Today, The Bible & You

May 2018, Today’s Front Page

No. 1 in News and Inspiration

The JUST Shall Live by FAITH:

What does that mean?

  God truly wants us to understand how vital it is to know what it means to live our lives by faith. The imperative is given to us in Romans 1:7, “…the just shall live by faith.”

  But most Christians do not have the slightest idea what FAITH is!

  So what IS faith?

 Faith is really defined as simply trusting completely in what God says with no conditions. It is unconditional trust in what God says, to believe His written Word. Believing strictly on the basis that He said it (i.e. 1st John 1:7-9).

Do some people have a special gift of faith that others do not?

 Yes, indeed.  We are told in 1st Corinthians 12:8-9, “For to one is given by the Spirit the world of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;  To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;”

 The spiritual gift of faith is found in the list of the gifts of the Spirit in 1st Corinthians 12:9, where we are told that some people are given the gift of faith, but the gift is not specifically explained. All believers have been given saving faith by God as the only means of salvation (Ephesians 2:9), but not all believers are given the spiritual gift of faith. Like all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the spiritual gift of faith was given for the “common good,” which means the edifying of the body of Christ (1st Corinthians 12:7).

  A perfect example of this is when Mary was chosen by God bring forth the Messiah. This is found in Luke 1:26-38,

  “And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favor with God.  And, behold, thou shall conceive in thy womb, and shall call his name JESUS.  He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest:  and the throne of his father David:  (Wow, this would cause anyone to stagger at these words. But how did Mary react?) ..

 “Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? (This is the gift of faith, most anyone would have fainted, but the angel continued to explain to Mary.)  And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God (What was Mary’s response?)  And Mary said, Behold the handmaiden of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.”

 The gift of faith may be defined as the special gift whereby the Spirit provides Christians with extraordinary confidence in God’s promises, power, and presence, just as Mary did.  Those with this gift can take heroic stands for the future of God’s work. The spiritual gift of faith is exhibited by one with a strong and unshakable confidence in God, His Word, and His promises.

 Besides Mary, examples of people with the gift of faith are those listed in Hebrews chapter 11. This chapter is often called “the heroes or the hall of faith,” and describes those whose faith was extraordinary, enabling God’s Spirit to work through them to do extraordinary things. In Hebrews 11, we see Noah spending 120 years building a huge boat when, up to that time, it never rained; we find Abraham believing he would father a child when he and his wife’s ability to do so had ended.  Without the special the special gift of faith from God, such things would have been impossible.  As we are told in Philippines 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

 The Apostle Paul was another one that was given the gift of faith, even though it took awhile before God activated his faith. We are told in Acts 9:15-16, “But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel: For I will shew him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake.”  Yet Paul was chosen even while he was in his mother’s womb as we are told in Galatians 1:15-16, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood:” 

  As with all spiritual gifts, the gift of faith is given to some Christians who use it to edify others in the body of Christ. Those with the gift of faith are an inspiration to their fellow believers, exhibiting a simple confidence in God that shows in all they say and do. Extraordinarily faithful people show a humble godliness and reliance on God’s promises, often so much so that they are known to be quietly fearless and zealous. They are so convinced that all obstacles to the gospel and to God’s purposes will be overcome and so confident that God will secure the advancement of His cause.  They fully understand Romans 8:28, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” 

  That is what faith really amounts to, and everyone lives their life either doing that or not doing it.  Everyone leads their life either believing in what God says and betting their life on it, or in betting their life on their own attitudes, on their own intellect, on their own understanding. Those are the only two options; but the faith that God is talking about in Hebrews 11 is that faith which takes the bare Word of God and acting on it, simply because they know it is the Word of God.

 True faith doesn’t need to ask any questions. It is simply believing what God said, because He’s God and said it, without any explanation at all.   In fact, where you have true trust, you don’t need explanations…  That which looks fro signs and wonders and explanations is not faith.  It’s doubt looking around to see if it can find some proof.  Since God and the system are opposites, faith means breaking with the system; and so, to believe God is often to do that which is unreasonable and illogical and certainly different than what the world would dictate.  It was unreasonable for Noah to build a huge boat, telling people water was going to fall from the sky, as it had never rained before. He was laughed to scorn by the masses. It was unreasonable for Mary to believe what the angel told her was going to happen.

Faith willingly obeys God’s Word

  Abel, the first illustration of faith in Hebrews 11 didn’t ask God any questions. He didn’t ask for any reasons.  God said, “Make a sacrifice,” and he did it. And then we saw Enoch. Enoch didn’t question God.  God said to Enoch, “Separate yourself from the world and walk with Me,” and he did it. And then we saw Noah, and Noah didn’t question God. He obeyed, though it seemed totally bizarre to spend 120 years building a boat in the dessert. God told him to do it.  He suffered the mockery of his contemporaries for all those years, and he never saw any rain, but he believed it would rain. Why?  Did Noah have a black cloud hanging over his head for 120 years?  No, he believed it because God said it, and that was all he needed.

