrifice had a scarlet rope tied around his ankle just in case things weren't just right when he entered the Holy place to present the sacrifice. If his heart was not prepared or the sacrifice was not pure then he didn't walk out he was pulled out by his fellow priest because he would be dead. This was serious stuff. If all went right the sacrifice would be presented and the fire would fall from Heaven onto the altar and consume the sacrifice and the priest got to walk out. If not then the fire fell on him and he was a dead man. 

Interesting if the blood sacrifice of bulls and rams brought fire from Heaven what should we get when we offer up the Blood of the Lamb? More next time.

Faith 1.5 Saving faith

Consider this. If faith is defined as your trust and your belief then saving faith would depend on you having enough trust and belief to save your eternal soul. By definition this would mean any lapse in your trust and belief would result in missing the desired goal should you be in a moment of unbelief or distrust when your number is called. Do you believe or trust in your ability to believe or trust that much?

I'm not going to waste time trying to convince you one way or another in regard to this. I simply want to offer up a thought for you to consider. What if Faith is as I have defined it here in these articles? What change would it bring to the Christian walk? The modern thought concerning faith places the thing in our hands. The definition I propose makes a dramatic shift.

Many years ago I accepted Jesus as my personal savior, I asked Him to come into my heart. I was discussing this with my pastor and I told him I didn't feel any different and asked him what I should do? He asked me if I was sincere in my prayer and I said Yes! He then proceeded to tell me that I had to take it by "Faith" that if I was sincere then He did what He said He would do and this thing was not about feeling but faith. I altered my life drastically after that because I wanted to prove that I meant my commitment and was going to hold fast to it. I was 16 at the time by the age of 26 the pressure on me to perform had grown so weighty that I could not take it any longer and was ready to call it quits. I began seeking something deeper something more solid than what I had in my Christian experience. I started to hunger after something more.

In the course of my personal study I ran across the writings of a man who used the definition of faith I have shared with you. The first time I read it the thing went way over my head I had no clue what he was talking about but then he used it a second time and the way he used the definition caused me to stop and think through what he was saying. His second use of the definition made me understand that the word faith and the phrase "Divine evidence and conviction" were in his mind interchangeable. He was not using one then the other but they were one and the same.  I realized that if he was correct I had to go through a paradigm shift. I had spent the past 10 years trying to convince myself that God had saved me and I wasn't winning the battle.I tried using the idea that I simply had to believe but in the depths of my being I knew I did not. If this writer was correct then there was something of the utmost importance missing from my walk with God.

I had to stop and take inventory. 1. Did I ask Jesus to forgive me? Yes! 2. Did I ask Him to come into my heart? Yes! 3. Was I following after Him. Yes! Well then the inventory list is complete I have done it all. And then it hit me He said "Ask and it shall be given unto you." so where was the thing I had asked for? My pastor told me just trust my Christian friends said just believe. But I had asked for something and all I heard them telling me was just believe He has given it. My child asks me for food and I give it to them they know it when their belly is full. I had asked my Heavenly Father for something it only seemed reasonable that I should have some kind of knowledge of the gift given. I had none.

This discussion of saving faith is going to take a little more time to discuss so I am going to break away for now and encourage you to think on your own walk. When I resume this discussion I want to take you back to an Old Testament event and use it to lay a foundation to where we are going with this. Hope you check back.

Faith 1.4

Faith=Divine Evidence and Conviction
Single person faith, this would mean that God would give you an evidence that was only for you and no one else. In order for this to happen it could only be with regard to a thing that is so personal to you that it can be for no one else. There is one area of your life that this can and will happen but beyond that I cannot think of another matter or circumstance under which God would give you faith that would be solely for you.

Consider the statement I made in the last article that talked about an invention and you thought about that thing and now someone else has come up with the idea and now is making millions from taking it to market. It would appear that God tosses these things out and those who are willing and wanting to hear will hear, out of that group some will jump on it and start running immediately with it then fall by the way side and not complete it. If you recall the story Jesus shared about the sower you will have a good idea how this works. Only about 25% will actually start working on a project and out of that only about 25% will take it to completion and out of that only about 25% will perfect it and out of that the first one to complete the project may or may not win the prize consider some of the people who were only appreciated after they died.

Over the years I have done research on historical figures and without exception the people in our world who have achieved what most would call the incredible, at some point received  vision which prompted inspiration, which produced work, which resulted in the achievement. The incredible thing about this, you have just as much of an opportunity as any one else because the one who inspires it is no respecter of people. If you choose to step out and go after they thing you have inspiration for God will lead you just as He does the next person. The real question at hand is are you willing to do what it takes?

Jesus set forth a pattern that leads to success in all things, it falls under a statement He made that is as follows and I quote; "Ask, seek, knock". If you are looking for a pattern to success in this faith business the key lies in this quote. A simple word study on this will reveal the truth and power in this statement, unfortunately it also reveals why more people don't find the happy end to the journey of faith. Ask means you have a thing your inquiring about so you have been illuminated, but how long do you ask? My youngest son is amazing at the art of asking. If he wants something he will ask for it, if I tell him no he will change the wording and ask again, if I tell him no again he will keep on asking until he wears you down or you walk away from him. Now if you walk away from him he will ask again the next time you come around. He will bargain with you and will change the angle of approach until he wears you down. The point of this is the word Ask means exactly that, you do not stop asking until you receive and answer.

