Living By Faith; Foundation.

Hello beloved reader. How are you doing today? Thank you for joining me this week again. If you remember, I mentioned last week that I would talk about living by faith today. Now, I had a post prepared for this week but I realized it is important to lay a foundation that will allow it land properly, so this is the foundation and this “Living by Faith” may turn out to be a series of 3 episodes. Watch out!!

Today’s post will be short because it’s a foundation and I intend to make it really simple.

Alright, let’s go straight to today’s business. Living by Faith.

There are so many definitions of faith,so many explanations and so many perspectives to faith. A write-up by Charles Finney suggests accurately that every man lives by faith, that every man has in him a dose of faith (I’m certain that is the perspective of faith called “believe”). For example, a man would go into the supermarket and buy a sealed product at a very expensive price and not even question the possibility of finding a live toad in the box. It is the faith they have in the company Or a woman boards a plane and doesn’t even care to check if the pilot is drunk because she has faith in the system (and you don’t have to be a Christian). This ability to believe is given to every man.

Having understood that every man has the ability to believe, It would really help you if you also understood that in Christ, the kind of Faith that saves is a partnership.

Many call faith a concept I prefer to call it a system.

When you check through scripture, you will see some places where the word faith is used and it’s obvious it refers to man’s natural ability to believe… Yet, a man must be helped by God for his belief to gain him eternal life… This partnership is Faith.

Looking through the scriptures, especially those who received healing by their faith from Jesus, I am convinced their faiths were helped by God. You say, Rowland how do you know? If you paid attention to the responses of Jesus to their faith, you’d see that He marvelled. Also, the scripture used one man to explain it to us… Oh the poor man, desperate to save the life of his poor child screamed aloud “Have mercy Rabbi, I do believe, help thou my unbelief ”

So what a man can do with his belief is to move it from trusting in the systems of the world and to anchor it on God. When he does this, it is like submitting his will and waiting upon God as His salvation…. Then the Lord shall appear and partner with the man’s surrender which will now bring salvation to him… This is the Faith that saves.

It is upon this same system of faith that a believer lives… It is by faith that we received the life of God and live. Habakkuk 2:4.

Let us look at a scripture and move from there to see how this system really works. The system of acquiring life… Living by faith.

Matthew 4:4 (KJV)
“But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

Jesus having fasted for forty days and forty nights and had ended His fast and was hungry (it’s important to note he was hungry… Ahahahah), He was tempted by the devil to turn stone to bread, to which He replied that physical food is needed to sustain man but it is not all that is needed. There are a number of implications and applications of that single statement Jesus made, however, there’s one that interests me today which is that Jesus was teaching us that though it is normal that man’s life on earth is sustained by the food he eats, he only truly lives when God has spoken His word to the man.

You’re probably saying “Rowland what are you talking about?”.Listen to me, having looked at the scriptures, I have seen that a man can live and yet not live the very life God has preordained for him to live. Oh, needless to say, such man may even enjoy his current life without knowing there’s something greater and better.

God has preordained His very life for us to live, you see. For this very reason Christ came. The quality of life God has preordained for you is not such that can be gotten from or sustained by “bread”… the flesh.

Let me use the Israelites’ situation to explain to you the implication of that statement. The Israelites were in bondage, just like every unbeliever is in bondage of death, but still alive, but they cried out to God and God sent them a “saviour”- Moses. They were delivered from the Egyptians and the word came saying “The Egyptians you see today, you shall see them no more”… They were bought over… They crossed the Red sea… They left bondage behind and so now they belonged to another…the “newness of life”, Just like every believer, they were bought over, rescued from bondage and made to belong to another master, the Righteous One.

So the Israelites received freedom from the Egyptian task masters, they received a new life… and the Lord promised them “I’m taking you to a land flowing with milk and honey”… They had the promise which was as good as having the actual thing… His presence was always with them in the wilderness.

But there was a problem. Like many believers, they began to judge the assurance of salvation, the certainty of the promise and the tangibility of God’s “love” by what they survived on when they were in Egypt… They began to demand for “signs”… For cucumbers and garlic but the Lord didn’t give it to them… He caused them to hunger and then fed them with a meal they’d never known, even in the wilderness, so that they might understand that in this new life, if you will live and enter the fullness of His life, you do not judge your life, make decisions and live by the things you see, hear or experience…worse of all is to make judgments and decisions because of the bread you will eat… you live by every word that comes from God.

Listen brethren, in this new life you’ve come to, if you will live indeed, you must “stand upon your watch and see what the lord will say to you”. Life is not the same for you anymore, your life is now ran by every word that comes from God… Written and spoken…because FAITH COMETH BY HEARING AND HEARING BY THE WORD.

You want to live? Then you need faith.

You need faith? Then you crave for the word like the heroin addict craves for the drug and depend on it with all your naturally given ability to depend and then, He will satisfy you with life through the word you hear.

You must begin to depend on the word of God to direct this your new life and not the physical world system. If you read the first verse of Deuteronomy 8, it powerfully explains and summarizes everything.

Deuteronomy 8:1 (KJV)
“All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers.”

All the commandments….. That ye may live… My goodness!!! Man shall indeed live by the word that proceeds from the mouth of God if he really wants to live the preordained life and lay hold on the inheritance.

Brethren, this life you have received is in you and you need to live by every word.

You have a responsibility which is how you use the natural ability to believe. Join me next week as we speak about that.

Thank you for reading, God bless you.

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