  JUST TRUST AND OBEY

  Abraham believed God.  God told him, “Get up and get outta here and go to a land I’ll show thee, and I’m not even going tell you where it is, and you’re going to get a promise that you’ll never receive.” And he got up and went.  Why?  Because God told him to go, and he never questioned God. He just obeyed. And he wasn’t even raised in a godly religious system. He was an idolater who worshiped at a ziggurat, but God gave him the gift of faith.  (I have actually been in Ur, Iraq — Abraham’s hometown and I saw the ruins where he lived and worshiped.)

  Then we saw Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, and in each case, the natural course of events would lead a certain way, and God gave them instruction to violate the natural course of events, and never for a moment did they hesitate to believe it.  And then we saw Moses, and everything in Moses’ life said,  “Hang onto Egypt.  Hang onto the pleasure, the plenty, and everything else you’re got.” But God said. “Break with it. Go down and lead My people out of Egypt.”  He immediately did what God said.

 WHY?  Why did they so believe God?  It boils down to this: They had the right view of who God is.  They all knew what we are told in Titus 1:2, “In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.”  The life of faith is based on a proper view of God. It may be difficult to do what God says. It may be strange. It may be bizarre. It may cause a certain suffering. It may mean separation from the world, and even from people you love.  It may cost all the ambitions and dreams of your life. It may even cost you your life. But when we hear God’s Word, we obey God because God said it — that is what faith is really about.  Faith believes that God can only do good, it is impossible for bad to come from Him. He can never lie or do anything bad or evil.  We are told in Deuteronomy 6:24, “The Lord commanded us to do all these statutes, to fear the Lord our God. for our good always, that he might preserve us alive, as it is at this day.” 

 People who don’t trust God, don’t know who God is and that He is a God that we can trust.  “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Hebrews 11:6.

 People who really know who God is have no reason to do anything but trust Him totally; and the reason these people trust Him is because they have the right view of who He is.  Moses focused on God, who God was, and the character of God; and, therefore, when he had a God that was great enough, he didn’t have any problem doing what that God wanted him to do; because he knew God would do what He said He would do, and keep His promise.

 The bigger your God, the more you trust Him.  These heroes of the faith had such a lofty, exalted knowledge of God.  They saw Him as a sovereign, loving, covenant-keeping, faithful God.  They took Him at His Word.  They banked their life on it, though it was strange, though it was out of the ordinary, though it cross-grained everything they knew in the natural. They did it simply because God said it.  That’s exactly what the Spirit of God wants first-time readers of the Book of Hebrews to do.  Remember, all books of the New Testament are written to somebody in particular, and this was written to a colony of Jews, as they were being presented with a new covenant.  Some were believers but some were intellectually ascending to the Gospel, but had never committed themselves to the Lord Jesus Christ;  and this combination was being pinpointed by the Scriptures in the Book of Hebrews, to come all the way to the Lord Jesus, to totally believe Him, and to let go of all the old traditions, to abandon themselves to what God said. They’re trying to hold to the best of two worlds. They really didn’t trust Him.  We are told in Acts 17:32-34, “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.  So Paul departed from among them.  Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed: among the which was Dionysius the Areopgite, a woman named Damaris, and others with them.” This last group had the gift of faith.

  When the Gospel was preached to many Jews, some of them believed the Lord Jesus was the Messiah and they were born-again; but they found themselves holding onto some of the old patterns, some of the old customs, and they found themselves having a hard time breaking with the temple traditions. Here is what God instructed them to do:

Hebrews 12:1-2, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.”

Cut the line that ties you to the dock and go out on the sea and believe that God is telling you, “I”ll take care of you in your little boat.”

 In chapter 11, God defines what this full faith is.  It’s that commodity which allows a person, because they believe so strongly in a powerful God, to cut themselves off from everything in their life to obey what that God tells them to do, no matter what the apparent circumstances and conditions might be; and these all did. They all believed God to the point where they cut the cord from whatever it was that they were used to doing and obeyed God.  How hard was it for Mary to believe?…  for Joseph?

 The intellectually convinced individuals who weren’t yet born of the Spirit were in terrific danger. Note Hebrews 10:38. “Now the just shall live by faith .. He says … but if anyone goes backward, if anyone draws back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him.”

 He’s saying to the intellectually convinced, “Don’t fall away. Don’t fall backward now that you’ve come this close to being redeemed.” It is on the other side of faith chapter Hebrews 11, God introduces us to the first two verses of chapter 12. This is addressed to those who have had their sins washed in the Blood of the Lamb, received the forgiveness of sins and entered into an intimate personal relationship with God.  God has become their Father, and they have become His children.  In the first passage, God is talking to the intellectually convinced. The second one, to those born of the Spirit. He says, “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great cloud of witnesses, so many who illustrate to us the life of faith, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us” …and the sin there, as well as being a very practical statement of sin in any Christian’s life, was probably the sin of not wanting to let go, of hanging on to old patterns of traditions found in religious Judaism, and not really being able to come in full faith . . . Let us run, with patience, the race that is set before us, looking unto…unto what?… Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.”