Typically the answer is an opening to a way now the second step, Seek. Jesus gave several parables with regard to seeking. One of the best examples of seeking is the story of the healing of a woman's son. The woman comes to Jesus and while he doesn't say no He throws obstacles in her way, and she leaps over each of them and finally He declares "Never have I seen such great faith in all of Israel take the keys to my kingdom your son is healed".

Now the last step, you seek until you come to a door and what do you do? You knock how long do you knock until the door is opened! You don't stop you continue even to the last ounce of strength and you lift your hand for the last time to knock, this is the knocking that is required to break down the hurdles that stand in the way of those who would have the reward of the vision God lays in your heart. Those who are willing to follow Faith in this manner will find the reward. Many of the people who have shaped our world today struggled down this road to achieve the success they are now known for, faith always calls us out to follow a narrow path that leads to the end of it's calling.

I used this little blurb about the natural world because it helps me illustrate a point in the spiritual realm. There is no greater prize than to have your name written in the Lambs Book of Life and the journey to that is by way of the above. Jesus said "Many are called few are chosen" there is a reason we are called to the narrow way for it is a way that is not at first easy and requires all of you. We live in an age when people declare themselves Christians by virtue of their decision or status preference, they say they have faith but it is not what we have described in these articles. To be a born again Christian runs far deeper and is not for the faint of heart.

So what is saving faith? I will look at this in the next article.

Faith 1.3

Faith (Divine Evidence or Conviction)
We as Christians waste a lot of time and effort trying to get God to do something. A lot of this has to do with the misunderstanding of Faith. When we see faith as our belief or trust then the entire process starts with us. However when we understand faith as it has been explained in the two previous installments we can then conclude that it all starts with Him. That being said we also must recognize that every good thought and every good deed finds it's beginning in Him. When we consider this then when we are prompted to some good or good thought then we should realize that He is communicating with us.

Think for a moment about the process involved, God leads us to a point of hearing by various means, when we are in a position and disposition to listen He breaks the silence and pours forth an utterance about a thing. We upon hearing it now have faith (Divine evidence or conviction) it is now up to us to either do something with it or let it stagnate and die. Either way it is faith, if we choose to follow His leading and act upon the faith then we have living faith and He will continue to pour out more faith, each time allowing us the choice on whether to act or not.

If we realize that this entire process starts with Him then our approach to His prompting change. It is no longer I who think of the thing, but Him who thought of it and introduced us to it. Our response then becomes one of gratitude and realization that it is His thought and we are being introduced to it. We then do not need to awaken the sleeping god but rather need to immediately recognize that it is He who was there and simply brought us into the moment. Now it is a matter of us asking "what's next". When we do not react this way but start hounding God about the thing we actually are saying to the almighty "this is my brilliant thought let me teach you God" sounds a little prideful doesn't it? It is and it also leads us down a path of destruction. We loose heart as the battle begins to rage and we quit thinking this was all our idea and it was a bad one. The entire thing can become shipwrecked in the process. However when we realize that the thought is not ours we give credit to Him and then seek His next move in the matter.

Faith, as defined in these articles, is not limited to salvation but extends to the entire creation. God has always spoken things into existence, it is His way and there is a power in the "Word" of God and by that I do not simply mean the printed word and actually do not mean it at all. The written word of God, which most of Christianity calls the Bible, is simply a record of what God has done and spoken in the past. However when the Holy Spirit takes those words energizes them to life in our hearts it then becomes the Living Word of God. There is a belief that permeates through Christendom that while it may not in word it at least in practice smacks of Deism which is an incorrect theology that thinks God got the ball rolling in the beginning and will catch it at the end but what happens between He is not involved in. Many of us fail to realize His intention and desire to be involved in our daily lives like any good father. True Christians know that He is involved and that He does not limit His communication to those who are Born again. Logic tells us that if he only involves Himself with Christians then none of us would ever become Christians. Therefore any belief that He only speaks to Christians is off track.

Think about the possibilities wrapped up in this understanding of faith, God speaking into existence the things that men and women are inspired to create, invent, discover, write, sing, and explore, it gives power to all of us and it does not limit us to a certain set of rules and regulations. When we understand faith in the way it is defined in these articles each of us has the potential to rise up to levels of greatness many think are for a privileged few. God who is no respecter of persons, is willing and able to do in and through each of us great and mighty things. Chances are you have had a thought of something that could change the course of history, an invention, a book, a discovery of medical science, space exploration, transportation, or any number of things, you may have dismissed it as silly or a fantasy, in reality it was God speaking to you and giving you the beginnings of faith. Perhaps this thing that you had a vision of became a reality through someone else and you sank down saying "I thought of that a long time ago".

This is another thing about faith that I will pick up in the next article, it may not be exclusive to you. If the thing is important to others why would an all knowing God limit the discovery of it to just one.
Check back later and we'll talk more about this idea and other thoughts relating to faith.