 God it telling us, “Drop that old thing.  Focus on the Lord Jesus Christ, jump all the way in, and run the race.” So on the one side, … He warns the intellectually convinced not to fall back.  On the other side of chapter 11, He speaks to born of the Spirit and says, “Allow yourself to be led of the Spirit, cut the cord of religious flesh and run the race of the Spirit with patience.”

Your Faith is based on your view of God

  If you don’t get anything else out of this article, get this: Your faith, your trust is based on your view of God.  If you’ve got a little God, you’re not going to trust Him. Our faith MUST always be tested.  Our Lord Jesus gives us a great example of this in John 6:2-7 where He tested Philip’s faith: “And a great multitude followed him, because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased.  And Jesus went up into a mountain, and there he sat with his disciples. And the Passover, a feast the Jews, was nigh.  When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him. he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?  And this he said to prove (TEST) him: for he himself knew what he would do.  Philip answered him, Two hundred pennyworth of bread is not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.”  Philip did not know who that was standing next to him.  He did not understand that Jesus was Emmanuel (God with us). This is where most Christians live today.

 This is what makes the testing of our faith so spectacular.  In 1st Peter 1:6-7, “Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations (much testing) that the trial (testing) of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried with fire might be found unto praises and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

 The true test of faith is courage.  It’s the faith that is exhibited in the face of disaster, trial, and trouble that really proves the legitimacy of it.  True faith at its high point is courageous.  Real faith has courage. Faith at its highest point has the courage to believe and to do. It does not matter how big or how small God’s faith is distributed to us.  We are even told how powerful the smallest amount of faith can be. Even the faith of a mustard seed. We are told in Luke 17:5-6: “And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, [the mustard seed is regarded at the smallest seed] ye might say unto this sycamore tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.”

How does faith come?

 Romans 17:10 tells us, “Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” Faith comes to us when we hear or read the Word of God. God illustrates this to us in a spectacular way in the life of a prostitute. This woman had never been to church or Sunday School, she never went to church camp, she did not own a Bible, she did not listen to Christian radio or Christian TV . as a pagan prostitute she was never exposed to any Bible teaching. But God, about did HEAR people talk about the Word of God, about how God had delivered His people .. remember, faith comes by hearing, and Rahab heard!

 We read in Joshua 2:9-14, “And she said unto the men, I know that the Lord hath given you the land, [many pastors. the UN and most of the world does not know what this prostitute knew], I pray you, swear unto me by the LORD, and that your terror is fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land faint because of you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red sea for you, when ye come out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og whom ye utterly destroyed.  And as soon as we heard these things, [after she heard the Word of God], our hearts did melt, [her heart melted, became fearful] neither did there remain any more courage in any man, because of you: for the LORD your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. [there was no shallowness of Who the God of Israel was].  Now therefore since I have shewed you kindness, that ye will also shew kindness unto my father’s house, and give me a true token:  And that ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters, and all that they have, and deliver our lives from death. And the men answered her,  Our life for yours, if ye utter not this our business.  And it shall be, when the LORD hath given us the land, that we will deal kindly and truly with thee.” Friend, God has kept His promise.

 She was even included in the famous chapter of faith, Hebrews 11, where we read in Hebrews 11:31, “By faith the harlot Rahab perished not [Rahab took God at His Word and believed] with them that believed not, [the rest of the town did not believe] when she had received the spies with peace.”

 This small token a mustard seed faith that Rahab received and believed, was so impactful, that it placed her on the generalogy of our Lord Jesus found in Matthew 1:1-5, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham begat Isaac; and Isaac begat Jacob; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren; And Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar; and Phares begat Esrom; and Esrom begat Aram; And Aram begat Aminadab; and Aminadab begat Naasson; and Naasson begat Salmon;  And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse;”

 Amazingly, only two women are listed in the genealogy of our Lord Jesus, Rahab, and Ruth. Both are not even Jewish women, but are gentile. And Rahab is a prostitute.  Amazing what faith the size of a mustard seed can accomplish.

 We can always be confident that when God sends His Word out, it will always accomplish exactly what He intended it to. We are told in Isaiah 55:10-11, “For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:  So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.“

 Rahab was outside of the commonwealth of God for many reasons.  She was out because of her profession.  She was out because she was a Gentile. She was worse than that, she was a Canaanite.  Worse than that, she was an Amorite; and she was a member of a race that God had devoted to destruction.  His mercy’s open to all who will receive it; and God’s grace has always been wider than Israel, even in the Old Testament. Many others had heard God’s Word, but only Rahab believed it!

Printed with permission of Today, The Bible & You located at P.O. Box 1722, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma 74013, Phone No. (918) 279-1136. The name of the original article in the May 2018 issue of Today’s Front Page was “The JUST Shall Live by FAITH: What does that mean?” www.JohnBarela.com